King's Shield Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Teaser chapter

  Raves for the novels of Inda:

  “The world creation and characterization within Inda have the complexity and depth and inventiveness that mark a first-rate fantasy novel . . . This is the mark of a major work of fiction . . . you owe it to yourself to read Inda.”

  —Orson Scott Card

  “Intricate and real . . . Filled with magic and glamour . . . Characters spring to life with humor . . . Complex and compelling.”—San Jose Mercury News

  “Many fans of old-fashioned adventure will find this rousing mix of royal intrigue, academy shenanigans, and sea story worth the effort.”—Locus

  “In this lively, accessible follow-up to Inda, Smith dares to resolve several plot lines, in defiance of fantasy sequel conventions. Smith deftly stage-manages the wide-ranging plots with brisk pacing, spare yet complex characterizations and a narrative that balances sweeping action and uneasy intimacy.”—Publishers Weekly

  “The achievement of this writer is only getting more remarkable. In the past few months I’ve started reading more than a dozen fantasy novels or series; I haven’t reviewed them here because they were, to put it kindly, a waste of my time, and I didn’t bother finishing them. By contrast, I didn’t want The Fox to end. I savored every paragraph and continued to live in the book for days afterward. I keep thinking that if I write a good enough review, the publisher or author will relent and let me read the next volume early. Like now. Please.”—Orson Scott Card

  “Pirates and plotters fill this swashbuckling sequel to Inda. This is a middle novel in this series, but it’s full of action, adventure and delightful, larger than life characters, and manages a sneakily sudden, uplifting twist at the end that provides a satisfying conclusion despite looming diassters.”

  —Locus

  ALSO BY SHERWOOD SMITH:

  INDA

  THE FOX

  KING’S SHIELD

  TREASON’S SHORE

  Copyright © 2008 by Sherwood Smith.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Books Collector’s No. 1445.

  DAW Books Inc. is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08005-4

  All characters in the book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Paperback Printing, July 2009

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Beth Bernobich, who trudged faithfully with me through early drafts, and to Donald Hardy, who read and encouraged me, and clued me in to hot zones.

  Thanks to Tamara Meatzie, who generously donated her time to proofread The Fox for its paperback release, and came to my rescue with this one.

  And a heartfelt thank you to the following, who gave me a crash read in the middle of holiday season: Twila Oxley Price, Julia Unigovski, Faye Bi, Maggie Brinkley, Jenna Waterford, Allison Bishop, Jennifer Shimada, Alexandra Morris, Stephanie Zuercher, Surya Lakhanpal, Su-Yee Lin, and Jarratt & Evie Gray.

  Finally, my gratitude to three people who went above and beyond: Hallie O’Donovan, Eliana Scott-Thoennes, and Orson Scott Card.

  For readers who like timelines and worldbuilding details, here’s the webpage for this story, with all kinds of links: www.sherwoodsmith.net/inda.html

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  AFTER nine years of exile, Inda was going home.

  The still-wintry wind sent the scout craft Vixen scudding down the coast of Iasca Leror. Four crew and four passengers crowded the small craft, the passengers on watch as they drifted past tall bluffs of sedimentary stone. Above the cliffs occasional conical roofs were visible but seldom any living thing other than wheeling, diving sea birds. At night signal fires twinkled with a ruddy, sinister glow along the highest bluffs, beacons tended day and night, kept ready for any sighting of Venn raiders.

  Inda was not alone. Three of his companions would go with him.

  Inda fretted over the way the Venn Dag Signi had taken to standing at the rail, staring up at those forbidding cliffs, her hands clasped tightly together. The only way he could think of to break that silent, white-knuckled tension was to attempt a joke. “How often does a fellow fall in love with the world’s most wanted woman? Maybe we should help the balladeers along. Make up some good verses about us.”

  Signi shifted her gaze from the horizon to Inda’s hopeful face. The gulf between twenty and thirty-two had never seemed wider. What could she say? You are notorious throughout the world, but you are coming home. I am renegade only to my people, and nothing to the world. There is no home for me. No. If he did not see the difference, why cause him pain?

  He said, “Don’t your people have a lot of songs about evil villains or great heroes? Mine do.
In ours, you Venn are always the villains strewing blood and death everywhere—and I’m sure we Marlovans are the same in yours.”

