R. Salvatore - The Highwayman

He dropped as that man fell and snapped out his leg into the kneecap of the other attacker, stopping him short. The man stiffened and stumbled backward, and Bransen used the distance to begin a charge of his own, easily deflecting another stab from Tarkus Breen. Two short steps and he leaped and spun, turning nearly horizontal in the air, adding even more weight behind his kick to the man's midsection.

As one leg flew out hard, Bransen lowered his other leg. He landed, absorbing the impact by letting his knee bend deeply and using the movement to regain his center of balance as he dropped nearly to the ground.

Then, with all his strength, he came up hard and threw all his strength and weight into the move to gain enough momentum to again lift him from the ground. Around he went as he rose, sending his free leg into a circle kick. It was too high, and cut the air above Tarkus Breen's head as he ducked and charged ahead, arm extended.

But Bransen's kick had been too high on purpose, in accordance with the movements taught in the Book of Jhest. As Breen ducked, Bransen launched his intended attack, his other foot snapping straight up into Breen's face.

Bransen landed easily on both feet, Tarkus Breen staggering backward. To Bransen's left, an attacker was rising but scrambling away, one leg broken. To his right, a man squirmed on the ground and clutched his broken face. Behind him, Cadayle cried; and beyond her, the big man lay very still.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Tarkus Breen said, the confidence long gone from his voice.

"I am…" Bransen paused, as if awakening from a dream, as if for the first time actually realizing what he had done. While his body had come in here, fighting perfectly, his thoughts were stalled back at the tree. Now he was waking up.

But what was he to say? He recalled some of the brothers at the chapel complaining that the roads were becoming unsafe again, with powries and highwaymen. He recalled pieces of their stories of older times and great deeds. He seized on that without even thinking.

"I am the Highwayman," he said, hardly considering the implications.

Tarkus Breen wasn't listening, Bransen then realized, but had used the pause only so that he could gather himself for another attack. He came forward hard, slashing his knife back and forth.

But Bransen, though he had regained his awareness of himself, was no longer afraid. There was no paralysis in him, and the lessons of the Book of Jhest flowed through him as easily and fully as if he were reading the book. His line of chi, formed so solidly by his discipline and by that soul stone set under his black mask, held tight and straight, relaying his thoughts to his muscles perfectly, and calling them to action.

Breen's knife slashed, left to right, then back again, but Bransen retreated and veered, so as not to trip over Cadayle. Tarkus Breen followed, stabbing straight ahead. Bransen's hand pushed the strike out wide, but then his attacker surprised him by breaking off and turning back to Cadayle.

Tarkus Breen stabbed the knife out toward her.

He never got close to connecting.

For Bransen rushed back to Cadayle, catching Breen's wrist with his left hand. He lifted Breen's arm and went under it, turning it and forcing the bully to come up straight. Bransen kept twisting as he stood up straight. He lifted his right arm and drove his elbow against Breen's.

The snap of bone sounded like the breaking of a thick tree branch.

Bransen hardly heard it and hardly slowed, ducking under the shattered arm and turning to come face-to-face against the agonized man, the twisted and broken arm between them.

The look in Breen's eye-somewhere beyond pain, somewhere in the realm of shock and horror-was the first indication of something serious to Bransen. He leaped back, letting go, and Tarkus Breen stood still, his right arm hanging at his side, his left hand coming in slowly, trembling every inch, approaching the hilt of his knife, which he had driven hard into his own diaphragm.

Shaking fingers moved around the hilt and started to close, but Tarkus Breen seemed to lose all strength then. He looked at Bransen. His arm fell to his side.

He fell over dead.

Cadayle screamed, but Bransen hardly heard it. He knew his enemy was dead. He knew that he had killed a man.

He searched through the Book of Jhest for an answer to this sudden realization. He tried to remember to breathe.

Another woman's cry behind him took it all away, and Bransen spun and charged into the house.

A moment later, Callen staggered out, crying, one eye swollen. She caught the door with one hand as she passed and managed to pull it partially closed behind her. She stumbled to Cadayle, who rose to embrace her, and the two turned back to the house, to the sounds of fists connected repeatedly, to the sound of grunts.

The door slammed closed then exploded outward, the assailant flying through it backward. He hit the ground hard, groaned, and rolled over, giving the two women a view of his bloody face.

The Highwayman appeared at the door.

"Be gone, all of you!" he demanded of the beaten attackers. "Be gone and return to this place only on pain of death."

They staggered and scrambled, hoisted their friend with the shattered kneecap, dragged Tarkus Breen's body, and managed to move away.

"They'll not return," Bransen said to the two women.

"How can we ever thank you?" Cadayle said to him breathlessly as she continued to hug her crying mother.

Bransen went to her and helped both women to rise. "No need, of course," he said, trying to show some measure of calm so that the two would follow that lead. "I consider it an honor to be able to help."

Despite his cool demeanor, Bransen was churning inside. How he wanted to pull off his mask and proclaim his love for Cadayle! How he wanted to kiss her and hold her and tell her and her mother that everything was all right. How could he blend this moment of heroism into a moment of personal revelation?

The sound of a neighbor's call defeated any hopes he might have. No doubt, the defeated gang were beginning to draw attention.

Bransen smiled and tapped his hand to his forehead in salute.

"Good evening to you, beautiful ladies," he said. "Blessed am I to be granted the good fortune to aid you this night."

"But-" Cadayle started.

"The look on your face is all the gratitude any man would ever need, and more than any man would ever deserve, milady," he said, and he thought himself clever in sounding like the monks when they told their great tales of old heroes. Stealing a line directly from one of those overheard stories, Bransen added, "In all a man's life, might he hope to see a single instance of such pure beauty as your face. I am the fortunate one this night." He saluted again as both Cadayle and her mother looked to the road and the neighbors' approach. When they looked back, he was already gone, melting into the night.

The road back to the chapel was a long one for Bransen. So many truths assailed him from every side, so many conflicting emotions. He had performed brilliantly. He had saved Cadayle and her mother, had beaten the bullies.

He had killed a man.

Out behind the castle, in the darker predawn shadows within a copse of trees, Bransen Garibond, the self-proclaimed Highwayman, fell to his knees and threw up.

Catching His Mother's Spirit The thrill of being out in the daytime had Bransen smiling widely, almost giddily, below his black mask all the way out to the small lake in the west. When he had heard-so soon after his return just before dawn-that all the monks had been summoned to the castle for the day, Bransen couldn't resist the chance to finally go out to his dear father's house. Now he could hardly contain his joy when Garibond's house came into view. Gray lines of smoke rose from each chimney, which struck Bransen as unusual, since Garibond typically only kept one hearth burning.