Oath of Gold

29

On the higher ground, Paks could see farther; from time to time the light strengthened as if the sun might break through. The red horse seemed to know the way—Paks had explained, as if he were a human companion, that they needed to find the grange at Westbells. She concentrated on riding. Now that she had time to think, she wondered that she was able to move about at all. Something or someone had worked healing on her: her own gift, Gird, the gods themselves. She was not sure why the healing was incomplete, but told herself to be glad she was whole of limb. Enough pains were left that she was glad when they came to Westbells near midday, with the winter fog still blurring distant vision. When she slid from the red horse’s back, she staggered, leaning against him. Her feet felt like two lumps of fire.

Marshal Torin stared at her when he opened the door to her knock. “Is it—”

“Paksenarrion,” she said. He caught her shoulder and steadied her.

“Gird’s grace! I can’t believe—we held a vigil for you. All the granges—” He led her inside. “We didn’t really think you’d live, or be strong enough to travel.”

Paks sank gratefully into the chair he gave her. “I wasn’t sure myself.” She felt as if all her strength had run away like water; she didn’t want to think about moving again.

“Five days!” She wasn’t sure if the emotion in his voice was surprise or elation or both. “This will show those—!” He banged a kettle on the rack, and moved around the room, gathering dishes and food. “I won’t ask what they did, Liart’s bastards, but—I presume you need healing, eh? Rest, food, drink—we can do that—” He set a loaf down on his desk, and a basin of clean water, then came to her, easing the hood back from her head. His breath hissed at what he saw.

“Damn them,” he said. His hands were warm and gentle. “Some of this needs cleaning.” Paks winced as he worked at one cut and another with a clean rag. “What’s this?” He touched a swollen lump on the back of her head.

“I don’t remember—the stairs, maybe.”

“Let’s see the rest of the damage.” He helped Paks out of her clothes. By the time the water boiled, he had cleaned all the festering wounds—not many—and she was wrapped in a soft robe.

“There isn’t as much as I’d expected,” he said, handing her a mug of sib. “Five days and nights—” Paks took a long swallow; the sudden attack of weakness had passed, and she was even hungry again. “There was more.” Paks sipped again. She did not want to say how much; the memory sickened her. “Broken bones, more burns. They’re—gone—” She waved her hand, unable to explain.

“Your own gift healed some of it, no doubt. Perhaps Gird himself the rest—I’ve heard of that. And left just enough to witness what you’d suffered. As the Code says: scars prove the battle, as sweat proves effort. But with your permission, I would pray healing for the rest, and restore your strength. I daresay none will question your experience now.”

Paks nodded. “Thank you, Marshal. I cannot—”

“No. You have done all you can; the gifts bring power but consume the user as well. That mark on your forehead—”

Paks grimaced. “Liart’s brand. I know.” She remembered too clearly the shape of that brand; they had shown her in a mirror the charred design.

“That’s not what I see—have you looked? No, how could you—but here—” he handed her a polished mirror; Paks took it gingerly. Her bald head patched with scrapes and cuts looked as ridiculous as she’d thought—bone-white between the red and purple welts, smeared now with greenish ointment, and bristling with pale stubble where her hair was coming back. Beneath, her tanned face hardly seemed to belong to it. But the mark on her forehead was no longer the black horned circle of Liart. Instead a pale circle gleamed like silver. She nearly dropped the mirror, and stared at Marshal Torin.

“It can’t—”

“Whatever happened, Paksenarrion, the High Lord and Gird approved; I have heard of such things. Such honors are not lightly won. It is no wonder you are still worn by your trials.” She told him then what Arvid had said: rumor, panic, wild tales told by thieves, and unreliable. But if the brand could change like that, and deep burns disappear, what might the truth be? Marshal Torin nodded, eyes alight.

“Yes!” he said when she stopped. “The gods always have more than one purpose. Certainly you were sent to save more than a king, and from that dark warren Gird will gain many a yeoman, many a one who knows that fear is not the only power. Well done, paladin of Gird: well done.”

After eating, Paks managed to stumble down the passage to one of the guest chambers. She was asleep almost before the Marshal covered her with blankets.

