Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (64 page)

“I have to get back to Jarnek,” Abramm said quietly. `And she can’t keep
up.

Philip nodded.

“I want you to take her round to the rear lines.”

“But he’s my brother-“

“He could have sent someone else after us, Philip. He sent you because
he doesn’t want you there.” He paused, then nodded at Carissa, who was still
sobbing in Cooper’s arms. `Any more than I want her there.”

Philip was frowning darkly. “You can’t ask me to do this. Not when
he’s-“

“Fighting my fight. And if I get there in time, perhaps I can save him.”

Philip blinked up at him, startled out of his protests. In the distance the
roar started up again, and this time he heard another squeal that really was a
blast of horns.

“Will you do it, then?”

1…” The boy shut his mouth. After a moment he nodded.

Abramm hesitated. “I thank you for the gift you gave her. I pray she will
find some comfort in it in the days to come.”

He then spoke softly to the Dorsaddi, directing them to escort his sister
and her party to the rear lines. Carissa had ceased weeping by then, and
Philip had drawn her aside, ostensibly to learn from her what had happened.
She stood with her back to Abramm, as if she could not bear to look at him.
He wondered if she had any idea what he was going to do. If not, she was the
only one who didn’t. Cooper, who’d taken note of Abramm’s new shield with
only a start of surprise, had moved downhill away from the group once
Carissa had released him. Now he waited there, eyeing Abramm speculatively. As the latter approached, the old retainer bowed. “Good luck, Your
Highness.”

“Thank you, Coop.”

But then the man just stared at him, until finally Abramm was forced to
push past him. There was something in the man’s face or gaze that left
Abramm discomfited. An intensity of regard that might be worship or something else entirely, neither of which he particularly welcomed.

Well, he had no time for that now, especially since he didn’t think it likely
he would ever see his old guardian again.

A lifetime seemed to pass before he reached the sentries at the rear flanks
of the Dorsaddi force-now congregated along the cliffs and wadis south of
the amphitheater to watch the match unfolding there. This close it was obvious the roar was of a crowd and not of rain and wind, though the clouds still
boiled angrily overhead. Recognizing him from afar, the sentries immediately
sent a runner to alert the king so that, by the time Abramm reached the
crowd jamming the floor of the Wadi Juba, he was expected. The men, who
could see nothing of the match itself and were only waiting to pour out of
the wadi at the contest’s end, greeted him fiercely, as if they had known all
along he would return. Those nearest saw his shield right off, the word of his
change sweeping the crowd like the first winds of storm, igniting a rumble of
excitement.

They parted easily before him, many offering personal greetings and
words of approval. Ahead, the amphitheater audience roared in waves, following the ebb and flow of the battle unfolding there. The sounds egged
Abramm on, though he was deliberately controlling his pace so as to regain
his breath before he entered the fray.

Rounding a bend, he finally saw the end of the wadi, where the two sheer
red walls stood against the bright glow of unseen torches. He could see the
ranks of gray-tunicked men seated on the curving benches of the amphitheater. Others clogged the cliff top above it and clung precariously to imperfections in the sheer rock between cliff top and the last row of real seats.

Closer to hand were the pale figures of the Dorsaddi, lining the near cliffs
and also clinging to their sheer faces, some riding on others’ shoulders to see
past the crowd. From where Abramm stood, though, the ring itself remained
blocked from view.

Thunder rumbled as the amphitheater audience burst into another savage
cheer. Abramm gripped the hilt of his sword and quickened his pace despite
his intentions otherwise.

Suddenly the crowd parted, and King Shemm himself stood in Abramm’s
path, forcing him to stop. The dark, shrewd eyes flicked at once to the shieldmark and back up to Abramm’s face. A smile twitched at the hard lips; then
that unreadable stone face descended.

“You truly mean to face him, then,” the king said, as usual, getting right
to the point.

“I do.”

“Newly changed, you cannot prevail against him.”

“Not in my own strength. But in that of Sheleft’Ai?” He smiled grimly.
Anything is possible.”

“You have no costume.”

“I’ll fight like this. As I am. That should be proof enough.” Shettai, he
thought, would be pleased.

Shemm’s expression never changed. “He will kill you, Pretender.”

“No doubt he will.”

For a long moment the Dorsaddi chieftain looked at him, staring deep
into his eyes. Then he gave a single sharp nod and stepped back, gesturing to
the lieutenant waiting at his elbow. “You’ll need these.”

The lieutenant stepped forward, three gold rings gleaming in the palm of
his hand. Abramm stood very still as the tokens of his fighting rank were
fastened back into his ear and his hair was retied into a proper warrior’s knot.

“I need a dagger,” he said when it was done, recalling that Rhiad had taken
his.

Shemm slid his own free from its scabbard. Abramm took it with a nod,
slid it into the empty sheath at his hip, then checked to see that his belt
harness was securely fastened, that the blade released cleanly. By then every
man in the canyon had become aware of his presence. The deep silence in
the near periphery made the savage screams of the audience out in the Wadi
Mudra seem all the more ominous.

Sudden movement rippled through the men around him, and the
moment changed in an instant. Voices muttered urgently, their fear sharp and
piercing. Finally the word reached Abramm and the king. “The Deliverer is
down?”

He saw the alarm flare in Shemm’s face and, for a moment, shared it
himself. If Trap couldn’t handle Beltha’adi, what chance did he himself have?

He pushed the fear away and reminded himself that victory would not lie
in his own strength, but in Eidon’s. He was here because Eidon had brought
him here. He would go into that ring because it was where Eidon wanted
him to go.

Lifting his chin, he said firmly, “He and I have fought together for nearly
two years. We will fight together now.”

