The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2) Read online

  “Meanwhile, we don’t suspect a thing,” Nathaliey said. “This man offered help, but said he couldn’t accompany us. The bandits sound threatening, but not too threatening. That way we don’t make a run for it, we try to get our lamed horse up the road.”

  Even in the failing light, it was easy to see the man flushing. “Now listen here—”

  “And that bit about the fairy fort was a nice touch,” Markal added. “Gets the superstitious thinking about wights and other old magic. Gets them worried, makes them extra susceptible.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” she said, “but I’ll bet you’re right. Such an innocent-sounding detail, but clever. This is a good tactic for an undersized band of men when you don’t know exactly who you’ll be laming on the road. If it’s someone dangerous, you circle around and warn your friends, and the four of you vanish into the night.”

  “The Harvester take you both if the bandits don’t first,” the man said with an indignant huff. He jerked on the reins of his donkey and made to push past them.

  Markal held up a hand and blocked the man’s way. “Before you go, there’s something in your bags I’d like a look at.” He reached for the bundles. “It’s a ring or a chain or some other small token. Something you stole. It will save us both time if you hand it over instead of making us search.”

  The man shoved him back with a forearm. There was a good deal of strength in it, and while Markal had spent years building muscle and toughening sinew while laboring in Memnet’s gardens, he suspected this one would best him in a fight. Assuming that Markal had been alone, which he was not, and if it were a purely physical conflict, which it would not be.

  The man pulled out a knife when he saw that Markal wouldn’t stand aside. It wasn’t a crofter’s knife, something with a wood handle tied with leather cord and a blade that had been sharpened and resharpened over the years, but a fine little dagger with a small jewel at the hilt.

  “I’m warning you,” he said. “I have friends.”

  “The friends who are not lurking up the road?” Markal said. “Who are not bandits intending to knock us over the head and rob us of our horses and possessions? Nice knife you have there—looks like a merchant’s dagger. Did you murder him or just rob him and leave him for dead?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. He looked worried now.

  “I’ll tell you what I told Memnet on the Spice Road,” Nathaliey said from behind Markal’s shoulder. “You kill a few of these robbers, and you do your fellow travelers a big favor. And not just travelers. It would be a service to any honest folk who live in these parts.”

  The bandit made a lunge for Markal. Nathaliey waved her hand, and the man made a futile stab in the wrong direction, got himself turned around, and spun about several times, like a dog going after its own tail. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and took a step back in alarm.

  “There’s a drought here,” Markal told Nathaliey. “Farms have blown away in the dust, entire villages have been abandoned, and the alternative to thieving might be selling yourself to the king’s road crew for a bit of daily oatmeal and a mug of sour beer.”

  “And you think that bands of thieves roaming openly through the countryside is going to help the other drought survivors get along better?”

  “A valid point,” Markal conceded. “But even if we were to kill them—and I don’t like bloodshed unless it’s absolutely necessary—our . . . methods for killing are likely to attract the kind of attention we’ve been avoiding for the past few weeks.”

  “Also a valid point,” Nathaliey said. “But before you send this one on his way with our blessing, I want whatever he’s carrying. Can you get it without killing him?”

  “I think so. Probably.”

  “Help!” the man cried, apparently tired of waiting for his companions to come looking for him on their own. “Thieves! Murderers!”

  His donkey shied backward from the cries and brayed, which set off Markal’s and Nathaliey’s horses, who pulled at their tethers where they’d been tied up on the side of the road. Nathaliey went back to calm them, muttering something about Markal taking care of matters quickly, as she was hungry and the horses needed seeing to. Markal wasn’t ready to turn the encounter violent, and stayed in the middle of the small country lane, blocking the man from escaping, but otherwise doing nothing to engage him further.

  Three more men trotted up the road a minute later, breathing heavily. One held a cudgel, another a dagger like the first, and the third a scimitar, battered but with an edge. The tallest of the three newcomers looked much like the older man with the donkey. The first man’s son, most likely.

