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

  A table sat in the center of the room, with a massive book lying open across it. Curious, Chantmer approached and bent over the pages. Several leaves of the thick vellum had been removed, leaving a neat ridge where they’d been cut.

  “Is this it? The Book of Gods?” he asked.

  “How many cut books do you suppose we have?” Jethro said, and there was more than a touch of defensiveness in the old archivist’s voice.

  “I don’t know, you tell me. Once the necromancer sent one enemy to steal from our library, why not another? The first thief slipped in right under your nose, after all.”

  Memnet laid a hand on his shoulder. “Gently, Chantmer.”

  “Apologies, archivist. The protection in this room is as strong as ever. I didn’t mean to imply you had been neglecting your work.”

  “It’s stronger than it was, actually,” Jethro said. “Such little magic that we command has been set to strengthening our defenses. We’ve done little else these past weeks.”

  “The defenses certainly feel adequate,” Memnet said. “But they are obviously flawed, or the enemy wouldn’t have gained entrance.”

  Jethro winced, and it was apparent that Memnet’s words stung more than Chantmer’s open challenge.

  “Now that we’ve lost the walled garden,” Memnet continued, “there is no better-protected spot in the order than this. But we’ve seen these past months that our defenses can be breached. And I don’t like having our library sitting literally beneath the enemy’s feet. They know it’s here, and it’s only a matter of time before they make another attempt.”

  “What are you suggesting, Master?” Jethro asked. “Move the archives to the garden?”

  “It would be safer,” Chantmer agreed.

  “That is not an assumption I would make,” Memnet said. “It isn’t the distance from the enemy that gives a fortress its strength, but the height and width of its walls. And the walls here are higher than back home.”

  “But Master,” Chantmer protested, “it isn’t merely the size of the fortress that matters, either. It’s the strength of the army within its walls. Our army is at the gardens, not here.” He waved his hand at the archivist. “With apologies, friend.”

  “I understand,” Jethro said. “We maintain a guard post, nothing more.”

  “Read for me from the Book of Gods,” Memnet told Chantmer.

  “Which section?”

  “Anything will do.”

  Chantmer bent over the volume and touched a finger to the page. The vellum was warm to the touch, humming, almost alive. An illustrator had decorated each leaf with snaking vines, animals fancifully drawn, and strange, magical beasts, all done with vibrant colors of azure, emerald, and crimson. The letters themselves were neatly formed and artistically sculpted at the same time, yet when Chantmer tried to read the words, they swam in and out of focus.

  He got one word, skipped another, backtracked to repeat it, fumbled the next three, and started over. Finally, he gave up in frustration.

  “You know I can’t do it like this. I need to meditate first, and it helps if someone feeds me the words one at a time.”

  “Would you like my help?” Jethro asked.

  “No, I would not.”

  Memnet scooted Chantmer out of the way. The wizard bent over the page, traced the words with his finger, and began reading in a clear, steady voice with no assistance or preparation whatsoever.

  “You make it look so easy,” Chantmer said when the wizard had stopped. “But I suppose that was the point, right? To show how much better you are at it than I am. Which is why I’m still an apprentice.”

  “Chantmer, I’ve been at this for centuries. Of course I’m better. If I weren’t, you’d be the head of the order, not me. But that isn’t the point.”

  “Then what is, Master?” he asked, somewhat mollified.

  “If we were to take the Book of Gods to the garden, my reading would be more like yours. I could do it, but only with a good deal of preparation. Meditation and the like, as you said.”

  “And I suppose that it would be pure gibberish to the likes of me.”

  “Yes, exactly.” Memnet closed the book and nodded at Jethro, who hefted it and carried it to a shelf. “This room functions as more than a mere fortress. What I could accomplish here in a week would take me a year outside this room. What would take you a month would cost a full decade. This library is its own center of power, the work of not only the Crimson Path, but the order that preceded it.”

  “So it must be protected at all costs.”

  “Yes, Chantmer.”

  “And that’s why you’ve brought me here, isn’t it? To care for the library.”

  A smile touched Memnet’s lips. “And this is why I know you will be a true wizard someday, and not an acolyte. You are too clever to be held down.”

  Chantmer wasn’t amused by Memnet’s teasing. He could only think about Narud and Markal, whom the master had declared wizards. If they’d been better than him, he could have stood for it, but his power was greater than both of theirs put together.

  Yes, but what about your knowledge? a small, bitter voice asked. How many spells have you mastered without Markal or an archivist feeding you the words?

  And that, he realized, as Memnet turned to question Jethro about the goings-on in the palace, was the master’s unstated purpose. Chantmer would be here, guarding the library, and at the same time, would be surrounded by all these books. Memnet must know that, spurred by his jealousy of Markal and Narud’s accomplishment, Chantmer would redouble his efforts to master the incantations and other arcane knowledge needed to progress from apprentice to full wizard.

  Jethro asked a question that Chantmer didn’t quite pick up, lost as he was in his thoughts, but he heard Memnet’s definite answer.

