Sevenfold Sword: Shadow Read online

  “Trouble?” said Calliande.

  “Probably,” said Ridmark. “We came across two of the pagan jotunmiri, and they attacked us at once.”

  “The pagan jotunmiri of the Cloak Mountains almost always travel in groups of twelve or more,” said Tamlin.

  “Aye,” said Krastikon, “and they are a constant danger to the cities of northern Owyllain, especially Cytheria.”

  Kalussa coughed. “Didn’t the pagan jotunmiri march with King Justin against my father?”

  “Some of them did,” said Krastikon. “But you must understand, Lady Kalussa. The pagan jotunmiri are divided into many different tribes, all of them ruled by different earls, and each tribe worships its own cruel god. They war against each other more often than they attack Owyllain. Only some of them marched south with King Justin. My father had to delay his march from Cytheria by two days to deal with jotunmiri raiders.” Krastikon shrugged. “It is possible these are survivors from my father’s defeat. It is also possible they are simply raiders looking to exploit the recent chaos within Owyllain.”

  “Regardless of their origins,” said Ridmark, “Third and I saw the tracks of at least a dozen, and they were heading for Argin.”

  Calliande frowned. “Would they raid the village?”

  “Probably,” said Tamlin. “What we saw of Argin…the village was mostly women and old men. Strong young men make the best slaves, but all the strong young men are with the armies. Likely the jotunmiri will steal food and valuables and take anyone who looks healthy as a slave.”

  “If Argin comes under attack,” said Krastikon, “the praefectus will withdraw with the villagers into the Monastery of St. Paul. It is far more defensible than the village.”

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “If the jotunmiri are attacking the Monastery of St. Paul, then we need to defend them.”

  “Is that wise?” said Krastikon. “We are only eight. We might have poor odds against a jotunmiri warband.”

  “We will need to see the situation before we decide upon a course of action,” said Ridmark, “but, yes, we will help the villagers.”

  “Also,” said Calliande, “between the eight of us, we have three of the Seven Swords, the Shield Knight, and the Keeper of Andomhaim. If anyone can help Argin and the monks against the jotunmiri, it is us.”

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “Let’s go.”

  But Calliande felt a flicker of misgiving. She and Ridmark had also been the ones best-equipped to face the Necromancer of Trojas in battle. And they had prevailed against Taerdyn, but it had been a very close thing, and Aegeus, Theseus, and Tirdua had all perished in the fighting.

  Who would die when they fought the jotunmiri? Would she and Ridmark leave their sons as orphans in a strange land? Calliande remembered how she had wept when her own mother and father had died all those centuries ago. She did not want to inflict the same kind of pain on Gareth and Joachim.

  Still, they had a duty. Abbot Rhasibus and the monks of the monastery had aided Calliande and the others on the journey to Trojas, and she could not turn aside from their plight.

  And she had learned from Ridmark that the best way out of such a dilemma was to win the fight.

  Victory solved all manner of problems.

  She followed Ridmark and Third as they led the way to the east.

  ###

  Tamlin found himself both looking forward to the fight and annoyed at the prospect.

  As a child, he had wanted to become a monk, not a warrior, and learning to fight had been forced upon him. But the truth was that he enjoyed fighting. It was terrifying and bloody and carried the prospect of maiming and agonizing death, but he did enjoy pushing himself to his physical and mental limits. Without false modesty or false pride, he knew he was good at fighting and swordsmanship, and there was always satisfaction in doing something well.

  And it would be a welcome distraction from the dark mood that had filled him ever since Aegeus and Tirdua had died at the Blue Castra.

  “Find me again,” Tirdua and Tysia whispered in unison inside his head. “The New God is coming.”

  For that matter, defending the villagers of Argin from the depredations of pagan jotunmiri was a worthy cause.

  Yet Tamlin could not help but feel irritation as they hurried east.

  Urgency burned within him.

  Tysia had died. Tirdua had died. But they had been shards of the same woman, and if Calliande was right, one of those shards still lived somewhere. And Calliande was usually right about magical matters. If Tamlin’s wife and Tirdua had been two shards of the same woman, then perhaps Tamlin could yet save this final shard.

