Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

He sloshed forward another step?his last.

Marco's right hand blurred, and Grimaldi toppled sideways into the mud, wearing a rather surprised expression, a rock imbedded in his temple.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the rest of the gang surged forward like a feeding-frenzy of weasels.

Harrow lost the boy as soon as he slid into the reeds. It took him longer than he liked to get to the place where the boy had vanished. If this had been the mountains, or a forest or a city?even a weird city like Venice?he'd have had no trouble tracking the kid. Here in this foul wilderness he was at something of a loss. He floundered around in the mud, feeling unnaturally helpless. Fine vessel of the Goddess, he was?he couldn't even keep track of a dumb kid!

Then he heard the shouting; there was enough noise so that he had no trouble pinpointing the source even through the misleading echoes out there. It sounded like trouble; and where there was trouble, he somehow had no doubt he'd find the boy.

But getting there… was a painfully slow process; he literally had to feel his way, step by cold, slippery step. Waterweeds reached out for him, snagging him, so that he had to fight his way through them. The noise echoed ahead of him, driving him into a frenzy of anxiety as he floundered on, past treacherous washouts and deposits of mud and silty sand that sucked at him.

Until he was suddenly and unexpectedly in the clearing.

He blinked?there was the boy?no, two boys, standing at bay, side by side on a hummock of flattened reeds. They were holding off?barely?a gang of mud-smeared, tattered marsh-vermin. One boy was Marco?

Merda!

The other was Benito!

Harrow saw the pattern of the Goddess's weave. It was too much to be coincidence; first the vision, then Marco just happening to be holing up out in this Godforsaken slime-pit?and now the other boy also turning up?

But the boys weren't doing well. They'd accounted for one of the crazies, now floating bloody-headed within arm's reach of Harrow. But the others were going to overpower them before much longer. Marco had an ugly slash across his ribs that was bleeding freely and soaking into a long red stain along the front of his mud-spotted tan cotte. And even as Harrow moved to grab a piece of driftwood to use as a weapon, one of the crazies started to bring down a boathook, aimed at the younger boy's head.

"Benito!"

Harrow saw the horror in Marco's eyes as the boy saw it coming, and before Benito could turn, the older boy shoved him out of the way and took the blow himself.

The deadly hook missed, but the boy took the full force of the pole on his unprotected head. The pole broke?the boy sank to his knees?

And Harrow waded into the fray from behind, roaring in a kind of berserker rage, wielding his driftwood club like the sword of an avenging angel. The ex-Montagnard assassin used a blade by preference, but he was every bit as expert with a cudgel. His first blow landed on a skull with enough force to cave it in. Thereafter, his opponents warned and trying to fend him off, he shifted to the short and savage thrusts of an expert brawler and killer. One throat crushed; a rib cage splintered; a diaphragm ruptured?two more sent sprawling by vicious kicks. The rest fled in a panic and faded into the swamp; leaving behind four floating bodies and another crawling into the reeds coughing blood as he went.

There was a sudden absolute silence.

The younger boy had flung himself at his brother when Marco had gone down, and was holding him somewhat erect. He looked around with wild eyes when the quietude suddenly registered with him.

His eyes fastened on Harrow. He paled?

And put himself as a frail bulwark of protection between the one-time Montagnard assassin and his semi-conscious brother.

Harrow was struck dumb by a thought that approached a revelation. Those two?they'd die for each other. My own brother might have killed someone for me… But he wouldn't have been willing to die for me.

Coming from the mercenary background that he did, Harrow had never known much affection or loyalty. His mother had been a Swiss mercenary's whore. She'd reared the boys as a way of making a living. A poor substitute for the kind of living a daughter would have brought her, but a living. Bespi had never experienced that kind of attachment. He wouldn't have believed anyone who told him it existed. But here it was, and unmistakable. Those two boys would willingly give their lives for each other.

He held himself absolutely still, not wanting to frighten the younger boy further.

They might have remained that way forever, except for Marco. The boy began struggling to his feet, distracting his brother, so Harrow was able to transfer the crude club he held to his left hand and take a step or two closer. At that, Benito jerked around, knife at the ready, but the older boy forestalled him, putting a restraining hand on his shoulder.

Harrow met the disconcertingly direct eyes of the older boy with what he hoped was an expression of good-will.

"N-no, 'sfine, Ben?"

The words were slurred, but there was sense in the black eyes that met his.

"?'f he meant us trouble, he wouldn't have waded in to help us."

Marco used his younger brother's shoulder to hold himself upright, and held out his right hand. "Marco?" he hesitated a moment "?Valdosta… dunno who you are, but?thanks."

Harrow looked from the outstretched, muddy hand, to the candid, honest face, with its expression of simple, pure gratitude. He stretched out his own hand almost timidly to take the boy's, finding himself moved to the point of having an unfamiliar lump in his throat.

This boy was?good. That was the only way Harrow could put it. Honest, and good. Small wonder the Goddess wanted this thread for her loom. It was a precious golden thread, one which would lift the other colors in the weave into brightness. Harrow had never known anyone he could have called simply… "good."

And?so Harrow had often been told?the good die young.

Resolve flared in eyes. Not this one. As an assassin, one of the most deadly killers the Visconti had ever unleashed for the Montagnard cause, he had felt an almost sexual pleasure when he had fulfilled his missions. When he'd killed. Now a similar but richer feeling came, displacing the old. He was the vessel of the Goddess. And he was full, full to overflowing. He was only distantly aware of the impression of a great winged shadow, passing over all of them. The Montagnards brought death to serve their purposes. The Goddess conserved life. Purpose and reasons flooded into Harrow. Not this one! Death will not take him while I watch over him.

Marco swayed in sudden dizziness, and Harrow sloshed through the churned-up mud to take his other arm and help keep him steady; Benito tensed, then relaxed again when he realized that Harrow was going to help, not hurt them.

"Which way from here?" the vessel of the Goddess croaked, finding his voice with difficulty.

Marco fought down dizziness as he grayed-out a little; heard the battered, burnt-faced stranger ask: "Which way from here?"

"We've got to get him out of here?back to Venice, back where it's warm and they can look after him," Benito replied, hesitantly. "There's probably people out looking for him by now?and he ain't in any shape to stay out here, anyway."

Marco gave in to the inevitable, too sick and dizzy and in too much pain to argue. "The path's?through those two hummocks," he said, nodding his head in the right direction and setting off a skull-filling ache by doing so. The three of them stumbled off down the rim-path, making slow work of it?especially since they had to stop twice to let him throw up what little there was in his stomach. He concentrated on getting one foot set in front of the other. That was just about all he was up to at this point; that, and keeping from passing out altogether.