Cook, Glen - The Swordbearer

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THE DAY OF DOOM
A Toal came striding through the shattered gate, a dark tower against the light. Someone hurled a
boar spear. It missed. The Toal gestured. A bolt of power blasted a gap in the furniture wall.
Ventimiglian soldiers sprang forward. Blades darted and clashed. Men cried out. The Toal came on
like something out of a nightmare. . . . The Toal flung an arm around in a hard horizontal arc.
People toppled like wheat at the stroke of a scythe. A black mailed fist smote Gathrid's chest ...
and a darkness closed in ... got to hide, he thought....
TOR BOOKS BY GLEN COOK
AN ILL FATE MARSHALLING
REAP THE EAST WIND
THE SWORDBEARER
THE TOWER OF FEAR
THE BLACK COMPANY:
The First Chronicle of the Black Company:
THE BLACK COMPANY
The Second Chronicle of the Black Company:
SHADOWS LINGER
The Third Chronicle of the Black Company:
THE WHITE ROSE
The Fourth Chronicle of the Black Company:
SHADOW GAMES. First Book of the South
THE SILVER SPIKE
The Fifth Chronicle of the Black Company:
DREAMS OF STEEL. Second Book of the South
The Swordbearer
Glen Cook
Chapter One
Kacalief
Summer dessicated the earth and made the horizons waver behind air heavy with dust and pollen.
There was no breeze to gentle the gnawing heat.
Hooves thundered across hard earth. A war cry slapped the morning's face. A crack hit the still
air as a rider's blade bit an oaken post standing in the center of a field where only the most
determined grasses survived. A woodchip arced away.
The rider's sword flew from his hand. It spun across the powdery earth.
A fifteen year old sat watching his brothers rehearse the skills of war. He had his behind nestled
in a grassy hummock. His arms were around his shins. His chin rested on his knees. His face was
grim. He smiled only weakly when Belthar gave his brother hell.
Fabric rustled behind him. He did not turn. His sister came round his shade bush and settled
beside him. She was a year older, blonde and striking. She would become a beautiful woman.
Anger flashed in her pale gray eyes. "Gathrid?"
"Uhm?"
"I heard you had another argument with Father."
"Uh-huh. Same old fight. He won't let me train with Mitar and Haghen. Don't let the poor cripple
get hurt. ..."
"He'll never let you, either. Not if you keep pushing him. You've got to get around sideways and
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make him think it's his idea. I don't have any trouble."
"I'm not a girl, Anyeck. I can't do all that bounce and soft eyes and 'Oh, please, Daddy.' "
Anyeck laughed. "You make me sound like a courtesan."
"Sometimes you act like one."
"You're looking for lumps from everybody, aren't you?"
"I . . ."
A horrendous thump interrupted them. They sprang up. Their brother Haghen had fallen off his
horse. Belthar and his men rushed him. Belthar started cursing.
"He's all right," Anyeck said. "Belthar wouldn't yell if he wasn't. That's really what you want to
go through, huh?"
Haghen rose and beat dust off himself. Gathrid did not reply.
Anyeck continued, "There was a messenger from the Dolvin. Father has to go to Hartog. I'm going to
get him to let me go, too. He said he'll leave as soon as Symen gets back from Rigdon."
Gathrid became worried. His father was just an unimportant knight in one small corner of
Gudermuth. His liege, the Dolvin, was responsible for Gudermuth's entire frontier with the kingdom
of Grevening. "You think it's because Father hanged those raiders?"
"Franaker Huthsing sent them over, but even he wouldn't have the gall to complain if they got
caught and hanged. I don't know what it is. He just said he has to go." Gathrid's family and its
retainers lived in a small fortress called Kacalief. Their father was Satire, or knight protector.
The Dolvin's Savard March, guarding the kingdom of Gudermuth's easternmost frontier, had been in
dispute between the Kings of Gudermuth and Grevening for decades. The Sheriff of Rigdon, a town on
the Grevening side of the border, had a habit of sending small bands of bravos over to cause
trouble. The latest bunch had gotten out of hand and killed some sheep. The Safire had hanged
them. He had sent his oldest son to return the bodies.
"Maybe Huthsing won't be so pushy now," Gathrid said. He watched his brother Mitar gallop around.