When she woke, she knew at once that her injuries were healed. She could breathe without pain. The lump on her head was gone, though she could feel uneven ridges of painless scar where cuts and burns had been. She scratched the bottom of one foot with the other; those burns were gone. She looked: scars to witness her ordeal, but nothing left of the weakness and pain. And a clear call to follow . . . she had not finished this quest yet. As she threw the covers aside and sat up, the Marshal tapped on her door.

“Paksenarrion?”

“Yes—I’m awake.”

He looked in. “I would let you sleep longer, but that horse of yours is kicking the door.”

“Gird’s arm. I forgot him.”

“He’s all right—I fed him after you fell asleep. But he’s decided he needs to see you, I suppose. I told him I don’t eat paladins, but—”

“How long did I sleep?”

“It’s still dark, but morning.”

Paks had followed him along the passage, still in the robe she’d slept in; she could hear the steady thumps of the red horse’s hoof. The Marshal opened the door, and the horse poked his head into the room.

“You,” said Paks. The horse snorted. “I’m all right. I’m getting up. I’ll eat before I ride, though.” The horse snorted again. “And so should you,” said Paks severely. “You could have let me sleep till daylight.” The horse leaned into the room, and Paks held out her hand for a nuzzle. “Go on out, now; it’s cold. I won’t be long.” The horse withdrew, and the Marshal closed the door.

“I thought I bolted the door to the stable,” he said.

“I’m sure they bolted the stable door in Vérella,” said Paks. “That horse goes where he wills. I’d better get ready to ride.”

Paks found that she had been left clean clothes as well as her mail and sword. Even boots that fit. Paks hurried into her clothes, then realized her helmet would not fit without her thick braid of hair coiled into it. Finally the Marshal found her an old knitted scarf that served well enough. Back in her own mail, with a sword at her side once more, she felt completely herself. By the time they finished eating, and she had fastened her saddlebags onto the saddle, the eastern sky was pale green with a flush of yellow near the horizon. She mounted, and turned the red horse toward the road. He stopped short, ears pricked at something west down the road. Paks glanced down at the Marshal, who had walked out with her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But he thinks there’s something—”

“I’d believe it,” said Paks. She drew her sword, and settled herself in the saddle. She heard the Marshal’s blade coming free from his scabbard. Now the red horse snorted, blowing rollers in the cold dawn wind. He tossed his head, and loosed a resonant whinny.

“That doesn’t sound like trouble,” said the Marshal. “And it’s not spring yet.”

Paks chuckled, thinking of the red horse with a herd of mares. “I don’t think that’s it.” The horse whinnied again, and began prancing sideways. “What’s got into you, you crazy horse! Settle down.”

“Hush,” said the Marshal. “I think I hear something—”

Paks strained her ears. A faint echo of the red horse’s whinny? The wind died. Now she could hear it clearly: the drumming clatter of many hooves, the squeak and jingle of harness. She felt the hairs on her neck prickle up. She rode into the center of the road and peered west. Was that a dark mass moving in the distance? And who could it be?

“It might be the Guard,” said the Marshal slowly, echoing her thought.

“Liart,” said Paks. “They let me go, all right, and now they’re after the king in force.”

“Six—seven—days late?”

“It must be. What else?”

He shook his head, but said nothing for a moment. The early light, still faint, showed the front of the mass of riders moving steadily toward them.

“You won’t try to hold them.” It was half question. Paks estimated the size of the troop and shook her head.

“I couldn’t, not here. I’ll try to reach the king first, and then see what I can do.”

“They won’t catch you on that horse,” said the Marshal. “But I’ll see if I can delay them.”

Paks nodded, and reined the red horse around. He shook his head, fighting the rein as he never had, and moved out stiffly when she nudged him. In a few lengths he tried to sidle back toward the Marshal. Paks bumped him harder with her heels, and wondered what he thought he was doing. Then a horn signal floated across the air, and she froze. It couldn’t be. In a single motion, she reined the horse around yet again, and galloped toward the oncoming riders. She heard the Marshal yell her name as she rode by, but did not stop or reply.

Again the horn call: incredibly, the call she knew so well. She rode on; the red horse slid to a stop just in front of the cohort’s commander, who was already braced for an attack.

“You!” Dorrin’s voice was hardly recognizable.

