1
Al'Varad stared in disbelief as Morryin wrenched his horse around the sharp corner behind them. The massive black charger's hooves sent up a rolling crash of steel on cobblestones, but the dirty road didn't provide nearly enough traction for the beast. Instead muddy clay and pea gravel scattered underneath it, and beast and rider were drifting sideways. Morryin's hands never wavered. He kept his charger's nose pointed ahead, and under his implacable guidance, the beast kept running. It skidded to the far side of the road, where Morryin planted a leg against a crude stone wall before getting its motion under control again, but then it was moving like lightning. That should not have been possible.
"Faster!" Varad bellowed forward to Pug, the driver. "He's almost upon us!"
"Don't worry, we'll loose him in the Narrows," Pug yelled back. "Besides, I know these corners. We'll gain time with every turn!"
Varad glanced back at the horseman, whom was already eating their lead like wildfire. Foam sprayed from the charger's muzzle, and its eyes were wild with exertion.
"We will see about that," Varad replied doubtfully. He didn't yell, and the words were lost in the thunder of their passage. Looming stone houses on each side of the road kicked echoes back upon them until it seemed like they moved down a tunnel of noise.
They went around another sharp corner, almost violent in intensity, and the back of the wagon swung wide behind the six-head team. Two rows of charging horses yanked the wagon, and the beams and straps of the tack groaned. If it broke now everything would be lost. A thrown shoe or poorly tied knot would kill them all, Varad realized, waiting for a single thing to fail. Nothing did.
"Almost there!" Pug yelled. "I can see the gates ahead, and there's no way he can come around that as fast as we did!"
Varad glanced back just in time to see Morryin do exactly that, and cut their lead by another dozen feet. There was no more time. Varad leaped from the wagon bed to perch on the slick mahogany surface of the coffin. No matter how restrained, it jerked about the wagon bed with every rock and turn, and there was no other place to stand if it came to blades. To blades it must inevitably come. He flicked his sword out and waited in a crouch.
Standing upright, Varad was not a tall man. He was slightly shorter then average for the lowlands and walked around staring other men in the nose. They had to look down to make eye contact, something he had always noted. Crouching atop the mahogany casket, he was little more then a red boil of fabric. On the diver's bench Pug was urging his team onwards and trying to eke out more speed. The carriage thundered over the dirty roads, and the wind whipped Varad's cloak. It was a brilliant scarlet everywhere but the bottom, where deep brown mud stains resisted the most determined washings. Now it whipped about, concealing the swordsman's footing and all but shrouding the Song of Winter.
Morryin never lost sight of his enemy's weapon. His sword, the Hurt, came out of the sheath the second he was moving straight again. He held it back and down, and had people not dove from his way, would have cut them apart. Quickly he closed the distance and was upon the carriage.
"Varad," he acknowledged and tried to decapitate him.
"Morryin," the other replied, parrying and riposting directly into the charger's eye. It would have been a killing blow, but the rider parried upwards. Varad swept the Song of Winter down the Hurt and readjusted his strike to kill the rider. Morryin rolled almost sideways in his saddle and shot under it.
"Incompetent," the dodging horseman spat. He flicked his longsword around at Varad's legs. On stable ground the other would have retreated, but the coffin was constantly bounced and jostled. It would have thrown the redcloak off balance. Instead he threw a short, stop-kick straight into Morryin's forearm, hoping he would get lucky and break it.
There was no such luck. Morryin checked his own strike in time, recoiled his arm, and yanked himself upright again to deflect the next circling attempt to decapitate his horse. Over the crash of seven horses dashing over badly paved roads and the steel rimmed wheels clattering, the short exchange of strike and parry was a higher, shriller ringing that got lost in the chaos.
"Hobbyist," Varad replied, and kept splitting his attacks between the horse and rider. At this speed on such uneven ground, killing the mount would almost certainly kill the rider. More so if Varad dismounted to execute the coup de grais at the first instant. He knew he could win on better footing, especially if Morryin did not have that damn horse.
