The Broken Blade (41 page)

“Ladomer!” Eamon gasped.

“You blue bastard!” Ladomer yelled, and lashed at Eamon's face. Rather than touching flesh as he intended, Ladomer's hand caught hold of the broken strap of Eamon's helmet. He wrenched the helm from Eamon's head, blinding Eamon for a second.

As the helmet clattered away onto the ground, Eamon felt a
rush of cold air creep beneath his sweat-drenched hair. Ladomer straightened up. Suddenly the Right Hand turned and drove his rising pauldrons deep in Eamon's waistline, just below the breastplate of his armour.

Eamon felt the crushing force of the blow. His breath was torn from him as the shoulder plate impacted; the stomach-churning judder ran up and down his whole body.

He lost his grip on Ladomer's face. Ladomer staggered to his feet. Not a second later, Ladomer hurled Eamon over his back.

As Eamon fell down over Ladomer, he rolled into the fall. His gut ached and no amount of armour articulation could have spared him from the pain in every limb. His body slammed into the ground. He turned on to his back and for a second he lay stunned, seeing nothing but smoke and fire.

He heard Ladomer rise; Ladomer's feet appeared by his dazed head and Eamon saw him stooping for his blade.

Eamon flung out his left hand, grabbed his sword, and brought it over himself just in time to block the killing blow. The Right Hand tried to slip his blade over Eamon's sword.

With strength he had thought spent, Eamon rolled deftly out of the way. Using his left arm like a pivot, he brought himself up to his feet before casting a low lunge at Ladomer's lower legs.

They were both slow and tired, but Ladomer still managed to block the attack. Eamon's grip on the sword was weak. His arm pulsed with the wounds of Cathair's dog.

For a moment Eamon and Ladomer stared at each other and gasped for breath.

“Surrender,” Eamon panted desperately.

“Who?” Ladomer asked sarcastically. “You or I?”

“You!” Eamon raged.

Ladomer looked wryly at him. “You know, I never understood why we adopted these clumsy, uncivilized things,” he said, flexing his fingers about the hilt of Eamon's blade. “But you can be sure, Goodman, that I will wield it better than you.”

Eamon recoiled with fatigue as Ladomer raised the blade and swung at him again. He had not the time to pass his sword into his strong hand. He twisted awkwardly round to take the blow. His right hand was free. He reached towards Ladomer. A huge spark of blue light left his palm and struck his foe.

The Right Hand yelled a vile curse as it touched him. He recoiled. Eamon turned Ladomer's sword back in his hands, and drew it up firmly across Ladomer's ribs and chest from right to left.

It was the sight of blood rather than Ladomer's irate scream that told him that he had landed a blow. As he continued with the strike the sword blade suddenly hit plate.

It was then that Eamon realized that, from the ribs up, the Right Hand wore no armour.

The sword was high in his hands. With a huge effort, Eamon turned to drive the blade deep into Ladomer's chest.

But Ladomer struck back with a powerful thrust. With horrific strength, the Right Hand's blade seared under the edge of Eamon's right pauldron and the rim of his back plate.

Eamon screamed as the blade drove into him. It smashed through his shoulder blade, cracking his ribs and finally puncturing through some channel that allowed air to pass into his lungs. As the shattering pain speared relentlessly through him, blood leapt up in great gushes into his throat and mouth.

In agony he spun away, a terrible weight in his back where Ladomer's sword still clawed through him. He fell heavily to the ground; his own blood spewed in waves beneath him. His gauntleted fingers slipped in it as he tried – and failed – to get a grip on the stones.

It was then that he knew he would die.

Blood cloyed in his throat. He choked violently on it as he turned, with starving lungs and swimming sight, to look back. Ladomer stood over him. The pain in his shoulder and lungs was nearly unbearable. Ladomer set his right hand to the top of the sword hilt, his left beneath it, and turned the point of the blade level with Eamon's gagging throat.

“So much for your house!” Ladomer hissed. “When they come seeking you they will learn at last that the only Goodman is a dead man!”

The bloodied point of the sword dripped gore onto Eamon's face. He tried to blink it from his eyes but it hardly seemed to matter. There was no fear in him as he saw that blade. He could only stare up at the man who had been his friend, and who, hissing and laughing, would kill him.

Ladomer straightened to plunge the blade down.

As the Right Hand raised his arms to lay the full weight of his body into the blow, a figure appeared behind him. Eamon's vision was fast fading, but he thought he saw a trace of blue.

