Stone of Tears (90 page)

“You can’t go on killing magic men, or anyone else! It must stop!”

“The killing cannot end, because of what you have done. It can only end when the spirits dance with us.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we must kill you or what has been spoken will be brought to pass—the Dark Spirit will escape his prison.”

Richard pointed with the spear. “Du Chaillu, I don’t want to kill any of you, but I will defend myself. Please stop now, before anyone else is hurt. Don’t make me kill any of you. Please.”

“Had you tried to run, we would have put spears in your back, but since you choose to stand, you have earned the right to face us. You will die anyway, as have all before whom we have caught. If you do not fight us, it will be made quick, and you will not suffer. You have my word.”

She turned her hand in the air and the chanting started again. The outer ring of men drew their swords—long, black handled weapons, each with a ring at the pommel holding a cord that looped around the swordsman’s neck to keep the sword from being lost in battle. Each blade was curved, widening toward the clipped point.

The men spun the swords, passing them from right hand to left, and back again. The blades never stopped spinning. The two rings began moving in opposite directions again. The inner circle of men began twirling the spears like staffs.

Richard had known guides who carried staffs. No one ever bothered a guide with a staff. These people were better than any guide he had ever seen. The shafts of wood were a blur in the moonlight, the steel points a circle of dull reflection.

Richard broke the spear shaft over his knee and drew his sword. The sound of steel rung above the sound of the whistling spears and blades.

“Don’t do this, Du Chaillu! Stop it now, before anyone else is hurt!”

“Do not fight us, witch man, and we will grant you a quick death. I owe you at least that.”

Richard’s chest heaved; he flexed the muscles in his jaw. The chanting increased in speed, and the circles of men moved faster.

Richard glared at Du Chaillu as she stood on the rock. “I disavow responsibility for what is to happen, Du Chaillu. It is you who presses this. What happens is your responsibility. You bring it!”

She spoke softly, her voice filled with regret. “We are many. You are but one. I am sorry, Richard.”

“Only a fool would have confidence in those odds, Du Chaillu. They are not what they seem. You cannot all come at me at once. You can only attack one, or two, or at most three at a time. The odds are not what they seem to your eyes.” Richard wondered dimly where his own words had come from.

He could see her nod in the moonlight. “You understand the dance of death, witch man.”

“I am not a witch man, Du Chaillu! I am Richard, the Seeker of Truth. I am not going with this Sister to learn to be a witch man by choice. I am a prisoner. You know that. But I will defend myself.”

Du Chaillu watched him in the moonlight. “The spirits know I am sorry for you, Seeker Richard, but you must die.”

“Don’t be sorry for me, Du Chaillu. Be sorry for those of you who are going to die this night, for no good reason.”

“You have not seen the Baka Ban Mana fight. We will not be touched. Only you will taste steel. Dismiss your concern; we are safe. You will have no killing to regret.”

Richard loosed the sword’s magic, the rage.

The two circles moved and chanted faster, spun their weapons faster. The storm of the sword’s anger thundered through the Seeker. Even in the grip of the rage, the wanton need to kill, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. They were too many. And he had never seen anyone handle weapons the way these people did.

Heedlessly, he pulled more of the magic to him. Pulled until the mercilessness of the hate pounded in his head and nearly made him sick. He drew it into the depths of his soul.

Richard stood still in the center of the moving circles. He touched the gleaming blade to his forehead. The steel was cold against his hot skin, against his sweat.

“Blade, be true this day.”

He called the magic onward. Before he even realized what he was doing, he pulled off his shirt and threw it aside, to be free of any hindrance to his movement. Why would he think to do that? It seemed the right thing to do, but he had no idea where the thought came from. He drew the blade up straight before him. His muscles flexed and tightened, glistening with sweat.

He found the center of himself, that place of quiet, of focus. He sought his Han within the white-hot center of his rage.

Use what you have
, a voice within him said.
Use what is there. Let it loose.

