Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story (16 page)

      
Now those well-built walls and roofs were beginning to look inviting, for bad weather was now setting in, summer thunderstorms and hail marching closer from the western horizon. The Crown Prince decided to take a look at the place, and if no disadvantages became apparent, occupy it himself.

      
Holding his Sword still continuously drawn, and riding at the head of his small force, Murat advanced at a deliberate pace toward the comfortable-looking farmstead.

      
The farmer and his family could be seen fleeing, mounted on loadbeasts, before the invaders came within two hundred meters. No Tasavaltan troops appeared anywhere, and Murat began to think that they had not after all been using the place as a post for observation or command.

      
Occupation of the hastily abandoned farm was accomplished without further incident, and provided a bonus. Besides shelter, Murat’s party had now come into possession of a great number of fowl, and a dozen or so four-legged beasts that could be killed for food, or put to carrying burdens. Such luxuries as eggs and milk were suddenly available. A good supply of rich cheeses was discovered in the cellar, along with a good stock of salted and dried provender.

      
An hour after his decision to move camp, Murat sat musing with Kristin in the new comfort of the farmhouse.

      
“Not a palace, my Princess. But in the course of time we’ll come to live in palaces.”

      
“I have had palaces, and I do not need them. All that I need, my lord, is you.”

      
“You will have me into eternity. I swear that.”

      
Murat leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling for the first time in days almost at rest. When he opened his eyes again he admired the construction of the house that they were in, and wondered that mere farmers could afford, or cared about, such pleasant decorations.

      
The Princess murmured that this was little more than the typical Tasavaltan farmhouse. She mentioned that of course they would leave gold when they departed, or find some other means to pay the farmer for the use of his property and the supplies consumed.

      
For some reason Kristin’s proposal irritated Murat. He was short of ready cash, and doubted that any of the rest of his loyal party had much money with them either.

      
But the Princess persisted. “They are my people, Lord. It is our custom here to compensate our people, when possible, for losses suffered in time of war.” It sounded almost like a rebuke.

      
“A worthy custom,” the Crown Prince said, trying to be agreeable. And in fact he did sympathize to some degree with the abused and evicted peasants; yet he remained irritated. “I have not declared war on these householders, or attacked them. Of course they might have stayed at home and welcomed us; you know, don’t you, that I’d have seen the farmer and his people came to no harm at my men’s hands?”

      
“I know that, my lord.” The Princess smiled her beautiful smile for him.

      
“The truth is, Kristin, that I do sympathize with your farmers, and I would like to pay them if I could. But I sympathize even more with my own faithful followers. I think it not entirely Sword-magic that now binds them to my cause.”

      
“Indeed, my lord, I’m sure that it is not.”

      
Murat nodded. “They are, and will be, hard-pressed by the enemy, and I am not about to stop them from eating this farmer’s food, or enjoying the shelter of these buildings. Anyway, you are these farmers’ rightful monarch, are you not? Surely they ought not to begrudge you and your escort some hospitality.”

      
Kristin meekly bowed her head.

      
“Anyway,” the Crown Prince continued, “I also find it irritating that Tasavaltans like these peasants should not only willfully refuse to hear our case, but actually decline to obey orders given them in the name of their rightful Princess. Remember the messages you were at such pains to distribute? I am beginning to think that it might serve some of these people right if they do suffer a little abuse.”

      
Suddenly the Princess was trying to keep from weeping. But for the time being her lover did not notice.

      
“Yes,” said Murat, “let some of these fat farmers try going on short rations for a while, as our loyal folk have been pleased to do willingly in our service—as even you, my dear, might be compelled to do before we finally succeed in establishing ourselves in Culm.”

      
And why should his beloved Princess and he himself go hungry when these rascal oafs had more than enough for themselves, and no thought of sharing willingly?

* * *

      
So matters stood, or very nearly, when another day dawned. Kristin had spent her first night in the farmhouse in a bedroom alone, and Murat had slept, Sword in hand, in the upstairs hallway just outside her door.