The figure bolted forward, a great sword in his hands. As Ladomer plunged downwards the charging man turned his sword and swung it deep into the Right Hand's side. The long blade drove into unarmoured flesh and bone.

The plunging sword spun out of Ladomer's hands across the floor.

The newcomer tore his blade out of Ladomer. The force of the motion turned the Right Hand to face his unforeseen attacker. Ladomer's agonized face went wide with anger and with horror. He drew his lips open to speak, but no sound ever left them, for the man thrust his sword into Ladomer's undefended ribs and wrenched the blade in a lethal twist.

Ladomer crumpled to the floor, a mass of blood. His pale face came to rest near Eamon's own, the chilling, vacant eyes staring at him across the stones.

Eamon tried to speak, but blood slicked his throat like a choking mucous. It filled his lungs and poured away through the stones from the great gash in his back. With it, power over his limbs failed him.

He felt fear.

The newcomer knelt down by him. The great blue tabard was covered with blood and gore.

Tears ran down his clammy face, and sobs bubbled deep in his
blood-filled throat. He did not know if the man near him was hurt and he knew that he would not live to know it.

With a gasping sob Eamon reached out with his failing hand to touch the face that he knew and loved. Darkness crept into his eyes as the one kneeling by him tore off his gauntlets and laid gentle, shining hands onto his face and over his heart.

“Hold on, Eamon,” said Hughan.

It was the last thing that he knew before the darkness fell on him.

There was stillness. There were shadows, but there was also light. There was silence and then, both near and far, currents of music. It was the music that he followed.

He wandered long.

It was a place where he seemed neither waking nor sleeping, living nor dying. Often he did not understand where he went or what he saw, but it did not trouble him. Among those vales and dells trouble could not come.

The path he followed ran beside a river. It led him by crystal cliffs to a high place. There, wonder halted him. Shining gates stood before him, standing beneath a sky so clear that it pierced beyond all understanding. Unspeakable beauty dwelt in soaring towers. The river, streaming like silver, sprang from beneath the city's bright walls. As they ran by him and the path on which he stood, the waters danced with majestic delight.

It was from the city that the music came, drifting to him as a breeze in summer. He tarried at the riverside. Such loveliness dwelt in the city, such fearsome grace and wholeness, that he could not bear to go closer. And yet, even at such distance as he kept, all the griefs that he bore seemed to wash away.

There he stayed, for that place contented him beyond all measure. He closed his eyes and still the city's music filled him, gathering all that was broken in him and making it new. The river itself seemed to sing.

A figure further along the path came down from the city towards him. His face was radiance.

Seeing, the wanderer was undone by joy, for it was the face of a friend whom he loved.

Forward he went – forward to meet hale hands and shining eyes he had not thought to see again. Laughter and tears went with him, and wonder was with him as he laid his arms about the friend who had been a companion of joys and sorrows past. In love and with laughter the friend received him, and he knew then that there were joys, unimagined and uncounted, yet to come.

Long they spoke. Longer still they sang – he did not know how long – such songs as had rekindled hearts and shattered pits. They were that city's songs and part of its music.

As they sang, he heard other sounds. They came to him along the river, from the same way as he had come. He knew their speech and calls. They were well-loved voices, ones that had not yet followed the river to the bright city. They were voices from before.

He fell silent and turned to look back along the river's silver swell. The voices spoke and the city sang. The choice rested with him.

Quietly, he raised his head and looked again at the friend by him.

“I must go back,” he whispered.

Smiles, richer and more loving than any earthly countenance might bear, touched his companion's face.

“There will be a day when your path brings you here,” said the friend, “and on that day we shall meet again. Go with courage, hope, and peace, my friend.”

The words filled the wanderer's heart. Tears – though not of grief – filled his eyes.

They embraced once more and then to the downward flow of the river the wanderer turned – for it showed the way.

Stars shone in the sky above him and stars shone in the river below, a mantel of brilliance over vale and dell. He followed the river, for he knew that he was called back and the waters would lead him safely there.

 

A high window looked down over him. Visions of the cloudless sky moved past, where high flocks of birds wheeled and soared, their voices raised in song. The sight and sound of them filled his heart, an achingly beautiful echo of the place where he had been.

He lay upon a wide, white bed. He felt cool linen soft around him, just as he felt his limbs, so long cased in heavy armour, now covered with a long, light shift. The room where he lay was tall and wide. Traces of faded paintings on the walls and ceilings danced as the sunlight played over them. A chair was set at the bedside, and by that a table on which stood a broad basin. The leaping light rippled on the water.

