A Tale Of Two Swords Part 1

A Tale Of Two Swords.

Lynn Kurland.

HAROLD needed an adventure.

He rolled over onto his belly and contemplated the potential for such a thing. All the elements necessary for the planning of an important quest were about him: foul weather outside; a hot fire inside; his own enthusiasm for the idea at a fever pitch; and the luxury of planning his scheme in a cozy chamber in what was otherwise a very drafty castle.

Now, if he had been a man of five-and-twenty, well-armored, well-horsed, and well-trained in the arts of war, he might have commanded the adventure himself. Unfortunately, he was just an eight-year-old boy who found himself quite generally being swept out from underfoot by those more suited to the doing of mighty deeds than he. But he was a clever lad, so his age would not be a detriment to his ambitions.

He looked at his brother, Reynauld, a supremely focused but otherwise unimaginative lad of ten-and-five who currently studied a complicated battlefield peopled with wooden warriors not of his own making.

Nay, Harold decided, there would be no aid from that quarter.

He looked at his sister, Imogen, a beautiful, dreamy girl of twelve summers who loved lavish fabrics and abhorred dirt of all kinds. Imogen's idea of a good adventure was limited to pressing him and his grubby self into service as a mannequin so she might see how an endless array of itchy materials might grace her slight shoulders. Harold knew that asking her to cast her lot in with him would entail a repayment of hours spent doing just that kind of wearisome labor, and there were some things that even he would not do for the sake of a n.o.ble quest. He would have to look elsewhere.

He turned his piercing gaze upon his mother. She sat in a chair near him, fashioning some sort of needlework. He stared at her hands and felt warmth rush into his heart. He suspected it wasn't a manly thing to admit-that he loved his mother's hands-so he kept the sentiment locked inside his heart where he could examine it privately. Serving, creating, soothing; his mother's hands were never still. He liked the soothing best, but that was another unmanly sentiment he would never admit to unless death loomed.

Not that his mother's hands were limited to those gentler arts. He had, on one glorious occasion earlier that winter, seen his mother s.n.a.t.c.h up a fire iron and impale an enormous spider with it. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn his mother looked as skilled with a poker as any member of the king's guard was with a sword (not that he'd ever seen a member of the king's guard, mind you, but he could imagine their skill quite well). It had been a deed worthy of song, that one.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. (He did that often. He was certain it made him look wise beyond his years.) Had his mother more skills than she let on? Those thin white scars she bore on her hands; could those have come from learning to use a sword?

He paused.

He considered. Then he shook his head. Impossible. This was his mother, after all, and as jolly a fellow as he considered her to be, the thought of her hefting a sword and tramping about in the mud to master its use was simply too far beyond even the vast reaches of his formidable imagination for serious contemplation. Her scars had likely come from the innumerable things she did to keep their household with its small battalion of servants, not to mention the secret messengers his father received at all hours that Harold wasn't supposed to know about, in top form.

But in spite of the origin of her scars, and because of her love for him, he knew he could count on her to aid him in whatever business he might be about. She had done it often enough in the past.

She had also been up half the night tending him whilst he puked his guts out into various pots, so perhaps he should give her a rest for the day.

He turned to his sire. Here were riper pickings.

"Father," he said, sitting up and using his most polite tone, "would you have a mind for an adventure?"

His father slowly lowered the missive he'd been reading, blinked a time or two at Harold as if he wasn't quite seeing him, then frowned. "Hmmm?"

"An adventure, Father."

"An adventure? In the snow?"

Harold suspected that if his sire looked that unwilling to tramp about outside in a blizzard, then he likely wouldn't be interested in tramping about inside, either. Obviously, a compromise would have to be made.

"A story, then," Harold said, thinking quickly. If he couldn't live out his own epic compilation of events, then he would hear about someone else's and be content. "Bloodshed . . . great daring . . . aye, I have it. The Tale of the Two Swords."

Reynauld groaned loudly. "Nay, not that. Too much romance."

"I like romance," Imogen said quickly. "Aye, Father, that one."

"The Two Swords," their father said thoughtfully. "Very well, if you like." He rose and fetched a very well-used leather-bound volume from a shelf. "The Two Swords," he muttered as he sat and gingerly turned the yellowing sheaves of parchment. "Aye, here it is. Now, Harold," he said, looking over the top of the book at him, "where shall I start? With bloodshed? Mayhem? Long marches in the dead of night through marshy wastes infested with bugs of uncommonly potent stings?"

"Bloodshed," Reynauld said absently, moving his cavalry to a more advantageous locale.

