The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals)

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  “We don’t need to imprison the bandits. Only take back what they stole from the old man and his daughter.”

  “All right then; satisfy my curiosity. Which road will you take? The one with the bandits? Or the one without?”

  “Haven’t I made it clear I am willing to take a battle to them?” Thomas said. “We’ll send John ahead to scout their position. Isabelle can serve as bait. I have a few things in my cloak that will help us greatly. You’ve got a sword and chain mail. Surely you can handle what needs to be done. At best, they’ll be armed with knives and cudgels.”

  Thomas began marching up the road that forked left, the one they had been warned to avoid because of bandits. William, John, and Isabelle followed. They walked in silence almost to the first bend. Thomas could hear the tumbling water of a stream around the bend.

  “Good choice,” William said. He picked up his pace to walk alongside Thomas. “I hope you don’t mind that I offer you some advice, though.”

  “What’s that?” Thomas was feeling generous toward the knight for agreeing to help.

  “Keep your distance from the poor maiden in distress who has begun to follow us.” William pointed back down the path, and Thomas turned to see the young woman and the old man rushing up the road toward them.

  “Hardly,” Thomas said. “She needs to be warned against trying to help. We can do this ourselves.”

  Thomas walked back to meet them. The old man was leaning on a heavy walking staff.

  “Please,” the woman said, clutching the blanket to her body. “Don’t go that way. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “We are not afraid of bandits,” Thomas answered.

  “Out here in the forest, there’s no protection against the evil of men,” she answered. “And it looks like your friends have abandoned you.” She pointed up the road.

  All Thomas saw were trees, the bend in the road, and the flash of water at the stream. She had not lied. They were gone.

  Confused, he turned back. Just in time to see a dark flash, like a hawk striking downward. In that split second, he recognized it as the walking staff being swung at his head by the old man.

  With barely more time than to manage a flinch, Thomas desperately twisted away, raising his shoulder to the blow. The impact seemed to break his upper arm.

  He rolled sideways and kept his balance, staggering a half step backward. He clutched his arm with his opposite hand, hardly believing how quickly events had happened.

  “He’s fast,” the woman said, grinning.

  “Not fast enough,” her companion said. The quavering voice of an old man was gone, replaced by the swagger of a much younger man.

  “The others are getting away though,” she said. She lifted her hands to her mouth and placed her fingers inside her lips. She blew hard and a shrill whistle echoed through the trees. “You complicated things,” she said. “We expected you to take the other road.”

  Two more shrill blasts of that whistling sound.

  Then she gave a command to her companion. “What are you waiting for? You know he has more money hidden somewhere.”

  “Wait,” Thomas groaned. “I’ll hand it over.”

  “That’s not fun.” The walking stick flashed again, but this time Thomas’s attacker showed shrewdness. Instead of aiming for Thomas’s upper body, he swung low and hard—much more difficult to dodge because it demanded a total shift of his feet, not a mere twist or turn with his feet planted.

  The massive blow hit Thomas across his left thigh, and he buckled.

  The next blow swiped the side of his skull, and he pitched backward. Blackness threatened to overcome him, but he fought the impulse to collapse into the peace of oblivion.

  Instead, completely on his back, he reached into his shirt for a pouch with both hands. It took effort to make his fingers obey. He was able to open the pouch just as both of them knelt beside him.

  “Hand it over then, if you insist,” the woman said laughing.

  Thomas softly croaked out a few words. It brought them closer. His vision had blurred, and it took all his willpower to determine where each of them was. He had his right hand wrapped around the pouch, holding it against his chest.

  “Give it up now,” the woman crooned, reaching in to pull at his hand.

  Knowing she wasn’t expecting him to do anything but clutch at the pouch, Thomas flung his hand outward, toward her face. He wasn’t trying to strike her, however, and his hand flashed past her nose, continuing toward her companion’s face on Thomas’s other side.

  In a smooth arc, his movement scattered a fine dust from the opening at the top of the pouch.

  He was trusting that each of them would take that natural gasp of surprise at the near miss of his swiping hand.

  And he was trusting he could roll his face over into the ground before the dust settled.

  Nose pressed into the grass, he heard both of them wail in agony—high, piercing screams of panic. He crawled forward, knowing neither of them would be attacking him. Far more dangerous was the dust he’d just scattered. He couldn’t breathe any of it himself, or he would be clawing at his own throat.

  When he thought he was safe, he rolled over again and pushed himself up to his knees. Both of the bandits were staggering, blinded by the dust, their throats and noses filled with what he knew would be the sensation of fire.

  But he wasn’t safe yet.

  He finally understood why William had framed the question the way he did. The knight had not asked if Thomas wanted to meet the bandits. Instead, the knight had asked if Thomas would take the road with the bandits or the one without. William had been testing Thomas to see if he realized that a trap had been set, to see if he guessed the bandits were waiting down the road that forked to the right.

  That could be the only reason the woman had whistled. To draw her other companions to this road and send them in pursuit of the three who had left Thomas behind.

