Oath of Gold

9

Paks had hardly seen the Duke in the days since her first interview. Now, preparing to enter the Duke’s Court, she had time to wonder what she would find. Would it be like dinner with the Marshal-General? Or the candidates’ hall in Fin Panir? She found she had no idea what the Duke and his captains did: what they wore, what they ate, how they talked. Did he have a minstrel? And it seemed even stranger to be coming to his table in her uniform—she shook that feeling away. Simple nervousness, no doubt.

At the door, the sentry nodded. She knew him: a veteran in Cracolnya’s cohort. She had another attack of nervousness inside the hall, as she wondered which way to turn.

“Paks? Over here.” Dorrin beckoned from the left, a wide passage. Paks turned that way, and came into an oblong room with a large table in the center. “We eat here, and it’s also a conference room.” Now that Paks knew what to look for, the emblem of Falk that Dorrin wore was plain to see: the tiny ruby glittered in the lamplight. “You’re early,” Dorrin went on. “Cracolnya’s still out on a patrol. Pont won’t be here tonight. Arcolin’s upstairs with the Duke, and Val’s settling the recruits.” She looked closely at Paks. “How do you like being back?”

“Very much, Captain.” Paks had never had much to do with Dorrin. She was next in seniority after Arcolin; Paks wondered if she had known Tamar. She looked around the room. The table was already set: plates and the two-pronged forks she’d learned to use in Fin Panir were laid before each chair. Goblets of pale blue swirled glass—tall flagons to match—squat mugs for the ale that would follow the meal. Loaves of bread were already on the table, too, as were dishes of salt and the condiments the Duke had grown used to in Aarenis. On one wall were weapons: a gilded battle-ax (Paks wondered at that—she had never seen the Duke use one), a slender sword with a green jewel in the hilt, two curved blades with inlaid runes, in blue sea-stone, on the broad blades, and a notched black blade that made Paks shudder to look at it.

“You should know who else may be at dinner with us. The Duke’s surgeons sometimes—you may remember Visanior and Simmitt. Master Vetrifuge, the mage, would be with us, but he’s visiting another mage down near Vérella for a few weeks. Kessim, of course. And the Duke’s steward: did you know Venneristimon when you were here before?”

“No, Captain.”

“Not surprising. He has nothing to do with the recruits. Well, he sits with us, many times. His sister, too, has been visiting here: she’s a widow, and he’s helping her with her estates. So it’s been explained.” By a slight chill in this last phrase, Paks guessed that Dorrin didn’t like the steward’s sister. She wondered if anyone did, remembering Stammel and Devlin.

“Paks. Good, you’re here.” Arcolin and Valichi came in together. Paks realized suddenly that none of the captains were wearing swords. Arcolin must have noticed her quick look at each hip. “We don’t wear swords in the hall,” he said quietly. “The Duke sometimes has visitors he would not wish armed at his table.”

“But you—” began Paks.

“They cannot object if we do not wear them.”

“I see.”

“We have nothing to fear from each other,” he went on. Paks felt a sudden surge of unease, as if the floor dipped slightly. She almost shook her head to clear it, then looked around. At the door, the Duke stood beside a red-haired woman in a blue gown. She had her hand on his arm, and her body seemed to lean toward him. Paks recognized her at once: the woman she had seen in the inn the first night she returned. Behind them was the slight form of Kessim, the Duke’s squire on duty. Arcolin murmured, “That’s Venner’s sister—Lady Arvys Terrostin.”

The Duke led the lady in. She smiled and spoke to all the captains, and to Paks when she was introduced.

“Paksenarrion? What an unusual name, my dear. Kieri has told me so much about you—I could be jealous, if I had any right to be—” She extended a soft hand, and Paks took it, aware of her own rough palm. More than that, she was shaken with revulsion. She fought to conceal it. However much she disliked this woman, she was the Duke’s guest. But Dorrin turned the conversation, speaking to Paks.

“Is it a family name, Paks? I remember wondering about that—”

“My great-aunt was named Paksenarrion. I don’t know for whom, but I was named for her.” Paks wiped her hand on her tunic; she felt dirty.

