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  “And if Ethelbert’s general brings in the wounded and the prisoners next time, are we to follow a reversed edict from him?” Artolivan shrewdly asked.

  “No general of Laird Ethelbert will reach Chapel Abelle, unless as a prisoner,” Milwellis assured him. “You will do as I instruct.”

  “And if we do not?”

  The man smiled and lifted an eyebrow, a clear measure of threat in his posture. “That would not be wise.”

  “Nor would your stubborn and determined effort to drive the Order of Abelle from the side of Laird Delaval, which is surely the end result of your insistence,” Father Artolivan replied with an evenness and strength in his voice that those around him had not heard in years, one that impressed and amazed Brother Pinower. “We have remained neutral, to the gain of both warring lairds and, more importantly, to the benefit of the people of Honce. If we are forced to break that neutral posture, I assure you that we will break against the laird applying that pressure. Rethink your position, Prince of Palmaristown, or I expect that Laird Delaval will come to blame Milwellis for the great loss of the brothers and their healing stones!”

  The prince seemed almost to deflate at that, albeit slowly, as he gradually rolled back onto his heels. He kept his eyes narrow, though, and his teeth gritted, and he did not blink for many heartbeats.

  “Brothers,” Father Artolivan went on, “go through our gates and retrieve the wounded Ethelbert soldiers. Prepare the triage in the courtyard, as according to our agreements with both of the warring lairds. And when you do, be sure that there are no indications, on clothing or jewelry, of those poor unfortunates to determine allegiance to either laird. Those most wounded are to be tended first, regardless of allegiance, as is our way.”

  “These men are my prisoners!” Milwellis roared.

  “And when you leave them here, they fall under the protection and responsibility of the Order of Abelle. As was agreed, Prince. Look around you at the nonclergy working on our walls and structures! Nine hundred and more have been sent here, and nearly half are men of Laird Delaval, captured by the forces of Ethelbert! Many came here wounded, many whole but as prisoners. They are out of the fight . . .” He paused as Milwellis whirled away and leaped back up onto his horse.

  Without another word, the Prince of Palmaristown spun his mount around and galloped through the gate, his personal guard sweeping up in his wake.

  “That one is trouble,” one of the brothers remarked.

  “It will come to this in the end, I fear,” said Father Artolivan. “As the stalemate inevitably deepens and the common folk begin to grumble and stir in revolt, their families decimated by the continuing war, we will be forced into choosing a side.”

  “And how will we choose?” Brother Pinower dared ask.

  Father Artolivan had no answer.

  “They break and turn!” came a cry from the wall.

  Artolivan led his entourage to the open gate, to look down upon the field, where indeed Prince Milwellis and the bulk of his forces had turned away.

  “Abelle save us,” Brother Pinower whispered as he sorted through it, for while one group of Palmaristown soldiers hustled the healthy Ethelbert prisoners toward Chapel Abelle, no doubt to hand them off and be rid of them, the main Palmaristown group led by Prince Milwellis took with them the wounded men loyal to their enemy, Laird Ethelbert! They were not going to allow the monks to heal those enemy wounded.

  “The fool has just assured that there will never be peace in Honce, whether Ethelbert or Delaval proves victorious,” Father Artolivan remarked.

  “What will they do to them?” Brother Pinower dared to ask.

  “Nothing,” Father Artolivan said bitterly. “Prince Milwellis will simply let them die of their wounds.”

  Pinower looked over to another of the brothers, who merely shook his head and shrugged, and in that moment, Brother Pinower came to know the dark truth of Father Artolivan’s prediction.

  PART ONE

  AFTERMATH

  W

  hat do I owe?

  To myself, to those I love, to my community around me and to

  the world, what do I owe? This is the essence of the question Dame Gwydre put to me when she insisted that I would not flee her beleaguered Holding of Vanguard in its time of darkness. Her contention, her belief in me—not in my fighting abilities but in the essence of who I am as a person—has shaken me profoundly.

