A King's Bargain Read online

  Bran settled in a chair across from his guest and smiled like they were old friends.

  The house was nothing to look at, he well knew: two rooms large, with a ragged curtain separating them; a small wood stove settled behind him, and a well-used pot and pan, travel-ready, hanging above it. As rain began to patter against the roof, the usual leaks started up in the corners.

  He didn't care to impress folks, not anymore, and this man least of all. But he'd helped his guest over the stoop like a nobleman might usher a lady into his bedroom, and ignored the man's protests that he needed no assistance in a similarly lofty manner.

  Gallantry, he'd often found, suited a liar like a cape fit a king.

  Garin squirmed in the seat next to them, but Bran paid him no mind as he took his glass and threw it back. He sighed as the liquid burned its way down his throat to settle a steady warmth in his gut. "Say what you want about Crazy Ean, but he makes a damn fine whiskey."

  "So says anyone mad enough to try it," Garin muttered.

  Bran grinned at him. "Life is short and dark as it is. May as well brighten it with a few glorious risks."

  The youth shrugged.

  He turned his gaze to the guest again, who hadn't touched his glass. "I know your name, Aelyn, and you know ours. The table is set. Now lay out what you want, or we'll have to settle on beans and roots for dinner."

  Aelyn hadn't removed his hat, but even with his eyes shadowed, they seemed to gleam. "You know what I want. I'm not idly used as a messenger. But I obey my commands."

  He lifted his hand to reveal a small, shining band resting in his palm, then set it on the table. Garin stared at it, mouth open wide. Bran found he was unable to resist looking himself, though he knew its kind well. Not a ring of silver or gold or copper, but milky white crystal, with a steady glow from within its clouded center.

  "What is it?" Garin asked, sounding as if he wished he hadn't spoken but was unable to resist.

  Aelyn didn't answer but kept his steady, orange gaze on Bran, like a raptor on a hare.

  Bran sighed. "It's a Binding Ring. An artifact of oaths that holds the wearer to a promise."

  Garin might be a man grown to the villagers, but he looked a boy at that moment, his eyes wide, his mouth forming a small "o."

  "Like… a magic ring?" the youth ventured.

  "Enough of this!" Aelyn snapped. "Take it and put it on. We must be returning immediately."

  "Off so soon? But you haven't touched your drink."

  The man snorted. "If I wished to poison myself, I have a thousand better ways than that human swill. Don that ring. Now." His fiery eyes slid over to Garin. "Or do you want the boy to know your true name?"

  Bran studied him. A feeling, hard as flint, was starting behind his eyes. A feeling familiar as a distant memory. A feeling he'd hoped to have dug a deep grave and buried in the past. As it rose, a warmth unconnected to the whiskey began coursing through his body. Dread? he mocked himself. Or anticipation?

  He reached a hand forward, finger brushing the crystal. It was warm to the touch. From past experience, he knew it remained warm most of the time. So long as the wearer kept to what he was bound. If he didn't, a mountain peak in winter would be preferable punishment.

  Aelyn's eyes watched. Wary. Waiting.

  Bran scooped up the ring, vaulted across the table, and shouted, "Heshidal bauchdid!"

  The man jerked, then stiffened in his chair, eyes wide with surprise, hat knocked askew. Bran took his moment, snatching one of the smooth hands and slipping the ring over a long finger.

  As Aelyn shivered free of the binding, his mouth stuttered, "Bastard of a pig-blooded whore—!"

  "Quiet down!" Bran shouted over him. "This I bind you to: That you will wear this ring until I am safely back in Hunt's Hollow. That you will tell no one that you wear this ring instead of me. That you will tell no one my true name unless I bid it. And that you won't harm the boy Garin or myself in that time."

  The ring shone brightly for a moment, and Aelyn shuddered, eyes squeezed shut, teeth braced in a grimace. A moment later, the ring dimmed, and Bran released his guest's hand. As he settled into his chair, brushing back the hairs that had worked loose of his tail, his blood began to cool again.

  "Now," he said as he reached for the whiskey bottle, which had fallen over in the struggle, and pulled out the stopper. "You sure you don't want any of this human swill?"