  Inda flashed a smile aft at Tau, lounging at the taffrail next to Jeje, who had insisted on handling the tiller until they reached land. “Tau,” Inda called into the wind. “This is more your skill. Make up a ballad? A heroic one.” He smacked his chest, then indicated Signi with his thumb. “About us.”

  “You want a hero’s song?” Taumad’s manner was languid as he covertly studied the two forward: the small, spare Venn mage with her hands gripped together, and Inda, not much taller, broad and strong through the chest, golden hoops affixed with rubies glittering at his ears. His face had been scarred in battle, making him seem older than his twenty years. He was a sinister figure, except for his expression. His worry was as evident as her tension.

  Tau flicked a glance between them again, and guessed with typical accuracy at Inda’s motive. Tau had been trained to sing as well as to observe, and making up verses was an old game for him.

  “Scar-faced Inda riding the wind,

  His fleet a scout craft. Surrounded closely

  By powerful mates, standing beside him,

  Oath-sworn and loyal, to guard Inda’s ass—“

  “Hey,” Inda protested. “It’s supposed to be about my greatness.”

  “But there isn’t any,” Tau retorted.

  The banter sparked chuckles from a pair of brothers crewing for Jeje, and a deep, husky laugh from her.

  For a moment a smile eased Dag Signi’s expression. She raised a hand, the gesture—like all her movements—stylized with trained poise. She said something in a low voice; Inda bent his head to touch hers as they talked privately.

  Jeje muttered, “She’s got to be scared now that we’re close to land.”

  “I would be.” Tau hitched himself up onto the rail. “A Venn, landing in a kingdom that’s been under Venn attack—or Venn-directed pirate attack—for five or six years?” He shook his head. “Does anyone besides me appreciate the irony that she, an enemy, has more recent news about what’s going on in our homeland than the three of us?”

  Jeje scowled landward. “I suppose it’s stupid to say that Inda will make everything all right when he doesn’t know what kind of a welcome he’s gonna get after all these years.”

  “His boyhood friend is now king,” Tau reminded her.

  But she just flipped up the back of her hand. “Kings,” she uttered in disgust.

  Tau and Jeje had been with Inda for the entirety of his exile. They’d met as deck rats on an old trader. During those nine years—as they’d followed him from the trader to the Freedom Islands to become marine defenders, been taken as pirates, and escaped just to turn around and take on the worst pirates of all—Inda had told them absolutely nothing about his past. When he announced a few days ago to his fleet that he was going to return to his homeland to warn them of imminent invasion by the Venn, everyone had assumed it an act of madness. He’d be killed! Thrown into a dungeon! Thrown into a dungeon then killed!

  Jeje leaned into the tiller as the Vixen sped closer and closer to the coastline; Tau lounged forward to help the brother on day watch shift the tall, curved mainsail.

  The contrast between the two secretly entertained Jeje, though she had long known better than to comment to Tau. He was astonishingly beautiful—well made, golden-eyed, with silver-touched hair the color of ripened wheat. Her young crewman, who towered over Tau, was gangly and knot-limbed, with a beaky nose exceeded only by that of his brother. Not that they were bad-looking fellows—it’s just that everybody looked a little rough and unfinished next to Tau. Especially me, Jeje thought with an inward laugh.

  Inda stayed at the rail, sea glass at his eye, his body leaning toward the shore as if doing so would get him there faster.

  They did not want to be seen by Venn spies up near the peninsula, so they had sailed round the curve of land bulking out to the west that encompassed Khani-Vayir, then dove in eastward toward one of the great rivers that flowed seaward from the eastern border of the kingdom. Inda had chosen this landing place after days of sailing past cliff-lined shores that looked pretty much the same.

  Earlier, Jeje, who had spent her childhood on the shore they first passed, had said, “We ought to bring in some catch as a peace-gift, so they don’t shoot us from the shore. People here know one another. If the Venn have been trying to land spies as well as invade, not to mention burning their fishing boats whenever they catch ’em, they’re going to really hate strangers.” Inda had agreed.

  Now, as they loosened sail, Inda said, “Leave the talking to me.”

  Jeje was surprised. After all, they didn’t look the least like Venn. Even Signi looked anonymous. And though they were far south of Jeje’s village, the people were pretty much the same mixture of old Iascan and Marlovan that she’d known from babyhood.

