Sworn in Steel

Chapter Thirty-six

Wolf tensed for a moment. Then, seeing Degan wasn’t advancing, he laughed.

“You say this, Bronze?” he said. “You, who have Iron’s blood on your blade? Who are you to speak of justifications? I don’t see you putting yourself before the Order for your crimes, don’t see you standing in the Barracks Hall awaiting judgment. How is your excuse for avoiding justice and coming after Ivory any better than mine?”

Degan was maybe fifteen feet from Wolf. He had his chain-hilted sword in one hand, Ivory’s widower’s fan in the other. I couldn’t read the look on his face.

“I didn’t come to kill Ivory,” he said.

Wolf snorted. “Then more fool you.”

“He didn’t deserve-”

“He deserved everything I gave him and more,” snapped Wolf. “Deserved a century’s worth of agony for the lies he told us, for the lives he stole from us. That old man chained us with our honor and then walked away. Worse, he let us be set aside when he left. We, who were supposed to serve Lucien as his swords, instead spent our time trading promises like merchants doing business in the bazaar. Swords that were once meant to support an empire now settle private debts.” Wolf spit into the square. “A blade rusts if it’s not used, Bronze, and I’ve no intention of rusting anymore. It’s time for our steel to shine again.”

I eyed Wolf’s back, then took a tentative step forward, making sure to keep the Azaari between Degan and me. If he saw me, if he guessed what I was planning, I knew Degan would speak up rather than let me strike down Wolf from behind. Easy solution or not, he wouldn’t allow that when it came to one of his sword brothers.

Which meant I just had to be careful as I moved in, is all.

“And what kind of shine would you have?” said Degan as I took another step. “The glisten of blood on steel? Listen to yourself! You talk about restoring the Order in one breath and destroying it in another. Setting us against one another isn’t going to bring us together, Steel-we’re too hardened to the slaughter for that. You might get a few to relent out of sympathy for the past, but once the blood starts flowing the rest won’t stop. Gold and Jade, Pearl and Brass: They’ll go to their graves before they give in.”

“I know.”

“Then why?” I could hear the desperation in Degan’s voice, could imagine the look of frustration on his face. “Why make it so we cut one another down?”

“Because we need to realize how truly broken we are. For the last two hundred years, all we’ve done is argue about which path is the proper one, ignoring the fact that both roads lead nowhere. Serve the emperor? Serve the Empire? Both have forgotten us. Like fools dying of thirst, we sit in the desert remembering the taste of water instead of seeking it out on our own. If the Order of the Degans is to reclaim any kind of purpose, any kind of honor, we have to leave the dust of our past behind. We have to free ourselves of the old ways before we can create the new.”

“Killing someone doesn’t make them free,” said Degan.

Another step.

“It’s not the dead I’m worried about,” said Wolf. “Let the zealots and the true believers slaughter one another; let them paint the empire with blood. Once we start littering the streets with our dead and hanging fatherless swords in the Barracks Hall, the others will begin to waver. Those degans who remain will see the need.”

“And what need is that?” said Degan.

“To be free of the Oath,” said Wolf. “To serve the empire as we see fit, without chains of words and magic holding us back. We have all of us seen and made history-we should be chieftains in our own right, sheikhs and sheikhas, leaders of men, not hired swords waiting on a summons that will never come. Ivory called us a brotherhood, but to be brothers and sisters there must also be a father. Well, I’ve outgrown my father the emperor, as I think the rest of us have. We are no longer a brotherhood; we are a tribe, joined together by the souls we surrendered and the blood we’ve shed. When this is done, we will stand together as tribesmen should: free and equal and bound to no one but one another.”

“And what do you think ‘father’ will have to say about that idea?”

Wolf hefted Ivory’s sword. “I don’t think he’ll have much of a choice once I remind him of his former incarnation’s promise.”

Degan’s voice grew cool. “So you were planning on killing Ivory for the sword all along.”

“Planning? No. I merely thought to find the blade. Ivory being alive was merely good fortune on my part, less so on his.”

“And if you hadn’t found it?”

Wolf shrugged. “There was always you.”

“Me?” said Degan. “You can’t think I would have come back to Ildrecca with you after I found out you killed Silver.”

“Come back to. .? Ah, I see: The Gray Prince has been sharing his tales. Very good. But the truth is, I never planned to bring you back. Not that I don’t think you could sway the Order if you put your mind to it-you could, which is the problem. You would bring balance when I need blood. No, I wouldn’t have returned with you-I would have returned with the sword of the degan who killed not only Iron, but Silver and Ivory as well.”

