accepted some bread and cheese willingly. He had indeed been close to collapse, and the food and drink were a welcome tonic to his battered body. In between greedy mouthfuls, he pointed out the ridge where he'd left Hugh, and the stocky man left.
As Martin emptied his plate, a sudden sense of unease grew inside him. As though emerging from a fog, he padded to the window and peered cautiously from it. A little way down the muddied street, the doctor was talking to two men, his hands gesturing back toward the house. Martin pulled away from the window. When he looked again, the doctor was gone, but the two men were now coming toward him.
He felt his muscles tighten. There could be, he knew, any number of reasons for this, but he feared the worst. And then he risked another look and saw one of them pulling out a large dagger.
Moving quickly across the house in search of a weapon, he heard some whispering from outside the back door. He slid silently across the floor and pressed his ear to the door and listened. He saw the iron fastener on the door lift and hugged the wall as the door slowly creaked open.
As the first of the men edged cautiously in, Martin reached out and grabbed the man, knocking the dagger out of his hand and sending him crashing heavily into the stone wall. He kicked the door back squarely onto the second intruder, slamming him against the wooden jamb. Retrieving the dagger with lightning speed, Martin leaped at the dazed man, grabbing him around the neck and driving the blade into his side.
He pulled the dagger free and let the man's body slump to the ground, then turned quickly to where the first man was pulling himself up from the floor. Striding across the room, Martin kicked him down before raising the dagger and burying it into the man's back.
Quickly, Martin snatched whatever food he could find and piled it into a pouch, reckoning this might be of greatest help to Hugh. Slipping out through the back door, he circled the town stealthily until he found the path that led up the mountain.
It didn't take long for them to come after him. Four, possibly five men, judging by the angry voices echoing up through the bleak woodland.
Snowflakes were drifting down from the overcast sky as Martin reached the rock face where he had rested earlier. His eyes settled on the evocative cracks, and he stopped, flashing back to the instructions he had given to his brothers-in-arms all those months ago. At no time must the safety of Aimard's letter be jeopardized. His mind racing, he studied the fissures forming the splayed cross.
He knew he could never forget this place.
Using the dagger, he scraped at the base of the rock, freeing some stones the size of a man's fist, then thrust the pouched letter far into the hole he had made before replacing the stones and hammering them home with his booted heel. Then he continued his climb, making no attempt to conceal his passage.
Before long, the shouts of the men behind him were fading beneath the dull thunderous drumming of the waterfall. But when he reached the campsite, there was no sign of Hugh. Looking back, he saw his pursuers, now in plain sight. Five men in all. At the back of the pack was the doctor who had betrayed him.
Grabbing his broadsword, Martin resumed his climb toward the rim of the hill over which the force of water plunged. This, he decided, was where he would make his stand.
The first of the men, younger and stronger than the others, was some distance ahead of them, and he leaped forward with only a long-tined pitchfork in his grasp. Martin leaned back, then swung his broadsword, slicing through the pitchfork's handle as if it were a piece of kindling. The man fell forward, still moving fast through his own momentum. Martin stooped, thrust his shoulder into the man's gut, lifted him, and threw him over and down into the chasm beneath the falls.
The man's scream was still echoing in Martin's ears when two of the others reached him. Although they were older and warier, they were better armed. The first one carried a short sword with which he flailed the air in front of Martin. For a trained knight like Martin, it was almost like dealing with a child. A simple parry followed by an upward flick and the man's sword was also disappearing down the waterfall. With the return swing, Martin slashed through the man's shoulder, almost severing the arm. Then he stepped aside to avoid the third man's rush, reaching out a foot to trip him. The man fell to his knees, and Martin slammed down the handle of his sword, clubbing his head to the ground. Then he reversed the sword, and with an executioner's swing, split the man's spine high on his neck.
Looking downward, he saw the doctor, who was stumbling back the way he had come, and then he suddenly felt an agonizing pain in his back. He turned to see that the man he had disarmed was back on his feet, gripping the younger man's pitchfork with one hand. Blood was dripping from its tines.
Martin stumbled forward, the burning pain in his back forcing an involuntary gasp from his lips.
Summoning what strength he had left, he swung at the man with a forward slash of his sword, ripping out his throat.
For a moment Martin stood motionless, a thickening shroud of fatigue settling over him, then above the thunder of the torrent he heard a sound and spun around, gasping in pain as he did so. The last of his pursuers was rushing toward him, an old and rusting sword grasped in his hand. Martin was too slow to react, but before the man reached him, Hugh came staggering out of the undergrowth.
The man spotted him and turned away from Martin, gripping his sword with both hands and driving it straight through the old sailor's torso.
Blood seeped out of Hugh's mouth, but somehow, he not only managed to remain upright, he staggered forward, pushing the sword further into his chest as he clasped his hands tightly around his stunned attacker. Slowly and agonizingly, Hugh kept going, pushing the man backward, step by step, never easing up on his iron grip despite the man's attempts to free himself, until they reached the lip of the ravine overlooking the waterfall. The man saw what was about to happen and screamed, still struggling in Hugh's grasp.
Momentarily heedless of his own fate, Martin looked up to where Hugh stood poised on the brink of the waterfall, the other man helpless in his grim embrace. His eyes met Hugh's, and he saw something like a smile tugging at the old sailor's lips, and, with a final, brotherly nod, the master of the lost Falcon Temple stepped over the edge, taking the struggling man and himself into eternity.
A sudden, violent blow struck the back of Martin's head, and he felt a nausea rising in his throat.
Twisting around in pain and barely conscious, he saw the hazy figure of the doctor standing over him, a rock in his hands.
'A man as strong as you will fetch a very good price indeed at the quarry, and thanks to you, I won't have to share it with the others,' the doctor sneered. 'And you might want to know that some of the men you killed today are kin to the overseers at the quarry.'
The doctor raised the rock high, and Martin knew that there was nothing he could do to avert the
coming blow, to prevent his capture and ensuing enslavement, to recover the letter and resume his journey to Paris. Lying there in the fresh snow, images of Aimard of Villiers and William of Beaujeu swam into his mind before the rock came down and their faces faded to black.
Chapter 80
A hammering boom of thunder rolled over Tess, jolting her out of her sleep. She stirred, drifting in and out of consciousness, unsure of where she was. She could feel the rain pelting the back of her head. Every inch of her body ached, and she felt like she'd been trampled by an elephant. As her senses slowly awakened, she could hear the wind whistling past her and the waves crashing around her, and it unnerved her. The last thing she remembered was a wall of water that was about to bury her. She was gripped by a sudden surge of dread as she wondered if she was still at sea, lost in the storm, getting battered by waves, and yet . . . something felt wrong. It all felt different to her. And then she realized why that was.
She wasn't moving anymore. She was on land.
The dread gave way to relief, and she tried opening her eyes, but they stung fiercely and she quickly decided to take it slowly. The images around her were blurry and faint. She panicked for the briefest moment before realizing that something was blocking her view. Reaching up with a trembling finger, she brushed away the wet mat of hair that covered her face, and she gently felt her eyelids.
They were all puffed up, as were her lips. She tried to swallow but couldn't. She felt like she had a ball of thorns stuck in her throat. She needed water, the unsalted kind.
Slowly, the hazy images drifted into focus. The sky still looked dull and gray, but she felt the sun coming up
