Dawn of Swords (11 page)

Patrick cocked his head and stared at the weapon. From what he could tell, Winterbone was the only sword that existed in all of Ashhur’s Paradise. There was simply no practical need for swords. But
Patrick
needed Winterbone. His possession of the massive blade impressed many of the ladies who would have normally offered him looks of disgust. They were drawn in by the long and slender cutting edge, the golden pommel cast to look like a femur, and the strange, reflective crystal that jutted from the base of the handle. Possession of the blade made him attractive when he was by all rights ugly, made him interesting when he was anything but.

He drew the sword from its scabbard and lifted it. Crian had been correct; the blade never dulled. It whistled through the air with even the gentlest of movements. At over four feet long, it was a heavy sword. Even with his oversized shoulders, Patrick had a difficult time keeping it steady. He braced his feet apart, unbalanced given the unevenness of his legs, and a familiar shooting pain charged up his mangled spine. He pushed himself through it, flinging his free arm out wide and gradually bringing his sword arm up, flexing his muscles to steady them both. He held Winterbone parallel to the ground, its tip aimed at the mirror that mocked him from across the room.

There was a knock at his bedroom door, and Patrick’s first thought was that Brittany had forgotten something and returned.

“Come in,” he shouted, keeping his pose even though his right arm began to tremble. Perhaps this show of strength, holding a two-handed broadsword out straight with one hand, might impress her.

“Patrick, put your clothes on.”

His concentration broken, his sword arm faltered, sending agony into his forearm, and the blade came crashing down. He leapt out
of the way on his too small feet just as the cutting edge swung close to his toes. Winterbone rattled against the stone floor. Shaking his hand, he turned toward the door. His sister Cara stood there, hands on her hips. A single streak of gray weaved its way through her strawberry-colored hair, taunting him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“You almost cut off your toe.”

Patrick grabbed a pair of pants from atop his bureau and sat down on the bed to pull them on. “I was
fine
,” he mumbled.

Cara gestured to his bed and the mussed sheets atop it. “Your guest seemed nice,” she said.

“She was.”

“She left in a hurry.”

“They always do.”

“Oh. That’s a shame.”

Patrick slapped his knees and glared at his sister. “Do you have a reason for being here, Cara?”

His sister frowned. “Mother wants to see you in the atrium.”

“Now?”

She nodded.

“Fantastic.”

Cara slipped out the doorway without another word, leaving Patrick alone with his guilt. He knew his sister cared for him—all of his sisters did. But Patrick had long tired of their constant attention. They treated him like he was a child, despite the fact that he was the second oldest of their parents’ children and a ripe old sixty-five. Despite their love, he knew only Nessa saw him as an equal. And if he was being honest with himself, he often believed himself inferior to the others as well.

He picked up Winterbone with care and slid the sword back into its scabbard, then stepped out into the candlelit hallway. The corridor of Manse DuTaureau, the bastion of House DuTaureau,
was so long that when he was younger, he used to pretend it could stretch across the Rigon and into the land of Karak. Soft rugs sewn by the elder women from the first generation decorated the hall. They tickled the bottoms of his bare feet with their swooping lines and giant ovals colored red, green, and gold. He passed bedroom after empty bedroom before seeing soft flickering light from Nessa’s billet. He stopped at her doorway, looking in on her. The youngest DuTaureau was huddled in the corner at her desk, her back to him, scribbling away on a piece of parchment. He thought about asking her to join him, but decided against it.

He threw open the double doors to the atrium and limped inside. His eyes widened when he took in the fact that the rest of his family was gathered inside. His mother sat in her large chair by the window, her eyes fixed on the scroll in her lap, as his father crouched on the floor in front of her, rubbing her feet. Cara stood behind her mother, directing an unsure glance in Patrick’s direction, and Brigid and Keela, two of his younger sisters, played blocks with Patrick’s nephews. Besides Nessa, the only sibling missing was Abigail, who lived with her husband, Turock Escheton, in a northern village where the western half of the Gods’ Road reached its end.