“You would have blamed it all on me?” I could hear the pain, the disbelief, in Degan’s voice. “Why?”

“When an exemplar falls,” said Wolf, “it can be almost as powerful as the thing he represents falling. You becoming a butcher, not to mention turning your back on the degans because you saw us as too flawed to continue, would have shaken the Order to its core. And while it may not have given me the war I wanted, you would have at least turned me into a savior. Not as effective as having access to the emperor’s Oath, I admit, but there are other ways to steer things to a breaking point.”

“And now that you have Ivory’s sword?”

“Now?” I heard the smile in Wolf’s voice. I was close now. Very close. “Now I call in your Oath.”

“My Oath?” Degan chuckled. “You forget: I relinquished my sword. I walked away. That’s why I’m here-of all of us, I’m the only one who can stop you.”

I was maybe six paces away. I cocked my left arm to flick my wrist knife free, then thought better of it and let my right hand slip into my left sleeve instead. This close, I didn’t want to risk even the tiny click the knife would make sliding free.

Damn, but I wished I’d thought to ask Aribah about borrowing some poison.

I took another step. Degan came into view just around Wolf’s shoulder. He was too busy glaring at his sword brother to notice me.

“Walking away isn’t the same as leaving the Order, Bronze,” said Wolf. “Ivory could have told you that. Well, he would have if he’d still had a tongue, I suppose.”

“You lie.”

In answer, Wolf brandished Ivory’s sword. “Bronze Degan. By the Oath sworn on this steel, I summon you to account. I call on you, in accordance with the laws of the Order of the Degans, to fulfill your Oath as a degan.”

I saw Degan’s eyes go wide at the words, his sword hand begin to tremble. Watched as what must have been the grip of a two-hundred-year-old promise begin to close around him.

Shit. Wolf wasn’t bluffing.

“By blood and magic, by soul and steel, I call on you to-”

I moved.

Unfortunately, so did Wolf.

I knew better than to think he’d forgotten about me-Wolf wasn’t that dumb. But to hope he’d lose track of me as he talked, to think he might have missed my padding up on him while he focused on Degan? That had seemed worth the risk.

Now it just seemed stupid.

Wolf spun as I lunged, bringing the long sword in his left hand around in a blurring arc. I felt the sword’s handle hit my wrist, grunted as the knife slipped from my suddenly tingling fingers.

I kept moving forward, going for the close fight. Backing away would let Wolf bring his own sword to bear; but here, in tight, I had the advantage.

I thrust the heel of my left palm up toward his face even as my right foot stomped down toward the inside of his leg. Shin, instep, toes-I didn’t give a damn where I landed at this point, as long as it hurt him. As long as it gave Degan enough time to close the distance and strike.

Wolf raised his shoulder and ducked his head, deflecting my palm. I felt my foot connect with something, but only sparingly. I was still shifting my weight, still trying to turn my palm thrust into a vicious elbow to his side, when Wolf brought the long sword guard back around and connected with the side of my head.

Pain and light exploded behind my eyes. The world wobbled. I reached out for support, felt something against my shoulder, and grabbed hold. Wolf cursed. For a moment I was upright; then my legs became entangled and I fell, taking the support with me.

I heard Wolf yell something at Degan, only to have it cut off by the sound of steel meeting steel.

I tried to push myself up, to roll myself over. That turned out to be a bad idea. The world spun some more, and what little food I had in me decided to come up and see what all the fuss was about. It spread itself across the street and the side of my face in roughly equal measure. I gagged some more.

Grunts and gasps; the sound of feet moving quickly over pavement; sword meeting sword-all came to me through the lingering sound of a bell echoing in my head. I couldn’t tell if the two degans were right on top of me or half a square away.

I took one shaking breath, then another. The heaving in my middle settled down to an uneasy quavering. I blinked, saw street and bile and bits of what once had been food, all with barely any hint of amber. Dawn was nearly here.

I lifted my head, moved my hands, and pushed against the ground. Something scraped and shifted on the street beneath me. I looked. Ivory’s sword.

So that’s what I’d grabbed hold of. Between the tangle of my arms and it somehow getting caught between my legs, I must have levered the sword out of Wolf’s grip. Good. Served the bastard right.

I started to laugh, felt the world tip a bit, and stopped myself. Gloat later, Drothe: Live now.

I gathered my knees beneath me and turned my attention toward the sounds of fighting.

