Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (72 page)

Three of the soldiers frantically scrambled
over the bones, trying to get to where they could strike the
escaping Becaris with the reach of their swords.

With a last and mighty
heave,
the twin brothers pulled their friend out
of harm’s way, frustrating the infuriated soldiers crawling over
the old bones.

From below
them,
they heard the Sergeant voice commanding his men.
“Quickly, back outside. We’ll stop them before they can flee!”

Hoisting Becaris over his shoulder again,
Rasal followed his brother down to where they had hidden their
mounts. They got the wounded Becaris in his saddle and then quickly
mounted and rode along either side of him to keep him from
falling.

The soldiers howled in fury when they saw
their horses gone, their guards slain, and the escaping knights
riding fifty yards away into the desert.

“That’s just great!” Herms exclaimed,
kicking a small rock in his anger. His
downcast
eye spotted an old dagger lying in the dirt and
he recognized it as the one he had given back to G’Taklar at the
compound.

Reaching down he picked it up, muttering
angrily, “I swear I’ll give this back to the
runt
when I catch him, point first!”

He tucked the dagger containing the hidden
Ardellen cathexis Signet ring into his wide belt.

When the knights were sufficiently far
enough away so that they weren’t worried about pursuit they stopped
to see to Becaris. Lasar bound the wound as best he could.

“It doesn’t look good; the wound could prove
fatal if we move you any further.”

“How long do you think I could last if we
ride?” Becaris asked.

“A day or two, no longer, then your strength
will likely give out.”

“We can reach Myrnvale in a day’s ride,
Elizabeth can heal me,” he whispered.

“If she’s there, but if not, you’ll never
make it. We should
hole
up here,”
Lasar stated, “Rasal can ride for supplies and return in two
days.

“No, the Tchulians may collect some of their
mounts and pursue, we can’t take that chance. Let’s ride,” Becaris
said, getting slowly to his feet.

“He’s right, we’ll just have to pray
Elizabeth is there,” Rasal said to his brother.

“Then she will be,” Lasar said, refusing to
give up hope.

“Hang in there, Becaris,” Rasal said,
staring across the desert in the direction of Myrnvale where he
thought Elizabeth could be found.

Elizabeth stood on top the single wagon of
the Tax Marshal and kicked open the coffer of round metal with her
boot.

The rest of the bandit squad cheered as she
scooped a handful of gold and silver round and trickled them back
into the
coffer
.

“This will be our first message to your
master; the pillage of Autrany will be stopped. Then we will come
for him to take retribution for his crimes against this land!”
Elizabeth proclaimed to the Marshal who stood nearby, tied to a
tree.

The bandits cheered again.

“Come, it’s time we returned to the camp, I
have some questions for Wernok to answer,” she said, with steel in
her voice.

Hetark stepped into the nearly empty common
room of the `Bottoms up’ tavern.

His gaze crossed the room quickly, taking in
the sleeping drunk sitting in the back corner, hand still clasped
around his mug handle and his right cheek mashed against the rough
wood.

The only other person in the room was a
cleaning drudge, busy scrubbing the bar counter. She looked up at
Hetark with the apathetic eyes of those trapped in her dreary
station.

Hetark went swiftly to her side and said,
“Where can I find the owner?”

“He
don’t
get up ‘til noon,” she replied, continuing to scrub.

“This is an emergency,” Hetark stated.

“It’s yer funeral, first door on the left,”
she said, nodding in the direction of a hallway and then added,
“Don’t tell him I sent you.”

“Have no fears, I will take the blame,”
Hetark said, already heading for the hall.

Without pausing to knock Hetark broke open
the door with his shoulder.

The owner cracked his bloodshot eyes open
and shouted, “Wot in Darkness
is
go
’in on?” Then he pulled a dagger out from under his
pillow.

Hetark had continued his momentum as he
entered the room. He reached the awakening owner just as he sat up
with the knife. The knight’s hand flashed out tearing the dagger
from the man’s fingers, and then he grabbed the man by the dirty
nightshirt and sat him up against the wall behind his bed. Hetark
placed the point of the dagger under the man’s chin.

