The Broken Blade (16 page)

Cathair stared. “You snake!” he breathed. His voice became a roaring howl. “Snake!
Snake!
”

“I am no snake,” Eamon answered, his voice strong and fearless. “Nor serve I one. I serve the King.”

“Traitor!” Cathair screamed and in a flurry of rage he sent orb after orb of burning light screeching towards Eamon. But to every
one Eamon answered with his palm, for the King's grace was with him and none of Cathair's rending arrows could touch him. Each one split as it reached the shield of blue and then bled into the air. Cathair screamed with rage. The dogs howled louder.

“Wayfaring slime! Belly-walker!” Cathair howled, hurling another orb. “There is no scale but a snake's fit to weigh your lying tongue!”

“You will not burn me, Cathair,” Eamon told him.

“Then I shall drink your blood!” Cathair bawled. He drew his blade and tore down the length of the room towards Eamon.

Eamon's sword felt heavy and dull in his hand as it jarred with Cathair's blade. Cathair screamed at him in an unknown language. The words gripped like curses as the Hand cut at Eamon with the savagery of a beast. Eamon's arms and upper body shuddered with the force of each blow. He knew that he could not turn a single one of them and, realizing it, understood his peril.

With a sounding crack Cathair brought his scimitar down against Eamon's sword. The metal shivered on impact and gave way; waves of strength buffeted up Eamon's arm, threatening to break bone.

With a cry Eamon let go of his broken sword and stepped back. Cathair was on him in an instant; Eamon pulled back from a jab aimed at his throat. He dove for his fallen sword and caught the hilt in his hand. The edge of the broken metal was jagged. He wheeled to avoid a returning blow, and sliced Cathair's arm.

Cathair cried out in agony, then snatched his sword from his bleeding right arm with his left. Eamon drove his broken blade deep into the Hand's unguarded flank.

Cathair collapsed. Falling, he cast a bolt of red light towards the door. There was a crash. Eamon turned with horror: the door was broken. The incensed dogs charged him.

He tore the scimitar from Cathair's hand and swung it down across the neck of the leading beast. It fell beneath his first blow, but the other three, enraged by the smell of blood and their master's howls, were on him within moments.

Eamon fell back before their jaws, but the dogs were faster than he. They leapt and bore down on him not three paces from where he had downed the first. Eamon snatched up his cloak and hurled it at them. Suddenly the world was a mass of swirling black and crushing jaws as he slashed blindly at his foes. A second dog yelped as it fell beneath Eamon's blade. It crashed into the third dog and knocked it sidelong. Eamon slid his scimitar through the third dog's ribs. It collapsed in a heap as blood spurted from the wound.

Eamon scrambled to his feet, trembling. The fourth – where was the fourth? He looked wildly about and then stopped.

The fourth hound, bleeding from its foreleg, took up a protective stance over its master. It stood between Eamon and Cathair and growled. Cathair wheezed and choked, coughing up blood.

Swiftly Eamon drew up the tattered remains of his cloak and wrapped it round his arm, bracing it. He was covered in blood and knew that some of it was likely his. He nearly slipped in it as he strode forward from the dogs' grisly corpses towards Cathair's last defender.

When he was a yard away, the hound sprang. Eamon shielded himself with his left arm and the beast went for it, driving its long teeth down about his limb. They pierced through the thick cloak to his flesh. The dog bit down harder. As the hound fastened on to his left arm, Eamon thrust his sword into its throat.

The dog crumpled to the floor, dragging Eamon with it. Using the scimitar, Eamon prised the dog's jaws from his arm, its teeth sharp, slippery. He staggered to his feet and tugged the cloak tight over his wound. His forearm burned. He wriggled his fingers. Pain shot up his arm in an army of tiny knives, but his fingers moved. At last, he turned to Cathair.

The Hand had crawled towards the exit, leaving a long smear of blood across the floor. Gasping, he rolled onto his back and laid a hand at the muzzle of one of his dead dogs. Eamon drew Eben's dagger.

