Dave Duncan P.

"No, I went straight to Barbuse's Variation of the Sidonia Catabo-lism. After all, we had almost nothing to lose! It worked better than I had dared hope. We cannot relax for a few days yet, of course. The in-ternal healing may not have been complete and I have a few more things to try, but I do have hope that he will be back to his old self, or should I say young self, in a week or two. Sir Wolf need not give up hope of some nephews and nieces yet."Much tempted to give Intrepid some injuries of his own to exper-iment on,Wolf said, "And his state of mind? He has lost his ward."

For the first time Master of Rituals lost his air of infallibility. "He may not have quite realized that yet. He seems sane enough. It may be that the trauma of his injuries somehow compensated . . . there have been cases . . . still somewhat dazed, of course . . . takes time to recover from spirituality on that scale.And loss of blood and shock." He reached for the handle.

"Wait," Hogwood said. "Baron Dupend?"

"Ah. I've kept him alive so far, but at his age . . ." Shaking his head sadly, Intrepid opened the door.

Next to the Seniors'Tower, the guardroom was Ironhall's closest ap-proach to an indoor midden. Every Blade in four centuries seemed to have left something behind as a souvenir: clothes, tack, books, even un-paired boots.The average guardsman visited it about once a year and did not care. Wolf cared, and whenever he came by on one of his courier trips and had time to kill, waiting for day to dawn or someone to finish a letter, he tried to tidy up.The mess always returned before he did.

This time it was better. Someone had shoveled the litter into a cor-ner and installed decent furniture. On one side of an amiably crackling fire a dark-haired boy sat at a table with quills, paper, and a silver inkwell. On the other, Lynx leaned back against heaped pillows on a bed. He stared at the visitors and for a gut-wrenching moment nothing hap-pened.

Then he said,"Wolfie! What by the eight are you doing here? Wolf, you old scoundrel!" He tried to laugh, sit up, and hold out his hands, all at once. The result was a wild spasm and a grimace of pain. He sank back, cursing, and by that time Wolf was there to embrace him.

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He had changed in four years, of course. He was all-over huskier and hairier than before, and had grown a beard, brown and curly. He also bore the pallor of a very narrow escape and the bewildered look that followed massive healing conjuration. Purple-and-yellow swellings marred the right side of his face, with traces of dried blood showing in his hair.

"Still a bit tender," he muttered. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. His attempt to sit up had dropped the blankets and exposed a nightmare of rose-red scars on his arms, chest, and shoulders.

Wolf said, "Take it easy, then, you great idiot! Flames, man!Whatwere you fighting?"

Lynx smiled ruefully. "Dunno. It wasn't human and I never want to meet it again!"

"It? Just one?"

"One was enough."

Wolf mumbled manly, no-nonsense condolences, grateful that Hog-wood's presence saved them from becoming maudlin. Lynx, always the sentimental one, began blurting out mawkish gush about how long it had been and how much he had missed him, and so on. Wolf stepped back and introduced the inquisitor as a warning that he must guard his tongue.

Intrepid indicated the boy now standing uneasily beside the table. "Inquisitor, this is Prime Candidate Tancred, a swordsman of great fu-ture renown."

"Good chance to you, Prime."

"Mistress!" Tancred tapped his sword hilt. He had infinitely more poise than Rivers. He was probably a couple of years older than Hog-wood.

"Prime has been taking dictation, Inquisitor," Intrepid said. "I asked Sir Lynx to relate as much of what happened as he could remember, considering it important to catch his testimony as soon as possible." He preened at his own brilliance.

"Very wise," Hogwood said."How many other witnesses are here?" "Eighteen, of whom eleven are capable of testifying. I set seniors to take statements from all of them."

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"Excellent. Prime, the Council has declared this matter a state se-cret.We require your oath of secrecy regarding everything Sir Lynx has said. Repeat after me . . ." Hogwood's eyes were caves of fatigue in a chalk cliff and yet she radiated confidence and authority.That was how she was trained to act, of course, but Wolf was impressed by her sheer physical toughness, steel sword in silk scabbard.

Tancred was a solemn youth who looked vaguely worried at the best of times, but he spoke up bravely as he swore the oath."I think Sir Lynx had finished, Inquisitor," he added. "I had just finished reading his testimony back to him when you arrived."

"Very well. I can see that your handwriting is as stylish as your swordsmanship, and for that I am already grateful."

Tancred saluted again. Skilled fencer that he was, he read the signs and headed for the door without needing to be told.

Lynx called, "Thanks, lad. Big help. Always knew you'd turn out to be one of the good ones."

