Sword of the Bright Lady Read online

  “For an unranked man, armor is merely vanity,” Karl said. “But for the Pater, it may slow a killing blow long enough for a healing spell.”

  “I’ll give it back afterwards,” Christopher said.

  Karl shrugged, unconcerned.

  The next day Svengusta charitably let him sleep in, and the household was already up when Christopher awoke. Helga served him a fine breakfast, a ration of bacon on the side. He found that a little too close to a “last meal” for comfort, especially when he saw that no one else was having any.

  After breakfast Karl dressed him in the armor, cinching it expertly for maximum protection and minimum interference. He had other gifts, a plain open-faced helmet, the katana safely contained in a simple wooden scabbard so new it still had splinters, and a long cloak to hide the sword until the proper moment, the better to surprise Hobilar. Svengusta watched carefully through these preparations for battle, and then took Christopher into the main hall.

  “I trust that Karl has prepared you physically for your ordeal. Now it is my job to prepare you spiritually. For you, a stranger to our land, I have no words of comfort to give. Nor should you, on the dawn of battle, seek advice from one as old and dry as myself.”

  The old man built up a fire while he spoke, Christopher handing him chunks of firewood.

  “But I can give you this much wisdom: you must be of one purpose, in your own mind. Your misgivings are plain to me, and the battlefield is no place for thinking. So sit here and consider, until you are certain what your fate demands of you.”

  Svengusta left, closing the kitchen door with a sense of finality. Christopher felt alone for the first time in days, with only himself and the wooden gods for company.

  Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to try to kill another human being? He had never attacked anyone in anger in his life on Earth. He had never even wanted to kill somebody. He had never contemplated it, in the sense he was now, sitting here waiting for noon so he could shove a razor-sharp piece of steel into another man’s body and watch his blood and guts spill out while he screamed and screamed and screamed.

  He could walk away from this. They would pay the man off, and he would survive. He would be reduced to poverty again, having only just escaped it, but nobody would get killed. It was the rational thing to do, and he was a rational man. Why wasn’t he doing it?

  Because Hobilar was wrong. But what did he owe Dynae? He couldn’t protect her from all the thugs in this world. He couldn’t protect all the peasant girls from all the Hobilars. It wasn’t his job. Nobody had asked him to do it, and in fact a lot of people were asking him not to. Even Dynae would understand if he walked away.

  Because he was proud? But he was reasonable. He couldn’t believe he would let his pride get him killed. There were other ways to deal with bullies like Hobilar. Giving up his pride would diminish him, make him less the Christopher he used to be, but wouldn’t becoming a killer make him even less? None of the priests he had met would think less of him for not fighting this fight.

  Because I want to go home.

  The thought sat there, waiting for him to acknowledge it. War and blood had been presented to him as his only hope of return. Was he prepared to climb back to Earth over a stack of bodies? Would Maggie still want him then? Would she even recognize him? Would he recognize himself?

  He called back the sound of her voice. In the quiet of the stone chapel he thought he could hear her speaking to him through the crackling flames. He knew that it probably didn’t matter. Even if he won this duel, it was unlikely he would survive the next three years, let alone ever find his way home. He knew that she would forgive him for failing, even if she never saw him again. He knew that she would love him, had always loved him, for who he was, had never asked him to be anything else.

  Half an hour before noon, Karl came in through the double doors. He left them open to the cold, hard sunlight.

  “It’s time.”

  Christopher stood up, followed Karl out into the day silently. His tongue was leaden and he could not speak.

  A crowd was waiting, hovering discreetly at the periphery of his consciousness. Faren was there, resplendent in a white cloak, like a lordly snowman. The gold rings on his fingers flashed in the sunlight.

  “The rules are simple,” Karl explained. “The field of honor is the village square. You go to the center, with Hobilar. Faren checks you both for magic, then asks if you still insist on fighting. If you say yes, then Faren says begin, and you try to kill each other. You stop when somebody dies, goes off the field, or yields.”

