Oath and the Measure (21 page)

A strong, viscous cord extended from bank to bank, and hand over hand, the party began its crossing in the slow-moving waters.

The waters were indeed tamer than elsewhere where Jack had chosen to cross. Sturm clung to the cord with one hand and to Luin’s reins with the other; Mara followed behind him, leading little Acorn gently and skillfully through the sliding waters. Ahead of them, Jack clambered and bobbed in the river, surfacing and sputtering in delight, as graceful as a seal.

“Not far now!” he whispered as his head emerged from a swirl of waters, dark locks dripping on his forehead. “You can tell all the other Knights and all the little Brightblades to come about this journey—you crossed a river on a spider’s dare!”

Jack’s eyes widened in mock surprise. It was the first time Sturm had smiled at him.

“My, my, Master Brightblade!” he declared aloud. “I do believe there’s someone of substance beneath those Orders and Measures.”

Grinning, Sturm brushed his wet hair from his eyes. At
that moment, the crossing seemed adventurous and bright, the waters of the Vingaard loud about him.

So loud was the rush of the current that none of them—not even the horses—heard the bandits approach. The first arrow fell when Jack had passed midcurrent.

It was a strange, ragtag group that attacked them
.

Humans and hobgoblins milled together in the underbrush, masked and unmasked, in chain and leather and cuir-bouilli and in no armor at all. Shouting and hooting, they launched arrow after arrow at the hapless party. Fortunately for the travelers, the attackers were not the best of archers. Most of the arrows passed harmlessly overhead, though one managed to strike Luin’s saddle with a sharp whack, startling the poor mare far worse than it hurt her. But gradually the arrows came closer and closer as the bandits began to find their range.

Jack looked back at Sturm, calmly but intently. He winked, and his black eyes took in the surroundings—the overhang of branches, the dozen or so of the enemy waiting
on the banks ahead of them.

“Are you ready to take ’em, Sturm Brightblade?” Jack whispered, the rustle of oak leaves fluting in his voice as out of the water rose his sword blade, dripping and bright.

“I—I haven’t a weapon, Jack,” Sturm said. Instantly he regretted his words. His voice sounded shrill, thin, even trembling amid the outcry of the bandits and the nearby
whick, whick
of the passing arrows.

“Nonsense!” Jack exclaimed with a smile. “Follow me, and I’ll arm you in a trice!”

Before Sturm could speak, Jack scrambled up onto the webbing. Like a spider himself, or rather like a tightrope walker, he raced across the strand in a rain of arrows, leaping onto the opposite shore, where a quick, wheeling slash of his sword sent a hobgoblin tumbling to the ground, spattering the red bank with a cascade of bright black blood.

Casually Jack picked up the monster’s sword and tossed it, hilt over blade, to Sturm, who raised his hand for it, closed his eyes, and prayed to Paladine that the hilt would reach him first. The cool, reassuring smack of cylindrical metal in his hand told him that his prayers had been answered, and with his bravest war cry, he pulled himself along the cord through the water until his feet touched solid ground and he could rush up the bank to join his comrade.

Puffing and shouting, trailing mud and water, Sturm climbed to dry ground and spun about, the hobgoblin sword heavy in his hand. Five bandits had closed with Jack while Sturm was making his way up the banks. Whirling, ducking, and leaping, the air around him blurred with knife and dagger, Jack Derry looked to be more than a match for the five, but already there were three others bursting from the underbrush, two burly hobgoblins and a lanky man with a long scar on his lip.

Sturm turned to face the ugly trio. Their movements were low, shifting, the prowl of pub fighters rather than the sharp demeanor of soldiers. It should be easy enough, the lad thought, and raising his sword in a time-honored Solamnic
salute, he stepped forth into the unfolding battle.

Within moments, he had a healthy respect for pub fighters. The hobgoblins were stocky and strong and surprisingly quick, but even more menacing was Scarlip, the lean bandit who hung back, his throwing dagger at the ready, waiting for the slightest opening. Sturm yearned for the ancestral shield as he danced to his left, keeping the hobgoblins between him and the tall deadly man.

The smaller of the hobgoblins, a snag-toothed, yellow-green rascal that smelled of carrion, lunged at Sturm once, twice, a third time. Each time the lad parried the thrusts, and each time he was forced back farther, farther still, until he felt his heels slide in the mud of the riverbank. Desperately he lurched forward, sliding quickly past the outstretched sword of the creature, and thrust his sword under its leather breastplate as his face pressed against that of the hobgoblin. The things yellow eyes widened and glazed over as Sturm pushed it aside, yanked his sword from its middle, and turned to face its larger comrade.

The big goblin, wielding a club the size of Sturm’s leg, brought it crashing down in the high grass as Sturm slipped neatly out of the way. For a moment, he was in Scarlip’s sight, and the lanky man stepped forward, preparing to throw. But Sturm leapt quickly to the other side of the big hobgoblin, which by this time had raised its club again.

