Pulling the blade free, Randall heard the heavily-distorted voice from behind him call, “Thou hast my thanks, stranger!”
“No problem,” he unthinkingly shouted back at the rider. He felt himself turn to face the nearest, fleeing brigand. He felt a shock run up his arms and he looked down at the sword, which was now pulsing with a faint, pale light.
One does not take credit for a friend’s accomplishment, he heard the voice say, and for the first time he saw the light of the blade pulse in unison with the words of the voice.
“No…” Randall breathed, and he felt himself stop walking forward and knelt down in the soft, wet dirt. He had suspected on the night he had left Three Rivers that the sword had somehow spoken to him…but that was impossible! After a few days of silence, he had assumed it had been nothing but his overactive imagination breaking his fragile sanity at the thought of a horrific fate befalling his friends. When he had heard the voice in the swamp, he had assumed it to be nothing but a recurrence of his mental break.
Now, with the sword’s pulsations timing perfectly with the words spoken seemingly only to him, he was forced to accept the possibility that the sword itself was speaking with him—something he had never even heard of occurring with magical weapons.
Broken from his reverie, he heard the rider trample one of the raiders beneath the hooves of his powerfully built mount.
“Who are you?” he asked under his breath, fearful he might appear mad to those surrounding him.
We shall discuss that later; for now, you must remain conscious, explained the flat, hollow voice which was devoid of nearly all inflection. Communicating with you in this manner weakens me…and we have already lost too much blood.
Randall looked dumbly down at his left arm, and saw with mild alarm that it was nearly completely soaked with blood.
“I need redroot,” he said, noticing his words were slow and almost sounded drowsy.
I cannot relinquish control until we are certain the battle is won, the voice said in what Randall thought was a vaguely argumentative tone, but he wasn’t quite sure. He felt so very tired…if he could just close his eyes for a moment…
Another shock of pain lanced up his arms and Randall’s eyes snapped open. “Ow!” he growled, looking down at the sword blankly. “What was that for?”
Focus, the voice said evenly, you must remain conscious, lest we both shall fall.
“Alright, alright,” he muttered, watching as the mounted rider rode down the brigand Randall—or, rather, the sword—had begun to pursue before taking a knee.
His eyes wanted to close—which wasn’t saying much, what with how swollen they still were—but he managed to watch the mounted rider disappear into the darkness in pursuit of the last brigand.
Randall stared blankly toward the fire, feeling his body sway back and forth as he watched Charles free the last of five prisoners—three women and two young boys—from the small wagon.
The battle is over, the voice said after an indeterminate period as Randall watched dumbly as Charles embraced two of the women gingerly, still guarding his beaten torso. See to your wounds before you lose consciousness and they discover our true identities. We shall speak…en I…ble.
The faint glow of the sword dimmed with each word the voice spoke until it vanished entirely, but the metal of the blade still glittered and reflected the light of The Wanderer as clearly as it had moments earlier. Without further warning, he felt his muscles burn like they had never burned, and the pain in his left arm exploded so intensely that he cried out and fell to his side.
He gasped for breath as the fire in his limbs spread to his lungs, and his vision narrowed dangerously as he tried to clutch the wounds on his left arm. But his fingers had locked around the hilt of the sword, and he noticed with more than a little alarm that even the palm of his right hand was bleeding.
Randall tried to call for help but he had too little breath in his body and he barely managed to wheeze between ragged, panting breaths. After a few moments he remembered his still-bleeding wounds, and did his best to crawl toward where he had dropped is pack. Inside was Minnie’s gift of herbs including redroot, without which he would most certainly bleed to death within the hour. It was thankfully closer than he had feared, since the battle had taken very close to where he had set his belongings down and before long he was kneeling beside the rucksack.