Beaming at this tribute from a hero,Tancred departed.

Hogwood turned to Intrepid and swore him to silence also, which tweaked his beard. She said, "About security, Master . . . has anyone left Ironhall since the news arrived?"

His pout deepened."Grand Master, of course. Sir Alden and his man went back to Quondam.

Grady,Flint , Huntley, and Godfrey to Court. The carters come and go. I gave strict orders not to gossip to them, but it's hard to make that stick.They can tell that we have more mouths to fill. Is there anything else you need right away?" He wanted to leave be-fore he was ordered out.

"Food and rest, a hot bath if one is available. I should be finished here in an hour or so. Sir Wolf ?"

"I'll wait here, if I may, Inquisitor. Naturally I am interested to hear my brother's story."

Intrepid saw a chance to flaunt authority. "No more than twenty minutes! I do not want my patient overtired and we have another heal-ing scheduled to treat the adhesions." He paused at the door."I hope you will be our guest at the evening meal, Inquisitor?" His eyes gleamed at the thought of displaying her at high table."And your escort, of course."

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THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS.

P.

After the long hours of cold, warmth was making Wolf's head spin and he was sure Hogwood would collapse if she did not sleep soon.

She surprised him yet again."Sir Wolf and I will be honored. If you will send me those other statements right away, Master, I will get to work."

As soon as Intrepid had gone, Hogwood went to the table and flipped through the pages Tancred had written. Wolf pulled a stool up to the bed and regarded his wounded brother, who smiled vaguely back.

Anger began to beat like a pulse in Wolf's temple.Would Lynx ever re-cover his wits properly?

Whoever or whatever had done this to him must be hunted down and dealt with.

"You been doing some fighting yourself, Wolfie," Lynx said. "Who cut the bits out of your face?"

"It's a long story.You feel well enough to answer questions?"

"I'll try.The world's still fuzzy at the edges."

"You understand I'm here as the King's servant? You will be testify-ing as if in a court of law and that Inquisitor Hogwood's account of your answers may be entered in evidence at some other time and place?"

Lynx glanced at her and pitched a magnificent Cute Little Boy smile. "I'll try to impress her with my innocence."

He probably did not realize he was doing it, but Wolf had seen the Blades' legendary seduction powers in action often enough, although rarely as blatantly-or as potently, so far as another man could judge.

He wondered how resilient dear Dolores's defenses would be if Lynx really tested them.The hero's honest, open face was unmarked; even when vis-ible, his battle scars lacked the grotesque horror of Wolf's mutilation.

If Hogwood noticed, she gave no sign. "I will summarize for you what your brother has already said, Sir Wolf." She marched over to the fire, turned her back on it, and proceeded to rattle off a concise account of Lynx's deposition.

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7.Testimony of Sir Lynx, companion in the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King's Blades, as dictated to Prime Candidate Tancred at Ironhall, this 18th day of Secondmoon, 395: I was accepted as a candidate in Ninthmoon of 385 and bound on the 13th of Fifthmoon, 390, by Marquesa Celeste. At that time she also bound Sir Fell and Sir Mandeville, and she appointed me com-mander of her guard.We escorted her to Grandon and thereafter resided at Court until four years ago . . . almost exactly. Firstmoon of 391. Anyway, then she married Baron Dupend and moved toQuondamCastle , on Whinmoor.

Is this going to be on oath?

Then I'd better tell the truth. Celeste was never a real marquesa. She was the King's mistress. He tired of her and ordered her to marry old Dupend, but she didn't. The notary kept asking her those "Do you?"

questions and she kept saying,"No, I don't!" and in the end he just shut his book and declared them man and wife. I carried her out of the palace over my shoulder, screaming.Yes, really. No, she was screaming, I was just angry, but I was bound to defend her and I'd been told very clearly that much worse would happen to her if she didn't do as she was told.

So Quondam was a jail for her. An awful place-bleak and cold and drafty, perched on the edge of the sea cliffs. Nothing ever happens there, but it is the strongest keep in Chivial and Dupend would rant for hours how it had withstood assaults by Baelish raiders, turned back rebels during the Fatherland War, and so on. Quondam holds the land road to Westerth and the sea approach to the Straits, and has never fallen to storm or siege or treachery. So he says. Or used to say. He can't say it now, because it certainly fell to something four nights ago. Funny he should brag, because it belongs to the King, not him. He's no rich landowner, just a paid employee who never set eyes on the place until four years ago.

