Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall

by Charles Ingrid

  The boy looked at Lady again. "I—I—"

  "You can do it," she said evenly.

  She could do it. She had, in desperation once or twice, to save lives. It was not a Talent Blade had or wanted, but it was a Talent that could exist. Why would she think using a Talent to kill any cleaner than using your hands? Why would she expose him to ridicule like this, through a candidate's testing?

  Stanhope sighed deeply. Then he sat up straight. "No," he said. "I won't do it."

  Lady reached out crisply, scooped up the rat, and deposited it back in her apron. She stood up and walked out of the room without another word.

  Stanhope looked after. Then he bowed his head again and Thomas heard the boy begin to sob.

  Franklin dropped his hand to his student's shoulder. "We'll be back in a few minutes," he said gently, "to tell you if you passed." He hurried after Lady Nolan.

  Thomas hung back. He put his hand on Stanhope's head, over the tightly knit hair. "It's not over until it's over," he said.

  The boy looked up, wet streaks over his face. He just shook his head.

  * * *

  Lady stood in the kitchen, drinking a dipper of water. In the doorway, he caught up with Franklin, who seemed afraid to approach the healer. Thomas good-naturedly jostled him aside. But the young Protector remained in shock. Lady looked over at him.

  She set the dipper down on the sink. "What is it, Brown?"

  "Good God, Lady. Did you have to destroy him? Wouldn't it have been enough to have just failed him?"

  "Who says I failed him?"

  "But—but—"

  She nailed him with that blue-eyed, brown-eyed stare. "Would you rather find him capable of destroying you? A healer is a healer. Not a murderer. Not a cold-blooded killer. But the very Talent that makes one a healer can be turned inside out, corrupted, misused ... if the person holding it is capable of doing that."

  "Shit," Franklin said and sat down weakly on a kitchen stool. "You mean you passed him."

  "Of course, I did. With flying colors. He knew exactly what he was capable of, and repudiated it." Lady briskly took the rat out of her pocket and put the animal in a tiny woven cage. She looked at Thomas. "I'd say he passed the Fetch as well, but I'm baffled as to what you were doing."

  "Just checking his common sense. Sometimes a Protector has to rely more on that than anything else."

  She snorted in a most unwomanly way and added, "You should talk."

  He shrugged ruefully, moved past her to the sink, and got a dipper of water himself. The barracks reeked of smoke and it was drying to the throat. He would not say to her in front of Franklin what he wanted to say. Was he such a monster to her that she would scar Stanhope forever to keep him from turning to Blade's path? How could she love him if she despised him that much?

  Franklin touched the back of his hand to his forehead. "I judge him passed, as well, then. One down, three to

  go."

  They reached their last candidate late in the afternoon. Thomas paced unhappily by the open wall as Barbara came in and sat demurely. She was dark-eyed and dark-haired, a homely placid girl, her hair braided back. She was all practicality, always had been. She looked up at him now and flashed a smile that was dazzling.

  He did not smile back, but nodded at her. She dimmed her expression a bit, then settled herself in the chair. As the last, shed been listening at the wall while Stanhope had been raked over and then Barnaby and then Sue and now it was her turn. She thought she knew what to expect. Her abilities were bare minimum, Thomas knew. She could Project, Block, and Read the truth—the least that could be asked of a Protector. She might open up some more Talents in her later years, women often did.

  Thomas looked out. The troopers had not come back yet and he did not like it. The longer he waited for someone else to do his job, the less his chances of bringing Alma back alive. "Let's get this over with," Blade said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I've got two hours of tracking light left. No one's come back yet. I'm going to have to go out and get them."

  Lady paused, something unseen passing between them. Finally, she turned to Franklin. "I'll start."

  Franklin nodded.

  Thomas paid little attention as Lady had the girl Truth-read a statement she made, or as Franklin had her Project the visual hallucination that the wall had been repaired. The illusion was weak, not her best strength, but she also Projected confidence, an emotion with it, something not many could do.

  Thomas had not decided yet how to test her as the hallucination faded. The girl swiveled about again to look at him and he stopped pacing as the wall resumed its wrecked appearance, his boots grinding in the debris.

