The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades Read online

  “Not worth a glob of pond slime,” Chefney retorted. “Snake, you found this whippersnapper. You cut him down to size for us.”

  “Obviously I must teach him respect for his betters,” said Snake, removing his doublet. He accepted the épée, raised it briefly in salute, and then went for Wart like a wildcat.

  Back and forth the two of them danced on the flagstones, and their blades rang to the rafters. Now Boy Wonder had a real battle on his hands, because Snake was only two years past his release from the Guard, still very much in his prime. He had never won the King’s Cup, but he had always been a respected fencer and he could call on many times Stalwart’s experience. Every routine had its counter, and Snake knew them all—Violet…Willow…Steeple…Butterfly…. Lunge and parry, engagement and envelopment and froissement…

  How about Woodpecker, then?

  Snake yelped in surprise as Stalwart’s blade tapped the side of his throat. “Do that again!”

  Clatter…Vulture?

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry,” Stalwart said. “A little harder than I intended.”

  “Again!” Snake roared, sounding seriously annoyed now.

  He was outclassed, though. Four times his new protégé scored, and at last he conceded defeat, puffing mightily.

  Wart had beaten Snake himself! Wow! What would they say back in Ironhall if they knew that?

  “Give me!” Chefney said, reaching for the blade. “Show me how you do it, brother.”

  To go up against the great Chefney would have seemed like insanity a mere ten minutes ago, but now Stalwart’s dander was up. He fizzed with excitement. “At you, then!”

  Clitter, clatter…Oops…“A hit!” Stalwart admitted. “Again!”

  Another hit…

  And another…He tried Vulture again, and even Castanet, but nothing worked. After the fifth point he lowered his foil, resisting the temptation to hurl it to the floor. He had forgotten what humiliation felt like. Five to nothing and in about two minutes! The old man was not even breathing hard, and he must be three times Stalwart’s age. Has-been indeed! Boy Wonder could feel his face burning with shame.

  “What’s he doing wrong, Chef?” Snake asked. “What did I miss?”

  Chefney did not answer him. He spoke instead to Stalwart as the two of them were resuming their doublets. “Where did you get all that complicated rubbish?”

  “From Sir Quinn,” Stalwart admitted. The recently appointed Master of Rapiers had a collection of highly unusual routines he called Fancy Stuff, which he claimed had won duels against skilled opponents in the past. He warned that they must only be used as a last resort, and he taught them only to the best, those who had already mastered the standard Ironhall style. They had worked against Snake well enough.

  Snake was not Chefney.

  “Forget the flimflammery!” Chefney said sourly. “Stick with what works. If you can’t beat an outsider with Ironhall basics, then nothing is going to save you.”

  “Yes, brother,” Stalwart said as humbly as he could, donning his cloak. “I’ll remember.” No more Fancy Stuff!

  “Good. Do that and you’ll be a serious contender for the Cup inside three years.”

  “I will?” Stalwart asked, suspecting mockery.

  “Certainly. Your speed’s incredible—lightning in a bottle—and your footwork’s the best I’ve seen since Durendal. You’d have wiped me clean just now if you hadn’t tried to be so fandangle clever.” The expert turned away, leaving Stalwart gaping. “Where’s that meal you promised, Vincent?”

  Snake grinned. “I’m going to start putting money on him now.”

  “You won’t get any takers here,” Sir Vincent said proudly, thumping Stalwart’s shoulder. “Never met a wolf looked so like a rabbit.”

  So losing didn’t matter after all. It was a gloriously unbelievable ending to an unbelievable day. Unfortunately the deadly Sir Stalwart spoiled it all by falling asleep at the table with his head among the dishes. He did not wake even when Snake and Chefney carried him upstairs and put him to bed.

  Sir Vincent was a knight in the Order, castellan of Valglorious, regent of the Duchy of Eastfare, member of the White Star, a baronet in his own right, one of the most honored men in the realm. He was too old to join the Old Blades and fight in the Monster War, even had he not had a dukedom to run. Although he had politely refrained from asking questions when three brother Blades dropped in on him, he knew that theirs was not just a sentimental visit. They wanted something.

