A Templar's Apprentice (23 page)

The dark settled in around us. Sounds of the night filled the air. Most of the guards lay sleeping scattered around the perimeter, their weapons at their sides.

My hands were cold. I could feel nothing of the tips. It was as if they were dead. Gone, like my toes. It was a terrifying thought. I sat up straighter, pressing my back against the tree, feeling the bite of the bark and peering down through the dark toward my bound wrists. Memories filled my mind, dark whispers of waking to the pain and horror of my mangled foot. A small, frightened whimper escaped my mouth, and in a panic I yanked at my bonds.

And then, suddenly, I was free.

I sat for a moment of disbelief, trying to steady my breathing. I was thankful then of the dark, for it hid my face as feeling rushed into my hands, like a fire raging through my arms and on down my wrists. I was near to shrieking with it.

Easy,
he whispered into my mind.

I looked across the way to where the Templar was tied. I could see nothing but the vague shape of him in the dark.
Seamus?

The first time I tried to speak back felt as if my mind was coated in a thick layer of sheep's wool — my thoughts, my words had to fight their way past.
No movement.

Staff?

Aye.
One of the men had taken it from me when they arrested us.

My sword?

On your horse.
It was slowly getting easier to form the words.

Take Seamus. Escape.

His words sent a chill up my spine. I thought for a long while about the moves he had taught me, and the conflict about to come. But no matter how much I thought on it, when it happened, I was not nearly as prepared as I had hoped.

The clearing was dark and quiet, save for the crickets chirping all around. My hands had long since regained their feeling; now they just shook with terror. I stayed awake, watching the moon, watching the Templar, waiting.

And then I heard him again.

Now. Ride. Don't look back.

I wanted to protest, but I knew it would do no good. He meant for us to escape, and he was going to do everything he could to make it happen.

I turned my knees to the side, and started up. It felt as if the noise I made was enough to wake the dead, but no one noticed. Crouching low, I slowly began edging my way from the cover of the tree.

The moon was high, but its light didn't shine on me. I was mindful to move as he had taught me, softly, without disturbing the ground cover. Twigs and rocks were thick beneath my feet, but I traveled over them with barely a whisper of sound.

My heart pounded so strongly I thought I would die long before I reached Seamus. But then scarcely before I could credit it, I was there. Quickly, I stooped to feel his chest. He moaned as I turned him from his side to his back and didn't open his eyes at all. “Shhh,” I said.

They had not bothered to tie his hands. I could see why. He was burning with fever and was no real worry to them. So they thought, anyway. I was hoping to prove them wrong. Stepping past Seamus, I reached for the Templar's staff, which lay on the ground nearby. The men didn't hear, but the horses did.

They began to balk and shy, their ears pressed forward. I was terrified they would give me away, and without thinking, I spoke, the same way I had to the
Templar, reaching for the mind of his horse first. The mount was all impulse and feelings.

Hush ye now, laddie.
I combined my words with thoughts of safety and peace, and he and the next quieted. I was pleased with the accomplishment.

In the clearing something was happening. I saw the shadow of the Templar rise. I held my breath, waiting. It seemed as if the night stopped: The crickets went silent, and the wind paused with me.

“Non nobis, Domine!”
His war cry brought the guard and those who slept rushing across the clearing. He was unarmed, but in the moment it took for me to spy him out, he had already taken the sword from the nearest.

Wasting not a moment, I sprang to my feet and loosed the horses' reins. Swiping the nearest across the hindquarters, I mentally shouted
Go!
The horse took off, bolting straight through the camp toward the Templar and the men fighting him.

I didn't stop to watch further, but did as he'd instructed me. I took the next horse, his own, to Seamus's side, hauled the man to a sitting position, and tried to get him to stand.

He was heavy, more than I expected. I could barely move him.
Please, Seamus. Help,
I begged, sending the words directly into his sleeping brain. For a moment nothing happened but then, somehow, he seemed to hear. With a moan he came back to me.

