The Seventh Book of Lost Swords : Wayfinder's Story by Fred Saberhagen (best books for 7th graders TXT) 📗

      Zoltan asked him: “Have you any skill with those?”

      “Not with weapons. But knives and hatchets are familiar implements enough.”

      “Then I suppose you’ve chosen well.”

* * *

      Having forded the river, the four headed northeast by north, still following the Sword of Wisdom in Ben’s hands.

      Following them, for a short distance only, came the healed loadbeast.

      The creature paused, watching them depart. Then it shook its head and went back to where grass grew along the river.

Chapter Seven

      A top the highest tower of the sprawling white stone Palace in Sarykam, standing on a paved rooftop that overlooked the red-roofed city, the placid harbor, and the Eastern Sea red-rimmed with dawn, Prince Mark of Tasavalta, wearing nightshirt and slippers, wrapped in a robe against the morning chill, was leaning on a railing, gazing to the south and west, waiting and hoping for the arrival of one of his numerous winged messengers or scouts.

      Dawn was a good time, the most likely time in all the day, for certain birds, the night-flying class of owl-like scouts and messengers, to come home.

      The Prince of Tasavalta was a tall man, strongly built, his face worn by weather and by care, his age just under forty, his hair and eyes brown, his manner distracted.

      The semi-intelligent creature whose arrival Mark was anticipating presently became visible in the dawn sky as a faraway dot that in time grew into a pair of laboring wings.

      Twelve-year-old Stephen, Mark’s younger son, already fully dressed, joined his father on the rooftop, as he did on many mornings, to see whether any messengers might arrive.

      The boy was sturdily built, his hair darkening to the medium-brown of his father’s. The facial resemblance between father and son was growing stronger year by year.

      The beastmaster attending the eyrie this morning was a man of exceptionally keen vision. He was the first to confirm the distant wings, now laboring in from the southwest, as those of a particular messenger-bird, whose arrival had been expected for more than a day.

* * *

      The beastmaster climbed up on a perch to meet and care for the animal, which on landing turned out to have suffered some slight injury from the claws of a leather- wing. The Prince and his son, climbing also, were first to touch the large owl-like creature. Mark gently took from around its neck the small flat pouch of thin leather.

      The great bird, its huge eyes narrowed to slits against the early daylight, hooted and whistled out a few words indicating that it had been delayed for some hours by storms as well as reptiles.

      Leaving the bird to the beastmaster’s professional care, Mark carried the pouch down from the perch. After hastily performing a magical test for safety, he snapped open the container and extracted the single piece of paper which lay inside.

      Unfolding the note, Mark read, silently the first time through. The message had been sent by Ben of Purkinje.

      “Is it from Ben, Father?”

      “Yes. He’s several days away from Sarykam, or he was when he wrote this…” The Prince read on, skimming bad news, not wishing to contemplate any more of that than absolutely necessary.

      “Ben’s coming home?”

      Mark’s face altered. He stared at the note, his mind almost numbed by the two code words that leapt out at him from near the end. Almost he feared to allow himself to hope, let alone to triumph.

      Putting down the paper for the moment, he looked around to make sure that no one but his son was close enough to hear him.

      “Ben mentions an earlier message,” he announced softly, “and repeats it here, to the effect that he has found Wayfinder. We never got that message. Some are bound to go astray.”

      “Dad! That means—if we’ve got Wayfinder—that means we can use it to find Woundhealer. Doesn’t it?”

      Mark held up the note. “We could, but there’s more. He already has Woundhealer too.”

      “Dad!”

      “He also says here that he’s encountered old friends, your cousin Zoltan, and the Lady Yambu. I don’t know if you remember her.”

      “What are we going to do?”

      Mark grinned. “What would you do if you were in command?”

      “Go get those Swords at once!”

      “Not a very difficult decision, hey?”

      But there was a considerably harder choice to be made immediately: Whether to let the news of Ben’s evident success spread through the Palace, and thence inevitably, before long, into the ears of enemy agents. The boost in home morale that this news should produce would be welcome, but if the effort to bring Woundhealer home came to nothing, a corresponding letdown would ensue.

      Stephen was staring anxiously at his father. Mark commanded the boy to tell no one else the content of Ben’s message for the time being. The Sword was not yet safely home.

      When Stephen had been given a chance to read the note for himself, father and son, teasing and challenging each other like two twelve-year-olds, went skipping and jumping down a set of ladders to the next lowest level of the tower, and thence down several levels to the broader roof of the keep below.

      There, moving decisively, the Prince quietly began to set in motion preparations for an expedition to reclaim Woundhealer.

      Stephen, as his father had expected, wanted to come along.

      “Father, will you be leaving right away?”

      “Within a few hours.”

      “Can I come with you?”

      Mark made quick calculations. “No, you’ll be needed here.”

      The refusal sent Stephen into a silent rage; he asked no questions, said nothing at all, but his face reddened and his jaw set.

      Mark sighed; knowing his son, he was not surprised. He had no reason to expect or hope that this boy might be sheltered from danger all his life, and every reason to believe that the lad had better be hardened to it. The Prince would probably have acceded to his son’s request to join the expedition but for one fact: Stephen seemed to be the only person capable of brightening his mother’s countenance or manner in the least.

      Mark explained this point. Then he repeated his refusal, couching it this time in