The Sigil Blade (8 page)

Edryd sat back down and slumped forward in his chair in resignation. The whole situation made him feel powerless. “Why?” he finally managed.

“I was instructed to destroy them,” Irial answered meekly.

“That isn’t what I was really asking,” Edryd protested.

“You travelled here through the forests on the mainland,” Irial responded. It seemed he was meant to understand that this explained everything.

“I don’t understand.”

“An Innis has been plagued by some dark events,” explained Irial. “People think the forests on the continent are tainted, haunted by spirits which have returned from the dead. The lands across from the causeway are considered to be especially dangerous. Destroying the clothes you were wearing is a precaution against contagion.”

Edryd shook his head. He still didn’t understand, but he didn’t want a history lesson. “You don’t believe that, and I’m sure Seoras doesn’t either,” Edryd guessed. “So the question remains: why?”

“You’re right, but you met with others yesterday who do believe those things,” Irial answered. Edryd suspected there were other reasons, but he didn’t voice his opinion and he let the subject drop. Putting him in borrowed clothing was another subtle way for Seoras to gain a measure of control.

“You were the one who took my coins as well?” Edryd asked.

“Not knowingly,” Irial replied, “I had no idea they were in your shoe.”

“But you would have taken them, even if you had known,” Edryd accused.

Remorse flashed across Irial’s face. “I was told to gather your things so that he could look through them,” she admitted.

Edryd began to feel guilty. There was little cause to hold her responsible. The true blame lay with Seoras. “I’m sorry, none of this is your fault,” Edryd apologized.

“Maybe,” Irial agreed, “but I should still arrange replacements for some of your clothing.”

“I may not stick around long enough to give you the chance,” Edryd said. “After this morning, as you can probably imagine, I have developed some apprehensions about staying here. I suppose though, that I could use a place to heal up for a few days, if it wouldn’t be unwise to do so.”

Irial hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the implied question. “I can’t decide that for you,” she said, unable to commit to offering any useful advice.

“Do you know much about him?” Edryd asked.

“I have worked for him for several years, so I suppose I know him better than most,” she replied.

“Was he serious in his offer to teach me?”

Irial placed the coat on the bed and looked to the door as if to reassure herself that it was firmly shut before taking a seat in the chair opposite Edryd.

“Do you know what Seoras does?” she asked in a low discreet tone. Edryd shook his head and Irial continued. “He takes men, usually slaves who have no choice but to serve, and he trains them to become soldiers. You are obviously already a competent soldier, so I don’t know how much he could teach you, but if you stay he will force you to serve him.”

“He could do that?!” Edryd asked.

“Make you a slave? I don’t know, maybe, but you have captured his interest, and he is not going to let you out of his grasp.”

“Clear enough of an answer,” replied Edryd with unshielded dismay.

“You should leave as soon as you can… right now, if you are up to it,” Irial suggested.

“He has my money, among other things,” Edryd said.

Irial pulled a set of keys from her pocket, the ones which Greven had given to him last night, and set them on the table. Beside the two keys she placed a clasp along with three metal emblems that had originally been pinned to his cloak. He had assumed these pins might have been destroyed along with his old coat, and it gave Edryd a momentary feeling of hope to see that they were not gone. His coins were the only thing missing now. “I know that what he took was not a small sum, but is it worth risking your freedom?” she asked.

“You don’t understand. How will I be able leave if I can’t hire passage on a ship?”

Irial did not respond immediately. She seemed to be considering something. “If you want to leave now, I might have a way to help you,” she said.

In his misguided pride, which he could ill-afford, Edryd faltered through a confused attempt to refuse, realizing only halfway through that he was not sure if she was offering money, or if it was some other kind of help. The chance to seek clarification was taken away by a sudden knock at the door.

Startled, Irial quickly got to her feet. “Do not tell anyone what we spoke about,” she cautioned as she retrieved the coat from the bed. Taking a brief moment to collect herself, Irial strode to the door and opened it admit Tolvanes, who was holding a wooden serving tray that held a freshly prepared meal. Irial motioned him in, and then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Tolvanes approached and set the tray, which was loaded with two cups of mead, fragrant with the musty smell of fermented honey, and more bread, meat, and cheese than Edryd could possibly eat alone in a single sitting, down upon the table. “If you are feeling well enough, please eat what you can,” he said.

Edryd could see that there was obviously food for both of them. “We can talk as we share the meal,” he replied, motioning towards the open chair and inviting Tolvanes to stay.

