Douglas Hulick - Sworn in Steel

All of which meant it had been a pleasantly quiet, and speedy, trip back. Until now.

“I thought you said Lucien created you?” I said as I took a hesitant step into the space. Bare red and gray stone walls rose almost three stories to a peaked ceiling, with high, narrow windows that had long ago lost any hints of glazing marching in narrow formation to either side. Two massive fireplaces stood opposite each other midway along. The one on the right showed signs of recent usage, although the fire that it had held must have been dwarfed by the potential of the space. Bandits using the hall for shelter, maybe, or more likely a lone shepherd. A few sticks of furniture were scattered about, along with the scarred remains of a long trestle table. None looked to have been original to the place. “I’d think the emperor would favor a more. . resplendent locale. Or at least more convenient.”

“You don’t create a secret society of warriors in the courtyard of the Lesser Moon Palace,” said Degan as he picked up a chair and set it aright. One leg was broken off short, causing it to wobble. “That defeats the whole point of it being secret. Especially if all of the members of said society are known, or at least recognized, around the palace. Better to do it away from the Imperial City, where no one is in the habit of spying or prying.”

“So why here?”

“Why not?” Degan shrugged, adjusting the wrapped bundle of swords he carried over his right shoulder. “No one thought to ask, I suppose. We were told to come, and we came. That’s what we did back then.”

“Unlike now,” I said, limping slightly as I entered the hall. Even after a week on my back in the Lower City and regular visits from physickers and Mouths sent by Mama, the wound Wolf had given me still tended to be stiff come morning. I hoped getting home and off the trail would help, but I was beginning to have my doubts on the matter.

“Oh, the Order still listens,” said Degan. He patted the bundle. “When the call is loud enough, or the stakes high enough.”

“Which they are now, I expect,” said a voice from the far end of the room.

Both Degan and I reacted: me by dropping into a crouch, hand on my sword; Degan by turning around and then smiling.

“I was wondering if you’d come early,” said Degan.

“Why should I change my habits now?”

A broad, solid woman with wiry hair, dark skin and an easy smile was standing in a small archway off to one side of the hall. She was dressed for the road, but it clearly wasn’t the same road we’d been traveling: not in a beaded and embroidered tunic, kid-lined riding pants, and a travel coat that looked to be either of finest linen or roughest silk. She seemed suited more for the estate than the wilderness. The only thing on her that did look as if it belonged here was the battered, faded hat she had pushed back on her head, and even that had been a fine specimen once upon a time. Now it just looked like an old friend.

“Good to see you again, Bronze,” she said as she strode across the room, her coat flowing along almost as easily as she did. I spied a tapering triangle of a sword at her side, the forte of the blade a good six or more fingers wide where it met the guard. The handle was simple-black wood, with a rounded pommel-and had a forward-sweeping crescent of a guard done in deep, honey-yellow metal.

“Brass,” said Degan. He turned to face her but didn’t advance. She picked up on this and stopped farther away than I think she would’ve liked. Her smile crumbled a bit at the edges.

“That uncertain, are you?” she said.

“That careful.”

Brass regard him. “Probably just as well, for your sake.” She looked at me. “And you are?”

I wanted to say something like, “In over my head,” but instead went with, “Drothe.”

Brass cocked an eyebrow. “The Gray Prince?”

I turned to look at Degan. Degan was smirking. “What can I say?” he said. “You’re famous.”

Brass laughed. It was an easy, silken thing. “Or infamous. Copper’s had a few choice words to say about you over the past few months, I can tell you.”

Oh.

Degan’s voice grew serious. “He’s under my protection.”

“Fine,” said Brass, “but whose protection are you going to be under? That’s the real question.” She held up a folded piece of paper-one of the messages Degan had sent out to his fellows the moment we’d crossed the border. “This is all well and good, but you know it’ll carry about as much weight as what it’s written on for some of our fellows.”

“I know,” said Degan. “But I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Bronze.”

Something passed between them in that moment that I couldn’t catch, couldn’t hope to understand. Something that spoke to two hundred years of fighting and feuding and family. Something I suspected you had to be a degan to understand.

After a moment, Degan nodded and looked away. Brass sighed. Then she pointed at the bundle.

“So you actually got it? Ivory’s sword?”

“And the laws.”

“And the. .?” Brass took a stunned step closer. Her jaw hung slack. “You didn’t say anything about the laws, Bronze.”

Degan smiled. “Well, I’ve got to hold something back for the big surprise, don’t I?”

“Can I. .?”

“Of course.” Degan set down the canvas, untied the leather laces, and rolled it open. Brass stared down at the three swords and the broken fan and whispered a prayer.

“Silver and Steel’s, too?” she said after a moment.

“Steel’s is a long story.”

“And Silver’s?”

Degan shook his head. I could still see him coming to my room, two nights after I’d woken up in the Lower City, Silver’s sword clutched in one hand, other men’s blood spattered across his clothing. He hadn’t been willing to tell me how he’d tracked down the sword Wolf had worn when I first met him, just that he had.

“I’d rather tell it all at once,” he said.

“I understand.” Brass knelt down before the weapons and reached out toward Ivory’s sword.

“Getting a bit ahead of yourselves, aren’t you?” said a voice from the main doorway. We looked up to find three degans standing between the open doors. One I recognized from months ago when I’d been questioned about Degan’s disappearance. That was Gold Degan. The second I didn’t know.

The third was Copper.

She grinned a dark grin at me. I pretended not to notice.

“There’s no harm in looking,” said Brass. Still, she stood without laying hands on any of the weapons.

“There’s every harm if you let Bronze’s offerings to the Order sway you,” said Gold as he came forward. He was a trim, compact man who nonetheless seemed to own the room just by stepping into it. Silver-haired, slate-eyed, with a measured way about him, I got the feeling that the last place you’d want to be was across a gaming board from this man. “Don’t forget why we’re here, sister: Iron and Silver are dead, Steel is missing, and now Ivory’s sword conveniently shows up in our fallen brother’s hands? You don’t gather up that much Oath-bound steel without shedding blood and taking lives.” He stopped and looked at Degan. “Do you, brother?”

“I’m not your brother anymore,” said Degan, his head dropping low as he stared at Gold from under his eyebrows. “I cast away my sword.”

“How convenient for you, then, that we can’t examine it. And where might it be?”

I forced myself to continue watching Gold, to not glance past him toward the doors and courtyard and my mule beyond. If he noticed the effort, he didn’t show it.

“Safe,” said Degan.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.” Gold deigned to turn his eyes to me. “Who’s the rapier?”