  The man raised his hand and stared at the crystal ring, horror spreading across his face. "She told you, didn't she? She told you my true name."

  Bran poured a glass, then proffered it to the youth, who stared at him as if he were the stranger. "Feeling mad enough yet?"

  Garin took the glass, threw it back, and promptly coughed half of it back up.

  "There you are, Garin, there you are," Bran said, thumping his back. "You'll learn to swallow it all before long."

  The Blade That Rusts

  "This changes nothing," the stranger hissed from across the table.

  Garin stared at him through watering eyes. His stomach swirled and turned like a basket caught in a river, and not only from the whiskey. The ring, those words, and all this business about Bran's "true name"...

  He was beginning to wonder if there were two strangers in the room.

  "To the contrary," Bran said brightly. "This flips the negotiation. Why else would I risk getting blasted across the room?"

  "Your binding — it shouldn't have worked. I wore a charm—" The man called Aelyn pulled back his sleeve, then hissed, "It's gone!"

  Bran held up a hand, and hanging from his finger was a delicate, silver bracelet that looked as if it had been threaded together from fish scales. "You mean this?"

  "When?"

  "Helping you over the threshold. Pays to have a pile of dung in front of your door on rare occasion."

  Aelyn's jaw hung open for a moment, then snapped shut. After a long moment, he spoke, "I am bound to your oath — I won't pretend that I can break free of such an artifact. But you said my binding lasts until we return to this hogwash village — which means you intend to come on my errand."

  "Yes, I did say that." Bran leaned back, hands folded behind his head. "That was the clever bit."

  "I don't see how."

  Bran shrugged. "We can't return to Hunt's Hollow if we never leave, can we?"

  Aelyn's eyes narrowed. "You mean to tell me you plan to stay in this backwater swamp for the rest of your days?"

  Garin finally roused; he didn't know about bindings and magic, but he knew his home. "You don't know what you're talking about. Hunt's Hollow is the finest town east of Halenhol — there's naught a better place to live!"

  He looked at Bran, hoping to find the same fire in his eyes, but he saw only calm consideration.

  Aelyn stared at him like he were a stinkbug in his bed. "Finest, indeed. How many other towns have you been to, boy?"

  Garin could count them on one hand, and he had a feeling that wouldn't impress this strange traveler. "Enough."

  Aelyn raised one thin eyebrow, then looked back at Bran. "So, this is the sort of company you keep these days?"

  "Indeed, it is." Bran hadn't shifted from his easy recline. "After all, it's the finest company east of Halenhol."

  Garin had to grin at that.

  "Enough!" Aelyn snapped. "Enough of this charade! I cannot say your real name, but you know it as well as I do. Is this really where your name ends? Forgotten, a failed chicken farmer in a provincial village, meaning nothing to those he'd fought and cared for?"

  The smile had slipped from Bran's mouth, and his hands came to rest on the table. "Why not?" he asked quietly. "It's where I began."

  Garin blinked, seeing Bran anew. "You were born here?"

  The man stood, not meeting his eyes. "You could say that." He glanced at the visitor. "There's a fine bit of hay in the barn. Day's winding down, and if the patter on the roof is any indication, the rain won't let up soon."

  Aelyn stood, stiff as a board. "Much
as I revile it, I won't leave until you come with me."

  Bran smiled at that, but the joy behind it had dulled. "Then I hope you're not as bad at chicken farming as I am."

  The traveler had run, muttering under his breath, for the barn through the streaking rain, while Bran watched from within his hovel. Garin stood behind him, scuffing his shoes unconsciously until he stopped himself. He was a man, not a boy. High time he started acting like one. He cleared his throat.

  "All that man said," he started. "Aout your 'true name'… what did he mean?"

  Bran remained facing the open door and the rain. "You're a man now, Garin, but still young. You can't know how the past, no matter how much you wish it gone, clings to you no matter where you go. Like a phantom fist clenched around your heart, squeezing and choking when you least expect it. But even still, when you've gone astray, there comes a time when you have to try and separate yourself from it. You have to change who you are."

