by Paul Collins
Limping up to the smithy, she paused to listen for voices inside. It was silent. She made several attempts to jump for the loading beam’s rope, but she was too tired and her ankle hurt too much. It took several precious minutes to pile enough garbage beneath it for her to reach the rope. She used her feet to climb it, twisting her right ankle into a base while her left foot pushed off it. Zimak had trained her well.
Jelindel dragged herself over the sill and found Zimak still alive but desperately fighting for tiny shallow gasps of breath as the blue coils slowly tightened. Down in the shop she could see Thull’s blue glow binding the hinged bar on the front door. Even as she watched, the tendrils heaved the bar up and pushed it clear before vanishing into the wood. Two men were outlined by the light of Blanchemoon, then they stepped inside and she heard the creak of the bar swinging home again.
I barely slowed him at all, Jelindel thought, at the edge of despair. She pulled back into the shadows as a snap echoed through the smithy and a tinfloat lamp lit up by itself. Thull was back, looking dishevelled but unharmed. The robes of his warrior accomplice suggested that he had been fighting red hot wires or whips studded with hot coals. His right hand was crudely bandaged with a strip torn from his own cloak.
‘I thought you said that you were a match for Fa’red,’ said the warrior as he sat down and began to unwrap his right hand.
‘I lied. He was an Adept 12, I am an Adept 11.’
‘You lied to me!’ snapped the warrior. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Would you have followed an Adept 11 against an Adept 12? I hoped that you could best his swordwork while I tied up as much of his life-force as he dared to spare for magic. He spoke the coils to bind me for a full minute, and he would have run me through with cold steel had you not been there to distract him until the coils returned to his lips.’
‘He nearly killed me. Your gamble was damn near a loss.’
Thull’s lips drew back to reveal sharp, yellowish teeth. ‘Such is the price when the stakes are so high. I too was stretched beyond my limits. Another few heartbeats and I would not have been able to maintain my globe of resistance. His coils would have contracted and burnt through my flesh and crushed my bones. You see, other debilitating circumstances arose earlier that I’d not taken into account.’
‘There are others to confront?’ Daretor said in alarm.
Thull waved aside the youth’s panic. ‘Pah! It was nothing. I was simply weakened when I was forced to snare some churl up in the hayloft this afternoon.’
‘Get me some axle grease or leather dressing,’ said Daretor, who had lost interest in the excuses that were probably lies as well. ‘My finger swelled when his coils burned it, and the link will not slide easily over the knuckle.’
Thull stoked up the coals in the forge as Daretor struggled to get the link off his finger. Jelindel could see that the link was glowing bright orange as he finally worked it free and held it high.
Thull picked up a battered leather drawstring bag and upended it. A mailshirt that glowed more brightly orange than the coals of the forge slithered out with a musical jingle. It was exquisitely beautiful, like a pile of glowing jewellery.
Jelindel crawled back to Zimak. Tears of frustration and rage streaked her cheeks because she had failed him. She stroked his hair and whispered encouragement, but knew that her words were no less lies than Thull’s.
It was close and hot in the shop, but the lack of anyone else in there made Daretor more uneasy than the heat. No longer able to maintain even a shred of trust in the mage, he drew his sword and motioned Thull away from the glowing pile at his feet.
‘Where’s the blacksmith?’ he demanded in a quavering voice that he had hoped would sound menacing. He raised the blackened point of his sword to touch Thull’s throat. ‘Tell him to come out. Now!’
Thull raised his hands. ‘Come out, blacksmith, it’s all right!’ he called. Silence was his reply. ‘See? No trap. I have rented the dwelling for this night’s work. Ah, Daretor, your distrust offends me.’
Daretor gestured to the glowing forge. ‘Would not the blacksmith have quenched his forge before leaving for the night?’
‘Normally, yes, but we have need of a forge so I asked him to leave it hot.’
Yet again, what Thull said was plausible. ‘I know not what to think anymore,’ Daretor admitted.
‘Have I not given you everything? Have I ever lied to you?’
