Sword Saint Page 5

  Everything was already wet from the rain earlier in the day, which made things both worse and better. It was easy enough to cover the blood, but until it rained again and washed it away, the clearing would have a taint.

  They ascended the stone staircase through the pines, past a pair of small houses with sod roofs—dwellings for new fraters and the rare visitor, but empty at the moment—and then into the higher clearing around the armory and mill.

  The scene looked like a massacre. Men lay draped over and on top of each other. Limbs had been severed entirely, and some soldiers had lost their heads. One man had seen his belly opened from groin to throat, and he’d apparently crawled several feet before he died, spilling his innards behind him.

  Improbably, she spotted a single boot standing upright a good ten feet from the nearest body, and a man’s tunic, severed from his body, had caught flight in a breeze and hung fluttering from a low branch. The scene was fresh enough that it hadn’t yet attracted flies, and still carried a tangy, metallic scent. She pulled in her sowen like a cloak drawn against an icy storm.

  Narina took a closer look at the enemy’s weapons before looking for her father. There were broken spears and shattered swords, none of them temple made, all rubbish from the lowlands. Average men, poor weapons—did they think they would defeat a bladedancer with such as this? And they hadn’t been facing a mere frater, either, but the master sohn. So much death, all of it unnecessary.

  “Father?” she said. “Are you still here?”

  “Over here, daughter.”

  He was sitting cross-legged next to the water mill, which sat rigid and unmoving, pegged against the current. More bodies lay in the millrace around the big wheel, and it seemed that the ferocity of the attack had pushed Master Joskasef up to the edge of the stream, but here the attackers had died all the same.

  Father’s back was to her, and his long white ponytail, bound with brass rings, was flecked with blood on the ends. More blood lay in splatters across his tunic and the side of his face. He’d laid the dragon blade to his right and the demon blade to the left. They were coated with gore, and now resting directly on the mud instead of cleaned and placed across his lap as she’d have expected.

  She rarely saw Father’s blades out of their sheaths these days, and never treated with such careless regard. Generally, he trained with blunted practice swords to maintain his aging skills. She couldn’t see the sheaths. Where had he put them?

  “Take as much time to center your sowen as you need,” she said. “We’ll start the cleanup, and then we can talk.”

  “It’s centered. That part was never in doubt.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder and felt the bones underneath it, the muscles still lean and wiry, but not as substantial as they’d been eight or ten years earlier, when she’d been Gyorgy’s age. He’d still been strong and fluid and powerful in those days. Miklos hadn’t been entirely wrong in his assessment of her father; his strength was not what it had been. Yet it had been more than enough to handle the captain’s benighted company of soldiers.

  “Don’t blame yourself for killing these,” she said. “I tried to prevent it, but they wouldn’t be turned aside. This mad idea had nothing to do with us, you know that.”

  “I don’t blame myself. I don’t blame the men, either—they were obeying orders from whatever fool sent them to die.”

  “They’re Lord Zoltan’s men.”

  “A greedy, grasping crowlord. Still, it was a surprise. Zoltan’s no longer a headstrong young man—he’s old enough to know better, crowlord or not. Has anyone else been harmed?”

  “No, nobody. There’s nobody else around, and Gyorgy and I are untouched.”

  “That is good, daughter. Thank you for coming so quickly. I wish your sister were here, too.”

  There was something heavy in his voice. If he wasn’t casting blame, if he had maintained his sowen through the carnage and its aftermath—something Narina wasn’t sure she could have endured herself without letting her focus slip—then what was that dark tone?

  “Gyorgy,” she said. “Start dragging the bodies into a pile. Put them over there, where we stack the logs floated down to the mill. We’ll burn the dead in place.” Back to her father, she said, “The first thing is to clean your swords.”

  “Yes, do that please.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, daughter.”

