Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

There was an instant of agony so great I thought I would Scream aloud, the tension of a bow drawn back — and back — and bent to the very point where it must snap, where even the snap and break of death would be relief unspeakable.

Regis Hastur moved like a thrown spear; he tore the sword hilt from Hastur’s hands and forced the matching pattern of gleaming stones into Marius’ clenched fists. I saw, and felt, the agony dissolve in my brother’s face, then the web of focused thought spread, gleamed, and wove together. Marius’ mind firmed, held, a tangible rock of strength, against my own.

Alton! Terran blood in his veins — but true Alton, and my brother!

My sigh of relief caught almost into a sob. There was no need of words, but I spoke anyhow. “All right, brother?”

“Fine,” he said, and stared at the sword hilt in his hands. “How the hell did I get hold of this thing?”

I handed him the Sharra matrix. I tensed in the familiar, breathless anticipation of anguish as his hands closed around it; but there was nothing but the familiar sense of rapport. I let my breath go.

“That’s that,” I said. “Well, Hastur?”

He made a brief, grave bow to Marius; a formal sign of recognition. Then he said quietly, “You’re in charge.”

I looked around at the mounted men. “Some of the activated spots are near here,” I said, “and the sooner we break them up, the sooner we’re safe. But—” I paused. I’d been so intent on the horror that possessed me, I hadn’t thought to ask for a larger escort of mounted men. Besides the Hasturs, Dyan, Derik and the Ridenow brothers, there were only a scant half dozen guardsmen.

I said, “Sometimes the trailmen come this close to the Hidden City—”

“Not since the ’Narr Campaign,” said Lerrys languidly. His unspoken thought was clear. You and your friends of Sharra stirred them up against us. Then you cleared out, but we did the fighting!

“Just the same—” I looked up at the thick branches. Was it safe to ride so far with so few? Some of the Trailmen, far in the Hellers, are peaceful arboreal humanoids, no more harmful than so many monkeys. But those who have overflowed from the country around Aldaran, where every sort of human and half-human gathered, are a mixed breed — and dangerous.

Finally I shrugged. “I’m not afraid if you’re not.”

Dyan jeered, “You and your brother made a boast, Alton. Are you afraid someone will ask you to fulfil it?”

Nothing, I knew, would have suited him better than for Marius to break under my mind, and die.

I raised my eyes at Marius in question. He nodded, and we rode into the shadow of the trees.

For hours we rode under hanging branches, my mind in acute subliminal concentration on the power spots we could sense through the live crystal. My body and mind were aching with uncomfortable awareness; I wasn’t used to this kind of prolonged mental strain any more — and what was more, I hadn’t been on a horse since I left Darkover. They talk about the power of mind over matter. It doesn’t work that way. A sore backside is just as effective an inhibitor of concentration as anything I know about.

The red sun had begun to swing downward when I reined in beside Hastur. “Listen,” I said, low, “we’re being decoyed. I was fairly sure no one else on Darkover knew I had the matrix, but someone must. Someone’s taking power from the activated spots and drawing us.” He regarded me gravely. “Is that all?”

“I don’t—”

He beckoned to Regis; the boy rode up and said, “We’re being followed, Lew. I thought so before; now I’m sure of it. I’ve been in trailman country before this.”

I glanced up at the thick branches, meeting overhead. Above there, I knew, old tree-roads wound in an endless labyrinth; but in these latitudes, I believed, they had been long deserted.

“We’re in no shape to meet an armed attack,” the Regent said. He looked uneasily at Regis and Derik, and I followed his thought — my barriers were all down now.

The whole power of the Comyn is here. One attack, now, could wipe us out. Why did I let them all come, unguarded? And then, a thought he could not conceal, Are these Altons leading us into a trap?

I gave him a bleak smile, T don’t blame you,” I said. “As it happens, I’m not. But if anyone were around who really knew how to handle the Sharra power — I don’t really — I’d be just a pawn. I might do just that.”

The Regent did not question me. He turned in his saddle. “Well turn back here.”

“What’s the matter?” Corus Ridenow sneered. “Have the Altons turned coward?”

By unlucky chance Marius was riding next him; he leaned over abruptly and his flat hand smacked across Corus’ face. The Ridenow reared back, and his hand swept down and flicked the knife loose from his boot—

And in that instant it happened!

Corus stopped dead, as if turned to stone, knife still raised. Then, horribly loud in the paralyzed silence, Marius screamed. I have never heard such agony from a human throat. The full strength of the Source flooded us both. God or demon, force, machine or elemental — it was Sharra, and it was hell, and hearing a second outraged shout of protest, I did not even realize that I, too, had cried out.

And in that moment wild yells rang around us, and on every side men dropped from the trees into the road. A hand seized my bridle — and I knew just who had led us into the trap.

The man in the road was tall and lean; a shock of pale hair stood awry over a weathered gaunt face and steel gray eyes that glared at mine; he looked older, more dangerous than I remembered him. Kadarin!

My horse reared, almost flinging me into the road. Around me yells coalesced into a brawling melee; the clash of iron, the stamping and neighing of panicked horses. Kadarin bellowed, in the gutteral jargon of the trailmen, “Away from the Altons! I want them!”

He was jerking my horse’s bridle this way and that maneuvering to keep the animal’s body between us. I swung to one side, almost lying along the horse’s back, and felt the crack of a bullet past my ear. I yelled “Coward!” and jerked at the reins, wheeling the horse abruptly. The impact knocked him sprawling. He was up again in a second, but in that second I was clear of the saddle and my sword was out — for what that was worth.

At one time I had been a fine swordsman, and Kadarin had never learned to handle one. Terrans never do. He carried one and he used it when he had to; it was the only way, in the mountains.

But I had learned to fight when I had two hands and I was wearing only a light dress-sword. Idiot that I was! I’d smelled danger, the air had been rotten with it — and I hadn’t even worn a serviceable weapon!

Marius was fighting at my back with one of the nonhuman Trailmen, a lean crouched thing in rags with a long evil knife. The pattern of his strokes beat through our linked minds, and I cut the contact roughly; I had enough trouble with one fight. My steel clashed against Kadarin’s.

He’d improved. In a matter of seconds he had me off balance, unable to attack, able only to keep up, somehow, a hard defense. Yet there was a kind of pleasure in it, even though my breath came short and blood dripped down my face with the sweat; he was here, -and this time there was no man — or woman — to pull us apart.

But a defensive fight is doomed to lose. My mind worked, fast and desperately. Kadarin had one weakness; his temper. He would go into a flaming rage, and for a few minutes, that keen judgment of his went, and he was a berserk animal. If I could make him lose his temper for half a second, his acquired skill at swordplay would go with it. It was a dirty way to fight. But I wasn’t in any shape to be fastidious.