The Broken Blade (38 page)

The blade sheered across the throned's left hand. Blood thickened Edelred's armour.

Eamon gaped at the two men. Why did the throned not use the red light? Was he too afraid? – or unable?

Eamon's heart rose into his throat in fearful anticipation.

Would Edelred fall?

He glanced at Arlaith. The Right Hand's face was paler now than Eamon had ever seen it.

Edelred's calculated and confident style disappeared. With a thunderous cry – and slashes thick and furious enough to match it – the throned launched himself at Hughan. Hughan gave back before the sudden onslaught. The King's face set in hard concentration as he sought to deflect Edelred's rage.

The throned struck down powerfully for a cut at Hughan's left side; the King blocked. The two swords locked together. The force jarred through both men.

Edelred turned and drove the strength of his whole bloody body against Hughan. He jammed his left forearm up hard into Hughan's gorget. A series of unintelligible screams came from Edelred's lips. The King staggered. Edelred ground his armoured arm hard against
the King's throat. Hughan's sword was still locked against Edelred's; he was pinned.

Edelred roared with vicious laughter. Hughan slammed his sword hard along the length of Edelred's blade until his own cross-guard hit the throned's steel. The King twisted the guard, wrenching the sword away from Edelred's hand. At the same time, the King took his free arm and brought his gauntleted hand down hard into Edelred's elbow.

Edelred's arm came away from the King's neck. The throned's sword spun across the floor. Eamon drew a gaping breath.

He should not have stared so long. As the sword clattered to the bloody floor, Arlaith dived forward. A second later the Right Hand dashed to the rear of the chamber at a break-neck speed. He tore aside one of the room's long drapes, revealing a door. Arlaith wrenched it open and disappeared down into darkness.

The Nightholt was in his hands.

 

For a second, Eamon froze in horror and surprise. Then he bolted towards the door.

“
Arlaith!
”

The door was narrow and opened into a stairwell crammed with darkness. As Eamon peered into it he heard Arlaith's mad clatter down the steps. Eamon heard cries behind him, heard the throned's voice caught in a great roar of agony, but he could not look back.

He rushed down the stairs in Arlaith's wake. The Right Hand's shadow, a tantalizing and fleeing shade, raced ahead of him. It goaded him on until Arlaith reached the foot of the stairs ahead of him. The Right Hand broke into a run down the ensuing corridor.

“
Arlaith!
” Eamon yelled again. He heard a distant cry behind him. A searing pain shot through his head and palm. It was pain wrought with a scream so piercing that he had to take his balance against the stairwell. Arlaith came to a staggering halt a short distance ahead of him. The Right Hand groped for a wall as he also clutched at his head.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the throbbing pain in his brow and hand vanished. Eamon felt a wash of release that left him with peace. Arlaith's face was greyed and sickened. As their eyes met across that long corridor, they both knew what had happened.

Edelred was dead.

For a moment as long as eternity they stared at each other. Eamon's heart pounded. Arlaith's swift breath resounded in the hall. He held the Right Hand's gaze, somehow also holding him still by it, and for a moment he believed that Arlaith would not flee further.

“It's over, Arlaith,” he said, and laughed quietly. They were both free. “Over.”

The Hand's fingers tightened on the Nightholt. A steely glint filled Arlaith's eyes.

“You're wrong,” he answered, and took to his heels once more.

“Arlaith!” Eamon yelled, stunned, but the Hand was already a shrinking figure in the dim expanse of the corridor.

With a cry Eamon charged after him, his armour hampering his movement at every turn. “Arlaith, it's over!
Arlaith!
”

But the Right Hand did not heed him. He turned down another corridor. Forcing as much strength as he could into his limbs, Eamon pressed after him. Where did the Hand think he could go?

As he whirled into the next corridor, he saw something shining on the ground. He just had the time to realize that it was Arlaith's cloak clasp before he saw a puddle of darkness covering the floor. He vaulted the cloak, almost losing his footing as a fold of the garment tripped him. Eamon swore and looked up to see Arlaith pitch himself through a doorway into another room. He followed.

The room was broad but short. There was another doorway at the far side. The room's windows looked down across an interior garden. Dust caught in the streaks of sunlight that fell from the window.