Mitar was clumsier than Haghen.
"Maybe." Anyeck seemed unconvinced. Or just not interested. "Really, why do you want to go out
there and get yourself knocked around? What do you want to prove, anyway?"
Gathrid scowled at her, turned his attention to the field. He didn't have to answer that.
He had had a brief bout with polio. It had affected one arm and one leg. The corner of one eye
drooped. The disease hadn't crippled him, but his father considered his slight handicap sufficient
to prevent his ever becoming a knight.
"They're turning me into a jester, Anyeck. All they let me do is study. I'm bored stiff with
Plauen's lectures about the Golden Age and Anderle. I'm up to here with learning numbers and
languages."
"Somebody has to do those things, Gathrid."
"Somebody who gets paid. I don't see you going into ecstasy over Plauen's lessons. It's not manly,
scribbling in books, playing with numbers, studying old stories about the Immortal Twins and
Tureck Aarant. Who cares about them anymore, anyway? They've been dead for a thousand years."
Anyeck laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Don't get upset. Maybe while Father and I are gone ..."
"You're kidding. Can you see Belthar doing anything without Father's okay?"
"No. I guess not. Maybe I'll talk to him."
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They sat there a while, watching their brothers build themselves cases of sore muscles and
bruises. The shadow of the bush began to dwindle. Gathrid drifted off on a reverie. In daydreams
he could be the most dreaded warrior ever to have lived. Men would pale at the naming of his name.
No weakness hampered him in daydreams.
Anyeck nudged him. "Symen is coming."
Gathrid opened his eyes. Symen and his men-at-arms were approaching at a canter. Something about
them portended bad news. The men on the practice field racked their weapons and dismounted. They
formed a clump and waited. They reacted like herd animals sensing danger.
Gathrid stood, helped Anyeck rise. Hand in hand, they went to join the others. They were close.
She was the only one who understood him. He was her only confidant.
Gathrid limped slightly. It was barely noticeable. There had been champions more handicapped than
he. By Heaven, he thought, Cashion was blind.
It was an old, old world. Its inhabitants were a worn and weary people fallen into long rhythms of
empire and dark age. Its unremitting feudalism remained eternally static.
Symen stopped his animal and swung down. He handed his reins to a soldier. His homely face was
drawn and pale. "You look like you've seen a ghost," Haghen observed.
Symen shuddered. "No. But I did see the shape of tomorrow.''
Gathrid glanced at his sister and frowned. "What happened?" Anyeck asked. "Did Huthsing? ..."
"It wasn't Franaker Huthsing. He's a toy devil compared to this."
"What, then?"
"Ventimiglia invaded Grevening. From the Tower in Rigdon you can see the smoke of the burning
villages. The whole eastern horizon looks like there's a big bank of fog coming in." Symen's eyes
seemed haunted as he exchanged glances with each of his siblings.
Every year the eastern darkness had crept a little closer. Now it was devouring Grevening. There
would be no more buffers. There would be no more illusions about Ventimiglia being satisfied with
what it had taken. The Grevening border was so close Kacalief's people would be looking tomorrow
in the eye.
The world's last great empire, Anderle, had torn itself apart ages ago. Only now, after centuries,
had the cycle turned. The Mindak Ahlert of Ventimiglia, with his wizardries and exhumations of
ancient sorceries, was riding a rising wave.
Gathrid shuddered. How long before that wave crashed upon tiny Gudermuth? This summer? Or would
Ahlert wait a year? "I think I know why the Dolvin wants Father," he said.
Anyeck nodded, squeezed his hand. Her fingers were cool and moist. She didn't say anything.
She was seldom at a loss for words. Usually she was full of chatter and scatterbrained plans for
fleeing Ka-calief to make herself a great lady. She wanted to take back what her mother had given
up by becoming Safi-rina.
In a soft, frightened voice, Symen said, "They say the stories aren't exaggerated. They say
Nieroda and the Toal are killing everybody."
"They're real?" Mitar asked. "Did you see them?"
"No. I didn't want to. Seeing some of their victims was enough."
The Toal, often called the Dead Captains, and their commander, Nevenka Nieroda, were the most
terrible horrors the eastern sorcery had dredged from the past. They commanded a merciless sorcery
uniquely their own.
