Mel Odom - The Black Road

Darrick looked at the corpse and the plain sword it held. "Has Hauklin's sword ever been taken?"

"Never," Ellig Barrows said. "Not once from his hand. Not even I can remove it. I have only been made their protector. As my grandson shall be after me."

"Try," Taramis urged. "If you can't take up the sword, then I've come on a fool's quest and uncovered secrets best left hidden."

"Yes," Ellig Barrows said. "No one has ever come for the sword in my lifetime. I had begun to think the world had forgotten about it. Or that the demon Kabraxis had been permanently banished from this world."

Taramis put his hand on Darrick's shoulder. "But the demon is back," the sage said. "We know that, don't we? The demon is back, and the sword should come free."

"But am I the one?" Darrick asked in a hoarse voice.

"You must be," Taramis said. "I can think of no other. Your friend died in that place. There has to be a reason you were spared. It's the balance, Darrick. The needs of the Light must always be balanced against the power of the Darkness."

Darrick gazed at the sword. The stink of the barn behind his father's butcher shop returned to him. You'll never amount to anything! his father had shouted. You're dumb, and you're stupid, and you're going to die dumb and stupid! Days and weeks and years of that rolled through Darrick's head. Pain tingled through his body again, reminding him of the whippings he'd endured and somehow survived. His father's voice had often haunted him during the past year, and he'd tried to drown it in wine and spirits, in hard work and bleak disappointment.

And in the guilt over Mat Hu-Ring's death.

Hadn't that been punishment enough? Darrick stared at the simple sword clasped in the dead man's hands.

"And if I can't take the sword?" Darrick asked in a ragged voice.

"Then I will search out the true secret," Taramis said. "Or I will find another way to battle Kabraxis and his accursed Church of the Prophet of the Light."

But the sage believed in him, and Darrick knew that. It was almost too much to bear.

Pushing away his own fears, going numb and dead inside the way he had when he'd faced his father in thatsmall barn in Hillsfar, Darrick stepped toward the dead man. He reached for the sword.

Inches from the blade's hilt, his hand froze, and he found he was unable to go any farther.

"I can't," Darrick said, refusing to give in, wanting desperately to be able to pick up the sword and prove his worth even if only to himself.

"Try," Taramis said.

Darrick watched his hand shake with the effort he was making. It felt as if he were pushing against a stone wall. Pain welled up inside him, but it had nothing to do with the sword.

You're stupid, boy, and you're lazy. Not worth the time or the trouble or the food to keep you.

Darrick fought the barrier, willing his hand to pass through. He pressed his whole body against it now, feeling it support most of his weight.

"Ease off," Taramis said.

"No," Darrick said.

"C'mon, lad," Ellig Barrows said. "It's not meant to be."

Darrick strained for the sword, wanting even another fraction of an inch if he could get it. It felt as if his finger bones were going to pass through the flesh. Pain raced up his arm, and he clenched his teeth against it.

I should have knocked you in the head the day you were born, boy. That way you wouldn't have lived to be such a disgrace.

Darrick reached, in agony now.

"Give it up," Taramis said.

"No!" Darrick said in a loud voice.

The sage reached for him, gripping him by the shoulder and trying to pull him away.

"You're going to get hurt, lad," Ellig Barrows said. "You can't force this thing."

Pain dimmed Darrick's hearing. Images of Mat falling from the cliffside spun through his brain again. Guilt filled Darrick, echoed by the worthlessness he felt from his father's oft-repeated words. For a moment, he thought the pain was going to destroy him, melt him down where hestood. He was locked in the pursuit of the sword, didn't think he could pull back if he wanted to.

And where would he go from here after failing this? He had no answers.

Then a calm, cool voice holding just a hint of mocking amusement filled his head. Take up the sword, skipper.

"Mat?" Darrick said aloud. He was so surprised at hearing Mat's voice that he didn't even realize at first that he had fallen across the corpse, bruising his knees against the earthen floor. Instinctively, his hand curled around the sword's hilt, but he glanced around the shadows of the crypt looking for Mat Hu-Ring.

Only Taramis and Ellig Barrows stood there.

"By the Light," the old man whispered. "He has taken the sword."

Taramis smiled in triumph. "As I told you he would."

Darrick gazed down at the dead man so close to him. The corpse felt unnaturally cold.

"Take the sword, Darrick," the sage urged.

Slowly, disbelieving, not knowing if he'd truly heard Mat's voice or it had been part of some spell that opened the ward protecting the sword or a delusion of his own, Darrick pulled the sword away from the dead warrior. Despite its length and unfamiliar style, the sword felt comfortable in Darrick's hand. He stood, holding it out before him.

Something in the scarred and dark metal caught the light of Ellig Barrows's lantern, glinting dulled silver.

Tentatively, Taramis reached for the sword, but his hand stopped inches away. "I still cannot touch the sword."

The old man tried to touch the weapon as well but with the same results. "Nor can I. None in my family has ever been able to touch the sword. Whenever we moved it, we had to move Hauklin's body as well." A note of sadness sounded in the old man's voice.

For the first time, Darrick realized that taking the sword would leave the old man and his grandson with nothing to care for or protect. Darrick gazed at the old man. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Ellig Barrows nodded. "All of us who have defended the sword have prayed that this day would come, this day when we would be free of our burden, but to see it actually happen-" Words failed him.

"Taramis!" one of the men shouted from outside.

Even as the sage started for the magical door, the sound of inhuman and monstrous yips and growls cascaded into the root cellar.

Darrick followed the sage, bolting through the racks of foodstuffs and wines, trailed by Ellig Barrows with the lantern. The weak gray daylight pouring through the root cellar door marked the entrance.

The noise of men fighting, their curses and yells, as well as the growls and howls of the creatures they fought, pummeled Darrick's ears as he raced up the earthen steps. He was on Taramis's heels as they burst from the root cellar.

The clearing around the house, which had moments ago been peaceful and restful, was now filled with battle. Taramis's warriors formed a quick skirmish line against the bloodthirsty beasts that raged against them from the forest.

"Lezanti," Taramis breathed. "By the Light, Kabraxis has found us out."

Darrick recognized the demon-forged beasts, but only from tales he'd been told aboard ship. Even in all of his travels, he'd never before encountered the creatures.

The lezanti stood a little less than five feet tall. They were human-shaped, but they possessed the reverse-hinged knees of a wolf and the thick hide of a lizard. The head was lizard-shaped as well, bearing an elongated snout filled with serrated teeth and flat, flaring nostrils. The eyes were close-set under a hank of wooly hair and surprisingly human. The hands and feet were oversized, filled with huge claws. Lizards' tails, barbed on the ends, swung around behind them.

"Archers!" Taramis cried hoarsely as he stood his ground and began weaving his hands through the air, inscribing symbols that flared to flaming life.