“Ah. And I was named for my father’s grandmother. It was supposed to honor her, but when I turned soldier the family was furious and changed her name in the family records.” Dorrin smiled. “They sent me the one letter, to be sure I knew it, and that’s all I’ve ever heard.” Paks had never thought of any of the captains starting out.

“Eh, my lord—sorry I’m late—” Cracolnya, in the doorway, unwrapped his swordbelt and tossed it at a servant in the passage outside.

“What did you find?” asked the Duke.

“What we’ve found so far.” Cracolnya stumped over to the table, obviously stiff from the saddle, and poured himself a glass of wine. His mail jingled faintly as he moved. He drank the wine down. “They made for the Lairs again—a band of forty or so. We killed fifteen, and wounded a few, but we couldn’t catch them before they went underground.”

“I’m sure you tried very hard,” put in Lady Arvys. For the barest instant everyone looked at her. Then they all moved to find a seat at the table.

“We’re not formal,” said Valichi, the recruit captain. “Not unless we have visitors from outside. Just find a place somewhere—” Paks waited until the others had sorted themselves, and took a seat at the far end of the table from the Duke. She noted that Lady Arvys sat on the Duke’s left, and Master Simmitt, one of the dark-robed surgeons, was on his right. Cracolnya, Valichi, and Visanior, the other surgeon, took the left side of the table, while Arcolin, Dorrin, and the Duke’s steward (who entered at the last minute) took the right side. Kessim sat beside Paks. Servants brought in platters of food, and the meal began. Paks ate quietly, sharply aware of something wrong, but unable to locate it. She remembered feeling like this in the inn; she wondered if it was the red-haired woman. She looked at the faces, trying to pick out the woman’s escort that night. Around her the talk was of orcs and their raids.

“After so many quiet years, I simply can’t understand it.” Valichi gestured with his wine glass. “I must have missed something, staying up here with recruits—somehow I let them build up—but I swear to you, my lord, we had no trouble. No trouble at all.”

“I believe you.” The Duke’s eyes were hooded. “I can only imagine that they are moved by some power—” He paused as Lady Arvys’s hand rested lightly on his arm for a moment. She murmured something low into his ear. His face relaxed into a smile, and he shook his head. “Well,” he said in a milder tone, “we need not mar our meal with such talk. Tir knows we’ve covered the same ground before. Has anyone a lighter tale, to sweeten the evening?” Paks saw the others’ eyes shift sideways from face to face. She herself had never imagined the Duke being deflected from a serious concern by anyone, let alone someone like Lady Arvys. Meanwhile Simmitt had begun talking of rumors from Lyonya: the king’s illness, and turmoil among the heirs. The lady listened eagerly.

“Did you hear anything about Lord Penninalt?” she asked, when Simmitt paused.

“No, lady, not then. Did you know him?”

“Yes, indeed. A fine man. My late husband held his lands from Lord Penninalt, and we went every year to the Firsting Feast.” She turned to the Duke. “He is not so tall as you, my lord, or as famous in battle, but a brave man nonetheless.”

“You need not flatter me,” said the Duke, but he seemed not displeased.

Paks shivered. She looked up to find Venneristimon, diagonally across the table, staring at her.

“Are you quite well, Paks?” he asked. His tone was gentle and concerned, but it rasped on her like a file on bare flesh.

“Yes,” she said shortly. Something moved behind his eyes, and he passed a flagon of a different wine down the table.

“Here—try this. Perhaps it will help.” Now the others were looking at her, curious. Paks poured the wine—white this time—into her glass. She didn’t want it, but did not want to make a fuss, either.

“I’m fine,” she said. She passed the flagon back, and speared another sliver of roast mutton. She drenched it in gravy, and stuffed it quickly in her mouth. The others turned back to their own plates. When she glanced up again, Venner was still watching her sideways. His mouth stiffened when she met his eyes. She felt her heart begin to pound; her skin tingled. The lady and Simmitt talked on, idle gossip of court society and politics. Paks looked back at her plate. She had nearly cleaned it, and the dishes on the table were almost empty. She reached for the last redroots on the platter.

