The Sword and the Chain Page 2

  Very bad.

  But . . . crossbows? If they had them, why hadn't they used them?

  *Stupid. Dead . . . isn't worth . . . much.* Ellegon's voice was dim now that Karl was on the very edge of the dragon's range; worse, the flow of words had developed gaps when Ellegon wasn't concentrating.

  Right, he thought, wondering if the dragon could hear him. He faced the four men. "Ryvâth èd," he said, letting the guttural Erendra r roll off his tongue. It stops here.

  The leader, a burly, bearded swordsman, answered him in the same language. "This is none of your concern," he said, moving his horse closer to Karl's. "The slave is the property of Lord Mehlên of Metreyll, whose armsmen we are—laws regarding abandoned property do not apply."

  Karl could just barely hear Ellegon. *Stall. Just stall.*

  He couldn't stall for long. The younger of the two bowmen had unstrapped his crossbow and was fumbling for one of the bolts in the wooden quiver strapped to the cantle of his saddle.

  But it was at least worth a try. "You," he said in Erendra, "if you touch that bowstring, I'll take it away from you and wrap it around your throat." The largest of the four was almost a head shorter than Karl; perhaps he could intimidate them for a few minutes, until the odds evened up.

  The bowman, a blond youth who looked to be in his late teens, sneered. "I doubt that," he said. But his fingers stopped their search for a bolt.

  Good. Just a few more minutes. "Now, we can talk," he said, lowering the point of his sword.

  He listened for sounds from behind him. Damn, nothing but the clattering of hooves as the quarry's horse got to its feet. The escaped slave was, at best, feigning unconsciousness.

  At best . . .

  To hell with it. "He is not a slave. Not anymore. He is under my protection." It was only fair to give them a chance; Karl had made a promise to the Matriarch, but he could hardly fulfill it by killing everyone in this world who tolerated—or even supported—the ownership of people. It wouldn't work, even if Karl was willing to wade through a sea of blood.

  Dammit. There had been a time when the most violent thing Karl could remember doing was blocking too hard during a karate lesson.

  But there have been some changes made. "You're not going to take him."

  The leader snorted. "Who are you?" He raised an eyebrow. "You don't look like a daughter of the Hand. You're ugly as most of them, granted, but—" He cut himself off with a shrug. "What do you suggest we do? We have chased him a long way—"

  "Turn around and ride away," Karl said. "We will just leave it at that."

  The leader smiled, his right hand snaking across his body toward the hilt of his sword. "I doubt—"

  His words turned into a bubbling gasp as the point of Karl's saber sliced through his throat.

  One down. Karl kicked his horse over to the next swordsman, a pock-faced beardless one, who had already drawn his sword.

  There was no time to waste; he had to take this one out and get to the bowmen quickly. As the other slashed down at him, Karl parried, then thrust at the man's swordarm.

  No-Beard was ready for that; with a twitch of his arm, he beat Karl's sword aside, then tried for a backhanded slash to Karl's neck.

  Karl ducked under the swing and used the opening to thrust through to his opponent's chest, the flat of his blade parallel to the ground. The point slid through the leather tunic as if through cheesecloth.

  Karl jerked his saber out. Wine-dark blood fountained, covering his sword from its tip to its basket hilt and beyond, staining Karl's hand and wrist. He had gotten through to either the aorta or the heart. It didn't much matter which; No-Beard would be dead in seconds.

  Karl spun his horse around to face the others. Like mirror images, the two bowmen turned their horses and galloped in opposite directions.

  He hesitated for a moment. At close quarters, he could take both. But with just a few yards between them, one of the bowmen could drill him through while he killed the other.

  There was no choice. He would have to take out one, and worry about the other later.

  The bowman to the left wheeled his horse about. Two tugs at his saddlestraps unlimbered his crossbow; he reached down to his waist for a three-pronged beltclaw.

  Forty yards of broken ground separated Karl from him. Karl dug in his heels and kicked his horse into a gallop. If he could get to the bowman quickly enough . . .

  Thirty yards. Bracing the butt of the crossbow in a notch in his saddle, the bowman slipped the claw over the bowstring and pulled it back, locking the string into place. The beltclaw fell from his fingers.