The Song of Winter had twenty eight inches of silvery blade, gracefully curved away from the single cutting edge, and Varad wielded it like a razor. The steel was not perfectly homogeneous, but bore a woodgrain pattern with slight discolorations of pure white. It resembled falling snow. Varad had named it for the elegance of the steel, but Morryin took it as evidence the other was a pretentious ass. They had spoken about it before.
"Amateur," Morryin retorted and suddenly urged the charger to more speed as he lunged. Varad parried and retaliated, but the charger slowed, just as suddenly, and the curved blade went by the horse's head in empty air. Morryin stabbed again. He had four inches of reach on Varad due to height, and another four of weapon. His sword was a straight longsword, better suited to direct attacks, and double edged. There was an oddity about the blood groove in that instead of whistling when swung it gave a pained hiss.
"We're almost there!" Pug yelled from the driver's seat.
"You just said that!" Varad bellowed back and went for a dismembering cut.
"Well, we are!" Pug countered. "Ha!" and they passed between the soaring towers that marked the entrance to Asali Al's old city. They shot past the gatehouse so closely the grain of the stone would be forever locked in Varad's memory. Morryin had to slow the willful charger, for it was so maddened by running it would have gone full into the stonework.
He brought it behind the wagon, and immediately Varad crouched to cut up at the horse's head. Its muzzle jutted forward beyond even Morryin's reach, but the rider yanked the animal sideways. They slid over then forward, until the horse's head was above the rear gate on the wagon. For a moment it looked like Morryin would spring onto the coffin and try to kill him on his own footing, but the rider refused to give up the advantage of his mount. They exchanged strikes and parries like a drum roll.
From behind him, Varad suddenly heard the shriek of a brake. Simultaneously Pug yanked on the reins, drawing the team up short. The wagon lurched to a halt and nearly stove in the charger's chest. It would have if another rider had been in the saddle.
With an almost prescient pressure with his knees, Morryin had the midnight warhorse jump. In the same instant he stopped a cut at Varad's head and smashed entirely through the rear of the wagon bed. His charger's forelocks shattered the wood along the cut, and the beast shot overhead. Pug had a single, terrifying instant when the animal planted its hooves on either side of him on the seat before leaping again.
It crashed onto a ramshackle wall of a building beside the road. That building had been collapsing for decades, but when Morryin crashed into it at an angle, the wall buckled almost instantly. Yet its poor construction left it with bumps and protrusions that the charger flitted across, just ahead of the rolling wave of collapse. An instant later Morryin hit the road ahead of the wagon. He turned to start killing horses and found Varad standing on the straps of the harnesses, waiting for him.
"That isn't possible!" Pug yelled at them. They ignored him.
The sudden stop had thrown Varad towards the front of the wagon to, and upon realized that was where Morryin was heading, he had rolled to his feet and sprinted after him. Instead of using the wall, he had leaped onto the main post running forward between the two ranks of horses. When Morryin wheeled the charger around, Varad was standing on horseback, and stomped hard on the chargers head. That kept it from rearing, and coming down to kill the other horses with its iron shoes. Morryin swung in a vast, overhand arc that the other parried, and they went at it like lunatics.
Now Varad was dancing from back to head to strap across four startled horses. Morryin's charger reacted instantly, like it was an extension the rider's will. The match was almost even until Pug clucked and whistled, and the team started to move again. Then Morryin fell back, lest he be overrun.
Now the stallion's great size worked to his disadvantage. It was large enough that swinging backwards over the rump meant he had to overextend himself while Varad could try to hamstring the beast at any point. Succeeding in that would drop the charger directly into the wagon's path, and the crash would be disastrous. But Morryin dared not risk assuming Varad was not monomaniacally obsessed with killing him enough to save his own life.
True to its name, the road through the Narrows was very thin, giving him no space to pull aside and come to a better position. Had Varad's footing been other than leaping horseback's in Pug's monstrous team, he would have cut Morryin down or the horse out from under him but his advantage in location was countered by Morryin's stable fighting platform astride that perfect warhorse. For a brief instant they exchanged flurries of relentless blows, hoping for a bit of luck. Like a terrier, once Morryin committed to an engagement, he hated leaving in spite of the disadvantageous position. Soon enough, however, he realized that he had nothing to gain from the conflict, and put his heels to the horse. In a shower of dust and sparks, he took off ahead, swept around a corner, and was gone. By the time the wagon rounded the same corner, they were alone in the Narrows.