“Bastard son of the Betrayer!” Cathair wheezed through bloody lips.

“I was once a Master's man, Cathair,” Eamon told him. “You made me one. I was loyal to him when I went to Pinewood. But when I returned, you broke me. In breaking me, and crushing those I loved, you caused me to remember whom it was I served, and who I was. Know me, Lord Cathair: I am the First Knight of Hughan Brenuin.”

Cathair's eyes went wide with horror. “The blade shall break and turn true…” he whispered. His face became deathly pale as Ashway's prophecy spilled from his lips. “It will fall…” Cathair looked up at him with a wretched and violent look. “So be it!” he rasped. “But know that I killed your ‘goodmen', your precious cadets and ensigns, and I killed your ward, Goodman! I tore the eyes from his face and broke the hands from his wrists, and gorged on his blood!”

“Then know, Cathair, that I forgive you.” The words had been unthinkable to him, but still they came. “I forgive you for the wrongs that you have done me; Mathaiah's death is not the least among them.”

Cathair stared, unable to comprehend. “You cannot forgive me!” he spluttered.

“I do.”

The Hand fell silent. As Eamon looked at him, he felt new authority filling him.

Courage, First Knight.

“Cathair,” Eamon said solemnly, “you willingly raised voice and hand in deeds of treachery and deceit against the house of Brenuin. You have troubled this land and its people with torment and toil, and you have joyfully served a usurper whose hands have shed blood, and been set to deeds to which yours were gladsome servants. What you have done against this land, by word and deed, deserves death.”

Cathair's bloody face gaped at him. “You presume to pass judgment on me?” he seethed.

“No,” Eamon answered. “But under the authority of the King, I come to deal it.” Cathair watched him with shallow breath as Eamon paused, weighing Eben's dagger in his hand. “Cathair,” Eamon said, seeking the Hand's gaze, “the King is willing to forgive –”

Cathair spat blood at him. “You would offer me the banner of your whore-son star? You would
dare
to try to turn me?” His face grew paler with each word. He paused to snatch his breath. “May your house be consumed by fire and torment and your Serpent fall in treachery upon his own sword!”

Eamon let the words pass through him: his heart was secure. He looked solemnly at his foe. The dagger was in his hand and Cathair lay obdurate and baleful before him.

“Cathair,” he said quietly, “if that is your choice, then I have nothing more to offer you than the final mercy of a swift clean death – a mercy you withheld from Mathaiah and so many others. I do not seek vengeance. What I do, I do for the King.”

“Then do what you must!” Cathair hissed through clenched teeth.

No further words passed between the Raven and the First Knight. In silence Eamon pierced the heart of the Lord of the West Quarter.

 

He cleaned his blade on the edge of his bloody cloak. Fatigue rushed through him.

Cathair was dead.

For a moment he stood and stared. The silence of the wrecked room overcame him.

He stepped over to Cathair's scimitar and took it up in his hand. His own sword, which he had carried since he had joined the West Quarter College, lay in shards.

He returned to the cooling body and cut Cathair's head from it, binding it up first in his cloak and then in Cathair's. He gathered up the ends of the second cloak into his fist, and easing the ring of the West Quarter Hand from the blanched fingers, he laid the scimitar down over Cathair's breast. Then he returned to the alcove.

The Nightholt seemed a grisly jewel in its hiding place. If Cathair had not put it there… then who had?

The time for such questions was past: he could let no other take the book to the Master.

He lifted the tome from the alcove, shuddering. Drawing a deep breath Eamon turned his back on Cathair's library.

 

Eamon emerged from the long corridors into the dying sunlight, the weight of the head in one arm and the burden of the Nightholt in the other. As he left the doors of Cathair's hall the college courtyard opened out before him with the walls of the palace and the bustle of Dunthruik beyond.

