The Highwayman sotfk-1 Page 8

  The other dwarves hooted.

  SenWi leaped out of the brush, bringing forth her magnificent sword.

  "Be gone from here!" she commanded.

  The powries stared at her for just a moment, then howled and lifted their own weapons.

  SenWi's sword spun over in her right hand, went behind her back, and reappeared on the other side, and she thrust her left hand forward, taking the powrie with the fresh blood on its beret in the side and sending it away with a shriek. She retracted her sword immediately, then flashed it left to right, parrying a swinging powrie axe. SenWi let go and left the sword out there, engaged with the axe, as she spun a tight circle, catching the blade back in her right hand as she came around. Using her momentum, she slid the blade hard across the axe and thrust ahead, forcing the powrie to suck in its belly and scramble back.

  SenWi couldn't finish the move, for another powrie came in hard at her side. Across went her sword, slashing the tip from the iron-headed spear and forcing the newest attacker into an overbalanced posture.

  The other powries came in hard. She spun and she leaped, kicking out and punching as often as thrusting her sword. Blades came at her from every angle, but she bent and swerved, dodged and parried, with precision. Brother Dynard had hardly registered that his wife had even moved! Still crouched in the brush, he tried to make sense of this whirling and furious combat before him, tried to call out to SenWi. But he couldn't hope to find his voice, and didn't know whether to cheer or to scream in terror at the wild melee, the slashing swords, the ring of metal.

  Up SenWi went above a pair of thrusting spears, and she kicked out, scoring solid hits on the faces of each attacker. But the dwarves didn't fall, and one of the tough creatures even began to laugh at her.

  Dynard knew that he had to help. As wondrous a warrior as SenWi was, she couldn't hope to win against five powries!

  He started to come forth, but stopped cold, wondering what in the world he might do. He had no weapon, and even if he had, Dynard understood all too well that he was no match for the average powrie. He scrambled about, his eyes glued to SenWi's continuing flurry, and finally settled one hand into his belt pouch.

  Dynard brought forth the smooth gray stone and held it up before his eyes.

  The soul stone. Her fighting was completely defensive now. SenWi ducked and turned from weapons that came in at her from every side. The dwarves coordinated their attacks well, leaving her little opening, but one of the five was lagging, she noted. In her initial attack, she had hit him hard, her sword digging a deep wound. He was trying to keep up with his four friends, but his thrusts shortened every time, as he winced and curled over that torn side.

  SenWi wanted to focus on him and finish him off, but the other dwarves had her turning continually. She leaped over one swiping axe and threw her leg out wide to avoid the stab of a spear. As she landed, she brought her forearm up to accept the smack of the spear she had beheaded, for the dwarf was now using it as a club. As her arm connected, she shoved it out wide, then stepped in and stabbed at the dwarf with her sword.

  But again, she had to pull up short and spin to deflect the charge of another, the dwarf lowering his shoulder and trying to bowl her right over. She hit him with three short jabbing punches to turn him, then crossed hard with the snake hilt of her sword, cracking his jaw.

  The tough little creature staggered backward but did not fall. Brother Dynard chanted and clutched his soul stone, trying to find his concentration and his center, seeking his chi so that he could send it fully into the swirling gray depths of the magical stone. He heard SenWi's breathing, heard the growls of the ferocious dwarves.

  He heard his love grunt as a powrie connected with the wooden shaft of its spear, and he opened his eyes.

  He snapped them shut immediately and concentrated again on the issue at hand. He couldn't go out there physically, he knew, for his appearance and incompetence would likely hinder SenWi more than aid her. Thus, he had to go out there spiritually. He had to find his center and free his spirit through the use of the soul stone.

  The sounds of battle grew distant suddenly, and Dynard felt as if he were falling through cool water. And he was standing there, looking back at himself, on his kneeling physical body.

  His spirit turned and willed himself forward into the fray. He denied his trained revulsion as he approached one powrie and accepted the invitation of its corporeal form.

