The Highwayman

by R. A. Salvatore

  His left hand snapped out, quicker than an adder’s strike, seizing the creature right behind its triangular head.

  Bransen allowed the snake to wrap itself around his left arm as he stood up, offering his right hand to the woman and pulling her to her feet.

  He blew in the snake’s face several times, and it seemed to calm. He gently set it down, where it rushed into the forest.

  “You and you!” the Highwayman called to the two soldiers who had dragged Callen onto the field.

  The men looked at each other and both edged away, as if thinking to run. But Bransen lifted his sword as if to throw it, and both froze in their tracks.

  “On your head—if any harm comes to this woman, I will see you dead. All of you!” he shouted in rage, spinning to encompass the crowd. “Any who harm this woman will feel the wrath of the Highwayman! That wrath is boundless, I assure you!” He turned back to the two frightened soldiers, locking their gazes with his own. “I know your faces now. I know.”

  He turned to Callen. “Where is Cadayle?”

  “Laird Prydae took her,” she replied, her voice and body trembling. “He took her!”

  “To the castle!” someone in the crowd called out.

  “I seen him drag her in,” said another.

  Bransen looked all around, amazed once more at the reaction to the Highwayman. He pulled Callen close and hugged her tightly. “On my life, she will not be harmed,” he whispered, then he turned and ran off, heading straight for Castle Pryd.

  But then he veered as he saw the other structure beside the great castle.

  The place he had called home for a decade.

  The place, he now knew, that had never been his home.

  37

  Their Pet Idiot

  He sprinted through the streets of Pryd Town, chased only by the calls of those who spotted the man in the distinctive black outfit. He charged into the courtyard of Chapel Pryd, hardly slowing and brushing aside the one young, startled monk who made a move as if to try to stop him.

  The main doors were open, but the Highwayman, knowing this building intimately, moved to the right-hand wall and to the small door set at its far end. This one, too, was unlocked, and Bransen charged through. He crossed the room above his own dungeon, to the door to the main corridor, and paused there, hearing voices in the hallway beyond and calls echoing.

  With a growl, a memory of Callen at Bernivvigar’s stone, and a mental image of the pains that Cadayle might then be suffering, Bransen kicked the door open and leaped out into the hall.

  A pair of brothers confronted him at once, one holding high his shaking fist—clenching gemstones, Bransen understood—and the other waving an iron short sword, so ill cared for and infrequently used that it showed rust all along its black blade.

  “You would be wise to escort me to Master Bathelais,” he warned, his voice even, calm, and controlled. “And if you try to use that gemstone, I assure you that your head will bounce to the floor beside it.”

  The man thrust his fist forward a bit, in an attempt to be menacing, Bransen presumed.

  Bransen’s left hand snapped forward, clutching the man’s wrist and yanking him forward. His right hand cupped over the gem-holding fist, turning it down and bending the wrist. The man shrieked in pain, all strength fleeing from his hand, and Bransen shoved him back—and now it was Bransen’s fist that held the gemstone.

  Even as he pushed the monk away, the other, inspired by the sudden action, perhaps, leaped forward and plunged his sword at the intruder’s chest. A slight turn by Bransen had the blade going harmlessly by, and Bransen locked the man’s sword arm tight against his side and sent his free hand, his fist balled, crunching into the monk’s nose. He pumped his arm three times, connecting solidly with every punch, then brought his knee up hard into the poor man’s groin. As the man lurched over, Bransen let go of his trapped sword arm and hit him with a right cross that spun him to the side and slammed him hard against the corridor wall, where he folded down in a heap.

  The other young monk stood there transfixed and obviously terrified. That fear only heightened when the Highwayman snapped his magnificent sword out, putting its gleaming tip close to the trembling monk’s bare throat.

  “To Bathelais, at once, or I leave you dead on the floor,” the Highwayman promised, and to his surprise, Bransen realized that he meant every word.