Men stood in the courtyard: Waite and dozens of Gauntlet ensigns and officers, and a small group of shaking servants. Arlaith paced among them. As Eamon stepped down, the watchers stared through the dull light, as though trying to see which Hand looked back at them.

Eamon descended slowly. He knew that he was bloody and torn; his arm raged where the dog had mauled him and there was dust and sweat and splinters in his hair. But his heart was clear.

As he reached the courtyard path, Arlaith blenched. Only Waite came forward. His eyes glanced at the bundle Eamon bore, then to the book, then back to Eamon's face with awed dread.

“Come you from victory, my lord?” the captain asked quietly.

Eamon matched his gaze, then looked at the gathered spectators. “It is the Master's will that I have performed this day, captain.”

“My lord?”

“Cathair acted treacherously against the Master.” He did not know whether it was true.

Waite paled. “I knew nothing of this, Lord Goodman,” he whispered.

“You knew only of its effects,” Eamon answered. “Cathair's treachery entailed the death of many at this college.”

Waite's look grew grim.

“Cathair alone was at fault,” Eamon told him consolingly. “No other man in the West will pay.” Waite nodded, relieved, but the man shook. “The dogs' bodies are to go to the Blind Gate,” he said quietly. “Cathair's will go to the pyres. I must go to the Master.”

Arlaith was suddenly at his side. “May I accompany you, Lord Goodman?”

The Left Hand seemed a bird of prey circling the lost tome. Eamon met his gaze sternly. “You may not,” he replied. “I will go alone.”

 

He went through the streets of Dunthruik with Cathair's head in one hand and the Nightholt in the other. Men stopped and stared to see the Right Hand riding thus, a creature of blood. He halted for none of them. Resolutely, he rode to the palace and crossed the Royal Plaza, going directly to the throne room.

The doorkeeper was there. When he saw Eamon he grew pale.

“I will see the Master,” Eamon told him. Wordlessly, the doorkeeper opened the door.

Eamon strode the length of the hall with confidence. He did not see the paintings or the fine mosaics, and barely saw the Master's secretary, who stood by the foot of the throne in conversation with the throned. Eamon passed him by and climbed the steps to the dais. Reaching the very floor of the throne, he dropped to one knee.

“Master.”

“What do you bring me, son of Eben?” the throned asked. There was grim anticipation in his voice.

“I bring you the head of Lord Cathair,” Eamon answered, laying the bloody bundle down before him. Suddenly he shook. “And I bring you the Nightholt.” So saying, he held the book forward on his palms.

The throned rose to his feet; the air about him quivered. He lifted the dark tome with dreadful, ravenous eagerness. Fire sparked across the book's lettering; the Nightholt knew and rejoiced at the touch of its Master.

Edelred held the book for a long moment, caressing its cover, touching its pages. He looked back to Eamon.

“How I love you, son of Eben!” As he spoke he pressed a kiss hard against Eamon's forehead, a kiss made passionate by long years of grim and bloody searching. Eamon received its fire with quaking
limbs, for it brought with it the vision of a battlefield strewn with corpses, over which the Master and his Nightholt rode.

“By this service to me, son of Eben,” the Master told him in a thrilling whisper, “you redeem your line.”

Only then did Eamon realize what he had done.

The Master watched him, his gaze radiant with a father's pride. But in his horror, Eamon could scarcely hear or feel, for his sight was the thrall of the Nightholt and he had delivered it into the hand of its Master.

Visions of fire and sword whipped through him, struck him, impaled him.

Eben fallen upon by Hands veiled in darkness. The broad wastes of Edesfield. The churning mud choked with corpses that emanated blood-light. Arlaith, begging clemency. Cathair, mired in his own blood. The fangs of dogs deep in his flesh where the throned's kiss still lingered. The Nightholt in the Master's hands from whence poured ubiquitous red light. His heart pulsed out the promises of his blood. Every token of those promises cast down in the dark letters that marked the Nightholt and his flesh.