Down the monster brought the weapon, and down again, but each time Sturm was much too quick, his movements too elusive. Behind this strange and deadly dance, Scarlip grew more and more impatient. Watching the tall bandit whenever he could flicker his eyes away from the charging hobgoblin, Sturm saw the man step forward, feint, then stomp angrily when once again his target jumped to safety.

So it could have continued until Sturm grew tired and goblin club or hurtling dagger found its mark, had not Scarlip grown too impatient. With a cry of frustration, the tall bandit hurled the first of his daggers.

It lodged in the back of the goblin, who fell facefirst into the river. Smiling, Scarlip readied a second dagger and launched it toward Sturm, who stood panting and riveted by surprise and fatigue.

Sturm saw the bandit’s arm rise and whip forward, the dagger flashing through the air like a meteor. Then something struck him from the side and he toppled, the knife buzzing by his ear.

Jack Derry knelt over him, sword in hand.

“Stay down, Jack!” the young gardener shouted, then spun to face Scarlip.

Dazed, winded, Sturm tried to get to his feet but failed.

Jack? he thought. Why did he call me Jack?

But there was no time for answers. Jack Derry raced toward Scarlip, who drew another dagger and hurled it straight at his midsection. Jack brought his own blade across his body with almost unnatural quickness, deflecting the missile neatly. Scarlip turned and started to run, but he reeled suddenly as a dagger passed over Sturm’s head and lodged at the base of the tall bandit’s spine. Bounding past Sturm with the quickness of a deer, Mara drew a dagger from Jack’s belt and took battle station by the gardener.

Blearily Sturm stood up. He looked toward the river, where seven bandits lay dead, victims of Jack’s blinding speed and recklessness. But ten, maybe twelve more were coming in the distance, waving swords and shouting in the harsh accents of Neraka.

“Get out of here, Jack!” Jack shouted to Sturm, who staggered toward him, alarmed and bewildered.

“And take her with you,” he said, with a gesture at Mara. “The gods know what they’d do to her!”

“B-But—” Sturm began, and was cut short. Jack would hear none of it.

“Go, Jack!” the gardener cried in his loudest voice, shaking his dark hair for emphasis. “Protect this woman—and don’t forget, an acorn doesn’t drop far from the tree!”

He took a threatening step toward Sturm, brandishing
his sword. Sturm, convinced that his comrade had gone mad, stepped back as Mara rushed to him, seized him by the arm, and pulled him southward down the riverbank.

“Hurry up, Sturm!” she whispered, dragging him bodily over a vallenwood root. “Now’s your chance to rescue me!”

Completely baffled, Sturm gave a last look toward the courageous gardener and turned away.

Though hardly a hero, Cyren had been resourceful enough to herd the horses up the bank. Nervously they pawed the high grass, their big, rolling eyes returning again and again to the dodging spider. Sturm mounted Acorn and pulled Mara up in the saddle by him; she in turn had grabbed Luin’s reins and brought the big Solamnic mare in tow behind her. As though the whole escape had been planned for months, Acorn’s squat legs moved with quick purpose as she trotted them out of bow range and finally out of earshot.

Sturm looked back one last time before the limbs and undergrowth blocked his view of the river. Jack stood smiling bravely, framed in needles and branches and new leaves. He was taunting the bandits, waving his sword and dancing in a peculiar bawdy fashion Sturm thought he remembered from some lost and cloudy time.

The bandits held back for now. Jack had shown them his skill with the weapon, and none of them wanted to be the next to test his swordsmanship.

But it wouldn’t be long. Sturm shook his head, and a great sadness overtook him as he turned to the trail ahead of him, leaving Jack Derry behind. If it weren’t for Mara, he would be side by side with the gardener, braving the Nerakans and hobgoblins until victory or death. But she was helpless and frail and …

“Keep your eyes on the trail, Solamnic!” the helpless, frail little thing commanded as she grabbed his ear and jerked him back to proper attention. “I won’t have Jack Derry risk his fool neck so that you can break ours!”

They traveled an hour, silent and lost in their lonely thoughts. Though he scarcely knew the gardener, Sturm mourned fiercely, his face hidden in the dark folds of his hood. Yet there was puzzlement equal to the grief.

“Jack,” he said to Mara at last, as the two of them rode south through the rising night. “Why did he call me Jack?”

The elf maiden reached into the layers of fur that covered her. The moonlight splashed on the silver flute in her hand.

“So they would come at
him
and not at
you
, simpleton,” she replied, and she lifted the flute to her lips.

“I don’t understand, Mara,” Sturm said, interrupting the first notes of the music.

“Remember the snares and ambushes Jack told you about? The ones this Bonito—”

“Boniface,” Sturm interrupted. “Lord Boniface of Foghaven.”

“Boniface, Bonito …” Mara said dismissively. “Whoever was trying to trap or dismantle you. As I see it, Jack figured the bandits to be one of the snares.”

“And calling me Jack …” Sturm began, the idea dawning on him.

“Meant that the other young human male was the one they were looking for,” Mara said. “The one who would do something foolish and Solamnic like hold them all off while we escaped.”

“So Jack was … was masking as
me!
” Sturm exclaimed, trying in vain to turn Acorn back on the path.