“I don’t believe it,” said Paks, believing it. The horn spoke again, and ninety swords slipped back into their scabbards.

Dorrin reached out to grip her arm. “It is really you? The Duke said—”

“It is. And this is you, and how—”

Dorrin pushed up her visor. “We,” she said, “are not the Tsaian Royal Guard. It doesn’t take my cohort two days to pack and ride.”

“I thought he left that night.”

“He did, but I nearly had to pack every Tir-damned mule myself. And a third of their heavy horses needed new shoes, and so on. It’s a wonder I have a voice left.”

“And?” Paks had turned the red horse, and they were jogging together at the head of the column.

“And as soon as he got back, he sent Selfer north, to pick up my cohort.”

“All the way to the stronghold?”

“No-o. Not quite. In case of any difficulty, he’d stationed them along the southern line.”

They were riding through Westbells now, and Paks waved to Marshal Torin, who stood watching with an uncertain expression. She pulled the red horse out of line, and went to him.

“It’s Dorrin’s cohort of Phelan’s company,” she said quickly. “They’ve come to help.”

“I gathered it was his, from the pennant,” he said. “By Gird, they move fast. When did they leave the north?”

“I don’t have the whole story yet,” said Paks. “Someday—” And she turned again and rode after them, for the column was past already. Again at the head of it, riding into the rising sun, Paks felt at home.

Dorrin reined her horse close to Paks’s. “Paks, I never expected to see you again, let alone riding at my side this day. And you look—I have never seen you looking better. How did you get free of them? And that mark—”

“Gird’s grace,” said Paks. “I can’t explain it all, but they kept their bargain, at least to leaving me alive. Then the gods gave healing: that mark began as Liart’s brand. I presume,” she said with a sidelong glance, “that they had more for me to do. Something is stirring the Thieves Guild; they had a part in it.”

Dorrin nodded. “The Duke—the king—blast, I must get that straight in my mind—anyway, he said something about the Thieves Guild. They wouldn’t let the Liartians kill him there, he said. But how did that help you?”

“Oh—a couple of years ago, after I left the Company, I met a thief in Brewersbridge.” Dorrin grunted, and Paks went on. “A priest of Achrya had set up a band of robbers in a ruined keep near there, and the town hired me to find and take them. This thief—he said he was after the commander, because they hadn’t been paying their dues to the Guild.”

Dorrin shook her head. “I have a hard time imagining a paladin of Gird with a thief for a friend.”

Paks thought of Arvid. “Well—he’s not a thief—exactly. Or my friend, exactly, either.” Dorrin looked even more dubious; Paks went on. “So he says. Obviously he’s high in the Guild, but he’s never said exactly what he does do. He’s not like any thief I ever heard of. But in this instance, he saved my life. He’s the one who arranged to have me taken outside the city, alive or dead, when the time was up. And he killed someone who had bargained to kill me.”

Dorrin turned to look at her. “A thief?”

“Yes.” Paks wondered whether to tell Dorrin that Gird had as much interest in thieves as kings, but decided against it. A knight of Falk, born into a noble family, had certain limitations of vision, even after a lifelong career as a mercenary captain.

“Hmmph. I may have to change my mind about thieves.” From Dorrin’s tone, that wasn’t likely. Paks laughed.

“You needn’t. Arvid’s uncommon.”

“He’s never robbed your pocket,” said Dorrin shrewdly.

“No. That’s true. Just the same, he took no advantage when he might have, in Brewersbridge, and he served me here.” She rode a moment in silence, squinting against the level rays of the rising sun. “What does the king expect, that he called your cohort in? And what did the Council think of it?”

Dorrin frowned. “He said they would never have released him if they hadn’t thought they could take him before the coronation. That they thought, with you out of the way, to attack somewhere on the road. The crown prince would have given him a larger escort, but he refused it . . . said it might be needed even in Vérella.”

“What does he have?”

“I suppose near seventy fighters altogether: a half-cohort of Royal Guards, the tensquad out of this cohort, those King’s Squires, the High Marshal and another Marshal. Plus supply and servants—an incredible amount, the Royal Guard insists on. It’s easy to see they don’t travel much.”

“Umm. I wish we had the whole Company.”

