He was bleeding. He touched the front of his chest with his shield hand. It came away wet. It was a shallow wound, the sort that could be healed with stitches and a poultice, but it never failed to startle him to realize he’d taken an injury without feeling it.
Just as the wooden jamb around the sword began to splinter, Tejohn threw his shoulder into it. The door burst inward. The point of the sword, still protruding from the latch, struck the shield of the man who’d been pulling at the door. He raised his shield as though meeting an attack, and Tejohn stabbed low, plunging the spear tip into his inner thigh.
Blood fountained in the firelit room. The man cried out and fell back onto the stone floor. Tejohn was already spinning, bringing his shield around, when the second man stabbed at him. Tejohn deflected the attack, but his own spear twisted out of his hands.
He scrambled backward through the doorway, the guard jabbing at him as he retreated. He struck the back of his head against the doorjamb, then slipped through, knocking aside the spear point with the edge of his stolen shield.
His vision partially obscured by spots, his strength draining away, Tejohn yanked the sword out of the dirt and leaped to the side. He wasn’t sure how much exertion he had left, but it would have to be enough to take on one more man. He could still feel the battle lust inside him, as irresistible as a falling blade.
The guard he’d stabbed in the leg lay moaning against the wall, trying to pinch off the blood flow. The other man stood crouched in the entrance hall, spear point facing forward. This wasn’t one of the ungainly spears the others had held outside. This was the shorter spear that Tejohn had fought with in his youth, and he suppressed an absurd urge to ask the man to let him hold it one last time.
Tejohn rushed through the doorway, slamming the edge of his shield against the man’s spear, batting it aside. He tripped over the spear on the ground as he advanced but managed not to fall. The guard cast his spear aside and reached for his sword, while at the same time slamming Tejohn aside with his shield.
Finally, someone who knew how to use a shield correctly. The metal rim struck painfully against Tejohn’s forearm but he didn’t lose his grip on his short sword. Then, both blades were bared, and the two men clashed. Their faces were lit in red by the flames in the hearth, and they could see each other. Something in Tejohn’s expression must have given the guard confidence, because he suddenly grinned.
Tejohn wedged his shield against the other man’s, prying it away from his torso. The guard swung overhand at Tejohn’s unprotected skull, but he felt the attack coming and ducked low and to the right. The guard felt his shift in position and pivoted away from Tejohn’s sword thrust.
Fire and Fury, Tejohn was fading, losing his quickness and power. Still, the guard’s arm was high over his own shield, and there was another artery there--
White hot pain pierced Tejohn’s low back, just above his right hip. He gasped and looked down; a spear point protruded from his lower abdomen, dark bloodstains all over his tunic.
I am dead. He didn’t even have to turn around to see who had done it. The guard he’d stabbed in the leg must have stopped trying to save himself and taken up his dropped spear.
Tejohn had failed his king, he would never see his sons again, never again hear his wife’s voice.
Laoni, I’m sorry. Tell them about me.
All these thoughts swirled within him as the strength ran out of his legs like water. He collapsed on the floor, cursing himself for his carelessness. Who could now go to Tempest Pass to find the spell needed to defeat the grunts? Lar never should have trusted this mission to Tejohn; this was a task for a hero of the ruined past, not an ordinary man.
The guard sneered and raised his sword. He was going to smash Tejohn’s skull and Tejohn couldn’t even raise his shield. He’d fallen on it, and the spear through his side acted like a brace; he couldn’t roll off it.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way. But he couldn’t just let himself be killed. On the guard’s downstroke, Tejohn slashed at him with all his remaining strength. Parrying was for suicides, but he did manage to strike the guard on the wrist.
The man’s hand came off in a shower of blood, and his falling blade bit heavily into Tejohn’s cheek and ear. The guard fell back against the wall and screamed. It was the sound of a young man who knows he is about to die; Tejohn knew that sound better than the laughter of his own children.
Tejohn forced himself to roll onto his stomach, pulling himself off the point of the spear. The man behind him could have stabbed him again, but he didn’t. A quick glance showed he lay unmoving on the floor; if he wasn’t dead, he would be in moments.