  And his mother…

  That was such a huge thought that Tamlin could not wrap his mind around it.

  For half his life he had thought his mother dead at his father’s hands. Justin had even boasted about it during the parley before the great battle. Taerdyn had claimed that the Sword of Earth could reverse the transformation and restore her to flesh.

  His mother could live again.

  He regarded that prospect with a mixture of hope and awe and dread. Cathala had known so many secrets. She had found Tysia as a baby and brought her to the Monastery of St. James. Cathala must have known the truth. Why else would she have brought Tysia to the monastery?

  Why had Talitha and Rhodruthain betrayed the High King? Why had the war of the Seven Swords begun? Why did the Maledicti proclaim the New God?

  Why had Tamlin lived through so much suffering?

  Maybe Cathala would have the answers.

  The eagerness and annoyance fused together into a single purpose.

  They would win this fight, and they would continue their quest. They would find the seventh shard, and they would free Tamlin’s mother.

  And once he found the seventh shard, once he saw another aspect of the woman who had been both Tysia and Tirdua, he could tell her how sorry he was that he had failed to save her twice…

  “Tamlin,” rasped Kalussa.

  He blinked out of his reverie and saw Kalussa Pendragon looking at him, her blue eyes bright beneath her blond hair. The dark length of the Staff of Blades waited in her right hand, the mass of blue crystal at its end glittering like the blade of a knife. Sir Calem followed her, as ever, and he had been very attentive to Kalussa ever since they had left Trojas.

  “Aye?” said Tamlin.

  “You are,” said Kalussa. She coughed and rubbed her throat. Tamlin waited. She had hurt her voice trying to heal him. “You are ready? To fight?”

  “Yes,” said Tamlin. He managed a ghost of a smile. “Ready and eager.”

  “Then you mean to win?” said Kalussa. “Not to get yourself killed?”

  Ah. Tamlin understood. Kalussa was worried that he intended to get himself killed, just as he had thrown himself into the warding spells around Taerdyn’s corrupted heart. In the madness after Tirdua’s and Aegeus’s deaths, with Qazaldhar’s plague curse eating its way through his flesh, Tamlin had intended to sacrifice himself to win the battle.

  He had.

  But Kalussa had saved his life.

  “To be victorious and to survive,” said Tamlin, managing the ghost of a smile. Smiling had once come easily to him, and now it seemed so difficult. “You went to such lengths to heal me. A true knight would not be so churlish to refuse such a gift from a noble lady.”

  Kalussa snorted and raised her eyebrow.

  “Besides,” said Tamlin, his smile fading. “I want answers. I want to find Tirdua and Tysia again. I...want to speak to my mother again, and to demand answers from her. I want to know why all this has happened.”

  “A good answer,” said Kalussa.

  “And one I understand, Sir Tamlin,” said Calem. “I wish to know who gave me the Sword of Air and why. I want to know who bound me with spells of dark magic and made me into an assassin.” He shook his head, his green eyes glinting. “The desire to know is sometimes keener than thirst.”

  “Yes,” said Tamlin. “You understand, Sir Ca
lem.” He looked back to Kalussa. “So, fear not, my lady. I have no wish to throw my life away. If I perish beneath the club of a jotunmir, then I will not live to learn the truth.” He felt the ghost of the smile return. “Besides, if I am wounded, you would have to heal me again, and I would not subject you to that again.”

  Kalussa laughed. “Your consideration is indeed knightly, sir.” Her eyes flicked to the Sword at his side. “And if…” She coughed. “And if your father used the Sword for evil, then you shall use it for good, and drive back the jotunmiri.”

  “The same can be said of the Staff of Blades,” said Tamlin.

  “See?” said Kalussa. “You understand. A heavy responsibility. We must,” she coughed again, “bear them well. Sir Calem, too. Carries the Sword of Air.”

  She smiled at Calem and touched his arm, and Calem smiled back. For the first time that day, Tamlin felt the urge to smile in truth, but he kept a straight face. Kalussa had told him that she had profound wisdom in the matters of the heart, so to see her making starry eyes at Calem was, well…

  Actually, he was happy for her. But it was still amusing.