Besieged on every side by vision, thought, memory, and dream, Eamon trembled as he knelt. He heard faint sounds of others moving in the room – perhaps the Master's secretary? – yet he could not turn to look at them.

He could not undo what he had done.

“Let the city ring with jubilation!” called the Master's voice, a raging torrent in his ear. “Let every household in this city, from servant to lord, from maid to mistress, receive a case of the Raven's brew. For that carrion fowl has been felled by my Right Hand, and I am the more pleased with him.”

The Master's hand fell on his brow. Powerful fingers drew across Eamon in a gesture of terrible tenderness, then that same hand was beneath his chin, bidding him to rise. Unsteadily he obeyed its command; weariness flooded every limb.

“Your glory, Master,” he whispered.

The throned's grey eyes searched his. “Have the Right Hand
taken to his quarters; send my physician to him,” he commanded. The Master took in every line of sweat and blood and youth on Eamon's face. His tone became suddenly as soft and wistful as the touch with which he had caressed Eamon's brow. “His blood is precious to me.”

Eamon's blood thrilled through his veins.

The secretary was soon beside him, guiding him to the doorway and entrusting him to two of the Master's own guard. Yet as he was escorted from the hall, Eamon saw the Nightholt. It remained in his thought with every trembling step.

 

Rumour flew swifter than a crow through Dunthruik. The corridors by which the Master's guards took Eamon to his own quarters were flooded with people, all of whom bowed low; as he passed they whispered the name of the one who had struck down the Raven.

He climbed the stairs to his halls, weak in limb and scarce in breath. The guards steadied him as he faltered and swayed in the stairwell. His head swam. He felt trammelled by blood and filth.

The doors to his quarters were opened; his strength left him and his knees buckled.

“My lord,” said an alarmed voice. It was Fletcher's. Within moments he was at Eamon's side.

“Lieutenant.” Eamon raised one hand to his head. “The doctor is coming…”

“He is here,” spoke a voice from the doorway. Doveton strode swiftly in.

“May I sit?” Eamon asked quietly.

“I would encourage it,” the doctor answered, dismissing the guards.

Eamon sank into the long couch. As he gave over his weight, his trembling increased. His breath came in gasps. He had delivered the Nightholt… and Eben writhed and screamed before him. Eamon put his hands over his eyes and a moan escaped his lips. He tasted blood on them.

The doctor turned to Fletcher. “Lord Goodman will be in need of a very long bath.”

“I will have the maids draw it.” Fletcher hurried off. Eamon scarcely heard them as they spoke; the world passed him by like distant rumblings, obscured by visions of darkness.

A hand touched his shoulder. “Where are you hurt, Lord Goodman?” Doveton asked.

Eamon forced himself to focus on the doctor's face. “I do not know,” he rasped at last. “I do not think my life stands in any peril,” he added as the doctor took hold of his arm. Eamon hissed with pain.

“I shall need a closer look at this at least. It would seem that you have rendered your shirt quite useless,” Doveton mused. “I would not even send what remains of it to the scullery for swabbing the paving stones. I am going to remove it.”

Eamon allowed the doctor to take his bloodied shirt, barely caring for the scars on his back. As the doctor put his shirt aside, dust and splinters fell from it. He felt sore and wearied, but as the doctor assessed him he realized that he had no severe injuries, bar one.

The doctor carefully examined the wounds that the dog had made on his left arm. “Were you fighting wolves, Lord Goodman?” he asked wryly.

“No, a raven.”

“So it is true?”

“It is true,” Eamon replied. He blinked hard to refocus his eyes.

“Move your fingers.”

Eamon obliged, moving them one by one and then flexing them out flat before clenching them into a fist, each at the doctor's direction. He grimaced; the movements seethed in his flesh.

The doctor made him repeat the exercise several times with both hands, then breathed deeply. “You are a fortunate man, my lord,” he said. “This is an unpleasant wound, but it was not deep enough.”

