Devlin's Justice (6 page)

C
APTAIN
D
RAKKEN TUGGED AT A BLANKET FOLD
that had somehow gotten trapped under her right side. Finally, she managed to straighten the blanket to her satisfaction, but the lumpiness of the mattress seemed to mock her efforts to become comfortable, and with a sigh she rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes.

The banked fire in the grate provided only the faintest illumination, letting her glimpse the forms of dark objects against the slightly lighter walls. But she did not need to see. The room was as familiar to her as her own quarters. She could not count the number of nights that she had spent on that very same cot, in the small room tucked behind her offices in the Guard Hall. It was a place where she could rest when the demands of her schedule caught up with her—catching a few hours’ sleep after days of alternating twelve-hour watches with scant four-hour breaks. Since her youth she had been able to sleep whenever and wherever she found herself, but for once her long training had deserted her.

It was a shocking lapse of discipline in one who had been a guard for over a quarter century. She was no raw recruit, too impatient to sleep on the first night before an engagement. She was Captain Morwenna Drakken, who had chased criminals, faced down assassins, and once challenged an angry mob of looters with only her partner to guard her back. And since becoming Captain, she had survived a hundred tricky council meetings and the worst that her political enemies could throw at her. She knew full well the value of having all her wits about her, and once Devlin arrived it was likely that there would be long days and nights ahead for them both.

Despite that, she could not find it in herself to sleep. Five months ago, Devlin had left Kingsholm on his quest. He had carried all their hopes with them, but now, at long last, he was mere hours from the city. He should arrive sometime today, and if he indeed carried the Sword of Light, his presence would turn the city on its ear.

She was too old to behave so foolishly, she thought, even as she rose from the cot. Crossing over to the fireplace, she stirred up the fire, adding a handful of kindling, then lit a thin scrap that she used to light the lamps.

She opened the narrow wardrobe that held her spare uniform and dressed herself swiftly. Sleep was a lost cause, and if she were to be wakeful, she might as well do something, rather than lying in the dark fretting.

It took only a few moments to make herself ready. Leaving the sleep chamber, she walked through her office, then into the corridor. As she descended the stairs to the ground floor, the watch bells sounded, indicating that it was two hours before dawn.

The sentry outside the office saluted as Captain Drakken drew near, then opened the door. As she stepped inside, Lieutenant Ansgar quickly rose to his feet.

If he was surprised to see his Captain appear in the middle of his shift, Ansgar gave no sign. “Captain, all is well in the city.”

It was the routine report.

“And the gate sentries?”

“They have their orders. They are to report the Chosen One’s arrival at once and offer him any assistance he may require. I will brief the next shift of sentries personally, before they take their posts.”

“Good.”

She had visited the Royal Chapel yesterday at noon, where the glowing soul stone gave proof that Devlin was nearing the city. She had done what she could to prepare for his coming. The guards would inform her when he arrived, though it was likely that Devlin would seek out the King first, to report on the success or failure of his quest. Only then would he be free to seek out his friends.

“I hope this return is calmer than the last,” Drakken mused.

“Captain?” Lieutenant Ansgar’s voice rose in question.

“The last time Devlin returned from a quest, his first act was to challenge Duke Gerhard to a duel. Let us hope this time he receives a warmer welcome.”

“As you say.” Ansgar’s features were once again a blank mask.

The man had no sense of humor, but that was hardly news. Ansgar was nearly an agemate, having joined the guard only two years after Drakken. A stolid, unimaginative man, his years of experience and faultless service had finally elevated him to the rank of sergeant.

Left to her own, she would never have chosen him as one of her lieutenants, but then Hemfrid had been killed by his lover, a man who promptly took his own life. And King Olafur, who had never interfered in the Guard before, took the opportunity to select Ansgar for promotion. It was the King’s way of reminding her that she served at his pleasure and that he was the ultimate authority in Kingsholm.

