Ghostwalker (24 page)

“And that is?” A little smile tugged at the corners of Meris’s mouth.

“Rats infest my woods. I want you to remove them.”

Arya and Walker sat together in the grove, bathed in moonlight, their eyes only for one another. The sun had set and moon had risen, but they hardly noticed, holding one another through the night, relaxing in blissful eternity. The grove lay peaceful around them and Selune smiled down from high overhead.

Arya hardly believed it. It had all happened so fast. She felt as though her entire world was to be found in Walker’s arms. All seemed right.

All except…

With a start, Arya remembered what had brought her to Quaervarr and the strict orders that demanded she return to Silverymoon with her news.

Without thinking, she broke free of Walker’s arms and stood. She scanned around for her equipment, and finally found it beneath a tree on the edge of the clearing.

“What are you doing?” Walker asked, rising from where he had sat beside her.

“I have to go,” Arya said. “I’m sorry, but I have to.”

“No, you do not.” Walker stepped to her side.

“I have to report Greyt’s activities,” argued the knight. “My findings, my suspicions… Grand Commander Alathar needs to send more knights to—”

“No more knights!” snapped Walker, so fiercely Arya whirled to look at him. She made to speak, but he collapsed to his knees, awful coughs racking his body. Arya reached out to comfort him, but he flinched away.

Finally, Walker looked up. “No more knights,” he repeated.

“But—” Arya began.

“Fill the town with swords and Greyt will be untouchable. He will twist free of any hold your order puts on him, I promise you that.” Walker’s eyes burned. “Leave Greyt to me.”

Arya noticed he had not said anything about Meris but she dismissed it. “Walker, I cannot allow you to—”

“Leave them to me,” he repeated coldly. His eyes sent a chill down her spine. “Justice will be done.”

“And ‘twill be, when I return from Silverymoon at the head of twenty Knights in Silver, a hundred from the Argent Legion, and half a dozen from the Spellguard,” she argued hotly. Arya felt her natural defiance flaring.

“Greyt and his henchmen will be dead long before you get here,” Walker said.

“Walker, my honor does not allow for vigilante—”

“Damn your honor!” he shouted. “Damn all honor. How many lives has honor destroyed? How many innocents has it slain? It is nothing. It is worse than nothing.”

The color drained from Arya’s face. This man she had shared herself with, this intoxicating, mysterious warrior she had known only a brief time but with whom she felt she had spent a lifetime, was spitting upon the knighthood she loved so deeply and the honor that gave her life purpose. That honor bound her more tightly than chains of steel, but she remembered the soft, tender grasp of Walker’s arms. Which held her heart tighter—honor and its obligations, or love and its freedoms?

These things warred in Arya’s heart in that moment, and the scrape of steel as her blade left its scabbard told them both which had won.

“My duty lies to the south,” said Arya, pointing her sword toward Silverymoon. “Stonar and Lady Alustriel must be warned. I’m sorry. I have to go. But I’ll come back. I promise. Just do not try to stop me.”

Walker’s eyes, burning upon her face, fell. He looked away, focusing on some object unseen a little ways away.

Arya nodded, sheathed her sword, stooped, and slid on the greaves of her armor. She looked back, her eyes firm, but Walker’s gaze remained averted. Seeing that the ghostwalker did not protest, she picked up her breastplate.

Then his voice came, soft and calm. “You do not have to go.”

Arya hesitated as she adjusted the breastplate into place, but only for a moment. She fit it snugly around her breasts and smooth stomach. The armor was perfectly fitted—her father had paid the finest armorers in Everlund for no less.

“Yes, yes I do,” said Arya. She fell to the clasps.

Walker’s deep blue eyes were tangible on her back, and she tried not to feel them.

“I do not want you to go,” he said.

Arya looked sidelong at him. “You have your task, I have mine,” she said with determination and not a little bitterness. “You can come with me if you want, but I cannot stay here. I don’t have that choice. My duty compels me to go.”

Walker had no reply to that. The last breastplate clasp snapped into place. She slid a steel vambrace around her right arm and fastened the clasps.

Walker gazed upon her with an expression that was like sadness as she put her armor on piece by piece. Arya’s hands shook in nervous agitation, though she knew a profound calm. The duality of her feelings struck her as profoundly tragic and beautiful at the same time.

