The Ancient

SIXTEEN

Mitigating

They called him a multitude of names, and seemed to create a new one whenever he put his sword to work. The Dancing Sword, the Bird of Prey-any and all adjectives and superlatives to toss upon this warrior who stood so clearly above all others. Whenever a new title was bestowed, all knew to whom it referred, for there was only one it fit. All the conversations came back to the name by which they all knew him, the name used in his introduction to the soldiers. The Highwayman, he was called, and more than one sturdy soul shuddered to think of meeting this man on a darkened highway in southern Honce!

True to form, he danced this day, running about the battlefield, leaping and spinning, lashing out with his feet as he soared through the mobs and always striking mortal blows as he landed. Like a small tornado he rushed through the battling throng, and as the enemies-this day they were exclusively the blue-skinned and ugly little trolls-were easily distinguished from his comrades, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation in his movements and strikes.

He ran past one man and troll in a death clench and struck fast and hard and true, and the troll howled and thrashed and toppled to the ground.

Its killer was already gone, to another man, fallen, with two trolls standing over him and stabbing down at his supine form as he scrambled desperately and futilely to block.

The Highwayman leaped between the two surprised trolls, his feet kicking out to either side. He connected squarely on both, snapping their heads back. One went flying to the ground, while the other somehow managed to stay on its feet.

The standing one died first.

The Highwayman charged at another, and as soon as it recognized him, his black mask and outfit, it shrieked and threw up its hands in a pitiful defense.

Feeling another troll rushing at his back, he leaped high and spun, coming around to circle-kick the defending troll with a sweeping strike that spun it out to the right. In midair, he flipped his blade from his right hand to his left, and allowed the momentum of his turn to guide the strike as that fabulous and decorated sword of wrapped metal plunged into the troll’s chest. The Highwayman retracted immediately and flipped the blade back to his right in a reverse grip, and stabbed out with a backhand as he came fully around, timing it just right to slash across the chest of one pursuing troll, and send the second pursuer stumbling backward.

He flipped his sword to right his grip as he rushed past the bleeding troll, launching a heavy left-hand blow to lay the dying creature low as he pursued its backpedaling companion. That one, shield and small sword in hand, brought both up to block, but the man drove on, smashing away with abandon, his sword too fine for the meager defenses. A piece of shield went flying away, a piece of troll arm following. The blade of the troll’s sword fell free to the ground, the head of the troll fast following.

The warrior known as the Highwayman skidded to a stop to catch his breath and survey the field. Only one concentration of trolls remained intact, a group of about twenty formed into a tight wedge on the far side of the fighting.

Behind the black mask, the man narrowed his eyes.

Twenty trolls.

He yelled and charged.

And he kept yelling, demanding their attention. A spear flew at him and he snapped his sword across, knocking it harmlessly aside. He caught a second hurled spear with his free hand and threw it down. He turned sideways, still moving forward, and leaned back, letting a third slip past, then angled and dove into a roll, under a fourth, and came up in a leap, above the fifth missile.

The volley grew more concentrated and coordinated, a barrage of rocks flying out at him.

He yelled in rage, in glee, in sheer ferocity, his sword and free hand working wildly as he turned and ducked and leaned, and he came right through the volley, showing not a scratch.

The troll wedge formation, appearing so formidable just a few heartbeats before, broke apart, the creatures running away from this madman they also knew by many names, all inspiring terror.

The closest one, then second, then third, fell in rapid succession to his flashing, marvelous blade, and he continued the chase for a long while, though he only scored one more kill, to drive the group far from the field.

He was angry at being out here, angry at being tricked, angry at being away from his beloved, but Bransen couldn’t deny the elation of this furious fight against an irredeemable enemy.

All of that anger flowed into his arms, bringing them strength and speed.

And no amount of troll blood would satiate him.

You did well in tricking that one,” Brother Jond Dumolnay said to Dawson McKeege as they watched Bransen dance away in pursuit of the fleeing monsters. The monk continued his work on one of the wounded Vanguardsmen as he spoke, pulling open the man’s tunic to reveal a gaping hole in his chest, blood gushing forth. Jond took a deep breath at the imposing, horrible sight and went to work with his soul stone, summoning its healing powers to try to stem the flow.

“It was for his own good, as much as our own,” McKeege replied, more than a little defensively. “Your church would have turned the man over to Laird Delaval, and he’d have been sacked with a snake, to be sure.”