Arlaith took to one side of the room by a long table. Eamon did not stop to wonder why the Hand did; he only cared that he had stopped.

“It's over,” Eamon called again, coming to a breathless halt. “He's dead, Arlaith, and there is nowhere in this palace or this city that you can go.”

Arlaith cast him a withering look. “You think you can outrun me?” he laughed. With horrid foreboding Eamon realized that the man was barely out of breath.

“You will not outrun me,” he managed, “and you will not hide from me. I will follow you and I will find you, and I will fight you if I must. But before you run or fight, Arlaith, know that the King's mercy is also for you. Surrender yourself and the Nightholt, and receive it.”

Arlaith smiled at him. Something about it rocked Eamon's very core.

“You would have me take the Serpent's mercy?” the Right Hand asked. “Why is that, Lord Goodman? Perhaps it is because you know that, if I fight you, the next your precious Serpent will find of you is a ruddy mulch in a dark corner?”

“I would have you take it for your own sake,” Eamon answered earnestly.

“Oh,
for my own sake?
” Arlaith laughed again. “That's Lord Goodman all over! Always the altruist, always thinking of the other man, whatever his colour. Always trying to do good, always trying to save, always trying to salve his own conscience. It has entertained me,” he added, and as he spoke he set the Nightholt down on the table. “The Raven's Bane, the Right Hand, the law-maker, the Quarter Hand, the Head-bringer, the Line-defier, the Hand, the first lieutenant, the sword-render, the lieutenant, the ensign, the cadet. That's my Goodman.” He smiled delightedly and his eyes took on a vicious, sinister sheen. “That's my Ratbag.”

Eamon's blood ran cold. He stared.

Arlaith's eyes fixed on him, smiling and goading. Horror and dread churned in every fibre of his being.

“What did you call me?” Eamon whispered.

Arlaith cocked his head pleasantly to one side. “Oh, I'm sorry –
perhaps you did not hear me properly? And who can blame you?” he cooed. “You've had a very difficult year.”

As he spoke, Eamon recognized the strange familiarity that he had always seen in Arlaith's face. It twisted and shivered until it tore away. In its place appeared another face that was known to him. The dark eyes, the unkempt hair, the athletic build – but most of all, the smile.

Eamon lurched as that face smiled, and smiled, and smiled at him.

“
Poor
Eamon,” it said. “Poor
Ratbag
.”

Eamon stared at him. A torturous, cantankerous sickness coursed through his veins, devouring each, one by one. The man before him laughed.

It could not be.

“Did you honestly never figure it out?”

Eamon reeled. He scarcely registered the sword in the man's hand.

“But then, you always were a little dense.” The man laughed again.

Ladomer
laughed.

“You had better hope that you're as thick-skinned as you are headed!”

Ladomer lunged at him.

Eamon's shaking limbs struggled to respond. He brought his blade up, and barely managed to parry.

Ladomer struck and held the quivering blades together in a vicious and binding block.

“Well, Ratbag,” Ladomer said cheerily, “isn't this fine?”

He tore his blade from the bind and stepped back a moment; the hilt slipped in Eamon's hands. He tried to strengthen his grip and his resolve.

“Ware left,” Ladomer cried, stabbing for Eamon's left shoulder.

Eamon parried but knew that Ladomer toyed with him.

“Ware right!”

Another clash of blades as Ladomer thrust again. “Very good, Cadet Goodman,” Ladomer crooned. “
So very good
. Have you been practising?”

“Stop!” Eamon's voice leapt suddenly to his throat in an angry, grief-fretted cry.

“Tired already?” Ladomer clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Oh dear. Ware!” he cried, and came down hard for Eamon's face. Eamon blocked the blow, more forcefully this time.

“Stop!” he yelled. Tears burned deep in his eyes.

“Are you at all well read, Mr Goodman?” Ladomer came in with a sweep at Eamon's arms that forced him back a pace. “I've heard some say that you should have considered the university. Had you gone you might have read some of the early epics, or the great sagas out of the north, maybe even a little of the River Poet. I'm told that close reading of some of his tragedies will lead you to the conclusion that spurning the path laid out for you is somewhat arrogant – the erudite call it hubris – and leads to rather unfortunate consequences.”

