Sword of the Bright Lady (35 page)

She was telling him a story about a recent break-up, or an absent boyfriend, or something. The details slipped away in a fog of alcohol, but the message was clear. She was a human being, she had needs, and she for some incomprehensible reason found Christopher to be fascinating, handsome, and fun. He returned the favorable impression. This girl was sharper than the usual peasant girl, with a quick wit and a sophisticated outlook. She also promised to be a lot of fun, in a very specific way.

They'd just agreed to find someplace a little more private and stood up from the table, when they found Karl blocking their way.

“Going somewhere, Christopher?” he asked evenly.

“It's okay, Karl,” Christopher said, trying to walk around him.

“No, I don't think so,” Karl said.

“Your lord is gentle, to suffer such insolence,” the girl said. “Would you deny him even a little comfort?”

“He's not interested.”

“Um, yes, I think I am,” Christopher said. “Look, I don't care what you make the boys put up with, it's been a long time. We're all adults here. I don't need you to babysit me.”

“You're married,” Karl said, his tone still flat.

“Not even his wife would ask him to suffer so long,” the girl answered. “He'll still be married tomorrow. Just happier.”

“It's true,” Christopher argued. “It's a natural and healthy function. I don't want repression to build up and twist my head around. I won't be any good to anyone then.”

“You're married,” Karl repeated.

“I know that, Karl,” Christopher said, beginning to get a little snappish. “I know that better than anybody. But . . .” he trailed off. He wasn't sure what was supposed to come after the “but.”

“I mean his wife no harm,” the girl said. “She will thank me for showing him comfort when she could not.”

“Exactly,” Christopher said. “Maggie's not unreasonable. She's probably . . .” He was going to say she was probably seeing someone else too, but that made him stop and wonder exactly how long he had been on this world. It seemed like forever, even though it was only a few months.

“You're married,” Karl said.

Christopher was becoming angry, but the young man's words could not be denied. However much he wanted it now, he would regret it later. He should be thankful that Karl was so faithful. Mostly he wanted to shove the man aside, but he knew he was supposed to be grateful.

“My lady,” he said to the girl, still flirting with her, “I'm sorry, but I think he's right.”

Her eyes grew wide, then wet.

“Do not I also deserve some comfort?” she cried, clinging to Christopher.

Christopher began to have ugly thoughts. He'd finally found a girl that preferred him over the irresistible Karl, and now Karl was throwing a fit.

“You're being paranoid, Karl. Just because she likes me more than she likes you doesn't mean it's a trap.” But then gears started turning in his head. Didn't it almost certainly mean that? It wasn't inconceivable that a woman might prefer him to Karl. Just inconceivable that a woman like this would.

She really was too pretty.

“You can wait till you're off-duty, like everyone else,” Karl said.

Christopher leaped at the compromise, unready to give up all hope. “That might be best,” he said to the girl.

Her face did not respond with sadness or regret, only ugliness.

“Idiot,” she snapped, and touched her wrist. Karl reached out to stop her, but his hand was still in motion when Christopher struggled against the onrushing blackness, failed, and sank beneath the wave of darkness.

Someone kicked him, not gently. Cannan, wearing a sour face.

“What happened?” Christopher moaned, and sat up, looking around at all the unconscious bodies filling the room.

The knight did not deign to answer, reaching over the bar and pouring himself another mug instead. A few feet from where he stood drinking, the girl sagged against the bar, her head hung low and unmoving. It took Christopher a moment to realize she was held against the wooden paneling by a sword through her chest.

He struggled to reconcile his surging emotions. His lust for her was still strong, not yet balanced by the memory of the blackness. “Did you have to kill her?”

“She was armed and had magic,” Cannan growled, kicking a dagger across the floor at him. “How was I to judge her rank? I only hit her once.”

Staring at the evidence of the girl's perfidy, he could feel the insensible lust fading. He still felt sickened by her death, but the dagger on the floor brooked no argument. “Why didn't it affect you?” he asked.

“An excellent question,” Niona said, entering the room warily, the kittenhawk riding on her fist like a weapon ready to be launched. She looked around the sleeping room, her face filled with dismay. “This is powerful magic.” And well used; the assassin had struck while Niona and half the troop were elsewhere.

Cannan snorted, his counterargument obvious.

Niona went to the body, her eyes bright with curiosity. She muttered a spell, staring intently, and then pulled a small gold chain with two mangled, crushed ornaments from the woman's wrist. Niona sniffed the bracelet, her face curling up a like a cat's, and then she tossed it aside. Placing her hand on the corpse's forehead, she drew out the tael and examined it.

“A single rank,” Niona said. “Insufficient for a spell of such potency. Your assassin was merely a tool, delivering a stroke prepared by others. It seems the Invisible Guild has decided to escalate their efforts.”

“Thank goodness Cannan was here, then.”

“Thank more than that,” Niona said, eyeing her husband critically. “Even his rank should not have stood against such a spell.”

“Wife,” said Cannan, “you are not doing my reputation any favors.”

“You are wearing the ring.” It was the closest to disapproval that Christopher could imagine coming from the carefully nonjudgmental Niona.

“Aye,” Cannan answered. “I forgot to take it off this morning. I like sleeping with it on. Not only because I no longer fear a knife to the throat, but also because the bedbugs are powerless against it.”

“It protects against magic as well as swords?” Christopher felt a pang of envy. He, too, would like to sleep soundly and without paying a blood-tax to a different population of insects every night.

“A deal's a deal,” Cannan said. Christopher couldn't argue; the more powerful the ring was revealed to be, the more dangerous owning it would be. At some point it would even be dangerous for Cannan to keep, a fact clearly not lost on his unhappy wife.