“Still hungry, Paks?” The lady’s voice, though warm and friendly, had the same effect on Paks as Venner’s. “I suppose you work so much harder—”

Paks felt her face go hot. She had not realized the others were through. Her stomach clenched, but Val was answering.

“All soldiers learn to eat when they can, lady.” She glanced over to find him cutting himself another slice of mutton. “Paks is not one to talk when she has nothing to say.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” said the lady, smiling down the table. “Paks, do say you forgive me—”

Paks’s mouth was dry as dust. She took a deliberate sip of the white wine, and said, “It’s not for me to forgive, lady; you meant no offense.” The wine seemed to go straight to her head; her vision blurred. As if she looked through smoke, she peered up the table and met Lady Arvys’s eyes. They changed from green to flat black as she looked. Paks felt the jolt in her head; she looked toward Venner as if someone pulled her head on a string. He was watching her, lips folded under at the corners, like someone satisfied but wary. Her sense of wrong seemed to grab her whole body and shake it. Half-stupefied by the wine (how could one swallow be so strong?) she looked from one face to the other. Of course. Venner had been her escort. Even so, what was happening?

She might have sat there longer, but Venner spoke. “Ah . . . do you find the wine too strong for you, Paks? Are you still feeling ill?”

A flicker of anger touched her, and with it a warning. The anger, too, was wrong. It felt alien, as if it came from someone else. She reached deep inside for her own sense of self, and found not only that but a call for guidance. Her tongue felt clumsy, but she formed the words: “In the High Lord’s name—”

Venner’s face contracted; black malice leaped from his eyes. At once the hall was plunged into darkness. Stinking lamp smoke flavored a cold wind that scoured the room. Without thought Paks asked light, and found herself lined with glowing brilliance. She leaped up, looking for Venner. She could hear the scrape of chairs on the floor, the exclamations of the others—and a curse from Venner’s sister. The Duke gasped; she knew without looking that he’d been wounded somehow. At Venner’s end of the table, nothing could be seen but a whirl of darkness.

“You fool,” said his voice out of that darkness. “You merely make yourself a target.” Something struck at her, a force like a thrown javelin. She staggered a little, but the light repelled it. She looked at the captains: they sat sprawled in their chairs, eyes glittering in the spell-light, but unmoving. “They won’t help you,” Venner went on. “They can’t. And you are unarmed, but I—” She saw the darkness move to the wall, saw it engulf the terrible notched blade she’d seen there. “While she takes care of the Duke, I will kill you with this—as I killed before—and again no one will know. When I let these captains free, it will seem that you went wild—as Stephi did before you—and killed the Duke, while I tried to save his life.”

Paks was already moving, clearing herself of the chair. She had picked up a bronze platter—the largest thing on the table—and looked now to the walls for a weapon of her own. She was nearly too late. Venner had taken more than the notched sword: out of the darkness the battleaxe whirled at her. She flung out the platter, and it folded around the axe, slowing it and spoiling the blow. She had her dagger in hand now—far too short against an unseen opponent. The ragged edge of Venner’s sword caught the dagger and nearly took it out of her hand. She jumped back.

“You can’t escape,” his voice said, out of the blackness. “You—”

Paks saw a glow on one wall and leaped for it. The notched blade clattered against the wall just behind her. But she had a sword in her hand—the sword with the green stone. Its blade glowed blue as she took it. Before she could turn, Venner struck again. She felt the black sword open a gash along her side; she tucked and rolled away, and came up ready to fight.

Now she could sense, within the darkness, a core—more like the skeleton of a man than a man entire. One thin arm held the dark blade; the other held a dagger almost half as long. Paks thrust at the dark blade. Her own sword rang along it. Venner countered, stabbing with the dagger. Paks swept it aside, and attacked vigorously, beating him back and back.