  Twenty yards. With trembling hands, the bowman drew a foot-long feathered bolt from his quiver, slipped it into the crossbow's groove, and nocked it with a practiced movement of his thumb.

  Ten. He raised the bow to his shoulder and took aim, four fingers curled around the crossbow's long trigger.

  With an upward slash, Karl knocked the crossbow aside, the bolt discharging harmlessly overhead. As the bowman reached for the dagger at his belt, Karl speared him through the chest.

  The sword stuck.

  Damn. Karl had been in too much of a hurry; he hadn't made sure that the flat of his blade was parallel to the ground—the damn sword had wedged itself in between two ribs. As Karl tried to jerk it loose, the blood-slickened hilt twisted out of his fingers.

  The limp body of the bowman slipped from the saddle, carrying Karl's sword with it. He swore, and—

  Agony blossomed like a fiery flower in the middle of Karl's back. His legs went numb and lifeless. As he started to slip from his mare's back, he tried to hold on to her mane, but a spasm jerked the rough hairs from his fingers.

  He landed on his side on the hard ground, his body twisted. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the fletching of the crossbow bolt that projected from his back.

  He felt nothing, nothing at all from the waist down.

  My spine. Ellegon, help me. Please.

  No answer.

  Nothing.

  Through a red cloud of pain, he saw the other bowman still his horse's jittery prancing and reload his crossbow, taking the time to aim carefully. It was the blond boy he had threatened before. Beyond him, Ahira, Walter, and Riccetti ran across the sun-baked plain, weapons carried high. But there was no way that they could reach the bowman in time.

  The point of the bolt drew his eyes. Shiny though rust-specked steel, glistening in the ruddy light of the setting sun. It bore down on him; the bowstring—

  —snapped, sending the bolt looping end over end in the still air. A long red weal drew itself across the boy's leg; as he lowered his hands to protect himself from his invisible attacker, he was jerked out of the saddle.

  He collapsed in a heap as Walter Slovotsky ran up and took up a position standing over the boy, one knife in each hand.

  "Go take care of Karl," Slovotsky addressed the air. "I'll see to this . . . trash."

  A staggered line of dust puffs drew itself across the ground toward where Karl lay. "Easy," Andy-Andy's voice murmured. "Lou has the bottle of healing draughts. It won't hurt much longer." Gentle, invisible fingers cradled his head.

  Quietly, she spoke harsh, awkward syllables that could only be heard and forgotten, while Karl watched Lou Riccetti puff and pant his way across the plain, an ornately inlaid brass bottle cradled in his arms.

  And then, as her dismissal of the invisibility spell began to take effect, the outline of her head appeared, superimposing itself over his view of Riccetti.

  The image solidified: first the brown eyes, faintly misted with tears. Then, the slightly too-long, slightly bent nose, the high-boned cheeks, and the full mouth, all framed with the long brown hair that was now touched with red highlights in the light of the setting sun. Karl had always found Andy-Andy beautiful, but never more so than now.

  "Andy, my legs—"

  "You stupid shit." She slipped an arm under his shoulder and clumsily flipped him over onto his belly. "Quick, give it here." A cork
popped.

  A wrenching pain forced a scream from his mouth as the bolt was drawn from his back. But, horridly, the pain still vanished in mid-back. He was paralyzed.

  No. Please God, no. He tried to talk, but his mouth was as dry as the Waste.

  And then a liquid coolness washed the pain away. It vanished, as though it had never been.

  "Twitch your toes, Karl," she commanded.

  He tried to.

  And they moved.

  He was all there; he felt everything, everything from the top of his aching head all the way down to where his right great toe throbbed. Probably sprained it when I fell. "Thanks." He tried to get his arms underneath him, to push himself to his feet.

  "That will be enough of that," Andy-Andy said. "We're running short of the healing potion. I had to give you most of it to take care of the hole in your back. We can't afford to have you swallow any more just to take care of the shock to your system. So you just lie there. I've got to go see to the man that got knocked off his horse."

  "Don't bother," Ahira said, his voice a low rasp. "Must've snapped his neck in the fall. He's dead. Damn."