  Vaughna, Crait, Olconna . . . they’re all dead now. And Brother Jond has been horribly wounded, his eyes taken by the fine edge of the sword I carry as my own. We five traveled together, we fought together, and I am alive only because of their efforts. With my gemstone lost, they all but carried me the many miles to the glacier, where, if I had simply fallen to the ground along the way, our troll captives would have put a painful end to me. When Ancient Badden, that most vile creature, discovered the truth of my sword, Vaughna claimed the blade as her own and died horribly in the maw of Badden’s monstrous pet.

  When Badden tried to kill me, Cormack and his powrie friends, who knew me not at all, rescued me. Cormack and Milkeila healed my wounds and gave to me a soul stone, that I might again become this alter-creature they name the Highwayman.

  What do I owe?

  I have been given a great gift from my parents, Abellican monk and Jhesta Tu mystic. I have seen both these respective transformative powers, the wisdom of the book my father penned and my mother practiced and the undeniable strength of the Abellican gemstone magic. Despite my infirmities—nay, because of them!—I have found a deeper truth and a more profound strength.

  When I left Pryd Town those months ago, I could fight as well as Laird Prydae’s champion, the legendary Bannagran. Now I believe I have only grown stronger. Without the gemstones, I find moments of greater clarity than ever before; I can align my ki-chi-kree for short bursts of tremendous energy and power, as I did when Ancient Badden threw me from the edge of the high glacier. I do not know that any man alive, other than an Abellican monk with the proper stones or perhaps the greatest of the Jhesta Tu mystics, could have survived that fall, but I did, and did so without the crutch that is a soul stone.

  I have found the alignment of life energy, the perfect harmony of mind-body union, for those short moments in that highest crisis.

  And as I have grown stronger without the soul stone strapped firmly to my forehead, so too have I grown with the stone. We are as one now; I can hold it in my hand and seal the line of life energy in place almost as well as if I had it upon my forehead, the top point of ki-chi-kree. The transformation from Stork to Highwayman, from drooling and staggering cripple to fine warrior, is nearly instantaneous now, and without conscious thought. And that transformation is far deeper and far stronger. Every muscle movement, every swing of the blade, every anticipation of an opponent’s strike or parry crystallizes without a moment of consideration, and my appropriate response is launched before a thought need be given.

  If I battled Bannagran now, I would defeat him, and with little difficulty. I say that with the full humility and understanding that such a truth brings upon me a call for responsibility.

  And thus, the ultimate question hangs heavy over my head: What do I owe?

  It’s always been an easy question for me regarding those I love. I would have died for Garibond and would die now for Cadayle or Callen. I would fight for Jond and must admit that even Cormack and Milkeila and the powrie pair have become beloved companions in the manner of Vaughna, Crait, and Olconna.

  I could have parted ways with them on the rocky rise above the glacier, but I did not. No one was more surprised than I when my feet hit that ice, when I rushed down to join in the fray against Ancient Badden’s multitude of minions. By all rights, I could have turned south and gone all the way back to Dame Gwydre, and I do not doubt that she would have granted me my freedom for the trials I had already faced.

  But I went down and fought, all the way to Badden, beside these companions (dare I hope, these friends?).
r />   I owed them.

  Dame Gwydre speaks of responsibility to people she does not even know, to her people across Vanguard. Is it just the truth of being a ruler, I wonder, that demands such a sense of community, or is it that we all owe one another in this greater community?

  I have Badden’s head in a sack; I will be freed of my indenture when we return to Dame Gwydre in a couple of weeks’ time. I can then gather Cadayle and Callen and hold the promise that Gwydre will sail me wherever in the world I want to go. I can go on my way and let the world go its own, I can forget the battles here in Vanguard and the continuing strife between the too-proud lairds Ethelbert and Delaval in the south.

  Or can I?

  What do I owe?

  —BRANSEN GARIBOND

  ONE

  Six Cogs One

  S

  he felt his calloused but gentle touch on her shoulders and neck, rubbing the stress away with oft-practiced perfection. Dame Gwydre sat staring out her window in Castle Pellinor, looking to the cold north. She had cut her brown hair quite short, but there was nothing mannish about her appearance, for the cut only accentuated her fine, thin neck and slender shoulders. And even under all the duress of the recent months, and even well into middle age, Dame Gwydre’s face featured an eternal youth and vigor and sensuousness that belied the icy strength and determination ever in her eyes.

