C. Dale Brittain (26 page)

When at last the oak planking touched the dock, he was over the side in a second and helping Karin over.
 
There was still no sign of Gizor.
 
Roric was suddenly in high good humor.
 
“We shall join you at the castle shortly,” he called to the seamen.
 
“Before it grows any darker, I want to go to the Weaver’s cave and burn an offering for our safe passage!”

They walked the first fifty yards, straining for the jangling of armor and weapons, passed a line of trees that shielded them from the harbor, and began to run.

The afternoon was nearly gone, and the oak trees cast long, dark shadows.
 
They ran hand in hand, their feet on the sandy track sounding unnaturally loud.
 
“If they come around by the shore, we’re ahead of them,” panted Roric.
 
“But if they cut inland from Birch Point, if they guess we are not heading for the castle but—”

Their way was suddenly barred by three helmeted men.
 
One of them was missing his right hand and held his sword in his left.

Roric jumped back, his arms wide for a second as though to hide Karin behind him, then whipped out his sword.
 
“Decided to try for me a second time, Gizor?” he shouted.

The old warrior looked past him for a second, said, “Karin?” in what sounded like surprise even from inside his helmet, then turned again as if in sharp decision toward Roric.
 
“If you give yourself up,” he said in the tone Roric had never trusted, “we will not hurt the girl.”

The two warriors with him spread out slowly, one to each side.
 
Roric recognized them—Rolf and Warulf, Gizor’s most trusted warriors, the two who had been with him when they attacked the manor guest house.

“You did not plan to hurt her anyway!” Roric shot back at Gizor.
 
“Even
you
know it would be your neck if she was harmed.”

“Surrender while you still have the chance,” said Gizor warningly.
 
“I’m not going to let you trick me a second time.
 
King Hadros wants you, alive or dead.”

“If you give yourself up now, I shall not kill
you
!”

“Such a braggart, when it’s three against one?”

Roric laughed defiantly.
 
“Such a coward, to make it three against one?”
 
He moved lightly, testing out the sandy surface, almost dancing as he laughed at Gizor, remembering quickly how these men fought.
 
Rolf was fast, so fierce on the attack that he almost forgot to defend himself, and Warulf was virtually unbeatable if you came at him on his right side, but a little slower against attacks from his left.

Gizor took a breath that made his chest rise and fall hard, but he answered quietly.
 
“We just want to make sure you surrender peacefully.”
 
He turned his head slightly, as though watching the other two advance.
 
“Throw down your sword now, Roric, and I give you my oath I shall not harm you.”

“The others will instead?”
 
Roric laughed again and tossed back his hair, then wheeled suddenly.
 
Gizor had stopped a dozen yards away to threaten him, giving him a few seconds
now
before they could all be on him at once.
 
The warrior to his left—Rolf—was fractionally closer.

It was three against one, him with no armor and no shield, but it was no worse than it would have been at the manor guest house, where he had taken the Wanderer’s advice and run to save his skin.

Roric sprang in attack just as Gizor had always taught him.
 
But then he had been fighting to prove his ability—now he was fighting for his life.
 
The warrior’s shield stopped his first sword stroke.
 
Roric parried a return stroke, then went in low for a thrust that almost got past the shield.

Then he dropped, rolled to the side, and leaped up, dodging the sword of the other warrior coming up behind him.
 
It whizzed along his left arm and took a nick from his hand.

But now he had them both before him, and Warulf’s left side was toward him.
 
From the corner of his eye he could see Gizor, advancing but strangely slowly.
 
They were all men he knew, and these warriors too seemed momentarily reluctant to push their advantage.

But he could not stop now.
 
He swung his sword two-handed, with a yell and all his strength.
 
It ricocheted off the very top of Warulf’s shield, then found the narrow crevice between the warrior’s mail shirt and his helmet.

The man collapsed with a rush of blood from his neck, brilliant red in the twilight.
 
Roric leaped back, yelled again, and parried two strokes from Rolf.
 
Gizor had taught him well.
 
His own first strokes bounced, first off the shield, then off the helmet.
 
He feinted to the side, ducked a blow aimed at his face, and found the opening to thrust his sword in low and upwards, into the belly.

Gizor came at him while he was wrenching his sword loose.

He tried to turn, his balance off, the track beneath his feet slippery with blood.

But the old warrior’s rush was very slow, his battle cry almost a shriek.
 
And then he saw the dagger protruding from the back of Gizor’s shoulder, thrust through a slit in the mail.

It was Karin’s dagger.
 
She held a downed oak branch, and as Gizor raised his sword against Roric, she hit him with it across the head with full force.

She snatched up the dagger as Gizor collapsed at her feet and stared wildly at Roric, the oak branch dangling from one hand and her eyes half-crazed.
 