  As quick as the young people were, they had not yet caught on to the pattern of the three testers. There had to be at least one failed question among the three—to see how the candidates coped with failure as well as success. Stanhope's had been spectacular, the other two very quiet. Barbara had passed both Franklin's test and Lady's. It was now up to Thomas to choose something at which she'd obviously fail, to gauge how she dealt with frustration. For a relatively ungifted Talent such as Barbara, the frustrations would be far greater than her successes.

  He paced over in front of her and stopped. He pulled his cuff back, exposing the scarred markings on his wrist. With his left hand he touched first his wrist and then his brow.

  "Discern the meanings of my markings," he said.

  Barbara looked at him. One of her braids lay over her shoulder. In concentration, she pinched the end of it between her thumb and forehead and absently began chewing on it.

  Lady looked at him, her own eyebrows quirked. Franklin leaned against the far wall, boredom overlying his serene expression. He shrugged when Lady turned to look at him.

  Thomas blocked himself abruptly before he could feel the first tickle or stir of any attempt to Read him, but the girl did not outwardly appear to notice. She lipped the blunt end of her braid absently as she focused on the problem.

  There was a stir at the manor house. Thomas could see doors opening and the patio filling, jostling with people. He stared hard, as if he could see all the more closely what was happening. Lady noticed. She swung around and looked, too. Had someone returned?

  The candidate reached out shyly and took his right wrist. "A road is anchored," she said, "by its beginning and end." Reaching up, she touched his brow. "Two more marks you must have to know the road's real destination. Earth and water you are—fire and air you must travel to."

  Thomas stood in stunned silence. She could not have passed his block. How did she come up with what she'd said?

  Barbara dropped her braid abruptly. "Did I pass?" she said nervously.

  As his jaw dropped, Lady snapped, "Of course you have, Barbara."

  Before she could say anything further, the room filled with yelling and dancing youngsters. They bore Barbara away as if she'd conquered the world, carrying her still seated in her chair, shoulder-high through the crowd. The three Protectors watched them go.

  Lady called after, with little hope of being heard, "The naming ceremony is at sundown!''

  Stanhope thrust his head around the doorway. "We know!" He bolted after the confusion.

  Franklin said, "I'd better go make sure they live that long." He disappeared as well.

  Thomas' gaze met Lady's. Her earth-brown eye glimmered with compassion, but he swore he saw amusement in the blue. "What the hell was that?" he got out.

  "Her equivalent of baffling them with bullshit?"

  "No." He shook his head in denial. "She was talking about the ghost road, dammit. There was no way she could have known and nothing else she could have been talking about. I kept myself totally blocked and I assume you did, too."

  "So we pass her as a Protector and list Prophecy as possibly one of her latent Talents." She hooked her arm through his. "Let's see what's going on. Maybe there's no need for you to take a tracking party out."

  Her skin was cool and her manner q
uiet. She did not expect good from what they walked out to meet. He knew that, and he knew he should be bracing her, protecting her, but all he could think about were the words Barbara had spoken.

  "Earth and water," he repeated. "The beast and the dolphin."

  "Maybe. It's standard symbolism."

  "But how did she know? How many people have we told about the road?"

  "Only a ghost here and there," Lady said lightly. He looked at her face then and saw the glimmer of an unshed tear in her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," Thomas said immediately. "It's not important." At least, not then it wasn't.

  Art Bartholomew met them on the pathway. "Riders," he said, "Out front."

  "The troops?"

  "Some of them."

  The man's enigmatic answer perked Thomas' attention. He drew Lady with him, weaving through the crowd that had gathered.

  The manor house had lost a turret to the roof fire. As they brushed their way through, its rooms stank also of the smoke and fighting. They gained the driveway and, for a moment, the view stunned him.

  The desecration of the chemical fire was vast and ugly, a gouging black stain upon the hillside and slope. The broken roadway had contained it somewhat, but the scarring ran all the way to the butte above the ocean, where a natural lookout cropped over the rock and sand. Charlie would have been appalled. Blade took a deep breath.

