Crusade Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright ©2018 by Daniel M. Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission of the publisher or author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ford, Daniel M., 1978- author.

  Title: Crusade / Daniel M. Ford.

  Description: Santa Fe, NM : SFWP, [2018] | Series: The Paladin trilogy ; book 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017059142 (print) | LCCN 2018001072 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781939650771 (epub) | ISBN 9781939650788 (mobi) |

  ISBN 9781939650764 (e-pdf) | ISBN 9781939650757 (softcover : acid-free paper)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3606.O728 (ebook) | LCC PS3606.O728 C78 2018 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059142

  Published by SFWP

  369 Montezuma Ave. #350

  Santa Fe, NM 87501

  (505) 428-9045

  www.sfwp.com

  Find the author at www.danielmford.com

  To Lara,

  For more reasons than there are words in this book.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Reunions and Reconciliations

  Chapter 2: Horseflesh and Attachment

  Chapter 3: Negotiations

  Chapter 4: Asking Questions

  Chapter 5: Power in the Shadows

  Chapter 6: The Rules of Battle

  Chapter 7: Graves

  Chapter 8: Volunteers

  Chapter 9: Enemies No More

  Chapter 10: Rest and Foundation

  Chapter 11: A Crusade for Peace

  Chapter 12: Interlude

  Chapter 13: Squirehood

  Chapter 14: A Conspiracy

  Chapter 15: Harrys’s Choice

  Chapter 16: Shadow’s Work

  Chapter 17: Theory

  Chapter 18: Snow Melting on the Green

  Chapter 19: The Peddler and the Bard

  Chapter 20: Spring Departures

  Chapter 21: Interlude

  Chapter 22: A Little Faith

  Chapter 23: Partings and Blessings

  Chapter 24: The Vineyards

  Chapter 25: The Shape of Things

  Chapter 26: To Save the World

  Chapter 27: Meetings

  Chapter 28: A Fight Before the Dunes

  Chapter 29: The Order of the Arm

  Chapter 30: The Will and the Mother

  Chapter 31: Visions

  Chapter 32: Letters

  Chapter 33: Banners and Pigeons

  Chapter 34: The Order and the Islandmen

  Chapter 35: The Barrier

  Chapter 36: Dragon Scales No More

  Chapter 37: The Congress

  Chapter 38: Limits

  Chapter 39: Legacy

  Chapter 40: Baron Oyrwyn

  Chapter 41: The Miracle Has Found You

  Chapter 42: Maps

  Chapter 43: Messages

  Chapter 44: The Flower and the Spear

  Chapter 45: Foraging Parties

  Chapter 46: Counsel and Revelation

  Chapter 47: Interlude

  Chapter 48: Any Burden

  Chapter 49: Ill-Suited Spears

  Chapter 50: Eyes and Sight

  Chapter 51: Faith in the Road

  Chapter 52: Battle Joined

  Chapter 53: The Ocean’s Rage

  Chapter 54: Hammer of the Sun

  Chapter 55: The Will and the Eldest

  Chapter 56: The Mother’s Peace

  “In Keersvast and the Concordat, we think of the Barony folk habit of swearing by an afterlife of torment known as ‘the Cold’ to be a barbaric and superstitious notion. That opinion is shared only by those who have never, in fact, experienced a winter in the Baronies or beyond.”

  — an excerpt from A Bard Abroad,

  by Andus Carek

  Prologue

  The winter sky over Londray and its icy harbor was hard and bright. Not quite gray, not quite white, and certainly not blue, it lacked sun and clouds both. On this particular day, it looked, some might say, like it felt.

  Cold.

  No snow fell, which was a small blessing. But the cold was felt by everyone, from the fur-robed lordlings at lessons in tower rooms studded with braziers, to their tutors, the priests of Braech and Fortune who fumbled at their books with gloved hands. It was felt by the greenhats who patrolled the city streets and walls, huddled under fur mantles and carrying horns full of coals as close to their skin as they dared. It was felt by shop-boys running errands, taking orders, or making deliveries for their masters, who ran as fast as they could in as many layers of clothing as they could stand.