He saw and felt and, for a long moment, knew not who he was, where he lay, nor how he had come to be there. But it did not seem to matter.

He drew a deep breath. With wonder he felt that breath pass through him.

He could breathe!

It surprised and delighted him, though he did not know – or could not remember – why it seemed such a marvel. He felt the arch of his shoulders against the pillows; they were light and supple.

He had followed the river. He was alive, safe. Saved.

“Eamon.”

Someone spoke a name. With a smile, he remembered that it was his.

Looking again, he saw that someone sat in the chair by him. How had he not seen her before? For a long time, he simply gazed, unlooked-for joy in his heart. He knew her.

“Aeryn,” he breathed at last. As he spoke her name, she smiled. “Aeryn,” he said again, overjoyed that he could speak, that he remembered her, and that she was there beside him.

“You're all right!” Reaching across, she took his hand, then her arms were about him and her face was next to his as she embraced him. He felt tears on her cheeks. “You're all right.” Her voice shook.

“Yes,” Eamon answered, deeply moved by the embrace that held him.

“I was so afraid for you. We all were.”

“I'm sorry.”

She pulled back and laughed. “Don't apologize!”

He gazed around the room. Memories quivered at the edges of his mind. As they returned, he felt the burdens that they carried: burdens of grief, sorrow and betrayal. They were burdens to which he had chosen to return.

“Where is Hughan?”

“Not far. He will come to you as soon as he can.”

“And where is…”

Eamon stopped short of the name that came to his throat, his tongue becoming a dead weight as memory and pain – a terrible, driving pain in his shoulder – came back at him in a blow, stealing his breath. He gasped as it shot through him, for suddenly he saw blood and the pale face, and the sword raised above his own body, delivering the plunging blow…

A cry leapt to his lips and he shut his eyes in terror.

“Eamon.”

He opened his eyes again. Aeryn was still there, her fingers clasped firmly about his own. For a moment he clung to her, shaking, and remembered.

“Ladomer,” he whispered. His jaw trembled and he swallowed, hard. “Aeryn! He was… he was the Right Hand.” He gripped her hand. Aeryn herself had so often been within Ladomer's grasp, so perilously close. “Oh, Aeryn!” he breathed. “All that time –
all
that time – he was…”

Words failed him. He looked up at her again, her face pale. Her eyes revealed unspoken grief. There was little that they could say. They had both been within the circle of the Right Hand; none more than they.

“What he would have done to you, if you had reached Dunthruik,” Eamon whispered. The thought was horrific.

“Eamon,” Aeryn whispered.

“He was a terrible foe, Aeryn.”

He felt the stabbing anticipation of the sword-strike in every limb. He clenched his eyes shut again as it juddered through his shuddering flesh.

Aeryn pressed his hand. “He is gone,” she said, “and you are safe. There will be a time to speak, but for now, you should concentrate on getting better.”

Eamon drew a deep breath and looked up at her, tears burning in his eyes. As he trembled, he realized that he hardly knew what better was, or how he could ever reach it.

Aeryn's hand was smooth, gentle, soothing on his own. He held it – and realized then that he longed for the hand of another.

Alessia. His eyes closed. He saw her in his mind, prone before the Right Hand and yet made defiant by her love of him.

Love of him.
His heart waxed with awe and shrivelled in shame. He had scorned her, rejected her. Reviled her. Believed the lies of a man who had degraded and abused her.

Traitor ever, he had betrayed her – a woman who had borne his love even against the wrath of a Right Hand.

Tears coursed down his face. He pressed at their streams with shaking hands, and shuddered into a sob.

With a mother's tenderness, Aeryn gathered him in her arms and hushed his tears.

“Is she here, Aeryn?” He didn't even know if she could understand his choked words. “Oh Aeryn! Please. Is she here?”

“Is who here, Eamon?”

“Alessia Turnholt.”

His heart precipiced on her answer.

“Yes, Eamon.”

He tried to rise from the bed, but the strength of grief in his limbs did not allow him the desire of his heart. Aeryn laid him back again.

“I must seek her –”

“Not now, Eamon.”

“I must!”

“You are not strong enough,” Aeryn told him. “There will be time yet.”

Time! Already he had left it long, too long.

“Here; I've brought you something to eat.” Aeryn laid a tray of bread and fruit on his lap. “There's drink, too. It will help you to feel stronger. When you are stronger, you may think of Lady Turnholt.”

Eamon breathed deeply and relented. He nodded.

