Steadying himself to face death with courage, Walegrin's leaden fingers found an object left forgotten in the wagon: the old Enlibar sword they had found in the dust of the mine. The silver-green steel showed no rust, but no-one had exchanged his serviceable Rankan blade for one forged five hundred years before his birth-until now. Walegrin brought the ancient sword around with a bellow.
Blue-green sparks surged when the swords met. The Enlibar metal clanged above the other sounds of battle. The brigand's swordblade shattered and, with a reflex born of experience not thought, Walegrin took his assailant's head in a single, soft stroke.
The fabled steel of Enlibar!
His mind glazed with the knowledge. He did not hear the hillmen take flight, nor see his men gather around him.
The Steel of Enlibar!
Three years of desperate, often dangerous searching had brought him to the mine. They'd filled two wagons with the rich ore and defended it with their lives-but in the depths of his heart Walegrin had not believed he'd found the actual steeclass="underline" a steel that could shatter other blades; a steel that would bring him honor and glory.
He found his military sword in the dust at his feet and offered it to his lieutenant.
"Take this," he ordered. "Strike at me!"
Thrusher hesitated, then took a half-hearted swipe.
"No! Strike, fool!" Walegrin shouted, raising the Enlibrite blade.
Metal met metal with the same resounding clang as before. The shortsword did not shatter, but it took a mortal nick to its edge. Walegrin ran his fingers along the unmarred Enlibrite steel and whooped for joy.
"The destiny of all Ranke is in our hands!"
His men looked at one another, then smiled with little enthusiasm. They believed in their commander but not necessarily in his quest. They were not cheered to see their morose, intense officer so transformed by an off-color sword-however good the metal and even if it had saved his life. Walegrin's exaltation, however, did not last long.
They found Malm's body some twenty paces from the fire, a deep wound in his neck. Wale-grin closed his friend's eyes and commended him to his gods-not Walegrin's gods; Walegrin honored no gods. Malm was their only casualty, though they could ill afford the loss.
In grim silence Walegrin left Malm and returned to ransack the headless corpse by the wagon. Its belt produced a sack of gold coins, freshly minted in the Rankan capital. Walegrin thought of the letters he had sent to his rich patron in the Imperial hierarchy, and of the replies he had not received. In anger and suspicion he tore at the dead man's clothes until he found what he knew must be there: a greasy scrap of parchment with his mentor's familiar seal embossed upon it. While his men slept he read the treachery into his memory.
Kilite's treasury had financed his quest almost from the start. The ambitious aristocrat had said that the Enlibrite steel, if it could be found, would assure the Empire swift, unending victories-and swift, unending fortune for whomever made the legend reality. Walegrin had dutifully informed the Imperial Advisor of all his movements and of his success. He cursed and threw the scrap of parchment into the fire. He'd told Kilite his exact route from Enlibar to Ranke.
He should have known the moment his first man died-or at least when he lost the second. The hill tribes had been peaceful enough when they'd come up through the mountains and they, themselves, could make no use of the raw ore. He counted the dead man's gold into his own pouch, calculating how far he and his men could travel on it.
Things could have been worse. Kilite might have been able to bribe the tribesmen, but it was still unlikely he could find the abandoned mine. Walegrin had never entrusted that secret to paper. And Kilite had never known that Walegrin's final destination had not been the capital, but back in Sanctuary itself. He'd never told Kilite the name of the ugly, little metal-master in the back alleys there who could turn the ore to finest steel.
"We'll make it yet," he said to the darkness, not noticing that Thrusher had come to sit beside him.
"Make it to where?" the little man asked. "We don't dare go to the capital now, do we?"
"We're headed toward Sanctuary from this moment on."
Thrusher could scarcely contain his surprise. Walegrin's intense dislike of the city of his birth was well-known. Not even his own men had suspected they would ever return there. "Well, I suppose a man can hide from anything in Sanctuary's gutters," Thrusher temporized.
"Not only hide, but get our steel too. We'll head south in the morning. Prepare the men."
"Across the desert?"
"No-one will be looking for us there."
His orders given and certain to be obeyed, Walegrin strode into the darkness. He was used to sleepless nights. Indeed, he almost preferred them to his nightmare ridden slumber. And now, with thoughts of Sanctuary high in his mind, sleep would be anything but welcome.
Thrusher was right-a man could hide in Sanctuary. Walegrin's father had done it, but hiding hadn't improved him any. He'd ended his life reviled in a city that tolerated almost anything, hacked to pieces and cursed by the S'danzo of the bazaar. It was his father's death, and the memory of the curse that haunted Walegrin's nights.
By rights it wasn't his curse at all, but his father's. The old man was never without a doxy; Rezzel was only the last of a long, anonymous procession of women through Walegrin's childhood. She was a S'danzo beauty, wild even by their gypsy standards. Her own people foresaw her violent death when she abandoned them to live four years in the Sanctuary garrison, matching Walegrin's temper with her own.
Then one night his father got drunk, and more violently jealous than usual. They found Rezzel, what remained of her, with the animal carcasses outside the charnel house. The S'danzo took back what they had cast out and, by dead of night, returned to the garrison. Seven masked, knife-wielding S'danzo carved the living flesh of his father, and sealed their curses with his blood. They'd found two children, Walegrin and Rez-zei's daughter, Illyra, hiding in the corner. They'd marked them with blood and curses as well.
He'd run away before the sun rose on that night-and was still running. Now he was running back to Sanctuary.
2
Walegrin patted his horse, ignoring the cloud of dust around them both. Everything, everyone was covered with a fine layer of desert grit; only his hair seemed unaffected, but then it had always been the color of parched straw. He'd led his men safely across the desert to Sanctuary but weariness had settled upon them like dust and though the end of their travels was in sight, they waited in silence for Thrusher's return.
Walegrin had not dared to enter the city himself. Tall, pale despite the desert sun, his braided hair roughly confined by a bronze band, he was too memorable to be an advance scout. He was an outlaw as well, wanted by the prince for abandoning the garrison without warning. He had Kilite's pardon, the scrolls still carefully sealed in his saddlebag, but using it would eventually let Kilite know he was still alive. It was better to remain an outlaw.
Hook-nosed, diminutive Thrusher was a man no-one would remember. Able and single-minded, he'd never run afoul of the town's dangers nor succumb to its limited temptations. Walegrin would have a roof over his men's heads by nightfall and more water than they could drink to set before them. Wine too, but Walegrin had almost forgotten the taste of wine.
As the afternoon shadows lengthened, Thrusher appeared on the dunes. Walegrin waved him safe conduct. He put his heels to his horse and galloped the last stretch of sand. Both man and beast had been cleansed of yellow grit. Walegrin suppressed a pang of jealousy.