"Romance," Imogen said with a dreamy sigh. "I like those parts-"

"Nay, begin where she flees the castle on one of Angesand's finest steeds," Reynauld interrupted. "There's a goodly bit of excitement there." He looked up at his sire. "And Angesand does produce the finest of horses, Father."

"Aye, son, he does," their sire agreed. "Harold, have you an opinion on where we should begin?"

"Any time during those first few days of her harrowing escape would suit me, Father," Harold said obligingly.

"As you will, then." He cleared his throat, then began. "This chapter is ent.i.tled 'How Mehar of Angesand Escaped Her Father's Keep and Earned His Bounty on Her Head in One Night.'"

Harold settled himself more comfortably on the rug, placed his toes a bit closer to the fire, and smiled. Could his evening improve?

He doubted it.

Chapter One.

In which Mehar of Angesand Escapes Her.

Father's Keep and Earns His Bounty on Her.

Head in One Night. . .

THUNDER rolled in the distance, driving before it an unwholesome air.

In answer, the great horse gathered itself onto its haunches and leapt up and over the upturned faces of half a dozen astonished peasants who lingered at the mouth of the only visible track into a densely populated bit of forest.

Mehar flattened herself against Fleet's back as he flew, lest she find herself becoming too acquainted with any of the stray branches that brushed past her. The last time Fleet had taken such a mighty leap, it had been over a dozen of Angesand's gate guards, but then it had been the rapidly lowering portcullis to catch at her, not the branch of a tree. If she hadn't managed to free the catch of her cloak, she would have surely been pulled backwards off her horse and sent sprawling onto the cobblestones. But luck had been with her that night; she had left her coat and her prison behind and galloped madly down the road.

There was no chance for such speed now. All she could do was plunge her mount farther into the underbrush, then turn and whisper the one feeble spell she had at her command and hope it would do.

The air began to pulse against her ears, as if some strong wind behind it pushed it relentlessly on. The feeling of tension increased and with it the thunder until both turned into a company of hors.e.m.e.n who galloped up the road towards her hiding place. Leaves and peasants alike scattered before them.

She thought she had ridden hard.

Apparently, her father had ridden harder.

She held her breath as the company halted, then regrouped directly before her. She didn't dare try to escape. She might have outridden her sire and his men, but then again, she might not have, and that didn't bear thinking on. All she could do was hope that her spell would hold. She was no mage; she was a weaver, and she suspected the spell of un-noticing she'd woven about herself and Fleet might be nothing more than words hopefully spoken but yielding nothing of substance.

d.a.m.n her sire. Could he not have found a convenient tavern to loiter in and thereby save himself from the rain? Another pair of days would have served her well. Though she supposed the fact that she'd even come this far wasn't far short of a miracle.

That miracle she owed to the steed beneath her who had flown as if on wings. Her father had never produced his like before, and likely never would again. Much the same could have been said about her, but no doubt in far less inspired tones of awe and admiration.

She scowled at Fleet's equine cousins who bore the company of men before her. A pity they hadn't done a bit of loitering as well. They had followed Fleet at first, given that she'd liberated them from her father's stables along with Fleet, but they'd been no match for his speed. She'd known her father would catch his horses soon enough, but she'd intended that even once he did, he would find no gear to put on them. The bridles, saddles, and other pertinent items in the stables had worn a spell of un-noticing that had been guaranteed to last at least two full days.

Then again, the mage who had taught her the spell hadn't been all that sure of the wording, and the times she'd tried to weave the spell over her sisters' things she hadn't been all that successful, but considering how attached her sisters were to their combs, beautifying herbs, and steel implements made to mold noses into pleasing shapes during sleep, it was difficult to determine if the spell had worked or not.

It was also hard to imagine her father being more intent on finding his gear than his daughters had been, but there you had it.

All of which left her standing where she was, under a dripping tree, watching the men before her and trying not to sneeze.

"My lord," one of the hors.e.m.e.n said carefully, "surely we have searched long enough-"

"Silence, Peter, you fool," Robert of Angesand barked. "It will be enough when we find that . . . that ..." His fury obviously burned brightly even now. "I vow I'll kill her for this! d.a.m.n her for the trouble she's caused me!"

Mehar wondered what irritated him more: the inconvenience of having had to catch his horses or the embarra.s.sment of not having had the goods to deliver to a wooing Prince of Hagoth.

