eighteen

BLAYCE

Here was the smithy, and the shelves, and the table. Here were the barrels of iron-covered giants’ bones and the guttered table. The reek of old blood was even stronger than it had been when the Chamber had shown her this place the second time.

The Nothing Man paced back and forth before the ordinary hearth, not looking at Kel as he gnawed a thumbnail. “Stenmun, tell me how you let them get in,” he whined in Scanran.

“I’m not Stenmun,” Kel replied steadily in Common.

The mage turned to stare at her, his brown eyes wide with shock. The hand he’d been gnawing on went to his chest. He held the other up to her, palm-out, as she advanced on him. He was as pasty-skinned as she had dreamed, small, and unhealthy-looking, with nails bitten down to the quick of his fingers and strips of angry red flesh around them where he’d picked away bits of skin. His robes were ratty and stained, his brown hair short and uncombed. “I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here, but King Maggur will be most displeased when he finds you’ve interrupted me at my work. It’s vital to the war. You’ve broken my concentration. You’ll pay, my overeager friend. If you want to keep even a shred of life, you’ll get out and fetch Stenmun to me.”

“I don’t answer to Maggur, Stenmun, or you,” Kel retorted. “I just came to see what a monster looks like.”

Blayce opened his mouth, then closed it. He peered at her for a moment, obviously confused. At last he said, “You’re not Scanran.”

“They said you were clever,” Kel told him bitterly. He was the worst letdown of her life. She had expected someone with Numair’s or Daine’s air of hidden power, or Baird’s suggestion of iron strength, not this ratlike creature. He truly was a Nothing Man. How could the gods have let such a creature wreak so much havoc?

“You’re Tortallan,” Blayce said, now speaking in Common. “You—you’ve . . .” His eyes darted around the room, as if he were looking for an escape hatch. “Gods be praised, you’ve saved me!”

He lurched toward Kel with open arms. She brought up her glaive, its point aimed at his throat. “Not another step,” she warned.

“I don’t know what your masters told you, but it was lies. Stenmun forced me to do it, for King Maggur. I had no choice. They said they’d kill me. You’ve saved my life.” He fiddled nervously with a jeweled pendant around his neck. “Gods, I thought I’d never be free.”

“Liar,” Kel told him softly. “The lives I’m saving are those of the children you had fetched to you. I thought Stormwings were monsters, but they aren’t. They’re what they were made to be. You chose your path.” She made her voice hard, but her soul was in an uproar. How could she do this? Was she going to cut him down in cold blood? He was no more able to physically defend himself than Meech. “You’re the monster, Blayce the Gallan.”

“Chose?” he whined. “I didn’t choose where my greatness lay. Don’t you think I’d rather make a place in the world by healing, or bringing rain to places stricken by drought? Necromancy is where my talents are. I must work with what I have.”

“Liar,” retorted Kel. “You like what you do.”

He drew himself up. “I’m a great mage, whoever you are, and you’ll treat me with respect.” He attempted to sound haughty but only sounded anxious as he fiddled with his pendant. “Don’t think yourself fit to judge magics you can’t comprehend, or great mages. A sword thug like you couldn’t hope to understand the subtleties of my mind.”

“You torture and murder children, then enslave their spirits for conquest and more murder,” Kel told him, leaning on her glaive for support. It was hard to remember if she had ever been so tired. “That’s all I need to understand.” She wished he would leave the pendant alone. The light that glanced from it felt like needles in her eyes.

“You don’t want to be rash,” Blayce said. The pendant he fiddled with so nervously held a jewel of some kind. “Think. Your king could win this war if I helped him. Not only do I have the secrets of these devices, but I know King Maggur. I know his plans. That could be worth a great deal to you. Honor from the Crown, perhaps more land, more gold, more respect at court.”

Kel swayed and dimly realized what he was doing. He was using the pendant to try to catch her mind, just as Numair had warned some mages could do, back when he’d visited Haven.

With a growled curse she swung the glaive at Blayce as she might swing a club, with no thought but to break his hold on her. He was an illusion: the glaive passed through him. Kel turned around, searching for the real Blayce, sweeping her glaive in front of her.