  The boys who hoped to be taken into a trade in the spring prayed, as they did every winter, to be taken by bakers, blacksmiths, or cooks, who were said to be the only folk who stayed warm in winter.

  The fishermen, boats docked and tied for the winter, huddled in shacks, burned whatever fuel they could afford, and tried to move enough warmth into their fingers to mend nets and splice lines, or carve trinkets for sale from likely pieces of bone they’d collected throughout the other seasons.

  The men and women who haunted the streets felt it the worst. But then, they felt everything the worst. And there were more of them in the wake of the riots and the unrest that had gripped the city in the short weeks of fall.

  One such man, who felt a certain burden of guilt over those riots, still couldn’t contain the energy that sent him knocking around the walls of Londray.

  Though he felt the cold, felt it sear his lungs with every breath he drew, it was nothing compared to the fear that clutched at his chest while he wandered his city’s streets with a much slighter limp than he’d once had.

  It was nearly a month since Baron Delondeur himself had ridden out of Londray at the head of a small army. He had lurked by the gates then, along with other wounded veterans, clutching their usual signs and bowls.

  Even a man with the legendary, fearless flair of Lionel Delondeur didn’t go to war in the midst of winter, on the cusp of The Longest Night.

  Tibult had kept his head down when the Baron’s natural son had taken over, kept it down further when the Baron’s daughter had sailed back from Keersvast just before the harbor would face the real danger of freezing over. Once it did that, no one sailed in or out without paying hefty considerations to Braech’s clergy. There’d been a lot of fighting then, between the greybands who followed Chaddin, the Delondeur bastard, and those loyal to Landen. Landen—with sorcerous aid, some said—had made quick work of the pretender, freed her father, and restored him to the seat.

  When that happened, Tibult cursed himself for not having left before the winter settled in. And it was leaving he meant to do.

  Somewhere out there in Barony Delondeur, in a village he’d never heard of till the autumn past, on the wrong side of the Thasryach and hard against the Oyrwyn border, there was a man who could finish what he’d started when it came to Tibult’s leg.

  A paladin.

  Tibult had spent the fall and the early winter telling anyone who would listen about what had happened, what he’d felt, a
nd where he meant to go as soon as the snows melted.

  Winter would put up a long fight, he knew. It always did. Snow could blanket the valleys and the plains, not to mention the mountains, for months at a time, and when it would start and stop was anyone’s guess, which was why the lords and Barons tried to end their campaigns soon after autumn came.

  Which made Lionel Delondeur’s move at the onset of deep winter all the more puzzling, and all the more frightening. So Tibult, along with a lot of other lamed soldiers-turned-beggars, had gone to watch the army march off.

  Soldiers, more than other folk, could be counted on to drop links or food or even a blanket or a wineskin now and then.

  They could also be counted on to gossip.

  This lot, as Tibult had watched them, had done plenty of the latter but little of the former. They were, he realized while they marched out boasting and singing, not veteran men. They were the sons of merchants and tradesmen and sailors playing at soldiering after a pitiful fortnight’s training.

  But there were still three hundred of them, and they were still headed to the place Tibult had most wanted to be, according to how they gossiped.

  Thornhurst.

  It had almost been enough to drive him back to despair. Almost enough to make him waste the weight he’d hoarded on bottles of spirits, enough to send him reeling off down a pier.

  Three hundred unblooded boys still made it three hundred to one, as far as Tibult knew. Three hundred to three if he counted the dwarf and the woman who saved him when he’d tried to give himself to the bay.

  She should count, he had chastised himself. Probably twice.

  So he’d held on to some shred of hope. Of faith. Why, he couldn’t have said. It was more than just the shred of healing that had gone to his leg. It was the thing he couldn’t name that lay behind the healing. Something vast and powerful and loving, that saw him and all his faults and failings and offered him love in spite—or because—of them.

