Juliet McKenna - The Swordsman's Oath

“Shivvalan!” We both looked around to see Guinalle hurrying toward us.

“Is there a problem?”

“What were you doing, just then?” Guinalle looked startled, flushed with haste.

Shiv looked down at his cup. “It’s called scrying. I believe you can work something you call a far-seeing? It’s similar but I believe we reach rather further—”

“You also lay your minds open to any attack an adept might care to make!” Guinalle shook her head. “I was weaving my own spell, making sure no invaders were anywhere near and I found you at once, defenseless as a newborn babe.”

Shiv grimaced. “That’s how they got to Viltred then.”

“Who? Never mind.” Guinalle frowned, irritated. “The thing is, I can sense a considerable working of Artifice along the coast. I can’t tell its purpose, not yet, but it has to be the invaders, from what Parrail was telling me last night.”

“We’d better get back to the settlement as fast as we can.” I stood up; my respite clearly over for the moment. “Make sure there are enough here to defend the cavern, but we’ll need all the troops and magic we can spare if Planir’s facing trouble.”

Shiv nodded. “ ’Sar and I were talking about this yesterday evening, looking at routes here if the Elietimm have somehow got wind of what we’ve done. That other river’s the only fast way in, so we started work early to block it a good way downstream.”

“How did you do that?” inquired Guinalle.

“ ’Sar did the rocks, I did the water,” Shiv grinned, “you see—”

“You can tell her when we’re on the boat.” I paused, disconcerted to realize I had no sword at my hip. “We need to get things moving—and I need a new sword.”

“Take my spare.” Tavie handed me a serviceable sword, a little heavy for my taste and marred with a couple of deep notches. “It’s nowhere near the quality of that Empire blade, though,” he added dubiously.

“Trust me, that’s not a problem,” I assured him. The weapon was probably worth about a handful of copper and I accepted it with pleasure. Now that Shiv had the current working with him, our progress down the river was rapid enough to make the newly revived colonists gasp. I noticed that Guinalle spent the trip deep in conversation with Usara, doubtless swapping theories on magic, with Parrail hovering attentively at her elbow while Temar looked on with no small measure of annoyance. I moved to join him at the far rail, finding myself drawn by a sympathy I didn’t fully understand.

“If she doesn’t want you, lad, it makes no difference, no matter how badly you want her,” I told him.

“Thank you, but I fail to see how it is your concern,” he said stiffly.

“You’ve been making it very much my concern for most of the past season.” I raised a hand. “No, I don’t blame you; we’ve covered that, haven’t we? I just thought you might like to benefit from the mistakes I made when I was your age.”

After a moment, Temar smiled faintly at me. “I lost all my elder brothers, you know.”

“I know, and I lost my younger sister, so I’ve no one else to boss around anymore.”

As the ship sped silently down the rapid river, Temar and I stood in the prow and talked, swapping tales of family and friends, discovering just how it was that we came to have so much in common that the Artifice had been unable to prevent a connection. I also gained some understanding into just why my older brothers Hansey and Ridner sometimes found Mistal and I more than a little trying. Parrail joined us after a while and volunteered some theories about aetheric sympathies, but I have to admit they made little sense to me. Noon came and went and we rounded a bend in the river to see three tall-masted ships securing themselves at anchor in the estuary.

“Dast’s teeth!” I swore, “Elietimm!”

“They must have seen them from the camp.” Livak hauled herself up on to the rail of the ship to get a better view. “Why hasn’t someone raised the alarm? What are they playing at?”

The smoke of several camp fires curled lazily upwards from the walls of the steading. I could see sentries patrolling, bows resting casually against shoulders, no sign that they had seen anything amiss at all!

“It’s a ward, a very powerful one. Someone on those ships is using artifice to make anyone looking out from your camp see only what they have seen before.” Guinalle was at my side, face pale and set. “Look, the enchantment must be concealing those soldiers, over there. They’ve landed men to make an unexpected attack.” As she pointed, I saw small detachments of black-liveried troops making their way cautiously through the undergrowth to take up positions to encircle the unsuspecting wizards.

“Saedrin seize it!” I looked around to see Shiv peering at the distant wall, a faint nimbus of green around his hands as he quelled the magelight that would betray us to the Elietimm lurking down river. “It’s no good, I can’t reach anyone.”

“We’re pissing in the wind, trying to get through Kalion’s defenses,” Usara cursed with equal frustration. “He’s not Hearth-Master for nothing.”

“What can you do?” I demanded of Guinalle. “Can you break the ward, was that what you called it? Can you make our people see the truth of what’s out there?”

She looked down river, scanning the banks and the distant vessels. “Until I can find who’s doing this, I can’t combat the ward. Even then, their Artifice might be too strong, if there are several people working together,” she scowled. “We need to do something they’re not prepared for. The only way they’ll drop the ward and betray themselves is if we can really distract them, and they’ll be expecting Artifice, defending against it. I can tell from the way they’re baffling the wards that Parrail’s friends are trying to maintain. Whoever is doing this is a master of illusions.”

“Let’s try something a little less subtle then.” Usara breathed and sent a shaft of ocher magic into the river. The waters roiled and bubbled, mud and weed swirling upwards from the river bed. “I’ll give them something they’re not expecting.”

“Let me help.” Shiv spread his hands and a dark mossy green light began to glow in the depths. The magic suddenly sped away, down toward the Elietimm ships. As it drew closer, a massive shape erupted from the water in an explosion of foam and noise. If I had thought the sea serpent in the Archipelago was huge, it was a bait worm compared to the monster the two wizards conjured from mud and magic. Rearing out of the water to reach higher than the tallest mast, it crashed down on the deck to split the vessel clean in two, ragged planking embedded in its sides as it rose up again, blunt head darting this way and that to snap struggling figures out of the water. Ropes snaked down into the waters as the other boats hastily cut their anchors to flee, sails flapping frantically as the mighty shape dived back into the water, only to rear up once more between the ships and the safety of the open sea. Shooting across the surface of the river, the great beast smashed broadside into one, sending it reeling over to start taking water in every hatch while the monster’s tail lashed mercilessly at the remaining vessel, sending splintered spars splashing into the water.

“Wizards keeping shipwrights in work again, are they?” Livak shouted from somewhere behind me. I heard mercenaries cheering as they armed themselves for a fight. “That should have attracted everyone’s attention!”

“Get me something shiny, quick,” Usara was calling to her. “And a candle, anything that will burn.” Snapping his fingers to light a spill of kindling wood, the wizard angled the magical flame to reflect against some mercenary’s rough scrubbed pewter plate.