Honor among thieves

Chapter Ninety-One

The Skilfinger knight wore a byrnie of chain mail that fell in long triangular tappets around his knees. Strips of steel hung from the chain links across his chest and jangled merrily as he rode. “You. Come,” he said, for the hundredth time, gesturing westward with his lance.

Croy grunted but kept walking after the horse. On either side of him the knight’s retainers-rail-thin men in boiled leather armor, carrying poleaxes like the one he’d found on the trail-jogged effortlessly along. They didn’t seem to mind the slow going, but the knight seemed impatient with their progress. He had to keep his horse to a deliberate walk so Croy and Bethane could hope to keep up with him. Croy had asked a thousand times that the knight let Bethane ride behind him, but apparently that was forbidden. The knight practiced a severe religion that would not allow a man and a woman to touch each other unless they were married.

Of course, by right of precedence, the knight should have dismounted and given Bethane the horse. In the days since their capture, Croy had attempted to tell the knight who Bethane was in several different ways. Yet among the score of Skraeling words the knight possessed, and the half dozen or so of the Skilfinger language Croy understood, “queen” was not among them.

“It’s all right,” Bethane kept saying. “At least we’re safe.” She gave him one of her small treasury of smiles and he nodded back.

They had recovered Ghostcutter from the scree of the hillside and let him put it back in its sheath. That was something. Other than that, however, Croy wasn’t sure what the Skilfingers intended. He knew he had no choice but do as they said.

His strength was at its very ebb. The wound in his side was getting worse. Every time he lifted the bandage there, the smell nearly made him swoon. The old wound in his left elbow made it impossible to even close that fist. His feet felt like raw stumps.

Had the Skilfingers intended to slay him or Bethane, he would not have been able to resist.

Yet it seemed that was not the plan. Instead, the knight herded them westward, along the border rather than across it. The knight seemed uninterested in telling Croy where he was taking them. If they kept along this course they would soon reach the shores of Lake Marl. The fishermen who lived around the lake traded with Skrae, and surely someone there would speak his language. He would be able to find someone to translate and he could tell the Skilfinger knight just how important it was that Bethane be taken to safety.

Yet he had a sinking feeling they would not be going that far.

And he was right.

That night they camped in a box canyon with the wind whistling by high overhead. The knight gave them food and comfortable bedrolls but made sure they were watched at all times by at least two of his retainers. Croy was allowed to keep his sword, but he knew if he tried to draw it they would just take it away from him. So little strength remained to him that he doubted he could fight off even one of the well-trained soldiers.

Croy and Bethane had slept curled up together for warmth when they were alone in the hills. Now the custom of Skilfing demanded they sleep at least six feet apart. Croy found he missed the human contact more than he’d expected.

In the morning he woke with a fever. His vision swam and he could barely swallow the thin wine they poured down his throat. In a daze he watched Bethane argue with the retainers and then with the knight until some kind of agreement was reached. Bethane knew even less of their language than Croy did but somehow she got her way. He supposed that was part of her inheritance as a daughter of a long line of kings.

Croy was lifted by the retainers and then tied to the back of the horse. There was no law against two men riding together, it seemed.

All that day he drifted in and out of consciousness. His wounds pained him grievously when he was awake, and when he slept he was plagued by horrible meaningless dreams. He saw the hills flashing by, now as if the horse were galloping, now as if they moved more slowly than a cloud across a summer sky-trees, rocks, everywhere lichens sprouting, he could almost see them grow as he watched — and then they rode up a long promontory of rock, a kind of natural highway flanked on either side by high walls of stone. They came out on the side of a hill overlooking a valley swaying with dead yellow grass. It hurt Croy’s head to watch it bend and shift in the wind, so he focused instead on the shapes that didn’t move.

Tents, he saw. Hundreds upon hundreds of tents. Not the crude animal-skin tents of the barbarians either. These were neat pavilions, organized in militarily exact rows and columns, and each had a standard in front of its flap. Every standard flew the black and yellow colors of Skilfing, except for one. One especially large tent near the mouth of the valley flew green and gold.

The colors of Ulfram V, and now the colors of Bethane I.

The queen came running up to grab at Croy’s dangling chin and cheeks. “Croy!” she said, with excitement so long buried it cracked the wind-chapped skin around her mouth. “Croy, do you see it?”

He could not answer. The Skilfinger knight took him down the hill, the horse picking its way with excruciating care. They rode up to the large tent flying the royal colors and then, finally, they stopped. The knight’s retainers lined up in perfect order. The knight dismounted, then untied Croy and lowered him carefully to the cold ground.

Croy tried to sit up. Found it impossible. Bethane helped him, tucking a bedroll under his head so at least he could look around him. He saw someone come out of the tent-saw their greaves of steel, at least, from that vantage. The greaves were of Skraeling manufacture and design.

He struggled to turn his head enough to look up, to see the face of his fellow countryman.

When he did he could only believe he had lost consciousness again and was being harried by a ghost from one of his fever dreams.

It was the smiling, worried, oh so very long missed face of Sir Hew, Captain of the King’s Guards. But of course Sir Hew had died at Helstrow, with the rest of the Ancient Blades. Sir Orne and Sir Rory and Sir Hew, all dead in the first hours of the barbarian invasion, only Croy remaining of their brotherhood “How?” Croy managed to ask.

Sir Hew seemed to understand what he meant. “Sir Rory and I attempted to reach the keep, to organize a final defense, but we were too late. Morget and his men cut us off before we could reach the inner bailey.”

“Sir Rory,” Croy said.

Hew shook his head. “He died at Morget’s hand, seconds after you left us. The barbarian cut him in half. Even worse-he broke Crowsbill with the same blow. An Ancient Blade, shattered in one blow by a barbarian!”

Croy thought of Bloodquaffer, which had suffered the same fate. It seemed even magical swords of ancient provenance were no guarantee against Morget’s strength. His heart sagged in his chest, and not just to hear that his friend Rory was dead.

“Morget tried to come for me then, but I was busy. Killing every man I could get my hands on. I thought only to sacrifice myself in delaying the barbarian advance, to give you more time.” He shook his head. “I achieved nothing in that regard. A berserker knocked me over the head with an axe while I stood trying to defend the bridge over the Strow. I fell in the river and started to drown. Wearing that much armor, I should have. But the Lady had other uses for me. She washed me up on a bank two miles south of the fortress. I found a horse and came straight here.”

“Sk-Skif-”

“Enough. I’ll answer every question later. For now, be at peace. You’ve done a man’s service,” Sir Hew said, “bringing us the girl. I take it that Ulfram is dead.”

Croy nodded. It took some effort.

“Long live the queen,” Hew said. “Now, hero-sleep.” Hew’s face swam away from Croy’s vision as he followed the direct order of his superior.