      
By now Murat’s leg had recovered almost entirely; he was even considering that if he should be wounded again, he might allow the magician Vilkata some personal tokens of himself, that the healing spells should be more effective.

      
He now felt perfectly able to ride again. He decided he was well, and there was probably no more need for Vilkata’s healing magic. In this decision the former Dark King now willingly concurred.

      
The Crown Prince considered taking his Sword and galloping out with a few troopers on a swift reconnaissance, trying to see if a certain alternate route to Culm was clear, or if that way too had been blocked.

      
But he hesitated. In fact he was coming around to the idea that it would be better after all, in fact it might be necessary, to stay in Tasavalta and conquer it.

Chapter Fourteen

      
Mark, after crossing the Tasavaltan border, had changed his original plan and decided to delay his return to the capital—the Council and its decisions would have to wait. Instead he rode directly with Karel and a small escort to join Rostov at the general’s field headquarters, hastily established in a farming district four or five kilometers from Murat’s encampment.

      
On reaching Rostov’s headquarters, amid a confusion of gathering troops, arriving supplies, and hurrying messengers, Mark learned that Ben had arrived there some hours earlier, and had already gone out with Stonecutter and a small squad of cavalry, to see what additional barriers might be created between the intruder and his native Culm.

      
Ben returned from his expedition somewhat earlier than expected, only a few hours after Mark’s arrival in the headquarters camp. At least some of the Tasavaltan soldiers who had gone out with Ben were missing, and Mark’s old friend reported they had been lost in an unplanned skirmish against a patrol of defectors led by Prince Carlo.

      
The Prince only nodded; skirmishes had to be expected. “Any hope of carving some new barriers with Stonecutter?”

      
“I don’t think so. The terrain doesn’t lend itself to that.” Ben’s huge frame was slumped in a creaking camp chair, as if he were inordinately tired.

      
Mark nodded. “We’ve had no indication until now, have we, that Murat’s son is with him?”

      
Rostov and Karel both confirmed this opinion. “How’d you make the identification, Ben?”

      
Mark had to repeat the question before the big man seemed to hear him. Then Ben shifted his weight in the chair. “I heard one of our renegade Tasavaltans call him Prince Carlo. Also he was wearing a Sword.”

      
“He wore the Mindsword in a skirmish but he didn’t draw it?”

      
“I couldn’t swear it was that particular Sword, but if Murat and his people have others at their disposal, we’d probably have heard about it. And I suppose I might even be wrong about the hilt—there are black hilts in plenty. Still, as you know, the real thing has a certain look about it…”

      
“I know,” said Mark.

      
“The Princeling and I both came on the scene a little late, after the fight had started. I got my people out of there as quickly as I could once I saw how he was armed.”

      
“Wise decision.”

      
Ben rubbed his eyes. No, he told Mark, he hadn’t seen anything of Murat himself, nor, of course, of Kristin.

      
After answering a few more questions from Rostov and Karel, Ben, who looked worn out, was sent to get some rest. Mark remarked that his old friend didn’t seem quite right. Well, losing people in a fight was always a wearing experience.

* * *

      
That night the moon was full and bright, the weather no worse than partly cloudy. After the Prince of Tasavalta had tried to rest for an hour or two, he was up again, unable to be quiet while Kristin was so near and at the same time so completely out of reach.

      
Someone had just escorted into camp the displaced and outraged family whose home had just been occupied by Murat, and Mark spoke eagerly to these people, learning what little he could about the enemy disposition. He also had the farmer sketch out for him the floor plan of their house, though at the moment the knowledge seemed unlikely to have any useful application.

      
After ordering the family to be sheltered in tents for the time being, Mark abruptly decided to ride out by night to take a look at the commandeered farmhouse, accompanied only by Karel.

