The gunslinger - Stephen King [72]
“Have you come here for a serious purpose, boy?”
“I have come for a serious purpose.”
“Have you come as an outcast from your father’s house?”
“I have so come.” And would remain outcast until he had bested Cort. If Cort bested him, he would remain outcast forever.
“Have you come with your chosen weapon?”
“I have.”
“What is your weapon?” This was the teacher’s advantage, his chance to adjust his plan of battle to the sling or spear or bah or bow.
“My weapon is David.”
Cort halted only briefly. He was surprised, and very likely confused. That was good.
Might be good.
“So then have you at me, boy?”
“I do.”
“In whose name?”
“In the name of my father.”
“Say his name.”
“Steven Deschain, of the line of Eld.”
“Be swift, then.”
And Cort advanced into the corridor, switching his stick from one hand to the other. The boys sighed flutteringly, like birds, as their dan-dinh stepped to meet him.
My weapon is David, teacher.
Did Cort understand? And if so, did he understand fully? If he did, very likely all was lost. It turned on surprise—and on whatever stuff the hawk had left in him. Would he only sit, disinterested and stupid, on the boy’s arm, while Cort struck him brainless with the ironwood? Or seek escape in the high, hot sky?
As they drew close together, each for the nonce still on his side of the line, the boy loosened the hawk’s hood with nerveless fingers. It dropped to the green grass, and Cort halted in his tracks. He saw the old warrior’s eyes drop to the bird and widen with surprise and slow-dawning comprehension. Now he understood.
“Oh, you little fool,” Cort nearly groaned, and Roland was suddenly furious that he should be spoken to so.
“At him!” he cried, raising his arm.
And David flew like a silent brown bullet, stubby wings pumping once, twice, three times, before crashing into Cort’s face, talons searching, beak digging. Red drops flew up into the hot air.
“Hai! Roland!” Cuthbert screamed deliriously. “First blood! First blood to my bosom!” He struck his chest hard enough to leave a bruise there that would not fade for a week.
Cort staggered backwards, off balance. The ironwood staff rose and beat futilely at the air about his head. The hawk was an undulating, blurred bundle of feathers.
The boy, meanwhile, arrowed forward, his hand held out in a straight wedge, his elbow locked. This was his chance, and very likely the only one he’d have.
Still, Cort was almost too quick for him. The bird had covered ninety percent of his vision, but the ironwood came up again, spatulate end forward, and Cort coldbloodly performed the only action that could turn events at that point. He beat his own face three times, biceps flexing mercilessly.
David fell away, broken and twisted. One wing flapped frantically at the ground. His cold, predator’s eyes stared fiercely into the teacher’s bloody, streaming face. Cort’s bad eye now bulged blindly from its socket.
The boy delivered a kick to Cort’s temple, connecting solidly. It should have ended it, but it did not. For a moment Cort’s face went slack; and then he lunged, grabbing for the boy’s foot.
The boy skipped back and tripped over his own feet. He went down asprawl. He heard, from far away, the sound of Jamie screaming in dismay.
Cort was ready to fall on him and finish it. Roland had lost his advantage and both of them knew it. For a moment they looked at each other, the teacher standing over the pupil with gouts of blood pouring from the left side of his face, the bad eye now closed except for a thin slit of white. There would be no brothels for Cort this night.
Something ripped jaggedly at the boy’s hand. It was David, tearing blindly at whatever he could reach. Both wings were broken. It