The guard looked at the stump of his wrist and turned very, very pale. He toppled like a felled tree, striking his helmeted skull against the side of the hearthstone.
Tejohn was left alone with the sound of his own ragged breath. “Who is there?” Doctor Twofin called. “What is happening?”
Tejohn’s pain felt overwhelming and his mouth was parched. It would have been easy to lie back and die. But if he did, just a few paces from the scholar’s cell, his death would not just be a story of failure but of complete failure. Every life ended, Song knew that, but Tejohn didn’t want the task his king had given him to die with him.
He forced himself to his knees and crawled to the grate, then yanked it away. It seemed heavier this time.
“My Tyr Treygar!” the scholar cried. “What--?”
“Shut up,” Tejohn said. “I like you, Doctor Twofin, but we don’t have much time. When does the next guard shift arrive?”
“Dawn.”
“How do I get you out?”
“There’s a rope and pulley against the wall.”
There was? Tejohn squinted around the room and saw it, a wooden boom tucked away beneath the stairs. How had he missed it before?
Tejohn looked down. “Doctor, if let you out, you must swear to me that you will finish a task I set you. The King ordered me to do it, but I can not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m about to die.” Tejohn was about to die on this stone floor, in his home lands, far from his wife and children. He would never see his children again. Great Way, they were so small. How were they going to survive in this collapsed world?
Thoughts like that would do nothing but give over his last few moments of life to despair. He had to focus on the things he could control. “Doctor Twofin, Lar Italga believed his uncle, Ghoron Italga, knew a spell powerful enough to defeat the grunts. It was from the Fifth Gift and could kill dozens at range. I was supposed to bring that spell back from Tempest Pass. Before I free you, you will have to swear to go in my place.”
“Go to Tempest Pass? The library there might be the largest in the world now that the Scholars’ Tower—”
“Doctor, swear it while I have life in me to free you, or—”
“I swear, Tyr Treygar. I swear to complete your task.”
Finally. Tejohn crawled across the floor and pulled himself upright on the pulley ropes. His vision went cloudy and he nearly fainted, but that passed after a moment. He swung the boom out over the pit and let the rope fall into the pit. He felt the rope jerk as the scholar grabbed it.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. Tejohn fell against the wall and slid to the floor. Hold on. His vision grew dark and it was hard to think. He reached up, grabbed the rope and pulled it toward himself. His king was trapped in a pit. Doctor Twofin was trapped in a pit. Holding this rope was important to both of them in some way, but he couldn’t remember how.
“Almost there!” a frail, foolish voice called. At the same moment, the rope bucked. Someone was trying to pull it out of his hands, but no, Tejohn wouldn’t allow that. He put the last of his fading strength into holding onto the rope, for no other reason than that someone wanted to take it. Why did he hurt so much?
“I made it!” the foolish voice called. “I’m free!” Someone moved across the field of Tejohn’s vision and he saw
an old man in black robes staring at him. I’m dying. The unspoken truth he’d been living with for days and days could no longer be denied. He was never going to see his family again. Tell them about me, he’d asked his wife, but he didn’t even know if they were still alive. I’m dying. The words wouldn’t come. His mouth was too dry and he didn’t even have the strength to move his jaw. He suddenly realized his pain was gone. I’m dying.
“I’m so hungry! Ah!” the old man said. He rushed toward a shelf. “Bread! And meat!” he cried, and began to eat happily.
Tejohn Treygar felt the world slip away.
Chapter 31
There was light. He’d never actually taken Fire literally, but flickering orange light wavered in his vision. I am Fire-taken after all. The priests had always said that soldiers who died in battle weren’t claimed by Fire, that they left the Great Way naturally, but here were the flames anyway.
Still, he did not burn.
“My Tyr Treygar, it’s good to see you open your eyes.”
“Doctor Twofin?” The scholar’s voice was unmistakable. Tejohn let out a moan of despair. Both of them had left the Way, and the task Lar Italga had given him would never be finished. “Fire and Fury.”
