David Dalglish - A Dance of Blades

But then Delysia was there, her hands raised, palms facing the Ghost. Bright light flared, blinding even to Haern. Ghost roared, and he took a step back as if struck by a blow. Haern swung his legs wide, taking advantage of the distraction. His heel struck the wounded knee, hard enough to dislodge the sword stuck in the joint. Down Ghost went, the knee crumpling. Again Delysia let out a cry, shouting out the name of her deity. Her hand moved in a downward arc. A golden sword materialized in the air before her, mimicking the motion. It sliced into Ghost’s chest. Blood sprayed across her, but she didn’t appear to notice. Another prayer was already on her lips, demanding the strength of Ashhur.

“Be gone!” she cried. Haern saw a faint outline, almost like an enormous hand, shimmer and vanish in the blink of an eye. Ghost flew back several feet, as if hit by a battering ram. When his body met the wall, it was the wall that gave, the cheap plaster breaking. Haern took to his feet, his wounded elbow held against his chest. It had started bleeding again, staining the gray of his clothes red. Ghost took a woozy step forward, then collapsed when he tried to stand on the other leg. Haern reached down and grabbed his sword while the giant man crawled toward the exit.

“Don’t,” Delysia said, grabbing his shirt. Her voice had authority now, and something in him was unwilling to challenge it. “Please, don’t kill him.”

“Are you mad?” Brug asked, still squirming against his ropes. Haern felt inclined to agree.

“He’s beaten, and leaving,” she insisted. “Don’t. He let me save Senke. He deserves as much.”

“He’s also the one who did it in the first place,” Senke said with a sleepy voice. “Just thought I’d point that out.”

“Phggrrmpf,” Tarlak chimed in.

Ghost looked at them as if they were all mad. He used a chair to brace himself as he stood, then limped toward the door, his teeth clenched against the pain.

“You were beaten,” he said as he took a lumbering step outside.

“Sure thing,” Haern said, Delysia still clutching his shirt. The moment the door closed, he slumped backward, sitting atop the edge of the overturned table. Delysia checked his elbow.

“Senke needs my help more than you,” she said. “It can wait. Untie Tarlak and Brug.”

“As you wish.”

Delysia returned to Senke and knelt before him. Haern heard her prayers, and white light shone around her hands. No wonder the wound on his chest had healed so quickly those few days ago.

“Friend of yours?” Tarlak asked once the gag was removed.

“You aren’t funny,” Haern said.

He cut the ropes around his hands and feet, and while the wizard stretched, he did the same for Brug.

“Son of a whore ambushed me coming up the stairs,” Brug said, grabbing his punch daggers. “Otherwise I’d have torn him a new hole.”

“You mean like this one?” Senke asked.

Brug flushed and looked away. Haern tossed his shortsword to the floor. He felt sick, and he still hadn’t recovered from the blow to his head earlier in the day. His elbow throbbed, feeling even worse than when he’d first received the cut. He saw Brug and Tarlak glaring at him, and he felt like he deserved their ire. He tried to stumble for the door, but Tarlak blocked the way, holding it shut with his arm.

“Not yet,” he said. “And not anytime soon. It’s time we talked, Watcher.”

*

M atthew’s relief upon seeing Felwood Castle lasted only as long as it took him to see one of Hadfield’s men standing watch far from the other guards. It was as he’d feared. Less than ten minutes ago he’d had to drag them off the road, and when the horsemen rode on by, his gut told him who it was they served.

“What do we do?” Tristan asked. Matthew had abruptly turned them both around and back north on the road, hoping the soldier hadn’t seen their approach. Given the distance, it seemed probable.

“I don’t know,” he said. He could imagine what would happen if they tried to pass by. The soldier would cut them down before letting them reach lord Gandrem. Whatever explanations or punishment the soldier received would still be preferable so long as no one identified the one-armed boy as the son of Lady Gemcroft. Given his disfigurement, the dirt on his face and the plain clothes he now wore, it seemed doubtful.

“Will we continue on to Veldaren?” Tristan asked.

“Quiet boy, I don’t know!”

He waited until his temper calmed, then resumed.

“And I’m not sure we can. Don’t have the food, and water might end up scarce, too. I need inside to resupply, but that might mean leaving you behind for a while. They won’t know me from shit, but you’re the one they want. That, and I don’t know who Gandrem’s sided with in all this.”

“John was always nice to me,” Tristan said, referring to the lord. “I wish I’d stayed with him. What if…what if I get us inside? Will he keep us safe?”

Matthew shot him a look.

“How could you get us inside?”

“I don’t know. I could run real fast. I’m a fast runner, even Arthur said it!”

Matthew bit his lip. It was just one man, a professional soldier perhaps, but still just one. He touched the old sword at his hip. If he could last for a little while, just a little…

His eyes fell upon the near empty sack that had carried their food.

“I have an idea,” he said. “But you better run like the wind, you hear me? Like it, and faster. My life is depending on those legs of yours.”

*

I ngram mumbled curses as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying to generate some heat to counter the cold. After another minute, he pulled a blanket from a saddlebag and wrapped it around his shoulders. Beside him, his horse clomped the ground.

“Blanket ain’t big enough for two of us,” he said. “We’ll get you somewhere warm once we find that brat, though, I promise.”

He and his horse waited a hundred yards beyond the castle’s entrance, near the fork where the main road turned toward him. The woods had been thinned out toward the front, though they were still close enough to make him worry. Nathaniel and the farmer might try to sneak along the walls, using the woods as cover. Doing that was a good way to earn an arrow in your back by a guard, though. They’d come traveling down the road, he felt certain of it. According to his bitch of a wife, he’d left immediately after killing Gert and Ben. Dimwit farmer couldn’t know how many were actually looking, or that they might have beaten him here. Ingram expected him to come riding full gallop, the boy behind him on his horse, thinking he’d finally reached safety. Already Ingram had practiced his excuses for when the castle guards came running.

“Guy looked mad as a dog,” he’d say. “Started hollering for me to hand over my money, then sent the boy to do his dirty work.”

No one would question him for killing two hungry thieves too stupid to know better. Even if they did, what would it matter? Gandrem wouldn’t challenge Arthur, not on something so petty as a dead farmer and his boy.

While he held the rough blanket and looked about, he saw a man approaching. He walked on foot, leading his horse. A large sack lay slung across the saddle. Ingram raised an eyebrow at the sight. No boy, but what could someone be bringing to trade this late in winter?

“Slow down there,” Ingram said, tossing his blanket back toward his horse and putting a hand on his hilt. “Strange time for travel, don’t you think?”

“Pig’s die when they die,” said the man. “Come to see if his lordship would like a fine meal tonight.”

The cogs and wheels in Ingram’s brain were never the most tightly fit, but still they turned the words over, again and again, unable to get rid of a deep feeling of someone pulling something over him.