by Anna Thayer
Ladomer laughed grimly.
“Think of all that time I spent on you, Ratbag. Years and years! You think that the little fire that destroyed your miserable bookshop was an accident?” he asked pleasantly. “It was not. I joined you to the Gauntlet; I groomed you and prepared you to take your oath. Did you ever wonder why you were sent to Dunthruik, and under the auspices of lieutenant?” He eyed Eamon spitefully. “It was no merit of yours. A regional Hand and captain visited by the Right Hand do as they are told.”
Eamon’s face broke in enraged hurt; Ladomer grinned to see it. “Did you ever wonder why you became a first lieutenant, or were elected to the Hands?” Ladomer glared at him. “Oh, I had to spend years, Ratbag, telling you that you were good at the things you did, when you were not. Years listening to your woes.” As they circled each other, Ladomer’s face became a picture of pernicious pity. “Do you think that I didn’t howl with laughter every time you came to me, your face filled with pious sorrow? But it was not so much your face,” he spat, “it was you. You were utterly ridiculous then, and you have refused to grow out of it. Though perhaps you will shrink!” he added, swiping for Eamon’s neck again.
Eamon blocked the blow and stared grimly into Ladomer’s face. The dark eyes laughed at him even then. A hundred memories raced through Eamon, of words spoken and smiles given, of jokes and joys shared and comfort received. Every time Ladomer had sat with him in the Star, every time they had met in the streets of Dunthruik…when he had been counselled and questioned and surveyed…
It had been the Right Hand.
He looked uncomprehendingly back at him. “I only ever loved you, Ladomer, and to you, Arlaith, I was gracious.”
“You were naive,” Ladomer returned. “I had only to fawn and wail to overwhelm your little heart. It was not grace to let me live; it was stupidity – as only you can embody that virtue.” He fixed Eamon with a disparaging gaze. “I never despised you more than in that moment.”
Eamon’s mind turned back to Arlaith’s apology, the look of awe on his face as he had spoken: “I do not think that I would have said the same in your place.”
Eamon shook his head. “No, Ladomer; you despised me because I showed you grace. You despised me because you could not bind me.” Angrily he matched the gaze that pinned him. “Now, you will despise me because you cannot break me.”
Eamon turned the sword in his hand and struck at Ladomer’s arm. It was a good strike. Ladomer had to work hard to block it. Pressing forward, Eamon arched his sword and swung again. Ladomer parried and stepped back. Eamon wondered what armour the man wore, and cursed himself for not taking better note of it earlier that day. The man had a thick black tabard, and Eamon could not tell if there was armour below it or not. Without armour, one good strike to the chest would kill him.
Did he mean to kill Ladomer?
In that moment Ladomer caught a weakness in his attack and countered an oncoming strike, turning it into a blow of his own. It was a strong one; Eamon felt it judder through his arm and remembered how tired he was. But he could not falter.
He came back from the blow, disengaging. His chest heaved under the wretched press of his armour. Ladomer also looked short of breath; it encouraged him. They both adjusted their grips on their swords. As Eamon watched, Ladomer reached to his belt and drew a dagger. The blade caught in the light and Eamon’s eyes went wide.
“Recognize this?” Ladomer asked.
It was Eben’s dagger. Eamon paled with anger.
Ladomer turned the blade in his hand as he prowled. “I’m a great appreciator of the arts, as you know. So I thought, wouldn’t it be appropriate if I took your life with this? After all, this whole sorry story has been about poetry.”
“What?” Eamon yelled, head spinning.
“Did you think that your blood truly had some extra special something, granting it greatness?” Ladomer spat. “No! It was Cathair who taught the throned a love of poetry. In time Edelred came to appreciate it. He thought that it would be appropriately poetic if he used you to strike down the Serpent.”
Ladomer lunged for Eamon’s thigh. Swift as lightning, Eamon dropped his sword down along the length of his limb, locking the two blades together in a shivering bind. Ladomer stabbed for his neck with the dagger; the letters along its length glinted wickedly in the light.