  Lady nudged him. He looked to his left, where the riders approached. They were ragtag, bedraggled, the troopers, their ponies and mules with heads low, some limping. Bandages wrapped arms and legs, bloodstains the badges of combat. The nesters had led them over hill and dale, and it was a miracle any of them had come back at all.

  "I should have gone with them," Blade said.

  "You can't be everywhere," Lady admonished. Her voice lightened. "Oh, my God. He's got Alma!"

  The lead rider carried the girl across his horse's withers, balanced lightly in front of him. Blade's eyes narrowed. He could not tell if the young man was nester or trooper, captive or rescuer. As they neared, he could see the three other wards had been found as well, riding double behind other troopers.

  He did not know the young man in front. The rider carried a nester war lance, feathered with numerous clan fetishes and decorated with fresh scalps. Only, as the rider turned into the manor driveway, Blade identified the scalps as nester. He looked back to the rider, a man no less barbarous than the nester he'd stolen the war lance from.

  He was young . . . between twenty years and Alma's age, but he rode his horse with natural grace and he was obviously the leader of this triumphant group. His shirt was of cotton, wide sleeved, open throated, his trousers of soft doeskin bleached almost white by the sun. Lady caught her breath as he kicked his heels into his mount and galloped at them, war lance flashing in the Sate afternoon sun.

  "God, he's beautiful," she murmured, then looked guiltily up at Blade. "But arrogant," she added.

  Thomas looked back to the youth as he pulled his horse to a plunging stop in front of the crowd. Dark blue eyes, their color as clear as gems under raven wing brows, swept the crowd. He handed the girl down and dismounted. He wore black leather gloves, the cuffs wide and folded back. A headdress of feathers, as thick and luxurious as a mane of hair, swept back from his brow to his broad shoulders. The feathers caught and echoed the color of his eyes, dark blue, dappled with teal and then shot with light gold and turquoise. There was amusement in his eyes as he looked about.

  "We ran into a group of your troopers," he said. "They appeared to need our help." He let Alma go as if presenting a gift to the enclave.

  Alma stepped into Lady's ready embrace. She let out a little sob as the woman gathered her in. "He saved me," she said. "They had us staked out. . . they're were going to do—" she shuddered. "Then they rode up."

  The young man stopped behind ASma. "I'm looking for Sir Thomas Blade," he said. He stabbed the war lance into the dirt between them.

  He stepped around the women. "You've found him," Blade answered.

  "Good," the rider said. The feathered headdress stirred, rising as hackles might rise, then higher, and Thomas saw that the plumage was part of him, rather than hair, as the plumes came up into an incredible crest framing his handsome face. The young man put his hand out. "I'm Drakkar," he said. "Denethan's son."

  Chapter 8

  Thomas stared wordlessly at the gloved hand. Drakkar kept it extended and said, a little too loudly, "Shankar! Didn't you inform our hosts I was on the way?''

  The Mojavan ambassador moved out of the shadows, pushing his way through a crowd reluctant to let him pass. He bowed deeply and sinuously before the young man. "I most certainly did, young chieftain. But you find our hosts in disarray. The raiders have done much damage----"

  The gaze of those deep blue eyes surveyed the manor and outbuildings. A finely chiseled nose widened at the scent of char and charnel that hung faintly on the ocean breeze. The corner of Drakkar's mouth pulled up in amusement. "Not as much," he said, "as they could have."

  Indeed not. In Deoethan's raiding years, communities caught as unaware as they had been would have been razed to the ground. Thomas unfroze at the ironic tone. "No," he agreed. "And partly thanks to you. Our children are more important than wood and stone.'' He still did not take the young man's hand.

  Drakkar said, "I forget myself." He stripped off the soft gloves and hooked them in his belt. There were several gasps as his hands and inner wrists were revealed. Talonlike spurs curled at the base of his palms. Thomas had no doubt they were strong and lethal, with poisonous pouches just beneath the skin to feed venom to the spurs. They could rake a man to death or drop him with just one touch. Drakkar seemingly ignored the gasp of revelation and reached out his hand again.