The window behind his mother was open, and a hawk was perched before it. The bird’s crest had been plucked of feathers and a red stripe had been painted on its pale flesh, identifying the creature as a herald from Safeway.

“Someone sent a bird,” Patrick said, uncomfortable with the hushed gathering.

“Someone did,” replied his mother.

Isabel and Richard DuTaureau turned their attention to him. His parents were shockingly similar in appearance, both of them possessing the same fiery red hair and willowy frame. They also shared high cheekbones, slender jaw lines, slightly upturned noses,
and a spattering of starburst-like speckles on their faces. The braver commoners whispered that Isabel had fallen in love with her own image so that when Ashhur granted her the power to create her lifetime companion, she had made him look just like herself. There were even those in Mordeina who whispered that Isabel’s act of vanity had been the cause of Patrick’s deformity. Patrick wasn’t sure if the story had any truth to it, but it seemed odd that he would be the one singled out and not his sisters, who were all near perfect replicas of their mother and father. Still, he had never explored the matter or asked Ashhur about it. Honestly, he didn’t want to experience the pain that would come with knowing the truth, whatever that truth might be.

“I assume the message is for me?” he asked.

“It is,” said Isabel.

Richard backed up a few paces, allowing his wife and matriarch the space to rise from her chair. She approached her son and handed him the bowed scroll. He took it in his knobby fingers and flattened it against the wall.

“It’s from Jacob,” he said, his eyes flashing over the tight scrawl of the First Man of Dezrel. “He’s heading north, passing by Mordeina to go on a scouting mission to the Tinderlands. It seems—”

“I know what is in the letter,” said Isabel abruptly.

“So you’ve read it? It is good to know my privacy means so much to you.”

“This is no laughing matter, Patrick. An army of Karak attacked the township of Haven, killing Martin Harrow. You remember Martin, correct? The youth Judarius chose as a kingling? Jacob wants you to ride to the delta in the hopes that you can convince Deacon Coldmine to tear down his temple. Apparently, he sees more use in you than I do.”

Patrick leaned his head back as far as it would go, so that it was resting against the bulge of his humped back. It was a gesture of frustration that he had perfected since childhood.

“Thank you for saving me the trouble of actually
reading
the note addressed to me.”

His mother’s expression didn’t change. It rarely did. The only time that look of stern consternation dropped from her face was when she was staring at her husband. He thought again of the story of his parents’ creation, and shuddered.

“This is important, Patrick. I am trying to make you understand that.”

“I understood it when I read
This is important
, spelled out right here. Look.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“No. Don’t mock
me
.”

Isabel fixed him with a venomous stare. His father averted his eyes, avoiding any involvement in the scene. Unlike Patrick’s sisters, his mother had never doted on him. She’d acted like he was a burden for as long as he could remember. It struck him as humorous, in a very sad way, that a timeless woman who preached Ashhur’s sermons of love and forgiveness should treat her own child with such coldness. But at least coldness was
something
. His father hadn’t spoken to him in over a decade, even though they lived beneath the same roof. It was as if, in Richard’s eyes, it would be better if Patrick didn’t exist.

Without another word, Isabel returned to her position in the straight-backed chair. Her husband started rubbing her feet again, and she picked up her knitting from beneath the dais and began clicking away with her needles. Patrick rolled his eyes at them both. Apparently their business with him was done.

“What I want to know,” he said, his voice dripping with irritation, “is why Jacob doesn’t go there himself. It’s only a three-day journey to the Tinderlands from here. If I write him and ask what he’s seeking, I would be more than happy to look for it myself. As it is, we will likely pass each other on the way, which seems impractical.”

“Jacob speaks for Ashhur,” his mother said without lifting her head from her knitting. “Do not question the orders of your god.”

“But, Mother, if—”

“Enough. The decision is made. Leave us.”

“Fine.”

Patrick wheeled around and stumbled out of the atrium. Brigid and Keela moved to follow him, their faces awash with pity, but he brushed away their consoling hands. He heard the sound of Cara weeping softly behind him, followed by his mother’s scolding. Disgust roiled in his midsection, and it struck him that only a few minutes earlier there had been something much more pleasant churning down there. He wished Brittany were still around. Another roll with the young temptress would have done wonders for his morale.

