Knights of the Sword

Chapter 12

To the northeast, the canyon slashed deep into the side of the mountain. The mountain’s upper slopes lay hidden in sullen, dark clouds, and more clouds were piling up to the east and north. A sharp-eyed observer could make out lightning flashes within the clouds.

“That looks like no natural storm,” Birak Epron said. He had looked about him carefully to see that no one but Haimya and Pirvan were within hearing. Now he looked down at the river, winding along the bottom of the valley below. Pirvan looked at Rubina, but Epron shook his head. That did not mean the Black Robe was innocent, only that the mercenary captain would not willingly hear an accusation against her.

Not that there was a great deal one could expect from such an accusation, besides a furious quarrel and certainly not the truth. But Pirvan was beginning to wish that circumstances had dictated he travel either with Rubina or with the column of sell-swords. He could deal with either alone; both together made him feel out of his depth.

However, the plain fact was that the day was drawing to a close. Beyond the river, in places shallow enough to wade, were several concealed campsites. On this side it was all bare rock and grass, without even a visible spring for fresh water. A ridge also overlooked the south bank of the river, studded with perches for archers to play on anyone below.

Crossing the river this late in the day was not much to Pirvan’s taste. All the alternatives were even less so.

“I will take Rubina up with the leaders,” Pirvan said. “You keep well back, in the middle of the column.”

“Very well. As fond of her as I am, I could wish she had not quarreled with Tarothin. Two wizards are better than one, and Tarothin was apt to speak his mind. Rubina unveils her body but keeps her mind invisible to mortal eye.”

Pirvan refrained from congratulating the mercenary captain on his belated achievement of wisdom.

* * * * *

The river was one of those ill-natured streams too shallow to float a boat, too wide to jump across, and too deep to wade easily. It was also full of dead animals, so neither drinking from it nor swimming across it was an agreeable thought.

The column cast up and down along the near bank, seeking a ford. In time they found a sandbar that cut most of the way across the river, and made a path shallow enough to cross if not quite dryshod, then without ruining clothes and weapons.

“Let us not forget the food,” Haimya added. “If we ruin the trail biscuit and then run into a land hunted bare, we may be leaner than elves before we reach Waydol.”

Two of the tallest soldiers crossed the river with stout ropes, tying them to trees on the far bank. Further tall, strong soldiers entered the water, stationing themselves at intervals along the ropes in case anyone lost his grip. Pirvan did not expect much of this; the current appeared sluggish, except for an occasional eddy.

Pirvan and Haimya led the way across. Rubina followed. In spite of her height, she somehow contrived to be soaked from head to foot, so that when she emerged from the water her black garments clung to her like a second skin. She stood in the open like that, wringing the water out of her hair, until several men stumbled into potholes because they could not keep their eyes off her.

Pirvan was about to drag her forcibly out of sight when he heard a distant rumbling sound, like thunder but nearer the earth. He ran to the bank and looked upstream and down. Downstream showed nothing as far as the last visible bend.

Upstream, a faint haze seemed to rise from the river. Pirvan strained his eyes and saw the base of a prominent tree upstream seem to vanish. Then the lower branches also vanished. The same thing happened to other trees, and Pirvan cupped his hands and shouted, “Flood! The river’s rising! Everybody out of the water to high ground!”

Not everyone could obey this prudent command. The river was a hundred paces wide at the crossing point, and even those men who remained calm did not all survive. Pirvan saw Haimya run down to the water’s edge, stripping off her armor and clothing as she went, clearly intending to use her swimming prowess to save whomever she could.

The knight wanted to shout, or run and grapple her away from the water. Instead he pointed to two soldiers already crossed over.

“Take the Lady Rubina to high ground, or climb a tree if you find nothing better.”

Then Pirvan himself ran down to the bank, where the water was rising toward him almost as swiftly as he descended toward it. There could be no stopping Haimya; his choices were letting her risk her life or shaming her before all in a way that she would not forgive.