  So now, nearly a fortnight after the Baron had marched off, he found himself inside a veteran’s tavern, drawn up close around a mug of wine, cheap and hot, and wincing as a heavy hand pounded his shoulder with a mix of soldierly affection and real force.

  “You still hangin’ on to that Freezin’ story o’ yers?”

  Tibult looked up into the face of the newcomer. He had the shoulders of a blacksmith and looked healthy to Tibult’s eyes, but he carried a sign and a bowl like the rest of them. Tibult had never figured out why.

  “Aye, Mattar, I am.”

  “Well,” Mattar said, dropping heavily onto the bench next to Tibult, “if yer man was ever out at this Thornhurst, he’s gone t’the Cold by now.”

  “We’ve all gone t’the Cold,” muttered a figure seated across the table, tugging at old brown bandages that covered half her face. Mottled white flesh, burned and twisted, descended her neck.

  “Don’t mind Teague,” Tibult muttered. “And I don’t b’lieve ya, Mattar. I just can’t.”

  “Well I don’t believe you either, Tibult,” the big man replied with a laugh, which he followed by smacking the table and calling for wine.

  “I walk more easily than I have since I took my wound.”

  “Since a horse sat on ya, ya mean?”

  “The horse had its leg broke by a mace, Mattar,” Tibult replied. “It were a good horse, fast and strong and eager t’please. I never even got t’name him. Deserved better than dyin’ the way it did.” The heat in Tibult’s answer surprised even him. He’d found that with the edge of his pain taken away by the paladin, he had more time and energy to think on things like that, to remember that he once had thoughts.

  Mattar slurped his wine noisily. “Could be ya just started t’get better. S’been known t’happen.”

  “I know what I saw and felt,” Tibult replied. He sought out his wine cup and had a deep drink. He didn’t want to say much more about that night, the riots, the woman who’d gotten him to start them. “I have t’think it took more’n a few score unblooded shop-boys to do for a paladin.”

  “There were two, three hundred of ‘em, and a number o’knights who wanted to show their loyalty to Delondeur, given it had just been in question, as it were. He had the Long Knives with him too,” Mattar added. “Those boys’ll slit anything’s throat, and then have its purse empty before the body hits the ground.”

  Tibult threw back the rest of his wine and pushed himself to his feet. Moving too fast still put an ache in his hip, but he didn’t care. He wanted away from Mattar’s nagging voice of doubt.

  Mattar stood up with him, frowning. “Look, Tibult,” he said, “I don’t mean anythin’ by it. Brother o’Battle and all that,” he added, fumbling in his belt for links. “Let me buy.”

  Tibult had just reached the door then, and made to open it, when it swung open of its own accord. A man he didn’t recognize had thrown it open. “To the nearest crier’s stand,” the man yelled. “They’ve news of the Baron and a battle!”

  Just as quickly as he’d come the man disappeared, leaving a stunned tavern crowd in its wake.

  There was a moment of pause, then, as one, they surged for the door, none faster than Tibult.

  * * *

  By the time they’d reached the stand, the crier had already mounted. Silence but for the swirling of the wind reigned as the speaker, a corpulent figure made more so by heavy layers of fur, drew in his breath from the same searing cold as the rest of them.

  “The Baron Lionel Delondeur,” he proclaimed, “the fifteenth Baron of his line, Elf-Friend, Giantsbane, who defeated the Island Alliance, Conqueror of Barony Tarynth…” The crier drew the pause out, gathering more wind into his fat red cheeks. “Is. DEAD.”

  The mound of fur-clad crier held up an unrolled scroll, blue ribbons dangling from it. “This news is confirmed for us by the Temple of Braech,” he went on. “That the Baron was most foully murdered by a renegade Oyrwyn lord.”

