Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 3 - A Wizard In War

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A Wizard In WarA Wizard In War

The Third Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard

By Christophr Stasheff

ISBN: 0-812-53649-5

Dicea didn't hear the knight approaching until it was too late-even though he

was laughing and joking with his men-at arms-so she was tardy turning her face

to the wall, and the knight espied her. "Hola! Come here, pretty lass!" he

cried, but Dicea shrank away, eyes wide. "Fetch her, Barl," he ordered one of

his men, and the soldier came, grinning and reaching out for Dicea, who cried

out and tried to push herself back into the wall, forearms up to shield her

torso, face down in her fists.

Anger tore through her brother, Coll. He jumped between Dicea and the soldier

and cracked a fist into his jaw. The man gave one surprised grunt-after all,

serfs never fought back-and slumped, eyes rolling up.

The knight turned scarlet on the instant and shouted, "Kill him!" He, too, knew

that serfs couldn't be allowed to fight back.

Four soldiers came at Coll. Panic seized him; he knew his only chance was to

kill them first. He leaped on the foremost soldier and swung high, but the

soldier was ready to block now, so Coll kicked his feet out from under him and

seized his spear as he fell, twisting it from his grasp. He slashed with it at

the soldiers. They leaped back in surprise and caution, knowing what that honed

edge could do and how little use leather armor might be against it. Then they

reddened and shouted, but Coll had just time enough to stab downward and kill

the fallen soldier.

The knight shouted in rage, and his men echoed him, charging. Coll leaped to

meet them, parrying the thrust of the soldier on the right, then stabbing him in

the belly, just as though his spear were the butt of a quarterstaff. Serfs

weren't supposed to know how to fight with staves, but Coll and a few friends

had practiced in secret. Now he turned on the middle soldier, stabbing upward.

The man parried, beating Coll's spear down-and Coll leaped in and cracked a fist

into his chin.

The knight bellowed in anger as he saw a third man fall and spurred his horse.

The charger surged forward; Coll barely managed to sidestep in time, and the

rest of the soldiers came at his back.

"Behind you!" Dicea called, and Con turned just in time to dodge their charge,

then slash at one of them with his spear. The knight turned his horse and came

charging back, blood in his eye, intent on running Coll down.

"Flee!" his sister cried, tears in her eyes. "Oh, Coll, flee!"

Every cell in his body screamed to stay and fight, but the knight was slashing

down with his sword, and sense forced its way through the haze of Colt's rage.

He leaped aside at the last second, then dodged between the peasant huts. The

knight swerved to follow him, and ragged serfs stopped watching the spectacle to

scramble for cover. But Coll ran a zigzag route between huts, then sprinted

madly over the patch of cleared ground between the village and the woods,

hearing the hooves of doom pound closer and closer behind him, imagining he

could feel the charger's hot breath on his neck. He made it into the woods ten

feet ahead of the horse, though and dodged and twisted among the trees, knowing

he was safe now, if not for long.

Behind him, the knight cursed as he reined in, sheering away from underbrush

that was too thick for his horse. "Run, fool, run!" he bellowed. "You'll make

fine sport for the count and his knights, better than any deer! We'll track you

down and spit you like the swine you are!"

Coll ran, turning and twisting through the wood, cursing himself for a fool

indeed. He had killed two soldiers, and the hunt would be on for him in earnest;

the knights for miles around would gather in high spirits to track down the

insolent serf who had dared strike a knight's soldier. He had let his temper,

and the anxiety that had driven him to protect his little sister, make him a

dead man or, at best, an outlaw-if he managed to outsmart and outrun the knights

and their hounds-and all for nothing! The knight would have Dicea after all, and

would probably rape her brutally in revenge on her brother, instead of the more

gentle forcing that, with men of his rank, passed for seduction-and Coll's life

was forfeit, if anyone managed to catch him.

Coll resolved to make sure they never would.

Dirk Dulaine glanced at the ship's viewscreen in disgust. "This is how you go

about choosing which planet's people to help next? Sheer random chance?"

"Not 'sheer.'" Magnus d'Armand looked up from the navigation tank across the

ship's bridge, at his friend. "I eliminated all the planets that do have firm

standards of civil rights, after all."

"Oh, fine! So you cut down the size of the pool to only those planets that do

need help! And what did you do after that? Take the nearest one! Why didn't you

just throw dice, or put the names of the planets on a dart board?"