      
Mark, as he rode with the ageless magician at his side and Sightblinder sheathed at his belt, turned over in his mind several possible schemes for rescuing his wife. In none of them, at the moment, could he see any reasonable chance of success.

      
Silently, the Prince recalled how once, years ago, this same Sword that he now carried had been able to protect him to some degree against the Mindsword’s force. On that day, too, he had ridden toward an enemy camp in which Kristin was held prisoner, and which was dominated by the Sword of Glory in a villain’s hands.

      
That day marked the first time Mark had met the woman who was to become his wife, and on that day he had saved Kristin from a most horrible and painful death. But, on that distant, marvelous, and terrifying day, Mark’s enemy the Dark King had not been holding the Mindsword continually drawn, as Murat was now. And when Vilkata had finally drawn the Blade, Mark had been able to resist its power only partially, and he had realized that he would not have been able to do that much without the Sword of Stealth in his own hand.

      
Sightblinder’s gifts: his eyes are keen
 

      
His nature is disguised.

      
On that far-off day, possessing Sightblinder had made resistance possible—barely possible. Mark was sure that in no very great length of time the Sword of Glory, performing its prime function, would have overcome Sightblinder’s secondary attribute of giving its holder enhanced perception.

      
The Mindsword spun in the dawn’s gray light
 

      
And men and demons knelt down before.

      
The Mindsword flashed in the midday bright

      
Gods joined the dance, and the march to war.

      
It spun in the twilight dim as well

      
And gods and men marched off to hell.

      
Now, as the two men quietly covered the moonlit distance between their own camp and the enemy’s, Karel thought the time appropriate to deliver to his Prince a new report, concerning the latest results of his days-long struggle to create and extend a magical domination over Murat’s encampment and the people in it.

      
An early phase of that assault, the plague of mice, had succeeded admirably, but later efforts were having less and less success.

      
“And during the last few hours the reason has become plain, my Prince. My task has been complicated considerably by a real wizard’s opposition.”

      
Mark turned in his saddle. “A real wizard? Whom has he converted now?”

      
“The news is not good, my Prince. Though there may be some good to come from it in the end—”

      
“Who?”

      
Karel told him.

      
“Why didn’t you tell me this at once?”

      
“I did not want the news to get around our own camp. I am sorry if that was wrong.”

      
Mark drew several deep breaths. “No,” he said at last. “You were right. Though of course the troops must be told eventually. When we’ve had time to prepare them. So, the old bastard’s not dead after all.”

      
“Unfortunately he is not.” After giving his sovereign a few more breaths in which to digest the disturbing information, the wizard added: “And there is more to tell, almost as bad.”

      
“Then tell it.”

      
“We now face a demon also. Let me hasten to add that Kristin seems to be in no immediate danger from the thing.”

      
Mark, on recovering somewhat from this second shock, felt confident that he could readily drive the demon away if it confronted him directly—at least he had always been able to master such creatures in this way before, through the power of the Emperor’s name, though understanding of this power eluded him. But the demon perhaps realized this as well as Mark did, and it might be avoiding him, retreating whenever it sensed the Prince of Tasavalta was approaching.

      
After a brief discussion of the problem posed by the demon, the two men rode on in silence for a little distance, each busy with his own thoughts.

      
At last the Prince asked: “I suppose there’s no doubt?”

      
“There is no doubt, sir, that both the Dark King and the demon are now allied with the Crown Prince. But neither Vilkata nor the demon is in command. Rather they seem to be as completely enthralled by the Mindsword as any of the others who now surround Murat.”

      
“Can you overcome them?”

      
“As for Vilkata, I can, and will, and have, though to beat him thoroughly will take time. His strength in the art is not what it was in the old days; and even then he excelled mainly in the control of demons. Only one of that tribe is in his service now, and that one—its name is Akbar—I consider even more cowardly than most.”

      
“Cowardly, but powerful, I suppose.”

      
The magician nodded. “Formidable, even for a demon. But Akbar I will leave to you, should the foul thing ever dare to confront us directly.”