‘Yes! About your Adept level. Stand back, right back! What is to stop you putting on the mailshirt and defeating me with the combined fighting skills of the links that make up its fabric?’
‘I’m making no claim to it. The mailshirt is quite simply yours. It will serve me far better with you wearing it.’
‘And when that service is done?’
‘Oh, you can keep it then. I shall have something far better.’
Daretor slowly undid the length of leather thonging that tied his axe’s head to his belt, then he picked up the glowing mailshirt. In pain from his burned right hand, he began to clumsily lace up the neck of the chainmail shirt with the thonging, all the while keeping a wary eye on Thull.
The mage stood leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking more amused than angry.
‘There,’ Daretor said at length. ‘Now do your work.’
‘Very well,’ Thull said. He moved cautiously forward. ‘I’ll use the link to repair this little gap midway down.’
‘An invincible suit, yet it has a hole in it,’ Daretor said. It had been a nagging doubt.
‘Not an invincible suit, but a suit that enhances the skills of the wearer, say even that of a healer. In this case there must have been a warrior who pitted himself against too many skilled opponents, or perhaps he was shot at a distance by a crossbowman. Now, the link if you please?’
Daretor gave it to Thull, who nestled it into the coals of the forge and puffed the bellows. The metal already glowed with the colour of the coals. Presently he removed it with a pair of tongs and placed it on an anvil. With one strike of his hammer and chisel the link was split. He returned it to the coals and began pumping the bellows.
‘All that pretty, fine writing, spoiled,’ commented Daretor.
‘Oh it will come back by itself,’ Thull said enigmatically.
‘It will?’
‘Trust me.’
After several minutes amid the stoked-up coals the link glowed yellow rather than orange. Thull spread the chainmail so that the tear was over the anvil and the ragged links were lined up. He removed the link, beat the ends flat then returned it to the coals for the last time.
‘All this for one miserable link,’ said Daretor. ‘The mailshirt itself must have been years in the making.’
‘When you have a hundred or so links in the forge at once, the work goes faster. Still, it does take a lot of time.’ In the glow of the forge he looked even more menacing, like a daemon stoking the furnaces of the underworld.
Daretor tightened his grip on his sword. ‘Unless, of course, a master mage has a hand in it.’
With a coarse, crackling laugh Thull removed the link, tapped the two ends together, then quenched the hot link. The suit of mail was complete.
‘The mailshirt’s stopped glowing!’ Daretor said, astonished. ‘That cold orange light is gone.’
‘Very observant,’ said Thull. ‘Now, there is one more thing for you to do.’
‘What’s that?’ Daretor asked as he walked forward to claim the mailshirt.
‘You must run for your life, or you can stay here and be killed,’ said Thull as he drew his sword from its scabbard in a leisurely sweep. ‘It makes no difference to me.’
Chapter
8
Daretor barely had time to draw his blackened sword again before Thull lunged at him. Daretor chopped down at the blade, then threw a cut-snap at the mage’s head.
Thull parried and followed up with a riposte that sliced through Daretor’s tunic and scraped along his ribs. Daretor swung
down wildly, missed Thull as he spin-dodged and their blades clanged loudly as if the blacksmith were still alive and working late at the forge.
Daretor stumbled after the mage, baffled by his own reactions. Something was wrong, he could not believe how clumsily he was chopping and swinging. Even simple stances and dodge footwork had somehow deserted him.
‘Confused?’ laughed Thull. ‘You should be, you fool. For all the time you were with me you never once asked how the skills got into the dragonlinks.’
Daretor tried to attack again, but the sword felt as if he had picked it up for the first time. Thull stepped to one side and easily parried the downward chop of Daretor’s blade.
‘All the time that you were wearing it, the link was soaking up the fighting skills that you used and storing them in its magical aura. You continued to possess your skills of a champion swordsman because you wore the link, but once you took it off you became a pathetic dolt who could not even fight off a blind beggar.’
