The Oath and the Measure by Michael Williams

Author:Michael Williams [Williams, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, &NEW
ISBN: 9781560763369
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 108889
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 1992-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

That was why Boniface had to kill Angriff. It had taken twelve years for the chance to arise, when Castle Bright-blade had undergone siege and relief of the garrison hinged on the arrival of Agion Pathwarden and the reinforcements from Castle di Caela.

It was Boniface who had sent word to the bandits as to the road Sir Agion would follow, as to the strength of the party and to the place where terrain and surprise and vantage point would leave the Knights most vulnerable to ambush. His words had cut off the hope of Angriff Brightblade, and it was his belief that Angriff would draw in the garrison and fight the peasantry to the last man.

Covering his tracks had been simple. They had departed from Castle Brightblade in the middle of the night and were back before sunrise the next morning. Boniface had taken only one Knight with him, a whey-faced novice from Lemish whose name he could not even remember. In addition, there had been an escort of three, perhaps four foot soldiers. The soldiers were disposable: He handed them over to the bandits, and their bodies were lost amid the carnage when the bandits waylaid Agion. The Knight was a handy scapegoat in the weeks that followed.

But most importantly, Angriff Brightblade had been undone.

Twelve years can quicken a thirst for revenge, even to the point that you will risk all to gain it. Boniface himself was ready to be that last man, to fall in the siege of the castle, if that fall meant he would see the death of Lord Angriff Brightblade.

Even at the last, Angriff played by no Measure. Where a true Solamnic commander would have fallen with the castle, Lord Angriff traded his life for the garrison, giving himself to the peasantry and thereby ransoming all of them.

Including Boniface.

Even now, he remembered—six long years after Angriff had walked out into the snow toward the distant lights, the two loyal foot soldiers following him like mad retainers, like hounds.

Eighteen years after that sunlit midsummer day in the Barriers, Boniface remembered both his defeats keenly.

It was why the boy Sturm had to die. For the line of Angriff Brightblade must end without issue, so that whatever wildness lay in that line could be stilled, whatever defiance of Measure and Code laid to rest before such treachery found its way into the Order once more.

Boniface thought on these things. As his black stallion erased the miles from the VingaardRiver to the High Clerist's Tower, he dwelt on them deeply and long, his thoughts enraptured by the intricate laws of his heart.

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