"Now, Jason," Doria hissed.
All sound was gone. All sight, except for that face. It would have to be a head shot. Jason would have to kill Ahrmin with a single shot, before anyone could get healing draughts to him.
Ahrmin was dead. The warrant was signed and sealed. All Jason had to do was pull back on the trigger.
But his index finger wouldn't move. It was the same thing that had happened in the forests outside of Wehnest: Time lost its forward motion, and froze.
Except that this time, the frozen time was wrapped only around Jason; the rest of the universe seemed to move faster, robbing him of his chance. As he crouched there, unmoving, Ahrmin finished his oration and began to move away.
I can't do it.
His finger wouldn't move. His father's life depended on killing Ahrmin now, but something had robbed Jason of his will.
Jason swallowed, hard.
There was a rustling at the door, and Hervian stepped inside. "What's going—" He caught himself as he spotted Vikat's bound form, motionless in the corner.
Hervian reached for his sword, all the while shouting, "Traitors! Assassins in the larder!"
No. Not this time. I won't fail.
"Not this time."
Jason Cullinane gritted his jaw tightly, and he bent time to his will. As though he had seconds, minutes, hours, in which to shoot, Jason carefully, slowly, gently squeezed the trigger, keeping Ahrmin in his sights.
The hammer fell, snapping sparks into the night. There was a bang that he felt more than heard, and a cloud of acrid smoke.
Ahrmin's head exploded. Brains splattered onto his bodyguard's chest, white curds among the red.
It felt like he was moving in slow motion as Jason Cullinane dropped his rifle and tried to roll away from Hervian's lunge, sure that he wouldn't make it.
* * *
When the second note sounded, Walter Slovotsky and Ahira were standing over the bodies of the guards, trying to decide what to do. Walter couldn't see the camp, and trying to creep closer was not only not part of the plan, it was almost certain suicide.
Only one thing made any kind of sense: start the attack, then get the hell back to the beach and see if they could be of some sort of use.
Slovotsky laid their dozen bombs on the ground in front of him. The brightness that showed where the camp was was just too far away for him to reach.
"I don't have that good a pitching arm."
The dwarf smiled, his white teeth shining in the darkness. "You light 'em, I'll throw them."
Slovotsky struck the tip of one of the igniters, and as it sputtered into flame, laid the stick firmly in the dwarf's palm.
Ahira threw it sputtering off into the night.
The night exploded into fire and screams.
"Next."
* * *
Jason rolled to one side, the tip of Hervian's sword taking him high in the left arm.
The pain was dazzling, but his right hand seemed to have a mind of its own; it clawed at the pistol on the ground, bringing it up, the thumb pulling the hammer back, the finger curling around the trigger, jerking, as the world outside the hut exploded into a horrid din and orange fire.
He never knew where the shot went, except that it must have gone wide, but the edge of the muzzle blast must have caught Hervian in the eyes; the slaver screamed, dropped his sword, and clapped his hands to his face.
Jason dropped his pistol, and scooping up Hervian's sword, clumsily set the point against the slaver's chest and rammed it hilt-deep before pushing the dying slaver to one side.
Another explosion sounded outside the hut, this one turning the cooking fire into a shower of sparks, fire, and stone, some of which pierced the flimsy sides of the hut.
A stone tinged off Doria's robes, knocking her down; what felt like a horse's kick caught Jason in the side. Two ribs broke with an awful snap. He tried to get to his feet, but pieces of bone in his chest moved as if of their own volition, in sharp, horrid counterpoint to the torment of the gash in his left arm.
Grabbing his good arm, Doria helped him to his feet and pulled him from the hut.
Another explosion rocked the camp. Some men tried to hide from the bombs, while others fired their guns off into the night, trying to shoot whoever was attacking them.
"We've got to get down to the beach," Doria said. "Now."
Leaning on Doria, Jason Cullinane limped off into the night.