"How would you recommend I choose, then?"

"Oh, I don't know ... Maybe you could prioritize, for example?"

"An interesting thought!" Magnus stroked his chin, gazing off into space. "By

what criteria should we prioritize? The degree of oppressiveness of the

government?"

"Sounds good. How can you determine it?"

"A nice question. Historically, some governments have been more oppressive than

others. An unchecked aristocracy, for example, tends to allow more individual

exploitation than a monarchy. A king tends to keep the noblemen in check to some

degree, at least, and a person wronged by his lord can apply to the Ring's

justice if he feels unjustly treated. The Roman dictatorships certainly had the

potential for great abuse, but in actuality, the dictator was held in check by

his fellow patricians, especially in the Senate. And the Greek tryants, of

course. . ."

"All right! All right! You've made your point!" Dirk threw up his hands. "We

could debate all day and still be wrong! Any form of government could be

balanced by local factors."

"Oh, I'm not saying it wouldn't take a lot of thought," Magnus protested. "It

would be worth it, though, if it brought us first to the ones who needed us

most."

"Yeah, but while we're taking a year or two thrashing it out, thousands of

people could be dying on the planet we finally decided to help. I see what

you're doing-better to save some now than none eventually, even if they're not

the ones who need it most."

"Need it most? Yes, maybe we could do it that way!" Magnus clapped his hands,

smiling with delight. "An index of human misery! That shouldn't be terribly hard

to compile. Herkimer, show us examples of human misery."

An hour later, Dirk, pale and trembling, laid down his notepad and stylus. "I

surrender. If my planet had had to wait for you to work your way down this list

of sheer human degradation, you wouldn't have made it to us for another five

generations."

"But your idea does have some merit to id" Magnus looked a bit feverish himself.

"There has to be some way to say which of these poor human scraps are more

miserable than the others!"

"I can't see much difference in the treatment this last dozen are getting from

their lords," Dirk contradicted. "They're all living like animals in huts made

of leftovers from the harvest, freezing in winter, soaking or parboiling in

summer, and half starving all year round. They're dying of scurvy and beriberi

and half a dozen other vitamin deficiencies; their brains are only half grown

due to infant malnutrition. Their lords drive them to work with whips and

scourges, rape the few pretty girls they produce, and punish the slightest sign

of rebellion with torturous deaths that I can't call barbaric only because I

don't want to insult the barbarians! just take one of them at random, Magnus,

please! We've got to get some of these poor bastards out of their misery, or

I'll never sleep nights again!"

"Yes, I agree." Sweat stood out on Magnus's brow. "Still, your index of misery

is a brilliant idea. We do seem to have found the dozen worst cases of all."

"Definitely worst! At least my people had enough to eat and decent clothes to

wear, and the lords only took the prettiest girls-and didn't rape them, just

seduced them. Okay, we were humiliated at every turn and treated as though we

were semiintelligent conveniences, but at least we didn't live in misery like

this! I hate to say it, but we didn't know how good we had it!"

"No," Magnus contradicted, "you just didn't know how bad some other people had

it, or how much worse off you could be. Well, let's take the planet with the

continual warfare for starters. There, I don't see any sign of the fighting ever

letting up, and it's grinding the serfs to bits. What do you say we try to work

a small revolution on the planet Maltroit?"

"Small revolution? A big one, please! The biggest you can manage!"

"No, that would only result in a change of masters," Magnus objected, "not to

mention another bloodbath while they switched places. A small revolution can

produce a big improvement in living conditions right away, and an even bigger

improvement with each generation. Herkimer, set course for Maltroit."

Dirk sat down again, frowning. "How can a small revolution make a big

difference?"

Magnus began to tell him. Dirk kept asking questions, so the explanation became

more and more involved-but Magnus did manage to wrap it up as they went into

orbit around Maltroit, five days later.

The guards formed a hollow square around the king's herald and conducted him

into the great hall, where Earl Insol lolled in a huge chair of carven oak. The

message was quite clear: if the sentry said words that offended, the guards

would become jailers, or worse. The king's man put on an urbane smile to hide

his indignation. The impudent lord wouldn't dare defy His Majesty!

Would he?