“At least I can safely say the bracelet has no power left,” Niona said. “And we are doubly blessed; its compulsion did not affect you, though its lower rank makes that explicable.”

“It did affect me,” Christopher answered. “But not Karl. Him and his protocol.” He went to wake his young savior, who was snoring peacefully beneath the table, before Cannan could get around to kicking him. Karl deserved better than that.

20.

ON THE ROAD, AGAIN

The enemy waited for their next strike until after the very last village. Perhaps they wanted all the money, or were waiting for the crowd of mummers to disperse, or wanted the troop as tired as possible. On the morning of the last day, as Christopher's party headed for the border to County Fram, Niona's kittenhawk came swooping down to her shoulder and she cried out in alarm.

“Bart comes, riding hard behind us, with horses and men!”

“We can't fight cavalry,” Cannan snapped. “Get off the road.”

Karl leapt from his mount, smacked it on the flanks to drive it on ahead. No such luck with Royal, of course, who would not leave Christopher behind when he could smell a fight brewing. The big warhorse followed Christopher into the woods, pushing through bushes and branches.

“You do understand that there will be no reviving this time,” Karl said, apparently concerned that Christopher was not frightened enough. “He will burn our bodies and scatter the ashes to the wind.”

“Shouldn't we try to hide?” Christopher asked.

“I suppose that would be a good idea,” Karl mused, looking at the massive equine head hanging over Christopher's shoulder, “but I don't think it's possible.”

“No,” Niona agreed, “I fear not. Look: he comes.”

Out on the road they could see the black column already turning into the woods.

Christopher gathered everyone together, a desperate football huddle, calling upon Marcius's blessing for the battle ahead. The spell had helped alleviate the fear that Bart projected into the duel. Christopher was ill with the prospect of facing that despair a second time; he was sure it would shatter his untested boys. But the twinkling lights of magic stiffened their backs. Gray-faced but not trembling, they turned to face the incoming threat.

Behind them Christopher drew his blade and waited, trying to match Karl's icy calm. Cannan was grinning wildly, which meant the danger was extreme.

The three men would be hard-pressed to beat Bart again, especially with Cannan in chain mail and longsword instead of his superior equipment, a deficit barely erased by the ring changing hands. That left thirteen poorly armed boys to fight eight first-rank knights. Impossible odds. Niona was their only advantage. He did not see how it could be enough.

A salvo of crossbow bolts flew out from Christopher's battle line. Most missed, but one struck Bart squarely in the shoulder, and the black knight cursed in annoyance.

“Ha ha, it hurts now, doesn't it?” Cannan laughed.

“Fool,” Bart snarled. “That ring was not meant for you!”

“Drop your trousers and I'll give it back, though I warrant you'll change your mind after the first three knuckles.” At least the knight was reloading while he bantered. Christopher would have preferred that he remain silent altogether. It might have benefited them if Bart had not known exactly who he faced until the last minute.

The boys stood their ground, held only by the anchor that was Karl. They got off a second salvo before the cavalry closed through the trees, but against ranked knights it had little effect.

Niona chanted in her unknown tongue, and the forest came alive. Bushes clutched at the horses' legs, tree branches grappling for the riders. One knight was pulled from his horse and held, struggling, five feet off the ground. Their horses screamed in panic. Christopher almost joined them; this was magic on a scale he had not yet witnessed. He took a step back but was blocked by Royal's stalwart shoulder.

The remaining knights dismounted, which wasn't much of an improvement. The underbrush clutched at them, too, but several pushed free and attacked the line of spearmen.

Karl had the boys in teams, two with spears protecting one with a crossbow. Christopher wanted to stay with them, but Bart had forced his horse through everything and bore down on Cannan.

Bart's sword was magical, so the ring would be of no use. Cannan flew into his tael-fueled rage, but it would not make up for plate and steel. Presumably he knew this, but he did not seem to care.

Christopher fired his sword with the silvery enchantment and ran forward into the battle before he could allow himself to reconsider.

He didn't make it to Cannan. One of Bart's retainers intercepted him, lunging with his longsword and missing his face by a hairsbreadth. Christopher counterattacked, slashing his katana across the man's steel shield, but his enchantment was not that powerful. The shield was scored but did not fail.

Christopher was driven back by the man's flurry of thrusts. His two-handed sword was awkward in the woods and the close press of combat. At the last second he avoided accidentally stabbing someone coming up behind him. This was good, because it was Royal. The horse reared and lashed out with his front hooves at the enemy knight, teeth bared in a fearsome snarl.

Christopher started to feel a little hopeful. He was pretty sure that he and Royal could take this guy. Letting the horse block the man from one side, he sidled to the other and advanced, blade at the ready. The knight was in a pickle. He needed to have his shield between him and the katana, and his sword between him and the horse, but right now it was the other way around. Suddenly he dashed straight between them. Christopher's strike was slow and bounced harmlessly off the shield. The knight spun in place, and now he was arrayed as he wanted to be. He only had a second for his smile of triumph, though, before a curved blade came up behind him and tore his throat open.

He fell, a gushing fountain of blood. Niona stood over him with fiery eyes, her bloody sickle in a professional grip. Without a word she moved on into the battle.

Royal wasn't convinced, stomping on the dead body with sickening crunches. Christopher could not afford to react, so he turned around and charged blindly into the fray.

The boys were losing. Even with half the knights struggling with the flora, the boys were outclassed. At least one lay unmoving on the ground already, and more were in bleeding heaps. Cannan wasn't fighting Bart but was trying to avoid him, dancing carelessly through the lesser knights. They couldn't hurt him, but he dealt out terrible damage, uninhibited by their nullified weapons.