He slammed the double doors of the atrium shut behind him. When he turned, he was startled to see Nessa, her hands clenched just below her mouth. She had been listening in at the door. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping into the collar of the heavy white nightdress she wore. Her strawberry hair was a tangled mess. Though she was over thirty, she still looked like the same innocent babe she’d been when she was but a teen. Even her stature, shortest of the DuTaureaus, hinted at incredible youth. It seemed as though Nessa’s development had been irrevocably arrested in almost every way.

“I’m sorry, Patrick,” she whispered, throwing herself into his arms.

Patrick huffed when she rammed her head into his chest. He embraced her, feeling her warmth. When he leaned her back and kissed her cheek, he could taste the salt of her tears.

“It’s all right, Ness,” he whispered. “I’m used to it by now.”

“But why is Mother so
mean
?”

He shrugged. “Guess she doesn’t like having a monster for a son.”

She punched him in the shoulder. He was surprised by how much it hurt.

“You’re not a monster.”

Patrick laughed. “So you keep telling me, sister. You almost make me believe it.”

He blew out the candles closest to the atrium door and, throwing one huge arm over his sister, escorted her down the hall.

“You know,” he said, “we should run off together. You and I. You with your shortness, me with my freakishness—we could take the south by storm. Maybe in Karak’s lands we could establish ourselves a career as performers. We could learn about money, and how quickly it vanishes. It could be fun!”

Nessa passed him a hopeful look. “Or we could simply go to the delta.”

Patrick laughed. “And why would you choose to go with me? Didn’t you visit there just last month?”

“Yes, but it’s late summer, and the barking cranes are migrating. I’ve heard they gather in such great numbers that the marshlands look like they’re covered with writhing maggots for miles.”

“That’s a pleasant image.”

“They’re not gross maggots. They’re…feathery maggots. Please, Patrick, take me with you.”

Patrick laughed.

“Very well. Just make sure you’re the one who tells Mother you’re coming. I don’t think I have the stomach to speak to her for a few years, maybe even a decade.”

“I imagine not,” she replied with a tinkling laugh. “When will we be leaving?”

Patrick let out a grunt. “Let me get some sleep, and we’ll go first thing tomorrow.”

“That’s good, actually,” said Nessa. Her eyes brightened and she wiped the last vestiges of tears from her speckled, rosebud cheeks. “Make sure to wake me at dawn. I must go feed the birds.”

She spun around and ran down the hall, her tiny feet making no impression on the thick rug.

“Feed the birds?” he shouted after her. “Now? But it’s dark.”

“I forgot earlier,” he heard her reply as she disappeared around the bend in the hall. Patrick shrugged his shoulders.

“Strange little girl,” he said and then chuckled. Who was he to talk?

He returned to his room and flopped down on his bed, which still smelled of Brittany. Pulling the covers up and nestling them beneath his nose, he let the smell of femininity carry him off into a very much needed and dreamless sleep.

C
HAPTER

6

M
y love
,

It has been only forty-nine days since our last congregation, forty-nine days since my lips kissed yours, and I miss you so. Each passing day is like torture as I lie alone, dreaming of your face, the sweep of your hair, the smell of your skin. My family surrounds me, oftentimes oppressively so, and yet I have never felt so alone.

I wish to see you. I
need
to see you. Not a moment goes by that I don’t wish to be in your bed once more. I long to hear your voice as you prattle of tariffs and trade laws and the courts. You have a way of brightening even the dreariest of subjects. I want to hear you speak of your battles with the Carstakian mobs, your hunts for the immense wolves of the northern hills. Life is dreadful here, all prayer circles and farming and preparing meals for the family. Surely we, as a people, were made for much more. And when I look at the life you live, it all seems so much more interesting, full of adventure and struggle, each day a new challenge. Yes, I know it’s sometimes daunting, and the thought of thieves roaming the night sends a chill up my spine, but I know that if you were by my side, I would always be safe.