Eamon tore one hand from his sword hilt and seized Ladomer’s wrist. Ladomer moved his hand to bring the crushing force of his vambrace around Eamon’s fingers.
Never had Eamon been gladder of a gauntlet than in that moment.
He pressed all his strength against the dagger inching closer to his neck. He had to break free, but he did not know how.
Ladomer’s dark eyes bore into him, more terrifying than any blow. “There was no grand design, Goodman, no fulfilment of prophecy. You were baited and trained for his amusement, and for mine.” He pressed forward harder with the dagger. “You, Goodman,” Ladomer sneered, “were nothing more than a poetic whim.”
Eamon glared at him. “I like poetry,” he retorted.
He forced his right hand up and launched the pommel of his sword towards Ladomer’s face. The blade followed behind it in a broad arc.
Only Ladomer’s considerable skill saved him. With a curse he leapt back from the sword-sweep – he had to either withdraw or lose his hand. Ladomer’s hand straightened so as to pull from his grip; Eben’s dagger was left behind. Eamon found it in his fingers as Ladomer pulled away.
As the dagger came to rest in the circle of his hand Eamon looked at its grim letters. In them – and the blade they tainted – the treachery of his house was commemorated and sealed. Eben had been killed with it, and, urged on by its grisly glint, Eamon had himself nearly been convinced to take his own life.
He felt something in his palm, but it was not the burn of the mark that he had borne so long. It was the steely shimmer of the King’s grace.
It was as Eamon gazed at the blade then that the letters shivered and suddenly made sense to him, and for the first time he read what had so often been pronounced over him:
“In striking bound.”
A grim look passed over his face. Unless it was to Hughan, he would be bound no more.
Rejoicing at his resolve, the King’s grace rushed into his hands. Suddenly the long blade of the dagger was aflame with blue light that danced through metal and letters, inflecting them with brilliance.
Ladomer fell still and stared in horror as the light penetrated deep into every part and pore of the blade and its hilt. There was a sharp crack and the blade split from hilt to point, shattering into dozens of pieces which scattered harmlessly to the ground. Then the hilt itself quivered until it too was rent in two by the power of the King’s grace.
Eamon looked down at the sorry remains on his hand. A weight lifted from his chest.
Eben’s dagger and its curse were gone.
“In breaking loosed.” Letting the hilt drop from his hand, Eamon laughed.
For a moment Ladomer looked terrified, but the Right Hand swiftly changed his expression.
“You think that you can frighten me with your parlour tricks?” he snickered. “Do you honestly think that you can defeat me? Or kill me?”
A chill ran through Eamon.
Ladomer sneered at him. “You may fight me, Eamon,” he said. “You may even draw blood. But you cannot kill me. How do I know that? Because I know you, better than you know yourself.”
Smiling, Ladomer charged forward again, the shards of the dagger crunching beneath his feet. As he tore onwards, he launched a devastating cut towards Eamon’s neck. Eamon swerved back from the attack and blocked it; again their blades locked together.
“You know, we have a lot in common,” Ladomer told him. “But you are not half the man I am. You cannot ride, or fight, or speak, or strike, or act even a third as well as I.” His smile turned into a hellish grin. “I’m even a better traitor than you are.”
With a furious cry, Eamon slammed his sword
down along the length of Ladomer’s blade and knocked it away. The blade went spinning across the room. Before he could strike again, Eamon adjusted the awkward hold of his hilt.
But he was too slow. Ladomer hurled himself forward. Suddenly two flaming, gloved hands were at either side of Eamon’s face; red light seared round them.
The Right Hand was not just a changer.
Eamon screamed as the red light cracked through his skull like knife-blows. The two hands clasped on his face like a vice and clawed mercilessly into his flesh and mind, rending him apart. He could not bear it much longer. Though he tried, he could not tear the burning hands off him.
Ladomer drove him up against the wall and fixed his head and neck against the stones as the reddened knives continued to strike. The pain was so great, Eamon could not keep hold of his sword.
“Save yourself, King’s man!”
In his arching agony, Eamon heard Ladomer’s mocking voice. The pain drove deeper into him, seeking that part of his mind where the whole could be broken.