Brother Jond continued his prayers, paused and looked at the continuing flow, then went back to his prayers-but only momentarily, for he saw the bleeding stem and nodded in relief that the man was now somewhat stable. Jond sighed and rocked back on his knees, dropping his bloody hands on his thighs.

“They would have sacked him?” he answered McKeege, and both of them knew the conversation to be a necessary and very welcome diversion. “Not if they understood his skill with the blade! They would have sent him posthaste to the south to do battle with Laird Ethelbert, I’d wager.”

“The whispers have it that this Highwayman rained particular embarrassment upon Prince Yeslnik, one of Laird Delaval’s favored nephews. No, if Delaval had gotten his hands on that one, Bransen would not have had the chance to prove his worth-and I doubt he’d have battled for Delaval. He had a bit of a run-in with the Laird of Pryd-word’s that he killed the man.”

“Laird Pryd himself?”

“His son, Prydae. You’re knowing them?”

“I know-or knew-the father,” Brother Jond explained.

“And?”

“Probably deserved it,” Brother Jond admitted with a helpless chuckle. “If the son was much like the father, I mean.”

Dawson McKeege gave a laugh at that, hardly one to disagree. By his estimation, most of the lairds of Honce, titles handed down through generations, weren’t of much worth, which of course only made him appreciate his beloved Dame Gwydre, that notable exception, even more.

“Here comes your new champion,” Jond said, indicating the returning Bransen. “It will take the Masur Delaval itself to wash the blood from his blade, I fear.”

“Bloodier with every battle,” Dawson agreed.

“A dozen huzzahs for Dawson’s wit,” said Brother Jond.

Bransen approached, looking at Jond. When he took note of Dawson, though, he veered suddenly, his face growing very tight.

“It is appropriate for a returning fighter to report his findings to his commander,” Dawson reminded.

Bransen stopped and stood very still for a few heartbeats, composing himself.

“In fact, you should consider it required,” Dawson pressed.

Bransen slowly turned to regard him. “The beasts are in full disarray and retreat,” he said. “They’ll not return anytime soon.”

“Good enough, then,” Brother Jond interjected lightly, his favorable relationship with both men serving to diffuse the obvious tension. “Myself and my Abellican brethren near the limit of our magical energies. Another assault would see less magical tending of the wounded, I fear.”

“Curious,” said a voice from the side, and all three turned and nearly gasped to find Dame Gwydre sitting astride her roan mare. “From all that I have heard of Brother Jond, I would be certain that he would find more energy within himself, somehow, some way, if a man lay wounded before him.”

“Milady,” said Dawson, stumbling to his feet. “When did you arrive on the field?”

“Be at ease, my friend,” she replied, waving him back.

“You are much too kind, Dame Gwydre,” Brother Jond said, lowering his gaze.

“I only hear the whispers, good brother,” she replied. “I do not create them. Your reputation overrides your humility, and all of Vanguard is blessed and pleased that you are among us.”

Despite himself and his sincere humility, Brother Jond couldn’t suppress a wisp of a smile at that.

“And you,” Gwydre said, addressing Bransen. “The Dancing Sword, is it?”

“That is not my name.”

“It is Bransen Garibond,” Dawson said, shooting a scolding glance at the impudent young warrior. “Or perhaps he prefers the Highwayman, the name attached to him for his misdeeds in the South, the name for which he would have been sacked or hanged by the neck.”

Bransen smiled at the man, more than willing to take that bait. “The Highwayman will do, indeed.”

“Your exploits are not unnoticed… Bransen,” said Gwydre. “When this is ended, should you choose to leave Vanguard, I promise that my note of appreciation and pardon will accompany you, though whether the Southern lairds would honor such, I cannot say.”

“Should I choose?” Bransen quipped. “What prisoner would willingly remain in his dungeon?”

“A bit of respect!” Dawson warned, but Gwydre motioned for him to be quiet.

“Vanguard is no dungeon, Bransen Garibond,” Dame Gwydre said. “She is home. Home to many, many good people. You are free to view it in any manner you choose, of course-never would I deign to take that choice from any man.”

“Yet I must fight for her, whatever my feelings.”

“Fight for yourself, then,” Dame Gwydre retorted. “For your freedom, such as it may be, and for the benefit of your young and beautiful wife, who does not deserve to see her husband put in a sack with venomous snakes. I care not why you fight, but I insist that you do. And while you may not see the good your fine blade is doing, we surely do. And while you may not care for those families given a chance to live in peace and security because of your actions against the Samhaist-inspired hordes, we surely do.”