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They could not be killed, for they had died already, in battles ages past.
"I have to tell Father." There was no relish in Sy-men's voice, just a sad resignation.
He thinks we're living on borrowed time, Gathrid thought.
His vision of himself as a great champion dispersed before this dread new wind. It seemed silly.
The Dead Captains. Who could stand against them? Maybe a Ma-gister of the Brotherhood. Not a gimp
boy from Kacalief. You're a fool, Gathrid, he told himself.
The whole crowd walked slowly up to the castle. They remained very quiet. Anyeck murmured, "I
don't think I want to go to Hartog now. It would be too depressing."
"Uhm." Depression had arrived already. Symen's news was a thunderclap declaring the end of an era.
Borrowed time, Gathrid thought again. He glanced toward the border.
The day seemed normal enough. No evidence of war rode Grevening's western winds.
The Safire met them at the gate. He was an almost laughably tall, lean, craggy man. He proclaimed
himself .the ugliest man alive. With the exception of Symen, his children took their looks from
their mother. In her youth the Safirina had been one of the great beauties of the royal court at
Katich. Twenty-five years after the fact, Gudermuth's nobility remained bemused because the Safire
had wooed and wed the woman.
The Safire was a dour and quiet man. The occasions of his smiles were historical reference points.
Today he appeared more gloomy than ever. "Huthsing get a little too melodramatic, Symen?"
"Didn't say a word about them, Father. He had other things on his mind," he explained.
"That explains why the Dolvin summoned me. We'll be next. I suppose there's no time to waste.
Though Heaven knows what rush there is when you face the invincible."
Gudermuth had no realistic hope should the Mindak choose to take her. She was another of dozens of
tiny, feeble states filling the continental hinterland. Ventimig-lia was, reputedly, already as
vast as the Anderlean Im-perium at its greatest extent. Ahlert would swat Gudermuth down like a
rude puppy. His weapons would be Nevenka Nieroda, the Toal and his sorcerer generals. And an army
so vast no one could count the number of men in it.
The world was old. Its histories were layered and deep. There were living sorceries, and memories
and shadows and ghosts of sorceries, dense upon every land. A man of power could stand anywhere
and touch some echoed wizardry of the past. He need but have the confidence and strength to reach
out and seize it.
The Mindak of Ventimiglia had the confidence, strength and will. He was hammering out an empire
built of the bones of little kingdoms like Grevening and Gudermuth.
"Is it really all so hopeless?" Mitar asked. "They're men the same as us."
"It's probably worse," the Safire grumbled. "What are you doing here? Take them back to the
practice field, Belthar. Gathrid. Anyeck. Why aren't you at your studies? Mhirken. Saddle me a
horse."
Fifteen minutes later the Safire and his esquire departed, bound for the Dolvin's castle. Gathrid
and Anyeck watched them go. "What're you going to do?" the youth asked.
"Do?" His sister seemed puzzled.
"Sure. You always figure an angle." In his sourer moments Gathrid thought Anyeck a greedy, ill-
tempered, conniving little witch. Totally self-centered. And half-crazy with her silly schemes for
getting their father to send her to Gudermuth's capital, Katich. Or to one of the great cities in
Malmberget or Bilgoraj, the bellwether kingdoms of the west. Or, better still, to Sartain, the
vast island city constituting the heart of today's di-minuated Imperium.
She was determined to profit from an outstanding marriage.
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"Don't be so bitter. Yes. Maybe there is an angle in this. Maybe he'll listen now. For my safety."
She became thoughtful. After a while she began unrolling an implausible plot.
He loved her anyway. They were best friends. She listened to his dreams, too. And she did not
laugh.
"We'd better find Plaueri. Father will check." The Safire was a methodical man.
"Wow. I'm overwhelmed." She was no more excited about education than he.
Their instructor, Mikas Plauen, was doing his Brotherhood Novitiate. The Safire had contracted his
services with his Order, the Yellow.
The Brotherhood was an anomaly of the times, a non-sectarian organization which, nevertheless,
displayed characteristics of a religious mystery cult. Its avowed purpose was to preserve,
conserve and transmit knowledge. The lower ranks everywhere appeared as court scribes, secretaries
and, as here, as instructors of the nobly-born.