“You really ought to listen to me, sir knight.” His whine came from every direction. Kel advanced, hoping to hit him if somehow he’d made himself invisible, swinging her glaive left and right. “Trust me when I tell you I know kings. They use every tool they can find. Your monarchs will welcome any chance to defeat King Maggur and save themselves a long war. My devices will give them that power. You don’t want to throw away the most powerful weapon that your king can put his hand on.”

“He would never take help from the likes of you,” Kel said, trying to pinpoint the location of his voice. “Never.” She advanced, thrusting her glaive into the room’s nooks and crannies.

“For all you know, I’m not even in this room,” Blayce taunted.

Kel halted. This was foolishness. If she weren’t dizzy from blood loss, she would have known better than to hunt a mage unaided. She groped in her belt for the pieces of the griffin-feather band, then held them over her eyes.

“What are those?” Blayce demanded sharply. “There is power in them, but not the Gift. What hedgewitch made that?”

Kel turned. His voice still came from all around. But now she saw him, standing on top of his worktable.

She thrust the pieces of the band into her breastplate. She knew she had to kill him quickly, before he caught her in the mind-gripping spell of his pendant, or with any other magics.

She brought up her glaive in a controlled slash, one-handed, part of the staff lined up against her arm to steady it. She caught Blayce at the knees, cutting the muscles behind them. He dropped, turning visible to her unaided eyes, his control over his invisibility spell gone. Kel seized her glaive two-handed and yanked the blade toward her, neatly beheading the Gallan.

She swayed, exhausted. That was it. The man who had haunted her for nearly six long months was dead at last.

“You’re wrong about my king, I think,” she told the body. “But better that he not have the chance to be tempted by the likes of you. And frankly? What you just got was far more merciful than you deserve.”

She stopped, thinking about what she’d just said, and smiled briefly. He had deserved worse, yet she had not given it to him. That was something to be proud of, and it made up for her carelessness in almost getting trapped by the pendant spell. With a sigh of relief, she leaned on her glaive, trembling with exhaustion. What next?

Jump pawed her leg and whined. When Kel looked at him, he took a dog’s pointing stance, his twice-broken tail quivering as he stared at the door.

Using the glaive as a crutch, Kel turned. What she saw was not the door she had come through, but another, familiar entryway lined in bright blue light. She now looked at the door to the Chamber of the Ordeal from the inside. The face sculpted in its keystone looked at her. It eyes shone yellow, as they had during Kel’s previous experiences with the thing.

Very tidy, its voice announced in her mind. I said you would do it, and you have.

Kel gripped her glaive until her fingers creaked inside her gloves. “Yes, it’s done,” she replied. “I ‘fixed’ it. I killed a swordless man and saw a lot of good people murdered. Now you have your balance, I have the little ones, and you and I are quits, understand? Find someone else to do what you can’t.”

Yes, we are finished. Do you think this makes you free of your fate? asked the Chamber. You are the Protector of the Small. You see real people in the humans and animals overlooked by your peers. There will always be work for you.

Kel scowled. “I don’t mind that,” she retorted. “It’s what I mean to do, though I’d never call it by as silly a name as Protector of the Small. At least now I know where I’m going and what I’m doing, which I never did with you. I can find my own road from here.” She strode toward the door, praying it would open in Scanra. Jump and the dogs followed her.

As she put her hand on the latch, she heard the voice say, Gods all bless, Keladry of Mindelan. She stepped outside. She was still in Blayce’s keep. Before she could shut the door, the Chamber added, with something that sounded like wicked humor, Protector of the Small.

Grumbling about Chambers that thought too highly of themselves, Kel stumbled down the hall. She blinked at Stenmun’s corpse: her fight with him felt like something that had taken place years before. Looking past him, she saw the gray-and-orange cat against the wall.

It was a foolish thing to do. She knew that as she did it. Somehow she got down to one knee, hanging on to the glaive as if her life depended on it. Carefully she leaned it against the wall until she could gather up the cat’s body and drape it over her good shoulder. She didn’t want to leave so brave a fighter in the same building as Stenmun and Blayce.