  In he went, against his understanding that this usage of the soul stone-insinuating himself into the body of another free-willed creature-was among the most trying and repugnant possibilities offered by the gemstone. To possess another was the temptation of the stone and the danger of the stone, and was an act frowned upon by the brothers of Blessed Abelle, an act specifically damned by Abelle himself in his writings.

  But this time, with SenWi in so difficult a position, Dynard accepted the danger and the moral ambiguity and fought past his revulsion. His spirit dove into the powrie.

  He sensed the creature's surprise and horror, and he knew that it would instinctively react to possession with a fierce battle of willpower. But for just a moment, the powrie was off guard, confused, and in that split second, Dynard took control. He saw through its eyes; he felt its limbs as if they were his own.

  He made the dwarf throw its axe to the ground, turn, and leap upon the dwarf nearest him, bearing both to the ground.

  Then Dynard felt the sudden attack upon his spirit, the rebound of the dwarf's free will. He envisioned a dwarvish shadow tearing at the fabric of his own spiritual silhouette.

  But he held on stubbornly, with willpower and with the dwarf arms he controlled. SenWi had no idea what had just happened, why one of these vicious dwarves would tackle another, but she didn't pause to ask questions. Her sword went out to the right to block a spear, then she rolled her blade about the weapon repeatedly in rapid succession.

  Instead of retracting, the dwarf came forward, but SenWi had anticipated the move. She retracted her arm, then struck straight out, like a serpent, once, then again and again.

  The dwarf staggered backward.

  SenWi sprang into the air, tucked her legs, and went right over backward as the dwarf opposite her, the wounded one with the knife, charged in with a roar. She landed lightly right behind the creature as it stumbled past, a perfect opportunity to strike hard.

  But she didn't, diving sidelong instead at the remaining battling powrie, who was obviously thinking to follow her in pursuit of the knife wielder.

  SenWi's sword whipped over, coming in diagonal down strikes at the too-slow dwarf, slashing shoulder to hip one way, then the other.

  The dwarf tried to get its axe up to block, but SenWi seemed one movement ahead of it each time, her sword coming across and down repeatedly.

  The dwarf's tunic hung ragged, with lines of blood beginning to show, and the dwarf continued its futile efforts to block. Not once did it hit SenWi's sword, and it began to retreat-to inevitably stagger backward.

  SenWi's sword blazed in diagonal circles, each one scoring a hit.

  And she stopped suddenly, reversed her grip on the sword, and thrust it out behind her, just in time to meet the roaring charge of the knife wielder. He came forward anyway, for he couldn't break his momentum, and ran right up against SenWi. For a moment, he seemed frozen in time, impaled to the hilt on her blade, and then his eyes slowly turned up to meet hers.

  He roared and tried to strike, but SenWi whirled and ducked under the blow, moving out to the side of the dwarf, where she gave a great tug on her sword.

  Powries were made of tough stuff indeed, but so was the steel of SenWi's sword, and strong was its impeccable design. The blade tore through the powrie's innards and ripped out the side, and the dwarf staggered. It tried to cry out, but only a thick flow of blood rushed out of its mouth.

  SenWi spun her sword, using its momentum to center her own balance once more as she turned.

  That dwarf was down and dying; as was the one she had sla
shed so many times; as was, she was glad to see, the one she had poked thrice. That one was still alive, kneeling and groaning. The other two were up again, off to the side, staring at her incredulously.

  They turned and ran off.

  SenWi took one step to follow, but stopped at once, turning to regard the hanging woman, then glancing over at the bushes where a shaken Dynard came stumbling forth, soul stone in hand.

  "I-I possessed him," the stumbling monk explained.

  SenWi responded with an absent nod, but was already focusing on and moving toward the woman. She looked up at the rope and then at her sword, but then snapped the sword back into the scabbard across her back, recognizing that the woman was too near death to handle the trauma of a fall.

  The Jhesta Tu brought her palms together before her and again fell into that line of energy, that center of power, that ran from the top of her head to her groin. With a deep exhalation, SenWi breathed that power forth into her arms, coursing down to her hands and her trembling fingertips.

  She felt the heat building in her hands even as she reached out to the dying woman.