Degan and Wolf were standing just short of the square, where the narrow street opened out into the filth-strewn piazza. Degan was trying to hold his ground, using the superior reach and speed of his rapier to keep Wolf trapped between the buildings, where the Azaari’s curved blade had less room to maneuver. As for Wolf, he was attempting to push forward, using a dizzying array of cuts and off-line thrusts to beat Degan’s blade aside and force the other man back.

Normally, I would have put odds on Degan when it came to controlling the fight; but seeing how he was facing another degan, and seeing how Wolf looked to have just as much, if not more, say in the matter, I wasn’t willing to make any predictions at the moment.

I watched, slack-jawed, as Wolf threw a downward cut, slid his shamshir off Degan’s parry, swept the blade around for a cut from the other direction, turned that attack into a thrust at the last moment, and then stepped forward and pushed a third slice at Degan’s head, all in one seamless action.

Degan, for his part, avoided Wolf’s steel, but was forced to take two quick steps back, then a third, and finally launch himself into a lunge just to interrupt Wolf’s advance.

Blades met, bodies twisted, balance shifted, and both swordsmen sprang apart.

They were well and truly in the square now.

Wolf chuckled. “You still favor the Virocchi school, I see. I’d have thought you past that by now.”

I began to push myself to my feet, using Ivory’s sword as a third leg.

“Old habits,” said Degan. He shifted the angle of his blade. “Besides, I seem to recall Piero Virocchi doing well enough when the two of you crossed steel.”

Wolf took a step, widening his stance, then another, closing it again. “Pah. Exhibition bouts mean nothing.”

“Losing is still losing.”

“And dead is still dead.” Wolf flicked the tip of his sword in dismissal. “That little Ibrian rabbit has been rotting in his grave for a hundred and a half years. His prancings failed him in the end.”

“But not against you.”

I watched as Wolf circled Degan, as Degan slipped his back foot forward while he turned to keep the Azaari in sight. The fan was still in Degan’s left hand, though he now held it back and slightly canted at his side.

“As I said: If there’s no blood, there’s no meaning.”

“That sounds like an excuse,” said Degan, extending his sword. “I’d have thought you were past that by now.”

Wolf opened his mouth as if to respond, then became a blur. His shamshir leapt out, sweeping Degan’s blade aside as the Azaari pressed forward. For his part, Degan took a small step back, dropped the tip of his sword below Wolf’s, and lowered his body and extended his sword into the oncoming rush.

It was a beautiful move: smart, concise, and deadly. And on anyone else, I expect it would have worked. But Wolf wasn’t anyone else.

Degan’s tip had barely settled into its new line before Wolf’s own sword was moving back in the other direction, catching the rapier and edging it aside. Metal scraped on metal as Wolf slipped past Degan’s point and brought his own tip to bear, all while moving down the other man’s sword.

Degan sidestepped and raised his guard, but even I could see it wasn’t going to be enough: Between Wolf’s leverage and the curve of his blade, Degan wasn’t going to be able to get out of the way in time. He was done.

Which is why I expect Wolf and I were both equally surprised when Degan stepped forward, pressed his guard into the saber’s, and forced the sword-along with Wolf’s arm-up and away. The move ended with the two men in dagger range, their arms extended, their swords crossed, their eyes locked.

For anyone else, there might have been a pause then: a fraction of an instant to register the surprise of an attack thwarted, the relief of a killing stroke foiled. But these were degans: Their guards had barely crashed together before Wolf was pulling his sword free and aiming a slice at the other man’s body. As for Degan, he’d already begun pivoting in anticipation of the blow as he swung his sword guard at Wolf’s head.

Still, he wasn’t quite fast enough: At the last instant, Degan was forced to sweep Ivory’s fan forward and down, to keep Wolf’s at bay. The crack of steel striking laminated stays echoed off the surrounding buildings. Sadly, there was no answering crack of Degan’s sword striking Wolf’s jaw. The Azaari had ducked as he threw the cut.

The sound seemed to startle both men, and both took a hasty step back. Clearly, this hadn’t been part of the chess match they were playing.

Degan looked down at the fan and swore. The final third of it was dangling at an odd angle.

Wolf regarded at the length of wood in Degan’s hand. He tilted his head like his namesake. “Ivory’s?”

Degan didn’t answer. He merely resumed his guard.

Wolf grinned. “Of course. The laws. I should have known. The sly old bastard.”

The two degans began circling one another again.

I was standing by then, albeit not steadily. The world had developed on a slight lean to the left, but as there didn’t seem to be much I could do about it, I didn’t complain.