“I am grateful, Young Master,” Tolvanes said as he took a seat.

“It turns out Irial took the coins without knowing it,” Edryd said once they began to eat. “She hadn’t realized that they were in the boot. It was Seoras that actually removed and kept them. I am very sorry if I caused you to feel like I suspected you in any way.”

“Of course not,” Tolvanes replied. “In any case, it was wrong for Lord Seoras to take what belongs to you,” he added, surprisingly earnest in his sympathies.

“He says he will give me a letter of deposit, but I’m not sure how long I will be waiting for that. If he does follow through, it should be useful once he does.”

“He will if he said he would,” the old man responded. “But you will have no need of it. I can get you anything you need.”

“Reassuring, but I don’t intend to stay,” Edryd replied.

Tolvanes looked suddenly troubled. “You can’t go now,” he cried.

“I can’t?” Edryd said, caught off guard by the surprising urgency in the man’s voice.

“Well you can, but I was hoping you wouldn’t,” Tolvanes responded in a more even tone, having rediscovered his lost composure.

“You warned me that Seoras was dangerous. I have learned through direct experience now how dangerous he really is.”

“You are a dangerous man as well I think,” Tolvanes countered. “I have never seen anyone who held up half so well against him.”

“You think I did well?” Edryd asked with incredulity. “He destroyed me, Tolvanes. He toyed with me.”

“You’re wrong,” Tolvanes insisted. “You disarmed him.”

“He dropped the sword intentionally,” Edryd disagreed, “and you saw what followed.” The pain in Edryd’s chest seemed to flare even thinking about it.

“That doesn’t matter. You made him drop his sword. People don’t do things like that to him. He was furious. And after that, you still managed to get behind him. You could have run him through right then and would have had good cause to have done so. You should have done it.”

Edryd was surprised to hear Tolvanes speak this way. The violent impulses that had taken hold of the old man contrasted with and ran counter to the warm regard he had shown towards Edryd, a complete stranger.

“Maybe,” Edryd acknowledged, thinking that perhaps things had not been as uneven as he had imagined them. “But I don’t think I would have survived it if I had tried. He is too fast. And I’m not so sure I would agree that two stolen coins would be cause to end a man’s life.”

“Two gold coins? You think that is all that man has taken?” Tolvanes demanded. “This estate, it isn’t his. It’s mine, or at least it was, and now I serve him as if I were some worthless slave. He has killed countless others for less, taking what he wants from whomever he wishes.”

Edryd could see the hatred in Tolvanes’ eyes, and took a moment before responding. “I don’t want to become one of those ‘countless others’ Tolvanes,” Edryd said, trying to remain calm.

“Oh, he won’t kill you.” Tolvanes insisted. “He will want to teach you to fight the way he can. Let him. You will become just as fast and strong as he is, and then you will be able to stop him.”

Edryd remembered how Seoras had pushed and provoked him. He wondered now whether this speech was just another part of a plan that would ensure that he would give Seoras another spirited fight. The old man’s anger seemed real enough though that Edryd had to doubt that Tolvanes was acting in his master’s interests.

“He could have ended me ten times over in that fight,” Edryd said. “What is it you think I can possibly do?”

“I want you to train with him,” Tolvanes replied, “and when the right moment comes, I want you to kill him.”

Chapter 5

Ruach

R
uach kept watch atop a tall stone tower, a decaying remnant of Old Vidreigard’s broken defenses, and looked out over the ruined fortifications which surrounded the city. He had not chosen the tallest tower. He had instead picked a relatively modest one with an open view of the northward approach, where it commanded an unobstructed position that benefited from a rise in the terrain along the western walls. This area, covered in the resilient remains of scorched marble buildings and tall granite towers and walls, was an expected waypoint for the king’s armies and a potential battle site if the king ever moved his forces closer to House Edorin lands. Ruach’s presence was meant to provide an advance warning to the Sigil Corps if that should happen.

He was careful to keep his posture low, and despite the intensity of the day’s midafternoon warmth, Ruach kept the hood of his cloak drawn over his head. His bright red hair would work against his efforts to remain hidden if left uncovered, and he was tall enough that he would have been exposed to anyone else in the area if he were careless enough to stand and stretch his legs. He took quite seriously his orders to remain as near to invisible as could be managed, despite the complete absence of anyone from whom to remain hidden. He was alone in the keeping this temporary vigil over a city in which there were no longer any living inhabitants.