  She placed a hand on the tear in the woman's thigh and sent forth her healing energy, and accepted the woman's pain as her own.

  She felt something then, in the blood, some uncleanliness.

  But she didn't relent, forcing her energy into the woman, lending her strength.

  A soft groan escaped the battered woman's lips.

  "SenWi, do not," came a sharp cry behind her, drawing her from her concentration. She glanced over her shoulder to see an ashen-faced Dynard staring at her wide-eyed. "Leave her alone."

  SenWi's jaw drooped open in disbelief.

  "She is an adulteress," Dynard explained, "or some other such sin."

  "This is how your order deals with sinners?"

  "No, no, not the brothers of Abelle. But this is not our province. This justice is the tradition of the land, since long before Blessed Abelle walked the ways of Honce. In the half century of our Church, we have made some gains and offered some concessions. This is the doing of the Samhaists, who once presided over all the folk as the clerics of Honce. The lairds have not seen fit to change."

  "This is justice?"

  The accusatory tone had Dynard back on his heels. "It is the way of Honce. The woman was convicted, no doubt, and given to the snake."

  The snake. SenWi's head snapped around, and only then did she fully realize the other wounds; fang marks. She understood then the sensation of uncleanliness in the blood, for it was rife with poison.

  She swallowed hard and stared at the woman, who seemed more alive, just a bit, as if the healing hands had made some progress. The poor, battered girl gave another little groan.

  "I will not watch her die," SenWi declared.

  "It is not our place."

  "Choose your own place as you will," she granted. "I will not watch her die." She folded her palms and fell into her chi, then went back to her healing work with renewed energy.

  A moment later, to her great relief, Brother Dynard was beside her, soul stone in hand. With a look and helpless smile at SenWi, he pressed his free hand against the woman and began his own healing, using the magical stone.

  A few moments later, the two looked at each other again, and SenWi nodded and motioned for Dynard to grasp the woman. SenWi then pulled forth her sword and leaped into the air; and with a sudden and swift strike, she cut the woman free.

  She helped Dynard guide the poor girl to the ground.

  "Your cloak," SenWi instructed, and Dynard shed his woolen robe, and he and his wife managed to wrap it about the shivering woman. Then Dynard picked her up gently in his arms. "Come along," he instructed SenWi. "The powries might return with their friends."

  He started off into the forest, to the side of the road. "We cannot take her to Pryd, for they will merely throw her in the sack with the snake again and hang her once more," he explained. "But there may be a place."

  "Chapel Pryd?"

  Dynard nearly laughed aloud at the notion, for he knew well that Father Jerak, kindly as he could be, would not go against Laird Pryd in this matter. Nor would Dynard, in all good conscience, even involve the others of his order in this crime.

  No, this burden was his own.

  7

  To the Side of Things The middle-aged man stared out the partly open door for a long and silent moment, then finally seemed to breathe again and stepped back, pulling the door wide. "Can it be?" he whispered, and he held up a candle before him. He was of medium build, a bit shorter than most men, with a shaggy head of black and gray hair, and with several days of beard evident on his face. One of his eyes was quite dead, showing only milky white, but the other held a lustrous blue-gray sparkle.

  Brother Dynard put on a wide smile. "Garibond, my heart fills with joy at seeing you alive and well." He stepped inside the dimly lit stone house, and in doing so, stepped out the lake, for this stone structure was constructed on a rock out in the water, a dozen feet from the shore along a sometimes submerged, sometimes revealed, shoal. The house was built in two parts, with this, the lower level, right at the lakeside, and a higher, drier structure a dozen feet above and farther from the shore, on the higher rocks. Even with the two structures, connected by a cave and stone extension, there was little elaborate workmanship showing about Garibond's home, just two stonewalled rectangles with thatched roofs.

  "Bran in the flesh! Back from his travels around the world!" Garibond Womak replied. He stepped forward and clapped Dynard hard on the shoulder, then wrapped him in a great hug, which Dynard comfortably returned.