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He's listened to too many minstrels. On the night of the raid, he was feasting in his mead hall like an olden-times hero-rushlights flickering through wood smoke, walls hung with ancient weapons, flushed faces at the tables as knights gorged and quaffed, a harpist twanging and warbling up in the minstrel gallery. All that. Don't for-get greasy odors of roast pig still wafting from charred remains on the spit above the hearth.Yes, absolutely crazy!

I know I took a clang on the noddle and am foggy on some details, but I will swear to this feast nonsense. It happened two or three times a week, all year long.This was how the Baron celebrated the anniversary of every battle his ancestors had fought in (or run from), the fall of every town they'd sacked, and every siege Quondam had withstood. His dates were skittish, so that theBattle of Arbor might fall in Thirdmoon one year and Sixthmoon the next, but it's the spirit that counts, they say.

Dupend was far too deaf to hear the music, which was no great loss, and had no teeth for the roast boar, which was a hog from his sties.The wenches were serving watery cider because he couldn't afford mead, and the brawny heroes were just his men-at-arms plus a few local farmers acting out the farce in return for a free meal.Their ancestors might have owed knight's service to the lord of Quondam, but those days are long gone, even on Whinmoor.

The old fool is ...was? Well, I hope he makes it. Where was I? ...

Lynx was as near the hearth as anyone and he was still cold. He stood behind his ward, but slightly to her left, so he could toast his buns without keeping the heat off her. She and the Baron were seated at the center of the long table, their backs to the blaze. Beauty and the beast were not speaking to each other, but that was normal. They never did. Fell was on the right side of the fireplace. Only the turnspit was closer to the flames than they.

Dupend hated his wife's Blades almost as much as he hated her, be-cause they would not take his orders. It did no good to explain that Blades never took orders from anybody. He screamed if he caught them questioning visitors or searching the baronial bedchamber. Sometimes 43Dave Duncan P.

he would decree that they were not to be fed, so they had to pretend to take food from the cooks at swordpoint. He never let them dine in the great hall with his pretend knights, so they stood guard at mealtimes and ate later in the kitchen.

Long ago they had agreed to rotate the leadership, just to ease the appalling tedium, and this was Fell's month to wear the sash. Mandeville was off patrolling the rest of the fortress. No one could remember a winter so bleak, even on Whinmoor. Sheep had been freezing to death on the hills and cottagers in their beds. Even Celeste, who normally flaunted a king's ransom of jewels on large areas of bare skin, was muf-fled to the eyebrows.

She was chatting with Sir Alden, Dupend's knight banneret, the one genuine warrior in the castle, a boiled-leather veteran of the Wylderland campaigns. He took his duties seriously. Even in that weather he posted sentries on the battlements, but they would certainly have headed in-doors to find a brazier as soon as his back was turned, so Fell had warned Mandeville to be especially vigilant and make doubly sure the gates were locked and barred. Nowadays it seemed insane to raise a drawbridge and drop a portcullis, but they did so every night without fail; that was the one thing on which Baron Dupend and his wife's Blades agreed.

As the remains of the mock boar were being carried out to feed the kitchen staff, Lynx drewRatterand deftly detached a slice of pork. He chewed happily, unnoticed by the Baron, provoking sly grins from the servants.The harpist was coughing his lungs out, up there in his smoke cloud.

Sir Mandeville came running in by the pantry door, yelling, "To arms! The castle is under attack!"

The drunks howled jeers and catcalls. Lynx hurled the meat in the fire and wiped grease from his hands, while exchanging shocked glances with Fell. Blades didnotmake jokes about danger to their wards! The deaf old Baron was yelling hysterically, wanting to know what all the commotion was about.

Mandeville arrived at the fireplace, panting. "Men coming in the gates," he said. "They've killed Dogget and Treb."

Then the hounds sprang up, growling. Thunder, the leader, started 44.

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her terrible baying and charged out the door Mandeville had left open, vanishing with the rest of the pack on her tail. Men who would not be-lieve a Blade would trust a dog, and in the sudden silence everyone heard what they had heard, a drum beating. Sir Alden had a voice like a harbor seal-not beautiful, but audible for miles-and he began roaring at everyone to start stripping weapons from the wall displays. In mo-ments crashes of crockery announced that the tables were being tipped up and dragged over to the corner he had designated for the redoubt.

Lynx and Mandeville waited for Fell to issue orders. Normally a Blade guard prepared plans to deal with any conceivable emergency, but an armed invasion of Quondam was unthinkable. Even a lifelong wor-rywart like Wolf would not take that idea seriously. The keep was theGreatTower , but it was not provisioned for siege, so they would freeze to death in there before dawn, and to reach it, they would have to cross the bailey, which the enemy already held. Fell had no choice-although the hall had four entrances and was therefore not truly defensible, the Blades must remain there with the others and defend their ward as best they could.