Still, he squared his shoulders as the two guards stepped aside and pointedly

did not bow as he said, "Good afternoon, my lord."

Insol frowned; the herald should have known better than to speak first. No doubt

the fool thought of himself as embodying the majesty of the king who had sent

him, therefore being at least temporarily equal to the earl. "What says the

king?" he demanded, brusquely and with no preamble. The herald fought the urge

to scowl at the man's rudeness. Didn't His Lordship know he was mistreating not

just the herald, but also he who had sent him? "His Majesty sends me to tell you

of one Bagatelle, my lord, a dealer in cloths and fabrics."

The earl's eye gleamed; he recognized the name. "A' common caitiff? What of

him?"

"This Bagatelle appealed to our noble king of this land of Aggrand for justice,

claiming his goods had been stolen, and himself beaten, by yourself, my lord

Earl. His Majesty summons you to his court, that he may hear from your own lips

whether or not you have flouted the King's Peace, and dealt so roughly with one

of his subjects."

The earl sat very still for a minute. Then he said, "Summons? Did you say that

this child of a king dares summon an earl twenty years his senior?"

The herald reddened; he was scarcely into his twenties himself. "His is the

king!"

"And an impudent upstart he is," the earl retorted. Then his voice became

velvety smooth. "Might he not invite me? Ask me to wait up on him?"

"He has no need! He is the king, and all of his subjects must obey!" But the

herald was beginning to have a very nasty feeling about all this.

"It is time this arrogant stripling learned the limits of his power!" the earl

snapped. "Ho, guards! Take this impudent chatterbox to the dungeons and strip

that gilded cloth from his back!"

As the guards laid hold of him, the herald went pale. "How dare you defy your

sovereign lord!"

"Very easily," the earl said with a wolfish grin. Then, to the guards, "Do not

begin to flog him until I am there." He came quite quickly, and watched,

gloating, as they batted the herald from one to another with their fists, as

though he were the ball in a game. He watched while the torturer flogged the

youth, watched as his men dressed the poor moaning lad in grubby peasant's

leggins and led him out into the courtyard to tie him, stripped to the waist, on

the back of a donkey." Then the earl caught the herald's face in a viselike

grip, squeezing on the points of the jaw. "Tell your royal master that he

overreaches himself. Tell him that he may not summon his lords, but may invite

them with all due courtesy. Tell him to mind his manners henceforth, or his

nobles will fall upon him as they fell upon his grandfather, to whip him back

within the boundaries of his own estates!"

Then he let go of the herald and swung a riding whip at the donkey's flanks. The

beast brayed in pain and alarm and leaped away, running, with the poor herald

clinging to its mane for dear life. Cavalrymen rode after him, laughing and

whipping the donkey if it strayed off the road that led back to the royal

demesne.

"The king cannot let this insult pass, my lord," said the oldest of his knights

as he watched the donkey bear its bruised and bleeding load away.

"He cannot indeed," the earl agreed. "He shall come against us, and we shall

whip him home shrewdly." He shrugged. "He had to be taught sooner or later, Sir

Durmain. Best to have it out of the way, so soon after his coronation." He

watched the donkey out of sight, then turned to the knight. "Send reports of

this event to every other duke and earl in the land, so that each may gird

himself for war."

Coll fled from the hounds, but his knees had already turned to jelly, and his

whole body seemed to be liquefying with fatigue. All night he had been making

his way through the woods, trying to hide his trail well enough so that the

knights wouldn't find him, but as the sun neared noon over the forest, their

hounds had somehow picked up his scent They weren't near yet, but it wouldn't be

long. Their belling was growing steadily louder.

In a last attempt to lose them, Coll jumped down into a stream. The water was

icy so early in the spring, and he knew he couldn't walk it for long without his

feet turning numb. But he kept going, shivering and cursing, hoping to find

something that might save him ...

There it was, a boulder jutting up from the water with a low-hanging evergreen

branch above it! Coll clambered up the boulder, slipping and falling back twice

because his feet were already losing feeling and because he was already

exhausted. Finally he stood on the boulder, trembling, and raised his spear in

shaking hands-but not shaking so badly that he couldn't catch the crosspiece of

the spear in the fork of the branch. Now, if only the crosspiece would hold, and

the branch, and his hands ...

He couldn't He was too exhausted; it was all he could do to hold the spear in

the fork of the branch. To haul himself up so far was beyond him.