  “If that happens, you do whatever it takes to save the archives. The stone walls themselves are nothing. The order itself is only slightly more important. If necessary, we will sacrifice our very lives,” Memnet added. “Because whatever else happens, the works in this room must be preserved. The walls of a library can be rebuilt and new wizards trained. But knowledge, once lost, is gone forever.”

  Chapter Six

  Late spring, two months before the slaying of Bronwyn of Arvada on the king’s highway.

  Captain Wolfram waited outside the barbican while his servants assembled themselves. Some of them had rushed forward after he’d been announced, eager to embrace him after his long absence, including his old nursemaid, nearly sixty and grandmotherly in appearance these days, but they stopped when they saw that he was mounted, with his shield in hand and his sword sheathed, but at the ready. The other servants looked more circumspect as they emerged from the small chatelet and studied not only their master but the men and women he’d brought with him.

  Six other paladins had accompanied him. They were dirty from the road, and grim-faced after a long brutal struggle in the mountain passes that had seen the loss of several of their companions. The others waited until he gave the signal, then joined him in dismounting.

  Because he’d been away for so many months, he was able to study the family’s chatelet with a fresh eye, and what he saw did not please him. The gate towers needed repair, and ivy covered the wall behind the moat, giving an appearance that had once seemed homey and garden-like, but now presented nothing so much as an easy way for enemies to scale the walls and gain entrance to the courtyard of the small castle. The water in the moat was low, and outbuildings crowded its banks, and the wall walk was too narrow, with short, ineffective crenelations.

  An army could sack the place without much trouble, and his father’s castle on the opposite side of the kingdom was nearly as bereft of effective defensive structures. Situated far from either the hill country or the northern marches, the villagers and lords of the small free kingdom of Arvada were fortunate to face few threats of attack.

  He took in the crowd. “Is this everyone? Where is old Franklin?”

  “He
passed away, Sir Wolfram,” one of the kitchen girls, Franklin’s niece, said. “A bad ache in his tooth, and then he took the chills. Two days later, he was gone.”

  His tone softened. “That is a shame. I am sorry to hear it.”

  Franklin had worked the family stables for thirty years, and while he’d grown too old to shoe the bigger draft horses, he was a mature and calming force among the younger hands. There seemed to be other changes, too, he realized as he saw one young woman with a babe in her arms, and another—that was Jameson’s wife, wasn’t it?—with a hand over a swollen belly. It made what was coming all the harder.

  “The stable hands will see to the horses. The kitchen staff will bring the biggest kettle you can find out to the courtyard and light a fire underneath it. Bring up a barrel of vinegar from the cellar, too.”

  This brought quizzical looks. “My lord?” the baker said.

  “See that it’s done, and quickly. As for the rest of you, bring everything out of the manor. I want it emptied.”

  “Empty the manor, sir?” a man asked.

  “Yes. Food from the cellars, crockery from the kitchens. Clear the armory, the treasury, the chapel. Take down the tapestries and haul out the furniture and bedding. Everything must come out. Everything.”

  “I don’t understand,” the same fellow said. “Is there an enemy approaching, sir? And what shall we do with it all?”

  “Bring it here to the gates and heap it up. Far away from the building. I’ll give you more instructions when that is done. Quickly now, do what I asked.”

  “As for you,” he said to the other paladins, “keep your shields and your swords, but leave the rest of your gear. My grooms will see that it is well cared for.”

  “You’re not going inside first?” Sir Marissa asked when the servants had scurried off and the horses had been led away. “One last time to see it how it was?”

  Wolfram’s stomach clenched. “No, that would make it worse. You’ll understand when it’s your turn.”

  Her eyes widened. “My turn?”

  “What is this all about?” Sir Andar said. He propped his shield against an oak tree that grew on the edge of the moat. It was painted with the sky-blue field and trio of stars representing Greymarch. “Are you really going through with this?”

  “You thought I was exaggerating last night?”

  “I thought you said it for effect, yes. I didn’t think you would go so far as to . . . well, this!” Andar swept his arm toward the chatelet, where servants were already emerging laden with bundles of clothes and stacks of dishes.

  “The manor and the entire estate was a gift from the king—my father—and it’s mine to dispose of as I see fit.”

  “And yet I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean this,” Andar said. “In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that your campaigning is only possible because of the bounty this property provides. Without it, you are nothing.”

  “Without it, I am a paladin and a defender of this land.”

  Wolfram took off his shield and propped it against the tree, next to Andar’s. The crescent moon of Arvada gleamed on its field of gray, and that reminded him of his pendant, and that reminded him that he’d given it to Bronwyn, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes briefly to look for her.

  The moon pendant he’d given her contained two pieces of magic. The first strengthened the courage of the wearer at the moment of maximum danger, when fears turned to hesitation, which then became either cowardice or paralysis. And after surrendering the pendant to his sister, Wolfram had struggled in battle, fighting trembles in his hands, anxiety in his belly. He’d learned to overcome it with time, but still wished for something to calm the terror in those last seconds before one’s sword clashed with the enemy’s.