  The crier’s voice was cut off by a shout, as another, younger man pushed himself to the platform, much to the shock and consternation of the fat crier. “I have it from Fortune,” the man yelled, holding up a similar scroll bound in white cloth. “The Baron was not murdered! He fell in single combat against a paladin!” He put a great deal of shout into the last word. “One Allystaire Stillbright, resident of the Delondeur village of Thornhurst.” The man thrust his scroll into the air. “What’s more, the paladin holds both the Lady Heir Landen Delondeur and the Baron’s natural son, Chaddin, as hostages!”

  “As prisoners,” the fat man yelled back. “To be tortured!”

  “That’s a Freezing lie,” the younger crier said.

  Their voices dissolved into a babble that Tibult couldn’t be bothered listening to; he turned to the crowd that had followed him out from the tavern. Mattar stared at him, hard, wide-eyed.

  With a snap to his voice, Tibult said, “I’m leavin’ as soon as there’s a break in the cold. Mayhap before. Any man wants to come wi’ me is welcome, no matter what his hurt. I’ll do my best t’get him there. You with me?”

  Mattar extended a hand. “Aye. I’m with ya. Brother of Battle?”

  Tibult thought on it as he shook Mattar’s hand. “Let’s try to be brothers o’ somethin’ better than that.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Reunions and Reconciliations

  “Audreyn?”

  Allystaire’s half-gasped word hung in the air a moment, while he and his sister stared at one another. He braced himself as if for a fight.

  She flung her arms around his neck. After a moment of dumbfounded stillness, he wrapped his arms around her back as hesitantly and carefully as he could.

  Behind him on the stairs, he heard Idgen Marte snort. “It’s been nine days. Pretty sure the Mother’s strength is gone, Allystaire. You needn’t worry about crushing everything you touch.”

  He laughed at hi
mself and wrapped his arms around his sister for a moment, inhaling the scent she wore, expensive but subtle. It reminded him of different times, halls full of knights and ladies in fur-lined silk. He stepped back, rooting himself back in the present: a drafty stone-walled Inn full of folk dressed in leather and wool.

  Allystaire opened his mouth to begin asking the questions that filled his mind. His voice was halting, his throat dry, and Audreyn was faster.

  “You look like the Cold incarnate, brother,” she said, studying his face with eyes that were a match for his, dark blue, unlikely to miss much. “Or at the very least like one who has been detained there for some time.”

  Allystaire’s thoughts turned to the more immediate past. To the Goddess. Lying on some silken bed straight out of a minstrel’s song, broken and defeated. Dead. Believing he had failed, when he saw the Goddess weep, only to be granted the vision of Gideon defeating the sorcerers, and cleansing the skies over Thornhurst of its unnatural darkness.

  “For once,” he said, his voice still an uncharacteristically slight croak, “I do not feel it.” He placed a hand on Audreyn’s hand and said, “A moment, sister.” He turned to the table at which Gideon, Torvul, and Mol sat. The boy watched him quietly, his brown eyes as wide and knowing as ever. The dwarf smoked and grinned, his bald pate gleaming in the light of the lantern he’d hung over the table, the smoke of his huge covered pipe curling up into the darkness above them in widening rings.

  “Gideon,” he said, waving a hand. “Come here, please.” The boy stood up. He was not tall for his age, which Allystaire guessed to be roughly thirteen summers, was built slightly, had a light tan shade to his skin, and his scalp was shaved more cleanly even than Torvul’s. As the lad approached, hesitantly, Allystaire took a step towards him and wrapped one arm around the boy’s shoulder, surprising him with the force of the embrace.

  I am sorry. The boy’s voice sounded in Allystaire’s head. I almost cost us everything with my—

  “Hush,” Allystaire said aloud. “You saved us. I thought I had failed you, Gideon. I thought I had lost you.”

  The boy was silent, his face impassive. For a moment, though, his thin arms clung as tightly to Allystaire as Allystaire did to him. Then he stepped away, casting his eyes to the ground, and adjusting the robe he wore self-consciously.