  Garin couldn't help a little snort escaping him.

  Bran met his gaze now, his lips twisted. "Something amusing?"

  "I may be a young man, but I've seen enough of people to know they don't change, not really. Oh, they put on new faces — sometimes literally, like Aunt Helan with her elven paints. But underneath, they're still the same."

  Bran shook his head and looked back out at the rain. "I hope you're wrong. But I suspect you're not."

  Garin stepped closer. He wasn't sure if it was the whiskey or something else, but his stomach had set to a nervous tumbling, like he was on the verge of something, but didn't yet know what.

  "You said to me earlier that life is short and dull, and you have to find the sparks to light the way. Back there, when you tricked that Aelyn fellow — you were more alive than in the five years I've known you. More… you." He scratched his head. "If that makes any sense."

  "Unfortunately, it does."

  "I don't know you as anyone but Bran. But whoever you were before, I'm guessing those same things are still in you. And I'm guessing you haven't succeeded in cutting away the past."

  Bran studied him in silence for so long Garin started to wonder if he'd gone too far. He'd only known Bran five years, after all, and he had the scars of a soldier and tattoos of wild folk, or hedge mages, or something foreign and strange. He had no idea what he was capable of.

  But the man's lips curled into a familiar, lopsided smile. "You know, you're a lot wiser than I was at your age. But I'm going to guess you're not as wise as you should be."

  Garin frowned. "How's that?"

  "Because when I ask you to leave Hunt's Hollow, I suspect you'll say yes."

  Garin's pulse quickened. He remembered Aelyn's contempt as he boasted about Hunt's Hollow. He could count the number of villages he'd seen on one hand.

  And there was the whole World out there.

  Garin shrugged. "What else could I say?"

  The chicken farmer threw back his head in a laugh. "We'll let our companion stew for a bit first. But I suspect in a few days' time, the easterly winds will blow in more autumn rain and carry three travelers away."

  Garin smiled uncertainly.

  As the mirth left him, Bran eyed Garin. "Go. Think it over carefully. Be sure this is your time. And if it is, be ready to leave at a penny's drop."

  "When?" he asked, hardly believing this was happening, hardly believing he was going along with it.

  "Soon. I'll come for you."

  Bran wiped the rain from his face as he stepped into the barn.

  Orange eyes, like the eyes of a stalking cat, gleamed from the shadows. As if he'd been waiting for his approach, Aelyn stepped forward holding a long object wrapped in a sack. In the fading blue light, Bran could see clumps of dirt still clinging to the cloth.

  "You found it quickly," he observed.

  "It was shallowly buried. Though I can't see what use a chicken farmer would have for a sword."

  The traveler held out the swaddled item, and Bran stepped forward, took it, then stepped quickly back. Aelyn had been ensorcelled not to harm him, but, as his mother had often lectured him, Only a clod-wit trusts a sure thing.

  Aelyn's lips curled in a mocking smile. Even inside the barn, he hadn't taken off his hat.

  "You can remove that now," Bran observed. "Others won't see you in here, though I doubt they'd take offense even if they did. We aren't far from Gladelyl, after all."

  Aelyn flashed a thin smile and ignored him. "I had hoped we would leave sooner rather than later."

  "We'll leave when it's time."

  He scowled, then gestured at the package. "You'll be needing that."

  Bran ignored him, his concentration shifting to the object in his hands. Slowly, he unwound the leather bindings of the package, slipped it free of the sack, then of the oilskin wrappings under. An ornately decorated scabbard rested in his hands, silver-blue script spiraling up the dark leather, slightly blurring before his eyes as he followed their lines. The hilt that protruded from it was plain black steel with a worn leather grip. It was a bastard sword, fitting in one hand, but just long enough for two. The crossguard was straight and short but would catch a blade from sliding down on his hands.

  Velori, he thought, and the blade hummed in response, knowing its name even in his thoughts.

  He placed a hand on its grip, then pulled it free. The sword vibrated as it whispered free of the scabbard; but in Bran's ears, it carried a reverberating ring that sang of glory and honor and fame. The silver steel gleamed even in the dim light as if it couldn't help but gather light to its polished edge.