  There was a spark as their hands met, unseen but not unfelt. Thomas was thinking clearly, So you're Denethan 's boy, and from the sudden amusement on the other's face, Blade thought he'd been heard as clearly as if he'd spoken aloud. Talent, in this one. Someone moved in the crowd. Drakkar looked away alertly, then back as they dropped hands. His feathered crest deflated slowly, dropping back down to carpet his head and shoulders once more.

  Shankar jumped into place at the young man's elbow, starting a receiving line of sorts, introducing Drakkar. Thomas became aware of the low murmurs at his back and knew that the young man and his party were causing a stir. The Countians had become used to Shankar, but the lads who dismounted now were pure Mojavan, their faces and bodies lightly scaled, their skins of dun and gray and green, snakelike, their arms with more joints than any human had a right to-—human, yes, but altered to be not-human. Blade remembered Denethan, the man he'd hated passionately long before they'd ever met—and Denethan, to his shock, had been handsome . . . gold and dust, more like the hill cat and the coyote than like a snake, but he'd had that faint diamond pattern to his skin as well. His eyes had been the color of bronze, his thickly curled hair as blond as Thomas', and he'd looked down on Blade's height though Thomas was a tall man among his people. As Thomas examined Drakkar, he could see Denethan's bone structure and good looks underlying—but who the hell had his mother been? Where had he gotten those unnaturally blue eyes and what had caused his avian evolution?

  "I see your bam is gone." Drakkar's attention returned to him.

  "But not our hospitality." Governor Irlene gave a brittle smile. "Finley, Kozinsky, take their mounts and stake them out on the horse-line." The troopers she ordered moved around the fringe of the crowd to do as bid. They halted in front of the Mojavans. There was a moment of silence, then Drakkar's men gave over the reins of their mounts. Franklin came forward and gathered in the three pale-faced children standing in Alma's and Lady's wake. He herded them back to the barracks, clucking and encouraging them like a mother goose shepherding her goslings. Alma started after them, but Lady plucked at her sleeve, drawing her back, saying, "Stefan went out, too ... but they haven't come back yet.''

  Strain and exhaustion showed in her soot-stained face.
She could only nod weakly. Lady slipped an arm about her waist and kept it there.

  Beyond them, Shankar brought Drakkar forward, continuing introductions and receiving only polite murmurs in exchange.

  Valdees stepped forward courageously. Shankar gave a little hiss and said, "This is Armand Valdees, Governor of Orange County."

  The stocky man pumped Drakkar's hand. "There is enough of a building left standing to house our ceremonies. You've caught us preparing to swear in a new generation of Protectors."

  "Ah," said Drakkar. "Baptism of fire, eh?" His mouth twisted again as weak laughter followed his words. "It looks as though you could use a few more."

  The sun had begun to dip low over the ocean. Its slanting rays shone across the older man's balding pate as he took Drakkar by the arm and drew him across the courtyard. Drakkar gave a signal. His men dropped into formation, flanking them. Blade watched as Shankar also fell into position as Valdees continued his animated conversation. Guests they were, but wary ones, and that was well for as Drakkar drew out of earshot, the comments Thomas heard were not all welcoming ones. Old enemies appearing on the heels of new enemies . . . even Blade felt suspicion. The appearance of Drakkar's troops across the trail of raiders seemed a trifle convenient.

  Only Lady and Alma hung back, seemingly disinclined to return indoors. Thomas halted.

  "Dinner?"

  "We'll take it privately, I think." Lady smoothed Alma's tangled hair from her still pale face.

  "I want to wait for Stefan," the girl said.

  "Oh, he'll be back as soon as the nesters stop running rings around them. With you and the others returned, the clans will be heading back to their territories right about now." Thomas would have believed her more, but her dark gaze had gone after Drakkar, keeping him in sight as long as she could until he disappeared through the manor's oaken doors.

  "You're sure. ..." Thomas hesitated. "You're sure they were nesters."

  She looked over at him. Lady's arm about her waist kept her braced and on her feet. She wrinkled her nose, then nodded emphatically. "Nothing," she added, "smells like a nester."