  Christopher wasn’t listening. They’d covered all this before. He was listening to the horse neighing, the fresh, sharp snow crunching under his feet, a lonely bird chirping in the trees.

  Hobilar was on the other side of the square, armored like a squat, thick beetle. He was alone, save for a huge brown horse. The villagers clustered in knots, leaving a wide gap between themselves and the knight. Hobilar saw someone and called out. The peasant reluctantly approached.

  Faren spoke to Christopher, quietly, for his ear only. “I will not ask you to risk yourself, nor hold your blow, yet if it is possible, try not to kill him. Unless it is possible that you have come to your senses and will yield.” The Cardinal turned away without waiting for a reply.

  Karl pointed him to the center of the square, and Hobilar trudged out to meet him. The two men stood ten feet apart, and Faren glided in between them like an angel.

  Faren asked with deep sincerity, “Is there no hope of reconciliation? Is there no peaceful resolution?”

  “I have done nothing wrong,” Christopher said thickly. “I do not ask for this fight. I hold no offense against Ser Hobilar.”

  “Give me my money,” Hobilar growled.

  The wind blew gently through the square, crept quietly across the snow, playfully ruffled the hem of Faren’s cloak.

  “No,” Christopher said.

  Faren’s face radiated dismay. He chanted his prayer and studied both men carefully.

  “I pronounce you both free of magic,” Faren said. Christopher took off his cloak, dropped it in the snow. His armor and sword were now clearly exposed. Hobilar’s only reaction was a low growl of discontent.

  Faren backed up, perpendicular to the men. “Will you not yield?” he cried in desperation, although no one could tell to which man he was speaking.

  Hobilar drew his sword, hefted it. The metal scraped on the scabbard, the sound unmuffled by the snow. Christopher didn’t bother to draw.

  Faren stepped back again, now twenty feet away. “To arms,” he barked—angrily, sadly, bitterly.

  Christopher spun and bolted back the way he had come, running at full speed. Behind him he heard Hobilar laughing.

  He reached the edge of the square, threw himself to his knees facing the chapel. Hobilar roared behind him. Triumph and derision could not fully disguise the relief in his laughter.

  “He flees the field,” Hobilar shouted. “Your dog yields.”

  “The field is the square,” Karl was already countering, “he has not left it.”

  Both their voices were drowned out by Christopher’s shout.

  “If this be your will, Marcius,” he raged, blaring the dulcet tones of Celestial jarringly across the snow, “then show me your favor!”

  Sparkling confetti appeared, showering the area around Christopher. It sank into the snow, leaving no trace.

  Hobilar’s roar changed tone, and he lumbered into a charge.

  Christopher was still praying. He whipped the katana from the scabbard, pointed it at the chapel.

  “If this be your blade, Marcius,” he shouted, “then bless it!”

  The blade began to shine, a silvery sheen, painfully sharp to look at.

  Hobilar clanked and pounded behind him. Christopher sprung to his feet, spun around in midair, froze Hobilar in his tracks with an iron stare, their eyes suddenly manacled together. Now he could see fear in Hobilar’s eyes. He held his kata
na in both hands, in high right guard, like a baseball bat of terrible glowing menace.

  Faren’s voice carried across the field. “In the shadow of the wrath of god, Ser, will you not yield?”

  Greed, stupidity, cruelty. Hobilar’s faults were many. Cowardice was not one of them. The cowards were culled out by the draft.

  Raging inarticulately at the unfairness of the world that had birthed him, the knight charged, lunged at Christopher, his head tucked under the broad steel shield, his longsword lashing out like a jackhammer.

  Christopher stepped back with his left foot, launching his own oblique strike. The longsword burst through his chain mail, sinking deep, but the katana was already in motion, and it did not deign to notice this interruption. It swept a glittering arc across and down, the tip of the arc intersecting Hobilar’s sword arm, just above the plated gauntlets, just below the steel cup that protected his elbow.

  Christopher struck, without anger, or fear, or guilt. His mind, given over wholly to the moment, could register only that it was a good strike.