At its highest levels, though, the Brotherhood formed the aristocracy of wizardry. All the great
western sorcer- ers belonged, and at the very top stood several men possibly the equal of the
Mindak of Ventimiglia.
There were two major Orders, the Red and the Blue, and three minor, the White, the Yellow and the
Green. The minor Orders remained devoted to the Brotherhood's founding purpose.
The Red and Blue, though, had become worldly, political and contentious, always striving for
control of the Brotherhood and the temporal power that mastery represented. Many an intrigue had
been played between the two. The Blue Order was dominant at the moment, but the Red was making a
comeback under a cunning, vicious, unscrupulous Magister named Gerdes Mulenex. Rumor said this
Mulenex was a western would-be Mindak.
Gathrid did not care. He couldn't untangle the political and philosophical differences between the
Orders. He saw only naked power lust. For him it was enough to know that the Orders existed and
that, though they supposedly shared a common purpose, sometimes contended to the point of armed
confrontation.
The lesson of the day was another of Plauen's dull monologs on the Fall of Anderle. Plauen was not
a skilled teacher. He could make anything boring.
"Why are we studying this stuff about the Tempter and the Twins?" Gathrid asked. "They've been
dead a thousand years."
"I notice you don't complain when we study Tureck Aarant, Chrismer or one of those."
"They were heroes."
"You're interested in them. That's all. Except for Aarant, they don't have many lessons for us.
The Immortal Twins, and Grellner and Aarant, and to a secondary extent, Theis Rogala, are the ones
who left a significant legacy. They made the mistakes from which we should learn."
Gathrid shook his head. Same old thing. Over and over and over again. Learn from the mistakes of
the past. That was stupid. Only fools lived in the past. His father had said so.
"Pay attention, Gathrid. It's important that you two learn. Nudge Anyeck, please. She's sleeping
with her eyes open. Heavens. What am I going to do? They're cretins, and I'm supposed to have them
ready in time for. . ."
A chill crept down Gathrid's spine. There was something grim about Plauen's muttering. "In time
for what, Brother?" he demanded.
"Nothing. Adulthood, I suppose. I'm sorry. You're exasperating me. I've never dealt with such
stubborn students."
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Gathrid became mildly embarrassed. That surprised him. Plauen's tactics usually irritated him.
Maybe it was the implication of deliberate ignorance colliding with his knowledge that he had been
sabotaging the sessions.
"We don't know what Aarant, Grellner and their contemporaries were really like," Plauen said,
resuming his lesson. "The stories we have now were shaped by a thousand retellings, and it's in
those retellings that they've acquired their significance for us today. The characters we
associate with the Brothers' War have become archetypes. Grellner brought Temptation into the
Paradise of Anderle. The Immortal Twins lost Innocence. ..."
Gathrid had heard the line of reasoning before. He knew it by heart. Yet Plauen kept returning, as
if there were a point he and Anyeck kept missing.
"The real ambiguities of the age surround Tureck Aarant and Theis Rogala. Was Aarant a hero? Not
by the usual standards. Was Rogala his servant or master? Did Aarant's weapon, the Great Sword,
control him instead of the reverse? Think about those questions. You'll be facing similar, though
less symbolic, situations all your lives. We'll be examining them all next week."
The session ended. Gathrid and Anyeck climbed to the parapet of the tower at Kacalief's southeast
corner.
"I don't see anything," Anyeck said. "Can you? Your eyes are better.''
Gathrid searched the east. "I don't see anything, either." His gaze followed the road that looped
round the marsh and headed south toward Hartog and the Dolvin. Their father had long since
disappeared. He turned slowly, scanning the marsh itself, the vineyards, the wild rolling hills to
the north. They were the Savards, from which the March took its name. He and his brothers hunted
there occasionally. He said, "The hills look dry. Be dangerous if there's a fire."
"Everything is dry. We need rain. They say the marsh is drying up."
They passed an hour speaking of nothing, afraid to talk about what was on their minds.
Ventimiglia seemed to weigh on their brothers, too. Their efforts on the practice field were
decidedly feeble.
The Safire was gone a week. When he returned, he announced, "The King himself was there. Things
may not be as bad as we feared. The Brotherhood knows about Grevening. The Fray Magister, the
Emperor and Ki-mach, King of Bilgoraj, have called for a conference at Torun."