  The terrified young monk scurried away, Bransen close behind. Bransen paused just long enough to turn and throw the gemstone at the head of the groaning, prostrate monk.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Master Bathelais shouted, leaping from his chair when the door of his audience room burst open and a younger brother came stumbling in, to fall hard on the floor. Bathelais’s eyes narrowed, but he did not back down as a second figure entered, one dressed in black clothes that proclaimed his identity.

  Bathelais was not alone; Reandu, sitting across the hearth from him, also rose, sucking in his breath with the movement. Closer to the hearth, Father Jerak sat slumped in a chair, appearing oblivious to it all. One other brother was there, an attendant to the infirm Jerak. He had been standing just inside the door and to the side, though now he faded farther from the door, inching out toward his master and Brother Reandu.

  “You dare to enter this holy place?” Bathelais said, and he squared his jaw and straightened his shoulders.

  “It is no place that I have not been many times before,” the Highwayman responded.

  Bathelais stared at him hard, searching for a clue, but he needn’t have bothered, for in that moment, Bransen reached up with his free hand and pulled the mask, and the gemstone, from his head.

  “Do you not recognize your pet idiot, Master Bathelais?” Bransen asked.

  Bathelais’s composure couldn’t hold any longer, and he widened his eyes, staggered back half a step, and nearly toppled over his chair. Across from him, Brother Reandu gasped and fell back into his chair, and the other monk cried out, “Stork!”

  “It is imposs—it is impossible,” Bathelais stammered, and the irony of listening to him stuttering was not lost on Bransen. “How? How can this be?”

  Bransen came forward suddenly, sword tip lunging close to Bathelais’s throat. “I have not time for explanations.”

  “We took you in!” Bathelais roared back. “We showed you mercy when—”

  “Shut up,” Bransen said, and he prodded the deadly sword ahead. “Mercy?” He spat the word, and then spat upon the floor at Bathelais’s feet.

  “You dare—” Bathelais started to protest, but he learned then that a sword tip against his throat was a sure way to silence him.

  “Mercy?” Bransen echoed again. “You allow me to clean your chamber pots, and I am to fall to my knees in gratitude?” As Bathelais started to respond, Bransen poked his throat again with the sword, and then snapped the blade across, in line with Reandu, when he began to answer.

  “None of it matters,” Bransen explained. “I need you now, and you will help me.”

  “You are a fool,” Bathelais managed, before Bransen prodded him again.

  “An idiot, perhaps, if I was to believe the opinion of Master Bathelais,” Bransen replied. “But it matters not. None of it. You are going to help me now, to repay me for the murder of Garibond Womak.”

  Bathelais’s eyes widened so much that Bransen wondered if they would just roll out of their sockets.

  “Yes, I know all about it,” he said. “I know what you did soon after taking me in as your slave.”

  “He was in possession—” Brother Reandu started.

  “Shut up,” came the interruption. “I know everything there is to say on that matter, and the only reason that your heads are not rolling on the floor now is because I need you. Fail me in any way, and you die and all of your brethren in this chapel die also. Every one.”

  He studied Father Jerak as he finished—the man who had been in charge of the chapel on the day when Garibond had been murdered. Bransen thought to go over
and cut the man’s throat to show these others how serious he was, and he did take a step in that direction. But just one step, then the Highwayman stopped and pushed the thought out of his mind. To what gain?

  Having passed that test, Bransen turned back to Bathelais and noted that the man shifted his glance, just briefly, to glance over Bransen’s shoulder.

  Alerted, the Highwayman dipped suddenly and lashed out with his foot, catching the creeping monk in the stomach and doubling him over. As soon as his foot came back to the floor, Bransen spun, his other foot connecting squarely with the side of the lurching monk’s face, sending him flying away, crashing over a table and into a wall, where he lay very still.

  Both Reandu and Bathelais started for Bransen at that moment, but they hadn’t a chance and were backed again by the gleaming tip of the leveled sword.