I looked down at my right hand. My wrist was already swelling from the sword blow, and I was having trouble closing my fingers. I tried my rapier anyhow. Digits trembled and nerves screamed, but I was able to force my hand into the guard and pull the weapon free. Not that it stayed there long: I’d barely cleared the scabbard before my grip slipped. It it wasn’t for the swept steel cage of the guard, my rapier sword would have clattered to the street.

Hopeless.

I looked back at the square.

The initial flourish had died down. Now, rathering than rushing forward to kill one another, each of the degans had taken a couple of paces back. They were still fighting-there was no question about that-but the two men men were being more thoughtful about it. I had no idea how long it had been since they’d faced one another, but it was clear that there was a lot of reevaluating going on out there.

Just as it was also clear that this lull wouldn’t last

I switched my rapier to my left hand, gathered up Ivory’s long sword as best I could with my right, adjusted Degan’s blade across my back, and began to make my way toward the square.

Like hell I was going to leave this to chance.

I entered the square charting a careful course, eyeing the two degans all the while. I wasn’t fool enough to think they didn’t notice my arrival, but neither man so much as glanced in my direction. They, and I, knew who posed the real threat here.

It was hard to tell who was faring better at this point. Both men had been pressed hard by the other at least once, and each had managed set the other back on his heels. As skill with a blade went, I was in no position to judge, so far above me were they. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have an opinion; and right now my opinion, I hated to say, favored Wolf. Not because his ability or technique or brutality looked to be vastly superior to Degan’s-on that, I doubt I could have found a finger’s worth of daylight between them. No, it was something much more basic that had me worried.

It was Wolf’s sword.

Or, to be more precise, it was Degan’s sword that had me concerned. Good steel though it might be, it wasn’t a degan’s blade by any measure. Between Wolf’s cut-heavy style and the superiority of his Black Isle steel, I was already beginning to see a growing collection notches along the edge of Degan’s sword. Sword blades were strongest along the edge and designed to take punishment there, but not to the extent I was seeing-and certainly not this fast.

I flexed the fingers of my right hand around Ivory’s sheath, just to see how they were doing. Not good. The numbness was starting to fade, but it was being replaced by a throbbing ache that extended from my knuckles up through my hand and past my wrist. Even if I were to switch my rapier back to my sword hand, I doubted I could do much more than wave it about, and only then as long as no one connected with it. One good beat or parry and it would be out of my hand and on the ground in an instant.

No, if I wanted to help Degan, I was going to either have to come up with something that didn’t involve a weapon, or wait for the exact right moment to strike.

I glanced over at the Dog Gate for the third time in twice as many steps. It was wide open again thanks to Degan’s hasty exit, and the hounds had begun to skulk around the arch again. With the sun coming up and a fight sounding on the padishah’s doorstep, I figured it was only a matter of time before the gate vomited forth a stream of men decked out in opal jackets and ostrich-plumed turbans. I had no idea whether they’d decide to overwhelm us with numbers or feather us with arrows, but either way, I didn’t want to be here when the time for the decision finally came.

I turned my attention back to the fight.

The fight had taken the degans to the far side of the square. Steel rang on steel, the noise bouncing off the buildings until it sounded as if a regiment of ghosts was doing battle in the piazza.

Both men were showing signs of wear now. Degan, despite what looked like a bloody patch on his left leg, had resorted to a more upright stance, blade held near shoulder level, sword arm loosely extended, his left arm held at his side. Whenever Wolf threw a cut, Degan either moved his tip around the other man’s blade or let the force of the blow carry his own blade around as he stepped in for the counter. It was smooth and efficient and had a decidedly calculating air to it.

But as ruthlessly cold as the tactic seemed, Degan’s steel never managed to do more than threaten Wolf. The Azaari was a shifting, swaying reed, sliding forward and back on bent knees over a wide stance. Lean back to parry, lean forward to cut, with gathering and crossing steps to change the distance and line. There was a tear in his burnoose. Metal scales glinted beneath it in the growing light, telling me Wolf had come armored. I doubted Degan had a similar advantage.

Well, that did it, then. Offhanded or not, I couldn’t hold off any longer. Between his Black Isle steel and the metal jack he looked to be wearing, Wolf had too many cards in his favor. I needed to disrupt the game.

I’d just started to move toward them when Degan advanced into one of Wolf’s assaults and began to press the Azaari. What had been a fit of exchanges suddenly became one long, lopsided rush.

Degan, it seemed, had decided to push Wolf, and was now raining blows down on the other degan. Thrusts, cuts, reverse strikes, counterblows-the attacks flowed out of Degan like a river, crashing against Wolf’s defenses and sending him reeling back step by relentless step. The Azaari, whose eyes had been narrow and cool before this, were now wide; his defense was verging on frantic.

