“Burley was captured!” she said. “We must send his ransom!”
Landry turned to her as he walked, face twisting in a snarl. “Ransom? That’s his father’s business.”
“His father’s poor!” Derina cried.
Landry laughed bitterly. “And I’m rich? I’ve given away enough sustenance with your dowry. Don’t expect me to deliver your fool of a husband, not when you’re carrying his fortune in your belly.”
Derina seized his sleeve, but he shook her off savagely, and she slipped in the mud and fell. Strong arms helped her rise. She looked up at Norward’s grim face.
“I’ll speak with him,” Norward said, “and do what I can.”
When Norward and Derina caught him, Landry had barged into the house and stood shouting in the great hall.
“Arm!” he bellowed. “A sally! When this rain ends, I’ll have revenge for my son!”
Servants and soldiers bustled to their work. Norward spoke cautiously amid the melee. “You need your every son in this,” he said. “Burley’s your son now, and could be a good one to you.”
Landry swung around, derision contorting his features. “That country clod! Whip my servant, will he? Steal my valuables? Is that a son of mine?” He shook his whip in Norward’s face. “Let him rot in chains!”
Tears dimmed Derina’s eyes and her head whirled. She heard Norward’s protest, Landry’s dismissal, then Norward’s raised voice. Suddenly there was a violent whirl of action, and Derina looked up to see Landry holding Norward by the throat, his dagger out and pricking Norward beneath the ear.
“Think to replace Reeve, whey-face?” Landry demanded. “You’ll never be a true son to me!” Derina cried out as the dagger drew a line of red along Norward’s neck; and then Landry dropped his son to the floor and strode off, calling for his armor. Derina rushed to Norward’s side, held her shawl to the wound. Norward pushed it aside.
“A scratch,” he said. His face was grim and pale as death. He stood, then helped Derina to a chair. “Wait here-I know how to get Burley back. But promise me you’ll say nothing-trust me in this.”
He walked to the fireplace. He stood looking for a moment at Landry’s long battle sword, then took it from its place and walked toward the stairs.
Derina was terrified to follow but more terrified to stay, alone and not knowing. She followed.
“Out!” Norward cried. “Out!” He was driving Edlyn and Kendra from Reeve’s room. The two left in a bewildered flutter; but Derina, grimly biting her lip, pushed past them and into the room.
Norward had his back to her. He stared grimly down at Reeve, who lay unconscious, pale as death, his midsection bulky with bandages.
Derina could not say if she screamed as, in one easy gesture, Norward drew the blade from its scabbard and plunged it into Reeve’s belly.
Landry had come down to the great hall, wearing his breastplate and chain skirts. He scowled as he saw Norward with his sword.
“Father,” Norward said. “I suspect I know why the enemy have invaded.” He held out the sword. “The Prince wants this back. It’s one of the Swords of Power.”
No! Derina thought. Don't tell him!
Then was a silence in which Derina heard only the beating of blood in her ears. Landry stood stock-still, then came forward. He took the sword from Norward and looked at it carefully. Then a savage smile crossed his features, and he drew the blade from the scabbard and whirled it over his head. “Maybe you’re a son to me after all!” he said. “A Sword of Power-ay, that makes sense! But which one?”
To stifle any cry of surprise, Derina put her hand to her throat at Norward’s answer.
“Farslayer would kill the Prince for you,” Norward said. “And you wouldn’t have to leave the room.”
“And I’d have it right back again, through my heart!” Landry scorned. He stopped, looked at the sword. Then, deliberately, he spoke the words, the simple rhyme, known to all children, that would unleash Farslayer, and named as its target one of his own men, the wounded serjeant who had brought the news of the ambush to him.
A target so near would make the job of retrieval easy enough.
As Derina knew it would, nothing happened. Her creeping astonishment was turning to knowledge.
She knew what Norward was trying to do, and she wondered if she dared-if she wanted to-put a stop to it.
Landry looked at the hilt. “The white hand,” he said. “Which sword is that?”
Norward shrugged. “The white hand of death, most like. What does it matter? What matters is that the war is won the moment you use the blade.”
A grin crossed Landry’s features. “The men are all to mount,” he said. “We’ll empty the place. You’ll ride with me, and have pick of the Prince’s loot!”
Derina, wide-eyed, stood and said nothing. Decided to say nothing.
A few hours later, as the last raindrops fell, Lord Landry and his army rode from his flint-walled house on his mission to crush the Prince and his army with their own weapon.
A few moments later Derina watched her mother’s astonishment as she saw Reeve strolling casually down the stair, a crooked grin on his face. Even his burn scars had vanished.
“I seem to have improved,” he said.
Four days later Norward was back with the body of Lord Landry, who had been killed leading a reckless charge on the enemy army. “The Prince has his sword back,” he said. “The war is over.”
Derina, standing in the courtyard, looked numbly at the body of her father, lying cold on his litter hacked by a dozen armor-crushing blows. Her brother Reeve put an arm around her.
She looked at her mother Kendra, who stared at Landry as if she didn’t believe her eyes, and at Edlyn, who looked as if she were just beginning to dare to hope.
“Burley?” she asked.
“Alive,” Norward said, “and his ransom well within our means. We’ll pay his release as soon as the Prince’s army reaches the lowlands again, and then you’ll have your husband back.”
Derina cried out in joy and threw her arms around him. He-Lord Norward now-stood stiffly for a moment, then gently took her arms and released himself from her embrace.
“Our father always wanted me to kill someone,” he said. “Who’d have thought he would himself have been the victim?”
Landry would never have understood, Derina thought, a man such as the Prince, who would fight a war for a talisman not of destruction, but of healing.
“You didn’t strike the blow yourself,” Derina said.
“I misled him. I knew what would happen.”
She took his hand. “So did I.”
He looked at Landry and tears shimmered in his eyes. “Woundhealer would not kill, not even for our father,” he said. “I wish I could have thought of another way, but there are some so maimed they are beyond the help even of a Sword of Power.”
Fealty
Gene Bostwick
Templar Jarmon’s eyes strained in the dim light to pick out Lord March’s body. The debris-laden cellar smelled more than a little of recent enchantment, a honey odor that hung in the dusty air. Thick, blood-red wine oozed from the seams of huge casks along the basement’s far wall, and rats with oddly human faces stared from the shadows. March had dabbled in strange magics.
Wide pine planks from the deck above hung down with jagged edges, and a long oak ceiling timber, roughly hewn and broad as two men, lay splintered and broken across the stone floor. One end had crushed March’s chest.
A shiver ran down Jarmon’s back, not entirely due to the cold. He hunched low and worked his way forward, smudging the patterns of frost that decorated crates and stores for the coming winter. His chain mail and braced leather armor were not meant for these tight quarters, but the Delfland border was close enough to demand caution. As he neared the body, something larger than a rat stirred in the shadows, and he pulled out his dagger. The rats squealed and retreated, and the shuffling noise stopped, replaced by an eerie quiet. Jarmon had heard stories of how an exposed blade could dampen the effects of magic, but he wasn’t sure what had aided him here, anti-magic, or the simple threat of the weapon.