Bilgoraj, one of the west's leading kingdoms, was Gudermuth's neighbor to the west. Its capital,
Torun, was one of the great cities of the day, and Kimach Faul-stich was sometimes called one of
the great Kings.
The Safire continued, "They're going to form an Alliance of all the western states and Brotherhood
Orders. The King says the Alliance's protection will include Gud-ermuth, so we won't stand alone.
Ahlert won't dare attack. Not unless he wants to fight the whole west at once."
Gathrid had never heard his father make a longer speech. He hoped it was all true.
"He sounds like he's whistling in the dark," Anyeck whispered.
"What? Why?"
"He doesn't believe in this Alliance. He's just trying to make us feel safer.''
The fighting in Grevening washed against the border next day. Gathrid woke to alarms. The Safire's
men-at-arms had exchanged arrows with Ventimiglians who had strayed over the line. He rushed to
the east wall.
Smoke obscured the dawn, catching bloody fire from the rising sun. Below, just across the
frontier, one of the Mindak's patrols was passing. He watched for a few minutes. His father came
up, stood beside him. After a time, he said, "Gathrid, go have your breakfast, then start your
lesson."
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"Yes, Sir." He had given up arguing.
He tried to keep his mind on his studies. He could not. There was skirmishing going on across the
border. The noise of the watchers on the walls kept distracting him. Anyeck had run out earlier.
Plauen slammed his book back into its protective case. He snapped, "Very well. Go ahead. Go
applaud the Mindak's barbarism."
Gathrid gathered his study materials. His heart began to flutter.
"Gathrid," Plauen called after him. "Don't fall into the trap that's caught Anyeck. Don't start
thinking there's something romantic and wonderful about this. It's war. It's an ugly business."
The youth could not conceal his disagreement.
"I wasn't always a Brother, Gathrid. I saw a few battles in my time. I saw my comrades lying on
muddy fields, their guts spilled, stinking of their own ordure, the terror of death filling their
eyes. ..."
Gathrid shuddered and ran. He did not want to hear that part. He wanted romances and lays. Blood
and pain were not real. The economics, politics and psychology of warfare just made the old
stories dull.
He wanted adventures grim with dread perils overcome, but with the clear certainty of a strong
hero standing victorious in the end. Plauen kept trying to kill the shine. He insisted that it was
all hogwash. He wanted you to believe that heroes didn't always win, that putting your money on
evil was usually the better bet.
He reached the wall in time to witness the passing of a large company of eastern troops. Sunlight
twinkled off their wildly varied armor. Their equipment rattled and clanked in a steady, grim
beat.
His gaze locked on the black figure at their head. "One of the Dead Captains," he murmured. His
stomach did a flip.
As if hearing him, the Toal halted, faced Kacalief. It stared at the fortress a long time, as if
quietly amused by its audience. Its gaze swept across Gathrid. He felt as though an icicle had
been driven into his brain. He shuddered. For a long moment he was frightened.
"Aren't they gorgeous!" Anyeck bubbled. These easterners were richly and colorfully clad. Gathrid
understood most brigades dressed more somberly.
He turned to his sister, his upper lip rising in a half-sneer. Her greed blazed through her common
sense. He wished she would outgrow having been spoiled. "They're dreadful," he said. "Look at the
Dead Captain. Tell me he's glamorous."
She gave him a nasty look.
"He does fit the particulars of the husband you want."
"Gathrid, don't take out your frustrations on me."
"And you'll get a chance to meet one soon enough, I think."
Their mother stepped between them. "They won't, Gathrid," she said. "The Alliance will stop them.
Ah-lert won't risk the united wrath of the western kingdoms and the Brotherhood."
Then Plauen was behind them, smiling a distant smile. "Don't blind yourself, My Lady. Ventimiglia
is a dragon with one head. It speaks with one voice. It strikes with one sword. It marches to one
will. This Alliance will be a beast of a hundred heads, every one trying to drag the body in a
different direction. The Mindak will sneer at it. He'll spit on it. And he'll trample it into the
dust."
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Gathrid stared at the Brother in disbelief. Never had he heard the man speak with such despair.
"Plauen!"
"I'm sorry. I forget myself. The rage of frustration seethes within me. I'm afraid it's too late.
