Oath and the Measure by Michael Williams Page A

“an affinity with the sword itself, as though something in him could sense the thoughts and movements of metal. A good smith or armorer he might have made, had not the Order called him. But such things were subtle, almost unconscious, as though he received them as an inheritance of blood.”
    “None of which
I
am heir to,” Sturm declared weakly. “Neither affinities nor mettle nor daring nor backbone.”
    “And yet you are off to face Lord Wilderness,” Bonifacereplied softly, “after considerable training and study. By what road will you travel?”
    “They say the best way is always the most direct,” Sturm replied. “I intend to ride straight toward the Vingaard Keep, then south down the river to the great ford. I shall cross the Vingaard there, then pick up its southern branch and follow along the banks straight into the Darkwoods themselves. Nothing more simple, no smoother road.”
    Lord Boniface’s firm hand rested heavily on his shoulder.
    “A brave plan, Sturm Brightblade, and worthy of your name,” he pronounced. “I myself could have fashioned no better route.”
    “Thank you, Lord Boniface,” Sturm replied with a puzzled frown. “Indeed your confidence assures me.”
    The older Knight smiled and moved closer to Sturm. “Did Angriff ever tell you,” he asked, “the story of his feud with his own father?”
    Sturm shook his head and smiled slowly. Since he had arrived at the High Clerist’s Tower, it seemed that each Knight he met had a tale to tell of Lord Angriff Brightblade. Happily, eagerly, the lad learned forward, prepared for yet another story.
    A slow smile creased the face of Lord Boniface, and he began the telling.

    “Your grandfather, Lord Emelin Brightblade, was a good Knight and a good man, but he was known for neither patience or gentleness. Son of Bayard Brightblade and the Lady Enid di Caela, Lord Emelin was Brightblade tough and di Caela … haughty? Stubborn?”
    Sturm glowered. He remembered absolutely nothing of his grandfather Emelin, but he wasn’t sure that he liked the critical words. Still, Boniface was accustomed to speaking his mind to Brightblades, it seemed.
    The older Knight continued, his eyes on the sword in hislap. “Well, it has never been the easiest of bloodlines. Angriff feared his father as much as he respected him, and in the difficult years of his teens, he steered away from old Emelin at formalities, preferring to meet him only at the hunt. For it was there that their spirits usually blended, as the poems and histories tell us it should be with fathers and sons.”
    Boniface stretched back on the cot, linking his hands behind his head.
    “Usually,” said Sturm.
    “I remember those hunts,” Boniface continued. “The smell of woodsmoke on cold mornings like this, when we would ride after the boar. I remember best the winter of Lord Grim.”
    “Lord Grim, sir?” Sturm asked. Despite his love for Solamnic history and lore, he remembered no Knight named Grim.
    Boniface snorted. “A boar. Grim was a great-tusked boar who eluded the best of us in that winter of three seventeen, when your father and I were seventeen ourselves and ready for anything except that pig. Lord Grim lost us in the mountains, in the foothills, in the level, snow-covered plains where you could track for days.
    “The Yuletide passed, and still we could not catch him. It was not until midwinter when we brought him to ground, not far from here, in the Wings of Habbakuk. I remember the day well. The hunt. The kill. But mostly what happened afterward.”
    Sturm set down the greaves carefully, his gaze locked on his father’s old friend. Boniface closed his eyes and was silent so long that Sturm was afraid the Knight had fallen asleep. But then Lord Boniface spoke, and Sturm followed him into the story. It became twenty-five years ago and far south of the Tower.
    “Lord Agion Pathwarden led us into the foothills. Your cousin. As burly a Pathwarden as ever arose from that