Dizziness flooded her as she fought her way to her feet. The floor seemed to roll and lurch. Wetness on her left side told her she had bled through the makeshift bandage on her shoulder. She had forgotten all about her wound during her fight with Blayce.

“Sometimes battle fever is a good thing,” she mumbled to the anxious dogs. For a moment she rested against the wall. Then, with a grunt of effort, she took up her glaive and hobbled slowly across the yawing floor, bound for the staircase. Her head swam as she took first one step, then another. The stair rail she clung to began to sway along with her body.

Once she reached the ground floor, she stopped. Just for a moment or two, she told herself. Somehow she propped herself against the wall. Gently she placed the cat’s body on the floor beside her. Then Kel closed her eyes.

When she woke, it was past sunrise. She lay on a pallet in the courtyard of the castle. Her first sight was of Stormwings lined up on the outer wall, watching greedily as the Tortallans built a funeral pyre for their dead. The Scanran dead had been left where they fell, except for two. Stenmun and Blayce—his head and body—lay in an open part of the courtyard, their faces bluish white.

Kel struggled to sit up. Her blankets felt like sheets of lead. Dogs who sat in a ring around her moved up and dragged the covers away. Putting a hand down, Kel found a small, warm body at her side. She looked down into the emerald eyes of the gray-and-orange cat. The cat blinked, and began to purr.

“She was only stunned.” Tobe knelt beside her. He sported a set of bandages. “Bad stunned, but Zerhalm has the Gift with healing animals. She’s near as good as new.”

“That’s good indeed, then. Saefas?” asked Kel.

Tobe pointed. Dom was helping the trapper mount a horse. Kel was glad to see that there were plenty of castle horses in addition to their own. Escape from Scanra would be much easier if everyone, adult and child, was mounted.

Hands—Fanche’s and Gydo’s—helped Kel sit up. Woman and girl both looked the worse for wear, but Kel saw a new, fierce gleam in their eyes. “They call what happened to you seeing the kraken,” she told them, her voice a croak. “It means you’ve survived the ordeal of war.”

“An honor I’d as soon have done without,” retorted Fanche. “You look like the kraken found you too tough to chew and spat you out.”

Kel looked at her left shoulder. The bandage was fairly clean and unstained by blood. She felt pounding there that would probably get worse, but at least she was no longer bleeding.

Kel looked for Neal. Dom’s remaining corporal, Wolset, was helping him lurch over to Kel. Like most of Kel’s people, Wolset wore bandages, his on his arm. The bandages meant that while Neal had done his best, he had been forced to spread his Gift thin to keep as many people alive as he could. Only the gravest wounds had been tended. The rest would have to wait.

She inspected Neal as Wolset brought him over. Her friend had seen better days. His skin was pale and sweaty, his eyes feverish. When he saw her, Neal glared. “You call that mess you had on a bandage?” he demanded sharply. “I was picking threads out of your wound. I stopped the bleeding, at least, and cleaned it. What business did you have getting wounded in the first place?”

“You, you should—” croaked Kel. Her parched throat refused to emit another sound.

“She’s bone dry,” snapped Neal. “Any of you battle baits have a water flask?”

Someone offered her a full water skin. Kel drank, and drank, and drank. When she felt halfway human again, she told Neal, “You should see the other fellow.” She looked over at the bodies of the mage and his protector. “What are Blayce and Stenmun doing out here?”

“The local folk wouldn’t believe they were dead till they saw the bodies,” Fanche explained. “Can’t exactly blame them for that.”

“No, I suppose not,” Kel whispered. She drank some more water, then struggled to her feet. “Let me think a moment.”

