An Oath on His Sword

The slow and painful process of healing took many months; it was winter when Riven was injured, late Spring before he was able to leave his sickbed. Too weak to mount a horse or lift a sword, shamed by his infirmities, and the knowledge he’d been unable to defend either his princess or his men, he felt himself a laughingstock and his anger grew until it supplanted his humiliation.

Nearly a year passed before he declared himself returned to health, ignoring the leech’s half-hearted advice. From one winter to another, four seasons of impatience and the accompanying guilt gnawed at his heart and raged at him in his dreams. When that day came, he prepared to go after the raiders in spite of the protests of the court physician and the twelve brave knights to whose counsel the margrave always listened.

Even Hraeth, his Sword Brother, closer than a real brother, closer than blood, tried to dissuade him.

“Nay, Riven, wait,” he cautioned, though he knew his reasoning fell on deaf ears. “Wait until the snows have melted. Early Spring is an occasion for prudence, not a time to enter the Snow King, when the mountains are treacherous with change.”

Hraeth was right, of course, but Riven was determined. Hadn’t he always been the more headstrong of the two, ready to brave dragons in their dens and call out anyone who dealt him what he considered a slight, whether intentioned or otherwise?

“Those thieving B’akshir bastards braved the snows,” he argued. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Shrugging off Hraeth’s comforting hand, he stood before Leontilf’s throne, ashen with pain and trying vainly to ignore it, and railed at the others to hide his shame.

“Stay safe if you wish. None of you has had your body wounded near to death, or your men slain.”

Neither had any of them had his betrothed snatched from his arms but no one knew that, and he was wise enough not to reveal his and Aleza’s secret.

“It’s my responsibility, Your Majesty. I lost her...I’ll bring her back. I’ll go. Alone.”

He’d rescue the woman he loved and, more importantly, avenge his honor.

“You can wait…all of you.” Including Hraeth in his anger, he fairly spat the words at them, scorn in every syllable. “…until the safe season.”

Some quailed before him, not daring to face the fury in those wild eyes. Others merely shook their heads in pity that one so young could have so much hate, but eventually, one by one, each spoke his pledge.

“You’ll not go alone, Riven. What kind of men would we be, if we let a single man attempt our princess’ rescue?”

Oh yes, they came with him, pricked by his taunts, but more because Leontilf ordered it so.

He and twelve knights set out from Aljansur Castle, following the highroad becoming the path leading through the mountainside groves of black-needled pines into the Snow King. In their winter armor and fur-lined capes, they rode through the snow-heavy passes where the frost-heave buckled and twisted the earth.

The bodies of those men and their horses lay now in the chasms and crevasses of that treacherous mountain.

Only he had survived.

A soothsayer once told him he was accursed by the gods.

Mayhap the man was right, Riven now thought, if the gods existed, that is. Personally, he felt that fortunetellers, like priests, were there only to frighten and intimidate the foolish and any man with half a brain in his head knew better than to believe their tales.

If Hraeth had been along, things might have been different. Perhaps Riven might not have pushed forward in such haste, but the chances were he would merely have added his bones to those already lying at the bottom of one of those wide snow-hidden mouths lurking to swallow men and animals whole.

For some reason, only the margrave’s young chevnal, stunned and shaken by the useless loss, was allowed to ride his horse onto the plain.

* * *

The heat and barrenness had been a shock after the cold in the heights. For a while it merely added to his confusion but slowly, the turmoil in his mind cleared, giving way once more to anger. He kept feeding it as he rode, thinking again and again of what had happened, reopening and bruising the wound in his heart until his rage and the deep-burning need for revenge were the only forces that kept him going.

Riven closed his eyes, feeling the heat sear as if it were trapped beneath his eyelids. He wished he were back in Aljansur with the waves beating against the cliffs amid the Great Ocean’s crashing.

“Perhaps, when I open my eyes, I’ll awake, and find this merely an ale-inspired ride upon the Night Mare.” He breathed it like a prayer.