Suddenly the blue light launched itself about him, setting itself ferociously against the red. Ladomer gave a cry of enraged surprise as the light erupted between them and threw him back. The Right Hand crashed heavily against the stony floor. Released, Eamon staggered, keeping himself upright only by merit of the wall behind him. He could not think and could barely see.
Suddenly Ladomer lunged away. Snatching up his sword, he lurched for the Nightholt.
Eamon wrenched himself from the wall, swept up his sword, and leapt towards him.
“Don’t touch it!” he yelled, swiping down hard at Ladomer’s outstretched arm. Ladomer flinched. Eamon followed up with a second blow. The Right Hand scowled viciously, turned, and bolted for the door.
For a moment Eamon only watched him run.
Fires, Gauntlet, marks, Nightholt. It had been Ladomer all along.
With a yell he charged after the Right Hand.
His quarry took to a stairwell, this one narrower than the first; Eamon turned sideways to run down it. He could not use his sword in so narrow a space. He whipped out his dagger and kept running.
As he raced down the spiralled corners of the tight stairs, a glow of red light rushed up the well towards him. An enormous sphere of angry flame followed it.
For a moment he froze with fear. Then he suddenly remembered standing against Cathair.
Hurriedly Eamon raised his hand and a wash of blue light struck out to shatter the red. But in his haste he lost his grip on his dagger. He became aware of it only when he heard the grim clatter of the blade running down the stairs before him. A second blast came at him. He was forced to block it. He still had no room to use his sword. As he pressed down the fire-beleaguered stairs after Ladomer, his only defence was his outstretched left hand and the grace that ran to his aid.
Ladomer sent another ball of light at him. Eamon raised his hand again, and an arc of blue light struck out to meet it; the two lights collided in the stairwell, blasting out a huge slab of the adjoining internal wall. As the stones and beams crumbled, Eamon could just about make out Ladomer’s form as he plunged through the opening and into the dusty room beyond.
Eamon steadied himself on the crumbling wall of the stairway. Weariness flooded vengefully through his limbs and he knew far too well that he could not chase or fight much longer. For a moment he stared at the cavernous opening, which dribbled stone and dust like a bleeding wound; he hung back. But Ladomer’s shadow and goading laugh spurred him on, and suddenly he burst through the crumbled opening into another room.
Ladomer had stopped just beyond the broken wall. Drawing up his sword again, Eamon launched himself at his enemy with a great cry, forcing the man to turn and parry the blow. Together they began another grim sword dance across the floor of the hall.
“It’s over,” Eamon yelled, his voice ragged and breathless. “Damn it, Ladomer!” Why couldn’t he understand? “Over!”
“Damn you!” Ladomer returned caustically. He was panting. His parries and thrusts were slower than before. He hacked down at Eamon’s neck. Eamon groggily blocked the blow and the blades jarred into another stalemate.
Ladomer drove forward his red-lit left hand. With an exhausted cry, Eamon brought up his own left hand from his hilt, and grabbed Ladomer’s. He stopped the palm before the sparking flames reached his face. So they stood, blade locked against blade, hand against hand, in a long hall in Dunthruik.
“Perhaps you want to die,” Ladomer mused, peering at his face past the long block. The man’s dark eyes moved like shadows behind the sparring lights. “Perhaps you’ve realized that you have nothing left. Could that be it, Ratbag?” Ladomer laughed again. “Hughan doesn’t need you any more, neither does the throned, neither does Dunthruik. What irony!”
Tears stung Eamon’s eyes. “That’s not true!” he yelled.
“Oh, but it is. You were always the pawn and the puppet,” Ladomer spat, “whether Hughan’s or Edelred’s. They’ve both used you and now there’s nothing of you left, and nothing left for you to do – except to seek a noble death, falling in battle against the Right Hand.”
Ladomer pressed forward with blade and hand. Eamon’s arms trembled with fatigue as the Right Hand fixed him in his gaze.
“Let me tell you something, Eamon,” Ladomer hissed. “Death isn’t noble – and yours won’t be.”