  Like cutting a melon: first resilient opposition, then flesh like water. The blade passed through Hobilar’s arm, leather and cloth. Comically, the hand clung to the longsword as it fell, only releasing its death grip when it sank into the snow. From the meaty stump pumped gouts of bright-red blood onto the pure-white ground, like cherry topping on a snow cone. Hobilar sank to his knees, following his forearm down.

  Faren was already there, grabbing the stump in one hand and the remains of Hobilar’s arm in the other. Blood went everywhere, stark against the white robes. Christopher idly reflected that cardinals’ robes were supposed to be red. Faren sang out in Celestial, held flesh to flesh, and prayed.

  “Curse the Dark!” Faren raged. He stood up, letting the lifeless limb fall to the ground. But the blood had stopped, and perhaps the pain. Hobilar looked blankly at his ruined arm lying in the snow.

  “You yield,” Faren said to the knight. It was not a question but a command.

  Faren turned to Christopher, glanced at his wound, dismissed it as unimportant. “Heal yourself,” he ordered. Tael had bound Christopher’s flesh in the wake of the sword, turning a killing blow only crippling. Christopher used the last of the spells in his head on himself, before his shock faded completely and left him to deal with the full brunt of the pain.

  Faren glared down at the knight. “Do you hold your ransom?” he demanded. His voice rang like an iron bell.

  Hobilar shook his head, tears running down his face.

  “You have no ransom?” Faren roared, shaking with fury. His face turned red, or would have, if red still had any other meaning than that brilliant pigment spattered everywhere. “Your life is forfeit!” Faren bellowed. “Forfeit!” He turned to Christopher and asked through seething teeth, “Will you allow the Church to ransom this fool?”

  Christopher nodded. Faren, not waiting for his response, turned back to the knight.

  “The Church now owns your life.” He pronounced it like a sentence of death. “Your arms are forfeit! Strip him!”

  Two of the church soldiers came forward and tore the armor off Hobilar with grim efficiency. This was one of the rules of the duel: you staked everything you brought into the ring with you. Christopher had not considered what that meant, until now.

  The knight offered no resistance, weeping openly. It was degrading, disgusting, but Christopher forced himself to watch. He had caused this. He could not shirk from its conclusion.

  The soldiers stripped Hobilar down to his undergarments, pulling his tunic and leathers off. They claimed his jewelry, pulling rings off the fingers of his left hand and yanking out an earring. For a moment Christopher was terrified they were going to open his mouth and look for gold fillings. They piled the booty at Christopher’s feet, retrieving the sword from the snow and adding it to the pile. One of the guards, with cruel humor, stripped Hobilar’s gauntlet from his severed hand and put the metal glove on top of the pile.

  “Your horse is forfeit,” Faren pronounced.

  The other guard fetched the animal, led it over to Christopher’s growing hoard.

  “You can crawl to Kingsrock,” Faren ordered Hobilar in bitter dregs, “and beg the Saint for your worthless life. You can beg him for your worthless arm. You can beg him, but do not expect pity.”

  The priest turned on his heel and strode away, leaving the broken knight shivering and sobbing on his cold blanket of snow.

  “Your mount, Pater,” the guard said, handing the reins to Christopher.

  Christopher realized he should put away his sword. The brittle light had faded from its blade, leaving only a bloody piece of steel. He dropped the reins and looked around for a bit of clean cloth. The guard saw, and with a wicked grin walked to the weeping knight, pulled out his dagger, and cut a patch from the man’s linen under-tunic. He handed the cloth to Christopher, and went back to help with the booty.

  Christopher cleaned his blade, dropped the bloody rag in the snow. He took a few deep breaths and sheathed the sword properly, without looking. He didn’t cut anything off, so he must be functioning, but he didn’t feel like it. He felt like he was still outside of himself, looking in.

  He tried to follow the other soldiers back to the chapel. The horse objected, raising its head and flattening its ears. Christopher tried to calm it, stroking its nose and saying kind words. It was a beautiful horse, a huge chestnut stallion. The horse pulled at the halter, wanting to go back.