  Narina hesitated. She’d never touched his weapons. In fact, she’d never touched any master swords, and she hadn’t yet forged her own. Her swords were powerful in their own way, with good, strong blades, and the workmanship on the hilts and sheaths was fine enough. But she wasn’t satisfied yet, not yet ready to call her work complete. The other two sohns in the bladedancer school, Abelard and Katalinka, had completed theirs, and Narina was starting to get impatient to see it done.

  She expected to feel a great thrill when she picked up her father’s weapons, and was vaguely disappointed at the first touch. There was no humming in her mind, no sense that the swords could fight without her guiding hand.

  Still, they were the finest she’d ever touched, perfectly balanced, and imbued with Father’s sowen, as he’d folded it into the soft cores of the blades, the harder, outer layers, the hilt, and even the carved wooden sheaths, one a milky white, the other glossy black. It was an honor to handle them at last. When she dipped them in the water, they came out gleaming, edges sharp and unmarred as if they’d not just hacked through sixty men: armor, weapons, and bone.

  Narina glanced back, expecting to find her father watching, but he kept his eyes closed and his breathing even and low, and from the sound of his pulse and the slow, almost languid pace of his heartbeat, she began to wonder if he needed to meditate simply to overcome the shock of battle.

  She set the two swords crossing each other on his lap. He still didn’t move or open his eyes.

  “Are you all right, Father? Your sowen seems intact—it feels tight and self-directed, but it’s not dissolving.”

  “No, there is nothing wrong with my sowen.” Again, that heaviness in his voice.

  “Gyorgy and I will clean up the mess, and we’ll take you up to the baths. Or would you rather visit the shrine first?”

  “I’m shattered, Narina. I’m not coming out of this one.”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about? Of course you are.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened like this.”

  “How many years since you fought and killed? Your concentration was too intense. Now you’re gripping your sowen too tightly. Let it relax. Come on, I’ll help you up.”

  “You still don’t understand. Look at my back, daughter.”

  Narina bent and tugged at his tunic. The gray linen was woven with figures of the white feathered demigods of the mountains doing battle with smaller figures of fire and lava. Dragons and demons. Across this material, already red with the flames spitting from demons, was splattered blood from the fight. It took a moment to see the dark, shiny streak on his lower left side. Her mouth went dry.

  “You’ve been wounded.”

  “A spear. I saw it coming, but my blades were engaged with other enemies. By the time I was ready to address the threat, it was too late. It pierced me.”

  “You’ll do better at the shrine. It’s warmer there, and your body will heal faster.”

  “No. It’s not healing. I’ve staunched the blood only through command of my sowen, but I’ve tried and cannot begin the healing. The wound is too deep, and I am too old, it would seem.” Father’s voice turned soft. “Daughter, I am dying. I only have a few minutes left.”

  A terrible ripple of shock passed through her. All of her training, her years of mastery of body and soul, drained away. Her knees buckled, and it was all she could do to keep from falling down next to him.

  How had this happened? How could he have possibly been undone by a single spear thrust? His enemies had been common soldiers. Only Miklos had carried a temple-made weapon, a sword of the firewalk
ers, and he’d never joined the fight.

  Gyorgy was still working, some distance away, clearing the bodies closest to the path. She snapped her fingers and told him impatiently to come. He trotted over, apparently hearing the urgency in her voice as a frown deepened on his face.

  “Run up to the gardens and tell the fraters and elders to come at once. Then run as fast as you can for the high meadows. I want as many people as possible here before it’s too late. Oh, if only my sister weren’t away—Katalinka will be devastated.”

  “Before what’s too late?” Gyorgy asked.

  Narina glanced at her father, who was still perfectly still, cross-legged as if meditating or in a post-fight fugue, but holding his sowen so tightly was the only thing keeping him alive.

  “The master is dying.”

  The boy stared at Joskasef. “Demons and demigods,” he whispered. “How?”

  “A wound, a spear—it doesn’t matter. He says it won’t heal, and there’s no time to spare. Go, quickly. Run.”