  The second piece of magic showed the one who’d handed over the pendant if the recipient was alive, and where she might be. But only in very general terms. It was like staring at a bright candle flame in the darkness and then closing his eyes. An afterimage of candlelight flickered on the edge of his vision—this was his sister’s soul, still burning out there somewhere, although much more distant and faded than it had been in the first few days—and when he turned his head, the light maintained its location relative to his position.

  She was east, always east. And like looking at a mountain from a distance, no matter where he rode, campaigned, or battled, that little light, that afterglow of the candle of her soul, was always in roughly the same direction. She must be over the Spine by now, in the khalifates and searching for the necromancer. Had she seen the extent of the sorcerer’s highway, already thrusting through the mountains and almost to Estmor?

  The other paladins set their shields next to his, until a ring of them encircled the oak tree. So many colors, so many proud little kingdoms, baronies, and freeholds represented by just these seven shields. Among the nearly hundred paladins who’d survived the spring campaigns, there were more than fifty different designs: snarling bears and rampant lions, crossed swords, and clenched fists. A green eye, a white crown, a golden hammer. Dragons, griffins, and giants, representing ancient battles, triumphs, and defeats.

  Wolfram turned back to watch the servants sacking his manor house, and the other paladins came up alongside him.

  “Why are we here?” Marissa asked

  “I need witnesses. You will report to the others what I’ve done.”

  “So that everyone will know that our captain has lost his mind?” Andar said, to a few nervous chuckles.

  Wolfram fixed the older man with a hard stare. “When we rode to Sylvan Heights, Sir Jerome refused to fight. Refused, even, to give us advice on how to assault the castle.”

  Andar shifted from one foot to the other, and his mustache bunched down over his mouth. “It would have taken a hard man to do otherwise—the marauders were keeping Jerome’s family hostage. You couldn’t expect him to turn on his own land, his own people, not when the enemy would have butchered them all.”

  “And yet now Sylvan Heights has fallen,” Wolfram said, “and the gate is opened to Estmor—the enemy has a base from which to attack the whole of the north country—and we are unable to dislodge them. That was the result of Sir Jerome’s refusal.”

  “Sylvan Heights was his homeland,” Andar insisted. “What man could fight against his homeland?”

  “Exactly right. What man could?”

  “For that matter,” Marissa said quietly, “Jerome still rides with his company even while his wife, children, sisters, and mother remain under the thumb of the sorcerer’s gray marauders.”

  “Are you suggesting he’s a traitor?” Andar said. “That is a hard accusation.”

  “I’m suggesting he may not be fully invested in throwing the enemy out of Sylvan Heights,” she said. “Not if it means watching his family be slaughtered by a retreating army.”

  Marissa seemed to understand what Wolfram was getting at, but the others could use a demonstration. The kitchen workers had hauled the largest kettle into the courtyard and lit a fire beneath it, which had outgrown the kindling and turned into a small blaze. Wolfram grabbed his shield, told the others to follow, and set out across the bridge, beneath the barbican, and into the courtyard.

  “Where is the vinegar?” he asked the servants.

  “Over there, Sir Wolfram,” the head cook said. “With them casks of wine.”

  “Bring it over and fill the kettle.”

  “With vinegar, sir?”

  “Yes, with vinegar.”

  “What is the point of vinegar?” Andar asked when the cook had set off. “And the Harvester take me for saying it, but you should not abandon your manor. What would your sister say?”

  “You’ll understand soon enough,” Wolfram said.

  He took in the others and singled out Sir Gregory. Gregory was the tallest of the bunch, with muscles like a bull. A tremendous fighter who seemed to know no fear, and loyal too. Because he was so quiet, Wolfram had initially taken the man to be simpleminded, nothing but a war
rior, a sword, but Bronwyn had told him once that Gregory could read and write.

  A few weeks ago, Wolfram’s right arm had been badly bruised in a fight, and he’d dictated a letter to Gregory to be sent to another company of paladins asking for reinforcements. Wolfram read over the letter before sending it, and had been surprised to see that not only was Gregory’s handwriting fluid and neat, but that he had subtly rephrased the captain’s words to make him sound more clever. Wolfram had used the man in this way several more times since then, and to the same result.

  “Gregory, in your opinion, what is our weakness in battle?”

  “My opinion, sir?”

  “Yes, what is our weakness?”

  Gregory scowled. “I would rather not say. It isn’t my place.”

  “I want your opinion. By the Brothers, will you give it to me?”

  “Insufficient forces. When we lose, it is always because we do not have enough paladins relative to our needs.”

  “How many do we need?”

  “Again, I would rather not—”

  Wolfram sharpened his voice. “Gregory!”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Oh, five hundred,” Sir Andar said sarcastically. “What a nice, round number. Why not five thousand? Or fifty thousand? We could march all the way to the eastern sea with fifty thousand.”

  “Because it would be impossible to raise fifty thousand men on horse with sufficient skill and devotion to call themselves paladins,” Gregory said.