Drakken, though angry at the usurping of her traditional authority, had not argued against the King’s decision. Seemingly pleased by her acquiescence, the King had thrown her a bone, allowing her to recruit fifty new guards. Placing Ansgar in charge of their recruitment cost her nothing but pride.

The newly expanded Guard was just one of the changes that Devlin would find when he returned to Kingsholm. She wondered what he would make of the presence of the Selvarat delegation and their new military alliance. Time alone would tell.

Satisfied that she had done all she could for the moment, Captain Drakken left Lieutenant Ansgar and the nearly deserted Guard Hall and began an impromptu tour of inspection. As she emerged from the darkness, the sentries at the first guard tower challenged her, barring her path with lowered spears until she gave the night’s password. Only then did they allow her to step forward into the light. Such diligence pleased her, though she knew better than to praise the guards for merely doing their duty.

She climbed the steps to the battlements and made the long circuit around the high walls that enclosed the palace compound. It was a good time for a surprise inspection, as the end of a long shift approached, when fatigue and boredom were likely to have taken their toll. But newcomers and veterans alike proved themselves alert and watchful. One guard greeted Drakken by name, rather than waiting for the challenge and response, thus earning herself a week’s stint of extra duties. But that was a minor failing, and overall Drakken was satisfied by what she found.

The sun had risen by the time she had finished her inspection, and she witnessed the changing of the duty shifts. Then she went down to the courtyard and watched those who were taking part in the morning drills. She paid close attention to the newest recruits. One in particular showed great skill with the sword, while a deceptively slender man had proven himself so apt at unarmed combat that Sergeant Lukas had already made him an instructor.

She watched for over an hour, moving among the ranks of those practicing, paying close attention to the newest members of the Guard. It was not enough to put names with faces. She had to know their skills as well as their weaknesses, though the latter were fewer than she expected. Indeed, for the first time in living memory, most of the new recruits were not raw novices but experienced fighters. The King’s edict had drawn experienced provincial armsmen to the capital, as well as veterans who—for one reason or another—had given up their calling. Caravan guards; soldiers who had quit the army after their ten years only to find that the world outside was a hard place for someone without a trade; even a sailor who had lost his taste for the sea. Captain Drakken had been allowed to recruit from among them before the rest were evaluated by Marshal Olvarrson’s command, and those who measured up assigned to one of the newly formed squads sent up to reinforce the Nerikaat border.

Recruiting experienced fighters meant that she did not have to waste months training these newcomers to tell one end of the sword from another. But fighting skills alone were not enough to make one a guard. Enforcing the law and keeping the peace in the city was a skill that only time could teach, and each newcomer was always paired with an experienced guard while on duty.

Perhaps sensing her restless energy, Sergeant Lukas invited Captain Drakken to help demonstrate the correct techniques to use when a guard with a short sword found himself facing an opponent with a long sword. She stripped off her tunic, and after a few preliminary stretches to warm her muscles, accepted a short sword and faced off against Sergeant Henrik.

Their first bout was done in slow time, each move executed to the beat of a drum that Lukas used to keep time. Years of training paid off as she and Henrik held each position for several heartbeats, while Lukas provided a running commentary. Only the most disciplined of fighters could demonstrate in this mode, for it required both extraordinary muscle strength and the control to execute each move precisely on the beat.

The second bout was done at half time. Still slow enough that even an inexperienced eye could follow their movements, but less of a strain to muscles, and Lukas’s commentary was more rapid, simply naming the moves. “Spin. Low feint. High. Block, retreat. Lunge.”

By design, that bout too ended in a draw. They repeated the exercise, with Drakken wielding the long sword while Henrik held the short sword of a guard.

Drakken rolled each shoulder in turn, stretching the arm muscles that had grown taut. Henrik did the same, and then he grinned at her.

“Quick time?” he asked.

“Why not?” It had been far too long since she practiced against a skilled opponent.

“Everyone rise and take two paces back,” Lukas ordered, and the circle of students around them widened, giving them room to fight.

