Terry Brooks: High Druid's Blade

He did not see Chrys anywhere.

And then he did.

She was being led up a mobile boarding ramp to a sleek vessel of a sort he had never seen before. The ship had caught his eye because it was so different, and there was his sister. He charged forward, breaking into a run once more, darting through the forest of hulls and masts as he did so. He kept searching for a weapon as he ran, but none appeared. The workers on the field were not wearing weapons, and there were none lying about.

Finally, in desperation, he snatched up an iron bar. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

When he was still fifty yards or so away, he slowed to a walk. He could tell the ship wasn’t leaving quite yet. The crew was still rigging her; the diapson crystals hadn’t been powered up. He had time. He wondered suddenly why Chrys wasn’t fighting. She seemed to be boarding willingly, offering no resistance. That didn’t seem like her, especially given the story behind her abduction. The confrontation at the Two Roosters did not suggest that she had suddenly changed her mind about accompanying the stranger to whatever fate he had in store for her. No, something about what he was seeing wasn’t right.

Chrys was no longer in sight. The stranger who had led her aboard reappeared at the railing of his vessel, caught sight of Paxon, and moved to the boarding ramp. Paxon continued to approach, but more cautiously than before. He watched the stranger descend and walk out to meet him.

“You would be the brother, I expect.”

Paxon stopped six feet away. “I want my sister back.”

“She hasn’t stopped threatening me with you since I brought her to my vessel.” He smiled. “She keeps telling me what you will do to me once you get here. I must admit to a certain curiosity, given all the terrible injuries she has assured me you intend to inflict. Is she always like this?”

Paxon was a little taken aback by this friendly chatter, but he was in no way deterred from his purpose. “You’ve kidnapped a fifteen–year–old girl,” he snapped. “That’s an offense everywhere. It doesn’t matter what she did, you have to let her go. But I will make good on her debt, if that’s what it takes.”

The man shrugged, but the smile did not fade. He wasn’t a big man, wasn’t even striking in any particular way. Yet there was an unmistakable confidence about him, and no visible sense of concern over Paxon’s appearance. “I’m afraid her debt is much more than you can afford, young man.”

“I’ll work it off”

The smile widened. “In a couple of months, if you work hard, you probably can. But she can work it off more quickly by coming with me.”

Paxon was both enraged and frightened on hearing this. He was beginning to feel that talk alone was not going to be enough to get Chrys back. He was going to have to be more aggressive, and he wasn’t sure he was up to it. “The City Watch is on its way,” he warned.

The stranger shook his head. “I doubt it. But even if it is, they won’t be able to do anything about your sister. I have immunity from interference from the local authorities. I can pretty much do what I want. Which, in this case, means taking your sister with me to pay her debt.” He paused. “She might be willing to go with me by now, you know. She might have reconsidered; she knows she is in the wrong, and she might be ready to pay the price for her foolish behavior. You should be proud of her.”

Paxon shook his head in denial. “I don’t know what you are talking about. She would never go anywhere with you willingly, whatever you say. Let me ask her face–to–face. Let me talk to her.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. It would be better if you just turned around and went home again. She’ll be back in a few weeks. There won’t be any permanent damage. And she will have learned a valuable lesson.”

Paxon hefted the iron bar. “If you don’t release my sister right now, I will board your ship and take her back myself!”

The stranger nodded. He raised his arm, making a small gesture with his hand. A signal. “I was afraid it might come down to this. You have no idea who I am, do you? If you did, you might think twice about threatening me.”

“I doubt it. Are you going to set my sister free or not?”

“What I am going to do is to give you one last chance to walk away. You should take it.”

All at once there were three men standing behind him, crewmen from his vessel from the look of them–big and strong, hard men much older and undoubtedly more experienced at fighting than Paxon. They carried no weapons, but gnarled hands and muscular arms suggested they did not need them.

The stranger had quit smiling. “Drop your iron bar, Paxon,” he said. “Let’s make this fight more even. Fists only.”

To Paxon’s surprise, he did as he was ordered. He couldn’t have explained why; it just seemed that it was something he had to do, and so he did it. He stared down at his discarded weapon, horrified.

“Much better.” The stranger stepped back and his men stepped forward. “Don’t hurt him too much,” he told them. “Don’t break anything. Just show him the error of his ways.”

They came at Paxon in a rush, slamming into him with such force that they knocked him off his feet. They were on top of him instantly, fists pummeling him as he tried to fight back. He might have landed a few good blows in the struggle, but in the end there were still three of them and only one of him, and he was overwhelmed.

Eventually, the pain and the shock caused him to lose consciousness. When he came awake again, a hand was slapping his face in a rhythmic fashion while another was holding up his head by his hair.

The stranger was kneeling before him. “My name is Arcannen. If you wish to pursue this, you can find me at Dark House in the city of Wayford. You should stay away, but if you can’t help yourself you had better bring a real weapon, not an iron bar. Because if I see you again, I will kill you.”

He rose and stood looking down. “Let him go.”

The fingers tangled in his hair released their grip and his face slammed into the earth. Pain exploded in his head, and bright flashes appeared behind his eyelids. He lay helplessly, fighting to stay conscious. But it was long minutes later before he could bring himself to open his eyes and turn himself over to discover that the stranger’s airship had begun to lift off, light sheaths gathering in sunlight for the radian draws to channel to the parse tubes, thrusters powering up. As battered as he was, as defeated as he felt, he found himself admiring the sleek lines of the vessel, wondering again why he had never seen this sort of airship before. He made himself memorize her look, the emblems on her pennants, the insignia on her bow.

A black raven, wings spread, beak open wide. Attacking.

Then the vessel wheeled south and sped away. By the time Paxon was back on his feet, she was little more than a dot in the distant sky.

He stood looking at nothing for a few moments, waiting to recover from his beating, then turned about and stalked from the airfield. He had really never had a chance at getting Chrys back from the stranger. Arcannen–that was a name he wouldn’t forget. He had provided it willingly–something Raffe had refused to do–so he was confident that it wouldn’t help Paxon to know it. He was a man possessed of a new style of airship and a crew that likely would do anything he asked them to. Somehow, he had been able to persuade Paxon to put down the iron bar when that might have made the difference in the fight.

And he had Chrys in his possession. He was flying her back to Wayford to something called Dark House. Paxon could only imagine what that might turn out to be.

Come find out, Arcannen had challenged. Believing Paxon would never dare to do so, that he had found out the hard way what would happen if he did. The beating was a warning. Stay away. Don’t come after me. Let your sister go. She belongs to me, and I can do with her what I like. You can’t prevent it, and you shouldn’t try. You are a Highlander of no importance living in a place of low regard, and you can never hope to be the equal of me. Stay where you are and stay healthy.