Stonehand turned, startled. “Yes?”
“You’re called Stonehand, aren’t you?” Arlian asked.
Stonehand was suddenly wary. He pushed away from the table and put his hand on his sword-hilt. “Why?” he asked.
“Because I thought I recognized you,” Arlian said. He unobtrusively eyed the arrangement of table, chair, and sword, and then, moving as suddenly as he could, punched Stonehand on the jaw.
The guardsman’s chair rocked back but did not quite topple over; astonished, his two companions leaped to their feet, as Stonehand clapped a hand to his injured chin and stared up at Arlian.
“You stinking heap of bloody offal,” Arlian bellowed. “You sold me as a slave!”
“Hey! Hey! Not in my house!” the innkeeper shouted, waving his hands but standing well clear.
“You stay out of this,” Arlian said. “This is just between him and me.”
“You have the advantage of me,” Stonehand said, still rubbing his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? Ten years ago, on Smoking Mountain?”
Stonehand frowned. “I was on Smoking Mountain once,” he admitted. “I don’t remember just when.”
“Do you remember finding a survivor in the ruins? And what you did with him?”
“I didn’t do anything with him,” Stonehand protested. “He was Lord Dragon’s property.”
“I was no one’s property!” Arlian roared. “I was a freeborn child!”
“Well, I didn’t sell you!” Stonehand roared back. “It was nothing to do with me!”
“You didn’t say a word to protest,” Arlian said. “You took your share of the loot—my mother’s jewels, the neighbors’ things, whatever you could find!”
“They were dead!”
“I wasn’t!”
“And you still aren’t! You’re free now, aren’t you?”
“After seven years in the mines,” Arlian said. “You owe me for that seven years!”
“Oh, fine,” Stonehand said. “What is it you want of me, then?”
“Satisfaction,” Arlian said, grabbing the hilt of his sword—but not drawing it.
“A duel?” Stonehand’s mouth quirked into a smile. “And if I refuse?”
“Then you’re the worthless piece of offal I called you, not a man fit to wear a lord’s uniform.”
“Oh, now there’s a fearsome threat!” Stonehand grinned broadly. “A merchant calls me names, and I’m supposed to cower in shame?”
“A man tells you you’re worth less than a dung heap, and you can take it, and let everyone here see you for the coward you are, or you can fight me to show them I’m wrong.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Stonehand said. He studied Arlian’s face. “You know, I don’t remember you very clearly, but your face isn’t familiar at all.”
“Seven years in the mines will change a man,” Arlian said. “Then you’re admitting cowardice?”
Stonehand sighed. “I am not admitting anything of the sort,” he said. “I am merely reluctant to perforate a mad fool who may have some slight grounds for feeling I may once have inadvertently wronged him.”
“‘May’? ‘Inadvertently’?”
“People are sold into slavery every day, boy. Fate plays with us, and is none too gentle about it.”
“And Fate has brought you here, to me, and I demand you fight me!”
“It wouldn’t be fair,” Stonehand warned. “I’m a soldier; you’re a merchant. What do you know about swordplay?”
“Enough,” Arlian said. “Then you’ll fight me?”
Stonehand glanced at his companions; one shrugged silently, and the other said, “Go ahead. Teach him to mind his own business.”
“Fine,” Stonehand said. “Outside.”
“Of course.” Arlian made a formal bow—one suited to a lord, not a mere merchant. Stonehand’s smile vanished, and he eyed his foe suspiciously.
He did not say anything, though, and the two men made their way out into the street. They took up guard positions, swords ready, facing each other, Arlian to the north, Stonehand to the south. The sun was below the western rooftops but not yet completely gone.
Arlian drew his swordbreaker; Stonehand was obviously startled by its presence. He had none, but pulled a dagger from his boot for his left hand.
“It’s a trick, isn’t it?” Stonehand said, gesturing at the swordbreaker. “You’re no mere tradesman. You’re probably not even that boy from Smoking Mountain.”