  The next morning he called them to account. And since this meeting was business and not social, he held it with all four of them standing in the great hall, in front of the gigantic fireplace. There was no one else present. He was dressed more formally than he had been the previous evening; a four-pointed diamond star glinted on his jerkin. Snake, to Wart’s great amusement, was flaunting an identical bauble. It had not been in evidence a few minutes earlier, during breakfast.

  The thin man outlined the problem of the unknown assassins. Chefney explained how a White Sister was to be offered as bait and how she would be watched during the two or three days she would be made to wait in Tyton. “If no approach is made to her there, then the Companionship will provide transportation to her home, which is near Newhurst. Rather than sending her by stage, though, we thought we would make her seem more vulnerable.”

  “Let Wart outline this part,” Snake said.

  So Wart took over the tale, showing that he understood the role he was to play and the various contingency plans Snake and Chefney had devised. He threw in a couple of suggestions of his own, which won thoughtful nods from his superiors.

  “And if the evildoers still ignore her,” Snake concluded, “we shall have her watched for two or three weeks after she arrives in Newhurst. But that may be too late. The King may well be dead by then.”

  Vincent’s face had been growing darker and darker. Now he said, “And what do you want from me?”

  Snake nodded to Wart to answer that one, too.

  “Well, sir, mostly we need a reasonable excuse for me to be driving a wagon south from Oakendown by a fairly roundabout route, so the conspirators have time to organize the grab, if that’s what they decide to do. We hope you will loan us the horse and wagon and let me pose as one of your hands. Your knowledge of the area, of course…a really rusty, hacked-up sword if you can find one, and…” He wilted under the old man’s glare. “And your blessing on our venture, father.”

  “You cut that out!” the old castellan snapped. “I am not your father, and if I were I would forbid this nonsense absolutely.” He turned his anger on Snake. “No blessing from me! I think the entire scheme is disgraceful and unworkable. The trick you propose playing on the girl is utterly base, unworthy of our Order. The danger to both her and the boy is unconscionable. He’ll end in a ditch with his throat cut. I cannot imagine how you can be so unscrupulous as even to consider such a monstrous fraud.”

  His visitors exchanged glum glances.

  “Because we’re desperate,” Snake said. “Four attempts in the last month? Leader is going out of his mind. We honestly believe they, whoever they are, will succeed next time or the one after.”

  Vincent bent his head and began to pace back and forth before the great stone mantel. After a moment he stopped and scowled at Snake. “You’re telling me the Companionship has agreed to this?”

  “With distaste, obviously, but they would rather stage a kidnapping under controlled conditions than lose any more Sisters completely. Mother Superior selected the—hmm—the victim herself and has been cooperating with Brother Chefney in the planning.”

  What Snake had told Wart the previous day was that Mother Superior’s audience with the King had been extremely noisy, with much royal shouting. The Blades on duty outside the door had reported that she came out in tears. But she was cooperating now.

  Vincent grunted and went back to his pacing. Then he reached a decision. “No. I will not be associated with such deceit. I bid you
good chance, brothers, and safe journey.”

  He was not the sort to be talked into changing his mind once he had made it up. Snake shrugged hopelessly and looked at Chefney to see if he had any suggestions, but it was Wart who spoke up.

  “It shocked me, too, sir, until I thought about it. I haven’t met a White Sister yet, but I’m told they’re honorable, dedicated women. I agree that it’s unkind to involve one without her consent, but her sisters in the Companionship are probably being tortured into cooperating and one of them has a child with her. If this Sister Emerald is at all typical, she should support our efforts wholeheartedly. She won’t be in as much danger as I will, because she will be the prize. And if it is me you are worried about, remember that I am the only man in the Guard who has a hope of pulling this off. It has to be me. Binding leaves a scar and it also marks a man so the Sisters can detect him. Anyone but me will be slaughtered on the spot. Me, I’m just a kid. Who could suspect me of being dangerous? Only yesterday, father, I swore to set my life as nothing to—”

  Vincent’s face had turned very red. “I am not your father!”