The Mindak has the scent of fell artifacts of which only a few Ma-gisters are aware. Had he been
stopped farther east, he might never have learned that they had survived the Fall."
The Safirina asked, "What are you talking about, Mi-kas?"
The redness left the teacher's face. He seemed to fold into himself. "Nothing, My Lady. Unfounded
speculations I shouldn't be discussing. Pay me no mind. I'm a long-winded fool."
Gathrid stared. There was a look, in Plauen's eyes, when the man glanced at himself ot Anyeck,
which turned his heart cold. And behind the look was a poorly controlled fear.
It was a puzzle, the youth thought.
Chapter Two
Ultimatum
The armies of Ventimiglia halted just east of the Grev-ening border. Their encampments covered the
countryside. Gathrid tried counting tents. He would get into the thousands and lose track. He gave
up.
Refugees poured into Gudermuth. They carried tales so cruel nobody believed them. They featured
Nieroda and the Toal in such monstrous roles that Kacalief's people rejected the accusations.
Nobody could be that bloody and black.
The Easterners erected semipermanent fortifications and barracks throughout autumn. Their numbers
diminished. Spies reported that many of the Mindak's soldiers had returned to their families for
the winter.
It was a small thing, but a human touch which offset the alleged brutality of that somber army.
Gathrid's father continued to hope weakly for the Alliance. His mother was convinced the Mindak
would not defy it.
The battles with his father became more heated. The youth thought the threat justified his being
trained. His father refused with increasing vehemence.
Anyeck, too, knew her disappointments. The Safire refused to let anyone run to safety. "We're
responsible for this corner of the March," he insisted. "Neither I nor any of mine will shirk. We
have our duty. We stand here. We set no cowardly examples, come peace or come war." And that was
the final word.
Gathrid could not help but admire his father's stubbornness. It was the stubbornness of the heroes
he worshiped.
Winter came with its snows. The Ventimiglians remained out there, their nearest works just a mile
away. Their presence became ever more grating, more fraying to the nerves. Each day one of the
black-clad Toal would ride to the border and sit, sometimes for hours, staring at the fortress.
Plauen named it a clear declaration of intent.
"Where are those armies the Alliance was going to raise?" the Safire growled. "Why aren't there
any tents on our side of the border?" He sent messengers to the Dolvin. The Dolvin queried the
King. The King could not answer the questions. He had heard nothing from Torun.
The snows ceased. The white melted away, leaving the ground soggy and the marsh full. The first
wildflowers appeared. The birds returned from warmer climes.
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The tension in Kacalief grew daily.
One morning Anyeck came flying down from her place of worship on the wall. "One of them is
coming!" she shrieked. She sounded half terrified, half delighted. "One of the black riders. He's
over the border now."
The Safire growled at his sergeants. Alarms sounded. Men-at-arms rushed to the walls. Someone
shouted down, "He's alone, Sir. White flag."
The Safire stopped his people before they started the fires to boil water and emptied the arsenals
of their sparse store of arrows and shafts for the ballistae. "They want to parlay. I'll stall
them all summer long."
Gathrid scampered to the wall. He looked down at the rider. The rider looked up. Gathrid suddenly
felt very cold, very small, very vulnerable. In that instant of eye contact he believed all the
dark tales.
"This is a new one," Anyeck said. "I thought we'd seen them all."
"This one is Nieroda. The Dark Champion. Their' commander.''
"How do you know?"
"Logic. The Toal don't talk. Nieroda looks pretty much like them, but isn't a Toal himself. Since
this one means to parlay, it follows it must be Nieroda."
Anyeck stuck out her tongue.
Kacalief's massive oaken gate creaked open. The dark rider approached.
Gathrid surveyed his home and felt more vulnerable. Kacalief was old and small and weak. It did
not stand on much of a hill. It had no moat, just a stake-filled ditch round the foot of its wall.
It had no drawbridge and no barbican. Its walls were solid, but not that tall. If one were
breached there was nowhere to retreat but into a small central tower which served as his family's
quarters. Everyone else lived in huts and sheds against the inner face of the wall.
They probably laughed at the place, the planners out there.
The dark rider passed under the wall, halted just inside. He did not look around. He seemed
indifferent to the castle's defenses.
