The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [125]
Four skeletons stood at Borran Kiosk's side, flanking him. One of them held a large ruby jewel that looked like the piece Haarn held, but was four times as large.
Holding the jewel in one hand, Haarn reached for his scimitar with the other.
"No," Borran Kiosk growled. He shook the young druid maid, making her yelp in pain.
"Fm sorry," the young druid said. T didn't hear him. I should have been watching."
Haarn stayed his hand, his mind wrapping around all the possibilities left open to him. They were precious few. If he'd been in a forest or even a marsh, he would have had more options. The city was dead to him. Nothing lived that he could touch and use, and nothing lent itself to him for cover.
Moving with slow precision, Haarn stood, not wanting to face the foul undead thing before him on his knees. How many druids had died at Borran Kiosk's hands this day alone? How many more would die if he surrendered the jewel?
Haarn said, "We're at an impasse.''
"No," the mohrg replied. He moved his hands again, making the girl cry out. "If you make the wrong decision, half-breed, she dies." The creature set his teeth like he was grinning. "You hold her life, like that jewel, in your hands."
Haarn said nothing. The four skeletons at Borran Kiosk's flank stepped forward. Matching them, giving no doubt as to what he would do, Haarn took a step back toward the only alley open to him. The alley led back to the harbor, but he was prepared to take his chances there.
"Wrong," Haarn said, "you hold her life in your hands." He raised the jewel in one hand. "While I am certain I hold the lives of several others in mine."
Borran Kiosk seemed surprised, and if he'd had a face, Haarn felt certain that would have shown as well.
"You would run?" the mohrg asked in disbelief.
"Yes," Haarn replied without hesitation. "Sometimes, Borran Kiosk, the few must be sacrificed so that the many may survive. That is nature."
"And have you no feelings for this poor child, boy?" Borran Kiosk demanded.
"I will mourn her," Haarn said. He glanced at the druid maid as he spoke, offering his words to her. "And I will remember her to Silvanus."
"I understand," the girl said, struggling to get the declaration out through the skeletal hands that held her.
She straightened herself as best she could, but tears gleamed in her frightened eyes. The way Borran Kiosk gripped her, she was helpless.
It was almost too much for Haarn to bear. Still, he'd slit the throats of fawns that had ended up bereft of mothers in the dead of winter because there was no way to keep them alive, and he'd eaten their meat so they wouldn't go to waste and so the balance that Silvanus stood for would be maintained. Nature was hard and demanded such sacrifices so that only the fittest could survive. Those laws didn't go by the emotions of civilized men. Grief was still mixed in there, but above all was the balance.
"Malar's fangs, boy," Borran Kiosk roared in inarticulate rage, T don't understand. I don't understand at all how you could turn your back on her. By Malar, I despise you damned druids and your stupid ways!"
He snapped the girl's neck and let her fall, lifeless, to his feet.
"Now," the monster continued, "give me that damned jewel or I promise you 111 make your death much harder than the kindness I showed her!"
Steeling himself against the pained confusion that filled him at the sight of the girl's death, Haarn turned and fled as fast as he could toward the alley.
The shadows in the alley were off, all angles and lines that wouldn't have been found in nature, and as a result, he didn't see the spider web broaching the narrow throat of the alley until he was almost into it. He stopped just short of it, avoiding the sticky strands by perhaps another layer of skin.
Then he noticed