  *But,* Ellegon's voice sounded in Karl's head, *he died free. You gave him that gift.*

  Wonderful. Tears welled up. He hadn't done anything right. He should have listened to Andy-Andy: If he had only waited a few moments, she could have cast her spell of invisibility on him; the escaped slave would never have been scared into turning aside; the bola would have missed. And Karl would never have been shot, not while he was invisible. It could have all been done so easily, if only he had waited.

  And, now, it's all a waste.

  *No. It was not.*

  That's easy for you to say. Coward.

  *Listen to me, Karl. He was too far away; I couldn't hear much of his mind as he tried to escape; I don't even know his name. But I did hear one thing, when he saw you, and mistook you for one of the pursuers. I heard him thinking, "No—I'd rather die than go back."*

  And if I'd waited—

  *He still would have died, sometime soon. Perhaps ten years from now, perhaps fifty. No time at all; you humans are so . . . ephemeral. But he might not have died free. Always remember that he died a free man.*

  And was that so much?

  *He thought so. What right have you to dispute it?* The dragon's mental voice became gentle. *You've had a difficult time. Go to sleep now. Lou will rig a travois, and we'll bring you back up to camp.*

  But—

  *Sleep.*

  Weariness welled up and washed him in a cool, dark wave.

  * * *

  Ahira looked down at the bound form of the blond bowman and swore softly under his breath. "What the hell are we going to do with this?"

  The youth didn't answer; he just stared listlessly at the ground.

  The dwarf rested his hands on the hilt of his double-bladed battleaxe. The axe was the simple answer, and probably the best one. But possibly not. In any case, there was enough time for a leisurely decision whether or not to kill the bowman; with his hands tied to the roots of an old oak, he wasn't going anywhere.

  Walter stooped to check the knots. "It'll hold him. Do you want me to have Ellegon keep an eye open?"

  Ellegon. That was another matter. If that damned dragon of Karl's hadn't turned coward suddenly—

  *Two points. I belong to myself, not to Karl Cullinane, or anyone else. Secondly, I did not suddenly "turn coward," dwarf. I am a coward, James Michael Finnegan. I have been, for more than three hundred years.*

  Don't call me that. My name is Ahira.

  *Now it is. And what scares you the most?* "What does that have to do with anything?"

  *I will show you, if you insist. But I suggest you save it for later, Ahira. For the time being, let it rest that there is one thing that frightens me just as much as the thought of being crippled James Michael Finnegan frightens you.*

  Slovotsky chuckled. "I'd take him at his word, were I you, little friend. You weren't around when he gave Karl a taste of what being chained in Pandathaway's cesspit felt like. Check with Karl before you let him show you." He raised his head and addressed the air. "Ellegon? Do me a favor and tune us out; I want a private conversation with the dwarf."

  *Very well.* The dragon's mental voice went silent.

  Slovotsky shook his head. "Not that I trust him to keep out of our heads. It's just that since he's agreed to, he probably won't let the cat out of the bag to Karl. Cullinane's going to be a problem."

  Ahira looked over to the far side of the meadow. Under a pile of blankets, Karl Cullinane lay sleeping in the twilight. A few yards away, Andrea and Lou Riccetti sat talking quietly.

  "Cullinane's going to be a problem," Ahira echoed, as he and Slovotsky walked to the far edge of the clearing, away from the bound bowman. "Big deal."

  Slovotsky cocked his head. "You don't think so?"

  "Cullinane's the least of my worries, Walter. We've got bigger ones." Ahira jerked his head at the bound form of the blond bowman. "Like what we're going to do with William Tell here. Or how long we can stay on the preserve before the Healing Hand Society kicks us out." He shrugged. "Right now, I'm more worried about Riccetti. I told him to take my crossbow. All he ended up doing was bringing along the healing draughts for after. Not exactly a big help. If we'd really needed him in the fight, we would all have been in deep trouble." Ahira pounded his fist against a tree, sending chips of bark flying off into the night.

  "Don't get so bent out of shape about Riccetti; you're missing the big problem." Slovotsky laid a hand on his shoulder. "But take it easy. Try and deal with one thing at a time, as you used to when you were writing computer programs—just one step, one problem at a time.

