something he never expected to see.
The boy’s right arm held the mark of Shaddai’s Deliverer. There could be no mistaking it. Mordecai had seen the same image within the secret Temple of Shaddai, while training there as a priest of The Order. A lump rose in his throat.
The implications settled on his mind, while a smile settled upon his lips. The Deliverer, thought killed many years before, was here-alive! Mordecai needed only to deliver the fool to Mordred and his fondest dreams of power and prestige could come true-he could name his price.
“Find some rope,” Mordecai told the others as he stood up.
They turned to him. Both had puzzled looks on their faces.
“We’ve just struck gold, boys,” Mordecai said.
The two men looked down at the unconscious boy, surmising he must mean rope to tie him up. They dispersed into a nearby mercantile. The building had been bashed in by something monstrous.
Mordecai stood in the street, hovering over Ethan, staring in wonder at what the Almighty had chosen to use as a deliverer. This is it-a boy with no fighting skill whatsoever?
Within several minutes, the other two priests emerged from the mercantile with a suitable length of sturdy rope. Mordecai took it and began to wrap it around the boy’s hands and then loop it around his neck. If he attempted to strike out with his bound wrists then at least he would choke himself with the effort.
“Bring the horses,” Mordecai said, “and his.”
One of the priests fetched three horses, which they had stolen in another village, while the other retrieved Whistler. When Mordecai felt satisfied with his knot, they hoisted Ethan onto Whistler’s saddle and secured him to the horse with more rope. He could ride now even while he was still unconscious. Perfect, Mordecai thought. The very end of the long rope he fastened securely to the horn of his saddle. Then the three riders, plus their prisoner, set off on horseback for the city of white walled city of Emmanuel.
The wind carried light debris and dust through the streets in Grandee. Another man strolled through its death filled streets. He led a horse, white with patches of brown. The young man’s face remained passive. He surveyed the town like someone who had seen this all before and had learned to remain detached from the tragedy of it.
He stopped when he found a curious set of prints in the dirt road. The tracks he had been following led to this point. The three sets of shoe prints matched the shoes he was wearing-shoes worn by the temple priests.
He examined the area more closely. A brief scuffle had taken place here. Four feet away, a sword lay on the ground. The men he was tracking had not caused all this carnage. They were opportunists, not butchers. However, they had fought with someone here and disarmed them. There was no body. Perhaps they’ve taken a prisoner.
The other set of prints, too big to be a woman’s, made him curious. Why would they bother to take a man as a prisoner? These priests were not hostage takers. Hostages cost time and energy, especially when you’re on the run from justice. There must have been some reason why they would consider this person valuable, bothering to disarm him without killing him and then to slow themselves down by dragging him along.
The young man found where the trail continued out of town. If his assumption was correct, they were heading for Emmanuel-another curious move for them to make. He climbed onto the saddle of his patchwork horse, goading the animal forward into a quick gallop. He would have to make good time, taking a little known pass to get ahead of them. He hoped their hostage would slow them as much as he expected.
GIDEON
“Get up!” Mordecai shouted. “If you keep trying to run, then I’m just going to have to tie you up even more and throw you across the rear of my own horse. And believe me that would make for a very uncomfortable trip to Emmanuel.”
One of the other priests, Bo staff, picked Ethan up by his upper arms and pushed him bodily back up into Whistler’s saddle. Ethan had tried to goad the horse forward to break the rope binding him, or at least pull it free from Mordecai’s horse. For the second time, it had not worked.
“Why are you taking me to Emmanuel?” Ethan asked.
Mordecai pulled up close to Ethan’s horse with his own. Then he grabbed Ethan’s arm and yanked the sleeve back, placing his index finger right on top of the boy’s birthmark. “This is why I’m taking you to Emmanuel, boy,” he hissed.
Ethan looked at the birthmark, then gave Mordecai a puzzled look. “You’re taking me there because of a birthmark on my arm?”
He saw no deceit in the boy’s eyes. Mordecai stifled a laugh. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Let’s just say, this birthmark makes you the most valuable person in this kingdom. You’re worth a king’s ransom to me, once I turn you over to Mordred. So don’t try any more escape attempts. If I have to shatter your bones to keep you, then I will. It won’t make you any less valuable to me, but I think you might not enjoy the experience very much.” Mordecai grinned fiendishly. He read a new compliance in Ethan’s eyes, nodding, before turning his horse to proceed.
Mordecai only half heard the distant twang from the trees ahead. The slightest flutter of feather fletches stayed the courses of the two thin, wooden shafts cutting through the air. On pure unconscious instinct, born of his training, Mordecai slid sideways in his saddle, hiding behind the side of his horse. “Get down!” he shouted to the others.
Ethan watched the entire incident unfold-his eyes still faster than his reflexes. He saw the two shafts glide through the air. The air vibrated back to the place where the arrows had originated-air currents only his enhanced perception could discern.
The arrows found their marks, sinking with deadly accuracy straight into the breastbones of both priests traveling with Mordecai. It had been an amazing double shot fired from one bowman in tree up ahead of them on the road.
One of the priests slung backward out of his saddle to the ground. The other had been about to speak when the arrow stole his breath and his life. He slumped forward in his saddle with a look of anguish on his face.
The arrows were odd in color-plain brown, wooden shafts with crimson fletches. Only when Ethan saw the second priest slump over on his horse, did he consider the fact that he was sitting there on Whistler as an easy target for the next shot. He had no way of knowing whether this was a rescue, or some bandit intending to kill them all, to rob them of their valuables.
Mordecai hugged against his horse’s flank like a conjoined mutation. He wasn’t risking his neck for the boy. He peeked over his saddle and saw the man who had done this. The young man wore the same type of garment Mordecai and his fellow priests were wearing. Only the colors were different, a brown knee-length robe and breeches tied at the waist with a scarlet sash. The stranger was not shaven like Mordecai and his fellows. He had short black hair neatly trimmed and no facial hair. Gideon.
“What’s going on, who is that?” Ethan asked.
“Vengeance,” Mordecai whispered.
He reached for his sword, still attached to his saddle. Mordecai placed the scabbard strap over his shoulder so the blade rested on his back. Then he picked up the fallen priest’s Bo staff and began to walk toward their attacker.
When the two men met in the grassy meadow, twenty yards from where Ethan remained on the road, they stopped. Gideon tossed his bow to the ground. He carried no quiver of arrows.
“So they’ve sent the best for me, Gideon?” Mordecai said.
“Just a priest who hasn’t forgotten his vow to The Order and the Almighty,” Gideon said.