“I had my cloak around it,” Eamon murmured and made a
gesture as of rolling the garment about it. He once again heard the dogs leap at him and tensed.

The doctor smiled encouragingly at him. “You saved your arm in doing so. You are right-handed?”

Eamon nodded.

“Good, else I should have prescribed becoming so,” the doctor continued. Eamon grimaced again. “You will have a very sore, very painful arm, for a very long time. There are also cloak threads caught in the wound. I will have to remove them – something I am sure you will not enjoy.”

“Will there be leeches?” Eamon asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“You fear them overmuch, my lord,” the doctor told him. “Come, you must bathe.”

The bath had been drawn. The doctor rose to his feet and Cartwright entered from the bathroom. The servant's face grew grey as he took in the bloodied remains of the shirt on the floor.

“My lord –” Cartwright began.

Eamon dimly felt the doctor's hand upon his arm.

“Your assistance, Cartwright,” the doctor said. “Lord Goodman is well, but before I may proceed he must be bathed.”

Cartwright and the doctor wrapped their strong arms about him and helped Eamon to the bathroom. As he crossed the threshold the inviting warmth of the great bath came at him like a wave. Cartwright and the doctor helped him undress and climb into the water. As he set his foot into the currents, their heat coursed through his nerves like fire. Suddenly there seemed to be red light in his skin…

Cartwright's hand was on his arm. “Gently, my lord.”

Eamon set himself down into the water, letting it enfold him. It permeated every pore. He sighed deeply.

“I will wait outside,” said the doctor. He bowed and left. Eamon shuddered as a first stream of water ran down his back.

Cartwright washed him. The water turned red. The servant soaped him, working it over every bloodied part; he delicately rinsed it away. At last he spoke. “My lord.”

Eamon breathed deeply. “Yes?”

“The secretary is having wine distributed to the house.” Cartwright faltered. “Is it true… that you bore Lord Cathair's head to the Master's feet?”

Eamon gazed down at the reddened water about him. “I did.” His left arm burned.

He had killed Cathair. He had taken the life of Mathaiah's murderer, removed one of Hughan's enemies, and delivered justice in the King's name. And yet he was not now at peace.

He saw Cathair's face caught among the drifting currents and shook it away. He knew he had done rightly. Cathair had brought him from the Hidden Hall, had taught and preened him into a perfect Hand. Cathair had stood proudly over him as he breached and tormented wayfarers. Cathair had rounded on him after Pinewood, had killed Mathaiah, had killed good men, had been party to the hardships he had borne since he dared to stand against the Right Hand. Cathair had hated him, fiercely and utterly, and that hatred had been in his eyes when he cast the first flame at Eamon. Cathair had baited him, humiliated him – and, at times, respected him.

He shook his head, feeling the confusion deep in his heart. Cathair had been justly killed. And that was not all he had done that day.

He had made peace with Arlaith. The thought shuddered through him:
peace
. He had saved the lives of the men on Arlaith's list, had secured the good names of those who had been unfairly branded. But the other thing that he had done…

“
By this service to me, son of Eben, you redeem your line.”

He glanced at Cartwright. “It has been such a terrible day, Cartwright.” Fire from the Master's hands, hands that now held the Nightholt, struck at Eamon's mind. His voice caught in his throat. “I am so tired,” he whispered.

“Come, lord.” Cartwright gently offered to help Eamon from the bath. “The doctor still has work to do.”

Eamon let Cartwright wrap him in great swathes of black towel. They smothered him round like a choking beast.

Cartwright led him back to his bedroom where the doctor waited patiently. Various lengths of bandage had been brought while Eamon bathed, along with ointments and others of the doctor's tools; they lay neatly arranged on the bedside table.

With Cartwright's hand unswervingly on his arm, Eamon sat on the bed and lay back.

“You'll note I have no leeches, my lord.” Doveton straightened Eamon's arm on the bed and peered at it.

“A mercy for which I thank you.”