This was not literally true. The old city's residents watched them from holes and broken windows, peering around slats to watch the wagon pass like dirty ghosts. Most were less than three feet tall, rat-faced people with rodent-whisker like mustaches. They had dark gray skin and large ears, high on the sides of their heads, that spread wide. Rumors put their ancestry at a conjunction between a drunk man and a horny rodent, and those rumors were taken by many to be the truth. Had the odd people appeared outside their enclaves, the rumors might have instigated fighting. That never happened. The gate guards did not exactly imprison them within the crumbling old city, nor was there a penalty if one chose to emerge. It never became an issue for they never left, and few came in.
Under the gaze of hidden watchers, Varad lurched back onto the wagon's seat. Pug got the team to a controlled canter. His horses reacted quickly, calming under his urging. The swordsman sheathed the Song of Winter, and checked the coffin. It was still there.
In the old city the buildings had steadily swelled inwards on the roads, giving the area its name and imposing on general transportation. One either side the ramshackle buildings reached up in uneven heights composed of irregular stories, with floors canted at all manner of angles. A fourth story room might have the third floor on one side and the six on another, not touching the fifth at all, and from all heights peered small, beady eyes. There was no sense of hostility. They were content to watch the two humans pass through twisting, deserted roads.
"Pug, is there a side way you can use to get us out of here?" Varad asked.
"They're all side ways here. There isn't a main road in the whole district," Pug replied.
"Be that as it may. I don't want to be on this road if Morryin comes looking for us," Varad told him.
"And what road is that?" Pug asked pointedly.
Pausing on the cusp of answering, Varad looked around. As the road was narrow and twisting, bending around on itself frequently in tight turns that took impressive skill to negotiate at speed, it also fissioned and split into many cross paths. Behind them the way was straight for fifty feet when it turned hard around a heaping building that stood like a pole of garbage. It looked different from every other building, with floors of different heights in a unique pattern that was superfluously identical to every other chaotic building. If one did not pay close attention, everything looked the same.
“Then where are we?” Varad asked,
“I have no idea.” Pug admitted. Before the other could interject, he continued, “There's no 'where' in the Narrows. Even if I knew where we were, the roads change as buildings grow across them and others fall down. The only thing to do is keep heading in a direction and hope to come out the other end. The sun's setting before us, so I won't get too lost.”
“What if the sun sets?”
“That would be bad.” he said seriously.
Varad cocked his head sideways in acknowledgement, and then adjusted his position on the seat. When he was comfortable, he started watching the cross streets and rooftops for Morryin.
"So who was that?" Pug asked.
"Someone I know,"Varad replied in a tone that did not encourage more questions.
"You realize he jumped my carriage and then rode his horse along a wall?" Pug pointed out, unwilling to take the hint.
"That's the sort of thing you should expect during this job," Varad replied, thinking of Morrin.
Pug refused to be dissuaded. "How did he jump my carriage?"
"You don't have a carriage. You have a wagon."
It wasn't a clever change of direction, but it worked. The driver recoiled and turned to his passenger angrily.
"Sir-" Pug snapped, but Varad cut him off.
"I'm not a sir."
"Why? Because sirs are usually empty headed idiots who don't know what they're talking about?" Pug snapped back. "Idiots who think all carriages carry people and anything else is a wagon?"
Just as Pug had recoiled, now Varad did too. Neither of them looked at the other, and they stared at the team for several minutes in silence.
Not tall or heavily muscled, Varad was not as imposing as the greatest of men. His build was lithe and limber. His brows were thick and black over sharp eyes that always moved. Unless conversing he rarely met another's gaze. Against the style of northmen his hair was very short and unevenly cut, for he trimmed it himself. For a small man he had large hands with unusual strength, but only in this was he very strong. He had loose pants tucked into soft boots and belted tightly at the waist. His shirt was also loose, but gathered together at the cuffs, and at the throat by the clasp of his red cloak. He carried the Song of Winter on his left hip, and a long, nameless knife on his right.