She and Henrik raised their swords in salute. His sword was only partly lowered, as Henrik lunged forward, seeking to strike the first blow. Drakken had been expecting such a move, and she danced away to her left. She slashed his right arm with a blow that would have drawn blood if the sword had been steel, but after a short exchange of parries, it was Henrik whose sword point rested on her abdomen.

“Hold,” she called, acknowledging the hit.

Henrik froze, and then withdrew his sword. She nodded, in acknowledgment of his victory, then turned in a slow circle, looking at the students. A few of them appeared appreciative, but most appeared stunned, for the match had taken less than a hundred heartbeats.

“What did I do wrong?” she asked.

There was no answer.

“Anyone?”

One of the new recruits raised his hand, and she nodded at him to speak.

“You won the match,” the recruit insisted. “If your sword had been steel, your first strike would have disabled Henrik’s sword arm. He would have dropped his sword.”

“Mayhap,” she conceded. “But maybe no. Henrik is a tough fighter. He would be bloodied, yes, but he judged the blow glancing, true?”

“Yes, Captain,” Henrik confirmed. “Though I’ll have a bruise to show for my troubles.”

In such a practice match it was up to each participant to determine whether or not he or she had received a disabling wound. Younger fighters would often overestimate their endurance and refuse to concede that they had been injured in a practice match; but she knew Henrik well enough to know that he was an honorable opponent. She had known from the moment she struck that it was a mere slash, and Henrik had agreed with her.

“So, again, what did I do wrong?”

“You were focused on a high strike, and let Henrik get under your guard,” Oluva said, after glancing around and seeing that no one else was willing to say what should have been obvious.

Captain Drakken nodded. “Precisely. I was thinking as a duelist. A short sword lacks range, but it is more maneuverable than a long sword. I’d deliberately left an opening for Henrik to take a high strike hoping to disarm him, but he ignored the trap and went for a gut strike instead.”

And if they had been fighting with steel swords, she would have been mortally wounded. Henrik would not have escaped unscathed, but he would have lived to fight another day.

“Let us try this again,” Drakken said.

She handily won the next bout, and in the third she managed to disarm Henrik using a move she had learned from a Selvarat officer. She demonstrated the move twice in slow time, and then demonstrated how to counter it.

Mopping the sweat from her face with a towel, she watched for a few moments as Lukas lined the guards up in two rows facing each other and had them practice the maneuver they had just seen. Then, with a final word to Lukas, she took her leave.

She had done well, she reflected, holding her own against a fighter who was barely half her age. Her aching ribs and the rising bruise on the back of her thigh proved that Henrik had not held any of his blows out of respect for her rank or age.

The bells chimed the noon hour as Captain Drakken left the courtyard, intending to return to the Guard Hall to wash up and make herself presentable in case the King summoned his council to hear Devlin’s report. As she reached the hall, she saw Solveig of Esker descending the steps.

“Captain Drakken, what good fortune. I was just looking for you,” Solveig said.

“How may I serve?” Captain Drakken asked. In public they maintained the facade that she and Solveig were mere acquaintances, and Captain Drakken was careful to treat Solveig with the formal respect due to one who would someday hold the title of Baroness. Only a trusted few knew that Solveig and Drakken were both among the inner circle of Devlin’s advisors.

Solveig waited until Captain Drakken had caught up to her. “What news of Devlin and his quest?” she asked, in low tones. “I expected him to wait upon the King, but was surprised that not even my own brother saw fit to bring me news.”

So she was not the only one who had grown impatient.

“There is no news yet, though I expect to hear of his arrival shortly. And I am certain Stephen will seek you out as soon as he may.”

Solveig’s eyes widened, and she clutched Drakken’s forearm. “But you are mistaken. Devlin is already in the city. He returned last night.”

Drakken swallowed hard. “Come,” she ordered, leading the way up the stairs into the Guard Hall. She did not speak another word until they had reached the sanctity of her own office and shut the door firmly behind them.

“What do you mean Devlin has returned?”