The doctor set to work, painstakingly drawing pieces of tattered cloth from the gashes on his arm with tweezers. Eamon winced as the metal touched his raw flesh like ice-shards. The doctor set a glass lens to his eye. As the tweezers returned again and again, Eamon marvelled at the man's steady hand and concentrated face. It helped him ignore the pain.

At last the doctor sat back, content, and bound the wound with ointment and thick cloth. As he rose, he looked at Eamon once again. “How is your back, my lord?” he asked, removing the glass from his eye.

“Well,” Eamon told him. The doctor frowned and touched Eamon's shoulder; Eamon gasped in pain and surprise. Doveton nodded sagely, and helped him to turn on to his front.

“You bear a great deal, Lord Goodman,” he said, setting his hand firmly on Eamon's shoulders. “Fortunately for you, no additional tools are required to ease your back.”

“I am sure it will be nonetheless unpleasant,” Eamon replied, then cried out as the doctor's hand kneaded his shoulders.

“Yes,” Doveton told him. “It will.”

 

It seemed an eternity before Doveton finished his work. Eamon was exhausted, though his back was suppler than he had known it for a long time. The doctor knew his trade well and had been firm
enough to take out the majority of the tension in his back without disturbing its long scars. Eamon's arm still ached dully when the doctor took his leave.

“Have you concluded?” Eamon asked.

“For now. I shall see you again soon.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Brave words, Lord Goodman.” Doveton smiled and bowed. As he turned to leave he crossed paths with Cartwright, who carried a steaming goblet of mulled wine. The doctor nodded approvingly. “Drink deep, Lord Goodman, and take some rest. I will check on you in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Eamon answered, slowly moving his back and shoulders. “The Master is fortunate to have so skilled a physician.”

The doctor smiled again. “Good night, Lord Goodman.”

The doctor withdrew. Eamon cradled the chalice Cartwright had brought him between his hands, letting the vapours cover his face. The smell, the colour, the very texture of the wine told him of its fine quality, and he knew even as he held it that it came from Ravensill.

His stomach turned. Looking up from the cup he saw the bed's thick drapes, the room's dark walls, and starlight on the balcony beyond. There was a glimpse of red caught across the stonework and he knew it to be light from the Master's chamber.

The memory of the Nightholt's dark letters chilled him and he shivered. “Mr Cartwright, would you draw the curtains?”

Cartwright did so at once. Eamon sat back heavily against the cushions and drank. The wine burnt as it went through him, warming his hands and brow.

He had not been afraid to kill Cathair any more than he had feared to kill Rendolet, though both had been trials of his strength and courage. But the Nightholt…

He rubbed one hand over his eyes. “What can I do now?” he murmured.

“My lord.” Cartwright spoke quietly and Eamon jumped. He had forgotten the servant's presence. “Today was but one day, and
though you accomplished much, I am sure that you have much left to do.”

“I don't even know what it is,” Eamon told him; the Nightholt danced grimly before his eyes. “I don't know what it is.”

“See what the morning brings, my lord,” Cartwright answered him. “Rest.”

Silently, Eamon supped wine at the expense of a dead man. His servant put out the candles and lamps then bade him goodnight, and left.

Eamon stared up into the darkness. What could he do? What was there left for him to do? Endure the Master's words and touch, watch as the city was committed to battle against the King? Fall on the field beneath a black banner? Fall in the streets beneath a dagger?

He laid his head in his hands. Did it really matter what the Nightholt was or who had it? What was left for him now but darkness and fire?

First Knight, your place is here. Be true.

 

He wandered in and out of sleep during the long watches of the night, tossing and turning between his covers, feeling the drum of his pulse. Long before dawn unfurled her standard, Eamon rose and paced his chamber. His footsteps sounded solemnly in the still night.

He went to the window. Pushing the curtains aside he set his back against the embrasure; his arm ached and he held it quietly as he looked across the palace. Before him were the Master's chambers; light flickered between the stones. Cool air touched his face.