He couldn’t even move his fingers—he had never known his hand to cramp like this, but judging from the pain he felt in his forearm he suspected it was more related to exhaustion than it was the sword’s doing. After fumbling futilely with the rucksack’s drawstring, he clumsily used the tip of the sword to slice through the strip of leather. He opened a large gash in the sack itself in doing so, but he managed to expose the small bundle of herbs and he pulled out a piece of redroot.
Randall had seen Yordan minister to the victims of a building collapse once, and in that emergent scene she had chewed the redroot before jamming the resulting gob of sticky paste into the wounds. Knowing he had no business practicing the healing arts, he paused momentarily. But then he realized he had even less business second-guessing his good friend, who had saved hundreds of lives as a healer, and he bit down hard on the redroot.
The taste was horrific and he gagged almost instantly. The flavor was somewhere between metal shavings and the foulest liquor he had ever even smelled, topped with a hint of sewage. Forcing himself to do what needed to be done, he breathed through his mouth as he stuffed the first chunk of redroot back into his mouth. He managed to force his jaw to work for long enough to spit the gob onto the knuckles of his right hand, only dripping a small bit onto the ground in the process.
Gritting his teeth in preparation for the pain that he was about to experience, he stuffed the mashed, sticky redroot into the wound on his left, upper arm. The sensation was actually less painful than he expected, and he was more than slightly surprised to find a numbness spread outward from the wound itself.
He watched for several seconds until the wound actually stopped bleeding, and he then repeated the process with the deep, ragged gash in his hand. As he spat the redroot into his palm, he was more than a little alarmed to see what he was fairly certain had been exposed tendons and he felt sick to his stomach. But he forced his left hand closed—both to hide the wound from his sight, and to work the redroot into the wound bed—and after a few seconds it, too, went numb and the bleeding stopped.
He took up another piece of redroot, which Randall only then realized looked slightly different than the stuff he had become familiar with in Three Rivers. It was longer and narrower as well as having a rubbery texture to it, while the Three Rivers stuff had been brittle. Shaking his head to clear his mind of such wandering thoughts, he stumbled and fell to his knees as he made his way to the wagons.
Randall gasped in pain as his ribcage flared at his fall and he felt something click on the right side of his chest. He stumbled to his feet, knowing that if he stayed on his knees there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to get up again. When he was once again standing, he staggered toward Charles and the others. In the distance he heard a cry from what he presumed was the final raider just as he made it to Charles’ side.
Collapsing to his knees, he held out the pieces of redroot and did his best to speak deliberately, as he was already feeling the world spinning out of control around him. “Take it,” he gasped, and he saw a look somewhere between disbelief and gratitude cross the younger man’s face as he accepted the redroot.
Randall leaned against the wagon’s wheel and looked ahead, drawing deep, steadying breaths as he fought against the urge to fall asleep. There was no way he could run away in his current condition, and with what very possibly could be a Senatorial Guard returning to arrest him at that very moment he knew his only chance to survive was by use of his wits. Unfortunately, even in his current state he knew his wits were likely to fail him since he had immense difficulty even keeping his eyes open.
“
Ma, he needs water,” Charles said urgently. “Relax,” the younger man said as he knelt beside Randall as a look of concern came over his face, “just relax, Marion. Thou hast more skill with a blade than thou suggested,” he said in a low voice as he tore at the sleeve of his undershirt, which he then used as a makeshift bandage on Randall’s wounded arm.
“Marion?” he asked blankly, mortally certain that the Charles’ wounds had impaired him more greatly than Randall had suspected. “No…” he shook his head, waving his right, sword-wielding hand dismissively, “you need to sit down. Your head’s been hurt, Charles.”
Randall looked back toward the fire and began to count the number of logs there. He had no idea why he was doing it, but it seemed like a good thing to keep his mind occupied. He got somewhere between four and ten before he had to start over.
“My thanks, Ma,” he heard Charles say, and soon after Randall felt a cup of water placed against his lips. “Drink,” Charles urged, and Randall nodded blankly as he complied. The water tasted brackish and oddly dry, but he took it down easily enough.