  But though he heard the glory-song, other murmurs had crept into the sword's hum over the years. Desperate screams. Grunts of hard contests. The song of splattering blood and splintering bone and dying men.

  Bran sheathed the blade again, eyes downcast.

  "You've kept it sharp," Aelyn said. Bran could feel his eyes burning into him. "And not a spot of rust on the steel."

  "We're in the far reaches of civilization, close to the East. Here, the war never ends. Besides, it's said the blade that rusts is borne by a fool."

  "A quotation from one of the famed generals?"

  Bran glanced up. "From myself."

  Aelyn gave him a smile full of biting knowledge. "How humble you are, Magebutcher."

  Bran winced. "I know we're not on the best of terms right now; I'll take the blame for that. And, unfortunately, I've only oath-bound you to not say my true name and not the rest. But if you could not mention those other titles to the boy…"

  Aelyn watched him, the smile remaining. "That depends on your good behavior. But what name do you fear the most, I wonder? Bran the Bastard? The boy fathered by a warlock who seduced his mother and left him to a childhood of loneliness and ridicule? The boy who was forgotten even as he returned as a man?"

  Old wounds, he told himself. But Bran knew better than anyone that old wounds could always pull open and bleed.

  "Or perhaps Red Reaver," the traveler continued. "I think there are many sins attached to that epithet that haunt you still."

  Bran looked sharply at Aelyn then. How much does he know? How much could he? His words came too close to the mark to be randomly thrown.

  Aelyn only smiled wider. "But that evokes the question — why bring the boy? He can only be a hindrance to us and a danger to himself."

  Hoping only he knew the connection between those thoughts, Bran let the sheathed blade fall to his side and kept his voice even. "Better that he's endangered in my care than left here for whatever comes down from the East. The World is a hard place, and these marshlands some of the hardest. The people here have only had five years of peace, and already they forget that."

  "Five years. Strange — that's as long as you've been here, isn't it?"

  Bran smiled despite the horrid memories that came to mind. "I fear they'll remember soon enough. And hopefully, the boy can help them keep the darkness at bay when we return."

  Aelyn held his gaze. "You do not even know why we g
o."

  Bran shook his head. "Not the details. I trust you'll tell me what I need to know along the way. But I know the important thing: when a king gives a command, you do your damndest to comply."

  It was Aelyn's turn to smile. "Best you'd remember that. And remember it's not Bran the Chicken Farmer he's commanding."

  Bran turned away, wrapping the sword in the oilskin again. "I never let my blade rust, did I?"

  Easterly Winds

  The day had never dragged on for so long.

  Garin set down the bucket of slop and leaned against their boundary fence, staring off toward where the sun was setting behind the trees. Next to him, the pigs squealed and jostled each other to knock over the slop bucket and claim their portion of the windfall.

  A chance to travel to Halenhol. To leave Hunt's Hollow, to see the World, to make a name for himself.

  Isn't this the chance I've always dreamed of? he thought. Shouldn't I be excited, ecstatic?

  A breeze rustled his clothes and blew his hair flat against his head. A man wouldn't feel so torn. A man knows his own mind. And, fifteen summers old, wasn't he a man grown?

  He snorted, spat to the side, and watched the squall carry it out of sight behind him.

  "That nearly hit me."

  As his sister leaned on the fence next to him, Garin tried for a smile and fell short. "Shouldn't sneak up on me then."

  Lenora's gaze was calm and placid. Father's calmness, he recognized. In many ways, she was far more like their father than him. He wondered morosely what that said for him as a man.

  Yet as he looked back over to the woods, he couldn't help his thoughts wandering back to all that lay beyond them.

  "You've let the pigs get at the leftover slop."

  "Then they'll fatten quicker."

  "Garin. Look at me."

  Reluctantly, he complied. Her eyes were an unremarkable, flat brown, and her features were, while pretty, a bit plain. Yet something about the way his sister held herself was compelling all the same. No wonder Hunt's Hollow's young men are scrambling for the chance to court her, he thought, and despite the weight on his shoulders, he felt a flush of pride.