  "Take Riccetti. So what if he wasn't any good in a fight? Can't blame him. The rest of us have the abilities we gained in the transfer. I've got this." With a smooth, flowing motion, he pulled one of his four throwing knives from the tangle of straps at his hip, caught the tip of the blade between thumb and forefinger, and threw it at a nearby tree. It quivered as it sank into the trunk five and a half feet above the ground.

  Slovotsky patted at his hip. "And while I'm not in Karl's league, if we can get a sword for me, I could use it reasonably well. Not to mention my thieving skills." He walked over and pulled the knife from the tree, taking a moment to clean it on a fold of his blousy pantaloons before replacing it in its sheath. "You've got your strength, your darksight, and your skills with crossbow and battleaxe. Karl's damn good with his sword; Andy-Andy has her spells."

  "But Riccetti's got nothing." Lou Riccetti had been a wizard; he had given up his magic as his part of the payment to the Matriarch of the Healing Hand Society for bringing Ahira back to life.

  Which means that I'd be an ungrateful ass if I gave him hell for not getting involved in the fight. If it wasn't for me—

  No. That wouldn't do; recriminations wouldn't be any help. The question, as usual, was what to do next. "Any ideas on what we do with Riccetti?"

  A shrug. "We hand that problem to Karl. Let him work it out; he knows more about weapons and martial arts than both of us put together. For all I know, he might be able to turn Lou into a decent swordsman, if the two of them work at it." Slovotsky seated himself on a waist-high boulder. "Leave that one alone for the time being. As you pointed out, we've got bigger problems staring us in the face. Like what we're going to do with the bowman there. If we let him go, we're just asking for trouble. On the other hand, slicing his throat in cold blood doesn't exactly thrill me."

  "I don't think it matters whether or not it thrills you. Not if—and I say if—we have to do it. He'll keep for a while . . . You were saying I missed the big problem?"

  "Yup." Slovotsky nodded. "Have you taken an inventory of our supplies lately? It's not just that we're down to our last pound of coffee and last fifth of Johnny Walker—if we don't get some food, and soon, we're going to be eating bark in a little while."

  "Good point. Make a list tonight, and we'll talk it
over in the morning, all five—"

  *Six.*

  "—all six of us." He spun around, startled at the interruption. "I thought you agreed to let us talk privately."

  *Sorry.* The dragon's mental voice held no trace whatsoever of sincerity.

  Tell me, do you give Karl as much trouble as you do me?

  *More. I like him better.*

  Slovotsky threw back his head and laughed. "I told you he'd eavesdrop." His face grew somber. "But I'm still worried about Karl. What the hell are we going to do about him? He could easily have gotten himself killed today, dashing off like that. And in case you weren't paying attention, the Matriarch said that she won't help us anymore. Any further deaths are as final as . . ." He furrowed his brow as he searched for an analogy.

  "A temporary rate hike from the phone company?" Ahira suggested.

  "Right."

  "As for Karl," Ahira said, shrugging, "I've got to try to get him to show a bit of restraint. He has this thing about freeing slaves—and it's already put a price on our heads. We can't have him just rushing off and slashing away every time he sees someone in a collar."

  Not that Ahira had any complaint about Karl's feelings; as James Michael Finnegan, Ahira had been raised in a world where slavery was generally considered a wrong. Or, at least, the prerogative of governments, not individuals.

  But slavery had been the way of things in this world for millennia; they couldn't change things overnight, no matter what Karl had promised the Matriarch, as his part of the payment for Ahira's revivification.

  *You can be sure that Karl won't be restrained, Ahira.*

  Oh? And why is that?

  *Mmmm, just call it professional pride.*

  Walter Slovotsky nodded. "The dragon's got a point." He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and yawned.

  Ahira clapped Slovotsky on the arm. "It's been a long day. Ellegon, you keep an eye peeled on the Waste; Walter, I'll take first watch. Go get some sleep; I'll wake you in a couple of hours. We'll worry about all this tomorrow."

  "At Tara?" Slovotsky didn't wait for an answer; he walked off, whistling the theme from Gone with the Wind.