Oath and the Measure (38 page)

Nashif had no answer. Silently the five assassins slipped into the shadows among the evergreens, two of them stopping to lick their blades.

Sturm was scarcely two miles from the ford as they were burying the girl. He rode atop a rested and strangely unsettled Luin, his cloak wrapped tightly about him against the surprising return of winter.

Already he was forgetting his last encounter with Lord Wilderness.

His final time in Dun Ringhill had been brief. He had wandered the overgrown ruins, looking for more signs of Ragnell, of Mara or Jack Derry, or even of Vertumnus, but the place was desolate, the foliage so thick that he could have sworn it had been abandoned seventy years instead of seven days.

The loss of Mara troubled him the most. Somehow it seemed against the Measure to leave without knowing what had happened to her. And yet in the course of his strange and healing dreams, he thought he had seen her face, seen her move among the throng of villagers that he glimpsed in his fevered and wakeful moments.

Something assured him that Mara was safe, was cared for, though he wondered if he would have felt that assurance had he not been weary and inclined to leave.

By the afternoon, he had given up. Saddling Luin, he rode out of the village and onto the plains of Lemish. By late afternoon, he forded the southeastern branch of the Vingaard River at the very spot where he, Jack, and Mara had been ambushed by the bandits. Emerging from the water onto the opposite bank, he felt unburdened, as though something mysterious and demanding had been lifted from him.

He slept fitfully not far from the sound of the river, and his dreams were of Boniface and snow and knives.

Early the next morning, he was riding again, north and west as his memory took him. Steering by the planets was no use, for while he had been in the Darkwoods, the sky had changed. Chislev, Sirrion, and Reorx had returned to their old provinces of the sky, and you would think it was winter if you reckoned by the planets rather than the calendar.

Indeed, the weather itself had turned brisk, and the springlike prospects of Sturm’s first day on the road homeward had bogged down in an icy rain by evening of the next day. He stopped in a copse of oak and alder, this time constructing a lean-to deftly, skillfully, with a breath of thanks to the elf maiden Mara.

It was midmorning on the third day when Sturm Brightblade reached the northernmost stretch of the Vingaard River. The cold had swept out of the east overnight, and he had awakened to a hint of frost on the oak leaves, to the steam of his breath in the air. Two hours’ ride had brought him to the famous ford; beyond it, a chill mist lay on the riverbanks, and to the north, the Vingaard Keep was lost in oppressive, icy fog.

Sturm reined in his horse beside a large brown boulder and stood in the saddle, rubbing his hands to warm them. The waters were unnaturally shallow for early spring, when the river usually swelled and overflowed its banks. It seemed a stroke of good fortune. With an easy crossing and a long brisk ride over the Solamnic Plains, he could camp in relatively safe country—maybe even the Virkhus Hills—and be at the Tower by noon tomorrow.

Then would come the explaining, the answers to Gunthar and Alfred and Stephan.

And the meeting with Boniface. He would have to think on that. Think on it, and watch for poison and for daggers in the dark.

Angrily he brushed back his hood. Why Boniface was after him was a mystery still. Something his father had done, no doubt, but how the son figured in was beyond his green
fathoming. But the Order was his family, and the Tower was home, despite the dangers that lay therein. He would return quietly, and when the time was right …

He would uncover vipers in the midst of the gardens. He would avenge his father.

Nonetheless, he wished he had stayed in the Darkwoods. His wish grew even stronger when, out of the mist in front of him, five squat and shaggy figures approached slowly, their swords drawn and their tails thrashing ponderously.

He had never seen draconians before. Indeed, he had never heard them named except in a kender legend he had heard, ridiculed, and dismissed in the leisurely month before this last momentous Yule. But the first look was enough to judge by, and he drew his sword from its newly forged scabbard.

As he did, the snow began to fall. Lightly it scattered across Luin’s sturdy red shoulders and across the bare blade of the weapon. For a moment, Sturm thought he heard music, distant and merry and wild, but he pushed it from his thoughts.

The draconians approached even more slowly, lifting their barbed swords even though they were still a good twenty yards away. Sturm offered a brisk Solamnic salute, and three of them stopped approaching altogether. Crouching, hopping like ravens, they turned to one another and began to whisper, waving their weapons excitedly.