  Faren came over and talked to the horse. Christopher couldn’t recognize the language, although the horse could. It argued with Faren, neighing its disapproval, but Faren was implacable. Finally the horse hung its head and came at Christopher’s gentle tugging.

  “I told him you are his new master,” Faren said, “but he is a horse. He will forget unless you master him in the conventional way.”

  Christopher could only nod stupidly. The magnificent beast followed him now, so he and Faren led it into the chapel through the double doors, to get out of the cold. The soldiers were piling up the loot and judging it with a professional eye.

  Faren looked upset.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Christopher said. “You asked me not to kill him and I didn’t.”

  “Truly, you are ‘The Impossible Apprentice.’ You pervert every command to punish the master.” Faren laughed mirthlessly.

  “You can fix his arm, right? I mean, you can revive the dead, so surely you can reattach an arm?”

  “If I had been quicker, perhaps. But now, in all the Kingdom, only Krellyan can do this. And the cost is more than a man of Hobilar’s rank can pay. You have ruined him.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t plan that. I just took the shot offered to me.”

  “If I’d had any idea you were capable of such a feat, I would have expressly forbidden it,” Faren said with some of his old twinkle. Then his pensiveness returned. “Again I think to see the work of Marcius. The message is plain enough. Raise a hand against the new Church, and it will be cut off. Who will dare oppose you with that kind of imagery?”

  “Krellyan will,” Karl said. “He won’t blink to balk a god.”

  “Your faith is touching,” Faren said wryly, “but even our good Saint is not that dense. No, I fear this is a herald. I think to hear the gong of battle in the distance.”

  “I’m not trying to cause trouble,” Christopher protested.

  Faren looked at him with annoyance. “Marcius may be a god of War, but he is still White. He does not plunge us into violence needlessly. I do not fear that Marcius seeks to drive us to battle. I fear that he seeks to warn us of approaching woe.”

  “But there’s a draft. You’re already at war.”

  “There has been a draft for my entire life, yet the gods never felt the need to intervene before.” Faren shook his head in dismay. “I fear no ordinary border skirmish but a threat to the Church—nay, even to the survival of the Kingdom.”

  The soldiers had stopped their l
ooting to stare at Faren in slack-jawed fear. Even Karl watched with closely hooded eyes.

  “The Black Harvest . . .” one of the soldiers said, his voice fading to a whisper.

  “Children’s tales have no place here,” Faren growled. “Just a cynical old man reading too much into blood on the snow. We’ll speak no more of it.”

  6.

  AFTERMATH

  Karl took Christopher and his horse out into the village to find a stable. Turning the animal around inside the chapel was harder than Christopher had expected. The beast was the size of a small car and not inclined to put up with any foolishness.

  “You know little of horses, for a man of rank,” Karl said.

  “Well, I haven’t been ranked very long, and there seemed to be other things to focus on.” Christopher instantly regretted his snideness, but the horse was snorting in annoyance, and he found it intimidating. Karl rescued him, taking the reins.

  Outside, Karl went the other way around the chapel, avoiding the central square. Walking along the backside of the village revealed chicken coops and pigpens, straw-thatched hovels and outhouses, the wood-smoke and animal dung of rural Appalachia. The homey effect was spoiled when he noticed that the sty he was walking past held not two pigs but one pig with eight legs. The stretch-limo-sized beast waddled sinuously to the fence, staring out hopefully for a treat. Christopher found the sight unnerving, although neither Karl nor the horse seemed to find the pig remarkable.

  The stable was obvious, the third-largest building in town after the inn and the chapel. Behind it lay a giant, reeking mound of manure so potent it was the only feature of the landscape uncontaminated by snow.

  Christopher was just thinking how dominating the dung-pile would be in summer weather when his scabbard banged against his shin, the injury made all the more cruel by the cold. He had not intended to bring the sword with him merely to stable a horse. Karl had insisted, pointing out that going armed was a habit he must adopt. He would now, as Faren had said, live by the sword. The possibility that he would die by it seemed correspondingly increased.