"The corner!" Fell shouted. Lynx and Mandeville grabbed their ward's arm and rushed her, almost carried her, across to Alden's makeshift fortress.

Other women might have screamed, but Celeste was a tough gosling. Her only protest was a calm "Put me down, you bullocks! I'm perfectly capable of walking."

Now servants were pouring in from the buttery, yelling about raiders. The main door flew wide and intruders appeared en masse, bringing an icy gale with them. Half the rushlights blew out and the smoke billowed worse than ever. At first Lynx did not believe what he was seeing. Apparently Quondam was being assaulted by the grand pa-rade from one of those masquerade balls King Athelgar fancied. The newcomers wore bizarre headdresses and swirling cloaks, some had elaborate masks, and some bore strange basket structures on their shoul-ders. Others were close to naked.Their eyes glinted in the rushlight, but their faces did not show up well enough for them to be fair-skinned Baels.

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And he saw no glint of metal, neither weapons nor armor. He re-laxed, convinced that this was some absurd joke. Then he remembered the dogs. What had happened to the hounds? With even some of the women armed, they were about fifty defenders facing at least six times that number.

Drums boomed out a signal and the enemy charged. Lynx drewRatterand barely had time to raise her in mocking salute before the nightmare army was pouring over the barricade. About six of the illu-sions came straight for him.

Next thing he knew, he was down on the floor in a jumble of bod-ies and shattered furniture. His head rang carillons of pain and when he touched it, his hand came away bloody. He was lying on the corpse of a hefty, dark-skinned youngster wearing a loincloth and sandals.This was madness.It was colder than death out there!

Even in that hubbub, he could hear his ward's screams. She needed him. Fell was shouting his name, too. He struggled to his feet and headed in their direction, stumbling over the confusion of dead and wounded. The invaders were leaving by the same door they had come in, carry-ing their wounded, abandoning their dead. Fell was hobbling after them, carryingWidowmakerin his right hand. His left arm hung limp and he was a southpaw, almost useless that way. Beside him went one of the farmers, a solid yokel armed with sword and shield. Lynx managed a wobbly sprint and the three of them were almost together when they reached the hearth and caught up with the rearmost invader.

He had to be important because he was screeching incomprehensi-ble orders in a discordant, inhuman voice. He loomed so grotesquely tall, at least seven feet, that he must be on stilts, and his streaming cloak swirled in iridescence-an impressive masquerade costume, but not warrior garb by any stretch of the mind. His head was hidden inside a bizarre furry helmet and Lynx saw no indication of a weapon under the cloak.

Somehow the giant sensed the threat behind him, for he spun around only just too late to avoid a wild haymaker overarm stroke by Fell.Widowmakerslammed down on his right shoulder. Had Fell been fighting southpaw he would have slashed the freak's head off, helmet and 46.

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all, slick as cutting berries. As it was, he almost severed the man's arm. The giant yowled in rage, struck the farmer's matching stroke aside with his left hand, and kicked the man like a mule, sending him sprawling. Then Lynx was there, thrustingRatterinto his heart.

That's what he meant to do. He underestimated his opponent. De-spite his size, that tree-high monstrosity was so incredibly nimble that he dodged Lynx's thrust at zero range.Rattersliced along his chest and tan-gled briefly in his cloak. His left hand smashed down on Lynx's arm.

Lynx registered the clang of his sword hitting the flags and stooped to snatch her up. His fingers refused to obey him. He stared in bewil-derment at his forearm, which had been macerated into raspberry puree and slivers of bone. The lower half hung at right angles, as if he had grown a new wrist. One blow had done that?

So Fell and the raider and he were all one-handed. Fell was now be-hind the giant, though, and this time he slashed at kidney level, cutting through the cloak. Blood burst out. The giant should have dropped to the floor and died, but he didn't. He rounded on Fell with a massive, deadly blow to the face. He was wearing gloves armed with knives, and one blow did to Fell's face what he had done to Lynx's arm.

The farmer closed again, with even less success. He was game, but he was nothing compared to the Blade-killing monster. Thethingpar-ried the man's sword aside like a straw and kicked again, but this time up, under the older man's shield. Its boots were toothed, too.The farmer screamed.The thing finished him off with another punch.

By then Lynx had retrievedRatter.He was not quite as inept with his offside hand as Fell was, and this time he made certain of the freak with a cut on its good shoulder, severing the tendons it needed to raise that arm. One-arm was now no-arms.

"That fixed you, swine!" he roared.