“Walker,” Arya said, looking away. “Tell me something.”

“Perhaps.” The voice was cold.

“Will there ever be peace … for us?”

“Peace,” Walker mused. “When the last one falls, will I find peace?”

Arya would not relent, though. “When this is finished—when I’ve found the missing couriers and you’ve killed enough men—did you mean what you said… about dying? Or…” She bit her lip. “Or can I see you again?”

Silence for a moment. Then she heard Walker’s voice, and it was miraculously unbroken. “You would want that?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

Arya’s heart cracked.

She whirled on Walker, about to continue, but an arrow whizzed past her ear and bloomed from his shoulder.

“No!” she gasped as Walker fell backward from the impact. “Gods, no!”

She threw herself down and snatched her sword from its scabbard. An arrow drove into her side, through the plate, and she screamed at the sudden flame that swept through her. Had she been unarmored, the shot would have been fatal.

“Arya … run …” Walker gasped against the pain. He reached down and grasped his sword. “They come … for me…”

She caught his hand and held it tight. He looked up, and the resolute fire they had known was in her eyes now. She stood and towered over his prostrate form.

“Let them come,” said Arya, her voice cutting like a knife.

Half a dozen dark figures stalked out of the trees, steel glittering in their hands. Arya—sword and shield ready—rose alone to meet them.

29 Tarsakh

Six rangers, two with drawn bows, stepped out of the forest. They wore the uniforms of Quaervarr watchmen but Arya was not fooled. The four in front pulled aside forest green cloaks to reveal drawn weapons. Their eyes shouted that she was hopelessly outnumbered and that she should surrender.

But Arya was one of the legendary Knights in Silver, and she knew nothing of surrender.

As she walked, Arya drew her sword up vertically before her, saluting them, and broke into a run, resembling a mounted knight charging with her lance ready.

So controlled and smooth was her run—despite the arrow standing out of her side—that the sword-wielding rangers hesitated as she came.

The bowmen, however, did not. They fired, one after the other.

Arya caught one arrow with her shield and the other jarred off her shoulder armor with enough force to make her flinch but not enough to slow her charge. She spun the blade back and over and slashed down at the first ranger—a wiry blond she mentally labeled Thin-Man—with an overhead chop, even as she brought her shield up to ward off the second, a cruel-looking veteran she decided to think of as One-Eye for his most dominant facial feature.

Recovering from the strike, Arya feinted at One-Eye and attacked Thin-Man with all of her strength. Both underestimated her speed. Thin-Man crossed sword and dagger to block the blow, but Arya had put all of her weight behind it. The resulting force crushed him down, but his parry held.

“Bane’s boot!” he cursed.

Appropriately, Arya’s boot slammed into his chest below the locked blades, knocking him to the ground. His parry came apart as he fell, and Arya spun, bashing him again with the shield before coming around to face the others, bringing her blade in line to parry a strike.

One-Eye was there, his twin short swords darting in for Arya’s life. She swatted one away, but the other slipped under her guard and struck a glancing blow off her armored shoulder. Arya hissed a quick thanks to Torm that it was not her arrow-stung shoulder.

That reminded her, and she cast her eyes back to the archers. They had arrows nocked but held. Apparently, neither was thrilled at the prospect of firing into a melee.

The other two rangers with blades drawn charged, seeking to get at Arya’s flanks, and the knight backpedaled smartly and bashed One-Eye back with her shield, keeping the rangers in front of her. One—the bulky ranger she had mentally dubbed Tough-Face—wielded a two-handed axe on her left and the other—a quick half-elf with a quicker rapier she called Red-Hair for his scarlet locks—came at her from the right. Ducking and weaving, Arya worked her blade and shield furiously to pick off their blows as she strove against her three opponents.

A few moments after the first blades clashed, the battle was caught in a high-energy holding pattern in which Arya could size up her opponents. Her advantages—greater skill and speed and higher quality weapons and armor—did not outweigh theirs—numerical superiority and an arrow in her side.

Remembering the latter, Arya bit back the pain and fought off the haze that gripped her brain. The rangers did not seem to have received orders to take her alive; indeed, half their slashes could have been fatal had Arya not deflected them. If they got behind her, Arya knew she would be done for. If not, then it did not matter. Soon, she would tire and they would have her, advantages or no.

