Page 64 of Swordheart #1

Halla had never ridden a horse. Halla had ridden a donkey, and she had always assumed that it was mostly the same thing.

It was not.

The gait of a horse was smoother, no question.

And the donkey could not possibly have carried two riders, particularly not at any speed.

But she also had never ridden the donkey for hours and the horse was a great deal larger and also Halla was now fifteen years older than the girl who had climbed on the back of the donkey and her hip joints let her know it.

“We can’t gallop to Amalcross,” said Mare, who was, ironically, riding a gelding. “The horses would drop dead under us. But we can make good speed, particularly compared to… ah…”

“A gnole doesn’t want to hear it.”

Brindle stayed with the wagon, of course, and Jorge stayed with him.

He’d grumbled a bit, but Mare pulled rank and told him he wasn’t going to be exorcising anything with his arm in a sling.

“Your sword’s a fancy paperweight right now,” she told him.

“You can’t swing it. Guard the wagon, and keep those blithering idiots from the Motherhood from impounding it or setting it on fire or whatever they feel like doing. ”

“I thought I couldn’t swing a sword,” said Jorge.

“You don’t need to stab the Motherhood. Just glare at them and rattle your armor a bit. They’ll back right off.”

“Fine, fine…”

So they did not gallop to Amalcross, but they trotted frequently and then they walked and the humans walked alongside the horses, and then they trotted again.

Halla rode behind Mare on her sturdy gray gelding.

Mare was wearing a great deal of armor, more than Sarkis wore, and every time they broke into a trot, Halla’s face bashed into Mare’s mailed back.

The paladin was wearing a wool tabard, which was the only reason that her face still had any skin on it.

But they did move a great deal faster. Zale was riding with the other paladin—Halla still hadn’t caught his name and was now at the point where it would be too embarrassing to ask—and they made it halfway to Amalcross in a single day.

Zale spent the Rat’s money recklessly and rented a room at the inn with a bathtub.

“Only one bed,” said the innkeeper.

Zale and Halla looked at each other.

“I just don’t care anymore,” said Halla. “You?”

“Rat’s teeth, no. As long as there’s a mattress, I’d share a bed with the Hanged Mother herself right now.”

“Tactful. Very tactful.”

“Tactful Zale was jostled to death somewhere a few miles back. Now you get tired, cranky Zale.”

“Do you want the room or not?” asked the innkeeper.

“We’ll take it.”

They took turns using the bathtub behind a wooden screen, and Halla’s only consolation was that the priest made just as many noises of wincing agony as she did.

“I’m old,” said Zale, staring up at the ceiling. Their narrow face seemed to have more lines than when the day started. Halla doubted she looked any better.

“We’re old.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Don’t make this a contest.”

“Sorry. Lawyer, you know.”

“Do you ride horses a lot?”

“Never if I can help it.”

“We have to do it again tomorrow.”

“We do.”

Halla joined them, stretched out on her side of the bed, and made a noise that Sarkis would have likely compared to a yak.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

After a long minute, Halla said, “What are we going to do with the paladins tomorrow?”

“I told them to drop us inside the city gates,” said Zale. “Since I think there’s a good chance we’ll have to kill some people, I’d rather not get them involved. They are… um… not so good at making a virtue of expediency.”

The story they had concocted was straightforward, if not terribly original.

Family friend had visited, accompanied by scholar.

Family friend had left in a hurry, having taken several valuable artifacts.

They weren’t particularly worried about the artifacts, but they were very worried that the scholar had some undue influence over him and wanted to make sure that he was not in any danger.

The paladins had nodded and not asked any further questions.

Halla propped herself up on one elbow and looked at their gear. She had a small travel pack with a change of clothes, and Zale had much the same. The crossbow, however, lay atop the two packs, unstrung but exuding quiet menace. “Are you sure we’ll even be able to kill them?”

“No. If we’re lucky, we won’t have to find out.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the sort of case that lends itself well to binding arbitration, so I’d rather be prepared.

” They rolled partway over, a pained look on their narrow face.

“Ah… Halla, I don’t know how to say this…

I am not trying to shuffle this off on you, I promise.

But all else being equal… it will be easier if you are the one who does the killing, should it come to that. ”

Halla lifted both eyebrows.

“I am a better witness in your defense than you are in mine,” said Zale. “Priest and lawyer and all that.”

Halla nodded. The thought had occurred to her. And she could not suspect Zale of trying to save their own skin—not after they had told her to run, knowing that Alver was far more likely to kill them than her.

“I’ll do my best,” she said, and closed her eyes.

The next day was worse. Halla stopped even trying to make conversation, and now clung silently to the paladin’s back, hoping that her hip joints did not grind away to powder before they arrived.

