Roland Green - Knights of the Sword

So when they were done with the wine and cakes (two platters, as Grimsoar was a light drinker but ate in proportion to his size), they gathered certain articles-maps, for one-from their hiding places and began to talk seriously.

“What brings you here, with the air of one who had rancid butter on his breakfast porridge?” Haimya said.

“I wish it was something as simple and harmless to others as my stomach,” Grimsoar said. “But it concerns more. Karthay and Istar are on a course that may make them collide hard enough to sink the both of them.”

Pirvan nodded. “We’ve heard that Istar’s fleet is to sail north and scour the coast of outlaws and pirates. We’ve also heard that Karthay may have the notion of rebuilding its own fleet if Istar does this.”

“I know naught of Karthay,” Grimsoar said. “Or at least no more than one can hear in the streets. Building new ships there is a matter for the higher councils, and even Jemar’s got few ears there.”

The hint that the Knights of Solamnia might have such ears was too plain to ignore. Pirvan sighed. Best clear the air among us at once, he thought.

“The Knights of Solamnia are sworn to aid Istar against its foes,” Pirvan said. “If Karthay means to become one, then my oath demands that I end this discussion.” Ignoring Haimya’s looking not merely daggers but arrows and broadswords at him, for she was of Karthayan birth herself, Pirvan continued. “However, if our purpose here is to prevent Karthay and Istar from becoming enemies, then all that I know is at your service, as is all the strength of my arm.”

“And mine,” Haimya said, with a look at her husband so different from the previous one that he flushed, and for a moment his head spun from more than the heat of the ill-ventilated chamber.

Grimsoar’s smile was a bit wry. “I didn’t hear either of you promise anybody else’s arms or anything else.”

“We didn’t hear you promise any aid at all from Jemar,” Haimya said. “Or is it that you are placed as we are-you cannot make promises that you know your masters will keep?”

“I wouldn’t call Jemar a master,” Grimsoar said. “He doesn’t have any mucking huge stack of books to tell him what to do and how to tell everyone else what to do. The sea doesn’t allow that, so if you knights ever want to launch a fleet, you may need something a bit-”

“Grimsoar, old companion,” Haimya said, in a voice as soft as silk and as chilly as the blade of a Frostreaver, “leave it be. Or tell us what you can honorably say, and we will ask for no more. But if we spend more time in rude jests, Gerik and Eskaia will be old enough to join us on this quest before we have decided to launch it.”

The two men looked at each other, then burst out laughing. “Very well,” Pirvan said. “I will sit silent and let Grimsoar talk. He has never needed encouragement to do that before, so I-”

“Good husband,” Haimya said in a tone of gentle menace.

Grimsoar’s rumbling voice broke the silence. “We began to smell trouble, those of us who had our noses to the wind, when they appointed Aurhinius to command in the north.”

“Gildas Aurhinius?” Pirvan asked.

“The very same,” Grimsoar said, then added, for Haimya’s benefit, “and no friend to even retired thieves. The army sent him over to the watch about ten years ago, to put some discipline and order into them. I suppose they thought he was too rich to be bribed.”

“Did he succeed?” Haimya asked.

Grimsoar nodded. “At the price of a few good men and women Pirvan and I knew, dead, rotting in dungeons, or slaving their lives out in quarries. Aurhinius loves fine armor, but he fights like a smith’s masterpiece of a sword.”

“Not one sent out lightly, in other words,” Haimya said. The two men nodded.

“Aurhinius has gone north already himself,” Grimsoar went on. “He took ten ships and about two thousand men, mostly to put some muscle in the garrisons up yonder. But there’s recruiting going on, veterans being recalled, workers being hired on in the shipyards to speed refits and new construction-oh, Zeboim’s own lot of trouble for honest sailors.”

Pirvan managed not to laugh at Grimsoar’s description of Jemar and his ilk as “honest sailors.” Outright piracy was a smaller part of their work than before, but other ways of separating people from their gold still flourished among the sea barbarians.

Pirvan rose. “Old friend, my lady and I will have to think about this. But I promise you, we’ll think toward the goal of doing something, or having it done if our own hands are bound.”

Grimsoar’s grunt made it plain that he would have preferred more, but knew he could not ask for it. Beyond that, friendship bound him to silence, at least as long as he was under his friends’ roof.

* * * * *

The two paths converged before a vertical slit in a cliff face not much lower than the towering pines behind them. Darin saw Sirbones staring at the slit, wondering whether men could pass through it even if it led anywhere.

“Don’t worry, friend priest,” Whistletrot said. “The finest kender minds have worked on a solution to this problem.”

“Aye,” someone said, “and if we’d waited for a solution from them, we’d have been better off going to the gnomes.”

Sirbones actually looked uneasy. “This isn’t gnome-work, is it?”

Laughter echoed from the rocks and back into the trees. “No,” Darin said. “Human, with a little help from a minotaur, and quite trustworthy.” He looked up at the top of the cliff and raised both hands over his head, palms outward.

A rumble started from deep in the rock, swelling until the ground underfoot seemed to be shaking. Sirbones was plainly uneasy, still more plainly trying to hide it.

Then the rumble faded. Darin walked over to a large boulder to the left side of the slit in the rock and pushed hard. With a squeal like a flattened piglet, the rock slid to the left. Behind it lay a dark, dusty tunnel-or rather, a semicircular passage carved out of the living rock to one side of the slit.

At the far end, sunlight glinted on water.

“Be our guest, Sirbones,” Darin said. “And be silent about all you see here and afterward. We will not harm you to keep you with us, but if any of our secrets depart with you, your priesthood will not guard you.”

“I am guarded by Mishakal, whatever threats you make,” Sirbones replied with dignity. “But you are guarded from my tongue’s wagging by my own oaths and honor. It is the mark of a barbarian, Darin, to think that only he among all men has honor.”

Before Darin could think of a reply to that, the priest unslung his staff, so that it would not catch on the rocks, and, holding it out ahead of him like a spear, vanished into the passageway.

* * * * *

Pirvan and Haimya made a point of doing their weapons practice with the men-at-arms or visiting fighters as often as possible. Too much practice with the same opponent could make a fighter used to that one opponent, no longer alert for the unpredictability of a new and unknown one.

This, they both agreed, was an excellent way to meet a swift death in battle.

Still, it lightened both their spirits to work against each other with wooden swords and padding. And today of all days, their moods needed lightening.

They had been at it now for a good part of the afternoon, and Pirvan’s bruises were beginning to hurt, not to mention his eyes, where sweat ran into them. But Haimya was coming at him again, as light on her feet as a doe in the spring, and the bout was not over yet.

He risked closing, beat her sword aside, and thrust inside her shield with his dagger. She brought her blade around just in time for him to lock it with his, hilt jammed to hilt. Also nose practically touching nose, and her eyes-blue today, though he had seen them shine gray or green-staring into his.