Vidreigard had once been important, rivaling even the capital, Eidstadt. If you believed in ancient myths, this had once been a land inhabited by an ancient race of men, claimed by some to have been Dwarves, famous for their skill in forging metal and in shaping stone. More recently, Vidreigard had been the home of the Ascetics, a community of sorcerers bound by strict oaths which forbade many of the more dangerous practices to which the arcane subjects they studied could be put to use.

Ruach did not know whether to believe all of these stories, and so he could not say who had had built the city, but he knew that it had been men who had been responsible for its destruction. Five hundred years ago, Vidreigard had been the site of the final battle between the remnants of the Sigil Order and the armies of the dark sorcerer, Ulensorl.

The Ascetics, whose entire population had lived here in this city, were massacred in the earliest stages of an all-encompassing conflict, in which neither Ulensorl nor the Knights of the Sigil Order had lived to see the final conclusion. The leaders of the Sigil Order had died in battle at the hands of Ulensorl. The great sorcerer had fallen too, in the end, when his dark powers broke free from his control. Though their forces ultimately achieved victory over the armies of Ulensorl, all of the sigil knights had been lost, with the sole exception of Trass Edorin, founder of the Edorin line and half-brother to the leader of the Sigil Knight forces, a man known famously as Tem Edor.

The great city of Eidstadt remained, and it was now the capital of what the survivors of those battles had named the Kingdom of Nar Edor, in honor of their fallen commander, Tem Edor. Tem’s brother Trass Edorin, on the other hand, was variously regarded either with awe, as the last of the Sigil Knights, or reviled for not having been counted on the battlefield among his brothers when they had fallen.

Ruach was of course among those who were fiercely loyal to the Edorin line. An officer within the attempted revival of the Sigil Order by Trass Edorin’s descendant, the late Duke Kyreth Edorin, Ruach’s attitude edged closer to worship than it did mere respect. The duke’s grandson, Aisen, was Ruach’s immediate superior in the Sigil Corps and Ruach felt, as did all of the men of Aisen’s command, a deep affection for his captain.

Watching for scouting parties from the king’s armies, which had come and gone twice before, Ruach sighted a distant group of mounted men. But these men were approaching from the east, coming from lands under the control of House Edorin. They wore basic grey uniforms, which included light leather armor, marking them as a patrol of Sigil Corps Rangers. One of these men, his stiff posture and straight back making him appear taller than the others, sat uncomfortably on his horse, apparently unaccustomed to riding. His coat was different from the rest. It was a deeper shade of grey and was topped by an even darker collar upon which were affixed, four golden pins that indicated his rank and authority. Streaks of bright white mixed into his grey hair, suggesting his age and giving away his Identity. It was Commander Ledrin, Ruach’s superior by two steps in grade.

This was no chance meeting. Ledrin had not come upon this location by accident, crossing through the lone patrol of a subordinate in the course of other business. Ruach frowned, trying to understand why Ledrin was here. He watched as the group of soldiers casually broke apart after passing through the eastern gates, fanning out on predetermined patrols within the abandoned city, before he finally descended from his tower. Estimating the path he had seen Ledrin taking, Ruach moved to intercept.

When they met, sheltered in the shadows between rows of large buildings, the Sigil Corps commander showed recognition, but not surprise, as he looked down at Ruach from atop his horse. Ledrin did look around out of an abundance of caution, but once he was convinced they were very much alone, he began to speak, his voice low and hushed so that the sounds would not travel as they were prone to do in these empty streets. “Have you or any of the others heard from him?” he asked, in reference to Captain Aisen, the man who stood in rank immediately between Ruach and Commander Ledrin.

“Nothing in the last three weeks,” Ruach replied.

Ledrin appeared troubled. Ruach felt the same, only perhaps more intently. If Commander Ledrin did not know Lord Aisen’s whereabouts, nobody would. Ruach almost hoped that Ledrin had taken Aisen by force and hidden him away somewhere to keep him safe. The alternatives were that Aisen might be dead, or that he was hiding of his own accord in fear. Ruach did not want to imagine the latter. He would have been more willing to accept that Captain Aisen was dead than he was to think that he might be a coward. But none of these scenarios appeared to hold an answer. Aisen was simply missing, and speculation as to what this meant had begun spreading throughout the lands of Nar Edor.

“I don’t believe he is anywhere in the kingdom,” Ledrin said.

