Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

There was nothing on his desk that needed attention—nothing that couldn’t wait until after the war.

By late afternoon the army of Lamath filled the King’s Road like a mighty, south-flowing river. Northbound traffic simply had to clear off and wait until it passed. The Chaon column had been sighted attempting to pass Dragonsgate.

General Asher hoped to arrive in time to help the Lord Dragon demolish the infidels.

ADMON FAYE sat quietly in the former library, watching the square-cut slab that hid the cavern below. His drawn sword lay across his lap, and his hands played absently with a wickedly curved dagger. Two or three brothers had died before he received the information he needed, but others had proved more cooperative. It was a pity the dead had been so stubborn. The slaver had had no quarrel with them. He would seize the lad and the girl eventually, anyway.

Why should these monks waste their lives attempting to prevent the inevitable? He had accepted, finally, that Pelmen had escaped him. But he felt sure that he knew who the girl was, and she would be worth plenty, either to her father or to Ligne. If he could, he would capture the boy as well, and use him somehow to entrap Pelmen. But if the lad resisted, the slaver resolved to kill him. One live prisoner would be difficult enough to smuggle out of this foreign place. Two could prove more than just a nuisance.

They had to come up sometime, he told himself. Surely they weren’t stupid enough to lose themselves down there.

Suddenly there was a faint scrape, and Admon Faye gripped his weapons tightly and moved around to crouch behind the stone.

The slab lifted out of place very slowly, but Admon Faye was patient. He hid himself behind the edge that acted as a hinge for the rest of the slab. There were muffled grunts and gasps, then he saw a hand with thin, tapered fingers—a woman.

Bronwynn heaved the stone up, and it flipped onto its face as Admon Paye skipped out of its way. The girl’s back was to him, and she didn’t see him until he had grabbed her. His knife hand slipped nooselike around her neck as his sword arm thrust under her left arm and around to grip her waist. She screamed as he lifted her off the top rung of the ladder and spun her in the air. He whispered menacingly, “Where’s the boy?” Bronwynn didn’t answer. Her chest began to heave, and she whimpered instead. He crushed her against him harshly and demanded again, “Where’s the boy?”

“He’s dead!” Bronwynn yelled back, and tears washed out onto her cheeks.

“I don’t believe you,” the ugly murderer snarled into her ear. Then he craned his head around and bit her, hard, on the cheek.

“It’s true!” Bronwynn screamed, and she kicked back at his shins with all the energy remaining to her. She missed. He swung her through the air and tossed her sprawling against the empty book racks. Then he dropped to his knees and peered into the hole. There was no light at all, but he thrust his head inside and strained to hear the sounds of breathing. He couldn’t. Not with the girl’s loud sobs.

He pointed his dagger at her and commanded, “You close your mouth!”

“How can I?” she screamed back at him. “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

“How is he dead?” the slaver demanded, vaulting the hole and thrusting his sword tip into her face.

“A bear!” Bronwynn wailed. “Don’t you see the blood?” She raised the hem of her robe for his inspection. It was wringing wet with red-black blood, and for two seconds Admon Faye believed her.

That was time enough. The slaver heard rather than felt the blade-stroke that split the flesh of his back open. Fine hearing and trained reflexes kept it from being fatal, but Rosha had caught enough of the man to make the slaver drop his dagger. Bronwynn grabbed it and scrambled away on her hands and knees. Rosha leapt around between her and the killer, and deflected the wounded man’s thrust easily. He didn’t pause, but cut immediately under the slaver’s blade and jabbed for the heart.

Admon Faye wasn’t that hurt. His sword was shorter than Rosha’s, a Chaon sword, and he was quick and cagey. He slammed his blade down fast, knocking Rosha’s point toward the floor, and the young warrior had to dance sideways, briefly turning his back on the slaver, to avoid a slice that surely would have gutted him.

The elements of surprise and reflex response now exhausted, the swordsmen backed off and regarded one another.

Admon Faye tried to force Rosha to circle far enough so that he could grab Bronwynn again, but the boy caught on, and indicated his refusal with two quick, capable slashes that drove Admon Faye back a step. Then the slaver recognized Rosha.

“Rosha mod Dorlyth, is it?” he muttered coldly. “You’re a boy. I have no quarrel with you.”

“B-but I have with you!”

Rosha snapped back proudly.

The slaver’s repulsive face broke into a crooked grin. “What’s wrong, lad? Pear chewing you?”

“I am n-n-not afraid of you, Ad-m-mon Faye!”

“Rosha, don’t talk!” Bronwynn warned from behind him.

“Don’t talk? He can’t talk!” Admon Faye chuckled. It was an attempt to draw Rosha into an exchange, true, but the slaver had not counted on the ferocity of the boy’s response. With a flurry of strokes that came unbelievably fast, Rosha chased Admon Faye around the room, and Bronwynn was hard pressed to keep herself behind him. Admon Faye struggled to defend himself. When the boy finally slacked off, the slaver put an extra step between them. He resolved to say nothing more about the lad’s stumbling tongue. He tried a different tack. “Give me the girl, swordsman, or I’ll chase you into your tomb! I have no quarrel with you! Leave off, and I will make none!”

“The d-door!” Rosha cried, and he jumped forward again, fighting with a skill unrealized because it had been untested. He fought not with his arms and legs and back alone, but with his eyes, with his ears, with his mind. He beat Admon Faye back to the far side of the room, freeing the doorway, and Bronwynn bolted outside.

Admon Faye now felt the effects of that first deep cut. His back burned, and his strength was diminishing steadily. If he were to kill this boy, it would have to be by craft. And he would need to move soon or the girl would be away. He parried, then skillfully turned the boy’s attack, driving Rosha back toward the open hole in the floor, herding him along with a fancy mixture of strokes. But as Rosha reached the edge of the pit he leapt nimbly backward, clearing it easily while his eyes never left the slaver’s. Now Admon Faye jerked to one side and swooped his sword tip through the legs of the old Elder’s stool. In the same motion he flipped it spinning straight for Rosha’s face, and jumped across the yawning pit himself.

Rosha never hesitated. He thrust his blade forward to impale the stool, then brought it crashing down into Admon Faye’s chest. He caught the man in the midst of his jump, and the slaver’s feet came out from under him. Then he dropped, bouncing off one edge of the pit and jackknifing as he plummeted through it into the black of the cavern.

Rosha tossed sword and stool aside, and stooped to grab the ladder, jerking it swiftly up into the room. As he gripped the haft of his sword and jerked it free from the stool, he heard Admon Faye groan.

That was unfortunate, Rosha thought to himself. Evidently the slaver had survived the fall. But Bronwynn was outside yelling for him to come, and he couldn’t stay. He dashed from the building and jumped into the saddle of the white pony Admon Faye had stolen from the army. Bronwynn was mounted on Minaliss, and the powerful horse snorted with excitement as they turned and rode swiftly in the direction of Lamath. He seemed to know he was going for his master.