Daretor lunged forward again, striking down wildly in the hope of knocking Thull’s blade aside so that he could grab him with his free hand – his strength was unchanged, even though his skill with a sword was gone.
Thull shook his head as he skipped back, then dodged to the side. Daretor’s blade bit into the wooden bench, then snapped as he frantically tried to pull it free. He swung the stump at Thull who ducked and then lunged forward with his own blade.
Daretor barely felt the blade pierce him, but there was a searing blaze of pain as Thull drew it back out from just below his ribs. His vision wobbled like a top running out of spin and he toppled into the neatly stacked firewood and coals beside the forge. He clutched at the wound, gasping in agony as blood oozed between his fingers and spread across the cloth of his tunic.
Thull stood over him and cleaned his blade.
‘While wearing the mailshirt I’ll be the greatest warrior ever to walk the world,’ Thull gloated. ‘Without the mailshirt I’m just a so-so swordsman, but I learned that swordwork in my own right over the centuries,’ he added. ‘Yes, you heard correctly. Centuries. I may not be a power ful Adept, but I’m very good at surviving.’
Daretor looked up and met his eyes. ‘The mailshirt … will suck away your skills at fighting … if you wear it?’
‘No, my friend,’ Thull said, sheathing his sword. ‘By wearing an individual link you gain its skills while you wear it, but lose both its skills and your own when you take it off. When the links are worn as part of the mailshirt, they only confer skills – according to my sources.’ His eyes glinted in the steady light from the forge. ‘They cannot take them away.’
Daretor closed his eyes against the pain of his wound. He wheezed loudly, feigning a death-rattle in his breath, then slumped down and was still.
Thull backed towards the bench, still watching Daretor. The warrior did not move.
‘Thank you for your contribution, Daretor,’ Thull told the body. He held the mailshirt high. Its many links glittered like polished silver in the light from the forge. ‘Within these links the skills of thousands of warriors are still alive even though their creators are long dead.’
Thull walked back among the sacks of wood and coal, then returned dragging something across the straw-strewn floor. The body of the blacksmith, Daretor realised.
‘There will be little enough of the pair of you to recognise after the fire, I fear. But it might even appear as though you two squabbled over something, and killed one another. As for that rat in the loft, well who cares for a rat?’
Taking a leatherwork knife from the workbench he began to cut away the thonging that sealed up the neck of the mailshirt. He put his arms into it, then stretched them above his head and began hopping lightly on the spot to shake it down over his arms and torso.
Daretor watched him, his eyes open by only the merest slit. As soon as the mail was down over Thull’s head, Daretor drew his axe. The briefest moment was all he needed to fling it at Thull with all his remaining strength.
The axeblade buried itself in Thull’s sternum, almost up to the short haft. Thull teetered, but did not fall.
Daretor slumped back against the workbench, watching with incredulous horror as the mage shook off the mailshirt and gripped the axeblade. He heaved at it, and began to force the axehead from his chest, inch by bloody inch. Green ichor oozed from the wound, but he would not die.
Behind him a boy came running down the ramp from the loft. The youth picked up a broadsword that the blacksmith had kept on the wall for his own use, ran up behind Thull and swung the blade just as the axe came free in the mage’s hands.
The well-kept blade chopped halfway through Thull’s tough but scrawny neck. He dropped forward onto his knees, swinging Daretor’s axe backhand as he descended.
Jelindel dodged as Zimak had taught her, then swung the sword again with both hands. This time Thull’s head was severed from his shoulders.
Jelindel stood panting with the sword held limply in her hands. She watched as though mesmerised by the green blood that dripped from the blade. Terror and indecision whirled about her like a monsoon thunderstorm. Thull’s warrior stood before her clutching a terrible sword wound, but did she dare help him?
Thull’s mouth was wide open in the severed head. Yellow teeth lined his gums, sharp fangs, the like of which she had never seen.
Daretor acknowledged his saviour with a weary nod then shuffled across the floor, still clutching his wound. He drew the sword from the scabbard at Thull’s belt. Jelindel decided to run but could not choose between the loft and the main door. Then she realised that Daretor was watching the body, not her.