“So do I. But he said he couldn’t strip the north bare, not after the other troubles this winter. And Pargun might move, knowing him so far away. He did tell Arcolin to move the two veteran cohorts to the east and south limits, just in case. Val’s got the recruit cohort at the stronghold. He’s afraid that the evil powers will move with all violence.”

“And we have one cohort,” said Paks quietly. Dorrin smiled at her.

“And a paladin they didn’t expect us to have.”

“And two Marshals—perhaps more, if we’re near a grange. That is, if we can catch up to them.”

“We will,” said Dorrin. “Those heavy warhorses won’t make a third the distance we’re making. And I daresay that red horse of yours could go even faster. Will you go ahead, then, or stay with us?”

Paks thought about it. “For now, I’ll stay with you. He has the Marshals with him; they will know, as I would know, if great evil is near. For all you are a Knight of Falk, Captain, I might be useful to you.”

“You know you are. I tell you, Paks, I was never so surprised—and relieved—as when you rode up. It harrowed all our hearts to go without trying to free you. But he said no one must do anything for five days.”

Paks nodded. “That was necessary.”

“But when I thought of it—” Dorrin shook her head. “Falk’s oath in gold! For anyone to be in their hands five days—and you—”

“It was necessary.” Paks looked over to Selfer, who had said nothing during all this. “How’s your leg?”

“It’s well enough,” said Selfer. “The Marshal took care of it, before I rode north.”

“How long did that take?”

“I left—let me think—well before midnight, and by dawn the third day I was with the cohort. We marched the next dawn—they were ready, but let me sleep until dark, and the Duke—the king—had said to march by day only, to Vérella.”

“He didn’t want the cohort too tired to fight,” said Dorrin. “We were to march out again at once. Selfer brought them in good shape—remarkable, considering the weather and all.”

Selfer grinned and flushed. “At least we didn’t get a thaw on that bad stretch,” he said. “I was worried, when it turned foggy.”

“You see, Selfer,” said Dorrin, “all those things you must worry about if you’re a captain? Do you still want it?”

He nodded, shyly. “Yes, Captain, I do. The more I do, the more I like it.”

Dorrin grinned at Paks. “He’s been acting as junior captain to Arcolin and me both this past year—and he’s good.” Selfer turned even redder; Paks remembered when she used to blush like that, and wondered how long it had been. She looked back along the cohort, at faces she knew almost as well as those in Arcolin’s cohort. All at once she felt like racing the red horse along the road and singing. They were six days behind the king’s party. They asked word at every grange, and at each the news was good: they had passed without trouble. Curious eyes followed them; Phelan’s colors had not marched that way before. Paks saw the worried glances. Dorrin carried a royal pass, which she showed in every town, but the local farmers were clearly uncertain. That night the cohort stayed in Blackhedge, sleeping a few hours in safety, but they were on the road again before daybreak. The towns rolled past. Now they said the king had passed only five days before. At Piery, they heard that his party had stayed over a day, because some of the Royal Guard mounts were lame. Dorrin muttered a curse, and Paks laughed, pointing out that they could catch them sooner. They had left three mornings ago.

That night they pressed on, passing the grange at Dorton in the falling dark, and camping in a rough pasture far from any village. Paks would have ridden on after only a few hours sleep, but felt she should stay with the cohort. She had spoken to most of them, uncomfortable only with Natzlin, who did not ask about Barranyi. Paks did not tell her. The next day the red horse pulled away from the road; Paks thought she remembered that the Honnorgat made a wide bend. Paks urged Dorrin to leave the road. The captain’s face creased in a frown.

“I’m worried about causing trouble,” she said. “My pass is for the road to Harway, on the border—unless we’re attacked, I can’t justify leaving it.”

“We won’t be attacked,” said Paks. “Not yet—but we can save several hours, at least, by cutting the bend.”

“Can you tell if the king is in need?”

Paks shook her head. “I do not know if I could tell—and I feel nothing now but an urge to hurry. It may be that he will be in need.”

“Paks—are the gods telling you to leave the road? Is it that sure?”

“If I were riding alone, Captain, I would go across country. If you cannot go that way, perhaps I should leave you now and go on. But I never expected to be here at all—and certainly not with a cohort behind me—so I cannot give you orders.”