* * *
When the first explosion roared, somewhere far off in the night, Karl Cullinane moved. Like a soccer player picking up a ball after practice, Karl used his toes to scoop the bomb at his feet into the air, then caught it, rolling away, striking the igniter on his belt as he did, then throwing the bomb, immediately realizing that his adrenaline rush had betrayed him; he'd thrown it too far.
He rolled to his feet and reached for his bowie.
The first crossbow bolt caught him in the right shoulder, sending his knife falling from nerveless fingers; the second slammed into his right thigh, knocking his leg out from underneath him, slamming him to the sand.
Karl Cullinane tried to breathe, but couldn't. He couldn't even force his feet under him.
I will not die on my knees.
As the slavers went for cover, the bomb went off behind them—too far behind them—shattering the night into fire, barely knocking them off their feet.
From the corner of his eye, Karl could see that Ganness, too, was down, must have been stunned.
The sky behind Karl lit up as the charges Aeia and Bren had placed aboard the slaver ship went off.
Good kids. The rest is mine.
Ignoring the agony from the crossbow bolts in his shoulder and thigh, Karl crawled to the nearest slaver, falling over on his side as he fastened his hand on the man's throat.
His good hand. His left hand, which only had a thumb and forefinger left. His right side was useless; this would have to be enough. He squeezed, hard, harder, letting the universe narrow to his thumb, his forefinger, and the slaver's throat.
Cartilage and flesh tore wetly between his finger and thumb; the slaver died with an awful liquid gurgling.
Beyond the offshore island, yet another pair of explosions rocked the night.
The other man rose, a dagger gleaming brightly in the starlight, but fell back as a gunshot rang out, shattering his face into a bloody pulp.
Karl turned his head. Half propped up by Ganness, Tennetty was holding an open bottle of healing draughts in one hand, a smoking pistol in the other. She dropped the pistol, groaning as she fastened two trembling hands around the crossbow bolt that projected from her side.
She screamed as she jerked at the crossbow bolt in her side. The bottle fell from her fingers, spilling too much of the precious stuff into the sands before she could snatch it up.
She then took another swig of the healing draughts, then pulled again. This time, the bolt came free, its wooden shaft dark with her blood.
Tennetty crabbed herself over to Karl and forced the bottle between his lips with one hand while she fastened the other on the fletching of the bolt in his shoulder.
White-hot fire shot through him as she pulled the crossbow bolt from his flesh, and then yanked three times, three separate, awful spasms of agony, to pull the other from his thigh.
The sickly-sweet liquid dulled the pain, bringing strength back to his vague limbs, letting him breathe again, pushing away the darkness at the edges of his vision.
Tennetty smiled weakly, while Ganness vomited on the sands.
"Stop congratulating yourself," Karl said, as he lay on the sand, gasping for breath. He felt at the wound in his shoulder and at the one in his thigh. Not good. Both wounds had closed, but that was all. There just wasn't enough left of the healing draughts to bring him back to full health, to finish the healing process. His wounds were closed, but he was dead tired, barely able to move.
The hole in Tennetty's side was a bit better, maybe, but not much.
"Reload," he
gasped. "Reload." Aiea and Bren would be back on the beach in a few minutes, and they'd need cover.
* * *
"Bad news, Jimmy—very bad." Slovotsky shook his head. "They've reformed and they're heading out the wrong way."
"Wrong way?" Ahira hefted his axe. "The other path? Shit."
Slovotsky nodded. Things were quickly going to hell. Karl was busy preparing an ambush on the path that led most directly down to the beach, but Ahrmin, or whoever was in charge, was leading the slavers down another path toward the beach.
It would bring them down to the beach west of where the others were.
Which wasn't all bad, in and of itself. Karl and the rest would be between the slavers and Ganness' ship. But the plan had been to blow up the slavers while they were crowded together on a trail. Karl didn't have sufficient explosives or manpower to stop more than a hundred slavers advancing in the open; the slavers would spread out and fight a rifle duel from a distance. A duel that they would win, eventually.
Ahira nodded. "Let's get back down to the beach."
As he led Slovotsky down the path, Slovotsky caught a flash of white in the night at a momentary break in the trees overhead.