  “Yes, a solemn responsibility,” said Tamlin. “Let us endeavor to remain victorious and alive.”

  “Soon, it seems, we shall have the chance,” said Calem, pointing.

  The tower of the central keep of the Monastery of St. Paul rose in the distance, and Tamlin saw several plumes of black smoke against the blue sky.

  “Hold a moment,” said Ridmark, his voice hard.

  The others came to a halt around him.

  “Do you think the village is burning, my lord?” said Krastikon.

  “Doubtful,” said Third. “That is not enough smoke.”

  “I agree,” said Ridmark. “I think the jotunmiri set some fires in the outlying farms. The praefectus would have gotten the villagers to the safety of the monastery.” He frowned. “I suppose the jotunmiri are tall enough that they could simply climb over the monastery’s outer wall.”

  “When conducting sieges,” said Tamlin, “the jotunmiri build shields large enough to cover themselves from head to toe.”

  Ridmark grunted. “I suppose that gives a new meaning to the idea of a tower shield.”

  “Should we scout ahead?” said Kyralion.

  Ridmark shook his head. “We’re close enough that there’s no point, and I don’t think that there are more than a dozen jotunmiri. Let’s get closer and see what we can find.”

  Tamlin nodded, and Ridmark started forward, the others following him.

  A mile later both the Monastery of St. Paul and the village of Argin came into sight, and Tamlin saw their foes.

  The village sat in the center of a shallow valley, the fields around it cleared, terraces hewn from the slopes of nearby hills. A stout stone wall about twelve feet high encircled the village to ward off enemies. All the houses had been built of brick with roofs of fired clay tiles, and within the walls rose the cross-topped dome of a church.

  The Monastery of St. Paul stood on the western edge of the valley. It was a strong stone castra, with a curtain wall and a towering central keep. The monks had settled here to pursue the work of God in quiet and solitude, but this close to the Cloak Mountains, pursuing anything in quiet and solitude required strong defenses. Generations of labor had raised the stone castra, and the villagers of Argin had settled in the valley to shelter in the shadow of the monastery’s stone walls.

  That had been wise of them because the stone walls were the only thing that had saved the villagers’ lives.

  A half-dozen fires burned in the fields. The village itself looked abandoned, and Tamlin saw men in leather armor standing atop the eastern wall of the monastery, short bows in hand. Tamlin spotted monks in brown robes among them as well, heavy clubs in hand. Monks were not supposed to spill blood, but that did not extend to defending themselves from the jotunmiri.

  A dozen pagan jotunmiri stood at the edge of the valley, out of range of the short bows on the wall. They looked a great deal like the pagan jotunmiri that Tamlin and the others had fought during the battle against Justin Cyros, armed with massive wooden clubs and armored in bronze plates and human bones. As Tamlin had suspected, the jotunmiri had built huge wooden siege shields to protect themselves from arrows, and in another few moments they would likely charge the wall and climb over.

  Then the killing would start in earnest.

  “Twelve of them,” said Third as they came around the corner of the monastery’s curtain wall. A murmur came from the men on the ramparts. The jotunmiri paused in their preparations.

  “They’ve seen us,” said Kalussa, her raspy voice hard.

  “Yes,” said Ridmark, and he looked at Calliande.

  She smiled a little at her husband. “The taller someone is, the easier they are to trip.”

  ###

  Ridmark strode closer, Oathshield in hand, Third on his left and Calem on his right. The others waited behind him, and he felt the gaze of the men on the walls and the harsh yellow stares of the jotunmiri.

  “Jotunmiri of the Cloak Mountains!” thundered Ridmark. “I would speak with your leader!”

  “I command here!” roared one of the jotunmiri, striding forward and brandishing a huge club. He was nearly a foot taller than the other jotunmiri, his hair and beard gray. Yet he was as thickly muscled as the other giants, and despite the deep lines that marked his face, he showed no signs of weariness.

  “And just who are you?” said Ridmark.

  “I am Earl Mearozak, greatest lord and warrior of the jotunmiri!” thundered the giant. He spoke Latin with a thick, slurred accent. “And who are you to presume to speak to me?”

  “I am Ridmark Arban, the Shield Knight of Andomhaim.”