“Come along,” the scholar said. “Drink this. I saved you some lamb but you’ll need to eat quickly. Dawn will come soon.”
It suddenly occurred to Tejohn that he was not dead after all and might yet be reunited with his family. He touched his side where the spear had gone through. There was no pain, not even a tender spot. Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way. Clearly, everything had been a terrible dream.
He was lying on the floor of the tower room, and Doctor Twofin was kneeling beside him, pressing a cup of water into his hand. Not a dream after all. “You’re a medical scholar?” Tejohn asked. “But you don’t wear the badge.”
Doctor Twofin pressed Tejohn’s elbow to make him raise the cup to his lips. Tejohn drank. “The Scholars’ Tower keeps secrets from everyone, even the royal family.”
Tejohn’s hand fell to his hip, but he wasn’t wearing a knife. He was still dressed as a servant. Doctor Twofin was backlit by the hearth and Tejohn could not make out his face.
“Drink more and then have some of this meat. You lost a lot of blood.”
“How long?” Tejohn said, then drained the cup. The smell of the roast goat made his stomach grumble.
“Most of the night. I’m long out of practice--I thought I’d lost you twice. But still, with the sun comes a change of the guard and my Tyr Finstel.”
“Doctor Twofin, what did they want with you? Why were you here?” Tejohn began to eat.
“They wanted me to go mad,” Twofin answered. “Tyrs Finstel, Gerrit, and the others didn’t know this, but what they asked would have destroyed me. Tyr Finstel wanted me to build a new Scholars’ Tower within his holdfast, and he wanted it in three days. I tried to explain that pace would have driven me mad like Doctors Rexler, Breakstump, and all the other criminals and monsters in his childhood stories, but Tyr Finstel thought I was plotting against him. After I taught the spell to three of the mining scholars he brought me—”
Tejohn almost choked. “What? You can’t give away the king’s Gifts like that!” He forced himself to his feet.
“Tyr Treygar, the king is dead. Peradain has fallen. If you threw that clay cup against the wall with all your strength, you could not break it into as many pieces as the empire. What’s more, my Tyr Finstel saved my life. I owed him my allegiance.”
Tejohn knew it was foolish to argue, but he felt honor-bound to do so. “You owe your allegiance to the Italga family. Lar is still alive and working to defeat the invasion...the way a king should.”
Doctor Twofin shook his head. “Lar is a clever boy with honorable instincts, but he’ll only survive until the tyrs find him. He has no army, no land, no money, and no way to control the scholars. Italga rule has ended.” He glanced back at the hole in the floor that Tejohn had pulled him from. “My allegiance to the Finstels is over, too. Now I will work with you, Tyr Treygar.”
Tejohn finished the meat and immediately felt better. Few things pleased a soldier like a full belly. The lamb he’d hidden in his shirt had fallen out somewhere.
He went to the door and looked out. The meadow he had crossed in his black cloak was still dark, but a faint red glow shone through the trees to the east. They had to hurry.
He dragged the two dead guards into the building. None of their equipment fit him, so he dropped them, gear and all, into the cell. The one who’d stabbed him in the back had a helmet that was much too small but his padded shirt and cuirass were just large enough. The one who had collapsed when Tejohn took his hand had dented the back of his helmet, but the third, who had fallen from the mezzanine, had one that only squashed Tejohn’s nose a little. He’d worn worse. Unfortunately, none of the boots would fit him.
He strapped on a sword and knife, then took up a short spear. The longer ones would probably be more inconspicuous, but he wanted a weapon he could fight with.
Great Way, shouldn’t he have felt more than this? More than just a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach? Splashtown soldiers had taken him in at the bottom of his grief, had fought beside him and called him brother. They weren’t Fire-taken--Tejohn wasn’t arrogant enough to think that way--but they would be mourned. He wished he could find his own grief again; anything would be better than this terrible loneliness.
He took a black shield marked with the Splashtown emblem and a black cloak. “Are you ready?”