In the quiet of his mind, Richard remembered the time he had stood on Zedd’s wizard’s rock, to use its magic to hide the cloud that Darken Rahl had sent to track him. The rock had been used by many wizards before Zedd. As Richard had stood on it, calling the magic onward, letting it flow through him, he had felt the essence of those who had come before. He remembered the way it had felt to feel the things they had felt, to know the things they had known. It had given him insight into those who had once used the magic.

Suddenly, he knew what the prophecy meant.

He wondered how it was possible to have used the sword before without seeing it, without seeing what the magic held. Just like the wizard’s rock.

Others had used the Sword of Truth’s magic, and in the bargain, the magic retained a memory of their talents at fighting, of every move in which it had ever been used. The talent of untold hundreds who had wielded this blade, men and women alike, was there for the taking. The skill of both the good and the wicked was bound into the magic.

In his stillness, he saw the first come from the left.

Be a feather, not a rock. Float on the wind of the storm.

Richard unleashed the magic and spun with the attack, letting it sweep past him. He didn’t strike, but let himself float with the press of the charge. He let the sword’s magic guide him. The attacker tumbled to the ground when he didn’t make the expected contact.

Instantly, another came, twirling his spear. Richard spun around again, and as the attacker passed, he used the sword to splinter the shaft in two. A spear point thrusted toward him. Without stopping he glided past it and brought the sword up, cutting the shaft in half. Another charge came from behind. He met it with a foot to the chest, throwing the man back.

Richard gave himself over to the magic from the sword, and to the peace within himself. Things he didn’t even understand, he was doing without thought.

He controlled the rage to keep from killing. He used the flat of the blade to strike the back of a head here, used his feet to trip an advance there. The faster they came, the faster he reacted, the magic feeding off their energy. Fluidly, he slipped among the attackers, splintering spears when he could, trying to disarm the Baka Ban Mana without killing them.

“Du Chaillu! Stop this before I have to hurt them!”

Yelling at her was a mistake. It distracted him. It allowed a spear through his flowing defense. He had a choice as the rage instantly exploded at the threat. He could kill the attacker, or do only what was necessary to stop him.

His sword spun, its tip whistling through the air, and lopped off the hand that thrust the spear. Blood and fragments of bone filled the air. The scream was a woman’s.

Some of the Baka Ban Mana were women, he realized. It didn’t matter. They would kill him if he didn’t defend himself. Losing a hand was better than losing your head. First blood brought the rage, the need to kill, boiling up within him, hot and thirsty for more.

He fought the attackers and fought the things within himself that wanted to press the attack to those around him. He didn’t want to press the attack. He only wanted them to stop. But if they didn’t stop …

When he broke their spears, they picked up another and threw themselves at him again. He slipped among them like a phantom, conserving his energy as he let them wear themselves out.

The outer ring, who had continued to circle while the inner one had attacked, stopped, and then, swords awhirl, began advancing. Those with the spears—the ones who were still standing—stepped back through the outer ring as it came forward.

Swords spun in the air. Instead of waiting for them to come to him, Richard went to them. They flinched in surprise as the Sword of Truth shattered two of the flashing blades.

“Du Chaillu! Please! I don’t want to kill any of you!”

The ones with the swords were faster that the ones with the spears. Too fast. Talking, and trying to disarm with out killing, was a dangerous distraction. Richard felt a hot pain flash through the flesh over his ribs. He hadn’t even seen the blade coming, but he had moved by instinct and received a shallow slash instead of a killing cut.

His own blood being drawn summoned the sword’s magic to his defense—the rage, the skill of those who had held it before him. Their essence seared through him, and he couldn’t hold it back. There was no choice anymore. It overwhelmed his restraint. He had given them every chance. He was beyond retrieval, now.

Bringer of death.

The swordsmen rushed in a deadly wave.

He loosed the magic with a vengeance. The stalling was over. The barriers down, he danced with death, now.