  Mearozak sneered. “Your words mean nothing to me. Why do you presume to address an earl of the jotunmiri?”

  “To warn you,” said Ridmark.

  Mearozak scoffed. “Of what?”

  “We will give you one chance,” said Ridmark. “Turn and go back to the Cloak Mountains while you still can. If you leave now, we will let you go without violence.”

  Mearozak laughed again. “You presume to threaten me, little human? Justin Cyros is slain, and the Bronze Dead have fallen. There is no one left to stand against us.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Ridmark.

  The jotunmir earl’s laughter redoubled. “Am I? I fail to see how, little human. King Justin is dead, King Hektor is far away, and the Bronze Dead have become rotting bone once more. The Masked One is no threat to us. The fools who wield the Seven Swords have slain each other, and there is no one left to stop the jotunmiri!”

  His voice rose on the final sentence, and his warriors cheered.

  “Before we start,” said Ridmark. He spun Oathshield once in his right hand. “You need to ask yourself one question, my lord earl.”

  Mearozak sneered. “And what is that?”

  “Who do you think slew Justin Cyros and Lord Taerdyn?” said Ridmark.

  “The bearers of the Seven Swords slew each other,” said Mearozak. “They shall destroy each other and fall into ruin, and the jotunmiri shall enslave the lesser kindreds.”

  “No,” said Ridmark. “We killed Justin and Taerdyn.”

  Mearozak blinked. His brutish features looked taken back. “You?”

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “We dueled Justin Cyros as his army collapsed around him, and his life ended upon the point of my sword. We fought our way into the Blue Castra, and we broke the wards of dark magic and slew Taerdyn himself. I say again, my lord earl. Turn around and go home.”

  He waited, fingers loose against Oathshield’s hilt. He never liked boasting about the past. Ridmark knew full well how desperate those fights had been, how close they had come to defeat, how much those victories had cost. But neither did he want to fight a dozen jotunmiri. Perhaps if the earl chose the course of prudence and withdrew, then…

  Mearozak snarled. “You think to threaten us with false words, little h
uman? Your ragged band could not overcome an elderly kobold, let alone two bearers of the Seven Swords.” He cast aside his tower shield and beckoned to his warriors. “Take them alive! They will make strong slaves in our fields and mines. Let us see if they can boast then!”

  The jotunmiri roared and thundered forward, brandishing their clubs, the ground shuddering beneath the impact of their boots.

  Well, Ridmark had tried.

  “Calliande!” Ridmark called, glancing back at her.

  She nodded and started casting a spell, purple light playing up the length of the Keeper’s staff.

  “With me!” said Ridmark to the others. Calem drew the Sword of Air, and Third her twin short swords of dark elven steel. Krastikon and Tamlin stepped forward, the Sword of Earth green in Tamlin’s fist, and the Sword of Death like a congealed shadow in Krastikon’s hands. Kyralion stepped before Calliande and Kalussa, an arrow set to his bowstring. “Keep them away from Calliande and Kalussa!”

  The jotunmiri thundered towards them, Mearozak in the lead, and Calliande cast her spell.

  She slammed the end of her staff against the ground, and the earth rippled and folded, almost like a banner caught in the wind. The distortion flowed around Ridmark and the others and then hurtled towards the jotunmiri. Mearozak’s eyes just had time to go wide in puzzlement, and the ripple in the earth caught the jotunmiri.

  And just as Calliande had predicted, the taller someone was, the harder they fell.

  The earth heaved beneath the jotunmiri, and the distortion knocked the giants off their feet. Mearozak bellowed something furious-sounding in the jotunmiri tongue, and he landed on his back with a thud, the skulls on his shoulders and belt rattling. The other jotunmiri fell, knocked off-balance by Calliande’s earth magic.

  And in that instant, Ridmark and the others moved.

  He surged forward, using Oathshield’s power to move faster than he could have managed on his own, and he struck. The nearest jotunmiri warrior had just gotten to one knee. Ridmark stabbed Oathshield, catching the jotunmir in the throat, and green blood sprayed from the wound. The jotunmir gurgled and fell back to the ground, drowning in his own blood.