“I am who I said I was,” Arlian said. “But yes, it’s a trick—I’ve studied the sword since I escaped the mines.”
“Obsessed with revenge, I suppose?” He smiled. “As I said, Fate plays with us all.”
Then he lunged; Arlian parried, made a simple overhand riposte—and skewered Stonehand neatly, running the blade of his sword through Stonehand’s chest. Stonehand looked down and said, “I never did get the hang of all those fancy tricks. I always did…”
Then he gasped for breath and crumpled to the ground, pulling free of Arlian’s blade, his own sword and dagger falling from his hands, his collapse leaving Arlian staring down at him, astonished with the ease of his victory. The duel had been so brief that the crowd had not even finished forming.
Arlian had expected a much longer contest—but a man called Stonehand would have been named for his fists, not his skill with a blade.
“I wasn’t even sure I meant to kill him,” Arlian said, as much to himself as anyone else.
“Oh, for…” one of the other soldiers said. His companion was kneeling at Stonehand’s side. “Now what do we do?”
The kneeling man looked up. “Do you want to fight him?” he asked, jerking a thumb in Arlian’s direction.
“No,” the standing soldier said. “I want to go home.”
“That sounds like a fine idea to me,” the other replied. “We should take his body, I suppose.”
“Is he really dead?” Arlian asked.
“No,” the kneeling man admitted, “but he will be soon, I’d say. He’s unconscious.”
“We’ll need to wait here, then, until he dies,” the other soldier said.
“He’ll be dead by morning, I’d say.”
“I’m sorry,” Arlian said.
It was the truth, oddly enough. He had sought Lord Dragon’s looters for years, with every intention of killing them all, and he had forced this duel knowing perfectly well that he would probably kill Stonehand, but all the same, now that he had done it, he regretted it. There had been little satisfaction in so brief a fight, and while Stonehand had participated in the looting of Obsidian and had served Lord Enziet, he had not been so outrageously cruel as Drisheen, nor so callous as Enziet or the other lords. In the brief conversation leading up to the duel he had shown himself to be a man, not a monster—perhaps under other circumstances, he and Arlian might have been friends. He had done wrong, yes, but he had not been proud of it; he had done as he was told.
And now Arlian had taken something he could never give back. Lord Dragon had taken seven years of Arlian’s life, all the years when he should have been growing and learning and finding his path in the world, and Arlian could never get those back, but taking the rest of Stonehand’s life did not make up for that. It was simply another theft, not a restoration.
But if he had to do it over again, he could not say he would do anything any differently. And he still had every intention of hunting down and killing Lord Enziet. He was no longer eager to hunt down any of the others, but Enziet, yes—Lord Dragon was a monster, as Stonehand had not been, and must die.
There was nothing more he could do for Stonehand; he wiped his sword, sheathed it, and reentered the inn.
“I don’t think I should stay here after all,” he told the innkeeper. “I’ll find somewhere to camp.”
“Please yourself,” the man said. “That was quick, I must say.”
Arlian ignored the comment. “Before I go, though—I’m looking
for a man, Lord Enziet. He would have come through here several days ago, and gone on southward, up the ravine to the Desolation. Do you know who I mean?”
“Oh, the lord with the lamed horse?” The innkeeper nodded. “Those three asked about him, too. He got tired of looking for a new mount and left about three days ago, on foot.”
Arlian stared at the innkeeper.
Lamed horse? On foot?
And only three days ago?
His vengeance against Lord Enziet was closer than ever.
“Thank you,” he said.
58
The End of the Pursuit
The wind on the Desolation was almost cold, not the searing hot blast Arlian remembered, but it blew just as constantly and fiercely as he recalled, and just as dry, sucking the moisture from their mouths and skin.
They left the Eastern Road behind on the fourth day, veering eastward across bare stone, away from the drifting sands, following the glow of Thirif’s enchanted crystal. The Aritheian was quite sure that this was the path Lord Enziet had followed.