It didn’t happen.

He was still in the Izhmiri desert, upon a horse as burned and bone-weary as he, and here he would stay until he rescued his princess and restored her safely to his sovereign’s arms.

With startling suddenness, he wished his own father had never taken it into his head to leave his home and become a soldier to Leontilf, Margrave of Francovia and the Western Shore. That he’d stayed in Cymene, and lived the life of the noble he insisted he’d been.

Trygare kan Ingan hadn’t, and now his son was where he had no wish to be, and none of that mattered and none of it could be changed so why was he bothering his head with it anyway?

Oh, gods! It’s too hot to weary one’s brain with useless thoughts.

With eyes seeming to reflect the sun’s fire, he looked up at that blazing sphere.

This couldn’t be the same sun that shone upon Aljansur. He was sick to death of the heat and the miles and miles of eye-blinding sand-filled nothingness.

By the gods! His brain was baking inside his skull like bread in an oven. He could feel his blood sizzle, the sound loud in his ears.

“This must be what Hell is like,” Riven rasped.

Abruptly and irrationally, he hated them all. Damn Leontilf for being so powerful that others would seek to extort that power from him...damn Aleza for making him love her...damn Mahldimir Djaan-Baih for stealing her away...and above all, damn this burning, barren, alien land.

“Damn, damn, damn them all!”

He didn’t realize he cried his thoughts aloud…

…and then, as if the desert itself were playing a joke on him, teasing and taunting and testing exactly how much he could withstand, he came upon the valley.

It lay quiet in the sunlight, a thin layer of late morning dew still dampening the brush on its upper slopes as the black horse paused with lowered head while his rider surveyed the land below them and the dogs waited at its heels.

There were hoofprints, fairly fresh, which may have been made by those he sought.

If they prove the right ones...he touched the sword tied to the right side of the saddle fork, brushing his fingers across the hilt in a gentle, caressing movement...they’ll get as much mercy from me as they gave my men.

The wind blew the hood away from his face, ruffling the streaked ashen hair lying lank upon his shoulders. Few would have recognized the slumped cape-enshrouded figured, burned, bearded, nearing exhaustion, as the arrogant young soldier who so confidently rode out of Aljansur six months before. Seizing the hood, he pulled it over his head and shaded his eyes with one hand to look over the vast greenness before him.

It was a long and narrow cleft in the earth, scooped out with a giant’s spoon, the slopes dotted with brush and short grass dazzling his sun-abused eyes with pleasure. A slash of shining ribbon ran through it, the Sapphire River, shown on his maps as a spring beginning in the city of AkMadesh and running the length of the continent to Meriga on the coast where it joined the Great Ocean.

One of the weirhounds raised his head and whimpered, standing on long hind legs to rest his forepaws against Riven’s knee. He slid one hand under the heavy metal collar with its spiked iron studs, caressing the gleaming black neck.

“What is it, Ain?”

Ain flicked forward pointed ears and whimpered again.

He talked much to the dogs on his journey, to still his grief, to force his mind not to escape into the shelter madness offered. If he were weaker he would be as babbling as those poor lunatics chained to the cave walls in the hills above Aljansur, seeing worlds only their eyes could behold but at least free of pain and, enviably, guilt. He replaced his dead sword-companions with the animals and spoke to them as if they understood and shared his anger.

Perhaps they did.

Once, in his cups, he’d spoken that thought aloud to Hraeth. “Know this, brother. If I have to choose between a man or a weirhound to fight beside me, I’ll take the dog.”

Now he was going to have a chance to prove whether he spoke in truth or in wine-filled jest.

They’d been given to Riven when he became a Black Shield, as much a part of his weaponry as his sword and his armor, mere pups as he had been a mere boy, all to be trained and shaped. Now they were part of his life and he was never without them. They knew each other. He could trust them. Together, they would find Aleza.