Silvery globes emerged from the bloodied green stump of Thull’s neck. They coalesced and hung on the air between her and Daretor.
‘We thank thee for freedom,’ whispered a voice like rats skittering over dry straw. ‘We were forced to do evil as slaves, but we are not evil.’
‘You spared me this afternoon,’ said Jelindel. ‘Thank you.’
‘Kindness spawns the most unlikely of allies,’ whispered the globes in reply. ‘Now we take our leave, to find our proper plane once more. May we use his vitality?’
‘Have what you will,’ said Jelindel. ‘My kindermaid told me never to take anything from strange men.’
Blue threads crackled from the body to the globes, then they floated upwards and dissolved through the roof. The whispering echo of ‘Goodbye’ echoed back to the two mortals who held swords at the ready across the body of the dead Adept.
Daretor dropped his sword and clutched at his wound again as he slid down to the floor.
‘Oh my – Zimak!’ Jelindel gasped. She’d forgotten about him. She rushed up the ramp and stopped when she reached the top step.
Zimak was slowly uncurling, sucking air into his aching lungs.
Even as Jelindel was thanking White Quell, a tower clock began to clang out the midnight chimes for the benefit of the port city and its shipping. She had killed Thull just in time to disrupt his life-force coils.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked Zimak, helping him to sit up.
‘No, I’m a mess of cramps and numbness.’
She patted his back reassuringly. ‘Stay there, I’ll be back.’
‘Stop saying that,’ Zimak wheezed.
Jelindel walked back down the ramp to the floor of the shop, then froze as she caught sight of Daretor. In spite of his wound he had managed to wriggle into the mailshirt.
‘You’re mad,’ she cried. ‘After all the bloodshed that mailshirt has caused, all the misery …’
‘Please!’ Daretor gasped. ‘Thought it might be … my only hope.’
She approached warily, the blacksmith’s sword in both hands, but Daretor could barely move.
‘Damn! Nothing!’ he said. ‘That damnable curse-vendor lied … no weapons skills, no healing powers … but perhaps he was deceived, too.’
‘Are you his follower?’ Jelindel asked.
‘Hie! I’m his last victi
m. He tricked me, he lied, lied, lied … Never realised how evil –’ He began to cough, then wheezed. ‘Please help me out of this thing. White Quell may not find my soul if I die enmeshed within it.’
Jelindel hesitated again. He was wounded but still strong, yet he had pleaded in the name of White Quell. As hesitant as a mouse approaching a sleeping cat, she stepped over Thull’s body and began working the mailshirt up over Daretor’s back and clear of his head and arms. He did not try to seize her.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered as he lay back against the leg of the bench.
‘I’m the blacksmith’s dau – son.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Door-son. What’s that?’
Jelindel bit her lip. ‘It’s sort of an apprentice – it’s a local term. The mage had my friend Zimak trapped in the loft with a binding word.’
Her eyes picked out a box with a red circle embla-zoned on its side. She reached up to the bench above Daretor and pulled it down. She had watched the healers at work at their stalls in the marketplace, and had even helped them a few times. She hoped that she had absorbed enough of their skills. She opened the box before Daretor.
‘I’m not a magical mailshirt, but I may be able to help,’ she said tersely.
‘Do it. I’ll die anyway.’
She swabbed his wound with essence of spirits and rubbed in oils that she recognised by smell rather than name. Using pronged ratclips she closed the edges of the wound, then threaded a needle, rubbed it with spirits and oils, and began to sew Daretor’s skin like soft leather.
‘Not as much blood as there might have been,’ she said as she worked. ‘You may be lucky.’
Only seven stitches were needed to close the wound, then she bandaged him with strips of his cloak.
‘If he hadn’t robbed me of my swordsmanship, I would have taken him easily,’ Daretor said as Jelindel began packing the healing kit back into the box.
‘He was toying with you,’ said Jelindel impatiently. ‘Had you beaten him with a sword he would have bound you with the blue coils of a binding word.’