  Garibond leaped back. "Come in," he bade. "Come in! You must tell me every detail." His enthusiasm melted almost at once, as he noted the grim expression on the face of his long-lost friend.

  "I need your help," Dynard said seriously.

  "Have I e'er shown you anything but?"

  With an appreciative nod, Dynard stepped back outside and splashed across the shallows to the shore, returning a moment later with the unconscious young woman in his arms.

  Garibond's good eye went wide.

  "We found her at the end of the new road," Dynard explained.

  "Where Bernivvigar left her to die, with the blessing of Laird Pryd."

  Dynard nodded.

  "Are you mad?" Garibond asked. "The woman was convicted and executed. She met the adder in the sack-to the joy of the folk who went to watch, I am certain," he added, his voice taking a sour note. "You cannot-"

  "I could not leave her out there. I-we-met powries dancing about her, ready to take her blood."

  "Dead is dead. Probably better that way than from the slow poison of the snake."

  Dynard just shook his head and moved to the side, gently laying the woman down on a thick bearskin rug elevated on a wooden frame near the still-warm hearth.

  "You had to know the truth of her predicament," Garibond protested. "You've seen old Bernivvigar's work before."

  "I could not leave her."

  "They'll put you in her place, you fool," protested Garibond. "You cannot go against the word of Laird Pryd. Your own brothers of Abelle were there in attendance, bearing witness."

  Dynard held out his arms helplessly, and Garibond gave a great sigh.

  "You said 'we,' " Garibond remarked. "Who was with you, and more important to your own skin, where is he now?"

  The smile returned to Brother Dynard's face and he stepped back outside and motioned off into the night. A moment later, SenWi appeared at his side in the doorway. "Not he. My wife."

  Garibond's good eye went wide again, and widened even more as he came to understand the truth of SenWi's exotic heritage. "But she's a pretty one," he managed to say at length.

  "Will you help us?"

  "What would you have me do?" Garibond answered skeptically. "I'm no healer."

  "Just let us stay here for a bit, that we can tend the girl and keep her safe and warm."

  "You're to be the death of me."

>   "I know you can hide her-can hide us," Dynard said with a grin, and Garibond gave a sigh. "He has tunnels beneath this house," Dynard explained to SenWi. "Keeps him safe from powries and goblins." He turned back to Garibond and, with a wide grin, added, "Though I thought you'd have slowed enough by now for them to catch you before you got your old arse into the hole."

  "Bah, them stupid ones don't even come around here. If they did, I'd be more likely to stand and kill them all before I'd run like a child into the tunnels!"

  Dynard knew the truth of the bluster, but he didn't press the point.

  Garibond's smile proved short-lived. "Tunnels or no, she won't be safe if Lord Pryd-or worse, his son, Prydae-discovers that she is missing," Garibond said.

  "Prydae?"

  "Aye, Prydae. A boy when you left. A man now. A young warrior with as much fight and metal as the father ever knew, who makes his reputation daily against the goblins and the powries."

  Again Dynard was reminded of how long he'd been gone. He looked at SenWi and gave a helpless laugh and shake of his head. "The world moves on without me, it would seem."

  "Young Prince Prydae would not take well to your disruption of old Bernivvigar's holy ritual."

  "Murder is holy ritual?" SenWi asked, her eyes going wide, and she looked up at Dynard for support.

  "Not murder," the monk tried to explain, but he found little heart for the distinction he offered. "The Samhaists carry out the executions and other punishments of convicted criminals."

  "This young girl was a murderess?"

  "An adulteress," said Garibond.

  SenWi looked to Dynard, who explained the crime in the woman's native tongue. That explanation did little to alleviate either her confusion or her disdain, however.

  "Appeasing the Samhaists has always been important to the lairds," Garibond reminded Dynard. "You know that."

  Brother Dynard paused to study his friend before answering. "But you will allow us the use of your home?"

  "Shut the damned door, old fool," Garibond said. "And come along to the upper house where it's more dry-and bring along a log or two to throw upon the fire. I've some stew I can heat." He gave another sigh and looked at SenWi. "And for you, pretty one…" He turned to Dynard with his pause.