I quickened my pace, sensing opportunity was at hand. And I was right. The only problem was, it wasn’t the opportunity I’d been hoping for.

I was still half a dozen paces away when Degan brought his sword down in a hammer blow, striking Wolf’s blade so hard that the heavy rapier should have not only forced the shamshir aside, but continued down into Wolf’s shoulder and chest. And it would have, too, save for the sudden, unmistakable snap of steel breaking against steel. Daylight shone, metal flashed, and I caught the briefest glimpse of the first two-thirds of Degan’s sword as it sailed through the air and landed in the muck.

I froze, momentarily stunned. Wolf had no such problem. Without missing a beat, he reached out, grabbed Degan’s extended sword arm, and yanked, lashing out with his sword guard at the same time. Degan staggered, took an awkward blow to the head, and was thrown to his knees.

In any other place, in any other circumstances, that would have been the end of it right there. But we were in the square off the Dog Gate, which meant that they weren’t fighting on paving stones so much as a carpet of shit and muck. Muck that, when Degan landed, carried him a good three feet further along the ground than either of them had expected. This meant that while Wolf was prepared to slash his blade into the spot where he’d expected Degan to stop, he wasn’t ready to see his former sword brother turn his slide into a roll and come up on his knees, facing him, broken sword held at the ready.

Wolf blinked. Degan winked. Then the shamshir was moving again.

The sound of Wolf’s steel striking Degan’s guard snapped me out of my stupor. I took a reflexive step forward, then stopped. No, I’d never make it in time. If I was going to save Degan, I’d have to get Wolf away from him, have to somehow make myself a more viable target than Degan and the fan. .

No, not viable. Valuable.

I held up Ivory’s sword.

“Hey, asshole!” I yelled. “Hey!”

To my relief, Wolf looked up.

I sheathed my rapier as I began to retreat back the way I’d come. “You need this, right?” I said, waving the sword over my head.. “Can’t get anyone to do anything without it, right?”

Wolf’s eyes narrowed. He took a step back from Degan. Degan, wisely, maintained his guard, though he cast a wary eye at me as well.

“Now, I don’t know about you,” I said as I paced backward, “but I’d feel like a right proper ass if I came all the way to Djan and ended up letting some Kin walk off with the sword I came looking for. I mean, that’d be pretty fucking embarrassing, especially for a degan, right?”

“You don’t want to do this, Gray Prince,” said Wolf. “You know what will happen when I find you. Put it down.”

“You say ‘when.’ I say ‘if.’ I’ve spent my whole life on the dodge: If I know how to do one thing, it’s fade.”

“You won’t be able to hide. Not from me.”

“Who said anything about hiding?” I said as I glanced over my shoulder. Halfway there. “I used to smuggle artifacts, remember? I know people. People who know how to get things places. People who can call in special favors.” I waved the sword again. “People who might be able to, say, get this to the monks at the Monastery of the Black Isle.”

Wolf’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?” I said, refusing to glance at the hint of movement I’d thought I saw in the Dog Gate-movement too large to be from a hound. “Hand it over to the monks? Why not? Way I hear it, they’re the only ones who know how to melt one of these swords down. Might even be able to pray away the magic, for all I know. Figure it’s worth a try, either way.”

Wolf took a step toward me, and therefore away from Degan. I smiled.

“Not that I’d go personally, mind,” I added. “You’d know to lie in wait for me. But how much coal goes into that place, I wonder? How many bushels of grain? How many pilgrims? It’d be Eriff’s work to sneak a blade in.”

The Azaari looked back at Degan, still kneeling in the muck, broken sword before him.

Degan nodded. “I’ll draw it out long enough for him to get away, Steel,” he said. “Even like this, you know I can.”

“Best choose,” I said, nodding at the Dog Gate. A small swarm of figures were gathering there now. “We’re not going to be alone much longer, and I thought I saw a couple of bows being strung.”

Wolf swore-a deep, lyrical Azaari curse that, had I been able to understand it, probably would have seared my ears off. Then, with one last look at Degan, he swept Ivory’s fan up from the ground and started running toward me.

“There’s my boy,” I muttered as I turned and ducked down the street. “Let’s see how well you can play the hunter when your quarry isn’t running the path you laid out.” Behind us, I heard Degan begin to call out, but his voice was covered over by the sudden sound of a horn. The padishah’s men, it seemed, had decided it was time to sally forth from the grounds. I only hoped that by the time they got there, all they’d find were sullen hounds and foot-smeared shit.