plains in the middle of a downpour is just…'
'Coincidence?' Jack asked with a curious half-grin, and he and Mara burst into laughter.
Sturm blushed angrily.
'So be it, then, Jack Derry,' he pronounced, mustering his most Solamnic demeanor. 'If what you say of Boniface and other matters are true, then we've no choice but to hole up here and wait for him. If he's planning to undo me, for whatever reason, he'll have to come here to find me.'
The gardener only smiled. 'We can't have that, Master Sturm, if what I've heard bandied about the Tower has any truth to it. You've an appointed time, they tell me-something about the first day of spring. You might have noticed last night that the moons, great Solin and Luin, crossed in the sky.'
Sturm dared not look at Mara.
'If you've aught of astronomy,' Jack continued, 'you'd know that 'tis a rarity, occurring only every five years or so, and this year it falls a week before the first night of spring.'
A week! Thank Paladine and all the gods of good that I've a week left! Sturm rose and turned from the fire.
'Boniface could be a month in coming. A year,' Jack Derry went on. 'It would stand him well to wait, for you to miss your… assignation with the Green Man.'
'You're no gardener, are you?' Sturm's hand moved slowly toward his broken sword. 'You're a trap, Jack Derry.'
'You're the doing of Lord Wilderness… or an apparition… or… or…'
'How can you say that, Sturm Brightblade? Did you not see how well I kept the Tower gardens?'
A dull pain laced through Sturm's shoulder-nothing as sharp as he had felt at his wounding, as he had felt in Castle di Caela or the copse on the plains, but a heavy, deadening soreness that spread to the tips of his fingers.
He couldn't grasp the sword.
'No… no, Master Sturm,' Jack continued. 'I'm as much a gardener as aught else, and little I care for this involved Solamnic schemery.' His eyes darted to the pommel of Sturm's sword, then directly, disarmingly back to the lad's face.
'Though you're a fine one and of a proud heritage, or so they tell me, I didn't travel these miles just to warn you or be in your august presence. Bound to the edge of the selfsame Southern Darkwoods, I am, to a little village called Dun Ringhill where my ancient mother awaits me with an ancient mother's excitement and yearning for her long-lost boy gone north to make something out of himself in the court of the Knights.'
'Dun Ringhill?' Sturm asked.
'Still two days' ride from here,' Jack said. 'In your boots, it's a walk of four or five days, through plains and riverbeds down along the borders of Throt, where the goblins camp. And in Lemish, where the village is, you'll find no friend of the Knights, either.'
Jack rose from the fire and walked over to his squat little mare. He stroked her gently on the muzzle and muttered something to her, something lost in the downpour outside and the crackle of the nearby fire. The mare raised her head, snorted, and turned toward the mouth of the cave.
'I expect, then, I shall be taking my leave of you,' Jack offered, leading the mare toward the outside and the loud, rushing shower. He paused at the cave mouth, foot in the stirrup, preparing to mount and ride into the rain.
Mara elbowed Sturm, who spoke up despite his pride and anger.
'Jack Derry?'
Jack stood at the cave entrance, still and expectant.
'Jack… do you know any blacksmith in… Dun Ringhill, is it?'
'Indeed I do, Master Sturm,' the young gardener said, his face still turned. 'My cousin Weyland, 'twould be. A fine smith he is, too.'
'Fine he must be,' Sturm replied, his eyes on the heart of the flame, 'for shoeing old Luin here is apprentice work, but reforging a sword…'
Jack turned about and stared hard and levelly at the young man by the fire.
'Weyland Derry can forge a sword to your liking, Master Sturm Brightblade,' the gardener said quietly. 'And your welcome in Dun Ringhill will be such as fits the Order. All according to the Measure, 'twill be, and such as you'll come to expect of my people.'
Boniface huddled against the rain, watching the wavering light in the distant cave.
There were too many around the boy. First the elf maiden and her spider-unpredictable at best, and therefore dangerous. Then the simpleminded gardener, if simpleminded he was, or if even a gardener, who had wandered to these parts for the gods knew what reason. To waylay Sturm Brightblade now would involve too many innocent lives. Too many blades. Too many chances for at least one to escape and tell others.
Who would not understand.
Once before, Lord Boniface Crownguard had dealt with witnesses. That time it had been an awkward Knight from Lemish, new to the Order and the Measure.
He had not understood, either, and what had befallen then was entangled, messy, nearly disastrous.
So there ought to be no witnesses, Boniface thought, and smiled. There would be other chances later. At the ford and in the village…
He rose and mounted, riding east, the hoofbeats of his black stallion muffled in the driving rain.
They departed the next morning when the rain lifted. Sturm and Jack walked ahead, leading the horses. Mara rode atop Acorn, Jack's stocky chestnut, who also bore the weight of the elf's belongings easily if not cheerfully. Behind the party, scurrying along from high grass to rocks and back to the high grass, avoiding sun and open spaces, Cyren the spider kept pace unevenly.
At Jack's advice, Sturm traveled no longer toward the famous ford near the Vingaard Keep. If there were, as he was coming to suspect, good truth in Jack's warning about the snares of Lord Boniface, then all major fords would be perilous.
Instead, the party turned due east, straight toward a narrow passage of the river where Jack claimed that the swimming was as safe as the fording. High above them, the kingfishers darted and dove, and had he been looking for omens, Sturm could have taken great courage from the ancient Solamnic symbols on the wing.
He trudged gloomily beside the young gardener. It wasn't enough, it seemed, that he was doomed to certain failure against one as resourceful and skilled as Vertumnus, for now the best swordsman in Solamnia was also laying for him if, by some miracle, he survived his brush with the Green Man.
That is, if he could believe Jack Derry. It seemed preposterous-like something out of an ancient story of blood and dark oath and revenge. Boniface was his father's friend. Angriff had saved him from Lord Grim, had grown up beside him. They had fought together, had studied and suffered and blossomed in wisdom… and…
Finally there was the Oath and Measure.
It could not be true. Boniface could not be a traitor.
Sturm brushed his gloved hand softly over Luin's neck. Slowly, gradually, sensation returned to his fingers, and he turned his mind to other things-to the dwindling days and the long road ahead of him.
The new path took the party through rich pastureland north of the ancient stronghold of Solanthus. In some spots, the ground was greening, expectant, and the first migratory birds had returned from their winter stay in the sunny north. Amid the signs of spring, Sturm could look to the south across the level miles and see the fabled fortress, gray and hazed at the farthest reaches of sight. It was fertile in history and lore, the very kind of place he dreamed of visiting. Yet he dared draw no nearer after what Jack Derry had told him. Boniface could be anywhere on the plains, and assuredly his allies could be found in all places.
Sturm sighed and tugged at Luin's rein.
'Why so gloomy, Master Sturm?' Jack inquired, steering Acorn gracefully around pooling waters that might well mark dangerous ground. 'Rejoice that we have left the rains behind!'
'It rushes toward spring, Jack Derry,' Sturm replied. 'Too swiftly, I fear, for my liking. A week only remains until I have to show myself in the Darkwoods, ready for a reckoning with Lord Wilderness himself.'
