Dragon Tree (2 page)

The Templar
whose sword lay in pieces on the ground was so shocked he jerked
back on the reins, which set his horse to skittering sideways on
the sand.

“She is a
filthy paynim,” he hissed. “You would break your sacred covenant
with God in order to defend this whore?”

Tamberlane
gave no response other than the one they could see blazing in the
cold green eyes. Because his features were obscured by grime,
shadowed by helm and camail, it was that selfsame eerie color that
brought a flash of sudden recognition to de Bergerette’s ugly
face.

“Tamberlane.
By God’s teeth, it is Ciaran Tamberlane who lusts after the
foul-smelling bitch. Is the babe yours, then? Is that why you place
yourself and your oath to God before them?”

The second
knight brought his horse back under control and scowled. “Methinks
you may be right, Sir Hugh. Shall we have a look? Shall we see if
the babe has fair skin and the devil’s own green eyes?”

Tamberlane
felt an odd emptiness encompass his body, a kind of mindless
hollowness that spread to the very air around him. He heard the two
knights baiting him, but their voices became muffled and the words
indistinct. The sounds of clashing steel and the screams of men and
dying animals faded and grew dim, replaced by the very acute sound
of a single pendant of blood dripping off Tamberlane’s sword and
landing in the sand below. The next thing he knew, the panting of
the horses’ breaths were blowing like an armorer’s bellows and he
was using that to time his motions as he swung his arm upward and
smashed the jeering knight across the face with the flat of the
blade.

Stunned by the
sound of his Brother’s jawbone cracking and the screams that sent
him staggering out of the saddle, de Bergerette’s instincts
prompted him to raise his blade in defense against a second strike.
But he was too slow. The movement put his arm directly into the
path of Tamberlane’s blade, which was slashed with such rage behind
it, that the steel took de Bergerette’s sword and gloved hand away
in a gout of blood.

Tamberlane had
no pity to spare on either of the injured knights as he reached
back and took the woman by the arm. He started leading her across
the sand toward the safety of the high dunes that ringed the
village, but she misinterpreted his motives and assumed he had
saved her for himself. She squealed and dug her heels into the
sand; she clawed at his hand, tearing her nails on the scales of
his
mitons
, scaled iron gauntlets that were fitted over
woolen gloves.

He paid no
heed. He kept walking, kept dragging her behind him.

Only when he
reached the top of the first dune, did he pause on the crest a
moment and look down over the sparkling expanse of the
Mediterranean that stretched before them. As far as the eye could
see, the calm blue waters shimmered under an even bluer sky, the
waves showing pale foamy heads where they washed up on the shore as
they had been doing for centuries gone by and would continue to do
for centuries to come despite the horror, the turmoil, the war and
bloodshed behind him.

Releasing his
grip on the woman's arm, Tamberlane started walking again. He
stripped off his mitons and threw them away. He unhooked the
pennyplate camail from under his chin and removed his helm,
discarding those as well. His hair, tonsured in the style the
Templars favored, was stuck flat to his head with sweat; droplets
slid down his neck and under his tunic as he worked to rid himself
of the blood-soaked mantle, the underlying layer of mail, the
padded leather gambeson beneath.

By the time he
had stripped himself of everything but the sweat-soaked woolen
shirt and leggings, he had reached the shoreline. He turned and
started following the beach west, walking away from the sounds of
fighting, away from the road to Jerusalem.

He walked for
an hour, perhaps more, his steel-clad boots leaving indents in the
wet sand. A stand of palm trees far in the distance held his focus
and he kept walking toward it, accompanied only by his shadow. He
had no idea where the woman had gone, had no recollection of when
he had let go of her hand or when she had scrambled away... if she
had followed or run off to hide behind the dunes.

When
Tamberlane reached the trees, he just stood and stared up at the
wide umbrella of swaying palm fronds. The sun was low enough in the
sky that the air had cooled and a light scrift of sand was blowing
down the dunes toward the water. The leaves of the palms were
slicing the sharp beams of the setting sun into blades that cut
across his face and eyes, and finally cut through his lethargy. He
looked slowly around and realized he was miles away from camp. He
had no weapons, no armor. His hair and clothing were bloodstained
and he wondered, vaguely if any of the leakage was his.