      
Prince and wizard approached Murat’s defended camp warily, climbing the far side of a long hill from which they would be able to overlook the occupied farm. When, extending their view cautiously over the hilltop, they had the house and barn in view below, Karel by his art was able to let Mark see just how far they were from the boundary of the Mindsword’s magic. Touching his fingers lightly to his Prince’s eyes, the magician rendered that field of force visible to Mark, in the form of an eerie, transparent blue glow in the atmosphere.

      
“And now, magician? Is there something else that you can achieve in this situation?”

      
“I can but try, Prince. I am going to try to put everyone in Murat’s encampment sound asleep. If that succeeds, we may be able to try something more. Let me have a few moments for silent concentration.”

      
Standing guard while Karel concentrated, cautiously peering over the very top of the hill, Mark gazed down at the buildings and smoldering watchfires of Murat’s camp, where a few huddled human figures were discernible in the bright moonlight. The faint bluish haze of Sword-power, visible to his eyes and presumably to Karel’s, was centered on the upper floor of the farmhouse, and extended to about twenty meters from where Mark and Karel now sat their riding-beasts. At that point the blue haze faded out abruptly.

      
Some minutes passed. Then Karel, who had looked as if he were dozing in his saddle, roused himself to whisper encouraging words to his sovereign. The magician’s efforts to put everyone in the camp asleep by magic were on the verge of almost complete success.

      
Mark murmured back: “I don’t suppose our friend is likely to sheathe his Sword before he dozes off?”

      
“I don’t suppose so, Prince. But we can hope.”

      
Soon Karel announced that the sleep-pall was even now taking full effect upon all the people in and around the farmhouse. But unfortunately, as Mark was able to see for himself, the Mindsword’s influence continued unabated.

      
“He grasps the weapon tightly even in his sleep, my Prince. Therefore you must not dream of trying to enter the camp to bring Kristin out. We must seek some other way.”

      
Mark was not so easily discouraged. “I have Sightblinder. If I were to try the fringes of this blue haze, test it first with only an arm or leg, and see what—”

      
Karel was uncharacteristically vehement. “No, you must not attempt it, Prince! Sightblinder will not serve to protect you. At this moment she is still unharmed, except for the spell cast on her by the Sword. We will find another way.”

      
“With a demon hovering near her? We can’t wait!”

      
“I tell you, you must wait! The demon is not near her now. Not anywhere near here—it may have retreated when it sensed the Emperor’s son approaching. You’ll be no good to her or anyone if you become Murat’s slave.”

      
Mark, reluctantly acknowledging the wisdom of Karel’s advice, and seeing no other choice, gave in.

      
In a few more moments Karel was able to assure him that the pall of sleep he had been gradually weaving over the enemy had now indeed taken full effect. The charm had worked so subtly that none of the victims, even Vilkata, had realized that they were being enchanted. To work such magic was comparatively easy at night, because most of the subjects, or victims, would be expecting to go to sleep anyway.

      
The Prince thought it would be far less easy than Karel made it sound. Then Mark was struck by a sudden hope.

      
“If I cannot go down to her, can you get Kristin to come out?”

      
Karel closed his eyes. “The possibility had already crossed my mind. I will do what I can to call her here. But what I can do will probably be insufficient, unless she believes, even in the Sword’s enchantment, that she has a reason to come.”

* * *

      
Kristin, rousing from a light sleep, had the distinct sensation that someone had just called her name—one of her parents, perhaps, though both her mother and father were long dead. It had been only a dream, then … or had it?

      
She sat up in the unfamiliar farmhouse bed—there was no difficulty in remembering how she had come here—and pulled aside a window curtain. The casement behind stood open to the summer night, and moonlight flooded into the small, neat room which Murat had assigned her. Though small, it was the biggest bedchamber in the house, and the best furnished, with table and chest of drawers and even a little mirror on the wall.