  “Daughter,” her father said when Gyorgy had run off. Narina bent by his side, and he continued. “Someone knew. These men. The attackers.”

  “They knew the time to come, you mean? When we’d be alone down here?”

  “Yes. It was a fool plan, but it was a plan.”

  Indeed. Miklos had known somehow that most of the fraters would be away and that the temple was practically unguarded. The man’s attempt to steal the weapons had still been doomed, but he had planned it with some foreknowledge. He must have known, too, that Narina and her apprentice would be in that intense phase of sword making that would keep them all day at the forge. His plan all along had been to distract her while he sent others to the armory.

  How had Miklos known where to find the weapons? That was a question in and of itself. It wasn’t as though the bladedancers sketched maps of the temple lands and distributed them to the crowlords of the plains.

  Most likely, Miklos had hoped his men would find the armory unguarded, but he must have known the master sohn might be around. Perhaps Joskasef would be up the hillside at the baths, where he went to rest his tired bones in the steaming water as it emerged from the ground, but if he were nearby, he might hear their approach. They must be prepared to ambush and kill him quickly if they were going to get the weapons.

  They’d known a good deal. Their only flaw was underestimating the skill of a master sohn, and that had undone them. The bodies lying strewn in their dozens attested to that. Unfortunately, the temple victory had come at a terrible cost.

  “Someone knows the rhythms of the temple,” she said. “We’ll change them—that much is easy enough. And the weapons.” Narina nodded to herself. “Send them down to Lord Balint without delay. Then there will be no temptation.”

  “Yes, but who?” her father asked. “Who knew? Who helped these men?”

  Her mind shifted. Another sword school? No, the warbrands and firewalkers had no trouble with the bladedancers. Then maybe a frater who’d left the temple, unable to bear the demands and determined to offer his services as a sell-sword. Possible, but unlikely.

  “Deliver the weapons to Stronghand, then meet with this Zoltan,” Father said. “He’s the one who sent these villains, yes? Find out what he wants. Once you have the information, you’ll know what to do next.”

  “Talk to the man? You want me to talk?”

  He reached up and gripped her hand. “Don’t start a fight. It’s too dangerous. The signs are already here. . .they might. . .we do not want a war. You, your sister, Abelard. You must promise you won’t. . .” He let out a groan and his hand fell to the ground and clawed at the dirt.

  “We won’t start a war,” she promised. “Of course not. But someone must answer for this. We need answers.”

  “Yes.”

  Narina’s eyes kept falling to the wound at his back. She reached out for him, touched his shoulder again, and remembered all the times he’d stood behind her, as she was standing behind him now. His firm guidance, never hard, but not permissive, either. Words in her ear, his muscles guiding hers as he took her hand to show her how to hold a sword, how to wield a hammer at the forge. How to position her body for combat. How to feel for the auras that filled their world and bind them to her sowen to give her mastery over all.

  “Father, is there not something we could do? Perhaps—”

  “There is no time. Listen. You will know what to do—you are the master sohn now, and you will lead the others.”

  “You mean Katalinka. She’s the new master.”

  “I mean you.”

  “Or Sohn Abelard. He would be a better choice than me.”

  “You.”

  “Father, please. Not me.”

  “No time to argue, my daughter. I have only moments left. Take my swords.”

  “I’ll melt them. Return them to the elements.”

  “Not yet, no. Later, when you return from meeting Zoltan. You will forge your own master blades. Until then. . .”

  “I don’t have the skill to forge them. I need you to show me.” Narina’s words came out as a plea. “Please don’t go, Father. I need more time.”

  “No time, Narina. None at all.”

  Suddenly, he swayed. She threw herself at him with a cry and caught him before he could tumble forward into the stream. He opened his eyes at last. His face was lined, his lips had thinned, age spots blotched his forehead, and now he was pale from loss of blood. But his gray eyes were as sharp as they’d ever been, and stared into hers as a slight smile touched his lips.