Then the hounds' voices suddenly became much louder, and he could hear the

beaters shouting, "On, Beau! On, Merveil!" and a knight crying, "Take half of

them across! Trace both sides of the bank till you find where he came out!"

Too close by far! Panic shot strength through his arms; Coll climbed up the

shaft hand over hand as quickly as any squirrel, caught the branch, and pulled

himself up to he trembling on it, panting. He hauled up the spear onehanded,

then clung to the smaller branches, his feet lying on others, feeling his perch

sway beneath him, waiting for his breath to slow, for the fear and panic to ebb.

The fear didn't, for the pack was coming closer and closer ...

And going by on the bank, not five yards from where he lay hidden among the

needles! Coll clung tight and prayed that there would be no breeze to carry his

scent to the coursing hounds. The saints must have heard him, for the dogs went

right on by, belling, their beaters calling encouragement to them.

Then they were gone.

Still Coll clung to the branches, gasping, feeling sobs in his chest, fighting

not to let them out, for he knew that if they began, they wouldn't stop, and he

didn't dare make that much noise, or the pack might come back.

They did. He clung tight, eying to breathe silently through his mouth, hoping

against hope that they would go past again ...

They did. He breathed a prayer of thanks to a kind and forgiving God, and went

limp.

In the depths of the night, a star detached itself from the firmament and came

spinning down toward earth. As it came lower and lower, a watcher on the ground

would have seen it swelling into a great golden disk, not a proper star at all.

Of course, there were no watchers, if you discounted the small herd of wild

horses sleeping in the spring night. The absence of witnesses was one of the

reasons the ship was landing in the middle of a moor. The horses were another.

A slice of the ship's underside separated and dropped down, forming a ramp for

Magnus and Dirk.

"All right," Dirk said, hoping his nerves weren't showing. "How do we go about

this?"

"You mean you've never caught a horse before?"

"Only tame ones." Dirk held up the rope he was carrying, eyeing it with

distrust. "What do you do with a wild one?"

"Convince it that you're its friend, and that it wants to carry you where you

want to go. That's the easy part."

"The easy part?" Dirk said with great trepidation. "What's the hard part?"

"Getting the chance to get acquainted." Magnus shook out his own rope, forming a

lariat. "Let me show you how it's done." He marched off across the plain.

Against his better judgment, Dirk followed.

When they came in sight of the horses, Magnus slowed down amazingly. Then,

quietly and very slowly, he began to move toward the sleeping herd.

The breeze shifted, and the lone, waking horse sentry looked up, nostrils

flaring, staring straight at Magnus, every muscle tense.

Magnus stared back.

Dirk could almost see the tension flow out of the horse, saw it calm amazingly,

and knew that Magnus, the telepath, the expert in every psi power known to man

(and in most of those known to woman, too), was reaching out with his mind to

soothe and reassure the horse's mind. More than soothe-slowly, the horse lowered

its head. Then, quite relaxed, it folded its legs, lay down, and went to sleep.

"Now," Magnus breathed, "we pick the ones we want, and set a lasso around each

one's neck."

"You mean you do," Dirk corrected.

The sentries saw the herald coming a mile away-or rather, saw the donkey with

someone on its back. But their suspicions woke as the two horsemen who

accompanied the beast turned away and rode in the direction from which they had

come. The sentries told the captain of the guard, and the captain sent out two

riders to see what the donkey carried. When they saw, one stayed trying to

revive the herald before bringing him in, while the other rode back with the

news.

The young king himself came down to see the herald as he rode through the gate.

Black eyebrows drew down in anger as he looked at the man's bruises, at the

dried blood in the welts on his back. The herald managed to raise his head

enough to croak, "Majesty ... Earl Insol says . . . you exceed the limits of

your power..."

"There are no limits to a king's power!" His Majesty struck the swollen face

with the back of his hand; the herald's head rocked, and he would have fallen

off the donkey if the ropes had been untied. The king turned away in disgust.

"Put him to bed and see that he is tended."

The herald croaked pathetically, and the captain said, "Majesty, do you not wish

to know the rest of his message?"

"I know it from his condition," the king snapped. "Earl Insol will not come to

me-so I shall go to him, with my army! Send couriers to each of the knights of

my demesne, that they must come to me straightaway with a hundred men-at-arms

each!"