“I’m in a hurry because a girl’s life
depends on me. I’ll ask you once, which room holds the members of
the Riond bandit camp?”

“Who?” the bartender said in an obvious
attempt to lie.

Hetark pushed the dagger upwards slightly,
causing a drop of blood to appear where he punctured the skin.

“I already know they’re here, someone else
talked, now I’m out of patience,” Hetark said in a deadly
whisper.

“Number three, upstairs,” the man said,
swallowing with a dry throat. “They’ll kill you if you go up
there.”

“That’s my problem, yours is simple; if you
give the alarm I’ll kill you. No matter how long it takes, I’ll
hunt you down. Or, you could just go back to sleep and this will
all become a bad dream,” he said, letting loose of the bunched up
nightshirt.

Hetark walked to the door and then spun and
threw the man’s dagger underhanded. It ‘
thunked
’ in the wood next to the terrified man’s left
ear. Hetark said, “Don’t forget what I said.”

The man’s head didn’t move, but his eyes
strained to the left, gawking at the dagger hilt a single finger’s
width from his face.

Hetark stepped into the hall and hurried up
the stairs, he didn’t trust the barkeeper not to give the alarm, he
might be more afraid of the bandits than of Hetark.

The knight reached the door marked, ‘3’. He
took one step back and kicked the door near the lock, breaking it
in with the sound of splintering wood.

Hetark rolled into the
room
while two thrown dagger sailed over his low
form. He came back to his feet in front of a man who was scrambling
to draw his sword. Hetark grabbed him by the jerkin and launched
him through the second story window. There was a brief howl of
fright and a thump from outside.

Spinning, he clouted the next man with his
fist, knocking his head back against the wall with a dull thud and
that bandit sunk back to the bed, out cold.

The third and final bandit
leaped
to his feet and drove forward with his
sword.

Hetark sidestepped the thrust and grabbed
the man’s extended sword arm; accelerating him in the same
direction he was headed.

As the man staggered past, Hetark placed his
foot against the man’s back and shoved him hard against the wall,
near the unconscious bandit on the bed. The man struck the wall
hard enough to daze him and make him drop his sword.

Hetark stepped up and grabbed the man by the
arm and used it to hoist him off the bed onto the floor where the
knight knelt on his back while he tied the man’s hands.

When he had him well trussed up, Hetark
picked him up and stood the bandit on his feet. The knight spoke
for the first time since entering the room in an almost
cheery
voice, “Good morning.”

The man took a breath, ready to cuss out
Hetark and his parentage, but the knight stuffed a piece of cloth
he had just wadded up in his hand into the open mouth of the
bandit.

“You can talk to me later,” he added and
then threw the man over his shoulder and marched out of the
tavern.

He took him to the stable where he kept his
horse. He
trussed
the bandit up
even further and tossed him in the loft. The knight then went to
the hotel where he had left Poison.

Thankfully she had passed out from the pain.
Hetark carried the unconscious girl to the stable and laid her on
the straw. He fished the bound man from the loft and put him on a
saddled horse, tying his feet to the stirrups.

Hetark picked Poison up and mounted his
horse, setting her across the saddle in front of him, while
supporting her with one arm. He placed his loaded crossbow across
the back of his saddle, and then reached across and cut the rope
binding the bandit’s hands.

The man immediately pulled the gag from his
mouth and snarled, “Yer a walk’in
dead
man.”

“Are your bandit friends going to kill me?”
Hetark asked.

“”Yer damn right,
deader’n
a week old corpse,” he said with conviction.

“Fine, let’s get to it. Take me to your
friends and I’ll turn myself over to them,” Hetark promised.

“I’m not
tak’in
ya to our camp!” the bandit exclaimed.

“Why not? You think one man and a wounded
woman are going to escape once we’re there?” Hetark asked.

“
Someth’in’s
not right here,” the bandit said, puzzled by
the knight’s irrefutable logic.

