choose the knife. The knife chooses you. Pick them up, feel them, the heft, the affinity, the sense of belonging. You’ll know when it’s right. Here. Let me help you.”
He chose a knife and held it for Dumarest’s inspection. A nine inch blade, the sharp edge curved to a point, the curve reversed on the back so as to provide a double edge for a third of the length. The hilt carried a strong guard, the surface knurled to supply a firm grip, the pommel small, barely raised, smoothly rounded.
“Like it? Now try it.” He led the way to the barrier outside. “Melinda!”
She stepped forward, a long stave in her hand. It carried a large disc which she placed against the wood.
“Right, Earl. Now hit it!”
Dumarest poised the knife, grasping it by the point, doing his best to judge pace and distance. To hit correctly it must make a half turn. To lift, aim, guess and throw was something needing to be automatic.
“Good.” Wendon moved to where the knife had hit within the edge of the disc pinning it firm. Jerking free the blade he said, “This seems right for you, but I’ve others. Let’s go and check them out.”
Dumarest settled for a blade with minor differences, listening to Wendon’s advice as to balance and shape. Good advice and he paid for it and the knife together with an extra copy of the lauded volume.
The time had passed faster than he had guessed and the tuition had swelled more that he had anticipated. Sardia would be expecting him and it would be an affront to keep her waiting.
Reaching the front door of her building he thumbed the correct code into the electronic lock, waited until his identity was verified and moved through the opened portal. An elevator lifted him to the floor holding her apartment and he hurried to her door, hand lifted to code in the entry signal. It dropped as he realised the door was open.
The panel was closed but not locked, a thin line of different hue rested between the door and the lintel, a thing which could not have happened had the lock been engaged. Sardia could have arranged it for reasons of her own, but he doubted it. She was too shrewd, too clever to take stupid risks. The door was a warning, one he couldn’t ignore.
The books were in a pocket, the knife wrapped in paper in his hand. The blade gleamed as he slipped it from its sheath, holding it as if he were in the arena ready for combat. The only difference being that his present foe was unknown.
An omission soon rectified.
He was standing behind the door, his body turned away from the panel as he concentrated on the sounds coming from the bedroom. Ugly sounds, nasty, born of fear and pain. Pleasure to a scum of the arena standing with a knife in his hand, a smirk on his face. He lost both as Dumarest burst into the apartment, his new blade lifting to slice the hand from the wrist, slashing to open the throat beneath the grinning mouth.
As he fell Dumarest moved on. Into the next room where a second man, warned, stood in a fighter’s stance. He raised his blade to strike, dying as Dumarest ducked beneath his arm to send his own weapon deep into the exposed armpit. To twist the blade. To sever arteries and tissue as he dragged it free. Before he hit the floor Dumarest was in the bedroom facing their opponent. One who reared upright from the edge of the bed, a smoking iron in his hand, and terror in his eyes as steel flashed towards them.
“No! No! Please! No!”
Dumarest glanced at the bed. Sardia lay there and one look was enough. Her tormentor shrieked as the knife closed the gap between throat and edge. As he fell the woman stirred on the bed.
“Earl? Earl is that you?”
“Sardia.” He touched her, held her, the knife still in his hand. “You are safe now,” he soothed. They are all gone. They can’t hurt you now.
“They have hurt me enough.” Her voice was a whisper, the grip of her hand merely a gesture. But one with meaning. “Listen, Earl, you’ve got to look after yourself. I have money. It’s yours if you can find it. I’ve some gems, in a box, you know where to look. Take them, take everything of value you can find. Get to the field. A ship is due, the
She had been burned, blinded, seared into a thing of horror. Money could restore her. Buying regrowths, new organs bred from her stem cells, the use of an amniotic tank in which to grow new and healthy tissue. But it would take time and exposure and would be far from cheap.
But he had no money, no friends or contacts, no drugs to ease her agony. Only a knife, newly bought as a gift, now a bitter reminder of what he had allowed to happen. If he hadn’t wasted time in the market. If he had returned to the apartment straight after the bout. If he had been present when the thugs had arrived to torment and destroy for the sake of what they could steal.
If.
The word had a sour taste.
Yet if he couldn’t save her he could join her. In death, if what some said was true, they would be reunited for eternity.
The blade moved in his hand, the point aiming at his throat, his muscles tensing for the effort to drive it deep.
“No!” The work was a command. “No, Earl, don’t!”
Jarl Raven, stood in the doorway of the bedroom, a gun in his hand.
“Lower the knife, Earl. Do it!”
Dumarest said, “If I don’t you’ll use that gun? Then use it. Do me a favor.”
“You want to die?”
“I want Sardia to live. To get over this mess. Look at her. She’s in agony and there’s nothing I can do to help. I haven’t even the guts to pass her out.” The knife fell from his hands and he stared at his quivering fingers, fighting to be calm. “I didn’t do this to her. You must know that. I killed the scum who did but there has to be more. Someone passed them into the building. Someone told them the door code combination. I want to get that filth no matter who they are and what it costs.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
“Just take care of Sardia.”
“I’ll do that as soon as you’ve left.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure she is safe.”
“I told you. I’ll take care of that.” Raven was impatient. “Don’t waste time, Earl. I’ll phone for an ambulance and they will take her to where she can get all the help she needs.” He stepped towards the bed. “Now get out of my way and let me do what needs to be done.”
Dumarest looked at his face, the gun in his hand and knew better than to argue. To Raven he was nothing. To him Sardia was the world. The woman he obviously loved and now was apparently going to kill.
“Steady, girl,” he said. “This is Jarl. You know I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Jarl? Her whisper was a prayer of thanksgiving.
“That’s right.” He rested a hand on her throat, fingers hard against the flesh beneath her ears. “Just a little pressure on the carotid arteries to cut the flow of blood to your brain and the pain will be over. You’ll sleep like a log and when you wake all will be better than before. I promise that. Trust me!”
Watching as the woman sighed and relaxed, Dumarest said, “Do you mean that? I need to know.”
“I know what I’m doing. She’ll live. What did she say to you?” Raven nodded as Dumarest told him. “Good advice. You’d best take it.”
“Not until I’ve taken care of those who did this.”
“No!” Raven was curt. “I will take care of that.”
“I can help you!”
“You would do the reverse. I know those concerned. I know how to hurt them.” He thrust the gun into a hidden holster. “Now do as Sardia told you. Take what money you can find and go.” He gestured at the dead man. “Start with him. Search his pockets and take all he’s got. Then take care of the others. Be quick,” he added, “but get cleaned up before you leave.”
Good advice and he followed it. Bathing and changing to remove the blood which had spattered him. Branding him with the mark of a killer. The man who had attacked and almost murdered Sardia. He would stand no chance if