He strode past Shemm and through the sea of Dorsaddi. Soon he had
reached the mouth of the canyon and saw the great amphitheater beyond,
ringed with torches as before. An archway of them stood on this side of the
arena, the apparent entryway of the Pretender. Dorsaddi stood in that archway now, silent and tense as they watched the drama unfolding on the sand.
Across from them, the gray-clad crowd on the stone benches had gone wild,
screaming, leaping, and waving their swords in the air.

Abramm marched grimly forward, having to lay hands on the men in
front of him to gain their attention and then their startled recognition as they
moved aside. The Taleteller’s eerily amplified voice boomed over the din, but
the words were coming so rapidly and so excitedly it was impossible to pick
out anything coherent.

Suddenly it choked off, even as the cavorting crowd across the arena
stilled. A whisper of astonishment swept over it, drowned out by another
growl of thunder. Then the Taleteller’s voice echoed off the rock, each word
clear in the silence. “This man is not the Pretender?”

The crowd erupted in a torrent of boos and hisses.

Abramm parted the last line of Dorsaddi standing directly under the archway. They gave way dazedly, their attention focused on the arena, where Trap
was on his knees, bareheaded and reeling, his face pale and pinched as if he
were sick. Burn marks reddened the side of his neck, and his white clothing
was splotched with gray, as if it had mildewed. It was not dirt, for the sand
on the arena floor was red. The front of his doublet was scorched and rent,
and both his weapons glittered in the sand some distance away. The sword’s
blade appeared to be broken off a handspan from the grip, and the dagger’s
was a barely recognizable melt of metal. Beltha’adi loomed over him, elbana
in hand, the Pretender’s white curly wig dangling from its tip.

Now he flicked the wig aside and snapped the blade back, slashing
through the charred lace to lay open the front of the doublet. Dead center of
the already bleeding slash, the Terstan’s golden shield glittered in the gray
daylight for all to see. Snorting derision, Beltha’adi kicked him square in the
chin with one booted foot, laying him out flat on his back against the red
sand, where he rolled onto his side and made no effort to get up.

The crowd burst into excited shouting, and the Taleteller echoed them.

“It’s the Infidel? The Infidel in the Pretender’s costume? They have deceived
us?”

The voice paused as the crowd went wild, a surge of sound thundering
over the wadi. As it waned, the Taleteller continued. “Why would they do
that, I ask you? But then, we all know, do we not?” It paused for dramatic
effect, then shouted, “Because the Pretender knew he could not stand against
the mighty power of the great Khrell’s Chosen? And so he sent his Infidel,
while he himself has no doubt fled back to his homeland, back to the land of
the yelaki?”

“Yelaki?” the crowd took up the chant, screaming, waving their weapons
now. “Yelaki? Yelaki?”

Abramm drew a deep breath, pulled both his weapons from their scabbards, and strode into the arena.

He stopped ten strides from the gateway, and by then the crowd had gone
silent again. All eyes were fixed upon him, dark faces over gray uniforms, over
colorful tunics, over pale robes-but all of them male, all of them old enough
to fight. They packed the tiered benches, clung to the cliff faces, peered in
ranks from the rim, and filled the wadi itself, a sea of enemies whose combined gazes weighed on him with a pressure he had not experienced for a
long time now. They were so quiet he could hear the hiss and sputter of the
torches, the faint crackling of the flames in the belly of the great statue of
Khrell brought over from the temple. A cadre of red-robed priests and darktunicked Broho stood guard at its base, holding off the common soldiers who
thronged to either side.

The statue dwarfed them all. Its obsidian eyes, backlit by the belly flames,
seemed eerily alive, and the open, smiling mouth, also lit by the internal fires,
appeared to move and flex as if already laughing at his death. Though he had
seen this idol-or ones like it-countless times, today it throbbed with a
malevolent presence he had never before noticed. Today he realized it was
not just stone and flame but something more. Something alive and calculating
and knowing….

An icy-footed worm of fear crawled up his spine.

He turned his gaze to the man who stood between him and the statue,
the short, muscular figure of the Supreme Commander of the Black Moon,
facing him now with a look of amusement on his dark features. He wore the
black tunic of the Broho, the silver amulet shining brightly against his chest. His shaven head gleamed, and the gold champion rings lining the margins of
both ears flashed in silent affirmation of his skill. Over two hundred years of
battle experience, they said. Enabled by the power of his god to be inhumanly fast, inhumanly accurate, inhumanly strong. Invincible, they said he
was. Immortal.

The doubts Abramm had brushed off so easily back in the Wadi Juba
returned in full force. Trap, bleeding and dusty, had managed to sit up and
now gaped at him dully, barely holding himself conscious. Trap was experienced in the use of Eidon’s Light. He was as strong and as fine a swordsman
as Abramm had ever known. He was brave, confident, not easily rattled. Yet
he was finished, overwhelmed by the same adversary Abramm now proposed
to fight.

Who am Ito think I can do any better?

He had reproved Carissa just this morning for trying to take on things she
had no business taking on. Was he now doing the same? He had believed
Eidon wanted him to come here. But what if he was wrong? Surely if Eidon
were with him, he would not feel all these doubts.

With a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he grew convinced
he’d made a horrible mistake. That it had never been Eidon’s will at all but
was only his own pride again.

And yet he was here. There would be no going back now. If there was a
sea of Esurhites watching, so there was a sea of Dorsaddi watching at his
back. He closed his eyes, blotting out the dark and supremely confident gaze
of his adversary, and prayed. If I have overstepped, my Lord, I beg forgiveness.
You know my heart. I know I am not able to face him on my own, but I know
that you are. I ask only that my death will be to your glory, not to your shame.

He drew a deep breath, letting the doubts slide away, and opened his eyes.