“You can’t see me!” screamed Venner. “You can’t—”

But she could. Dark within dark, his shape grew clearer as they fought. Suddenly the dark was gone, as if Venner had dropped a black cloak. Paks stared, uncertain. He had disappeared; she could see the wall and floor where he should be. A blade came out of nowhere to strike her arm; she felt rather than saw the flicker of movement and managed to counter it. Now she sensed him as a troubling thickness in the air, a nearly transparent glimmer, barely visible in her own brilliant spell-light. She kept after him. The sword she held seemed to move almost of its own will, weightless and perfectly balanced in her hand. Venner retreated again, toward the head of the table. Paks followed. She had not expected the Duke’s steward to be much of a swordsman—she hadn’t thought of it at all—but he was skillful.

Venner swept the table suddenly with his left arm, sent food and dishes flying between them. Paks slipped on a greasy hunk of mutton. Venner stabbed wildly with the sword. She rolled aside and let the thrust pass. Her sword caught him in the ribs; she heard a rasping gurgle, and he was visible, hand held against his side. Paks lunged at him. He dropped the sword, and dodged. While she was still off balance, he grappled with her, trying to rake her with the dagger. She could see the brown stain along it, surely poison.

“You stinking kellich!” he snarled. “You Girdish slut! You’ll die the same as she did, and Achrya will revel in this hall—”

Paks could not use her sword in close; she dropped it and dug her strong fingers into his wrist. Red froth bubbled from his mouth as they wrestled on the floor. He was surprisingly strong.

“Arvys!” he cried suddenly. “Arvys! Help me!” Paks heard noise around the room—chairs and boots scraping on the stone, voices—but she was too busy to listen. Venner had both hands on the dagger hilt, and she had to use both hands to hold it off. “Achrya,” he said viciously, glaring at Paks. “You found before you could not stand against her. She will bind you in burning webs forever, you Gird’s dog—”

“By the High Lord,” said Paks suddenly, “neither you nor Achrya will prosper here, Venner. His is the power, and Gird gave the blessing—”

“You will die,” repeated Venner. “All in this hall—and she will reward me, as she did before—” But he was weakening, and Paks managed to force him back. She could feel the sinews in his wrist slackening. She closed her own fingers tighter, and all at once his hand sagged open, releasing the dagger. It clattered on the floor. Paks kicked it far aside, and shifted one hand from Venner’s left wrist to her own dagger, dropped nearby.

“Now,” she said, “we will hear more of this—”

“I spit at you, Gird’s dog. I laugh—” But he was choking, and he sagged heavily under her hands.

“Paks! Hold!” Arcolin’s voice. She held her dagger to Venner’s throat, and waited. “What’s—”

“The Duke!” Master Simmitt, this time. “By the gods—”

“He’s dead—or dying—” Arvys’s voice was savage. “And Achrya will have his soul—and yours—” she broke off in a scream.

“Not yet,” said Cracolnya. “Don’t you know you can’t knife a man in mail?” Paks’s attention was diverted for an instant. Venner surged up against her hold; without thinking she slammed her hand down. Her dagger ripped his throat, and he died.

She scrambled up to see what else had happened. Shadows fled before her spell-light. Simmitt leaned over the Duke, who was slumped in his seat. On the other side, Cracolnya held Arvys, her arms twisted behind her.

“Light,” snapped the surgeon. “Come here, Paks, if that’s you making a light.” She came around the table. She saw Dorrin working with flint and steel to relight the lamps. The Duke’s face was gray; a slow pulse beat in his neck. He seemed to gasp for breath. Visanior too had reached the Duke’s seat; the two surgeons maneuvered him from the chair to the tabletop. Simmitt slit his tunic and spread it. There on the left side was a narrow wound—Paks glanced at Arvys and saw the sheath of a small dagger dangling from her wrist.

“That’s close—” commented Visanior.

“Poison, or in the heart?” Simmitt bent close to listen to the Duke’s heart.

“Poison, and close to it.” Visanior turned away. “I’ve a few drops of potion in my quarters—”

“Too late,” hissed Arvys. “You won’t save him—or yourselves. Nothing you’ve got will touch that—and your precious Duke, as you call him, will never take his rightful seat—” Cracolnya tightened his hold, and she gasped.

Paks reached out to touch the Duke’s shoulder.