“He’s very close,” Thirif assured Arlian. “I think we’ve gained significantly.”
“Why would we be gaining?” Arlian asked. “A man on foot is faster than an ox-drawn wagon.”
“If he’s hurrying,” Black said. “Why would he hurry? He needs to stop for water, just as we do.”
Arlian frowned, then shrugged. “I’m going to scout ahead,” he said.
This was hardly new; Arlian had been using Drisheen’s horse to scout ahead of the wagon regularly. As usual, he found nothing but bare stone.
On the sixth day, while scouting ahead yet again, Arlian thought he could smell salt in the air, and that it was significantly more moist than it had been. His breath no longer dried out his throat every time he inhaled through his mouth. He saw birds in the distance—seabirds, he thought.
He stared at them intently, but could not make out enough detail to be sure—after all, he had never seen the sea or seabirds, except in pictures.
In pictures they usually seemed to have long, oddly shaped wings, though, and these black specks swooping in the distance fit that description.
He was at the point where he would ordinarily have turned back to rejoin the others, but the birds drew his interest; he urged his horse forward, up a slope of broken stone. At the top he paused again, watching.
Then he lowered his gaze and saw the man standing atop a boulder, perhaps two hundred yards away across a broad expanse of water-worn rock—a tall man, dressed in black, with a plumed, broad-brimmed hat on his head and a sword on his belt.
Lord Enziet.
And Enziet had paused as well, and had glanced back, and was staring directly at Arlian.
“At last!” Arlian muttered, spurring his mount.
The horse jerked forward and broke into a canter, scattering stones in all directions as it stumbled across the rocky ground. Arlian felt himself losing his seat—he was still far from an expert horseman—and reined the beast in. For a moment he concentrated his attention on not being thrown headlong onto the rocks.
When he had the horse slowed to a comfortable walk he looked up, and Lord Enziet was gone.
“Blood and death,” Arlian growled. He rode on, staring ahead, looking for any sign of his quarry.
He saw none.
A few moments later he was alongside the boulder where Enziet had stood; he dismounted, weighted the horse’s reins to the ground with a good-sized rock, and looked around.
Enziet was nowhere to be seen; a rough expanse of bare, jagged stone stretched in all directions, hard and cold and alien. Several openings were visible—sinkholes, perhaps, or caves, or just gaps between fallen chunks of rock; Arlian had no way of telling which were which.
He stared at the ground, looking for a trail—and found one; a stone had been turned, exposing a damp underside that had not yet dried in the chill winter wind. He drew a line with his gaze from the boulder to that stone, then extended it straight on—east by southeast, almost the direction they had been heading for the past two days. He drew his sword, patted the horse reassuringly, then began walking that line, slowly and carefully.
A few feet past the turned stone he paused; just to his right was a dark opening between two slabs of stone. He knelt and peered into it.
Something black and powdery clung to the underside of one of the slabs—dead plant life, Arlian supposed, either moss or lichen that had managed to grow there briefly before succumbing to the ghastly conditions of the Desolation.
There were two smears in the black powder—two smears, as if someone’s fingers had brushed against it.
“Lord Enziet!” he called into the darkness.
No one replied—but the sound of his voice echoing into the depths told him that this opening was clearly the mouth of a cave, no mere sinkhole.
And it was a cave that Enziet surely knew better than he did, but Arlian had hardly come so far to give up now. There might be another entrance; if he didn’t pursue, Enziet might reemerge anywhere, at any time.
Cautiously, his sword ready, he stooped and made his way into the darkness.
The ground sloped down steeply but did not drop out from under him; in fact, after he had gone a dozen feet he found himself on uneven stone steps—whether natural or man-made he could not tell. They wound downward into darkness, the curves shutting out the sun’s light.
He paused some thirty feet from the entrance, perhaps ten feet below ground, just before he left the daylight behind entirely. Here he let his eyes adjust and wished he had brought a lantern or lamp, or even just something he could use as a torch. Surely, Enziet could not see down here without some such device!