  “Only two?” the tall one asked. “They’re not even armed.”

  “Look at the sword on their saddlebags.”

  The son did so, and his eyes narrowed. He took in Markal and Nathaliey, and his expression turned dismissive. “We’re not killers,” he said.

  “Good,” Markal said. “You never know in these parts. Neither are we.”

  “Give us your horses and all your possessions and we’ll let you go.”

  “Oh, so you don’t kill directly,” Markal said. “You let starvation and exposure do it. That’s a relief. My cost is lower. I want something in your baggage. Something you stole, and I’m going to steal it back.”

  “Are you mad? Who are you anyway?”

  “I’m the vizier of the khalif of Aristonia, and this is—” He glanced at Nathaliey, who had come up beside him. She frowned and shook her head. “—well, another vizier. Or she will be soon. Her memory is lacking, and she can’t hold the khalif’s law code in her head.”

  Nathaliey snorted. “You’re terrible, and it’s obvious we’re not viziers. Anyway, they’re not going to hand it over. Just take the blasted thing. If you don’t, I’m going to use Chantmer’s hammers and knock some sense into them.”

  “Don’t you dare cast volans malleis. If anyone is out there listening, they’ll be on us by morning.”

  “Then do it your way, just do it quickly.”

  The older man had pushed his donkey behind him while he kept the dagger in hand. The other three spread to the sides, moving as if to flank their two victims, who hadn’t moved. Neither did the bandits appear anxious to attack. Only four men—no margin for error even against two lone travelers. And it made Markal all the more convinced they were thieves by circumstance, not by nature. Probably all four had family of some kind to feed.

  The other three glanced at the tall one Markal had identified as the first man’s son, as if waiting for a signal. The leader of this little band, apparently.

  “Last chance,” the young man said. “Think long and hard if this is how you want to trade your lives.”

  “We’re not trading anything,” Markal said. “I’m only trying to convince you to give us the trinket before there’s trouble. Look at us. Do we seem worried? Are we acting like people who are about to be robbed? Doesn’t that give you pause? Either we’re sun-touched after so many days on the road, or we’re more dangerous than we look. So I would suggest that you do some long and hard thinking if you want to survive.”

  “They’re waiting for someone,” the young man said. “Take them before it happens.”

  “No,” Markal said with a groan. “We’re not waiting for someone. That’s your tactic, not ours.”

  But the men were closing now, and there was no time left to negotiate. He had already rolled back his sleeves as the men started to fan out, and now he closed his eyes to concentrate.

  The last time he’d cast this spell, most of the strength had boiled away as his doubts crippled him. This time, perhaps because of the speed with which he’d called it up, he didn’t have a chance to worry—anyway, these were just hungry bandits, not marauders or Veyrian soldiers.

  Blood rose from pores along his forearms and rolled toward his palms. The incantation came out in the old tongue.

  Let your limbs turn weary. May sleep cloud your mind.

  More pain t
han he was expecting. More magic, too. Too late, he tried to hold it back, but it was already rolling out in a wave. He opened his eyes to see the four men drop in place as if their souls had been sucked from their bodies.

  The donkey fell too, going down with a frightened honk, and lay on its side, feebly trying to right itself before its head sank to the dirt. The horses collapsed on the side of the road with a pair of thuds.

  Only Nathaliey was still awake, and she sank to her knees with a groan and looked like she was going to fall face-first in the dirt. Markal wiped his hands on the cloth at his waist as he hurried to her side and grabbed her. She shook her head, opened her eyes halfway, then shut them as her head nodded.

  “No, don’t,” she murmured as he tried to lift her to her feet. “So tired. So very . . . tired.”

  And then she was out. Markal eased her to the ground, rose, and looked around in frustration.

  The sun had finally dipped below the horizon, and the sky had darkened to a blue-black, with stars beginning to speckle the night sky. No moon yet—it would rise above the plain to the northeast in about two hours.