When Mare halted her horse and said, “We’re here,” it took Halla several long seconds before the words penetrated her private misery.

She had to be helped down out of the saddle, where she stood, legs trembling, while Mare took her pack down from the horse’s back and offered it to her. “You don’t look so good,” the paladin said.

“I’m used to riding donkeys,” Halla admitted. “Only donkeys. Actually, only one donkey. His name was Sugar.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to offer the donkey’s name, but Mare nodded gravely, as if this was indeed vital information.

Zale looked better than she did, but not by much. They had their cloak draped over their crossbow, which made it look a great deal more suspicious than if they’d just been carrying it normally. Still, presumably it was the thought that counted.

The paladins waved to the guards at the gate, who saluted. Halla abandoned any idea of sneaking into the city unnoticed.

“Thank you,” she said to Mare, grabbing both of the paladin’s hands. She was wearing gauntlets, so this wasn’t much fun, but never mind that. “Thank you for getting us here. Maybe now we can get to Bartholomew before this scholar does something… well… regrettable.”

“Glad to be of service,” said Mare, smiling. “And you did us a good turn, too. Jorge would never have agreed to stay out of a fight with demons. The half day we might have lost bringing you here is more than made up for by not losing Jorge.”

She waved to her comrade, tossed a casual salute in Zale’s direction, and mounted her horse. The last Halla saw of them was glints of light off armor, riding away into danger.

Sarkis swam up out of the silver sword-dreams, and discovered that he was looking at a corpse.

More specifically, he was looking at Bartholomew’s corpse. There was quite a large knife buried in his back, and he was face down on a cluttered table that Sarkis recognized from their previous visits.

“I gather you’re the wielder now?” he said to Nolan, studying the corpse dispassionately.

“I didn’t want to do it,” said Nolan defensively. “He left me no choice! He kept changing the terms of the bargain.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” said Sarkis, shrugging. If anything, the scholar had saved him the trouble. “Refused to sell, did he?”

“It’s been a nightmare,” said Nolan, collapsing on the bench opposite the body.

“First, he contacted our order saying he had one of the Smith’s swords.

I nearly killed myself getting here, only to find that his story had changed and now he just knew where the sword was and expected to have it in his possession.

Then your whole entourage showed up, and Bartholomew was all for stealing the sword in the middle of the night, even though I told him that wouldn’t work, and anyway, you didn’t spend the night, so then we would go to Rutger’s Howe and take it as part of the bargain with Mistress Halla, even though it was blindingly obvious that if you were the sword, she wasn’t going to part with it.

And I still didn’t have any proof that you were the sword. ”

Sarkis nodded, folding his arms. “I suppose he was working with her relatives, then?”

“Not at first,” said Nolan. “Dreadful woman. I’d have stabbed her if I thought I could get away with it.

Once we had proof you really were a servant of the sword, he said it would be the best way to keep Mistress Halla from following after and claiming he’d stolen the blade.

But he wasn’t supposed to draw it! The bargain was never that he’d be the wielder. ”

Privately, Sarkis suspected that had bought Bartholomew several days more life. Nolan, for all his whining, was clearly not above a little murder to get what he wanted.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

“We’ll be returning to my order’s compound,” said Nolan. He looked over at Bartholomew’s corpse, lip curling. “I’ve already been away far longer than I intended. Smith’s grace, this has been miserable. ”

He sounded so much like an ordinary person complaining about travel delays and unreliable merchants that Sarkis would have felt a pang of sympathy for him, if it wasn’t for the dead body.

“So what are you doing with the corpse?” he asked. Why is so much of my life these days related to corpse disposal? It never used to be. I used to just leave them where they dropped. I could really get to hate the south.

Nolan smiled. There was a shine in his eyes that reminded Sarkis of something… something bad…

Ah. Yes. Of course. The zeth eyes of the Sainted Smith.

“There’s so much junk in this house,” he said, waving a hand casually toward the ceiling and the second floor. “I expect it’ll go up like a torch, and take anything else in the house with it.”

Sarkis said nothing. The house shared a wall on either side with its neighbors. Presumably Nolan wasn’t concerned or didn’t care that the fire might not limit itself to the contents of Bartholomew’s back bedrooms.

He wondered how much the sword would let him get away with, in terms of stopping a wielder bent on arson.

He did not have to find out. The front door opened. Sarkis heard footsteps in the hall and turned to face the intruders.

“The door is locked!” hissed Nolan. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Bartholomew’s kept a spare key in that gargoyle for the last twenty years,” said the intruder, stepping into the room. “Hello, Sarkis. Hello, Nolan. Hello, Bar… oh. I see.”

Nolan was making demands. Nolan was cursing. Sarkis had eyes only for one person.

“ Halla,” he said.