He laughed and swept down at Eamon's arm again – an easy parry. Eamon knew that Ladomer knew it. “Yet you have done it. Such hubris! What is it that your friend Anderas used to say?” he added thoughtfully. “Something about style? He forgot, I suppose, that there is only one viable end for a gentleman of such a calibre as yourself. It is so unfortunate that he won't ever hear how you matched it.”

Eamon parried another blow and gaped. Ladomer feigned surprise.

“Oh, didn't you know?” he said. “I had your good captain shot this morning. It was a good deal easier than killing Greenwood, or your servants, or those infernal cadets of yours. An arrow loosed in battle strikes, as they say, where it strikes.”

A horrific image leapt before Eamon's eyes, of Anderas impaled by a black feathered arrow and lying on the plain before Dunthruik in a pool of his own blood.

Ladomer came forward with a cutting blow aimed at Eamon's neck. Eamon stumbled back to avoid it. His limbs felt weary and
his heart grossly weighted. He wanted to cry out his rage – but the face before him was the face of a man he loved.

Ladomer laughed grimly.

“Think of all that time I spent on you, Ratbag. Years and years! You think that the little fire that destroyed your miserable bookshop was an accident?” he asked pleasantly. “It was not. I joined you to the Gauntlet; I groomed you and prepared you to take your oath. Did you ever wonder why you were sent to Dunthruik, and under the auspices of lieutenant?” He eyed Eamon spitefully. “It was no merit of yours. A regional Hand and captain visited by the Right Hand do as they are told.”

Eamon's face broke in enraged hurt; Ladomer grinned to see it. “Did you ever wonder why you became a first lieutenant, or were elected to the Hands?” Ladomer glared at him. “Oh, I had to spend
years
, Ratbag, telling you that you were good at the things you did, when you were not. Years listening to your woes.” As they circled each other, Ladomer's face became a picture of pernicious pity. “Do you think that I didn't howl with laughter every time you came to me, your face filled with pious sorrow? But it was not so much your face,” he spat, “it was you. You were utterly ridiculous then, and you have refused to grow out of it. Though perhaps you will shrink!” he added, swiping for Eamon's neck again.

Eamon blocked the blow and stared grimly into Ladomer's face. The dark eyes laughed at him even then. A hundred memories raced through Eamon, of words spoken and smiles given, of jokes and joys shared and comfort received. Every time Ladomer had sat with him in the Star, every time they had met in the streets of Dunthruik…when he had been counselled and questioned and surveyed…

It had been the Right Hand.

He looked uncomprehendingly back at him. “I only ever loved you, Ladomer, and to you, Arlaith, I was gracious.”

“You were naive,” Ladomer returned. “I had only to fawn and wail to overwhelm your little heart. It was not grace to let me live; it was stupidity – as only you can embody that virtue.” He fixed
Eamon with a disparaging gaze. “I never despised you more than in that moment.”

Eamon's mind turned back to Arlaith's apology, the look of awe on his face as he had spoken:
“I do not think that I would have said the same in your place.”

Eamon shook his head. “No, Ladomer; you despised me because I showed you grace. You despised me because you could not bind me.” Angrily he matched the gaze that pinned him. “Now, you will despise me because you cannot break me.”

Eamon turned the sword in his hand and struck at Ladomer's arm. It was a good strike. Ladomer had to work hard to block it. Pressing forward, Eamon arched his sword and swung again. Ladomer parried and stepped back. Eamon wondered what armour the man wore, and cursed himself for not taking better note of it earlier that day. The man had a thick black tabard, and Eamon could not tell if there was armour below it or not. Without armour, one good strike to the chest would kill him.

Did he mean to kill Ladomer?

In that moment Ladomer caught a weakness in his attack and countered an oncoming strike, turning it into a blow of his own. It was a strong one; Eamon felt it judder through his arm and remembered how tired he was. But he could not falter.

He came back from the blow, disengaging. His chest heaved under the wretched press of his armour. Ladomer also looked short of breath; it encouraged him. They both adjusted their grips on their swords. As Eamon watched, Ladomer reached to his belt and drew a dagger. The blade caught in the light and Eamon's eyes went wide.