“Hurry, Seamus. Just help me get ye into the saddle. Please, we have to get out o' here.” The swordplay was loud behind us. I didn't know how many the Templar had engaged, but it was too much to hope that their attention would only be on him. Near me a soldier shouted. My breath came in gasps. “Now, Seamus, now.” I put the whole of my strength into lifting him up over my shoulder. I know that he helped, though it didn't seem to be much or enough, but somehow I flung him over the saddle. He pulled himself forward using our bags as leverage, and at last lay sprawled along on the horse's neck. The mount jostled, forward and back, not sure of the weight that was suddenly on him.

I took the momentary boon to draw the slender sword from the sheath of the staff. It was a good thing I did.

Like images frozen in time, the memories of my training came back to me. Balanced with sheath in one hand and sword in the other I waited for the soldier that came on attack. It could only have been a moment, but it was as if everything stilled just so that I could equip myself. And then it started.

I swung my blade, bracing for the heaviness of the soldier's sword as it encountered my own. Then, changing balance, I countered and spun out of his way. His went wide and missed me, and I slipped past his guard.
My blade drew blood, cutting strongly through his clothing.

Infuriated, he hacked down from above. I sprang to my right, leaving him grappling with air. It was then that I saw the opening. As if we were sparring on the ship, I felt the deep knowledge that the next stroke would be mine. Without pause I took it, swiping my blade cleanly across his neck.

Exhilaration turned to horror as I watched the stripe of red well and gape. The bile rose in me, and I turned, blind, back to Seamus. The horse had been standing idle, shifting, trying to decide what it was supposed to do. My hands were on the saddle before I could think. Then from nowhere, I heard the Templar's voice in my head.
Go. Now!

I sheathed the blade, tucked it under my arm, and vaulted into the saddle behind Seamus, nearly bringing us both down. With a great heave, I leaned onto Seamus, grasped the reins, and shouted like a man gone mad. “Go, go, go!”

T
he horse bolted just in time, plowing directly into the path of a soldier rushing us. I kicked out with my leg and caught the man in the chest, knocking him back and away. Then I tucked my legs tight to the horse's sides and mentally shouted to run like the wind.

He did. Past the clearing and out of the woods. There was nothing before us but hills and vales.

I was desperate to know how the Templar was faring, but I knew that I would do just as he said, get away and take the carving with me. I felt it then, as if the mere thought called it to life. Its burn scalded clear through the sporran, still tucked beneath my robe.

We rode like demons were on our tail, never looking back, never slowing, cutting east, then north, to make the trail difficult to follow. We slowed when I was sure no one was behind. Then, and only then, did I think about what had happened and what I had done.

This was not the first time I had killed, and I thought it should have been easier to bear. But it was not. I could not fool myself into believing I had acted on impulse.
That was a part of it, but I knew full well that, in the heat of the fight, I was in it all the way. It was kill or be killed, and somehow, right now, that seemed even worse.

I slid from the horse, careful not to take Seamus with me, and walked beside. The night air was cool on my hot skin. The sounds of nature loud. I heard the call of a wolf in the distance. A sennight ago it would have frightened me greatly, yet now, I could barely rouse myself to feel anything but the guilt and remorse filling my soul.

I led the horse deep into a copse. Morning was drawing near. I didn't deceive myself into thinking they would not come after us, but hoped and prayed that the Templar would find us first.

With as many soft fronds as I could gather, I made a pallet for Seamus. When it was right, I dragged him from the horse and laid him on it. His color was not encouraging: white like the lime we washed the great boulder with in the square at home so very long ago. Enormous dark circles ringed his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken and sallow.

I washed his face with water from the skin and checked the wounds on his body. The whippings he had endured left horrific marks I could never have imagined if I'd not seen them. His skin was purely stripped away
in many places, and I could see beyond to the inside of him. I thought that the damage would make me sick, but oddly it didn't.