“Will he live?” asked the amplified, distorted voice and Randall jumped to his feet—or, to be more accurate, he twitched spasmodically and nearly fell over as he tried to scramble away. He saw the armored figure approaching, with the massive, white warhorse standing beside the larger wagon on the opposite side of the fire.
“Stay away,” Randall warned, and he noticed his words slurring together as his eyes rolled around in his head. “I’m not going back with you!”
“Calm thyself, friend,” the figure said in what Randall decided was a very un-soothing tone, “thy wounds are grievous; allow these good folk to tend to thee whilst thou has a chance to calm thy nerves.”
Randall tried to back away, but his arm gave out underneath him and his tried meekly to raise the sword between himself and the armored figure. But it was too heavy, and the weapon nearly slipped from his grip as he made the attempt, but he forced his fingers to remain wrapped around the sharp, metal hilt. “It wasn’t my fault,” he pleaded, “I didn’t know what happened to her, I swear!”
The armored figure knelt down and placed a heavy, metal gauntlet on Randall’s shoulder comfortingly. “I believe thee, stranger,” the voice said more softly, and immediately Randall felt warmth spread down his injured arm and his senses cleared just enough that he could focus on the figure’s armor.
The helmet was nothing like the Senatorial Guards, having been styled in a fairly standard design which tapered from the mid-point down to the neck and up to the flat top. There was a small, horizontal slit at eye level which formed a ‘T’ with a vertical slit on the lower half of the helmet’s ‘face’ and a heavy, chain coif concealed the knight’s skin entirely.
Staring blankly down at the breastplate—which was almost identical to that of the Senatorial Guards he had encountered—he saw the Senatorial emblem had been replaced with what looked like a pair of criss-crossing flowers, with one light and the other dark.
“Thou art safe, Citizen,” the knight assured him. “Thou art among friends, and I shall personally vouchsafe thy safety for thine heroic deeds this night. Rest now,” he said in his heavily distorted voice that seemed anything but human, or half-elven, or even Ghaevlian. “Give thy wounds a chance to mend.”
Randall heard the same sound he had heard prior to the knight’s arrival, and he looked in the direction of the sound as the knight did the same.
“Squire,” the knight called out, his voice booming so loudly that Randall made as if to cover his ears, but agony danced up and down his arm as he did so and he momentarily blacked out.
When he could once again see, he saw a trio of riders in various states of dismount, with the nearest moving toward himself and the knight.
“See this Citizen into yon wagon, Ravilich—and take care not to aggravate his wounds before giving them a proper dress,” the knight commanded with a tilt of his head as he rose to his full, imposing height, and the other man nodded dutifully.
“Of course, Ser Cavulus,” the man replied and made to kneel beside Randall. “Canst thou stand, Citizen?”
Randall shook his head, and noticed that without the knight’s hand on his shoulder the pain began to throb and burn as it had, but thankfully his senses were still clearer than they had been.
“Very well,” said the pureblood man, who was apparently a Squire named Ravilich, “try to relax.” Ravilich turned and whistled, again causing pain to burst inside Randall’s ears but this time he merely winced. “Help me get him to the wagon, Drexil.”
A large, burly-looking human with a beard that seemed to go halfway down his chest came over, and together they helped Randall into the bed of the wagon which Charles’ family and the Foulchens had been minutes earlier.
“Excuse me,” Randall heard Charles interrupt as soon as they had situated Randall on the surprisingly comfortable, wooden bed of the wagon, “didst thou say that thy knight is Ser Cavulus—the Ser Cavulus, the White Knight?!” His voice was filled with excitement, but Randall was paying less and less attention as his eyes got heavier and heavier.
“Indeed it is,” the Squire, Ravilich, replied officiously.
“Ser Cavulus, bearer of Rimidalv, the Incorruptible…” Charles breathed, clearly star-struck at the sight of a full-blown knight riding in to save the day in such dramatic fashion. “Is it true that he nearly died at Mount Gamour these years past?”