"As Your Majesty says." The captain's face was expressionless, hiding his

foreboding. "Shall I also summon your lords?"

"The lords? Fool, they are more likely to march against me than for me! It was

the lords who leashed my grandfather, and it is the lords who must be taught my

power! It is for this that my father made more and more knights all the days of

his reign. Now it is for me to use them! Earl Insol shall be the first! Summon

my knights and their men, and we shall teach him the limits of his power!"

Coll crouched among the rocks, watching the lone monk amble toward the outlaw's

hill on his donkey. Coll stared at him with hungry eyes-and a hungry stomach.

Oh, he had eaten better than ever he had as a serf, far better-but he would

gladly have traded all his fresh meat for gruel with good companionship to sauce

it.

Still, that was not to be, so he was glad to see a prospect of something

better-two prospects! It seemed unbelievable, but in the month he had been

hiding in the wastelands, he had come to realize that life sometimes did play

tricks like this. A week since anyone worth robbing had come along that trail,

and the food from the last one had run out two days before, two days in which he

had eaten nothing but the little rodents who burrowed around his hill, and the

occasional hawk who came to prey upon them. Now, in a sudden embarrassment of

riches, there came three at once, two from the east and one from the west! The

road curved around his hill, so he was sure neither saw the other, and decided

he would have time to rob the monk before the knights came in sight-though he

would have to use the back trail down his hill, for the knights were sure to

come after him as soon as the friar went crying to them. At least they weren't

armored-but he could tell by their clothing that they were knights indeed, or,

at the very least, reeves. Not that he feared them-but there was always bad

luck. One alone he would have braced without a thoughthe had become adept at

unhorsing knights in this last month-but two was far too risky.

So! Rob the monk and be done with it, quickly. Down the hill Coll went, as

nimbly as any of his ground squirrels. He knew the route well now, knew on which

boulders he dared catch himself and which he dared not. At the bottom, he

crouched behind a boulder set on top of another boulder-his hill was more a rock

pile than an earth pileand waited.

The monk came ambling along on his donkey, singing a ballad that had little of

the sacred about it. Coll sprang down in front of him, brandishing his spear.

The donkey shied, and the monk screamed, fumbling for his purse. "Don't hurt me,

don't hurt me, wild man! You may have my purse, all the copper that's in it,

even a coin or two of silver!"

"What use is money to me?" Coll snapped. "Where should I go to spend it? No, fat

man, it's your saddlebag I'm afters Bread and cheese and wine, and anything else

you have stored in there that I can eats"

"Eat? Oh, I've something far better for you to eat here under my robe!" The monk

fumbled under his cloththen tore it open as he drew the sword hidden beneath,

revealing a chain-mail coat as the cowl fell back to show an iron helmet. "Taste

steel, robber!" he shouted. "Ho, my men! Out upon him!"

Suddenly they were there, leaping out from behind boulders: a dozen armed

soldiers in leather breastplate: and steel caps. In a flash, Coll realized what

had happened, realized it even as he leaped back among the boulders of his hill

and scrambled to get out of sight. The knight had sent his soldiers across the

plain the night before, while Coll slept, then come himself at first light,

before Coll might have discovered the deception.

But they were stiff from crouching all night, those soldiers, and Coll was warm

and nimble. They came charging up among the rocks, shouting and slipping. Coll

braced himself against one of the unstable boulders, threw all his weight

against it, and the knight cried out in dismay as the huge rock rolled slowly

toward him, gaining speed. He had to forget Coll to turn his donkey aside-but

the soldiers didn't. With a whoop, they converged on Coll.

With a sinking heart, Coll knew his end had come-but with a vast relief, too,

that his lonely hiding was over, and a savage joy that he could take one last

revenge on the knights and their lackeys. He sent up one quick prayer of

contrition, begging to be forgiven for the men he was about to kill in a vain

attempt to save his own life, then swung his sling twice around his head and

loosed. The pebble struck the nearest soldier in the forehead, knocking him down

even as the blood began to flow; then Coll dropped the weapon and blocked a

slash from the next soldier, blocked it and returned it, slicing the man's arm

open. The soldier howled and fell back, but that left more room for the other

eight, and they fell on Coll in a shouting mass. He blocked and slashed with his

spear until it was wrenched from his hand, saw the sword coming up to thrust

through his bowels even as four hands seized his arms and shoulders from behind

...