The Safire strode into the court. He had donned his rusty old war gear. He did not look
impressive, though the sword he bore was in keeping with his size. "Nevenka Nieroda?" he asked.
The rider inclined its head slightly. "I speak for the Emperor of All Men. He commands you to put
aside all manner of excuse and delay, and yield up the sword named Daubendiek, also called the
Great Sword, and the Sword of Suchara."
The Safire exchanged a look with Symen, then with Belthar. He was baffled.
As were Gathrid and everyone else within hearing.
"What's he talking about?" Anyeck asked. "What Great Sword?"
"Maybe he means the one Tureck Aarant carried." There was a local legend about Aarant's dwarfish
companion, Theis Rogala, having buried'the mystic blade in the Savards, but not even peasant
storytellers took it seriously.
The Safire regained his equilibrium. "The Great Sword? That's a child's tale. The thing isn't
here. It never was. I couldn't give it to you if I wanted. And I don't want. I wouldn't give your
Emperor a bucket of water if he were burning."
The rider inclined his head slightly. "As you wish. You'll regret that attitude." He departed.
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"Hey! Hold on." The Safire started to chase the horseman, remembered his dignity. He stopped,
looked at his master-at-arms and sons. He wore an expression of bewilderment deeper than any
Gathrid had ever seen.
The youth caught a glimpse of Plauen. The Brother was farther along the wall, observing Nieroda's
departure. His face was the gray of death.
"What the hell?" the Safire finally roared. "Are they trying to confuse us to death? Plauen! Get
down here. Transcribe a message to the Dolvin. Word for word, what Nieroda said. And tell him to
get some people up here. They're going to take a crack at us."
The Dolvin's contribution arrived four days later. A company of two hundred men. A laughable
force, considering the countless thousands loafing beyond the border.
And loafing was all the Ventimiglians were doing. They spent a while each day practicing marching
to their battle signals, then just sat around. Their very indolence irritated Gathrid. It shouted
their contempt of Kacalief's defenses.
A month passed. The Dolvin sent carping messages.
He wanted to know how long the Safire meant to tie up his men. Nothing was happening. • Nieroda
returned. He made the same demand in the same words and tone. Gathrid's father gave the same
reply. And it was true. He could not surrender something not in his possession, something which
probably did not exist at all.
"The Emperor of All Men has bid me say this much more. In his mercy he gives you two days grace.
You may yet save your people."
"Tell him he can go to Hell."
Gathrid was not fond of his father. He was at that age where the man could do no right, but he did
find himself admiring the man's stand.
Nieroda returned to Grevening. Gathrid watched the eastern armies shed their somnolence and become
astonishingly agile and coordinated during a day-long exercise. Anyeck was impressed, Gathrid
frightened, and everyone else intimidated. At that evening's council of war, Symen asked, "Will we
meet them in the field?"
"Don't be stupid," the Safire snapped. "With six horsemen? That's not enough to match the Toal."
"There'd be seven if . . ." Gathrid said.
"You shut up. No. If they come, we make them come over the wall. We make them pay for every square
foot they take, and we hold till the Alliance relieves us."
He had sent a message to the Dolvin saying the Min-dak planned to attack two days hence. He did
not, honestly, expect either a reply or help. Even the Safirina's faith in the Alliance was
growing strained. It hadn't bothered making a token showing.
Haghen, having been put up to it by Gathrid, at An-yeck's suggestion, asked, "Father, shouldn't we
send the women and children to Katich? The capital can stand a siege better than we can."
The Safire's face became taut. The color drained away. The ugliness vanished too. He became just a
tired, frightened man. "No. I meant what I said before." His voice was barely audible. "We have
our duty. We won't shirk it. None of us."
In that moment Gathrid both loved and hated him. He met Anyeck's eye and shrugged.
Plauen tried to pursue the argument. The Safire cut him short. "We won't discuss it. We're here to
talk about how to keep them from taking Kacalief. What can we do?"
"Nothing," Plauen replied. "Unless you conjure up the Great Sword."
"I don't find your attitude acceptable, Brother. Can you contribute something more than yak? I
file:///G|/rah/Glen%20Cook/Glen%20Cook%20-%20The%20Swordbearer.txt (10 of 148) [2/9/2004 3:42:12 AM]
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