I
AMBROSE

"The King is coming!" The excited cry rang out over the sun-bright moorland and was picked up at once by a half-dozen other shrill trebles and a couple of wavering baritones. Alarmed horses tossed heads and kicked up heels. The cavalcade on the Blackwater Road was still very far off, but sharp young eyes could make out the blue livery of the Royal Guard, or so their owners claimed. In any case, a troop of twenty or thirty men riding across Starkmoor could be no one but the Guard escorting the King to Ironhall. At last! It had been more than half a year.

"The King is coming! The King is coming!"

"Silence!" shouted Master of Horse. The sopranos' riding classes always teetered close to chaos, and this one was now hopeless. "Go and tell the Hall. First man in is excused stable duties for a month. On my signal. Get ready—"

He was speaking to the wind. His charges were already streaming over the heather toward the lonely cluster of black buildings that housed the finest school of swordsmanship in the known world. He watched to see who fell off, who was merely hanging on, who was in control. It was unkind to treat horses so, especially the aging, down-at-heel nags assigned to beginners; but his job was to turn out first-class riders. In a very few years those boys must be skilled enough and fearless enough to keep up with anyone, even the King himself—and when Ambrose IV went hunting he usually left a trail of stunned and mangled courtiers in the hedges and ditches.

There went one…and another…Ouch!—a bad one. No matter, young bones could be repaired by conjuration and the mounts seemed to be surviving. Unrepentant, Master of Horse rode forward to rescue the casualties. On this blustery spring afternoon in the year 357, the moor had masked its ancient menace behind a deceptive glow of friendship, soft and green and smelling of clover. The sky was unbelievably blue. Broom was bursting into yellow glory. There could be few things finer in all creation than having a reasonably good mount and an excuse to ride it flat out. As the race faded into the distance, he could see that the piebald mare was going to win, thanks more to her own abilities than the skills of her rider, Candidate Bandit.

Ten minutes after the sighting, the winner thundered in through the gate and yelled out the news to the first people he saw, who happened to be a group of fuzzies engaged in rapier drill. "The King is coming!"

In seconds the word was everywhere, or almost everywhere. The candidates—sopranos, beansprouts, beardless, fuzzies, and especially the exalted seniors who wore swords—all reacted with indrawn breath and sudden internal tenseness, but even the instructors narrowed their eyes and pursed their lips. The Masters of Sabers and Rapiers heard it on the fencing ground, Master Armorer in the Forge. Master of Rituals got the word in a turret room, where he was studying arcane spells, and Master of Archives in a cellar, where he was packing ancient records into fireproof chests. All of them paused to ponder what else they need do to prepare for a royal visit. The answer, in all cases, was absolutely nothing. They were more than ready, because it had been seven months since Ambrose had come to the school. In all that time, only one candidate had been promoted to Blade. The question now—of especial interest to the seniors—was: How many would the King harvest this time?

The lowest of the low was the Brat, who was thirteen years old and had been admitted to Ironhall only two days previously. On the theory that a man can get used to anything, he had concluded that this must be the third worst day of his life. Down on his knees, he was attempting to wash the main courtyard with a bucket of water and a small rag—an impossible task that had been assigned to him by a couple of beansprouts because trying to drive the Brat crazy was the juniors' traditional pastime. Having all survived Brat-hood themselves, they felt justified in giving what they had received. Few of them ever realized that they were being tested just as much as the Brat was and would be expelled if they displayed any real sadism.

An elderly knight passing by when the shout went up told the Brat to run and inform Grand Master. Grand Master was the highest of the high, but the Brat felt comfortable near him, safe from persecution. Grand Master did not dunk him in a water trough or make him stand on a table and sing lewd songs.

The old man was in his study, going over accounts with the Bursar. He displayed no emotion at the news. "Thank you," he said. "Wait, though. Bursar, can we continue this another time?" Then, as the other man was gathering up his ledgers, he turned back to the Brat and absolutely ruined his third worst day. "His Majesty will undoubtedly bind some of the seniors tomorrow night. You have heard of the ritual?"

"He sticks a sword through their hearts?" the Brat said uneasily. It was a sick-making thought, because one day it would happen to him.

"Yes, he does. It is a very potent conjuration to turn them into Blades. Don't worry, they always survive." Almost always. "But you will have a part in the ritual."

"Me?" the Brat squawked. Conjury? With the King present? That was worse than a hundred water troughs, a thousand….

"Yes, you. You have three lines to say and you lay the candidate's sword on the anvil. Go and find Master of Rituals and he will instruct you. No, wait. First find Prime and make sure he knows about the King." Prime, after all, must have more interest in the royal visit than any other candidate, for his fate was certain now. Whoever else the King took, Prime would be first. "He'll be in the library."

Regrettably, Grand Master was wrong. The seniors were not in the library that afternoon. The Brat had not yet learned his way around the school and was too unsure of himself to ask for help, so he never did deliver the message. By the time Raider heard of the King's approach, the royal procession was at the gates and escape had become impossible.

Copyright © 1999 by Dave Duncan