The knight hoped that his wisdom would console him somewhat if it was his fate today to see his lady drown before his eyes.

One of the soldiers who’d carried the ropes had already leaped in and been swept away with his comrades. The second was firmer on his legs, and also giving ground before the rising water. As men thrashed to within reach, Pirvan’s long arms snaked out and caught them by the handiest part of their bodies or piece of clothing. Then he drew them in like a fisherman with an oversized catch, and thrust them up the bank to Haimya. She supported them as far as dry ground, and there Pirvan and others made sure that they spewed the water out of them and were not caught by any further rising of the river.

Had the ropes gone entirely, the death toll might have been the stuff of nightmares. But they held for a vital few minutes, allowing a good many men to stay on their feet until they could lighten themselves enough to swim. Then those who could swim went thrashing off downstream, slanting toward the banks, many of these finding safety. All along the bank downstream Pirvan saw soldiers shaking themselves like wet dogs-and in the stream, the bobbing corpses of those whose luck had run out.

On the far side of the river, the gentler slope of the bank made for a swifter spread of the water. Those who reached dry land soon found it turning into knee-deep, then waist-deep, then swimming-deep water. Again, this happened slowly enough that a good many men lightened themselves and swam to safety.

Pirvan hoped for a while that the river would go down as swiftly as it had risen. The hope was vain. As twilight crept across the land, he and Birak Epron stared at each other across five hundred paces of water, much of it two or three men deep, carrying a freight of drowned animals, drifting tree trunks, and patches of weed. A few more human bodies also floated by, foresters or farmers to judge from their garb, and at least one who seemed to have ogre blood in him.

“Now what should we do?” Pirvan asked, half musing and less than half aloud.

Rubina, busy combing her hair, shrugged. “Ask Birak Epron or your lady before you ask me.”

“My lady is setting the guards, and Birak Epron is five hundred paces away. I cannot shout or shoot a message arrow that far. Do you propose to give me wings or conjure me up a boat?”

“Your pardon, Sir Pirvan.”

“I will pardon you when you swear to me, by whatever a Black Robe will swear by, that you had nothing to do with the flood.”

Stark amazement spread across Rubina’s face. In one less accomplished in feigning what she was not, Pirvan might have believed Rubina’s face alone. Instead, he listened while she swore by Takhisis, Gilean, and Paladine that she was as innocent as a babe unborn of aught to do with raising the flood.

As neither falling trees nor gaping crevices in the earth nor thunderbolts from the sky punished Rubina for using Good and Neutral gods in her oath, Pirvan was prepared to accept it. Not with much more pleasure in her company than before, but at least with less stark fear.

“In truth, I could not have conjured up that flood. I did not even detect it before your senses did,” the Black Robe added. “In the sphere of water I have very little power. I would not be prepared to swear that the flood was wholly natural, but on the other hand, we were downstream of a land where it has been raining heavily.”

“Just hold your tongue about the unnaturalness of the flood, if you please,” Pirvan said more sharply than he intended. But his tone bounced off Rubina like a pebble off a battle helm, and she replied with a dazzling smile that made him feel ready to leap to his feet and grapple stout opponents.

The sensation did not last, but the need to grapple remained, and with problems as stout as any foe with a body. Pirvan began pacing up and down the riverbank, ignoring the mud that sucked at his boots and the low-hanging branches that slapped his face.

On his side of the river, he had twenty men, a third of them armed and equipped. On the other side, Birak Epron had the rest of the survivors, and it was hard to tell how many of them had weapons or gear. Perhaps half, certainly not more.

The river would, of course, go down before long. But even when it shrank back to its previous size, it would not bring the dead back to life, or farm and reequip those who now had nothing but the sodden garments they stood in.