At once, Sturm spurred Luin forward, sword flashing over his head. With the ancient Solamnic cry on his lips—
“Est Sularus oth Mithas!”
—he rode toward the two nearest draconians.

He was by the first two before they could raise their shields, sword crashing into the head of one. With a lightning turn in the saddle, Sturm brought the blade down on the other, and then, more quickly than thought, reined Luin toward the next three, who shrieked and moved sluggishly toward the shallow river.

They appeared to be already moving in waist-deep water.
Sturm rode between them and wheeled Luin about at the banks of the Vingaard. Sword upraised dramatically, he faced them with another loud, piercing cry. Terrified, the draconians dropped their weapons and plodded in different directions, their rasping shrieks lost in the music and the rising wind.

Leaning forward hard in the saddle, Sturm watched them scatter. It would be simple to follow them, to hunt each of them down. But into his memory came the vision Ragnell had shown him that night in the great lodge of Dun Ringhill—the wintry landscape of Throt, the ransacking of the goblin village, the cruel swordplay over the wretched, spitting creatures.

“No,” he whispered. There might come a time for hunting them down, but not now. Nor was he the man. He watched until they vanished behind rocks and bushes and brambles, then turned to the ford and the crossing.

The water tumbled slowly around him, licking tamely at the hocks of his mare. Over the steady sound of the river, Sturm thought again that he heard the music. He remembered the sound of Mara’s flute, and something deep in his memory and imaginings told him that she was safe.

From his vantage point on the knoll above the west bank of the Vingaard, Tivok watched the lad rein his horse into the shallow water. The draconian wrapped himself against the icy east wind and waved to his comrades camped upriver. It was the second squadron. The four of them—little baaz draconians stationed by the makeshift dam—would be watching. They would scatter rock and felled branches until the waters surged through with an unleashed swiftness and power, racing south and swelling the banks of the river. If they timed it right, the first waves would strike the shallows when the rider came to midstream.

Tivok chuckled. We would see how this stripling handled
a horse.

He was sure this was the one. He had heard the Solamnic oath ringing in the brisk air and seen the sword rise and flash overhead like heat lightning in a distant sky.

Nashif would be punished for letting this one pass.

Tivok signaled again to be certain, then licked his sword to poison the blade.

The snow was falling heavily now, and the banks upriver were crazed with a thin film of ice.

Hawode, second-in-command to Captain Tivok, shifted uncomfortably on a clutter of rock and wood. It was downright tiresome watching that little rise for a sign from the commander. Wasn’t there an old saying about a watched pot?

His head hurt. He was drowsy. Draconians weren’t made for this season and its weather, their cold blood lulling them when the temperature dropped. Already he had wakened one of the wounded ones, pummeling her with the butt of his sword and promising her more dire punishments if she slept again.

She had regarded him balefully from under her black hood. It made him long for the promised summer.

He shook his head, scattering the pain. The hill grew more and more faint as the snow thickened, and twice he had lost sight of it for a panic-stricken moment. He had thought of taking initiative then, of opening the dam and letting the water rush forth, in the desperate hope that Tivok had signaled unseen from the knoll.

It was stupid, he knew. So he hadn’t done it. He sat there and sulked until the outline of the hill had formed again out of the blinding white, and his panic had settled back into a dim unease.

If this was spring in Solamnia, pondered Hawode, his thoughts lazy and dwindling, he would hate to see …

The thought froze unfinished in the icy air. The draconian dozed, his slumber deepening with the snow as he joined his three companions in the wintry and dreamless sleep of reptiles.

Tivok was furious when the rider reached the other bank.

He hissed and lumbered down the hillside, sliding through two inches of fresh snow, his cape billowing like the sail of a ramshackle ice-rigger.

They had all failed him—Nashif and the ambush party, Hawode and those on the upriver dam. He had dreaded that it would come to this, but he dreaded worse the loss of Solamnic gold.

He skidded, fell, and righted himself, cursing softly. His sword shot from his hand, leaving a thick green streak on the breast of the snow. It lay on its edge at the bottom of the hill, its barbed blade glinting, washed clean by the melting snow.

After all, thought Tivok, picking up the weapon, he had plans of his own this side of the river. His thoughts on the struggle to come, he sheathed his weapon absently and loped to the western bank of the ford.