Pug had noticed that Varad was very quick but also very proud. Stopping the other completely seemed to satisfy something in the carriageman, because clearly both the allegation of nobility and mentioning the common opinions of nobles touched a deep nerve. But Pug also realized that in silencing his employer, he had also precluded getting any information out of him. That bothered the driver.
He was a little taller then Varad and much heavier. He carried most of that weight in his gut. His hair had receded to a ring from temple to temple. For a while he had tried to comb it so it hid his baldness but finally gave up. Pug's nose was a round, giant thing, but at least he did not snore. He wore cotton clothing of feeble quality that looked odd on the immaculately maintained carriage. It was so if a pant leg got caught in something, the fabric would tear before Pug lost the limb. Nothing he wore fit very well. He said it was because tailors could not fit a fat man, but mostly it was because he refused to spend the money.
The carriage was different. Most of it was fine beech, stained dark, and trimmed with black leather. Each of the wheels was made of oak and banded with steel. There were six immaculately groomed northern purebreeds in the team, trotting effortlessly in two rows of three. Normally Pug ran a team of four, but the massive mahogany casket in the carriage bed required more. The four would have done it, but not at the speeds Varad had insisted on when he had hired him. Now that strange urgency was beginning to make sense. The six foam-flecked horses were calming swiftly with the feel of familiar, confident hands at the reigns.
They rode for a while in slightly hostile silence. Finally Pug stopped the carriage with no warning or explanation. As soon as the team stopped, he climbed down to the ground and went among them checking harnesses and straps. Varad watched with a sour expression before looking to the sun to gauge time. Then he shrugged and stood up to stretch.
"You owe me for the rear gate and having the bed fixed," Pug said suddenly as he was circled the carriage.
"Fine. We'll add it up later." Varad acknowledged.
"Unless you tell me at least something of this operation, I would prefer to keep it current," Pug replied.
"What? Don't you trust the integrity of the Red Guard?" Varad asked sourly.
"Any man can wear a red cloak," Pug pointed out.
Varad shrugged. It was true. "But can anyone fight like that?"
Tempted to argue, Pug stopped himself. "Well, you are certainly as good as a redcloak should be."
"Pug, I'm much better then that," Varad corrected him firmly.
"Oh, right," Pug replied in a condescending tone. He finished his lap of the carriage and saw that everything was in order. Here the buildings loomed close on either side, and he had to pick his way between the horses to get in front of them. That took some doing for the fat man.
Varad bristled, but squashed that firmly. "It's what the Al' means," he said suddenly. "It's my title."
"What are you talking about?"
"My name is Varad, but my full title is Al'Varad," he explained. A suddenly noise made his head flick upwards, and he adjusted his weight minusculely on the seat, looking around rapidly. His head made the quick movements of a bird. Little rat-people eyes stared down at him from shadows and nooks.
"What is it?" Pug gasped.
For a moment the other didn't reply. He stopped looking around, and closed his eyes, holding his head very still. After a long pause, he opened his eyes and relaxed. "Nothing. The ratlings are still around. Go back to work; I'll keep watch."
Pug didn't react immediately. He stood very still, trying to be ready, but nothing happened. Finally he sighed and went back to his animals. "What were you saying?"
"'Al'. It means master swordsman, or swordmaster. You're familiar with the fact that all redcloaks are called Swordsmen?"
"Except the officers, right?"
"Yes," Varad agreed. "They're just useless. But the rest of us are all Swordsmen."
Pug nodded. That was common knowledge. "I've worked for you redcloaks before. I've heard that."
"Well, I'm not a Swordsman but I'm not an officer. I'm a better Swordsman: a Swordmaster."
"Oh. I'd never heard of that," Pug admitted. He finished his check of the horses and climbed back up onto the seat. "Ready?"
"A moment," Varad replied and closed his eyes again. He listened hard and let his mouth hang slightly open so he could taste the air as well as sniff it. For a long moment he was very still, while Pug tried to decide whether he looked like an idiot or just a fool.