Someone put her glaive into her right hand. Kel used it like a staff as she looked around the courtyard, trying to decide what to do next. The Tortallan pyre was nearly ready, which was good. She hobbled over to measure their losses. They were harsh. Gil lay there; Neal hadn’t been able to save the former hill bandit. So too did Sergeant Connac, Morun the picklock, Lofren and Corporal Fulcher of Dom’s squad, and three of Connac’s men. The pyre also included animals: Owen’s Happy, the dog Shepherd, the hound Owen had wanted to take back to Wyldon, and two more dogs. Kel would cry for them later, in private. She had other problems now.

In a corner by the gate Kel saw Tobe’s friend Loesia, hidden in the shadows. She walked over, her legs stiff, to find the girl kneeling beside one of the Scanran dead, her face in her hands. A spear was buried in the man’s body.

“Loey, what’s the matter?” she asked, using Tobe’s nickname for her.

“Him,” said the girl, showing Kel a tearstained face. “He was—he was good to me. He took care of me all the way here, he was nice, and I killed him.”

Kel shook her head. “He couldn’t have been that nice,” she reminded the girl. “He was bringing you here to die.”

Loey wiped her eyes, leaving streaks of dirt on her face. “I know I ought to think of that, Lady Kel,” she whispered. “But he was nice when I was scared. How can I feel good about killing him?”

Kel sank to one knee, still hanging on to her glaive. Awkwardly she put her wounded arm around the girl’s velvet-clad shoulders. “There would be something wrong with you if you did,” she said quietly, thinking of the men she had killed. “Try to think of the young folk who will live because he and his master are dead. And come on. It’s time to go home.”

It took Loesia and Dom to get Kel on her feet again. Her people gathered around her with that look on their faces, the one that said they trusted her to see them through the next bit of madness. Kel took a deep breath and plunged in. “We need to get out of here sooner rather than later,” she told them. “I want the torch put to the keep—make sure the level where Blayce kept his workroom burns in particular. Take nothing out of there. I mean nothing.” Her worst nightmare was that someone might find Blayce’s workbooks and commit his crimes all over again. She watched as a handful of men and women ran to take care of the keep, then continued, “The keep burning will be a torch for the countryside. The quicker we go, the safer we’ll be.”

Tobe brought Peachblossom to her. Dom and Zerhalm helped her mount up. She was steadier in the saddle, more clearheaded. She took part in the prayers for the Tortallan dead from Peachblossom’s back and watched as Owen lit their funeral pyre. The young squire’s chubby face was set, his mouth a grim line.

Slowly, one by one, her people mounted up. Some formed strings of free horses and placed them on a lead rein. They would carry the rest of their company, the children, back to Tortall.

By now the upper floors of the keep were burning well. Smoke poured from every window. The heat of the keep and the funeral pyre slowly drove Kel and her people back toward the gate.

“Lady Kel?” asked Saefas. He was still on foot. “The Scanrans? Douse ’em with oil and light ’em up?”

Kel looked at the bodies of the soldiers who had carried children into Blayce’s grasp, at Stenmun, who had commanded them and who had killed so well and efficiently for pay, and at Blayce, the most commonplace monster she might ever meet. Was it a curse on the world, Kel wondered, that Blayce managed to find empty men like Stenmun to carry out his wishes? But if that were so, what manner of curse harmed so many unrelated people, Scanran and Tortallan?

No, she decided, the gods always had good, clear, plain reasons for curses and blessings alike. The bloody triangle made by Blayce, Stenmun, and Maggur was sheer, clumsy, human bad luck.

She lifted her eyes to the walls. The Stormwings were restless, watching the fire consume the Tortallan dead. They sidled to and fro, one eye on Kel’s people and their bows. Only the female who had insisted on talking to Kel all along remained still, her dark eyes fixed on Kel’s face.

“Someone ought to get some good for this. Leave them for the Stormwings,” Kel told Saefas, and rode out of the gate.

It took them five days to return to the Vassa River. The children, those villagers who refused to stay in a place that had so many painful memories of their dead, the freed castle servants, and the seer child, Irnai, couldn’t ride for as long a time as warriors. Kel’s band took as much care to hide their presence leaving as they had on their way north, the sparrows and the dogs alerting them to any human presence. They lit no fires as they worked their way down the Pakkai and along the Smiskir road. When they set watches, the servants and villagers from Blayce’s domain stood guard alongside the soldiers.