  Meanwhile, the air was humming with the aftereffects of Markal’s spell. So many, many times he brought up his magic only to waste its strength in the casting. This time, he’d had the opposite problem. Too much power—he’d have put down a small army of Veyrian soldiers with that spell—and that was its own kind of lack of control, wasn’t it?

  The magic would be rolling across the surrounding countryside. No garden walls to contain it here. The right person, someone who knew how to listen, would hear it ten miles away, ringing like a gong. And it would continue ringing for some time, then cling to him as he traveled. Linger here, too, for hours.

  “Well done, Markal,” he said aloud. “You have just called out a challenge to your enemies.”

  Chapter Four

  Markal didn’t have time for niceties, so rather than untie the donkey’s burdens, he took the dagger from the old man and cut the cords to the larger of the two bundles. Once they were on the ground, he pawed through the possessions looking for the object spotted with Nathaliey’s seekers. He only found mundane items: a belt, a man’s soiled shirt, an empty wineskin, well-worn boots, and some socks that had been mended again and again until they should have been thrown out. Also a small bag of flour, which he set aside to replenish their own stores, and a couple of moldy apples, which he didn’t. Where was the object he’d spotted earlier?

  He wished he had Nathaliey’s seeker to hover above the goods and pluck it out by its magical glow, but he wasn’t sure it would work at such fine detail, not with the stink of his own sleeping spell still hovering about them.

  She groaned behind him. “Oh, my head.”

  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

  “What in the name of Memnet’s beard did you do to me?” She struggled to her feet and took in her surroundings. “Oh, I remember. Did you mean to do it like that?”

  “Put them asleep for the next six hours, knock out my companion and my horses, and sound a trumpet of magic to the gray marauders who’ve been hunting us the last two weeks? Oh, sure. That’s exactly what I intended.”

  “All right, all right. It’s not like I have great control, either. Move out of the way and let me in there.”

  Nathaliey cut the cord on the other bundle while he continued his search. He rifled through the pockets of a pair of farmer’s trousers and moved on to a shirt folded into a bundle. A moment later, she drew in her breath.

  “Look at this.”

  She held up a barbarian-style breastplate with smooth lines and fine workmanship. Armor for a knightly type of warrior. It was battered and nicked, and the straps had been cut. Moments later, she pulled out a single gauntlet.

  That side looked far more promising than the old boots and such Markal was searching through, so he joined her. More gear from a downed knight, and a prickle worked through him. There was something familiar about all of this. Before he could consider further on that point, Nathaliey straightened.

  “Got it!”

  She held a chain with a silver crescent moon on it, and he knew even before she handed it over that this was the magical object they’d spotted earlier. It was warm to the touch and emitted a low, comforting hum. What’s more, he recognized the talisman.

  “Whatever it is,” Nathaliey said, “it can’t be very powerful. Because it didn’t keep this poor fellow from being run down by bandits and murdered for his armor and gear.”

  “The bandits didn’t kill the owner of this pendant.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I’ve seen it before. And I know how its owner was killed. It wasn’t by four clumsy bandits, that’s for sure.”

  “Are you saying . . .? Oh! Bronwyn! I remember—I saw it too.” Nathaliey lifted the breastplate. “And this was also hers, wasn’t it?”

  Yes, and he knew why it was so battered, too. A swarm of Veyrian soldiers had knocked Bronwyn down after Soultrup slipped from her grasp. They’d stood over her, hacking and stabbing until they’d finally killed her.

  “The only question is how these bandits got hold of it,” Markal said.

  He rubbed a thumb over the silver crescent moon, and was tempted to slip the chain around his neck to see what would happen, but the last time he’d picked up a magical item—the red sword itself—it had gone badly. Better wait until he’d sussed out its powers, minor as they may be. Instead, he walked back to his saddlebags where they sat next to the sleeping horses and tucked it into a small coin purse he carried with him.

