The Lords Of The Crimson River

Chapter 6

The trail now lay all downhill, twisting and winding around the usual boulders and outcroppings of rock. With the sun still high overhead, the heat radiating from the rocks was like an oven. Sweat streamed off Blade and he wondered how the Lord stood the heat in full armor. The warrior tramped along, though, and only slowed down when the muscles of his wounded leg began to bind.

After that, Blade had to wonder how much longer the Lord could stay on his feet, and how to offer help to a man with such fierce pride. He also wondered what help he could offer. He would find it hard to carry an armored man, but it would do even less good to leave him and search an unknown land for his comrades. He finally decided to start by carrying the man's helmet, and made the suggestion the next time they stopped for rest.

The Lord stared at Blade. «That offer hardly seems fit for you to make. It is certainly not fit for me to accept it. I have offended against your honor so greatly that I should be carrying your armor. If you wore any,» he added. «For you to carry anything of mine now would be doing the work of a Lord's Helper. You are a full-fledged Lord, and-«

Blade held up a hand to stop the torrent of protest which would otherwise probably go on until they both dropped dead of thirst and heat. «Indeed, I am a Lord. Therefore I ask you to listen to me, and believe that I mean nothing against your honor.

«First, there is no one to see us, or at least no Lord who might be a proper witness against us. That I did a Helper's work for you when you needed it done will remain our secret.

«Second, my honor is also at stake here. I must do everything I can possibly do to protect another Lord from danger. Is this not so?»

Reluctantly, the other man nodded. Blade grinned. «I thought so. Now, if I do not carry your helmet, you will be in more danger than you would be otherwise. Therefore I must carry your helmet, or my own honor is wounded. Curse it, man-if we faced a battle and I had two helmets while you had none, would you refuse one? This is almost the same case!»

The Lord now seemed to be thinking things over. Blade could almost hear the mental gears turning. Then the Lord nodded slowly and began undoing the laces of his helmet. He said nothing all the while until Blade had the helmet tucked securely under his left arm, and even then he only muttered «Thank you.» When they started off again he seemed more determined than ever to keep up the pace until he could no longer walk at all. Blade hoped he wouldn't have to go through this sort of argument over the meaning of honor every time some practical detail came up. Back in Home Dimension, that sort of nonsense helped give «honor» a worse name than it deserved.

Oh, well, he thought. If I wasn't fairly tolerant of hearing people talk nonsense they'd have locked me up a long time ago!

By mid-afternoon they'd covered several miles from the top of the pass. Blade's canteen was almost empty, but he saw that the Lord's lips were cracked and dusty and offered him the last of the water. The Lord shook his head. «You are generous, but-no, I am not being foolish by refusing, either. If my eyes still see clearly, we're not more than a hundred paces from a stream.»

The Lord's eyes hadn't fooled him. He bent down and drank while Blade kept watch, then did the same while Blade drank. Blade was going on to fill his canteen when they both heard a horse neigh from the bushes just upstream. The Lord started forward. Blade rose to hold him back and the Lord turned to whisper almost fiercely.

«No. There is only so much I can let you do for me. Furthermore, if it is an ambush and I die, you can still escape with a warning. If you die, I cannot move fast enough to get away and warn Lord Alsin and Duke Cyron.» He pulled free of glade's grip with such strength that nothing short of knocking him down could have stopped him. Blade couldn't go that far, and he also knew the man's reasoning made sense. Maybe his obsession with honor hadn't completely wiped out his brains after all!

The Lord disappeared into the bushes; the horse neighed again, then there was the sound of cursing. Blade clapped the Lord's helmet on his head and drew his knife. Then the Lord reappeared, leading a pack horse. The horse was dusty and had several minor wounds, but otherwise looked fresh and healthy. Stuffed into one saddlebag was the body of a feather-monkey, almost black with flies.

The Lord knelt with a disgusted look and pulled the monkey out of the bag. Then he studied the horse. He seemed to recognize it and began looking for something. Finally he turned to Blade, his face suddenly a mask. Blade remembered his examining the feather-monkey at the top of the pass, and how he seemed to recognize that one also.