He grabbed her other hand and began to run.
 
She threw the branch from her with a cry.
 
Their footprints were bloody the first half mile.

“I knew I had chosen a good woman in you,” Roric gasped when they stopped to catch their breath.
 
“But I had not realized before how good!”

Karin’s gray eyes in the dusk looked almost normal again.
 
“We should have killed him while we had the chance,” she said between her teeth.

“You had the chance,” he said, started to wipe his forehead with his arm, then realized it was covered with blood.

“I couldn’t do it,” she said in a suddenly small voice.
 
“I could not drive my dagger into his neck.
 
I would never have made a good shield-maiden.
 
But
you
should have killed him, Roric.”

He took her hand to pull her onward.
 
“By the Wanderers, Karin, as we were fighting it suddenly came to me, he might be my father.”

They were walking now, away from the road, across the sandy hills between the trees.
 
“I do not think he can be,” said Karin slowly.
 
“I know you were found at the castle gate, suggesting you must be from this kingdom, but he would certainly know you were his son.
 
Even King Hadros could not order him to kill his own child.”

“He might not have known I was his,” replied Roric, “if he had fathered me on some girl from one of the manors.”

“You look nothing like him,” said Karin firmly.
 
“You indeed look like no one in the kingdom.
 
Well,” she added after a moment, “when I first met you, you did look a little like Nole does now.”

Roric made himself smile.
 
“All fast-growing skinny boys probably look alike.
 
I hope you do not intend to tell me I was fathered by a boy ten years younger than I am!
 
But they would not have taken such care of a foundling had not
someone
known who I was.”

“If you want Gizor as your father …” she began darkly.

“No, Karin.
 
I do
not
want to be the son of Gizor One-hand, even if his training did teach me to defend myself, with or without a shield, against both right-handed and left-handed men.
 
Perhaps that is what the Weaver meant when he said that knowledge of my origins would destroy me.”

“By the way,” said Karin.
 
“Did you really intend to go to the Weaver’s cave?”

He abruptly smiled and squeezed her hand.
 
“The Weaver has never given me a clear answer yet.
 
I think I prefer your Mirror-seer.”

He was silent for a moment then added with a frown, “But perhaps his cave at the bottom of the cliff would be our safest place.
 
No one could kill us at such a spot without being outlawed.
 
If Gizor is still alive in the morning, however, it will be the first place he will look for us.
 
And I do not like the idea of sitting as prisoners in the cave until Hadros returns.”

“Then where should we go?”

“Certainly not back to the castle.
 
There will be another ambush waiting for us there, even if the ship behind us was just a merchant vessel and not my foster-father and your father.”

Karin bit her lip.
 
“I must have distressed my father terribly.
 
He so recently lost his oldest son to shipwreck, and now he will think he has lost me as well.”

“The two kings will doubtless be confused when they hear the seamen’s story and learn that it was you, not me, who commandeered the ship.
 
That was a good ploy, I thought, to prove you had not been kidnapped, even though I would have tried to talk you out of it if you could hear me!
 
But Gizor’s story—if he survives your attack—will leave Hadros uninterested in anything but revenge.”

They walked in silence for a moment, then Roric squeezed her hand again and asked, “How did you know just where to put your blade to penetrate his mail shirt?”

“You forget,” she said with a toss of her head.
 
“I am mistress of Hadros’s castle.
 
I have seen that mail shirt hanging in the hall, with the slit at the shoulder unrepaired, every day for years.”

And then she added suddenly, “I know where we can go, for some food and a safe place to sleep.
 
We will go to the faeys!”

The faeys’ tunnels were behind them now, closer to the castle.
 
Karin took the lead, hurrying through the deepening night.
 
Roric, coming after her, listened for the troll or for armed men.

The faeys had brought their green lanterns out into the dell.
 
When she gave the triple whistle they ran around distractedly as always, calling to each other in their high voices, before they spotted Karin and Roric.

“There is voima about you, Karin,” Roric commented.
 
“I had never seen the faeys before I stumbled into the back of their burrows.
 
You, of all the king’s court, are the only mortal who can find beings who seem so incapable of defending or hiding themselves.”

And then the faeys were all around them, jumping up and down and laughing.
 
“Karin!
 
Karin!
 
Are you a queen yet!
 
She’s dressed like a queen!
 
And she has Roric with her!
 
Is he a king now?
 
But he has blood on him!
 
And I didn’t like the way he came into our tunnels!”

But in their delight to see Karin the faeys quickly forgot their objections to Roric.
 
Soon the two were sitting eating berries in the green light of the dell.
 
The faeys, in some distaste, brought Roric a basin of water, and he washed off his hands and arms.