  “I am long past mercy, Master Bathelais,” Bransen warned. “Hesitate again, and a monk will die.” He pointed his sword at Father Jerak. “Hesitate again, and he will die.”

  “What do you want?” Master Bathelais asked.

  “You and you,” Bransen added, waving the sword at Reandu, “and the Stork are going to pay a visit to Laird Prydae.”

  As he spoke, Bransen pulled the black armband from his sword arm, revealing his birthmark, and began unfastening the black silk shirt.

  38

  The Waterfall at River’s End

  “You should not be here, not at this time,” the sentry at the gatehouse of Castle Pryd said to the three unexpected visitors late that night. The man looked at the two monks—for all purposes, the two leaders of the Church in Pryd Holding—and then scrunched up his face in obvious disgust as he turned to regard the third visitor, the Stork, swaying and drooling and leaning on a long, narrow canelike implement that was wrapped in cloth.

  “We have information regarding the man who has put this castle and town in a state of frenzy,” Brother Reandu replied, and Bransen did not miss the not-so-subtle look that Bathelais shot him.

  The sentry perked up at that, and stepped aside, calling to his companions to hold his post so that he could escort the trio into the keep.

  The sentry and the monks huddled as they crossed the open courtyard, for a shower came up then, suddenly, with a crackle of lightning splitting the dark sky and big heavy drops splashing down.

  Bransen shambled along behind them, trying his best to mimic the walk that had been his natural step all his life. He held his soul stone firmly in hand, his other hand tight on his “cane,” which was, of course, his sword. He lolled his head and thrust each hip out before waving the respective leg forward. He babbled and moaned and let the drool flow from his mouth. In that moment, despite all the vital events that were churning about him, it occurred to Bransen how unpleasant a creature he was, how awkward this damaged physical coil appeared. Surely the outside world cringed at the sight of him, and while he did not relinquish his disdain for that shallow and unsympathetic attitude, he understood it more fully now. That thought only made him appreciate more acutely the one person who had fought against that flow, only made him realize the depth of kindness Cadayle had shown to him all these years.

  He didn’t let the steeling of his determination to rescue her interfere with his awkward gait. His focus held firm, and he kept to the course.

  They entered the well-guarded keep at the rear of the castle, and those guards who met them moved back at the unexpected sight of the Stork. Bransen looked up at them and smiled stupidly, his head rolling, and that only intensified their disgust and drove them further aside.

  “The laird is…engaged,” the sentry reported back to the monks a moment later.

  Bransen gave a grunt and secretly nudged Master Bathelais.

  “This is more important,” the monk replied, offering a quick glance back at Stork. “Take us to Laird Prydae at once.”

  “It would not be wise to interrupt—” the sentry started to protest, but Reandu cut him short.

  “Do you begin to understand the importance of this?” the younger monk snapped. “The Highwayman is within our reach, right now, and any hesitation will cost us this one chance we have to put things aright.”

  “We understand fully,” the man retorted. “The death of Bernivvigar is no small thing!”

  “The death of Bernivvigar?” both Bathelais and Reandu asked together.

  “His head lopped from his shoulders this very night by the Highwayman,” the sentry explained. “He appeared out of the Samhaist fire, as if summoned from hell itself, so said the onlookers—half the town saw it! He walked through Bernivvigar’s magic, and not even the Ancient Ones themselves could stop him!”

  “Bernivvigar dead this very night,” Master Bathelais murmured, and both monks widened their eyes at that remarkable news; both turned again subtly to regard Bransen.

  Bransen managed to slip them a look reminding them that they, too, could easily find such a fate this night.

  “That only strengthens our need and desire to speak with Prydae!” Bathelais said suddenly, with great animation. “Admit us at once, you fool, before all the holding is destroyed by the hands of this outlaw!”

  The sentry babbled some protest, but he eventually led the monks past the surprised and curious looks of the other soldiers. A grand stairway swept up from the ground floor to a balcony that lined the left hand wall. From the other end of that balcony, the stairs climbed to the higher levels of the tower.