The warrior in
him knew there would be consequences for his actions. It was a
crime to raise a sword against another Templar, regardless of the
reason. And if that reason was to defend an infidel, it would mean
expulsion from the Order, full excommunication and disgrace.

Oddly enough,
he did not care about his fate within the Order; he was obviously
no longer fit to be a monk or a Templar if he found himself
questioning every command issued by the Master. He did care about
the men he had fought side by side with for so long. Templars would
be forbidden to speak to him and the king’s knights would turn
their backs, shunning him for a coward, possibly even a
traitor.

Tamberlane sat
on a piece of driftwood and bowed his head, cradling it in his
hands. The watery heat in his eyes, he blamed on exhaustion—the
same exhaustion that made him slow to react when he saw two
elongated shadows stretching across the sand in front of him. They
were wearing long robes and banded burnouses, that much he could
tell from their silhouettes. Arabs? Saracens? Possibly men from
Saladin’s camp returning from the village where they had witnessed
the massacre by the tonsured warrior monks who called themselves
Knights of God.

And now they
had found one wandering alone, unarmed, miles from anyone who could
hear his screams.

When he heard
the unmistakable sound of a curved scimitar being slowly drawn from
a leather scabbard, he was not too proud to whisper a faint prayer
of relief, for a beheading would be fast and painless. Tamberlane
bowed his head lower, exposing more of his neck for the cold kiss
of steel. He closed his eyes briefly, not even turning to see who
was delivering him from one hell to the next.

CHAPTER ONE

Lincolnshire
England, 1194

A split second
before the arrow struck the jamb of the door, the girl's instinct
sent her ducking back into the shadow of the cottage.

The shot had
come from one of the half-dozen crossbowmen who stood at the edge
of the clearing. With lethal calm, their eyes stalked fresh victims
and as soon as one was found, they raised their weapons, steadied
aim, and fired a stubby eight inch quarrel. Behind them, laughing
and shouting encouragement, were four mounted knights, their gray
wool gambeson's devoid of any distinguishing crest or blazon. The
sleepy village, innocent and unaware only moments before, was under
attack by knights who did not want their identity known and for
good reason. An ambush against unarmed villagers broke every law,
defiled every precept of the Code of Honor.

The first
flight of quarrels had been wrapped in pitch soaked rags and set
alight before being dispatched. The gray mist at dawn had been
thick enough to conceal the raiders' approach but the wind had
passed through the clearing like an errant hand, sweeping the fog
away. That same wind fanned the sparks, sending flames leaping
across the roofs and within seconds, columns of coiling black smoke
were rising from the cluster of mud and wattle cottages.

The three
sway-backed asses in the village were too old, too work-worn to
even bleat an alarm as the flames licked across the thatch and ran
down the walls. They were also dead on the second flight of
crossbow bolts, as was the solitary milk cow and the brace of fat
hogs.

As the roofs
burst into flame above them, the men ran out of the cottages in a
panic, snatching up pitchforks and scythes as if the handmade tools
could afford protection against the deadly arrows. They were
followed by their women who pushed and dragged children behind
them, urging them to run for the perceived safety of the woods.
Goats and chickens added to the confusion, for most were too
insignificant a target for the archers—seasoned marksmen who wound
their bows taut and fired with unrelenting accuracy, choosing the
husbands, fathers, sons first.

They were
patient killers. They tracked a man as he ran behind the wall of a
burning hovel, then waited for the heat and smoke to drive him out
into the open again. The women fared no better. Several were
sprawled on the ground already, arrows jutting from their
backs.

Amie remained
crouched in the doorway of the smithy's cottage, her eyes watering
from the smoke, her nose burning from the waves of heat that were
sucking the air out of her lungs. Her back and shoulders were being
scorched through the threadbare cloth and her choice was to break
for the forest or be enveloped by the roaring flames overhead. The
trees were fifty paces away, but there was nothing between them and
the cottage save for a miserly vegetable patch scratched into the
earth.