Dorrin gnawed her lip. Everyone waited a for her decision. Selfer opened his mouth and closed it again, catching Paks’s eye. Then she sat back on her horse, easing her back, and sighed. “Well—wars aren’t won by coming late to the battle.” She grinned at Paks. “I hope, Gird’s paladin, that your saint will cover us while we follow you. I would hate to raise new enemies for the king by this.”

“Captain, the gods have led me into peril, but not without cause.”

“So be it. We’ll take your way.”

Paks led them over fallow fields and through woods, the red horse moving as quickly on rough ground as on the road. No one challenged them; in fact, the country seemed empty under a cold sun. They met the road again at Swiftin. Here the yeoman-marshal said the the king’s party had passed only the day before. They paused to feed and rest the horses before they left. Again they rode most of the night, sleeping beside their horses for a few hours in turn. Dorrin seemed almost as anxious as Paks to catch the king’s party. A thin cold drizzle began late in the night; Paks pulled her cloak over her mail when she mounted.

By dawn the drizzle had turned to sleet, and then fine snow. Sometime later, it ceased. The clouds blew away to the east, and the sun blazed on the fresh snowfall. Paks decided to scout ahead of the cohort. The red horse cantered steadily onward, flinging up sprays of glittering snow. She passed through one village too small for a grange, then came to a larger town. She barely remembered passing through it in a hurry on the way to Vérella. The Marshal stared at her when she gave her name, but said the king’s party was only an hour or so ahead; they had stopped there overnight. They had had no trouble so far, he said. Paks explained about the cohort following her; his eyebrows shot up his forehead.

“You’re bringing Phelan’s soldiers through here? Through Verrakai lands?”

Paks had known that the Verrakaien held lands in the east end of Tsaia, but not precisely where. “His captain has a royal pass,” she said slowly. “Signed by the crown prince himself—”

The Marshal snorted. “For all the good that’ll do. Gird grant they don’t notice—though I don’t suppose they’ll miss a cohort of Phelan’s troops. Why did he do something like that?”

Paks controlled her temper. “He expected trouble,” she said crisply. “He wanted his own troops—trained as he knew—in case of it.”

“Well, he’ll get trouble enough, stirring an ant’s nest with a stick. Why couldn’t he ride peacefully to his kingdom without all this pomp?”

Paks looked at him. She knew that Marshals varied in ability and personality, but she did not like his sour, half-defeated expression.

“Sir Marshal,” she said, “surely High Marshal Seklis told you that evil powers had already attacked the king—he had no chance to go peacefully.”

“Seklis!” The Marshal spat. “It’s easy for him—living in Vérella, at court and all. He won’t have to keep a broken grange together out here—who’s going to help me, when half my yeomen are taken by something in the forest?”

“Gird,” said Paks quietly, but with force enough to change his expression. “Tell me your problem, Marshal, and we’ll see what can be done. Your yeomen have been taken?”

He glowered at her, but answered straightly enough. “They disappear. We search, and find nothing. I’ve told them back at Vérella, again and again. There’s something out there, and I can’t find it. But they don’t listen.”

Paks nodded, and he went on.

“Then they tell me to keep watch for Phelan—that he’ll be coming through and may need help—that fox! And now I understand he’s supposed to be a king, or something. In Lyonya, of all places: just what we need, a mercenary king next door, when it’s all I can do to keep things quiet as it is.”

“I think, Marshal, that you’ve kept things too quiet.” Paks sat back in her saddle and watched him. He flushed, but still met her eye. “Gird did not value quietness over right.”

“Gird is not here,” muttered the Marshal. “No—I know they say you’re a paladin, but it’s not the same as being here, year after year, with the yeomen more frightened, more reluctant—”

“Well,” said Paks, “you don’t have to stay here. Come along and see what we’re talking about.” He shook his head. Her voice sharpened. “Marshal, you can’t hide forever. I suspect we’re about to have as splendid a battle as you’ve ever seen—don’t you think your yeomen will expect their Marshal to be in it?”

“They won’t care.”