  Gwydre sighed.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” Dawson McKeege, the only man in the world who could be massaging Dame Gwydre, said to her.

  She craned her neck to glance back at him, gray stubble prominent on his grizzled leathery face. Dawson was only a few years Gwydre’s senior, but, having spent most of his life at sea, he looked much older. How well Dawson knew her!

  “What makes you believe that I am thinking of them?” Gwydre asked.

  “Because ye haven’t been thinking of anything else since you sent that band after Ancient Badden,” Dawson said with a laugh, and he kneaded Gwydre’s shoulder as he spoke, bringing a wince of both pain and pleasure from the woman. “And you’re all in knots under your skin.”

  It was true enough and he had seen right through her attempted dodge. Gwydre led Vanguard, and that vast wilderness holding was enmeshed in a brutal war, one that was taking a terrible toll on Gwydre’s hearty subjects. Desperate times had forced a desperate gambit, and so Gwydre had enlisted some of the elite warriors of her land and sent them north to behead the beast that had arisen against her, the priest leader of an ancient and brutal religion.

  “Why do we fight, Dawson?” she asked her dear friend.

  “I’ve got no fight with you.”

  “Not us,” Gwydre replied in exasperation. “We, men and women, all of us. Why do we fight?”

  “Now or all the time?”

  Gwydre half turned as her friend backed away and offered him a shrug.

  “Now we fight because Ancient Badden’s afraid that his Samhaist Church is being pushed aside, and so it is. He can’t let go of that power without a fight, as we’re seeing. He’ll do anything to hold it.”

  “And so he has inflicted misery across Vanguard,” said Gwydre. “To those loyal to me, and to those loyal to him. Great misery.”

  “They’re calling that ‘war,’ I’m told,” came the sarcastic reply.

  “And why is the rest of Honce, all the holdings south of the Gulf of Corona, now in the grips of war?” Gwydre asked.

  Dawson chuckled, seeing where this was going and having no answers.

  Gwydre, too, gave a helpless laugh. Up here, the folk of Vanguard were embroiled in a brutal war with the monstrous minions Ancient Badden and the Samhaists had enlisted as mercenaries. Down south, across the far more populous holdings of Honce proper, it was brother against brother, laird against neighboring laird, as the two most prominent rulers battled to unite the land under one king for the first time in known history.

  “They fight for the same reason we fight,” Dawson said quietly, and in all seriousness (which was a rarity for Dawson McKeege). “They fight because one man, or two men, decided they should fight.”

  “Or one man and one woman?” Gwydre asked, clearly implicating herself in Vanguard’s troubles.

  “Nah,” the sailor said with a shake of his head. “You didn’t start this. This is Badden’s folly and fury, and you’ve no choice but to defend.”

  “Thank you for that,” Gwydre replied, and she patted her hand atop Dawson’s, which was still on her shoulder. “In the southlands, Laird Delaval and Laird Ethelbert have decided that one and only one should rule over all the holdings, and because of that rivalry, thousands and thousands of men and women have been trampled under the march of armies. So is it just them, Dawson? Just those two men? Or do the armies marching for them want to fight?”

  Dawson’s face screwed up with puzzlement. “Many are believing in their leader, not to doubt,” he said.

  “But do they want to go to war?”

  “Milady, I doubt any man’s looking for more war after he’s tasted war. It’s an ugly thing, to watch your friend writhing on the muddy ground after his guts have been opened by a sword.”

  “So it is the pride and ambition of two men driving the insanity,” said Gwydre.

  Dawson shrugged and nodded. “As up here, it’s the pride and ambition and anger of one, Ancient Badden.”

  With another sigh, Dame Gwydre turned back to stare out her northern window, and Dawson immediately moved nearer to her and began rubbing her neck once more—not because he had to, but because, as a friend, he wanted to.

  “My father would not have gone to such a war,” Gwydre remarked offhandedly.