  The foursome climbed the first flight to the balcony and started along, with the sentry pausing at the door in the middle of the wall and knocking hard as the monks and Stork moved past.

  Bransen turned as he heard the familiar voice booming behind him, to see a man well known to him come out of the room. Bannagran gave him only a cursory and disgusted glance, then turned to the soldier; but Bransen could not tear his eyes from the imposing warrior.

  The monks moved away from him, but he didn’t notice.

  Brother Reandu called for him to keep up, but he didn’t notice.

  Finally, he broke the spell and turned, just as Master Bathelais swung around, fist up high. “Bannagran, to arms!” he cried. “The Stork is your Highwayman! Seize him!”

  Bransen’s eyes went wide in the face of the deceit, and he lifted his cane and waved it in tight circles to free its of its cloth casing. Or at least, he started to, for then a streaking bolt of lightning erupted from Master Bathelais’s hand and slammed him hard in the chest, throwing him backward.

  Bransen heard the cries of Bannagran and the sentry, heard the protests of Brother Reandu, and heard most of all, the continuing fury of Master Bathelais. He collected his wits and his focus immediately—he knew that he had to—and fell inside himself, visualizing the line of his chi. That spark of energy, that focus of life, was exactly the attack point of the lightning, as Bransen could see by the dispersing flares. He tightened his focus and forced his chi back into alignment. He used his Jhesta Tu understanding and his soul stone, countering the effects of the jolt.

  And he did it all in the blink of an eye.

  On instinct, Bransen dropped low, and the sentry who was charging him from behind flipped right over his bent back and tumbled down, but not before intercepting Master Bathelais’s second lightning blast.

  Bransen went around and thought to stand to meet the charge of Bannagran, but then stayed low instead, kicking one foot right into the leading foot of the warrior.

  Bannagran tripped off to the side of the moving Bransen and stumbled forward, but recovered quickly, purposely running into the wall to secure his balance. He spun around, ready to meet Bransen’s charge.

  But Bransen wasn’t charging. He hadn’t come here to do battle with Bannagran or with the monks. He hadn’t come here to exact revenge or to punish anyone.

  He remembered all that keenly with battle so clear before him, and instead of charging forward to stab Bannagran or to thrust his sword into the treacherous Master Bathelais, the Highwayman leaped onto the railing of the bal
cony and then sprang from it just ahead of another of Bathelais’s searing lightning bolts.

  Bransen’s muscles propelled him up and out, as he lifted his chi to lighten the resistance against that great leap, making it seem as much a flight as a jump. He soared across, catching the railing of the next ascending staircase and pulling himself over it in one fluid movement. He glanced back to see the commotion he had left behind: the man shivering on the floor from the sting of Bathelais’s second lightning bolt; Bathelais shouting and pointing his way; Bannagran, with other soldiers now in his wake, running along the balcony to the base of the staircase.

  Bransen ran to the top of the stairs and then a few steps along the next balcony before again leaping to the top of the railing and springing across, leaving his pursuit behind.

  Below him, as Brother Reandu tended the wounded sentry, Master Bathelais watched that second flight with as much amusement as awe. He lifted his fist, holding the graphite gemstone, and followed the Highwayman’s course.

  “And now you die,” the monk growled, thrusting his arm forward—or starting to, until something slammed against him hard, driving his arm across his chest.

  With a great heave, Bathelais shoved back and extracted himself from the grasp of Brother Reandu. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Master, do not!” Reandu said. “He is just a boy.”

  “You idiot!” Bathelais growled, and he lifted his arm again.

  And again, Reandu crashed against him, defeating his aim.

  “Brother!” Bathelais roared, and he swung back and shoved Reandu away. But Reandu came right back at him, wrestling him away from the ledge and toward the wall.

  Bathelais turned as he fell back, yanking Reandu around him and slamming his attacker into that wall first, then crashed hard against him. Bathelais jumped back, pulling Reandu from the wall, then slammed Reandu into the wall once more.