The yell echoed all about him, the staves knocked the soldiers away, the tough

shaggy ponies struck out with hoof and tooth-and suddenly, Coll stood alone,

half the soldiers fallen and the other four backing away in fear of the two

knights who rose over him on their horses. Incredibly, the smaller was saying,

"Hang in there-and pick up your spear again. They won't try anything against the

three of us."

The bigger man-not big, hugel-was answering the outraged challenge from the

knight in the monk's robe. "Who are you who dare to seize this outlaw from us!"

"Outlaws ourselves, though well-dressed ones." The tall man dismounted. "I am an

outlaw who was knighted once, though, so there's no shame in fighting me.

However, a horse against a donkey is unfair and unworthy, so we'll fight on

foot, shall we?"

The disguised knight took in the size of him, seven feet tall and broad as a

wall, and took a few steps back. "You're much bigger than I am!"

"Yes, but you're wearing armor, and I'm not." The huge knight leveled his sword.

"En garde!"

The knight shouted with anger and spurred his donkey. His men yelled with him

and charged the giant's companion.

Coll shouted in anger of his own and leaped in beside the shorter stranger. He

whirled his spear like a quarterstaff, striking aside one sword after another.

The donkey took one look at the man wall wielding a sword and sat down where he

was. The knight gave a yelp of surprise and half-fell, half climbed off the

beast. The giant laughed and stepped in, slashing. It was a halfhearted cut, but

enough to make the armored knight scramble to guard and swing his sword to

parry. Then the two of them set to in earnest.

Coll parried two more blades, not quite far enoughone of them grazed his arm,

but he ignored it, not caring which stroke killed him, for he had known he was

dead from the moment the false monk drew his sword. He saw a half-second's

opening and struck with the butt of his spear. It jabbed into the belly of the

man to his left; he fell back with a grunt of pain-but another soldier stepped

over him and struck. Coll barely had time to parry the thrust from his right

before he had to turn the jab from his left, then snap his shaft up to block a

blow from the front. He kept the movement going, though, bringing it down hard

to his right, stabbing into the shoulder of his attacker just as the man was

starting a strike of his own. The soldier dropped his spear with a yell of pain,

and Coll fell to one knee, ducking under the stroke from his right, feeling the

blade graze his cheek, waking pain, but he came up to stab from below at the man

in front. His spearhead found blood; then his shoulder struck the man's midriff,

carrying the soldier into the spear of the one behind him.

Now Coll was free, leaping and turning at a fourth soldier. Another slammed into

him from his side; agony streaked the back of his shoulders, but he drove his

spear butt into the man's belly, then yanked it back and cut with his spearhead

as though it were a sword, slashing the arm of the soldier who had been on his

right. The man staggered back, howling and clutching his wound, then tripped

over one of his companions and fell.

And, suddenly, it was over, except for the two knights. The shorter stranger

stood in the midst of three fallen soldiers, blood staining his sleeve and

running down the side of his face, but the grin he gave Coll was sure and

strong. Coll found himself grinning back. Then they turned together to watch the

duel, both ready to leap in and help.

There was no need; it was clear the bigger man would already have won if his

opponent hadn't been wearing armor. As it was, blood was seeping through the

chain mail between breastplate and hip guard, and the giant's doublet was

streaked with crimson. But the big man fought only with a rapier and dagger,

where the knight hewed at him with a two-handed broadsword.

The giant leaped back from a particularly vicious slash, grunting, "Save it for

an oak!" The knight stumbled after his sword, off balance, and the stranger

stepped in with an extra push! The knight cried out and fell, but he rolled onto

his back quickly, slashing as he rolled. The giant swung hard, knocking the

sword on down to the earth, where he set one big foot on the blade. The knight

cursed, trying to tug it free-then froze, seeing the sword tip poised over the

eye-slit in his visor.

"Surrender," the big stranger said softly, "or I strike." The knight cursed him

again and shouted, "Strike, cow ard!"

The stranger's eyes narrowed, but he held the blade poised and said, without

looking, "Dirk, shell this lobster for me, will you?"