At last they reached the Vassa. Neal disappeared briefly with Dom and Owen to find the Scanran relatives of their smugglers. These men and women looked every bit as hard and wary as their Tortallan counterparts. Kel would have grinned at the obvious shock on their faces when they saw how many children were in their company, but her sore shoulder left her with almost no sense of humor. She knew she would be better once a healer was able to finish the healing Neal had started, though she didn’t look forward to being made healthy only to face execution.

Once they were in sight of Tortall, she considered deserting her people but knew that she couldn’t. She owed it to the children to get them to a place of safety, for one. For another, flight would mean that she took no responsibility for what she had done. That was unacceptable. She had done what was necessary. She would take the consequences.

Owen and Neal, who had as much to lose as she did, made no mention of flight. Kel thought that was simply the result of what they had gone through: Owen was still too grief-stricken over the loss of Happy, Neal too exhausted from keeping a number of wounded people alive to reach Tortall. Kel wondered if she should ask them if they meant to run but decided not to. They were grown men; they knew the risks as well as she did.

The smugglers took forever to get them across: they had not anticipated being used as ferrymen for crowds of escapees and their escorts for free, they told Kel. She realized they did not just mean her and her group. When she asked, they told her that Merric and his people had crossed three days before. They were quarreling with each other nonstop, according to the smugglers, but all were alive and well. Kel was freed of that worry, at least.

She, Jump, and Peachblossom were on the last boat with Neal, Dom, Owen, Tobe, and their mounts. If the crossing was as bumpy as it had been on her way north, Kel didn’t notice. She was asleep by the rail before they cast off.

As the boat ground against the river’s Tortallan shore, Neal shook her awake. Kel groaned, stood, and led Peachblossom onto solid ground. Only then did she see that a welcoming committee awaited them: Lord Wyldon, Lord Raoul, and Duke Baird. Behind them stood Merric, Seaver, and Esmond.

Kel knelt and bowed her head in submission to Lord Wyldon, awaiting his judgment. Neal and Owen knelt on either side of her. Jump and the sparrows put themselves in front of Kel. She felt Peachblossom’s warm breath on the back of her neck.

“Sergeant Domitan, tell me these children aren’t the result of your squad’s Scanran frolics,” Kel heard Raoul say cheerfully. “Though I do admit, some of them look a little old to be yours.”

“Well, sir, my men helped,” Dom said, the picture of boyish mischief.

Kel almost smiled. At least Dom would get away from this with a whole skin, it seemed. She’d wondered if his tale of Lord Raoul’s sending his squad to help had been just that, a tale. It was a relief to know it was the truth and Dom had been acting under proper orders.

“You missed a tidy fight,” Raoul said. “Smashed one of King Maggot’s little armies all to bits. Come along and I’ll tell you about it.” Dom and his remaining men followed him up the path.

Kel looked sideways when she picked up movement on the edges of her vision. Duke Baird was gathering up the children who had already landed. He was telling them, “We’ll just have a look, to see how well you are. I know some mothers and fathers who are eager to see you all.” To the civilian adults, Scanran and Tortallan, he said, “And you look as if you could use proper meals and beds. Come along.”

Kel lowered her head once more. Only she, Neal, and Owen remained with Lord Wyldon and the friends who had brought the adult refugees home.

Owen was the first to break the silence. He looked up at Lord Wyldon, tears running down his face. “My lord, I’m sorry, but I got Happy killed. I didn’t mean to—he fought as hard as any knight— but he got killed anyway, and I never wanted that.”

“Is that all you have to say to me, that your horse is dead?” Kel heard that familiar cool, measured voice say over her head.

“No, my lord.” Owen bowed his head. “I disobeyed you. I betrayed you. And I’d do it again, under the circumstances, not meaning any disrespect, sir. But I miss Happy.”

“And you, Sir Nealan, have you any comments?” Lord Wyldon inquired, his voice quite mild.

“No, my lord,” Neal replied.

