The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [114]
The screaming dropped off to harsh panting.
“That’s got it,” he heard the strange voice say. “The bleeding’s bad.”
“Keep an eye out for him,” Fend’s voice instructed tersely.
“That was Aspar. I know bloody well it was, and you’ll never hear him coming, not after that.”
Aspar allowed himself a tight grin. He’d lost the bow in the fall, but he still had his dirk and ax. Grimacing, he pulled himself to his feet.
That sent a dizziness through him that nearly sat him back down, but he waited through it, breathing as deeply as he could. Fend was right; he could hear their voices—barely—but the belling in his ears would hush over the small sounds of someone creeping up on him.
Now, where exactly were they? He took a step in what he thought was the right direction and for an instant thought he had caught a glimpse of someone ahead, but the light was still dim.
He was starting to move closer when someone grabbed him from behind and wrapped a forearm across his face. He grunted and tried to throw him off, but he was already off balance and he fell rather heavily with his face pressed against the earth. He twisted and kicked, vaguely aware that the ground was shuddering, and a face came into view. It was a familiar face, but not Fend’s.
Ehawk.
The boy pressed a finger to his lips and pointed.
Four kingsyards away a massive wall of scale was sliding though the trees.
PART III
THE BOOK OF RETURN
Nothing is ever destroyed, though often they are changed. Some things may be lost for a very long time, it is true—but the waters beneath the world will eventually carry them home.
—FROM THE GHRAND ATEIIZ, OR THE BOOK OF RETURN ,AUTHOR ANON.
Each fane I visited robbed me of some sense—feeling, hearing, sight, sound, and eventually self. But in the end it all came back, and more, much more.
—FROM THE CODEX TEREMINNAM, AUTHOR ANON.
ALIS MEANT to cut the man’s spine just below his skull, but her fatigue-numbed feet slipped on the slick stone, and the point of her dagger plunged into his collarbone instead.
He screamed and whirled around. She had just enough presence of mind to duck his flailing arms, but his booted foot caught her in the shins, and she gasped as pain shot jagged lines across her vision and she stumbled back into the wall.
He hadn’t dropped his lantern, and they peered at each other in its sanguinary light.
He was a large man—over six feet—all in black, one of the usurper’s Nightstriders. His face was surprisingly feminine for such a big fellow, with a gently tapered chin and round cheeks.
“Bitch,” he snarled, drawing his knife.
Behind him a girl—she might have been eleven—cowered against the wall.
Alis tried to summon the shadow; sometimes it was easy, like snapping a finger inside her head, and sometimes it was very hard, especially when someone had already seen her.
It didn’t come immediately, and she didn’t have time to work at it. So she blew out her breath and let her shoulders sag, let her knife hand drop to her side.
He in turn relaxed for an instant, and with what remained of her strength she struck, launching from the wall, her empty left hand snapping toward his face. She felt a liquid, parting sensation as she plunged her knife into his left side and worked it in and out.
He shrieked again, and a fist clubbed against her head, but she kept pumping the blade until her hand was so slick with blood that she couldn’t keep her grip on the weapon. Then she pushed herself away, gasping, and felt a weird wrenching in her arm. She realized that her arm hurt, that she had been cut, too. She backed into the shadows.
Despite his wounds, the man didn’t stop, either. He lumbered after her, and she ran, feeling her way through the dark, until she reached the mouth of the tunnel. She ducked into it, hearing only the whine of her breath, then tugged at her breeches, trying to tear a piece to tie on her arm. She couldn’t get it to rip, so she just clamped her hand over the wound and waited.
She could still make out the glow of firelight around