Sentinelspire - Mark Sehestedt [39]
Berun pushed Lewan behind him, threw back his cloak, dropped to a crouch, and reached for an arrow.
"Easy!" said Sauk.
The rest of Sauk's men rose from their hiding places, and somewhere in the forest behind them the tiger roared.
"I was hoping you wouldn't have the bow ready. That… complicates matters." Sauk smiled and thrust out his chest, obviously reveling in Berun's shock. "Oh-ho, I bet you have questions."
Berun's fingers flexed over the bow. His other hand fingered the nock of an arrow in his quiver. "How…?"
"You thought we'd venture into the Khopet-Dag without antidotes for spider venom?" Sauk laughed. "You have been gone a long time. The Old Man's blades may not all be men of the wilderness, but we aren't stupid. We came prepared."
Lewan looked around. Every one of Sauk's men was here. None looked happy, and Lewan could see why. Every one of them bore welts on face and hands from spider bites, Val's eyes were still red and puffy from the tep yen, and Kerlis's skin was red and had the slick sheen of a recent healing. Every man looked ready to murder. Kerlis, in particular, was staring daggers at Berun.
A show of force, then. Every man in Sauk's band stood before them. That gave Lewan a small amount of hope. If the half-orc had meant to kill them, he would have kept some of his men in hiding and made this an ambush.
The tiger roared again from somewhere behind them. The sound reverberated off the hillside, but Lewan could tell that she was not in the same place she'd been the last time she'd roared. She was on the move. Tigers were not like most other predators. Ambush hunters, they did not roar to frighten their prey. A tiger roared for one reason: to communicate. She was letting Sauk know that she had their prey covered. One way or another, Lewan and Berun were surrounded.
Lewan looked to the half-orc. Sauk dropped his smile. His face hardened, and his eyes glinted cold. "Throw down your weapons," he said. "Give me back that relic you took. After your stunt last night, you and the boy will walk with your arms bound today, but you'll go alive. If you do as 1» say.
Lewan looked to his master. Berun had gone very still- everything except his eyes, which went from man to man, never resting upon one for long. This wasn't lost on Sauk.
"Don't be a fool," said the half-orc, and Lewan heard genuine concern in his voice. "Even if you get away, you'll never get past Taaki. Even that bow of yours will only annoy her before she gets you."
Berun stood, looking at the assassins gathered round them. Lewan's gaze flicked between his master and the assassins, waiting for a cue. All eyes were on Berun. His move.
Berun's shoulders slumped, he looked to the ground, and a great sigh went out of him. A look of utter relief washed over Sauk.
"Master…?" said Lewan.
Still keeping the width of his body between the band of assassins and his disciple, Berun turned and looked at Lewan. Nothing Lewan had seen in all their years together, not even the terrifying events of the past day, had ever frightened him like the look he saw on his master's face. Lewan had known that Berun had been deeply afraid yesterday on the trail upon finding the name Kheil scratched into that print. His master had been worried after their capture, but even then, Lewan had seen the careful calculations, the scheming, going on behind his master's eyes. But the look he saw just then was complete and utter despair. That look in Berun's eyes drained Lewan of all strength. It was a feeling he had not felt since… since that day in his village when he'd heard the raiders, listened to the screams of the dying, smelled the smoke in the thatch of the house where he lived with his parents, found his mother…
"Mas-?" Lewan began, his voice trembling.
Something lit in his master's eyes. A defiant fire. The corner of Berun's mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile. Watch this, it said.
Sauk must have sensed something too, for the look of relief froze on his face, the words he had