  Sure enough. Thomas heard distant crashing of underbrush. Nothing like the sporadic sounds of alarmed deer. No, this was the approach of men taking the shortest line between the forked roads. Men that the woman had summoned with her whistles.

  That left Thomas with a simple and intelligent decision.

  Conscious of the huge blow he’d taken against his thigh, Thomas picked up the walking stick that had been used to strike him. And as fast as he could, he used it to support himself in a limping run up the road, where William and the others had already wisely fled.

  Too soon, Thomas discovered that while the woman bandit had been deceptive in many ways, she had not lied about the number of bandits ready to pounce on unwary travelers.

  Barely a minute after limping across the stream at the bend in the road, he heard shouts behind him. He risked turning his head.

  Without counting—because seeing the large group spurred him to double his efforts at running—he guessed it was close to twenty men. The brief glimpse had shown that as individuals, the bandits were not impressive. This was not surprising, for usually only desperate men turned to highway robbery, and desperate men were men who could not find work because of laziness or physical weakness. The men behind him were like most highway bandits—undernourished, diminished from drinking too much ale, and not accustomed to physical exertion. They were simply a pack of skinny dogs, taking strength from numbers.

  Thomas, however, felt his own handicap with every lurching step.

  Before the blows that had hurt him so badly across his upper arm, his thigh, and the side of his skull, he could have outrun them as easily as a deer flees from a sickened cur. Now, however, each step was agony, both physically and because of the sensation that he was in a nightmare where pursuers skimmed across smooth ground while his own feet were sucking at mud.

  And where were the others? he thought with a degree of anger. He’d saved them from the gallows, helped them flee, promised them a better place to live. Yet at the first sign of danger, they had abandoned him.

  Yes, he realized wit
h rage, the woman bandit had been truthful in another matter. Out here in the forest, there was no protection against the evil of men.

  That rage gave him extra energy, and he was able to better ignore the pounding pain in his thigh. For a few precious steps, it seemed he was gaining ground on his pursuers.

  Then he realized he was deceiving himself. The shouts were growing closer.

  He took another quick look. Now they were a mere thirty paces behind. At the turn of the bend, where he’d first seen them, they had been fifty paces away. He’d only be able to stay ahead of them for a short while longer, and there was no time to use any of his devices or powders or to plan something to defeat the bandits.

  Was this where his dream would end, where destiny had truly been ready to take him?

  Still, he would not give up. And he refused to run himself into exhaustion to make it easier for them to swarm him. If he kept some energy now, some of them would pay the price.

  He stopped and turned, holding the walking stick chest-high in both hands, ready to fight.

  “No, Thomas!” came a shout from behind him.

  John?

  Thomas risked a look away from the approaching bandits. John stood in the center of the narrow road, between the walls of trees on each side, where moments before there had been only the grass and the ruts from coach wheels.

  “Run!” John shouted, waving Thomas forward. “Now! Hurry!”

  Where was that cowardly knight? Thomas wondered. A little boy was not much use in a fight like this.

  “You run into the forest,” he shouted back. “I’ll keep them at bay!”

  Thomas heard the bellowing of another voice, a deeper voice. “You stupid whelp, listen to the boy!”

  William. Hidden among the trees. An ambush!

  Thomas turned again and tried to sprint. This time, he ignored the hobbling pain in his upper thigh, and with renewed determination, bolted away from the bandits.

  The brief halt in his escape attempt had reduced his lead to about seven paces. The bandits cursed at him, screaming in bloodlust as they closed upon him. Seconds later, Thomas felt the first grasp of a hand on his shoulder. He shook it free and plunged ahead.

  Then came a strange thumping, and the angered curses behind him became startled cries.

  A step later, more of the strange thumping. And another step after that, yet again.

  “Thomas!” William ordered in a loud yell. “Turn back!”

  Thomas spun around to see William at the side of the road, surveying all of the bandits, who were groaning in heaps on the ground.

  William waved his sword and swept his eyes from side to side, alert for any bandits to attack. “I’m not more than a pace away from any of you,” he said in a clear and calm voice. “The first one to stand loses his head. You’ll not feel it, because my sword is sharp enough to fell a tree. But your skull will roll among the others smart enough to remain on the ground.”

  This threat was enough to freeze the first couple of men already on their knees.

  “On your stomachs now,” William said. “Every one of you.”

  One bandit remained on his knees.

  John darted out from behind a tree, raced up to the man, and kicked him squarely in the groin. The bandit fell forward in a loud groan, clutching the middle part of his body.

  “Anyone else?” the boy challenged. “I’ve got more where that came from.”

  Thomas hobbled back toward William.

  “Keep to the side,” William warned Thomas. “We don’t want to be among them where they can suddenly clutch at our legs. John, your services won’t be needed anymore, so join Thomas, please.”

  One of the bandits near William moved ever so slightly. William instantly jabbed the man’s buttock, sinking the tip of the sword a few inches into the muscle. He left it there and leaned slightly into the sword.

  The man howled.

  “Next one is in the ribs,” William said. “The rest of you, clasp your hands behind your heads. Noses into the ground. Any man who moves his hands will be impaled on the spot.” William kicked the man he’d just jabbed with the sword. “And you. Silence. I’m already irritated as it is. The lot of you have ruined a peaceful stroll through the forest.”