Varad's eyes snapped open, and he dropped back onto the seat. "Very well. Let's go."
Pug, as Varad was noticing, liked to talk. "How did you become a Swordmaster?"
"Practice," he shrugged. "Lots and lots of practice."
"No," Pug stopped him. "That isn't what I meant. Anyone can be enlisted, but only nobles can be officers. How do you become something else?"
"Why all these questions?" Varad asked. He sounded skeptical.
"Because I've never heard of a Swordmaster before. Not in the way you mean. Nor have I ever heard the title 'Al'"
Again Varad shrugged. "Oh. There's never more than one of us at a time."
"So you beat everyone else?"
"No. Well, yes, I did, but I was already the master," Varad replied. Pug waited, and soon enough the other continued. "I come from the Palm. I grew up there. My father was a steel-smith, and my mother was dead from before I remember."
"All smiths work with steel," Pug countered.
Varad turned very slowly to look at Pug with absolute disdain. "Do you want me to call your carriage a 'wagon' again?"
Pug was momentarily silent, but he did roll his eyes in acceptance. "There's a difference?"
"Big one," Varad replied emphatically.
"All right. He was a steel-smith. So you grew up in the mountains east of Ashirak. The Palm is beyond Fyr and Syr, right?" Pug said, reminding his employer of what he had been saying. It also showed he knew a little about the Palm.
"You've heard of the it," Varad observed, blinking in surprise.
"It's on a plateau that touches several other peaks called the Fingers. Retired warriors tend to go there. The Thane of the Ashirai supports it so they can drop dead in peace after years of service," Pug told him.
Varad mulled that over. The carriage cut across an intersecting street, and Pug stared down the obvious path before deferring to the right. The way had been getting narrower, and now either of them could reach out and touch the dilapidated buildings beside the road. At the next intersection Pug once more guided the team once more back to the left into the setting sun. The turn was so tight the front wheels grazed the walls, and it looked like they would have to back up. Varad kicked the wall in, the building collapsed backwards, and they made it through.
"Yes," he finally agreed. "It's for the people who never had time to have families and have no where else to go. But it's not just for those with one foot in the grave. Anyone can go there. It's mostly people who need to make their peace with various gods before dying."
"Sounds like a fun place. A whole city on top of a mountain devoted to being sorry for living bad lives. I bet you had a really great time growing up."
"You're forgetting that these are almost all warriors," Varad pointed out. "What's the first thing that happens when two old warriors get together?"
"Complain about the food?"
Varad blinked again, utterly stopped. "Well, yes," he admitted once more. "But after that they argue about who was better when they were young. They have competitions, and since a lot of them are too broken to compete themselves, they train kids to do it for them. Those who like fighting teach others to fight, and those who like working with their hands do the smithing. People up there have been doing this for quite a while, so the sword fighters are pretty good at it, and the steel-smiths are the best in the world.
"In tribute to the Thane, every couple years one of us comes down to work. Normally it's one of the steel-smiths, and he makes blades for the Red Guard. Sometimes it's a fighter, and he teaches. Right now it's me."
"So why aren't you teaching?"
As a reply Varad reached back and tapped the casket. "I've got to bring this back to Dylath-Leen. My two years are actually up, but I said I would complete this before returning to the mountain."
"So why do get the special rank? Just because you're good with a sword? There have to be others who are better."
"Not right now there aren't. Not in the Red Guard," Varad countered. "But no, that's not why. Enlistments are twenty years to life. Commissions are always for life. Whoever comes from the Palm only has to do two years, so they get a special position."
"How much do you get paid?" Pug asked.
"The same as a senior craftsman. More than a squire, but less than a captain or champion."
"Good. Then you'll be able to pay me for the bed now," Pug informed him.
Varad sent the driver another flat look. "You still don't trust the Red Guard?"
"Everything you said could have been a lie, and you killed someone and took his cloak. I want my money now."
"If I did that, I could just kill you too."
"Then I want to die rich."
Varad rolled his eyes, but went pulled out his purse and started counting coins. "I'll give you three marks for the wagon bed."
"Carriage bed," Pug corrected him. "And six."