"But, my lord," Peter said, aghast, "surely you don't mean-"

"I mean to hunt until I find her," Robert snarled. "And if I don't find her, I'll put a price on her head that a hundred hunters couldn't resist-if it beggars me to do it!"

d.a.m.n that Hagoth. Couldn't he have turned his clouded eye elsewhere? She had three quite serviceable sisters of marriageable age and tractable mien. Surely the dotard could have found one of them more suitable to his purposes than she.

He finds you . . . pretty. Her father had choked on that last word when he'd spewed it at her. He'd washed the taste of it out of his mouth with a hefty tankard of ale taken in one long, slow draught.

She wasn't pretty; she knew it. Her fingers were stained from dye, her skin rough from carding and spinning, and her hair (piled haphazardly on her head usually) and her clothes (piled haphazardly on her person always) left her looking more like a scullery maid than a lord's daughter. But she had sisters aplenty for wedding off to make alliances; that should have left her free to dress like a beggar and weave miracles.

It had, for quite some time. Until the Prince of Hagoth had taken one look at her and decided she was a filly begging to be broken to his brutal hand.

"In truth, I don't know why Hagoth would want her," Robert grumbled. "She's too much like her dam. Fey wench."

"Elfine had many gifts," Peter said quietly. "She wove beautiful things for your hall and your guests."

Mehar half expected her sire to run his captain through. Instead, he merely snorted. "You were half in love with her yourself, you fool," he said contemptuously. "I should have let you have her, her with her endless weaving and muttering and scribbling in that b.l.o.o.d.y book of hers." He paused. "I wonder what became of that . . . ?"

Mehar put her hand to her breast, where that small book safely resided. It was the one thing of her mother's she'd managed to save, when her sire had destroyed all her possessions in an effort to convince her that Hagoth truly was the man for her.

"Never should have let the wench take up her dam's work," her sire continued darkly. "I should have burned El-" He cursed, which was his usual alternative to saying his dead wife's name. "... the woman's gear the moment she drew her last."

At least he hadn't and for that, at least, Mehar was grateful. She'd had a dozen years to enjoy creating her own magic with her mother's tools. And she'd had like number of years to puzzle over the small book her mother had kept ever near her.

A traveling mage, the one who had taught her the spell of un-noticing in return for a cloak, had said the book contained spells, but they weren't ones he could read. The wizard who had written them down for her mother would be the one who could, he had said. The king's finest court mage might be another, he had offered. Then he'd said that given the ease with which she'd learned his spell, perhaps one day even she might be able to read the book. But a simple man such as himself? Nay, it was far beyond his art.

Mehar had considered his words long after he'd gone. She was quite certain no wizard had written her mother's book. The characters were in her mother's fine hand. She hadn't dared ask her sire about it. She'd been content to allow him to focus his attentions on her three younger, more beautiful, more empty-headed sisters and leave her to losing herself in the feel, the smell, and the work of her hands.

Of course, that had been before Hagoth had decided she was to be his, before her father had destroyed all her mother's weaving tools, before she had decided that flight was her only choice. Pulling away the cloak of mystery covering her mother's book had seemed like a fine idea as she'd freed herself from her bedchamber by clouting the guardsman outside over the head with a leg from her mother's ruined spinning wheel. Fleeing to the king's palace had seemed an even more brilliant plan as she'd silently slipped down the stairs and out through the kitchens whilst her father and the Prince of Hagoth were drinking themselves into insensitivity at her father's table. Remaking herself into a powerful mage had seemed the best plan of all as she'd raced down the road on her father's finest steed as if she really was in great haste to be about starting her future.

This all a.s.sumed, of course, that a court mage would help her; that she would find the king's palace in spite of the magic that was rumored to protect it; and, most pressingly, that she might keep her throat free of her father's clutching fingers long enough to search.

Back on the road in front of her, her father was vowing several more black oaths. He topped even himself as he contemplated aloud a proper reward for her head (attached or not), before he called his company to turn around and head back down the road to that inn they'd recently pa.s.sed where he had d.a.m.n well better find something strengthening before he decided upon a final price. Mehar had little trouble imagining how the rest of her father's se'nnight would go.

He would retreat to Angesand, call for every bounty hunter in the land, offer them a ridiculous sum for the doing of the deed, then try to bargain with them before they exited the hall. After that, he would sit about and curse them as weak-stomached fools who couldn't track a feeble wench for the sport of it and if he were younger, he would do it himself, but what with his stables to attend to and three other daughters to see properly married, and also the Prince of Hagoth to see appeased . . .

And all that would lead him back to wanting to kill her and then he might up the price a bit until there actually might be a fool who would think it worth his time.