“Aleza...” He spoke her name in a grating whisper.

The whole world’s gone awry since you were taken, beloved. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was being punished somehow.

Briefly, Riven’s anger coiled and twisted, turning back upon himself as though his presence here was none’s fault but his own.

In truth, I defended her with the clumsiness of a novice guard. Damn me, I deserve the wound I suffered.

He had no idea how close he was to the truth.

* * *

The Weaver surveyed her handiwork. Sometimes, she thought with no little surprise, the pattern did not always turn out as she intended. Other wills than hers often dictated the design shaping a Life’s tapestry.

The young disbeliever fared better than she expected.

Seeking his vengeance, he’d traveled from the wave-touched shores of the western kingdom where the Great Ocean roared, had even survived the wrath of the Snow King against those who would invade his frozen territory. Now he rode toward the City of the Sunrise, awakening the fiery wrath of Xham, god of warmth and light, for daring to intrude into Xham’s chosen land. He would go even farther, she was certain…to the ends of the known world, if necessary…to rescue his beloved, held hostage in sun-blessed Izhmir.

Carefully, she threaded the brown and gold threads—earth tones, colors of the sun-touched soil—into the shuttle and positioned it against the loom.

* * *

Riven sighed and gave Ain’s glossy neck a final pat, brushing his hand against the forward-turned ears before ordering the dog down with a gesture.

“Hungry, my brave one?”

I have to find food. My own provisions are almost gone. The water bag was a wrinkled skin hanging against Taj’s shoulder.

He had maps telling of places where food and water were to be found but whoever drew it had been either an enemy of the Crown or a fool, for most of the carefully marked points were now deserted or didn’t exist.

Within the trees and stream there must be game and in this green place surely there were people. He would ride up to a farmhouse and beg for food.

In Francovia I can demand a meal as my due as a Black Shield and the villagers would be honored to supply it though it took their last morsel, but here, I’m a beggar, and an intruder, but I’ll be one. His smile twisted his dry lips, making them burn. I’ll steal from the fields if need be, to keep my anger alive. If I had that bastard’s neck within my fingers now...

Painfully, he clenched his fist. Within his glove, the skin was so tight it felt as if it would split.

Taj shifted his weight and the garments tied upon the cantle of his saddle—Riven’s woolen longshirt, his chain mail, and the tabard bearing Leontilf’s crimson gauntlet, its fingers curled into an unyielding fist—struck together with a soft metal clanging.

“Steady, Taj, we’ve many miles to go yet.” Riven touched the foam-streaked neck.

The ragged strip of cloth ripped from the tail of his tabard was as salt-soaked and stiff as the horse’s mane. The sweat seeping through it stung his eyes and trickled down his temple, following the raised path of the scar on his right cheek.

He’d won that scar stopping a runaway horse. Her horse.

Aleza once swore the day was forever seared into her memory, of Riven’s body being jerked upward into the air as the horse reared, the meaty thud of the iron hoof cutting flesh as blood spattered so heavily it stained the hem of her riding habit.

That pain was nothing to what he now suffered.

“Hear me, gods…if you do exist.” The words were torn from him in anger. “I’ll willingly accept it again to get her back.”

He could feel sweat beading on his skin in huge droplets, plastering hair to his neck, rolling between his shoulder blades to trickle down the small of his back, the thick cloth sticking to his skin.

The body’s tears, the physician had called it. Did his body weep now because of what he forced it to do? If he were weaker, perhaps he too would shed tears.

Riven wiped at the sweat with his forearm. A strip of blistered skin stuck and tore and he knocked it away angrily, adding to the trail of charred flesh stretching from the Snow King’s cliffs to where he now stood.

“Sweet Ildred. Will I shed my entire skin like a snake?” He realized he was close to raving. He forced a lighter note into his voice. For the dogs’ sake, he told himself. “Come, lads. I’ll get us food.”

Touching Taj’s sides with his heels, he started the black horse down the slope.