“I do.” Paks straightened, and called her light for the first time since Vérella. He stepped back, startled. She saw faces turn toward her, in the town square, and reined the red horse into the middle of it. Children scurried in and out of doorways; faces appeared at windows. “What’s this town?” she asked the Marshal, who had followed her slowly into the square.

“Darkon Edge,” he said. “What—”

“I’ll show you,” said Paks. She drew her sword and laid it crossways on the saddle bow. “Yeomen of Gird!” Her yell brought heads around, and drew a flurry of movement. “Yeomen of Gird, hear me!” A few men hurried into the square: an obvious baker, dusting flour from his hands, a forester with his axe, several more. When perhaps a dozen had clustered around her, she pointed at the baker. “Is this all the yeomen in Darkon Edge?”

“No—why—what is it?”

“I am Paksenarrion,” she said, “a paladin of Gird, on quest. Do you know of it?” They shook their heads. “You know who stayed here last night?” One nodded; the others merely stared. “The rightful king of Lyonya,” said Paks loudly. “The king who was stolen into slavery as a young child, and lost all memory of his family. He was taken, yeomen of Gird, to weaken Lyonya, to open a way for the powers of evil to assail both Lyonya and Tsaia.”

“So?” asked one of the men.

“So in the end, the powers of Liart and Achrya failed, and he is going to his throne. If he gains it, peace and freedom will have a chance here. Do you think Liart and Achrya like that?”

“But he’s a mercenary,” yelled someone from a window across the square. Paks faced it and yelled back.

“He was a mercenary, yes—to earn his way, when he knew nothing of his birth. But he’s more than a mercenary. Gird knows Lyonya needs a soldier on the throne, with those against her.”

“It won’t do any good,” said the same voice. “Nothing does. Gird: that’s an old tale. The real power’s in the dark woods, where—”

“Come out here and say that,” said Paks. “Is this light I carry an old tale? Will you face it and say that Gird has no power?”

“Not against Liart.” The face at the window disappeared, and the yeomen muttered.

“Who is that?” asked Paks quickly.

“Joriam. He’s an elder here,” said the forester. “His son’s gone, and his nephew’s crippled by that there—” But a powerful gray-haired man had come out the door, and strode angrily across the square to Paks.

“You!” he yelled. “Paladin, are you? You come here and tell us to fight, and then you’ll go away, and it will start again. What do you know about that, eh?” He looked her up and down. “Fancy armor, fancy horse, fancy sword. You never lay bound on Liart’s altar! It’s easy for you!”

In one swift gesture, Paks jerked off her helmet. Into the shocked silence that followed, with every eye riveted on her scarred shaven head, she said quietly, “You’re wrong. And this is the proof of it. I carried Liart’s brand: look now, and see Gird’s power.”

The man’s mouth opened and shut without a word. One of the foresters blushed, and looked away. Paks scanned the square, noting others who had crept in and peered from doorways. She raised her voice again.

“Yeomen of Gird, I have known what you fear. I have been captive—aye, by Liart’s priests, as well as others. I have been unarmed, hungry, frightened, cold, naked—all that you have feared, I have known. If it were not a winter’s day—” Her voice warmed to the chuckle she felt, “—you could see all my scars, and judge for yourself. But let this—” she gestured at her head, “be enough proof for you. I know Liart and his altars, and Achrya and her webs, and I know the only cure for them. I call on you, yeomen of Gird. Follow Gird; come with me; together we will destroy the evils you fear, or die cleanly in battle. No more bloody altars of Liart, yeomen. Blood on our own blades now.” She raised her sword; a shout followed. The faces watching her came alive.

“But—” The old man raised an arm and the shouts died.

Paks broke in. “No, elder Joriam. The time for ‘but’ and ‘maybe’ is long past. You have suffered evil; I am sorry for it. Now the yeomen of Gird must take heart and take weapons, and save themselves from more evil. Come!” The red horse danced sideways, clearing a space which filled with men, suddenly swarming from doorways and side streets. “Is it true?” asked the baker, wiping his hands again. “Is it really true that you can find it, and we can fight?”

Paks grinned at them all. “Yeomen, we shall fight indeed.” She watched them run to the Grange, bringing back stored weapons, and form themselves into a ragged square before her. Then she heard the drumming hooves of Dorrin’s cohort coming into the village, and turned to meet her.