Go forward or go back? Someone had to go forward and learn more about Waydol. Or if that was impossible, at least reach the coast and warn Jemar the Fair. If he cruised off the north coast long enough, the Istarian fleet would arrive and might fight him merely for lack of anyone else to fight, or because he was a sea barbarian in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pirvan knew that he and Haimya-with Rubina, if she could be trusted-could make the northward trek on their own and do as much as a larger band. However, there was that larger band to think about, and to take care of, seeing how many of them would be next to defenseless in the face of serious attack or even common footpads.

Divide the band, taking some forward and sending the rest back? Seemingly prudent-until one realized that the armed men would also have to be divided. Divided, there might not be enough of them to defend their unarmed comrades in either party. Also, the country behind was alert and more likely to spawn attacks.

Take all the men onward? A dangerous course, but perhaps the least dangerous one. If all else failed, Pirvan could march them up to one of Aurhinius’s garrisons. His rank as a Knight of the Crown would be surety enough for the men’s correct treatment. They would be humiliated, although not as greatly as he, but they would live, instead of dying miserably in the wilderness.

If luck held and they were able to reach the coast, a small party of picked, armed men could scout Waydol’s stronghold. The rest could find their own perch on the rocks, living on fish, seabirds, and game until Jemar appeared offshore.

Furthermore, they need not remain ill-equipped. Spears had been cut from branches long before armorers took them in hand, snares could bring down men as well as game, and clubs had their uses in close-quarters fighting. One of the more important classes knights in training took was called “The Dangerous Man,” which showed you how to turn anything into a weapon and keep to the last your hopes of an honorable death, if not victory.

Then the bubble of Pirvan’s hope burst. These mercenaries were not Knights of Solamnia or even those admitted to training for knighthood. Half of them were the wastrels or brawlers of their hometowns, and the rest were accustomed to treating employers who left them ill-armed with disdain if not outright mutiny.

What would he do if they refused to go on? What would he do if Birak Epron refused to punish the would-be deserters? That would be foolish; Epron had to know, better than the others, that making one’s way alone back through a hostile countryside could end only one way. But Epron could not stand alone against fifty men thinking only of a way out of this wilderness.

Pirvan sat down and began throwing pebbles and bits of bark into the turbid river rushing past his feet. The sense of having failed those for whom he was responsible ate at him from within like a worm at an apple.

The Measure discussed this, of course; there seemed little that it did not. It said that such a state of low spirits was dishonorable for a knight and should be ended as swiftly as possible. It did not say how.

It also said that important decisions should not be made while in this lowness of spirits. It did not say what was to be done if the decisions were urgent and the lowness of spirits not likely to depart before you needed to make them!

It seemed to Pirvan that another two or three seasoned mercenary captains would have done as well as any sort of knight. However, he had his orders, his men had him-and both, to be sure, had Haimya. She had spent time enough as a mercenary so that she could at least advise him how much these men would be prepared to endure. Pirvan suspected that Birak Epron’s men would follow their captain to the uttermost ends of Krynn; he was less sure of the others.

Now to find Haimya. Pirvan rose-and as he did, two of the armed sentries backed into view. They had their swords drawn, but were not wielding them, and seemed immensely careful to make no sudden moves. One of them was so careful that he tripped over a tree root and sprawled backward. His mate helped him to his feet, but did not take his eyes off whatever it was that was following them, invisible to Pirvan but with its own source of light.

Then a little procession stepped into Pirvan’s sight. In the lead was a man carrying a torch and another-man, though showing ogre blood-carrying a white flag.

Behind these two came four more armed men. Two of them had drawn swords. The other two were carrying a blanketed form on a litter of branches and blankets.

Bringing up the rear was a tall half-ogre, with a cloak and helmet that suggested he was the leader. He also held a spear out in front of him, with the point bobbing only a handbreadth from the throat of the person on the litter.

Then the litter bearers set their burden down. The tall half-ogre lifted the blankets away from the person’s throat with the point of his spear.

A knife seemed to drive between Pirvan’s ribs, then twist in his heart.

The person on the litter was Haimya.