“Be that as it may, you are going to take me
to the bandits or I’ll kill you, so you have nothing to lose and
everything to gain by agreeing to my wishes,” Hetark explained.
“Another thing, I’m a real good shot with this crossbow, so don’t
try and make a run for it. I won’t kill you, but think about riding
with a bolt through your knee,” Hetark explained, painting a
gruesome picture for the bandit.

“It’s yer funeral,” the bandit finally
said.

“People keep telling me that,” Hetark said,
gesturing for the bandit to lead the way.

Once they were outside the city the bandit
headed them along the contours of the Riond Mountains, following
the edge of the Erclesian desert. They traveled through the rest of
the day, seldom speaking.

Hetark learned that the bandit went by the
name of Whistler, which he did often as they traveled.

He whistled as if he lacked a care in the
world, but Hetark caught him watching slyly from the corner of his
eye, just waiting for Hetark to slip in his vigil, so he could make
his escape.

Hetark made sure he didn’t give him the
opportunity.

Occasionally Poison would stir or mutter
some unintelligible words in her fevered dreams.

At one point her eyes opened, but they were
glassy and she muttered something in an urgent tone. Hetark leaned
down and listened carefully, still watching Whistler. Poison’s
voice repeated, “One day, my last day. She will come… in one
day.”

Hetark thought she was delirious, but
something about the way she kept repeating ‘one day’ made him
worry. He spoke up to the bandit, “How long until we reach your
camp?”

“Two days travel,” the bandit replied,
stopping his whistling to answer.

“We will make it in one,” Hetark informed
the bandit.

“Impossible, we’d have to ride all night,
that would be dangerous in the mountains,” the bandit
explained.

“Despite the danger, we will make it in one
day or you will die trying,” Hetark said, giving Whistler a good
reason to hurry.

Toward
evening,
Whistler spotted dust from riders ahead, but he
kept it
to
himself. On this
trail,
it was
possible
that the approaching riders were fellow
members of the bandits. He grinned in anticipation of what he would
do to this pompous man.

A quarter bell later Whistler saw his chance
to turn the tables. Poison was stirring again and Hetark’s
attention was on making her as comfortable as possible. They were
entering a large group of rocks when Whistler suddenly spurred his
mount forward heading for the oncoming men.

Hetark’s head snapped up at the sound and
his hand grabbed the crossbow off his saddle. He could have got a
shot in before the bandit made it around a large rock, but he might
have killed his only guide.

Cursing, Hetark kicked his horse into a
hopeless chase; he could not catch the single rider ahead of him
unless the bandit made a mistake.

Whistler broke out of the rocks and galloped
toward the riders ahead, ready to identify himself to the bandits,
or lie if they were someone else. He rode to the three men and was
disappointed to find he didn’t know any of them.

“Hail rider, who is in
chase
?” the first man called as he approached.
About a hundred lengths back they could see a man in pursuit,
carrying something in his arms.

“A madman, he tied me up and stole my woman,
I’ve just escaped. Help me, please!” Whistler pleaded. Then he rode
away as if in abject fear of the pursuing man.

One man drew his sword and rode forward a
few lengths, the other two stayed behind.

A moment later Hetark and Lasar were close
enough to recognize each other.

“Stop that man!” Hetark commanded, pointing
toward the fleeing bandit.

“It’s Hetark,” Lasar called to his fellow
knights, “come on, Rasal!”

The two twins left Becaris with Hetark and
took off after the fleeing bandit.

Whistler was watching behind to see what
happened and cursed when the strangers didn’t even wait to get an
explanation from his captor. When he saw them start after him he
spurred his horse to try and run.

For a
time,
he widened the gap since his horse was far fresher. He took the
cutoff
trail up toward the valley
that led to the bandit’s camp. Looking back over his shoulder to
see how his pursuit was doing he didn’t see the low limb sticking
out into the path. When he turned back he was too late to miss the
branch. The blow rocked him in his saddle, though his
tied
feet kept him from falling. His horse
stumbled and cantered sideways into some bushes. Before
Whislter
could regain his senses and extract
the animal, the two men chasing him arrived. One grabbed his horse
bridle and the other held him at weapon’s point.