  Wart shouted right back at him. “Then stop behaving as if you are! Think, brother! When you were my age and a senior at Ironhall, if you had been offered this chance to serve your king, wouldn’t you have grabbed it with both hands, danger or no danger? This is what Blades are for! You made me what I am. Don’t destroy me now!”

  “Destroy you? They will destroy you!—these two scoundrels. Boy, I’m as old as both of them put together and I say they’ve dazzled you with all their clever planning—contingency this and supposition that. It’s too complicated. They’ve forgotten that chance is elemental, and sooner or later chance always outsmarts us, all of us. Something totally unforeseen will trip you up and ruin it all.”

  That should have been the end of it. Wart thought it was the end, and it was with no great hope that he added, “Well, we’ll do the best we can without you, sir. If I die, I’ll be in good company. Twenty-four brothers in the last half year! That’s one a week.”

  Vincent glared at him, then at Snake. “You’re really determined to go through with this whether I help or not?”

  “I have no choice, brother.”

  “Of course we’ll do it,” Wart said, “brother.”

  “Flames and death!” The old man shook his head. “Then we’d better talk about it a little more…. Let me get my steward.” He stalked over to a bell rope.

  Under his breath, Snake hissed, “You sing a sweet song, minstrel.”

  “Don’t I!” Wart whispered happily.

  He had won Sir Vincent over, but the song he sang had turned out to be his own funeral dirge.

  18

  Chimeras

  THE COACH HALTED ON VERY MARSHY GROUND near the edge of a wood. Descending the steps behind Doctor Skuldigger, Emerald found herself enveloped in dense clouds of insects. Horses lashed tails and angrily splashed their hooves in the mud. Certainly the sea was not far off, for its tangy scent was detectable even under the fetid stench of swamp. The view inland was blocked by a gentle rise in the land, but no buildings or landmarks explained why this place was significant. As soon as Swan came down, one of the grooms folded up the steps and closed the door.

  Swan’s eyes were red with weeping. She stood hunched and downcast, making no effort to sidle out of the group, even ignoring the tormenting bugs. Emerald hoped the two of them might move off by themselves so she could ask a few private questions. She also wanted to escape the nerve-racking shriek of sorcery emanating from the men.

  “Herrick and Thatcher, you will return with me,” Skuldigger decreed. Without a word the remaining guard clambered up beside the coachman on the box. Why were all these men so surly? It must have something to do with the magic they bore.

  The four horses leaned into their collars and the big vehicle began to squelch forward. In moments it gathered speed and dwindled into the distance.

  One of the grooms headed toward the woods on a very faint trail that had been trampled through the reeds and sedge. Swan followed him without being told. Emerald hesitated, wondering if she should make a break for freedom now, whether she could outrun the men and hide in the trees.

  Then something roared in the wood—from the sound of it, something very large and very fierce. The groom leading the way screamed and came racing back, with Swan close behind, both of them looking over their shoulders. Whatever it was roared again and the undergrowth swayed. Emerald caught a whiff of sorcery like a foul animal stink.

  “There’s one in the trees!” the other man yelled. “It’s coming!”

  “No need for panic!” said Skuldigger testily.

  From a pouch at his belt he produced a small golden object, which he put to his lips like a whistle. The result was not sound but a blast of magic, a bolt of pain straight through Emerald’s head, making her cry out. Something went crashing away through the wood. There was a splash in the distance, silence.

  “What was that?” she demanded.

  All the men ignored her. Swan said, “A chimera,” and turned her back, unwilling to explain what a chimera was.

  “It’s gone now!” Skuldigger sighed. “Bring the prisoners.” He stalked off with his sword swinging at his side.