“Get back, Paks—you’re no surgeon, and I don’t have time—”

“Let her.” Dorrin brought a lamp near, its light golden next to the white spell-light. “She alone saw Venner’s nature; she alone could free herself to fight him. Perhaps—” She looked at Paks, her own hand going to the tiny Falkian symbol at her throat. “Perhaps you learned more than we knew, is that so?”

Paks felt a pressure in her head, and could not answer. She only knew she had to touch the Duke—had to call what powers she could name. As she laid her hand on his shoulder, the spell-light dimmed except along that arm. She closed her eyes against it: she had no time to study what was happening.

Touching the Duke was like laying her hand on the skin of running water: she felt a faint resistance, a surface tension, and a strong sense of moving power underneath. Without realizing it, she brought her other hand to his other shoulder. She felt within herself the same moving power that she sensed in the Duke, although in her it ran swifter, lighter. She tried to bring the two powers together.

At first it seemed that the surface between them thickened, resisting. The Duke’s rhythm slowed and cooled, as if some moving liquid stiffened into stone. But her plea to the High Lord and Gird brought a vision of movement, of sinking through the surface as a hand sinks in water. She let herself drift deeper. In that thicker substance, that cooling stream, she loosed her own fiery essence, the flames that had danced deep within since the night of the Kuakgan’s magic fire.

Slowly the Duke responded. Whatever the flow might be, it flowed more swiftly—it moved lightly on its way, with returning joy. Paks followed the flow, to find a source of stagnation—some evil essence. She felt herself touch it, and it dissolved, running away, overtaken by her flame, and then gone. With that, the Duke’s body swung back to its own balance. She felt the restored health, and the rejection, at the same instant, and pulled herself back into her own body just ahead of it.

His eyes were open. Blank for a moment, then fully aware: startled and intent all at once. Paks stepped back, shaken by her gift. Simmitt stared at her. They all did. The room’s light was golden from lamps; her spell-light had disappeared.

“What—?” The Duke had his head up now, raking the room with his glance. His hand lay over his ribs, where the dagger had gone in.

“My lord, it was Venner—”

“This so-called lady—”

“Paks was the only one who could—”

“Quiet.” Arcolin’s voice cut through them, and brought order. “Cracolnya, Valichi—guard her: nothing else. My lord Duke, it seems your steward was a traitor of some sort. Paks has killed him. The rest of us were somehow spellbound, unable to move, though we heard enough. Kessim is dead. And that—” he paused and glared at Arvys.

“She stabbed me,” said the Duke calmly. “I remember that. Some kind of argument, and then darkness, and then I felt a blade in my side.” He sat up on the edge of the table, and looked down at the blood that streaked his skin and clothes. “Heh. No mark now. Who had the healing potion so handy?” He looked at Visanior and Simmitt.

“Not us, my lord. Paksenarrion.”

“You heal, as well as fight?” The Duke looked at Paks. She met his eyes.

“With the High Lord’s permission, my lord, I have been able to. Sometimes.”

He looked at Arvys, and his face hardened. “You,” he said, and stopped. “You—will you say why? You were willing, you said, to share my name—why kill, then?”

She said nothing until Cracolnya shifted behind her, then gasped. “You—petty, base-born lout! Duke, you call yourself—that’s not the title you should bear. I was willing to share your name, as long as it served my Lady’s purpose. But you’d have had a blade in your heart someday, as you still shall.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your Lady? And who is that? Is the Queen that angry with me?”

She laughed, a harsh, forced laughter. “Queen! What do you know of queens, who call a mortal human queen? When you see her webs around you, and feel her poison, who has enmeshed those far higher than humans, then you will know a queen. I speak of the webmistress Achrya, whose power no man can withstand.”

“And yet I live, and you are captive. Was Venneristimon also her agent?”

“Why should I answer you?”

“Because your mistress is far away, and I am here. You may wish an easy death, though you would deal a hard one.”

“Kill as you please,” she answered. “Whatever you do, my Lady will avenge me, and him, and give you endless torment.”

“I doubt that.” The Duke looked among the litter of things swept to the floor and picked up a small narrow-bladed dagger, hardly as long as his hand. “This is yours, is it not? Would you wish to taste your own brew?”