  “My daughter.”

  “Father.” Narina cradled his head as it slipped into her lap.

  His smile didn’t go away, even as the light faded from his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  Andras didn’t have long to wait. Still hiding with his son on the wooded hillock above the post road, he’d barely had time to salve the rat bites on his dogs before the first man staggered out of the woods and onto the road. His scalp hung loose like a grisly hat that had slipped askew.

  “Da, look!” Ruven said.

  “Hush. Voice down.”

  One after another they stumbled out, each clenching a wound more serious than the last, until there were half a dozen men in all, victims of whatever fight they’d stirred up at the bladedancer temple. They stood gasping and panting and blinking in the late afternoon sun.

  One of the men collapsed, and another bent over him and cut away his trouser leg with a dagger, then eased off his boot while the injured man screamed in pain. The soldier with the dagger cut the piece of trouser legging into strips and used them to fashion a crude tourniquet to staunch the bleeding of a nasty wound that ran from below the knee almost to the ankle.

  Ruven whispered a frightened prayer to the demigods, and when Andras put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, he felt him trembling. He leaned in and whispered.

  “Hold steady. Don’t draw their attention up here. If we keep our nerve, we’ll be all right.”

  “Aye,” the boy whispered back.

  Andras glanced back to make sure the dogs were behaving themselves. They looked bored, or even annoyed, and while Stretch and Notch sniffed at the air as if picking out the scent of human blood, none left the spot where they’d been ordered to wait.

  “Where are the rest of the men?” Ruven asked.

  “Dead, I imagine. Cut down by bladedancers, and with nothing to show for it. They didn’t steal any of our lord’s weapons, that’s for sure. Who would think to challenge a sword temple?”

  “But there were so many.”

  Andras nodded. “The rats on Valter’s farm had a better chance today than these fellows, poor devils.”

  “It’s different when they’re people. I wish I hadn’t seen it.”

  “You can look away.”

  “I feel like I should watch,” Ruven said.

  Andras’s son loved his job ratting, and would dance and shout and whistle to get the lurchers chasing after the runners, the would-be escape
es. All morning, his face had been flushed with excitement as father, son, and dogs went about their job, but now he had a sort of pale, almost sick look about him.

  “Half-dead men isn’t so different from half-dead rats,” Ruven said, in a voice low enough that Andras had to strain to hear. “Like the ones we use to train pups and get ’em to bite. Especially that man with the bloody head—is he gonna live?”

  “He’ll live,” Andras said. “A man can lose his scalp easier than he can lose a hand.”

  Ruven wasn’t the only one whose stomach was turning at the bloodshed. In spite of the boy’s words, Andras wondered if he should send his son back with the dogs anyway. Ruven had seen plenty in his life already; what could be gained by seeing the results of this bloodshed? Moments later, he was glad he hadn’t, as the boy made a clever observation.

  “That one who bandaged up the man’s leg isn’t injured at all,” Ruven said. “Must not have done any fighting.”

  His son was right. Andras stared, wondering. The fellow had a massive two-handed sword that he’d shrugged off his back while he attended to his wounded companion, and now strapped back into place.

  Not only was the man free of wounds, but he didn’t have blood splatter on him—at least none that was visible from a distance—and didn’t carry himself with the weary look of someone who’d been in battle. In fact, he seemed altogether too calm for someone whose companions had all been slaughtered, whether he’d personally witnessed it or not.

  Andras made a decision. “I need to talk to them.”

  Ruven’s voice rose. “What, why?”

  “Shh. Quiet.”

  “But Da—”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to stand up and start waving my arms. But they have to get their horses, and they’ll find those at the farm we ratted. I’ll go down, make like I’m Valter’s neighbor, and see what I can dig up before they ride off.” Andras played with his sigil ring with its crow and war hammer. “Lord Balint would expect nothing less.”