With a cry that was half a sob, Eamon wrenched himself back from the bind. Ladomer staggered forward, his sword coming down hard on his own outstretched arm. There was a ringing clang as the blade struck against the vambrace.
Eamon withdrew several paces across the room, panting, blood throbbing in his veins like fire. He knew that he needed to take better hold of his sword, to press against Ladomer and fight, to fight hard – even in that moment he should strike at the Right Hand while his foe was disadvantaged – but part of Eamon’s ailing heart had heard a grain of what it feared was truth.
Why was he fighting Ladomer?
His eyes swam with exhaustion and he forced himself to focus on Ladomer’s face.
“It’s over, Ladomer,” he tried again. “Stop this!”
Ladomer glared at him balefully. “Oh, I’ll stop. I’ll stop when you’re dead and gutted, Goodman!”
He lunged.
There was fire in Ladomer’s hands once more. It bit foully into Eamon as Ladomer lunged for him with the sword. The flame shivered along Ladomer’s blade and arched across into Eamon’s hands, penetrating deep into his armour and searing his weary flesh.
“You understand me?” Ladomer roared. “When you’re dead!”
The flame was agonizing. Eamon tore away from it. As Ladomer’s wild eyes and wilder hands came after him, Eamon’s resolve was suddenly gone.
Turning, Eamon raced away down the long hall. In seconds Ladomer was behind him but Eamon’s sudden fear drove him on faster. Ladomer’s face was twisted with mocking hatred and rage as he followed.
Eamon ran from the corridor and up a small flight of stairs. A great blast of red light came up it behind him, followed by Ladomer’s frenzied laughter. Eamon just managed to clear the path of the careering light. Stones shattered in his wake.
“Run, Ratbag!” Ladomer yelled. “Run! Run, like you’ve always done.”
Tears burnt on Eamon’s face. What could he do? He was exhausted, shattered, and broken, and Ladomer could not be stopped; he could not do it.
In a second his long months in Dunthruik passed through his mind, along with every moment of fear and self-loathing that he had borne in them. None of them were as strong as the torrent of emotion that drove him into the depths of the West Wing.
Would he let Ladomer shame him as well as betray him?
He turned into another room with long tapestries on its walls. Eamon recognized where he was: one of the long series of rooms that led to Ellenswell. Whether he had sought it purposefully or not, he did not know.
As he raced into the dark room, he saw a recess in the far wall
and knew at once that the alcove led down into the well. How clearly he remembered that day when he had been there, with Mathaiah and Cathair, and how they had opened the well with the heart of the King. He remembered the blue light filling the well, driving into the stones and driving back shadow until the well had opened.
It was the place where, despite his treachery, blood, and fears, Eben had stood against Edelred and hidden the Nightholt.
Eamon’s heart and sight returned to him. He looked about himself. The place where he stood was divided from the room that led into it by a thick wall with a curved ornamental doorway. He carefully pressed himself down to one side of it.
“Stand, King’s man!” he whispered to himself. In moments Ladomer would charge into the room seeking him and would not see him. When the Right Hand passed through the doorway where Eamon hid, he would strike him.
For a few agonizing seconds Eamon heard nothing but his own breathing and his efforts to calm it. Then the pursuing footsteps burst into the room on the other side of the arch. They slowed.
Ladomer laughed loudly into the silence. “I cannot believe you, Eamon!” he cried. “Of all the places you could have chosen to die, you choose this?”
The footsteps circled the other room, but they were not close enough.
“I see that rats, when cornered, fight like rats,” Ladomer continued. “I know you’re here, Eamon. And I know that you won’t leave alive.”
There was a long silence.
“You know, your wench hid from me, too,” Ladomer called. “It didn’t save her – and it didn’t save your child. It won’t save you. What a happy family,” he sneered. “I killed them all – your whore, your bastard, and your father.”
Eamon bit down hard on his tongue to keep back the howl of rage that came into his throat, and waited. He knew what Ladomer did not: Alessia was alive.
He felt a throbbing in the air. He had waited too long. Too late he realized Ladomer’s plan. Eamon moved back from the wall just as an enormous surge of red light struck it, smashing it to ruin.