"Come on," Dirk said to Coll, and stepped forward to begin unbuckling the

knight's armor. The man cursed him furiously, but didn't dare move for fear of

the sword aimed at his eyes. Coll grinned and stepped in to help.

They threw the plate aside, revealing a heavily muscled man in a sweat-stained

gambeson.

"Now the helmet," the big man instructed, and pulled the sword tip back just

long enough for Dirk to yank the helmet off the man. The knight was yellow

haired and hardfaced, with cold grey eyes, a scar on his lip, and murder in his

eyes.

"Back," the big man instructed.

"Anything you say, Gar." Dirk stepped back.

So did Gar. "Get up," he said to the knight, "and take your sword." He cast his

own aside.

The knight stared in disbelief, then gave a gloating laugh as he scrambled to

his feet, caught up his sword, and struck.

Gar danced back; the blade hissed by an inch from his chest. Before the knight

could recover, Gar leaped in, caught his wrist on the backswing, and jammed the

man's elbow against his own. The knight cried out in surprise and pain; Gar

twitched his arm, and the sword fell from nerveless fingers. Then the big man

leaped back, letting the knight stumble free. He rubbed his arm, glaring up at

Gar, and spat, "Son of a chancred whore!"

"Pleased to meet you." Gar bowed. "Myself, I am a son of a lord."

The knight's face went purple at having his own insult turned back on him; he

shouted with inarticulate rage, starting toward Gar-then pivoting and leaping at

Dirk.

Coll stood frozen, taken by surprise, then shouted-but even as he did, Dirk

swung his arms up, breaking the knight's hold, then cracked a fist into his jaw.

The knight stood poised for a moment, then fell and lay still.

"Sorry about that," Gar said.

Dirk shrugged. "Accidents will happen. Next time, forget the stunts and just

take out the competition, okay?"

"Comment noted," Gar confirmed, then turned to Coll. "I hope you're worth all

this trouble, stranger."

"Not to mention a few flesh wounds." Dirk turned to Coll, too. "Of course, you

took your share. Who are you, anyway?"

Coll stared at them, suddenly realizing that two total strangers had saved him.

"Only Coll," he said, "only a runaway serf and murderer." He raised his spear to

guard. "For your help, I thank you-but why?"

Gar ignored the spear. "We don't like seeing one man attacked by a pack."

"No, definitely not," Dirk agreed. "Of course, there's also the little matter of

our needing a guide. We're from out of town, see, and we figure we can get

around quicker if we have someone who knows the territory."

"Why ... I can guide you through the lands for ten miles about," Coll said

slowly. "I've come to know them well, in this month of running and hiding.

Beyond that, though, I know no more than you do-and if the lords find you

harboring an outlaw, they'll have your heads!"

Dirk shrugged. "They'll have to take them first. Besides, how do we know you're

a criminal? You just bumped into us on the road-what did we know?"

Gar pulled tunic and hose from his saddlebag. "Whoever thought that a man

dressed so well could be on the run?"

Coll stared. "For me?"

"Well, you'll have to take a bath first." Dirk drew a bot- - de from his

saddlebag and came up to Coll, pouring some of the fluid onto a square of cloth.

"Of course, we'd better see about those cuts. Hold still-this will sting."

Coll eyed the cloth with misgiving, but stood his ground. Dirk wiped his

shoulder, and Coll gasped with pain, then set his teeth, determined not to cry

out. Instead, he managed to say, "You really mean to take me as your servant?"

"'Hire' is the term," Gar said helpfully. "You may not know the territory very

far away, but you do know which lord is which, and who hates whom-and I suspect

you could make a rather shrewd guess as to which will attack the other."

Dirk stepped back, turning some sort of black cap onto the bottle in place of a

cork, and Coll relaxed; the stinging was already passing. "Who will attack?" He

shrugged. "Any of the lords. But they will attack the new king, not one another.

They have been patching up their feuds ever since he was crowned, getting ready

to teach him his place."

Gar raised his eyebrows. "I thought your noblemen were always fighting one

another."

"They are, and it's a blessed rest," Coll told him. "Of course, Graf Knabe is

still fighting Count Gascon, and Duke Vladimir is defending his border from the

raids of the Marquis de la Port-but their families have been fighting for as

long as anyone can remember."

"So they certainly wouldn't stop for a mere little thing like a coronation, eh?"

Gar asked.