“I believe, Owen, that you are familiar with my dislike of needless dramatics,” Lord Wyldon said. “I am not about to declare you a traitor because the mount I gave you was killed in battle. He did what he was trained to do. I am sad for the loss of the horse—he was one of the best I’ve raised—but I would be sorrier still for the loss of a squire in whom I can take pride.”

“Sir?” chorused Neal, Owen, and Kel, all staring at their former training master.

Wyldon stood iron straight, arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes observant as he looked at them. “One of the hardest lessons for any commander is this: it is a very bad idea to issue an order one knows will not be obeyed. Lady knight, had my mind not been on other things, I would have known better than to forbid you to rescue your people. I had placed them under your care, knowing you would protect them with every skill at your disposal. I cannot now say I didn’t want you to take your responsibility too seriously. The same applies to Sir Nealan and to Sir Merric, who were also charged with their well-being. If I do not punish you, then I cannot in fairness punish those who aided you.”

Kel glanced past Lord Wyldon to Merric, Seaver, and Esmond. All three looked sheepish.

“But my lord,” she began to protest.

A hard arm wrapped around her head; a callused palm sealed her mouth. “Not a word,” Neal whispered in her ear. “For once in your life, will you take a gift without arguing that you aren’t worthy of it?” He looked up at Wyldon. “She took a blow to the head, I think,” he said, falsely earnest. “It leads her to say odd things. She needs a stay in the infirmary, just until she comes to her senses.”

Wyldon sighed and resettled his sword belt. “It appalls me to say this, but for the first time I find myself in agreement with Sir Nealan.” He warned Neal, “Do not let it go to your head.”

Kel, Neal’s hand still firmly over her mouth, blinked up at Wyldon. She was free? She wasn’t to die a traitor, or be forced to leave Tortall?

Wyldon looked at Owen, then at Neal. “I would like a moment alone with the lady knight,” he said more formally. “Go with your friends.”

Slowly Neal withdrew his hand as Owen looked suspiciously at his knight-master. “You’re not going to yell at her, are you, sir?” he asked. “Because you can’t.”

Wyldon looked at the younger man, brows raised. “I beg your pardon?” he inquired. Kel expected frost to issue from his mouth with the words.

The Owen of a month ago might have ducked his head and fled. This Owen remained where he was, meeting Wyldon’s stare with resolve. “She doesn’t deserve to be yelled at, not after losing so many people and killing Blayce and being wounded and keeping us alive.”

Wyldon sighed and fingered the raised scar on his temple. “I do not intend to yell at her. Now will you go away?”

Before they went, Neal and Owen dragged Kel to her feet. As they trudged off, Kel tried to knock away the pieces of grass and damp earth on her knees. Once she knew her friends were out of earshot, she straightened and met Lord Wyldon’s eyes. “You have every right to yell at me, my lord,” she said. “Go ahead. I deserve worse.”

Wyldon took a step closer to her, cupped her head in both hands, and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You are a true knight, Keladry of Mindelan,” he told her. “I am honored to know you.” He steered her down the path her friends had taken. “Interesting news came from the battlefronts this morning,” he said. “Apparently the killing devices at Frasrlund and the City of the Gods collapsed in the field and move no longer. King Maggur’s troops are plainly frightened, though he is still in control. The spymasters plan to set it about that a powerful new mage has entered the war on our side, one who did away with the devices.”

Kel smiled crookedly.

“Not that we’re done fighting,” Wyldon continued. “Frightened Scanrans are dangerous, and Maggur is still king. Have you thought about your duties now, where you will be assigned?”

His question took Kel by surprise. She searched for a coherent answer until at last she said, “My lord, up until we landed I assumed my next assignment would be on Traitor’s Hill, and not as a guard.”

Wyldon nodded. “Very proper. As your punishment, then, I assign you to find ground for a new refugee camp, build it, and run it. Continue to instruct the people in how to defend it. I give you the entire valley of the Greenwoods River as your subdistrict of my command. You will hold it and make it safe against Scanrans and anyone else who thinks those people will be easy pickings.”