“As you will.” She seemed to droop in Cracolnya’s arms; Paks and the others stared, surprised at her. Then Paks gasped as her face changed, shifting from the fair-skinned soft curves she had shown to something older and more perilous. Their cries warned Cracolnya, who gripped more tightly as she shriveled in his hold, her red-gold hair turning gray and her rounded limbs wiry and gnarled. She struggled; Valichi moved to help Cracolnya. Paks hunted on the floor for the sword she had dropped, and scooped it up. By the time the transformation was complete, and Cracolnya held a wizened muscular hag instead of an attractive young widow, she had the tip of that sword at the hag’s throat.

“Here’s something you will like less well,” said Paks. “An elf-blade.”

“You farm-bred brat!” Her voice, as a hag, chilled the blood. “You saved your precious Duke, eh? Did you? And you will take him to his appointed end, I daresay. Do you think he’ll thank you for that? When he dies in the bed you make for him?” Her head turned, and more than one in the room flinched from her vicious eyes. “Tell her, Duke Phelan, how you come by your name. Tell her what happened to the last yellow-haired girl to hold that sword.” Her voice shrilled higher. “Or shall I? Shall I tell her how the thriband knew where your wife and children would ride that day? And who suggested that trail, where the wildflowers bloomed? He is safe from your wrath, mighty Duke, but your children will never return.” She laughed, a hideous laugh. “You, Duke Kieri Phelan—no, let us use it all—Kieri Artfiel Phelan—you harbored that woodworm and trusted it as your pet. Your wife it was who suggested he be assistant to the steward—and then—”

Paks pushed the blade gently on the hag’s skin. “Be still. You have nothing worth listening to.”

“Have I not? You are eager to kill, little peasant girl. Little runaway daughter of a sheepherder—how many times have you run away? Do you guess that I can tell them? The Duke doesn’t know the worst, does he? The men in Seameadow? The time you ran from the sheepdog—not even a wolf—in Arnbow?” She stopped, and wheezed a moment. Then: “I know many things that you would be better knowing—and him, too—before he trusts you—” and she stopped and clamped her lips together.

“Ward of Falk,” murmured Dorrin, behind them. “Against an evil tongue.”

“In the High Lord’s name,” said Paks. The hag’s eyes glittered but she said nothing.

The Duke had come near, and stood looking from one to another. “When one stabs, and another heals,” he said, “I know which to trust.”

“You! You are no true duke, and she will take you to your end, if you are unfortunate enough not to meet another.”

“I’ll chance that. Paks, you had scruples before about such things: how should she be killed?”

Paks did not look away from the point of her blade. “Quickly, my lord, as may be.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” gasped the hag, and she lunged forward, managing to scrape her arm on the dagger the Duke still held. Almost at once she sagged.

“I don’t believe it,” said Cracolnya. “Paks—or Val—finish her.”

Paks ran the sword quickly into her chest, feeling between the ribs for her heart. The limp form in Cracolnya’s hold shuddered again, this time shifting from that of a hag to no human shape at all: a great belly swelling below, bursting out of the blue gown Arvys had worn, the upper body falling in to become a hard casing that extended suddenly into more legs. Cracolnya lurched back, loosing his hold. The thing was free, hampered only slightly by the remnants of clothes. The head—no longer human at all—turned a row of emerald eyes on Paks; fangs dripped. Paks alone was able to move; she hardly saw what was happening before her arm went up and a long stroke took off that terrible head. The body twitched; gouts of sticky fluid spurted from the barely formed spinnerets on the belly, but did not reach anyone.

“Gods above,” muttered Cracolnya. “What is that? A spider demon?”

“A high servant of Achrya,” said Paks, watching the body on the floor. “They have that power, to change to her form at will.”

“Is that what you faced in Kolobia?” asked Arcolin. “Tir’s gut, I couldn’t—” He stopped, choking.