  “The pendant was in this pocket.” Nathaliey held up a pair of trousers. “Weren’t these Bronwyn’s, too? It must have gone undiscovered all this time.”

  “But how did they get her gear in the first place?”

  Yet even as he asked, it wasn’t hard to imagine a scenario. After Bronwyn’s death, Markal had fled the king’s encampment carrying her sword and escaped into the woods before the enemy could catch him. They’d hunted him through the Sacred Forest, then quickly brought a massive force to bear on Memnet’s gardens. The king had had other things on his mind than the paladin’s body.

  Once Bronwyn was dead, some low-level Veyrian soldier must have sacked her gear and sold it on the road to someone who was then robbed by these four men. Or maybe they’d been the ones to buy it in the first place, or . . . well, any of a number of possibilities, none of them overly strange.

  “We don’t have time to question these fools,” Nathaliey said. “Not with as loud as you cast that sleeping spell.”

  They did a cursory search through the rest of the thieves’ possessions, taking a little of the food, but leaving everything else, including Bronwyn’s gear, which was really just her clothes and a partial set of armor. It was more than the bandits would have done for them, and more than they deserved.

  Nathaliey cast a small spell on the horses to wake them, and another to heal the lame mare’s injured hoof beyond what the poultice of honey and herbs could accomplish alone, and they set off again before the moon rose. They traveled carefully at first as they watched for more of the bandits’ traps, then picked up the pace when they were safely to the west.

  “We should have killed them,” Nathaliey said some time later.

  “Didn’t we already discuss that? When did you get so bloodthirsty, anyway?”

  “Not for the reason you think. They’re fast asleep on the road—easy prey for whoever finds them. If that’s the marauders, they’ll torture those fools until they talk.”

  “Hmm.” Markal hadn’t considered that. “And what could the bandits tell them? A pair of travelers with some magic, and not much else. But we’ve already fought the marauders, and it’s no secret that we’re on the road—they’ve been hunting us since we left the gardens.”

  “But they don’t know we have the sword. Didn’t you see the bandits taking note of it?”

  That was another good point. They’d cast some minor hiding spells on t
op of the sword before leaving the gardens, and had hoped to slip through the mountains and into the barbarian lands to find Bronwyn’s company of paladins before the enemy realized Soultrup had left.

  “We could go back,” Nathaliey added. “We’re only twenty minutes down the road. What about that incantation we were studying in the vaults? Something about tarda memoria, wasn’t it? I’ve got enough strength left to speak the spell if you feed me the words. We’ll clean their minds, wipe the memory of the encounter.”

  “Tarda memoria? I can’t remember the entire incantation,” Markal confessed. “It’s a tricky one, difficult to hold.”

  “Well, then. Only one other way to be sure they don’t talk.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t have it in me to cut their throats while they sleep.”

  Nathaliey fell silent for so long that he looked over to make sure she hadn’t slipped away while he was lost in thought to take matters into her own hands, then catch up with him later. But she was still there.

  “I suppose I don’t have it in me, either,” she said. “I should though. This is brutal business—if we’re too merciful, we’ll end up cutting our own throats.”

  They continued in silence after that. Markal was tired. Bone-deep tired, and wanting to sleep, to settle into his bed along the forest path back home and let the magic of that place heal him. Between a lack of sleep—they’d only slept an hour or two the previous day—casting spells to strengthen the horses, and dealing with the four men, he was ready to collapse.

  Fortunately, there was some honey and bread left from home, and they stopped to share it out, which strengthened them a little, but that was the last of it. From here on out, it would be provisions they’d either purchased on the road or stolen from the would-be thieves behind them.

  They resisted the urge to cast another seeker as the night wore on, but stopped periodically to listen for pursuit. Marauders could travel quietly, but there was only so much you could do to silence a full company of riders, and they should have enough time to slip from the road and conceal themselves with magic if they heard anything.