  Thomas was still trying to comprehend what had happened. Then he saw three lengths of rope stretched across the road, portions of each rope lying beneath the prone bandits. From the first rope to the second was little more than a half pace, and then another half pace to the third rope. He followed the ropes with his eyes, seeing the ends tied at knee height to trees on the opposite of the road.

  Thomas grinned, picturing the events that had sent the bandits flying to the ground.

  With him as bait to lure the bandits forward, as Thomas passed the ropes on the ground, William would have yanked on the first rope from a hiding point in the trees opposite where the end was tied, causing the rope to hover just above the road at knee height. John would have yanked on the second rope and Isabelle on the third rope.

  As Thomas raised his eyes from the ropes, he caught William’s broad grin.

  “Well, lad,” the knight said, “now that we’ve caught them as you wished, what shall we do with them?”

  “You’ve been quiet long enough to make your point,” the knight told Thomas. “You’re angry with me. Fair enough. Let’s talk.”

  They’d cleared the forest and had walked for another hour out in the open fields, surrounded by peasants stooped in labor, armed with hoes. Their pace had been reduced by the effort it took Thomas to walk, limping with the aid of the stick that had injured him.

  Thomas kept his jaw tightly shut.

  “By the way,” William said, obviously amused, “I know you’re making that limp of yours seem much worse than it is. He hit you with a stick, not a sword.”

  “And you care?”

  “Can’t say your tone of voice suits me,” the knight responded, “but it’s lovely to discover you are still capable of speech.”

  Thomas reset his jaw.

  “The childishness doesn’t become you, lad,” William said, a little more steel in his voice. “We’re all stuck together on this. I made a vow to help you, and I’m not going to let your churlishness cause me to break it. So make the choice to be a man about all of this. If you and I have to agree all the time to be friends, it’s not much of a friendship.”

  “You left me behind.” As he blurted it, Thomas realized why he felt so angry. It had been that sense of abandonment. His anger was more at his own fear than at the knight. Leaving the abbey had been like leaving the only family he had. A horrible family, but still a family. This motley group had been together just a short while, but the intensity of surviving the gallows and the fact that they were with him on his journey made it feel like a family of sorts, that he was no longer an orphan. Except they’d fled, leaving him alone again.

  This, however, was nothing he was prepared to acknowledge to the knight, so he focused his complaint on something different.

  “You’re going to argue that by leaving me alone, you were able to set a trap that succeeded,” Thomas continued. “But you had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t be killed.”

  “You mean by the poor half-naked woman who drew you with a story that only a fool would believe? And a distracted fool, at that?”

  Thomas knew the knight was correct about this. He’d had plenty of time to think about the tale presented by the black-haired bandit woman. Could an old man and a woman have outrun determined bandits? Hardly.

  Yes, it had been the sight of that bare shoulder, cleverly displayed, that had been a powerful distraction, keeping Thomas from thinking clearly about the situation. It probably explained why Isabelle had not spoken to him once since leaving the bandits behind, and why instead of showing sympathy for his injuries, she was giving him the same cold treatment Thomas had given the knight.

  “You sent me back to the woman and her companion. If I hadn’t used my wits, I might well have been killed
. It was no thanks to you that I managed to escape.”

  “Had you been killed by only a pair of bandits, then you weren’t worth much in the first place,” the knight answered. “I wanted to see if you could get out of a difficult situation without my help.” He laughed at the sour look that Thomas gave him. “Besides, lad. They weren’t going to kill you. Not with the three of us still at loose to report a murder.”

  “Perhaps if you had immediately told me you suspected a trap, my head and leg and shoulder wouldn’t be so sore. Instead of sending me back to the woman, you could have urged me forward, and I would have helped you with the ropes.”

  “Did you learn a lesson?”

  Thomas grunted in agreement.

  “And it was, I suppose,” the knight said, “not to trust the stories of people you meet on the road.”

  “More than that,” Thomas said. He spoke with grudging admiration. “I’ve learned I can trust your motives and your capabilities.”

  The knight slapped him on the back. “Feels good, doesn’t it, to release that anger and make peace?”

  “Not good enough to admit it to you,” Thomas said.

  The knight laughed. “As unlikeable as you are, there are moments I can see it’s worthwhile to be your friend.” Then he became more serious. “Tell me about the powder.”

  “That sounds like an order,” Thomas said.

  “Forgive me. Will you be kind enough to satisfy my curiosity? I’ve never seen such an effect.”

  “And you’ll likely never see it again. I had to use the last of it on them.”

  That had been another reason for Thomas’s anger. He had no doubt that sometime in the future he’d have a real need for the powder. But now it was gone.

  Their rope had been too valuable to use to tie the bandits; besides, to what purpose? After discovering the woman had lied about a robbery, Thomas had lost all need to bring the bandits to justice. Spending a day or two trying to herd the bandits to a local sheriff for the sake of revenge wasn’t worth the risk of being caught themselves as refugees from the gallows.