The Duke himself was white. “Paksenarrion, again—you have gone far beyond our thanks—” He shook himself like a wet dog, and looked around the room. “Captains, we must know what all this means, but for now we must be sure where we are. If I understood any of that—if any of it can be believed—this stronghold is in danger, even with them dead. We’ll double the watch. Arcolin, you have been here since we built the place: take some of the older veterans, who know it as well, and start looking for—” He stopped, and rubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what, but anything out of ordinary. Dorrin, are there any of the soldiers from Aarenis that still worry you?”

Dorrin thought a moment. “Not in my cohort, my lord. That Kerin fellow, in Arcolin’s—”

“Arcolin, turn him out.” Arcolin nodded. “Any more, Dorrin?”

“No, my lord.”

“See to it, then. About the house servants—”

“And why haven’t they come in?” Valichi looked around, worried.

“I don’t know. Venner hired them; I don’t know if they are innocent or his agents. Bring in a squad—no, two—and we’ll go through this end as well. Paks—” he looked at her again, and his eyes dropped to the sword in her hand. “By the—you’ve got her sword!”

“My lord?” Paks looked at the sword in her hand.

“Tamarrion’s—my—my wife’s—”

“I’m sorry,” said Paks. “I didn’t know—it was the only one I could reach—”

He shook his head. “You used it well. I do not regret that. But no one has wielded it since she—” He took a long breath and went on. “Paks, you and Val stay with me here—you surgeons, as well. We’ll do what we can for Kessim. Cracolnya, take a look in the passage—if we must fight our way out—”

Cracolnya stepped to the door, opened it slightly, and looked out. “Nothing this way, my lord. Let me call the sentry from the door.”

“I think not. He’s better where he is. Paks—” Arcolin and the Duke leaned over Kessim’s slumped form; he had been struck by the battleaxe when Paks deflected the blow from herself. His skull had been crumpled by the blow, and he was clearly dead. The Duke looked up. “Damn and blast that witch! This lad had no chance at all. A fine squire, and would have made a fine man, but for this.”

Paks felt a surge of guilt—if she had not thrown that blow aside—she had never thought of Kessim sitting there unable to move—but the Duke forestalled her before she could speak.

“If you hadn’t, Paks, we’d all be dead. I certainly would, and you, and I can’t imagine the rest would be let live long. Don’t think of blaming yourself. Now—”

“My lord, let me check the kitchen entrance.” Paks had moved to the other door in the room, from which the servants had brought in the food. She opened the door and looked. This passage was narrower than the front one. She could smell cooked food and smoke from the left; the passage was empty. She shut the door again, and pulled a chair against it. “No one in sight,” she reported.

“Good,” said the Duke. “Let’s arm ourselves, then, captains, and get started. Paks, keep that blade for now—until the Company is roused.”

The senior cohort captains left, Cracolnya returning in a few minutes with the Duke’s sword and mail. “I told the sentry we’d had a small problem with the steward,” he said. “He’ll stop any servants from leaving by that door, at least. He heard nothing, by the way. Perhaps Venner’s magic kept any of that from getting out, as well as kept us still. Dorrin’s squads will be here shortly. What shall we do with the bodies?”

The Duke, struggling into his mail shirt, did not reply until he had settled his sword belt to his satisfaction. “If I knew certainly that Venner was human, I would know—as it is, I don’t know whether to burn, bury, or dismember it. Do you, Paks?”

“No, my lord. The shape-changing servants must be beheaded, for they can shift the location of the heart with the change of shape. But Venner—I believe this body is dead, but I don’t know what powers he may still have.”

She felt within for any warning, and found nothing but distaste. “I feel nothing wrong, my lord, as I felt before—”

“Before?” The Duke’s eyebrows went up. “When? Before dinner—no. Not yet. When we’re secure, then we’ll talk about it. Safe or not, I don’t want this mess in my dining hall—we’ll take them out—clear outside the stronghold, and just in case we’ll behead Venner’s corpse as well. Kessim can lie in the other hall, until morning. We’ll hold his service tomorrow, and display the others to the troops, so they’ll know what’s happened.” Then a commotion at the door—Dorrin with two squads, eyes wide but disciplined.

“Gather the servants,” the Duke told her. “Don’t tell them what happened, and don’t hurt them—they may well be innocent—but guard them well.”