Clenching her
teeth around a half-sobbed prayer, she darted through the door and
ran as fast as she could to the feeble protection afforded by a low
mound of hay. Over the sound of her heart pounding in her chest,
she heard the telltale
thunk
of an iron quarrel furrowing
into the earth a few inches from her foot, but she was already
running again, weaving this way and that in an attempt to elude the
archer's aim. She was slight of build and wiry. The only softness
on her body was in the vicinity of her breasts, which were pressed
almost flat inside a tunic that was two sizes too small. Her hair
was braided and hung in a long brown tail down her back; the hem of
her skirt was pulled up between her legs and tucked into her belt
so that from a distance, it was possible she had been mistaken for
a lad.

She heard a
shout, followed by
thunk thunk
as two arrows kicked up clods
of dirt close on her heels. She felt the spray of pebbles against
her bared calves but did not look away from the bed of ferns that
grew in the shadow of the trees. They were thick and high as her
waist, covering the ground in a canopy of green, and she knew if
she could just make it that far, she might have a chance.

She heard
another
whoosht
and dove for the undergrowth. Something
punched her in the back of the shoulder and helped propel her
forward, but she had barely skidded to her knees on the spongy loam
before she was on her feet again, scrambling deeper into the sea of
ferns. She ran one way for a dozen paces, then veered sharply to
the left for a dozen more. She kept running wildly, changing
direction every few moments, trying to ignore the shouts and
screams that filled the clearing behind her. The wind was a
blessing now, keeping the tops of the ferns swaying and dipping in
constant motion, helping to conceal the direction of her
flight.

Another sound
brought her briefly to a halt. She risked a glance behind her and
confirmed the dreaded thud of horses hooves scything through the
saplings and underbrush. One of the knights had left the scene of
slaughter and was pursuing her with almost lazy confidence into the
greenwood. Even at a hundred paces, he was huge; his black courser
was equally enormous as it trampled an indiscriminate swath through
the ferns. The knight had his visor lowered, and there was not much
to see between the iron grating that covered his eyes. She knew why
he had come. He and others like him had been hunting her for over a
month, and now the villagers were paying a terrible price for
sheltering her.

Biting back a
sob, she ducked again and plunged deeper into the woods. The main
vein of the creek that ran past the village was somewhere close by,
but she had spent most of the past few days in a fever and was not
familiar with the paths and turns. She was running blind,
disoriented by all the green, the shadows, the new and excruciating
pain in her shoulder that was forcing her to hold her arm in a hard
curl against her chest.

Without
warning, the saplings thinned and the ground took a sheer pitch
downward. She had found the creek, but it was at the bottom of a
frighteningly steep embankment. Driven by another desperate glance
behind her, she grabbed an exposed root and started to ease herself
over the edge. The lip of earth crumbled under her weight and she
slipped, only managing to break her fall by clutching at a second
root. The action jerked her injured arm and she felt the iron
arrowhead grind against bone. Barely able to bite back a scream,
she let go and dropped straight down, landing on a bed of
decades-old decayed leaves. The momentum of her fall sent her
rolling onto the shaft of the arrow and she gasped with the agony
as the iron tip was pushed all the way through the flesh of her
shoulder, tearing through the coarsely woven wool in front.

Blinded by the
pain, she managed to drag herself under the tangle of roots that
overhung the bank. She made a last, feeble attempt to rake some of
the decayed leaves over her legs to conceal them, but a chill
unlike anything she had ever felt before slithered across the base
of her neck and down her spine, from whence it began to seep
outward from her belly, numbing her legs all the way to the tips of
her toes.

He was
there.

The knight was
above her on the embankment, his soft laughter coming to her over
the creak of saddle leather as he guided his horse down onto the
lower bank. A moment later, the jangle of his spurs told her he was
dismounting, and through the drumming of her heartbeat, she heard
the sinister whisper of a sword being drawn from its sheath.