It would behoove her to make haste whilst her father fingered the coins in his purse, bemoaning their scarcity.

Mehar swung up onto Fleet's back and turned him deeper into the forest. They would take the road again in another day or so, when she felt it was safe. But for now, with apologies to her mount, she drove him farther into the darkness of the thick undergrowth.

IT was hunger that almost undid her, hunger and a desperate need for warmth. After ten days, she had long since exhausted what little food she had brought with her. She had tried to forage for food, but she wasn't a hunter, and she hadn't dared make a fire to cook anything she might have caught.

At least she'd had no sightings of her sire, nor heard anyone making the stomping noises a tracker makes whilst hunting game he knows is far too simple-minded to realize it is being stalked.

She smelled a rabbit, nicely toasted, before she saw the fire. She pulled Fleet up quickly and hoped she hadn't been heard. The fire was built in a little clearing not far from where she could see the road ahead. A man sat there, examining the meal on the end of his stick, but he didn't look overly dangerous and she supposed she wouldn't have cared if he had. She dug about in her purse, then spurred Fleet on. She burst through the trees and flung one of her precious coins at the man, who gaped at her as he fumbled for it. His spit went up into the air and she s.n.a.t.c.hed it on her way by.

She left the forest behind her and thundered down the road.

It was only then she realized that her breakfast was hot as h.e.l.lfire.

She almost lost her seat and her meal, but she managed to get her skirts up and around the hare without finding herself sprawled in the dirt. Her hand burned, but it burned far less than her belly gnawed, so she ate and was very glad for the food and the warmth.

She rode for the rest of the morning without incident. The sun had just pa.s.sed noon when she came to a fork in the way. Fleet chose the right hand. She had no sure plan in mind, and one way was the same as the other to her mind. At the worst, she might find a comfortable inn, have a good sleep, then be forced to retrace her steps and take the other fork on the morrow.

At least she hoped that might be the worst.

The road widened as she traveled until it became a large, well-tended thoroughfare. It was paved with smooth stone and lined by large, shapely trees that now bore the last of fall's vivid colors. Rain dripped off the leaves, misted down to soak her hair, rolled down Fleet's forelock onto his forehead, and finally dripped off his nose.

Large, wrought-iron gates appeared suddenly out of a mist before her. She pa.s.sed under them, unchecked. Smooth bluish-gray stone stretched out before her, wet and slick, unmarred by either muddy footstep or hoofprint. No merchant's wagon rolled along, no knight cantered by on his proud steed, no freeman walked off to the side with his gear on his back and his liberty leaving him with his head held high. It was as if the entire world slept.

Was this the magic people spoke of when they talked about the vale of sorcery that protected the palace of Neroche? She had thought there might have been paths that dead-ended, terrible monsters that faded in and out of the mist, ghostly shapes that led travelers into deep bogs and trapped them there. This mere bit of emptiness was, in her opinion, not very substantial and certainly nothing to inspire legends and nervous whispers.

She hadn't gone but a mile farther when the road turned into a formal approach. She lifted her eyes and saw what she could only a.s.sume was the king's palace, standing in the distance. A heavy mist hung over the parapets, obscuring the towers. Darkness crept down the walls and pooled at the footings of the bulwarks.

Mehar shivered.

She rode slowly up to the entrance. Magic lay draped over the ma.s.sive palace like a loosely woven piece of very soft cloth that fell onto and covered every stone, sank into every crenellation, cascaded down onto every flat surface. Mehar slid down off Fleet's back and walked up the dozen very wide steps that led to the front door. She reached out and smoothed her hand over the illusion, finding it as soft as cottonwood fluff but strong, as if it had been forged by a steelsmith at the height of his powers.

Mehar looked back at Fleet and decided she would leave him where he was. There was gra.s.s where he stood and he would be safe enough there for a time.

She turned back to the palace and studied the illusion that covered it. Suddenly, she saw where it might be parted, as if it were two curtains that had been drawn together. She lifted one side of the spell, then came to an abrupt halt, staring in horror at the ruin the spell had concealed.

The king's crest that had no doubt once hung proudly over the ma.s.sive front doors now lay shattered on the steps. She picked her way over the shards of fine plaster and eased past doors that hung drunkenly from twisted hinges.

Where was the king?

Where was his mage?

She found, to her shame, that it troubled her far more that the mage might be lost than the king. She supposed there were a handful of princes or perhaps a cousin or two in line for the throne, but what would they do without a mage to guide them?