“No spells,” Doctor Twofin said. “Even if I were a trained medical scholar, a healing like the one I did last night would have used me up for a days. I will come with you and help you complete your mission, but it will be some time before I can cast another spell without losing myself.”
“Don’t worry,” Tejohn said, glad that the scholar was still sane enough to worry about going hollow. “I don’t need you for a spell.”
He dropped the last three dead guards into the cell and placed the wooden grill over them. Then he led the old scholar out the door.
The servants’ cart path led back to the work camp. There was also, across the wide ditch, the road that followed the river. In daylight, that road would be thick with merchant carts and soldiers, but it was still empty in the dark.
Tejohn forced his way through the ditch, trying to avoid stepping on thorny vines, until he reached the slope leading up to the road. He stuffed the dead man’s cloak under the roots of a tree. Then he hurried back to the tower and draped the cloak with the white circle on the hood over Doctor Twofin’s shoulders. Tejohn explained that the cloak was a disguise but thought it best not to explain the significance of the circle.
They hurried to the stone dais behind the tower. Daylight was already filling the forest around them, and they needed to be under cover. They found a suitable willow tree and settled in. The sky was cloudless. It was going to be a beautiful day.
The old scholar’s cheeks were dry, Tejohn noted with relief, but his expression was slack, almost like a dead man’s. Obviously, it was hard to get a decent night’s rest in an underground pit. With luck, he’d be up to the task ahead.
The change of the guard arrived just as sunlight touched the top of the tower. The empty guard stations and the bodies inside caused exactly the alarm Tejohn expected, and they found the hidden cloak in the ditch well before they had a chance to search near the willow.
The youngest and quickest of them was sent back to the holdfast with a message. While they waited for their tyr to arrive, the shift stood around anxiously. They assumed that the cloak meant the scholar had been taken away by the road or river, most likely heading south away from the Finstel holdfast, and having an answer they liked, they stopped their search.
Tyr Finstel’s cart seemed to take a long time to arrive, but Tejohn knew that was just his impatience. The sun hadn’t even touched the bottom of the mezzanine rail when the cart floated out of the north an
d settled onto the stone dais.
Tejohn kept the scholar well hidden while they listened to Tyr Finstel bark orders and demand explanations from the guards nearby. Only when their voices grew faint did Tejohn dare to glance around the tree trunk.
The tyrs and their guards moved out into the meadow away from the tower. They’d left behind two men to watch over the cart, and both stood with their backs to Tejohn.
Now. Tejohn slipped out from behind the tree, moving as quietly as he could. He moved close enough to the cart that his cuirass almost bumped against it, then stabbed one of the guards in the back of his neck.
The man made a sharp choking sound. Before he could fall, Tejohn had already drawn back his spear and thrust it at the other guard. The second man, who had turned in surprise toward the falling man, took the point full in the throat.
Doctor Twofin was right behind him. “I can not fly a cart, my tyr.”
“It’s not a spell,” Tejohn set down his spear and knitted his fingers, letting the scholar step onto them for a boost. Tejohn lifted him into the cart, and Doctor Twofin immediately took hold of the controls. Tejohn clambered in after him. “The color orange--a bright orange. The feeling of stepping into a deep puddle unexpectedly with your left foot. A square where the right side breaks midline and collapses into an eye solar seas triangle.”
Tejohn laid his hand over the scholar’s. The old man’s eyes were closed to help him concentrate, his face still slack. “I assume you meant ‘isosceles,’” Twofin said, but the cart began to shudder.
His hand over the scholar’s, Tejohn moved a lever. They floated straight up, quickly. Men shouted and came running, but the cart was out of their reach before they were within ten paces. A pair of spears thudded into the wheels, for all the good it did the throwers. He turned another lever for Doctor Twofin and felt the cart tilt and move off to the south.
“I’m getting the feel for this,” Doctor Twofin said.
Spears below ran after them, but they were wasting their time. Tejohn wrapped a rope around the old man’s midsection and began to knot it. “We need to turn around before we head for Tempest Pass. Lar Italga gave me a ring—”
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