“How is that possible? Where would he have gone? And why?” Ruach said. He had not once considered the possibility that Aisen had left Nar Edor altogether. Thinking about it now, it still seemed very improbable to Ruach.

“Ossia would seem the most obvious choice,” Ledrin replied. “That is where his father was from. Aisen would have resources there, people he could rely on, though he may not know it.”

“But why leave Nar Edor?” Ruach said, wanting more of an answer, certain that there was something Ledrin had not revealed.

“He thinks that I betrayed him, and blames me for what happened,” Ledrin said, looking pained as he openly acknowledged his role in Aisen’s disappearance.

“For what happened to his brother… how can Aisen blame you for that?”

“He has reasons, and they are all good ones,” Ledrin said. “If I had taken him into confidence, shared my plans, if I had just trusted him, it could have been prevented.”

Ruach waited for Ledrin to say more, but the commander remained silent. “If I am going to be of help to you in this, I need to know,” Ruach said, urging Ledrin to tell him the full truth.

“I kept things from him, important things,” Ledrin said, hesitant about being more specific. Ruach kept silent and waited for Ledrin to continue. “Among other mistakes, I interfered with a messenger from Lord Pendren, who was trying to warn Aisen about what Beonen was planning,” Ledrin finally explained.

It was a startling revelation. Aisen had been kept from learning that his younger brother had been planning to murder him. Ruach reacted as could be expected. He could not hide his disapproval as he looked on at his commander in stunned silence.

“I didn’t know what the message was,” Ledrin quickly qualified. “The messenger refused to speak with me or anyone else. I believed that Lord Pendren was trying to persuade Aisen to cede his claim. I knew he had been leading a group that was advocating for Beonen to inherit.”

“That might have been for the best,” said Ruach, struggling to figure out what this new information meant. “Beonen did not need to kill Aisen in order to inherit. In truth, I think Aisen would have preferred to remain in the Sigil Corps if he could, and let his brother run the House.”

“That is precisely the thing that I feared most. I could not let it happen, and for that reason, I kept your captain out on patrols where no one would be able to find him.”

This was making more sense to Ruach now. He had been with Aisen on those patrols along unpopulated reaches of the northern coasts, for months at a time, lasting right up until Aisen left them when he received word that Kyreth Edorin had died.

“If you had let Pendren’s messenger speak with Aisen, none of this would have happened,” Ruach summarized.

“I didn’t trust Pendren,” said Ledrin, “but worse than that, I didn’t trust Aisen.”

Ruach could better understand now why his captain would have had reason to leave. Aisen had many more enemies than friends in Nar Edor, and his allies had now failed his trust as well. “He really is gone then,” Ruach said. “But there are not many ways a man can leave Nar Edor. How would he have gotten away without anyone knowing?”

“That is what you need to figure out,” said Ledrin. “Go to the Rendish districts and the dockside areas and learn what you can, but absolutely no one can know why you are there.”

It was going to be difficult to investigate when he couldn’t ask any questions that would betray his purpose, or seek help from friends within the Sigil Corps. Ruach understood, though, why the circumstances required exceptional caution. It would weaken the position of the Sigil Corps if it were confirmed that they were defending the succession claims of a man who had abandoned them.

“There are foreigners recently arrived in the districts,” Ledrin continued. “Drab looking men, asking questions about Aisen. One would assume their interests may be to his detriment, but we aren’t sure who they are or what their purpose is. If you learn anything, I need to know as much as I can.”

“And if I learn where it is that Aisen has gone?”

“Then take your friend Oren with you, and go after him,” said Ledrin.

“Why Oren?” wondered Ruach, “and why me for that matter?”

“Aisen will still trust you Ruach, and if it comes to it, Oren is the only man among your company who could equal Aisen in a fight,” Ledrin explained.

“If Aisen refuses, you’re saying we should force him to return?” Ruach asked. The situation might be desperate, but Ruach was surprised that Ledrin would suggest this. Aisen wasn’t going to be of much use if he did not return willingly. Quite the opposite, he might even become a hindrance to Ledrin’s ambitions.

“No, I don’t want to provoke him further,” Ledrin clarified, “but it might aid your cause if he believes that you are capable of making him do so.”

The domineering approach that Ledrin was suggesting, did not strike Ruach as being the best way to restore Aisen’s faith in the Sigil Corps. Then again, Ruach realized, Ledrin was entrusting him with this matter, and that at least, demonstrated his commander’s reputation for wisdom.