The night erupted in a warm mist of blood. He heard himself screaming and he felt himself moving; he saw men and women falling, as disembodied heads tumbled across the ground. The lust for it raged through him.

No blade touched him again. He countered every strike as if he had seen it a thousand times before, as if he had always known what to do. Every attack brought a sure and swift death to the attacker. Bone fragments and blood exploded through the night air. Gore sluiced across the ground. The horror of it all melted together into one long killing image.

Bringer of death.

He only realized he had his knife in his left hand, and his sword in his right when two came from opposite sides at once. He hooked his arm around the neck of the one on the left and slit his throat while at the same time running the one on the right through with the sword. Both collapsed to the ground as Richard stood panting.

Quiet echoed around him. There was no movement, except for one on her knees, holding herself up with one hand. Her other hand was missing. She rose to her feet pulling a knife from her belt.

Through his glower, Richard watched the determination in her eyes. She ran for him with a scream. Richard stood deathlike in a cold cocoon of magic. The rage pounded as he watched her come. She raised the knife.

Richard’s sword whipped up and impaled her through the heart. The dead weight of her pulled the sword down as she slid off it to the ground, her last breath gurgling out as her fingers grasped the blade, sliding down its wet red length as she slipped into the hands of death.

Bringer of death.

Richard lifted his smoldering glare to the woman standing on the rock. Du Chaillu stepped down, unwrapped her head, letting the long cloth hang down, and went to one knee in a bow.

Richard, his rage burning hotly, strode to her. He lifted Du Chaillu’s chin with the sword’s point.

Her dark eyes stared up into his. “The
Caharin
has come.”

“Who is the
Caharin
?”

Du Chaillu looked unflinchingly into his eyes. “The one who dances with the spirits.”

“Dances with the spirits,” Richard repeated in a flat tone. He understood. He had danced with the spirits of those who held the sword before him. He had called the dead forth, danced with their spirits. He almost laughed.

“I will never forgive you, Du Chaillu, for making me kill those people. I saved your life because I abhor killing, and you have brought the blood of thirty to my hands.”

“I am sorry,
Caharin
, that you must bear this burden. But only through the blood of thirty Baka Ban Mana, could the killing stop. Only in this way can we serve the spirits.”

“How is killing serving the spirits!”

“When the magic men stole our land, they banished us to this place. They placed upon us the duty of teaching the
Caharin
to dance with the spirits. Only the
Caharin
can stop the Dark Spirit from taking the world of the living. The
Caharin
is given to the world as a new born babe, who must be taught. Part of this duty is placed upon us—to teach him to dance with the spirits. You have learned something this night, have you not?”

Richard gave a grim nod.

“I am the keeper of the laws of our people. It was our calling to teach you this. If we were to ignore what the old words tell us we must do, then the
Caharin
would not learn what is within himself, and he would be defenseless against the forces of death. In the end, death would have everyone.

“The Majendie sacrifice us, to remind us always of our duty to the spirits, and to remind us to practice with the blades. The witch women to the other side aid the Majendie, so that we will be surrounded, with no way of escape, and nowhere to go, so that we will always be under threat, and unable to ever forget our duty.

“It is proclaimed that the
Caharin
will announce his arrival by dancing with the spirits, and spilling the blood of thirty Baka Ban Mana, a feat none but the chosen one could accomplish except with the aid of the spirits. It is said that when this happens, then we are his to rule. We are no longer a free people, but bound to his wishes. To your wishes,
Caharin
.

“The old words say that if every year the one who wears the prayer dress goes to our land, to give our prayers to the spirits, then one year, they will send the
Caharin
, and if we carry out our duty, then he will return our land to us.”

Richard stood, as if in a dream, glaring down at the woman. “You have taken something precious from me this night, Du Chaillu.”

She came to her feet, straightening before him. “Do not speak to me of sacrifice,
Caharin
. My five husbands, who I loved, who my children loved, who have not seen me since I was captured, were among the thirty you have just killed.”