"I don't care what you call it, I'm still only paying you three marks," Varad argued.
"Six."
"Three, but I'll pay you in steel."
"Four," Pug told him.
"Three."
"No, four. I'm serious. It will cost me four to get the carriage bed repaired." Pug turned to look at Varad briefly, but there didn't seem to be any guile in his expression. After a moment the Swordmaster gave in and added another coin to the pot. The only thing he trusted Pug in was the carriage. He had hired Pug exactly for that reason, and the older, fatter man was living up to his obligations in that area. Four steel marks changed hands, and they kept driving.
Steel marks were not pure steel. They were a gold one-mark coin with a steel ring around it. The steel resisted shaving, and if one removed the gold interior to shave that, it would fit loosely when replaced. Over time the steel would rust, but the Baron of Dylath-Leen and the Thane of Ashirak would both replace the coins with fresh ones for a nominal fee. They would do it for free at tax time every year, which provided obvious benefits for all involved.
"Stop," Varad ordered suddenly.
Obligingly Pug did so, and the carriage settled to stillness between in the canyon-like street. The team nickered to themselves, and beams on the carriage creaked while the tongue groaned underneath. Varad dropped to the flagstones and froze, listening hard. Again he opened his mouth slightly, and again Pug forewent commenting.
After a moment the swordsman opened his eyes and hoped back aboard. He sat down with a frown, shaking his head, but urged Pug onward. At a cluck and snap of the reins, the team began to walk again.
Pug looked at Varad curiously, but the other waved him off without explaining. The driver shrugged, and kept his eyes on the road.
They wound deeper into the Narrows, twisting around more precipitous corners. Twice more Varad made them stop, and dismounted to listen intently. Both times he remounted with a dissatisfied look and refused to explain. Finally they came to a second intersection and stopped again.
It had been a roughly perpendicular meeting of two roads, but the avenues to the right and left of their current byway were blocked. Several yards up each side road buildings had collapsed, spilling detritus into the road. The lay of the wreckage was deliberate. Great beams stabbed up like broken bones, and patterns of debris rippled between. There was no way to get the carriage over.
"So that's what he was doing," Varad noted. He frowned and stared at the ruined roadways.
Pug was more concerned with the single opening ahead. "That's obviously a trap," he pointed out.
"Probably," Varad agreed. "It depends on whether or not he closes the way behind us. I've heard three crashes so far. If I hear another from the rear, then his intent is surely to drive us on. Could you turn around here?"
Pug considered it. "Yes, but it would take time. There's enough space on the cross streets to back into."
"This isn't as clean as it should be," Varad observed. "He should have eliminated the side roads entirely. Why not bring down the buildings on the corners?"
"They might have closed the byway he wanted us to take?" Pug suggested. "You can see where the buildings did collapse, they could only flow directly into the street. They're also far enough back that none of the rubble got into this road. If any of the four corners came down, they could close the way entirely."
The swordsman examined the driver's logic and found it sound. "Stay here. Keep the team still," he ordered and leaped from the carriage seat to scramble up the dilapidated wall beside him. Bits of it crumbled under his hand, but soon Varad rolled onto the roof and squatted to look around.
Morryin was nowhere to be seen, and the uneven roofs made determining the course of the road impossible. Varad stared around for several seconds before descending with another unsatisfied look.
"Keep going," he decided. "The trap is well laid, and I don't see a way around it."
"We can go back," Pug pointed out.
"No. That's too obvious not to also be a trap. Hopefully Morryin is riding hard, trying to outdistance us ahead and behind, and wasting his strength. We will go ahead forewarned."
"Forewarned is forearmed," Pug told him, quoting an old aphorism.
Varad looked at him like he was an idiot. "Armed is forearmed," he corrected firmly and shook the sheathed Song of Winter at him.
"Then shouldn't you draw the thing and keep it ready?" Pug retorted, angry at the ridicule his old saying had elicited.
"And waste the advantage a fast draw can bring me?" Varad countered. "I think not."
The two of them glared at each other, and then Pug urged his team forward once more. Varad went back to staring at the roof line, waiting, while Pug glowered at his horses. The horses ignored them both.