With that, she turned her roan mare and walked it away.

Dawson wore a pitying smirk as he shook his head, regarding Bransen. “One day you’ll lose that stubborn pride,” he predicted. “And you’ll see the truth of Dame Gwydre, the truth of all of this, and you’ll be shamed to have spoken to her such.”

Then Dawson, too, walked away.

Bransen stared at him as he left, unblinking, his eyes boring holes into the man’s back.

“You fought brilliantly today,” Brother Jond said to him. “I had thought the line lost and expected that we would be the ones driven from the field.”

Bransen looked at Jond, a man he had found it difficult to hate, despite his anger and his general feelings for Abellicans.

“That may mean little to you,” Jond went on. “What field is worth the effort, of course, and you care not if Gwydre wins or Gwydre falls.” He looked at the man lying before him. “But had we been driven from the field, this man would not have survived his wounds, and a woman not so unlike your wife would grieve forever.”

“Dame Gwydre does not care why I fight,” Bransen answered him, holding stubbornly to his anger. “Why would you?”

“Dame Gwydre has bigger things to care about than a single man’s heart and soul, perhaps.”

“And Brother Jond does not?”

The monk shrugged. “My victories are smaller, no doubt, but no less consequential, and no less satisfying.”

Bransen started to snipe back, but held his tongue and just waved his free hand in defeat, then walked off to be alone.

Brother Jond watched him go with a knowing smile. Bransen’s anger was real, but so was his compassion.

And in the end, Jond held faith that the compassion would prevail, because he had seen more than Bransen the warrior, this Sworddancer or Highwayman, as he was alternately known. After the previous battles, Bransen had helped Brother Jond and the others in tending the wounded, and his prowess in such matters was no less than his fighting ability.

Indeed, later that very night, Bransen and Jond worked side by side on the wounded.

“You hate them,” Jond remarked.

“Them?”

“McKeege and Dame Gwydre, for a start,” Jond explained. “My brethren in the South, as well. You are a young man too full of anger.”

Bransen regarded him curiously, in no small part because this wizened monk wasn’t much his elder, and to hear Jond calling him a “young man” seemed a bit strange.

“I am not as angry as you believe.”

“It pleases me to hear that,” Jond said, sincerely.

“But I have seen more dishonesty and evil than I ever expected,” Bransen went on. He paused and bent low over a severely wounded woman, placing his hand on her belly and closing his eyes. He felt his hand grow warm, and the woman’s soft moan told him that his effort was having some effect-though he couldn’t begin to guess whether it would be sufficient balm to get her through the tearing and twisting a spear had caused in her bowels.

After a short while, Bransen opened his eyes and leaned back to see Brother Jond staring at him.

“What do you do?” Jond asked. “To heal them, I mean. You have no gemstones, and yet I cannot deny what my eyes show to me. Your work has a positive effect on their wounds, almost as much so as a skilled brother with a soul stone.”

“My mother was Jhesta Tu,” said Bransen, and Brother Jond crinkled his face. “Do you know what that means?”

The monk shook his head, and Bransen snickered and said, “I did not expect anything different.”

“Jhesta Tu is a… religion?”

“A way of life,” said Bransen. “A philosophy. A religion? Yes. And since it is one not of Honce, but of Behr, I would hope that the Abellican Order has no reason to hate it. But of course they do. Why control people’s lives only a bit of the way, after all?”

“There is no end to your sarcasm.”

“None that you’ll ever see,” Bransen promised, but he was smiling as he spoke, despite himself, and Brother Jond got a laugh out of that, too.

“I know that your journey here was the result of a lie,” Jond said a long while later, as the two finally neared the end of the line of wounded. “But I cannot deny that I am glad you have come. As are they,” he added, sweeping his arm and his gaze out over the injured.

Bransen wanted to offer a stinging retort, but in the face of the suffering laid out before him, he found that he could not.

“As am I,” came a voice from behind, and the pair turned to see Dame Gwydre, stepping into one of Brother Jond’s conversations for the second time that day.

Bransen stared at her and did not otherwise respond.

“Greetings again, Lady,” Brother Jond said. “Your presence will surely uplift the spirits of these poor wounded warriors.”

“Soon,” she promised. “For the moment, though, I would speak with your companion.”

She matched Bransen’s stare, and motioned for him to join her outside the tent.