"Of course not," Dirk answered. "Why waste a perfectly good feud?" He turned

back to Coll. "So it's going to be one of the lords attacking the new king, eh?"

Coll shrugged. "Unless he attacks one of them first."

"In which case, they'll all pile in on top of him?"

"They might," Coll said slowly, "but they also might sit back and wait till he

is weakened. If His Majesty wins, some others will look for excuses to attack

him, while the neighbors of the losing lord divide up his estates."

"Sure. Why not wait till they're both weakened?" Dirk said.

"No reason that I can think of." Coll didn't seem to recognize sarcasm-or didn't

see any place for it. "Some of the village elders favor the one, some the other.

One or two do think the lords will all attack the king without waiting for

cause, though."

"Quite a country," Dirk said to Gar, "when every peasant with a few years'

experience could teach a course in political intrigue."

Gar shrugged. "We learn what we need, to stay alive." Then to Coll, "However,

since Dirk and I haven't learned yet, we'd like to take you along as a teacher."

Coll gave a harsh laugh. "Teacher? When was a serf taught to read or write?"

"Only after the revolution." Dirk's face hardened. Coll frowned. "What is a

revolution?"

"The peasants getting fed up with the lords," Dirk explained. "No, I think you

have all the qualifications we need. What's your name, by the way?"

"Coll," the outlaw said, bemused. "But I tell you, I know nothing! "

"And we tell you that you know everything we need to learn," Gar corrected.

"Besides, we can be sure whose side you're on."

"Yes, you can." Coll's face was stone, but turned to confusion again as he

blurted, "How can you trust me, though? I'm an outlaw! A killer!"

"What kind of choice did you have?" Gar asked.

"I could have let a knight take my sister," Coll said grimly, and felt the

bitterness rise again. "He probably did, anyway."

Gar and Dirk exchanged a glance. Dirk gave a nod and turned back to Coll. "Yeah,

we can trust you. Now about that bath. . ."

Dirk helped Coll bathe-helped by giving him a cake of real, actual soap, some

sort of oily potion to clean his hairthen some brown liquid to rinse it with.

Gar gave him a length of soft, fluffy cloth to dry his body. As Coll pulled on

the leggins-no, hose!-he protested, "What if someone from my village should see

me? Or one of my lord's men?"

"They won't recognize you," Dirk assured him, "or did you have those scars on

your face before you left home?"

"Well ... no." Coll hadn't thought of that.

"Besides, they all know that Coll has yellow hair." Gar drew a polished circle

of metal from his saddlebag. "Look!" Coll looked at the circle, and saw a face

looking back. He stared in shock-it looked very little like the face he had seen

staring back from the still pool only a month before! It was hardened,

scarred-and topped with brown hair! He looked up at Gar wide-eyed. "What magic

is this?"

"Hair dye," Gar explained, "though it does look a little odd with that yellow

beard. We're going to teach you a new skill, Coll."

The serf stared up at him. "A skill?"

"It's called `shaving.' " Dirk unfolded a strange, squareended blade from its

hollow wooden handle. "You do it with a razor, like this. Hold still, now-this

won't hurt much."

Which was more or less true, at least compared to being wounded with a spear-but

it hurt enough that Coll was dismayed to hear he was going to have to do it

every day. When he looked in the mirror again, though, he didn't recognize

himself at all. Why, he was bare-faced as any knight! Or at least a squire...

"You were right! Even my neighbors would never know me now!"

"I'm sure they wouldn't," Dirk agreed. "Still, it never hurts to make sure.

Which way is your home village, Coll?" Coll pointed to the west. "That way, on

Earl Insol's estates."

"Then we'll go east." Dirk mounted his horse. "What lies that way?"

"The king's own demesne," Coll answered.

Dirk and Gar exchanged another glance. "Well," the big man said, as he mounted

his tall roan, "no matter who attacks whom, we'll be there to see it. Do they

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AWizardInWarAWizardInWarTheThirdChronicleofMagnusD'Armand,RogueWizardByChristophrStasheffISBN:0-812-53649-51Diceadidn'theartheknightapproachinguntilitwastoolate-eventhoughhewaslaughingandjokingwithhismen-atarms-soshewastardyturningherfacetothewall,andtheknightespiedher."Hola!Comehere,prettylass!"hec...

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Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 3 - A Wizard In War

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