“There was no ‘nearly’ about it, young man,” Ravilich, the Squire, said heavily, “the White Knight drew his final breath beneath the slopes of Gamour three years hence. He gave his life to defeat the Storm Lord in his lair deep within that thrice-accursed mountain, and in so doing freed the lands from his Judgment-long reign of terror.”
Charles made as if to press the issue, but the Squire clapped him on the shoulder and tilted his head toward the small group of half-elves, who were looking more than a little nervously at the new arrivals. “The White Knight watches over thee now; see to thy friends and thyself, star child. The road is long, and I assure thee that thy questions shall be answered in due time.”
Star child, Randall wondered as he felt his eyes close more comfortably than he had ever remembered them closing, what a strange thing to call a person…
That was the last thing Randall remembered thinking before falling fast asleep.
Chapter XV: First Impressions
Dawn, 2-13-5-659
Randall awoke to the first rays of the sun streaming down from overhead, and he nearly stretched his body as was customary for him but the night’s events came back to him in a flood of images—and pain.
He looked down and saw that he still held the sword in his hand but in the faint, morning light he saw that his right palm was nearly as damaged as his left! Fearing the worst, he relaxed his fingers slightly as was more than slightly relieved to find that his initial assessment had been well wide of the mark. While his right palm was covered in long, open wounds, they had already clotted, likely due to the gobs of redroot he had spat onto his hand in order to deal with the wounds to his other arm.
His fingers actually responded to his commands, albeit slowly, and he flexed them gently to test them as he blinked the blurriness from his vision.
Satisfied that he would retain use of his right hand, he looked over with dread at his left and saw that it had been cleanly bandaged. There were trace amounts of blood at the edges of the bandages, but all in all he would have compared the work to Yordan’s, which was to say it was excellent. He tried to sit up but the pain in his chest prevented him from doing so.
“Lie still, Citizen,” he heard a man say from beside the wagon, and only after he had spoken did Randall realized the wagon was moving. “Save thy strength; thou shalt need it.”
Feeling a pang of dread spread throughout his being, Randall gripped the sword tightly and tried to speak but his throat was dry and all that came out was a raspy croak.
He realized that a water skin was being h
eld to his lips and for a moment he looked balefully at the simple, cheap, yet absolutely critical piece of traveling gear—a piece he had completely forgotten about prior to leaving Murkwater.
Pushing the thought from his mind, he accepted the water and drank deeply. He spilled more than he would have liked onto his chest, but even that seemed to refresh him slightly.
When he had finished he leaned his head back and took a few breaths. Feeling slightly recomposed, he looked over at the man and recognized him as Ravilich, the White Knight’s Squire. “Why do you say that?” he asked as lightly as he could manage.
The Squire looked at him skeptically. “Thine injuries are grave,” he explained. “Thou art fortunate to possess such a hardy constitution, for I have seen larger men felled by lesser wounds.”
There was a snort from the opposite side of the wagon and Randall looked over to see the burly, beard-sporting man walking alongside the small wagon opposite the Squire.
“Thou must forgive Drexil,” Ravilich said with a hint of amusement, “he doth not take kindly to aspersions cast against his mighty prowess, and he hath a most foul mouth.”
“Aye? And ye’ve an ass fer a mouth, Ravilich,” the man grumbled. “The likeness betwixt the two grows to the point I wonder if ye were born in the circus, where ye learned to stand on yer hands in favor of proper manners.”
Ravilich scoffed with what was clearly mock incredulity. “Do I take thy meaning to be that thou doth betimes confuse my face for my rump, Drexil?”
“Such would explain a great many of yer eccentricities…and other shortcomings,” the other man growled.
They continued in silence as Randall tried to prop himself up against the front of the wagon, where he saw Charles was sitting and driving the horses. When he had succeeded in doing so, he saw Ravilich shake his head as a look of wonderment came over his face.
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 18