I had no salve like the one Brother Bertrand had used, but I did my best to clean the wounds as he had done, hoping that would help. My body was fit to drop when finally I finished. With everything in me I tried to stay awake, waiting for the Templar to come. He'd feel my soul's signature, I knew, as he had done from the beginning, and he would find us.

I fell asleep beside Seamus, with the horse tied to a nearby branch. It was not until I was deeply asleep that I had the vision that showed how very wrong I had been.

A
sword glinted in the moonlight, sweeping a path of destruction. Men were swarming. More than he could handle.

I woke shaking, terrified. He was not coming. He had not gotten away. Seamus was no help to me, and the Templar was somewhere, captured and beaten at the very least. I had to do something, but what?

I looked over at Seamus, so still, so frighteningly deathlike. I felt the slow, steady beat of the land beneath us. The carving was warm — not the glowing, burning fire of danger, but a steady, solid presence. I turned the sporran to the front and took the carving in my hand.

Its glow was heartening. As beaten down and discouraged as I was, the carving gave me hope. And it gave me something else. Suddenly I had a strange compulsion to lay my hands on Seamus. With nothing left to lose, I set the carving on his chest and rested my hands beside it.

Tingling heat ran through my fingers, and I felt myself drift, welcoming my other sense.

I saw deep into Seamus — beneath his skin to the very essence of bone and muscle. And without any doubt whatsoever, I knew how to make him whole once again and set about it.

Sweat rose on my skin and exhaustion weighted my limbs. What I was doing was taking its own toll on my body, but I continued knitting ripped and torn muscle, feeding blood to the places that were in need, healing the bones, speeding his body on its way to recovery.

As the sun set once again in the hot sky, I came to, lying half on, half off Seamus's chest, with the carving nestled safely in my hands.

“Get off, Tormod,” I heard his weak voice say. “Ye're crushing me.”

“Ye took yer time about waking,” I said, rolling exhausted to his side. I slept then for so many marks of the candle I cannot even reckon them.

I
woke reaching for the carving, rooting around behind and under me. I was in a panic until I felt it pressing into my thigh beneath the fold of my robe.

“Here,” Seamus said. “Eat.”

He had foraged and found a variety of nuts and wild mushrooms. “Not much in the way o' a feast, but it fills the emptiness.”

“Water?” I asked, groggily.

“Aye. Here.” He handed me a skin, and I drank until I needed to come up for air.

“Ye healed me.” Wonder filled his voice, but I sensed as well something was not as it should be. “Why did ye do it? Why did ye not let me die, as I should have?”

There was a darkness to him, a bleak despair that I felt coming off him in waves. As I was aware of the land, I now was aware of Seamus. Something in me had changed.

“No one should die when they are not destined to,” I said. “'Tis a sin to wish it on yerself.”

His eyes turned to me. “I have betrayed him an' given us all over to death. I wish mine to come now.”

“No. Speak not that way,” I said. “The Templar is in need. Somehow we must work together to help him.”

I looked to the night sky where a bright star to the north pointed the direction we would travel to follow the map, but we would not follow it as yet.

“How long did I sleep?” I was worried. The vision of the Templar's fight for our lives hung sharply in my mind's eye.

“A night an' a day. I tried to wake ye, but it was to no avail.” There was a listlessness to Seamus that worried me.

“Tell me what has happened to ye, and I will do the same,” I said. “'Tis only with the full truth between us that we might hope to salvage this day.”

He spoke of the night we disappeared. “They boarded the ship no' more than a candle mark after ye'd left. Not soldiers, but mercenaries. They had orders to keep us alive an' deliver us to Philippe.” He spoke the tale without passion, as if it were nothing to him.

“We were taken to Paris for questioning.” He shivered, and I noticed that he could not seem to stop. He
clamped his hands together to try and still them. His face was white, and I could feel the fear and revulsion projecting from his mind.

“I gave them everything. All they could want an' more. I will pay for it with the price o' my soul.” His head was low. Nothing I could say would have made a difference. I kept silent, feeling the press of his emotions beneath the surface of his mind.