A slaver limped along, supported by a woman in white robes.
Walter reached for a knife, only to let his hand drop. It wasn't a slaver.
"Jason, Doria," he breathed.
They turned about, Jason moving away from Doria to draw his sword, his eyes widening when he saw who it was.
The boy was badly hurt, Walter realized, as he took over the task of supporting him, while the dwarf and the cleric embraced silently.
There was little that could be done. The bottle of healing draughts was back at the beach with Karl; Walter had only a tiny flask of the precious stuff in his pouch.
He drew the flask, pulled the cork, and tilted it between Jason's lips. "Let's move it, people. We got troubles."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Profession
Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.
—Will Rogers
They gathered around the bombs, more than slightly the worse for wear, although Walter Slovotsky and Ahira were only out of breath. Karl's and Tennetty's wounds were closed, but by no means fully healed; Karl's right shoulder was a constant deep ache, and his right leg refused to support him.
Bren Adahan and Aeia were winded, gasping on the sands like fish out of water. Ganness seemed stunned, still white-faced from his bout of vomiting.
Doria seemed physically fine, but she was almost silent, barely able to speak.
Karl gripped Jason's hand. Jason was the worst. While healing draughts and pressure bandages had stopped the bone-deep gash in Jason's arm from bleeding, the boy's ribs were badly broken, and the pieces had shifted during their half-run, half-stagger to the beach. Jason screamed every time anyone tried to move him.
"You'll have to carry the boy," Karl said to Ahira. "Careful, now."
Slovotsky nodded. "Bren—go cut Karl a staff; we're going to have to hobble ourselves out of here."
Bren Adahan drew his knife and moved away in the dark.
"Not a boy, Father," Jason shot back, clenching his teeth as he spaced out the words evenly. "I killed Ahrmin."
"You sure?" Walter Slovotsky said.
Doria turned a sweat-shiny face toward Slovotsky. "He shot his fucking head off."
Karl forced a smile. "Not a boy." He let go of Jason, and accepted the stick that Bren had cut for him to use as a cane.
Ahira helped Karl to his feet. He could barely move at a slow walk, and this was a situation that called for running. He didn't like it at all.
Best to get moving and worry later about how much he didn't like it.
"Let's get out of here, people," he said. "Ahira, you carry Jason; Walter, you and I will bring up the rear, slow down any pursuit."
Slovotsky nodded. "Right. And—"
A single shot rang out.
Karl had never seen Walter Slovotsky move faster. Diving, Slovotsky drew and threw a knife at something in the darkness, then completed his dive to snatch up one of Karl's pistols, brought it up and cocked it, and pulled the trigger.
It spat fire into the darkness.
Two men screamed.
"Everybody down," Karl said as he let himself fall to the sand.
He snatched up a bomb, struck its fuse to sputtering life with his thumbnail, and threw it in the direction that Slovotsky had fired. The slaver or slavers had missed once; even if they were injured, it wasn't safe to assume that they would miss again.
"Cover your eyes," he said, throwing an arm over his own face.
The bomb went off with a flat crump that drowned out the slavers' screams. Hot sand spattered him.
"Okay, people," Walter Slovotsky said. "We've drawn about enough attention to ourselves." Walter smiled down at Karl as he offered a hand. "Nice toss, Karl. Now, let's get out of—"
"No!" Aeia screamed. "Jason . . ."
Karl crabbed himself around.
Jason was still stretched out on the sand, but now he clutched at his belly, where the dark blood flowed freely. The slaver's shot hadn't missed.
Oh God. No. Not Jason.
"Healing draughts. We have to—"
"We don't have any," Tennetty said, her tone flat, her words evenly spaced.
"Help." Jason's face was contorted into an almost inhuman mask. "It hurts so much."
"No." Karl held his son to him; he could feel Jason's fast-pounding heartbeat getting weaker. "Please God, no."
Doria's voice was calm and level.
"Let go of him, Karl," she said, her words evenly spaced, distant. "Let go of him."
Gentle fingers that were far stronger than they had any right to be pried Karl's arms away from the boy.