  Swan followed him. The grooms, Herrick and Thatcher, closed in on Emerald as if intending to resort to violence without further ado. Slipping and splashing and cursing her ill-fitting shoes, she let herself be shepherded after the Doctor.

  The wood itself turned out to be a mere fringe of shrubbery and sickly saplings along the bank of a river or tidal channel—dark, still, and unwholesome. The far bank was similarly wooded. On the black mud beach lay a flat-bottomed boat, which doomed any remaining hope that Snake and his men might be able to track the kidnappers back to their lair. Skuldigger climbed over the side and paused to look with distaste at the seating. It was wet.

  Granted that the punt lay in shadow, the day was too hot for the thwarts to stay damp very long. Recalling the splash she had heard a few moments earlier, Emerald went to inspect the narrow mud flat beside the boat. She did not have to look hard to find the footprint. There was only one, for the crushed weeds nearby would not hold an impression. Here the chimera had come, fleeing from Skuldigger’s magical whistle, and here it had planted one foot as it dived into the river. The indentation was very deep, made by a heavy animal moving fast, but it was still clearly visible, for the water seeping in had not yet filled it. It was about the length of a human print, although much wider, and it had the same five toes grouped together at the front. She was no woodsman, but her father had often shown her animal tracks in snow and identified them for her, and this was like nothing she had ever seen. Each of those five clearly defined toes must bear a talon as big as her thumb. A bear? She was not familiar with bear spoor.

  She took a few steps back along the way the thing had come, trying to imagine what sort of monster might have inspired such fright in Swan and the two grooms. Hearing a drone of flies like a pipe organ in the trees to one side of the trail, she turned that way.

  “Emerald, where are you going?” Skuldigger called.

  “To look at…this!”

  This was a carcass, bloody and shredded, with bones and meat scattered around. Scraps of white fat and gray fur lay in a separate pile. The chimera had been interrupted while feeding on whatever that litter of flesh had been.

  “Harbor seal,” Skuldigger announced, joining her. He sounded almost pleased, less mournful than usual. “I wonder if it wandered into the river or if my pets are venturing out to sea now?”

  “Chimeras?”

  “I call them that, yes.” He was wearing the golden whistle on a gold chain around his neck.

  “I do not see,” Emerald said as calmly as she could manage, “any signs that the carcass was dragged there.” It had been carried in, then. There had been only one splash, one chimera. “How much would a harbor seal weigh, Doctor?”

  “This appears to have
been an adult male. Substantially more than Marshal Thrusk.”

  “Chimeras are large animals?”

  He uttered a peculiar choking noise that was probably a laugh. “Large, yes. Animals…not entirely.”

  The Doctor sat on one of the punt’s two thwarts. The women took the other, at his back, while Herrick and Thatcher stripped off their road-stained and uncomfortable livery. Wearing only knee breeches, they waded into the mud and then pushed, heaved, and grunted in efforts to launch the ungainly craft.

  “We are a little early for the tide,” Skuldigger announced without turning around. “It may be necessary for you two to disembark and—Ah, here we go!”

  The boat moved, and once it had started the two men easily slid it the rest of the way into the water. They scrambled aboard, mud caked from the knees down, and grabbed up poles in time to stop the awkward craft from running aground on the far bank. Then they turned her and began poling her along the channel. Although there was no visible current, Emerald decided that they were heading downstream. She was judging by the height of the sun at her back, a feeling that the day was aging into late afternoon, and knowledge that the sea lay to the east. After a few moments the channel curved around so that she had the sun in her face. Another channel came in on the right. At that point she gave up trying to memorize the way through the maze. Thatcher and Herrick heaved on their poles, working their hearts out. She at least could fan the flies away from her face. Their sweating torsos were peppered with bugs like black freckles.

  Skuldigger glanced around briefly. “I advise you to sit nearer the center,” he moaned.

  Emerald realized that he and the two boatmen were keeping careful watch on the black, oily water and the sinister woods. She hastily moved away from the side. Swan had needed no warning. The punt suddenly seemed very narrow. “Can a chimera snatch people out of boats?”