  But as the sun slanted behind them toward the western horizon and they drifted into a cove, suspicious villagers lined the shore. The people did not hide their ready weapons—even when they could clearly see the nets of fish that the Vixen trailed behind. The villagers watched the four climb down into the rowboat, attach the nets, and row for shore. By the time they jumped out and brought the boat ashore, Jeje was thoroughly intimidated and felt no desire to speak.

  Inda called out formal greetings in Iascan. His accent seemed to calm the people enough for them not to kill the newcomers outright, as the villagers came down to help haul in the net of fish. But no one, they all noted, let go of their grip on their spears and knives, despite the peace-gift.

  The Fisher brothers and the wakened night crew sailed the Vixen away, hoping they would be able to catch the rest of the fleet, now commanded by Inda’s second, known to them only as Fox.

  Jeje forced herself to watch the Vixen slant toward the setting sun, though it felt like her heart was pulled thinner with every surging wave. Then she turned her back. It was her choice to be here.

  They were brought to the central house of the small coastal village, a round structure made of heavy, thick stone. The door was on the east, a custom inherited from their ancient Venn ancestors, who’d come from the north where wintry winds and storms blustered and howled in from the west, over the sea. The floor was covered by bright, thick rugs, woven in patterns of running animals: foxes, deer, wolves, horses. Later they would discover that the rugs covered trap doors, connecting tunnels built for escape against the Venn and pirate incursions of the past five or six years.

  The people dressed like those in Jeje’s village had when she was small: tunics sashed or belted at the waist, leggings or loose trousers, everything with some embroidery at the edges. The people themselves were the usual mix of Marlovan and Iascan—dark people like Jeje among blond heads, and all shades between. “It’s a good day’s catch you give us,” said a man, entering the roundhouse.

  “The fish are a gift,” Inda said. “The boat is trade.”

  All deferred to the man, whose attention stayed on Inda. He was older, his blond hair gone gray. “What do you want in trade?”

  “The loan of mounts for our journey, as far as we need until we can arrange for our own. Then we will send them back.”

  “Where do you go?”

  A young man, strong of arm and gripping a knife, said, “How can you prove you are not Venn spies?”

  Inda pointed eastward. “I am first going into Marlo-Vayir land, where I have allies. And then to the royal city, with news that will not wait.”

  Quick looks. “Who’s your ally?” the headman asked, not hiding his suspicion.

  Inda attributed that suspicion to the years of war. He had no idea his accent was an anomaly: he sounded like an aristocrat, but he looked like a brigand off the sea.

  “Cherry-Stripe—uh, that is, Landred-Dal Marlo-Vayir,” Inda said. “And if you are going to try to trick me with questions about his personal life, you will find out quickly that I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Y
our name being?” the headwoman asked, her suspicion far less hostile since the stumble over the private name of Landred Marlo-Vayir.

  But then Inda hesitated, and suspicion narrowed eyes and tightened shoulders again as he wrestled with that old memory, the orders from the King’s Runner, Captain Sindan, when he was eleven years old: You must find another name, another life.

  So Tau spoke up from where he lounged against the wall: “He is Indevan-Dal Algara-Vayir of Choraed Elgaer.”

  Tau’s accent was a perfect mirror to Inda’s. Eyes turned his way, observing the long, hard body below the watchful face that brought to mind the old goldstone carvings of ancient kings. They observed the presence of three visible weapons near his hands. Those who knew about such things saw instantly that from his position in the room, he could take out the three most important adults before anyone could reach him.

  Jeje bit her lip. Beside her Signi breathed softly, slowly, but the older woman kept her gaze lowered, her hands folded.

  Jeje winced, remembering the danger Signi was in. No. She was a mage—what the Venn called a sea dag. Supposedly, that meant she could gabble some spell or other and transfer away in a poof of air. What Signi had to be feeling was fear of discovery, and Jeje considered what it must mean for her to be a renegade, wanted by both sides once the Marlovans found out who she was. “Wanted” not in welcome, but the opposite.

  Jeje flicked a look Signi’s way, unsettled by how the woman made herself unobtrusive. Not by magic. It was the way she moved, subtleties of posture that you couldn’t really put words to, but the overall effect was unmistakable: Signi was adept at vanishing in plain sight.

  A coltish young girl announced, “I know all the Jarl families, including in Choraed Elgaer. My tutor made us learn them. There is no Indevan-Dal in Choraed Elgaer.”