  “That’s why the people of Vanguard loved Laird Gendron,” said Dawson. “That’s why the whole of Vanguard cried with you when he fell from his horse that day and didn’t recover. And Pieter wouldn’t have thought to fight such a war, either,” he added, referring to Gwydre’s husband, whom she had married while still a teenager, after Laird Gendron’s death. “You picked a good one there.”

  “I miss him, Dawson. It’s been more than a decade and a half, and still I miss him.”

  “You miss him more when Ancient Badden’s pushing you, I’m thinking.”

  “I hate this,” Gwydre admitted. “The suffering and the blood and the simple worthlessness of it all.”

  “There’s nothing worthless about defending Vanguard against Ancient Badden and his monster hordes.”

  Gwydre patted his hand again. “And in the south?”

  Dawson snorted derisively. “Who can be saying? Tough days in Vanguard, to be sure, but when we win—and we’re to do that, don’t doubt!—I’ll be glad that we’re a hundred miles of water or a hundred miles of wilderness away from those armies.”

  “I pray you are right,” Gwydre said softly, and she stared to the north, the empty north.

  I

  ain’t a’feared o’ fighting,” said the tough little powrie Mcwigik. He plopped his bloodred beret on top of his wildly bushy orange hair and rubbed it into place as if he was adjusting a helmet. “In truth, I’m liking it, and likin’ it more when we’re talking o’ fighting trolls. But if ye’re asking me and Bikelbrin to go down there to fight that mob, and ye’re thinkin’ o’ keeping one back here to watch over no-eyes there, then ye’re thinking wrong. We’re just five, ye dopes!”

  “Six,” corrected Brother Jond, the man Mcwigik had called “no-eyes.” Dressed in his brown woolen Abellican robe and weather-beaten sandals with cloth wrapped inside their black straps to keep his feet warm, the monk shifted in his sitting posture to better face the sound of the dwarf’s voice. He did nothing to hide his torn face, both eyes and the bridge of his nose lost as a prisoner of the wretched Ancient Badden; indeed, Brother Jond strained his neck to better demonstrate the wound to his companions.

  “Bah, ye’re a blind fool, and that’s not a mix I’m wanting to fight beside,” Mcwigik argued.

  “I can use gemstones!” Brother Jond retorted.

 
“And put a lightning bolt up me arse!” roared Bikelbrin, Mcwigik’s powrie companion. The two looked like bookends as they stood bobbing side by side. Both were tall for powries, five feet at least, and seemed as solid as the stones upon which they stood. And both had never met a blade suitable for trimming either hair or beard, it seemed, which gave their heads an enormous appearance.

  “The soul stone!” Brother Jond argued. “I can send healing energy.”

  “To the trolls, ye twit!” said Mcwigik.

  Similarly dressed in Abellican robes, though he had fallen from the order, and a powrie beret won in a fight with one of Mcwigik’s former clan’s dwarves, Cormack cast a nervous glance at his wife, Milkeila.

  “If you do not lower your voices, the fight will come to us,” Milkeila warned them all. The weight of the tall woman’s words was not lost on any of the three arguing. She stood as tall as Brother Jond, a foot above the powries; there was nothing delicate about Milkeila. She had been raised among the shamans of Yan Ossum, a barbarian tribe on the Lake Mithranidoon. She had seen battle both magical and physical since her early days and had lived a life of discipline and dedication—and her defined and strong muscles bore testament to the fact. By any measure, human or powrie, she was handsome, even beautiful, her wide and round face showing a range from feminine wiles to warrior ferocity. The sparkle in her dark eyes promised passion or battle, and anyone engaging in either with this formidable woman would enter the fray tentatively, to be sure. She kept much of her brown hair braided, but it was obvious that she didn’t fret with it for the sake of vanity.

  All of that—her size, her obvious strength, her sheer intensity—brought gravity to Milkeila’s words. Even the stubborn powries lowered their volume as they continued their argument, which again wound along the same path to Bikelbrin claiming emphatically, “Ye’ll put a lightning bolt up me arse!”