«I think you see some danger which you did not see before,» said Blade. «Is it the same danger you thought of when you looked at the Feather People I killed?» The question was the sort a Lord would ask, and it was also necessary. Blade refused to walk into unknown dangers if there was any chance of learning something beforehand.

The Lord's mask cracked for a moment, and he jerked his head. «That is so. I wish-yet I cannot. I do not even know your name or duchy.»

«I am called the Lord Blade,» Blade replied. «As for the rest, I have sworn the most solemn and sacred oaths which can be sworn, not to reveal it to anyone save a Duke.» He mentally crossed his fingers, hoping this Dimension had such oaths.

Apparently it did. «I am the Lord Gennar, sworn to Duke Cyron of Nainan. Did you swear your oath by the Father of the Crimson River?»

«When I renewed my oaths here in these lands, I swore by him.» Blade hoped that would be enough.

Gennar frowned. «Then it will be a crime against both my honor and yours if I ask you to break your oaths, simply to give me peace of mind.» He was now sweating from more than the heat. Blade saw the nails of his good hand digging into the palm hard enough to draw blood.

Blade decided to rescue Lord Gennar. «If there is danger close at hand, we will be facing it together. So we must each speak as freely as we can.» He pretended to hesitate. «There are some things I can tell you without truly breaking the oath. I think they will be enough for now. If I tell you these things, will you swear to hold nothing back about the danger we face?»

Gennar's breath went out of him in a long sigh. «Yes. By my honor as a Lord and the birthright of Duke Cyron, by the temper of my sword and the cleanness of my blood, I swear to do as you ask.»

«That is more than enough,» said Blade. «Now-what I can tell you is simple enough. I am from a land so far from the Crimson River that I do not think you would recognize its name even if I was allowed to tell you. If your Duke is a very wise man, he may, but not even most Dukes have heard of my homeland.

«I was a Lord of this land. An accusation was made against my honor. I knew it was false, but I could not prove the falseness without bringing harm to innocent people. So I was sent into exile for the space of ten years, and also made to swear the most terrible oaths which a Lord of my land can swear. While I was in exile, I could tell my story to no one below the rank of Duke. Even then I should tell it only if otherwise I would not be given the treatment proper to a Lord.»

«Yes. A Lord remains a Lord, even in such a harsh exile as yours. I think your-Duke? — must have believed you innocent, otherwise he would not have taken such care to guard your honor.»

«Perhaps he did. Certainly my enemies were so powerful that he could have done anything else only at the cost of war among his own Lords. Since other Dukes were greedy for his land-«Blade broke off and shook his head. «Forgive me, but I cannot tell you more without breaking my oath.»

«I would never ask that,» said Lord Gennar, embracing Blade. «I will also say-I believe you were innocent. You have done and said things which no man with any blot on his honor could possibly have done or said.»

«I thank you,» said Blade. «I hope that in these lands of the Crimson River I will do nothing to make you regret those words. Now, I suggest you get on that horse and we continue our journey. I know you have much to tell me, and I will gladly listen. But if there is danger to us, no good will come of staying here and letting it get closer while we talk.»

«That is the truth, the Father knows!» said Gennar with a wry grin. With Blade's help he struggled into the saddle and settled in as comfortably as he could. Then Blade took the horse's bridle and led it back onto the trail. He was glad he now had a chance to learn about this Dimension, without having raised any doubts about his being a Lord. In this Dimension his chances of success or even survival would depend on keeping up that masquerade.

All the lands Lord Gennar knew of were divided among two Kingdoms and the seven Duchies of the Crimson River. The two Kingdoms were known only as the East Kingdom and the West Kingdom. Once they'd had other names, but so long ago that nobody living remembered them.

Along the eastern border of the West Kingdom and the western border of the East Kingdom lay mountain ranges, with only a few passes through them. These mountains protected the seven Duchies scattered along the Crimson River, which flowed roughly from north to south. Once the Dukes owed allegiance to one or the other of the two Kingdoms, but they'd been independent for centuries.

