Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

"You know, Caius Merlyn Britannicus—" She paused, then leaned forward, blowing the warmth of her breath against my ear. "You know I love you, do you not?" She waited for an answer and I nodded, mutely. "Well," she continued, "know this, too. I believe in you, and in your gifts, which you think are some kind of curse. I believe that you have the gift of prophecy. What was it Master Lucanus called it? Foreknowledge. Is that the word?" She waited for an answer, and I nodded, again. "Well then, I believe in your power of foreknowledge, and I believe you have seen Rufio, lying hurt, perhaps dead—the gods forbid—in a place unsearched till now. Tomorrow, therefore, you must go down into the valley and along the cliffs until you reach the downfall of the fell behind us here, to the east."

"And what if he's not there? Not only will I appear to be a fool, but I might well have destroyed any chance of finding the real place where he is lying, at least in time to save his life."

"He will be there." She took my right hand in her left and slipped it between the folds of her blanket to lie between her breasts. "You feel that? My heart beating? My knowledge that you're right is as sure as the beating of my heart." She released my hand, but left it where it was, to behave as it would while she continued talking.

"As for the face of Master Ironhair, that is as far beyond me as it is beyond you. Shelagh told me you sometimes fail to understand all that you see. Is that true?"

"Aye, too frequently."

"Then this is one of those times. But remember what you saw—Ironhair's face where simple reason tells us it could never be. The meaning will come clear to you one of these days, and when it does, you'll know what to do. In the meantime, however, you have to find Rufio."

She paused, leaning out and away from me to squint at my reflection in the light of the fire. "You're still not sure, * are you?" I shook my head slowly and she continued. "Very well, here's what to do. Send out the search parties tomorrow, exactly as you had planned to do, to cover the territories you selected earlier tonight, but go by yourself, with several of the men you trust most and who know you best, and search the area you dreamed about."

"Dedalus," I said. "And Donuil. Luke's too old for the kind of terrain we'll be covering, and Philip. Falvo and Benedict should remain with their troops. But they're Rufio's closest friends."

'Then take them with you. They have officers beneath them they can trust, and the troops will all be split up, anyway. Take Rufio's friends with you. Shelagh won't stay behind, either, when one of the men she thinks of as her own is lost. Take her and the four boys. One of you will find him."

"So be it." I pulled her to me and kissed her long and deeply, overflowing with relief and determination, and soon we returned to bed, as impatient for each other as we were for the night to recede.

It was, in fact, Shelagh who found Rufio, in precisely the circumstances I had dreamed, at the farthest end of the valley beneath our escarpment, in an area that I would never have thought even to penetrate, let alone search. And, as Fortune would have it, Shelagh was accompanied by Lucanus, who had refused to remain behind in Mediobogdum, claiming that Rufio would have great need of his skills if he was still alive. I was far beneath them with Arthur and Bedwyr, almost on the valley floor, when they made their discovery, but their cries reached the ears of Dedalus on the slope between them and us, and young Bedwyr's keen ears picked up Ded's bellowing in the distance above our heads.

I knew the clearing, immediately, as the site of my dream. Shelagh and Luke were on their knees beside Rufio, working quickly and with great concentration. Dedalus stood over them, his face a picture of anguish and anger, and beside him Gwin and young Ghilly gazed in pop-eyed horror at the ministrations being performed nearby.

"How is he?" I called, dismounting hurriedly.

"He's alive, but barely," Ded answered.

I turned towards Arthur and Bedwyr, both of whom were preparing to dismount, and ordered them to stay where they were, then I made my way forward to where I could see Rufio. Black and white , I thought immediately, my memory taking me back to the day when I rode into the carnage of the scene at my cousin Uther's last battle. Then, as now, the White had been the pallor of dead flesh and the black the ugliness of dried and crusted blood. Rufio appeared dead, despite Ded's statement to the contrary.

Luke had already removed Rufio's armour, slicing through the leather straps that held it in place with a sharp knife, then cutting away the clothing beneath to lay bare the awful wounds that marred our friend's shockingly pale flesh. I had suspected an accident of some kind, perhaps even an attack, but nothing had prepared me for the sight of Rufio's wounds. He had been savaged, not merely wounded; his flesh lay open at the left shoulder, scored in great, parallel gashes, two of which extended all along his upper arm, and his face was invisible beneath a mask of dried blood that plastered his hair flat against his head so that it seemed to be a polished black skull.

"What in the name of God—"

"It was a bear. Look at that." Ded nodded towards something on the ground almost by my feet and I looked down to see an enormous black paw, tipped with claws longer than my fingers. It had been severed cleanly at what would have been the wrist on a human limb. Mute with disbelief, I looked from it to Rufio. Dedalus read my mind.

"Rufe must have brought one of the two new swords with him. I know of nothing else that could have taken off a thing like that."

I looked all around, but saw nothing. "Where is it now, then?"

"Stuck in the beast, I'd think. Nothing else would explain why it left him here without eating him."

I sucked in a great breath, to settle both my stomach and my mind. Dedalus was right. Lacking a paw, the beast should have been sufficiently enraged to destroy Rufio utterly. Only a greater wound, and greater pain, could have driven it off before it killed him.

I was aware of Lucanus issuing orders to the others who had arrived, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that he was telling them to build a litter in which to carry Rufio back to the fort, or at least out of the woods to where Luke could have space to do what must be done to cleanse and bind those dreadful wounds. My thoughts, however, were bound up in what lay before me.

"We have to find it," I said.

"What, the sword or the bear?"

"Both. The one we need, the other we need dead."

"Aye, granted. But I'm not going up against that thing, wounded as it is, without a score of spears around me."

"It should be dead by this time."

"Aye, and so should Rufe, but he's alive."

"You're right." I turned towards the boys. "Arthur, take young Ghilly with you and Bedwyr and find the nearest search party. Tell them we've found Rufio, but that we need assistance to track and kill a wounded bear—a very large bear. We need men with spears, as many as you can find and not less than a score. Tell whoever you find in charge to send someone back to the fort with word to call off the other searchers in the hills above the fort, and to have the Infirmary prepared with fresh bedding and bandages and boiling water. Lucanus always requires large quantities of boiled water. Go now, quickly, then lead the others hack to join us here. We'll be waiting for you. And be careful! We don't know where that bear might be. If you hear it, or see it, stay well clear of it. Go!"

The boys were gone in a matter of moments, and shortly thereafter Luke and Shelagh left, too, walking one on either side of the litter and each holding one of the ends of a leather strap, Rufio's swordbelt, which they had passed beneath the centre of the bier, ready to take up the strain should any of the four bearers, Donuil, Philip, Falvo and Benedict, slip or lose their balance on the treacherous hillside.