Then she heard Thin-Man groan behind her. Apparently, her kick and shield bash had not put him out of the battle for good. As soon as he got into the melee, she would be surrounded.

She could not win unless Tymora smiled, and perhaps not even then.

Thus, she decided, it was time to indulge in what Derst called “calculated recklessness” and Bars called “prayer.”

One-Eye stabbed one of his swords at her, but she smashed it left with her shield, causing Tough-Face to start back with a curse as the blade almost struck him. The brief opening she left was enough to tempt Red-Hair into thrusting his rapier in, just as Arya had hoped. She also prayed he would miss. She leaned forward, letting the thin blade shoot under her sword arm. Lady Luck did smile, it seemed, and the blade scraped off steel and went past her back.

Before Red-Hair could pull back his rapier, she gritted her teeth and snapped her arm forward. The steel screamed against her hard metal gauntlet and vambrace, and she felt a biting pain as the blade tore from Red-Hair’s hand and slapped against her body. It fell to the ground and was quickly trampled into the ground.

Suddenly without a weapon, Red-Hair ducked Arya’s wild slash and leaped back from the battle, heading for the south side of the grove. Arya followed, startling her other opponents, who both stopped short. She sidestepped away from them, keeping her shield up to ward off their blows. Even though they took the opportunity to attack, their blades bounced off her shield, leaving only tiny dents. Meanwhile, the Nightingale of Everlund bore down on her only unarmed opponent with fiery eyes.

“Shoot her! Darthan! Gieves! Damn it!” the unarmed Red-Hair screamed in vain as she pressed on him, her blade slashing and weaving.

He need not have been so terrified. Arya’s code of honor would not allow her to strike an unarmed man, and her pursuit was a ruse. Another prayer passed her lips. As Red-Hair stumbled into the brush, she feinted an overhead slash, then threw her full weight back on her shield, reversing her movement.

Her pursuing attackers were caught entirely off guard by her sudden backward rush. One-Eye managed to dodge but Tough-Face was not so lucky. He went down under Arya’s press, tripping over a root. Arya could not finish him, though, for One-Eye pressed her still. The knight dealt Tough-Face a furious kick, knocking his weapon away, and focused on driving One-Eye back toward the center of the grove. Overmatched, the ranger drew back, weaving his swords back and forth to ward her off.

She could have had him any number of times, but if she ran him through the archers would have a clear shot and she could not slap away arrows as easily as blades. She worked her blade to keep One-Eye on the defensive. If Tymora allowed it, she could play this battle her way, keeping her opponents alive, until she had an opportunity to…

An arrow slammed into her thigh, piercing the metal wrapping it. She screamed in sudden agony and followed it up with a curse as the limb went numb. A lucky shot, but that was all it took. Arya fell.

One-Eye, still up, immediately took advantage of the situation and leaped onto the prone Arya, blades raised high. The knight braced herself for the killing blow.

Sure enough, blood splattered her face, and Arya wondered that she did not feel the sword that must be standing in her chest or forehead. Perhaps this was death.

Then she heard a bubbling groan and her eyes snapped open.

A black throwing knife in his remaining eye, the ranger sank to the ground. His short swords tumbled from his limp hands.

Arrows protruding from his shoulder and chest, Walker stood over her, his mithral shatterspike knocking one arrow from the air even as another nicked his shoulder. Red-Hair—a pair of daggers in his hands—Tough-Face, and Thin-Man were rushing toward them, murder in their eyes.

“Strong as steel!” he rasped.

Arya raised her brow, but she understood his extended hand.

“Up!” Walker shouted, just in case she hadn’t. Arya was not about to argue.

Her armor weighed her down and her leg protested, but she managed to stand with his aid. Pressing her back to Walker’s, she lifted her sword and shield and awaited the three rangers stalking in from all sides.

“Turn into a ghost!” commanded Arya. “Flee!”

“Not without you,” Walker said through gritted teeth.

The rangers pulled up short, granting the two a wide berth. Walker’s cloak of grim resolution intimidated them, and they came no closer. Instead, Red-Hair reversed his daggers for throwing, and the others pulled light crossbows from their belts. Thin-Man even produced a slender white wand and pointed it at them—the crystal at the end crackling with electricity. Darthan and Gieves came to join them, pointing their arrows at the two resolute warriors.