it. Then I closed the assassin's cold blue eyes. In my own eyes, I felt a sud-den moist pain. My throat hurt as if I had swallowed a lump of cold iron. Somewhere deeper inside, my belly and being heaved with a sickness that wouldn't go away. There, I knew, the cold would always wait to freeze my breath and steal my soul. I vowed then that no matter the cause or need, I would never, never kill any-one again.
In the air above me – above. the assassin's still form – the Lightstone poured out a golden radiance that filled the forest. It was the light of love, the light of life, the light of truth. In its shimmering presence, I couldn't lie to myself: I knew with a bitter certainty that it was my fate to kill many, many men.
And then, suddenly, the cup was gone.
'What are you staring at?' Asaru asked.
'It's nothing,' I told him. 'Nothing at all.'
Now a fire burned through me like the poison still in my veins. I struggled to remain standing. Asaru came over to my side. His strong arm wrapped itself around my back to help me.
'Can you walk now?' he asked.
I nodded and Asaru smiled in relief. After I had steadied myself, Asaru called Maram over to check his wounded head. He poked his finger into Oram's big gut and told him, 'Your head is as hard as your belly is soft. You'll be all right'
'Ah, yes, indeed, I suppose I will – as soon as you bring back the horses.'
For'a moment, Asaru looked up through the fluttering leaves at the sun. He looked down at the dead assassin. And then he turned to Maram Mi told him, 'No it's getting late, and it wouldn't do to leave either of you alone here. Despite what Val says, there may be others about. We'll walk out together.' 'All right then, Lord Asaru,' Maram said.
Asaru bent down toward the assassin. And then, with a shocking strength, he hoisted the body onto his shoulder and straightened up. He pointed deeper into the woods. 'You'll carry back the deer,' he told Maram.
'Carry back the deer!' Maram protested. Asaru might as well have appointed him to bear the whole world on his shoulders.'It must be two miles back to the horses!'
Asaru, straining under the great mass of the assassin's body, looked down at Maram with a sternness that reminded me of my father. He said, 'You wanted to be a warrior
– why don't you act like one?'
Despite Maram's protests, beneath all his fear and fat, he was as strong as a bull. As there was no gainsaying my brother when he had decided on an action, Maram grudgingly went to fetch the deer.
'You look sick,' Asaru said as he freed a hand to touch my forehead, 'But at least the cold is gone.' No, no, I thought, it will never be gone. 'Does it still hurt?' he asked me.
'Yes,' I said, wincing at the pain in my side. 'It hurts.'
Why, I wondered, had someone tainted an arrow with poison? Why would anyone try to kill me?
I drew in a deep breath as I steeled myself for the walk back through the forest.
When I closed my eyes, I could still see the Lightstone shining like a sun.
With Asaru in the lead, we started walking west toward the place when we had left the horses. Maram puffed and grumbled beneath the deer flopped across his shoulders. At least, I thought we had taken a deer, even as Asaru had said we would.
And so we would have something to contribute to that night's feast with the Ishkans.
Chapter 3
It was late afternoon by the time we broke free from the forest and rejoined Joshu Kadar at the edge of Lord Harsha's fields. The young squire blinked his eyes in amazement at the load slung across my brother's back; he had the good sense, however, not to beleaguer us with questions just then. He kept a grim silence and went to fetch Lord Harsha as my brother bade him.
The horses, however, practiced no such restraint. Joshu had them tied to a couple of saplings beyond the wall surrounding Lord Harsha's field; at the smell of fresh blood they began whinnying and stomping the ground as they pulled at the trees with almost enough force to uproot them. Maram tried to calm them but couldn't. They were already skittish from the bolts of lightning that had shaken the earth only an hour before.
I walked over to Altaru and laid my hand on him. His wet fur was pungent with the scent of anger and fear. As I stroked his trembling neck, I pressed my head against his head and then breathed into his huge nostrils. Gradually, he grew quieter. After a while, he looked at me with his soft brown eyes and then gently nudged my side where the arrow had burned me with its poison.
The gentleness of this great animal always touched me even as much as it astonished me. For Altaru stood eighteen hands high and weighed some two thousand pounds of quivering muscle and unyielding bone. He was the fiercest of stallions. He was one of the last of the black war horses who run wild on the plains of Anjo. For a thousand years, the kings of Anjo had bred his line for beauty no less than battle.
But after the Sarni wars, when Anjo had broken apart into a dozen contending dukedoms, Altaru's sires had escaped into the fields surrounding the shattered castles, and Anjo's great horsebreeding tradition had been lost. From time to time, some brave Anjori would manage to capture one of these magnificent horses only to find him unbreakable. So it had been with Altaru: Duke Gorador had presented him as a gift to my father as if to say, 'You Meshians think you are the greatest knights of all the Valari; well, we'll see if you can ride this horse into battle.'
This my father had tried to do. But nothing in his power had persuaded Altaru to accept a bit in his mouth or a saddle on his back. Five times he had bucked the proud king to the ground before my father gave up and pronounced Altaru incorrigibly wild. As I knew he truly was. For Altaru had never seen a mare whom he didn't tremble to cover or another stallion he wouldn't fight. And he had never known a man whose hand he didn't want to bite or whose face he didn't want to crush with a kick from one of his mighty hooves. Except me. When my father, in a rare display of frustration, had finally ordered Altaru gelded, I had rushed into his stall and thrown myself against his side to keep the handlers away from him.
Everyone supposed that I had fallen mad and would soon be stomped into pulp. But Aitaru had astonished my father and brothers – and myself – by lowering his head to lick my sweating face. He had allowed me to mount him and race him bareback through the forest below Silvassu. And ever since that wild ride through the trees, for five years, we had been the best of friends. 'It's all right,' I reassured him as I stroked his great shoulder, 'every-thing will be all right'
But Altaru, who spoke a language deeper than words, knew that I was lying to him.
Again he nuzzled my side and shuddered as if it was he who had been poisoned.
The fire in his dark eyes told me that he was ready to kill the man who had wounded me, if only we could find him. A short time later, Joshu Kadar returned with Lord Harsha. The old man drove a stout, oak wagon, rough-cut and strong like Lord Harsha himself. A few hours had worked a transformation on him. Gone were the muddy workboots and homespun woolens that he wore tending his fields. Now he sported a fine new tunic and I couldn't help noticing the sword fastened to his sleek, black belt. After he had stopped the wagon on the other side of the stone wall, he stepped down and smoothed back his freshly washed hair. He gazed for a long moment at the dead deer and the assassin's body spread out on the earth. Then he said, 'The king has asked me to contribute the beverage for tonight's feast. Now it seems we'll be carrying more than beer in my wagon.'
While Asaru stepped over to him and began telling of what had happened in the woods, Maram peeled back the wagon's covering tarp to reveal a dozen barrels of beer. His eyes went wide with the greed of thirst, and he eyed the contents of the wagon as if he had discovered a cave full of treasure. With his fat knuckles, he rapped the barrels one by one. 'Oh, my beauties – have I ever seen such a beautiful beautiful sight?'
I was sure that he would have begged Lord Harsha for a bowl of beer right there if not for the grim look on Lord Harsha's face as he stared at the dead assassin.
Maram stared at him, too. Then, to everyone's surprise, Maram called for Joshu to help him lift the assassin's body into the wagon. The sweating and puffing Maram moved quickly as with new strength, and then loaded in the deer by himself. Only his anticipation of later helping to drain these barrels, I thought, could have caused him to take such initiative.