The Dukes and the Lords who made up their fighting forces used that independence for continuous petty warfare. Nothing more than a few villages ever changed hands permanently. For many of the Lords the warfare was no more than healthy outdoor exercise and a chance to show off their skill and honor. Many Lords still ended up crippled or dead, though, and of course the loss of life and property among the peasants was heavy. This didn't seem to matter; Lord Gennar actually spoke of the need to keep the peasants too frightened of the Lords to think of rebelling.

The Lords of the Crimson River also knew other ways of wasting their resources. The Feathered People or Feathered Ones had more than an animal's intelligence. Legend and folklore said they'd been discovered long ago, near a great stone that fell from the sky. Blade made a mental note to find out more about these legends. Were the monkeys a mutation, or possibly even from another planet?

The Feathered Ones could be trained for war, to attack horses or even Lords with their poisoned daggers. They could also be trained to fight more formal duels with each other. Enormous sums of money could change hands in bets on these duels. In the last twenty years alone, more than a dozen Lords had been completely ruined through losing bets on monkey duels.

The fighting monkeys were trained to be loyal to their own side. The dueling monkeys were trained, even more thoroughly, to be loyal to their masters and no one else. From Gennar's description, there could sometimes even be something like a telepathic link between a master and his monkey. Such a link was regarded as extraordinary proof that the man stood high in the favor of the Father of the River.

«I begin to understand,» said Blade. «The Feathered Ones who attacked you were from your own Duchy?»

Gennar started. «You do not see into other people's thoughts the way one of the Feathered People can, do you?»

«No. I do not think I reveal anything when I say that I have traveled through many lands and fought in most of them. I have seen this sort of thing happen elsewhere. Usually it means there is treachery involved, and sometimes treachery in a place where it is hard to fight it.»

«It is just that way here,» said Gennar. He went on with his explanation, now talking fast, in jerky sentences with occasional hard looks at Blade. In spite of this nervousness, Gennar told the rest of his story clearly. He was one of the Lords in the patrol Blade saw riding back to the village in the evening. «We wanted to catch the villagers returning with their valuables. We hoped for better loot or at least a few more women. We found only death.»

On the way back to the village the pack horse carrying the Feathered Ones broke away and vanished. Just outside the village the Lords were ambushed by a band of the Feathered Ones. Only Gennar and one other Lord got free, and the other Lord was dying from a poisoned dagger slash. Gennar stayed with him until he died, then fought off a band of outlaws and rode up into the pass.

«In the darkness we could not see whose Feathered People our attackers were. We thought they might be of one of our enemies, the Lords of Faissa. Then we found two of ours today where they should not have been, and this horse. I think it is possible that some of our Feathered People were turned against us.»

«You say were turned? They did not act on their own?»

«All the Fathers forbid! If they are coming to have that kind of will of their own, we are all in danger! No, I think it was our Master of the Feathers. Why, I do not know, and I would rather not speak of what I only suspect. Does this violate my oath?» He looked anxiously at Blade.

Blade shook his head. «No. The Master of the Feathers has so many opportunities for treachery every year that all a man's fingers and toes are not enough to count them. If he is proud or ambitious as well, as they often are…» That was as much as he dared say without knowing what a Master of the Feathers was.

«Very true. Not that a Master of the Feathers has no right to pride. He bears a great responsibility, watching over some five hundred of the Feathered People and their work. But I agree-they often think they are worthy of a higher place, and if someone offers it to them in return for a little help…»

They moved on in silence. So the Master of the Feathers was a Duke's chief monkey trainer? He certainly would have all sorts of chances for nasty kinds of treachery against anyone he saw as an enemy.

Blade had no doubt the monkey trainer of Duke Cyron would see him as an enemy, the moment word of this day's events got out. The man would have even more chances for treachery against a strange Lord wandering into the duchy from nowhere, one who didn't dare ask too many questions for fear of revealing that he wasn't a Lord at all!

Blade wasn't particularly worried; he'd survived more plots than most men ever read about. But he still knew that during his first few weeks among the Lords of the Crimson River, he'd better walk even more carefully than usual in a new Dimension.