He ate and drank slowly. When at last he had finished and set the tray aside, Aeryn cocked her head at him.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he answered truthfully.

“Would you like to try?”

Eamon watched her for a moment, shaking. What if he couldn't? But he raised his head.

“Yes, I'd like to try.”

Aeryn smiled at him. “Good man.”

An odd laugh bubbled up to his lips. “It seems that I am destined to bear that jest – and its tireless haunting – to the grave with me.”

Aeryn looked at him. “It was no joke,” she answered, fixing him with a sincere gaze. “And neither are you.”

Eamon watched her for a moment, then sat up slowly. The lightness of his movement surprised him, as did its silence, for as he sat upright there was no chink of metal and no sliding of lame over lame. He flexed his fingers and they moved – and felt – all that was about them.

Aeryn stepped back and waited as he set his feet to the ground and stood. The light from the window flooded his face and poured over his hands and arms like an armour of living gold. For a moment he simply stood in it.

It was then that he heard steps in the antechamber. As he turned to them he heard a squeal of delight from the doorway.

“Mr Goodman!”

Eamon smiled. How long it had been since he had been addressed that way!

“I seem to be him,” he answered.

Ma Mendel rushed forward towards him and, as she had done so long before at Hughan's camp, flung her arms about his neck. In the midst of her great laughter, she kissed his cheek.

“I'm so glad to see you awake!” she said. “Even with the King's grace, you didn't look at all well when they brought you.”

“I expect I wasn't,” Eamon answered quietly, and paused. He did not know what had happened to him.

Ma Mendel laughed. “The King will be glad to see you today!”

Eamon looked uncertainly across at Aeryn and was struck by a wave of shame.

“Today?” he whispered. Hughan had defeated both Edelred and Arlaith – what had his oft-trumpeted First Knight done? It seemed to Eamon that he had done woefully little. “I cannot…”

“Eamon,” Aeryn said. As she spoke, Eamon's shame withered and his doubts fled. “If you had seen him, his thought turned towards this city and towards you while the lines of battle were yet being planned; if you had heard him, and how he spoke of you, after you came with Edelred's terms; if you had seen how he bore you back from where you fell, or how he – and many others – sat by you in that chair as often as they could spare… If you knew these things, then you would know that he is not ashamed of you.”

Eamon tried to match her gaze. Aeryn laughed. “You are his First Knight and he loves you,” she told him. “How can you say that you cannot go before him?”

“Perhaps, my lady,” Ma Mendel put in gently, “he meant not dressed as he is.”

“I'll confess readily enough that that was my very next concern,” Eamon answered, offering Ma Mendel a grateful smile. He greatly valued her words, and she knew it.

Aeryn raised a wry eyebrow at him. “You're utterly incurable, Eamon.”

Eamon spread his arms and gestured to himself. “The evidence speaks otherwise.”

“Come with me,” she returned, holding out her hand.

Eamon took it and rose. His limbs were weak with disuse, and even getting to his feet seemed to rob him of breath. His head first felt dull and then throbbed. But, gripping Aeryn's hands, he began to walk.

He was unsteady at first, but gained confidence. Each step seemed a marathon, and he wondered whether he might ever run or ride again. Aeryn helped him across the chamber to a small dressing room. Inside was a long couch. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that clothes patiently awaited him there. Resting on the couch to touch them, tears stirred in his eyes – the cloak was blue, and a small sword and star were stitched upon it.

For a moment he simply held the garments and trembled with quiet joy.

“These are for me?” he whispered.

Aeryn nodded. “Yes.”

Eamon laid his fingers against the sword and star on the cloak. Its design was very like the one that he had brazenly borne on his shirt to Edelred's ball, and yet it was unlike. This emblem was clear and pure, untrammelled and marvellous. It could not be hidden – nor did it need to be.

“He would not have cared if you had done so wearing the night-shift,” Aeryn said with a smile, “but do you think that you could see Hughan in those?”

In silence, Eamon nodded. He thought he could.

As he gazed at the clothes, Aeryn left the room. Eamon scarcely noticed her go, so caught up was he in the things on his hands. They seemed finer than precious gems to him, and more dearly won than battles.

Ma Mendel helped him to dress; the clothes were smooth and gentle on his skin, so unlike the heavy feel of his Hand's cloak, or the robes that he had borne at Edelred's whim. At last she drew the cloak, as lithe and cool as a summer sea, gently over his shoulders,
letting it fall about him. As he moved in the sunshine, it seemed to him almost as though he wore raiment woven from light.