"You must let go of him,"
She stretched Jason's form out on the cold sands; the boy's body was limp, perhaps unconscious, perhaps already dead.
No. Not dead. Please not dead. Not Jason.
Logically, it didn't matter whether or not he was dead yet. If he wasn't dead already, he would be in just minutes, his life's blood dripping away into Melawei sands. Just like Rahff.
"No! There's got to be something we can do besides give up on—"
"Shh." Ahira's grip was strong on Karl's good shoulder. "Be quiet, Karl. Don't interfere."
"I will heal him." Doria's fists were trembling in front of her face, her jaw clamped tightly as she stood over Jason's prostrate form.
Her forehead beaded with cold sweat, her breath came in short gasps as she flailed her arms at something nobody else could see, her body tightened as she matched her strength against her invisible adversary's.
"I will," she said. "I will do as I will, not as you would have me. I belong to me, not to you. I belong to me!"
Bands of force became almost palpable, tightening around Doria, first dragging her arms down to her sides, then slowly driving her to her knees, forcing her head down.
You will obey me, daughter, a distant voice seemed to say in a whisper, a harsh whisper that could shatter rocks.
"No."
Doria weakened; she pulled her hood around her head, and, almost vanishing into her robes, began to jerk spasmodically. But she did not give up. She struggled on.
Just when it seemed that the battle would not be won, could not be won, the forces restraining Doria snapped, gone to where a burst soap bubble goes.
Doria's strength tore through the darkness, and the evanescent words of healing poured from her mouth in a rapid torrent.
The words flowed into Jason; the wound in his belly expelled a flattened hunk of metal before sealing itself behind the bullet. Ribs snaked under his skin, freezing into their proper places. Beneath the bandage on his shoulder, skin and muscle twisted and shifted.
Doria staggered away from the boy; if Ahira hadn't reached out a supporting arm, she would have fallen.
Karl reached out a hand as Jason's eyes flickered, then
opened.
He lived.
My son lives. Karl gave Jason's arm a quick squeeze, then called to Ahira and Walter.
"You'll have to carry him. Now. Leave me some of your guns, and get the hell out of here, all of you. The slavers will be along any minute." He propped himself up against the base of a tree. "I'll hold them off."
It was a logical necessity. His leg wouldn't support him; the best he could do with the staff Bren had cut him would have been a slow hobble. With slavers closing in on them, the others needed more of a head start than they had. It wasn't only necessary to get to Ganness' ship; they also had to get it moving, to get it at least far enough offshore that the slavers wouldn't be able to swarm aboard, overwhelming them by sheer numbers.
And they had to get going now, before the other slaver ship could arrive in the morning, and be told that someone had snuck a ship by. This attack, and the healing of Jason, had eaten up time they couldn't afford. They had to go.
Now.
"The others can go." Tennetty clasped her hand to her side. "I won't leave you."
There wasn't time. Somebody had to stay and slow the slavers down. Only one. Two wouldn't do any better.
He looked her straight in the eye. "It's an order. Or are you going to betray me by staying?"
There were shouts and cries from down the beach. Off in the night, the slavers had made it to the sand. Only a matter of time until they headed this way; only a matter of time until they were all caught.
Karl looked from Bren Adahan to Aeia, to Walter, Tennetty, Doria, Ahira, and the still-woozy Jason, staggering until the dwarf swept him up in his arms. Doria had saved his life; she hadn't been able to bring him back to full strength, not after the injuries the boy had suffered.
Wordless, Aeia knelt beside Karl and kissed him on the forehead, then rose.
But nobody moved. "We don't have time for long goodbyes," Karl said. "Get going. And know that I love you all."
Tennetty thought it over for a long second. "Yes, Karl." Tennetty laid the last of the rifles near him. "I'll take the powder," she said. "I don't think they'll give you a chance to reload."
"Right. Good luck."
"Karl," she said, dry-eyed, only a little tremor at the edge of her voice. "Is there anything you want me to tell Andrea?"
Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 26