“Your anger is understandable,” she said when he joined her outside. She led the way, walking across the encampment through a light rain that had come up.

“I will sleep easier knowing that you approve,” he said, taking some solace in being able to so casually and impudently address this imposing and powerful figure. He felt as if he had scored a little victory in that retort, though he quickly scolded himself silently for such a petulant and childish need, particularly when Gwydre took it all in stride, as if it was deserved or at least understandable.

“The wind has a bit of winter’s bite in it this evening,” she said. “The season is not so far away, I fear. Our enemies will not relent-glacial trolls feel the cold not at all. But my own forces will be more miserable by far.”

“A fact that little concerns you, I expect,” Bransen said, and this time he did elicit a glower from the Dame of Vanguard. “Other than how it might affect your holding, I mean.”

“Do you understand and accept why Dawson brought you here?” Gwydre asked quietly.

“I understand that I was deceived.”

“For your own good.”

“And for yours.” Bransen stopped as he spoke the accusation, and turned to face the lady as she similarly swung about to regard him.

“Yes, I admit it,” she said. “And though I knew not of Bransen Garibond, this Highwayman legend, when Dawson left Pireth Vanguard, and though I had no idea that he would so coerce you to come, I admit openly that I approve of his tactics and of the result.”

“You would say that standing out here alone with me?”

Gwydre laughed at him. “Openly,” she reiterated. “I know enough of Bransen to recognize that he is no murderer.”

“Yet my anger is justified.”

“Justified does not mean that it is not misplaced,” said Gwydre. “I see that you have forged a friendship with Brother Jond and some others.”

Bransen shrugged.

“If I granted you your freedom right now, with no recourse should you decide to leave, would you?” she asked. “Would you collect your wife and her mother and be gone from Vanguard?”

“Yes,” Bransen said without hesitation and with as much conviction as he could flood into his voice.

“Would you really?” Dame Gwydre pressed. “You would leave Brother Jond and the others? You would allow the troll hordes of the Samhaists to overrun Vanguard and slaughter innocent men, women, and children?”

“This is not my fight!” Bransen retorted, somewhat less convincingly.

“It is now.”

“By deception alone!”

Gwydre paused, and held up her hand to silence the agitated Bransen. “As you will,” she conceded.

“You will let me leave?”

“No, I cannot, though surely I would like to-for you and for all of the soldiers,” she said. “There is too much at stake, and so I insist that you remain.”

“Dawson McKeege would be proud of you,” Bransen replied, his sarcasm unrelenting.

“I do not wish to allow this war to go through the winter,” Dame Gwydre said and turned and started off yet again, Bransen in tow. “The cold favors my enemies.”

“Please, end it.”

“I am considering creating a select team of warriors to strike deep into our enemy’s ranks, perhaps to decapitate the beast. The hordes are held together by the sheer will and maliciousness of Ancient Badden, a most unpleasant Samhaist.”

“A redundant description, from what I have seen.”

“Indeed,” Dame Gwydre agreed. “Do you agree with my reasoning?”

“You’re asking me to join your attack force.”

“I am tasking you with exactly that.”

Bransen stopped, and Gwydre did as well, glancing back and allowing him all the time he needed to think it through.

“How far and how long?” he asked.

“Somewhere in the North,” she replied. “Probably a journey of more than two weeks-and that if the enemy is oblivious to your passing.”

“If I go, and if this beast, Ancient Badden, is killed, I would have my freedom,” Bransen said. “Even if this assault does not end your war, as you hope. I would have my freedom with your blessing and imprimatur to return unhindered to the lands of southern Honce? And you will provide a ship to sail my family home.”

“You are in no position to bargain,” she said.

“And yet, bargain I do. Even if killing Ancient Badden does nothing to end this war, I will have my freedom.”

“You will not walk away,” Dame Gwydre said.

“If you believe that, then you have nothing to lose.”

“Agreed, then,” she said. “Bring me the head of Badden and I will have Dawson McKeege take you back to Chapel Abelle, along with my insistence that you be forgiven your past indiscretions, though I cannot guarantee that the Southern lairds and Church will heed that imprimatur.”

“Allow me to worry about that.”

Dame Gwydre stared at him a moment longer as she gathered her cloak up tight against her neck, and with a slight nod, she walked away.

Bransen stood there for a long while watching her go, and thinking that at least he had a direction before him now, a place to go with the hope that it might indeed end in the near future.

It did not occur to him that Ancient Badden would prove to be the most formidable foe he had ever faced.