Of course, if he knew this cave well enough, he wouldn’t need to see. He could be waiting at the bottom of the steps, planning to skewer Arlian by sound and feel.
Arlian held his breath and listened intently.
He could hear the wind blowing through the rocks, far behind him—and he could hear something very, very faint ahead, something that might be a person breathing.
“Lord Enziet!” he called. “I know you’re there—strike a light, and we’ll talk.”
“Talk?” Enziet laughed bitterly—and the sound was closer than Arlian had expected. “You want to talk, Obsidian? Isn’t it too late for that?”
“I’m not sure,” Arlian replied, speaking more quietly—and moving as he spoke, sidling to his left, so as not to invite a sword-thrust by sound alone. “Toribor told me I must speak to you before trying to kill you, that there were secrets I should know before I strike you dead, and I swore I would listen if the opportunity arose.”
For a long moment Enziet made no reply, and Arlian moved cautiously farther down the steps, as silently as he could. Then that cold voice spoke again.
“Belly got that out of you? I suppose it was his dying wish.” He sounded almost regretful—the first time Arlian had heard anything like honest emotion in his enemy’s voice.
“I didn’t kill him,” Arlian said. “Not yet. Drisheen is dead, though, and Shamble, and Stonehand.”
“You’re a thorough son of a poxy whore, aren’t you? Why did you let Belly live?”
“Because with my sword at his throat, he was still more concerned with your life than his own,” Arlian replied. He was fairly sure, now, of where Enziet stood—the stairs widened out just a foot or two below his own position, and Enziet was to his right at that level.
A sword-thrust at full extension should reach him, but the chance of hitting anything vital was still small—and there were still things to be said.
“You admired his loyalty?”
“Not loyalty,” Arlian said. “Shamble was loyal to you with his dying breath, and I cut his throat without a qualm. Belly, though—he was concerned. It was compassion, not loyalty, and I couldn’t find it in me to kill a man so concerned with the well-being of others.”
“Even when I, the man you’re sworn to kill, am the other?”
�
��But you aren’t,” Arlian said. “That’s why I’m talking to you, instead of trying to kill you right now. Toribor said you hold secrets, and that when you die the effects will be far more than I could ever guess.”
And then Arlian ducked. He was not sure exactly what he had sensed—whether he had heard cloth rustle, or felt the air move, or seen something in the lingering trace of light that reached this far into the earth, but he had somehow known that Enziet was about to strike.
Perhaps it was sorcery, but he knew, and he ducked, and therefore he lived; Enziet’s blade swished over his head and rapped against the stone wall behind him. He slashed with his own sword, not seriously trying to hit Enziet, but only to force him back.
It worked; he heard the crunch of retreating footsteps, and when Enziet spoke again his voice came from farther away, and a different angle. He had moved deeper into the cave.
“Very good,” Enziet said. “You move well, even in the dark.”
“So do you, unfortunately,” Arlian replied.
“So Belly told you my death will have consequences,” Enziet said. “Did he say any more than that?”
“Somewhat,” Arlian said. “I prefer not to go into detail, though; I would rather hear your account first, so that I might compare the two.”
For a moment Enziet didn’t answer; then he said, “Come down here, off the stair.”
“Why?”
“Because if I am to tell you my secrets, then only one of us will leave this place alive—at most. I promise you that, my eager young enemy—if I reveal the truth, then at least one of us must die. I would much prefer that it be you, but if I speak, and you escape up the stairs before I can slay you, then my own life is forfeit.”
“Why?” Arlian demanded.
“Step down away from there, and I’ll tell you. And then you’ll see why I say one of us must perish, and it’s possible you’ll choose to die yourself, rather than slay me.”
“And what if I come down there, and you flee up the passage?”
“Then the pursuit will continue—but you’re young and strong, and I’m a thousand years old, and right now I feel every day of it. And have you no companions aboveground who might apprehend me?”
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