Blades of Valor (17 page)

Another vicious swing.
This one less close, for Thomas had adjusted to the rough terrain and moved with the nimbleness of desperation.

Another attacker joined.

Thomas ducked, then sprinted to a tree. He struggled to free his own sword, but was hampered by his ripped cloak.

Both attackers stayed in pursuit.

Thomas edged around the tree, using it to protect his back as he fought to clear his sword.

Where is Katherine? How many bandits? Is Sir William still alive?
Thomas’s thoughts scrambled as he did.
We must survive! Duck this sword!

Thomas felt the pluck of air as the sword whooshed over his head.

A thud as the sword bit into the olive tree.

The bandit grunted at impact and yanked at his sword to pull it free. Thomas took advantage. While the bandit had both arms extended to grip the sword, Thomas kicked upward with all his strength. His foot buried itself in the softness of the bandit’s stomach and sent him retching.

No time to relax!

Another swoosh as the second bandit swung across. The sword bounced off the tree.

And still, Thomas noted grimly, the clank of sword against swords echoed through the night air.
Sir William lives. Where is Katherine?

Thomas stepped away from another slash and still fought to clear his own sword.

The distraction was a deadly mistake.

Thomas stumbled.

He recovered with a quick half step, but the off-balance movement threw his right foot into the arch of a root that curled above the hard ground. He frantically tried to pull free, and a bolt of tearing pain from his ankle forced him to grunt.

Another frantic pull, despite the pain.

Nothing.

And the curved sword was now raised high. A snarling grin from the bandit as he savored the certain death he was about to inflict upon Thomas.

“Halt!”

Katherine’s voice, clear and strong, carried through the trees.

“Halt! Listen to my words!”

The sword above faltered and did not descend. Farther away, the clank of swords ended.

Thomas flicked his eyes away from the upraised sword and glanced at the bandit’s face. It mirrored surprise.

A woman’s voice. It has shocked them all into curiosity.

As if proving his guess right, the bandits craned their heads in all directions, trying to locate her voice.

“Here, in the tree,” Katherine called. A shifting cloud broke away from the moon, and suddenly her silhouette was easy to see against the light. She stood balanced on a thick branch, far from the ground.

Thomas grinned. Katherine had found safety during the melee.

His grin died at her next words.

“I promise you far greater treasure than the mere coins we carry! I carry a scroll that leads to great wealth,” Katherine called again. Her voice remained easy to hear above the quickening breeze. To confirm her words, she waved the narrow tube of rolled parchment.

With the attention so focused on Katherine, Thomas considered making a move for his sword but decided against it. Katherine had managed to bring a temporary truce. He would trust she had reason to reveal the scroll. Besides, he noted more shadows moving among the trees. There were now at least a dozen bandits, with more joining every minute. Any fight now would most surely be lost.

“We are not fools,” the bandit who had first spoken replied as he edged to the tree. “Why should we believe that the scroll leads to treasure?”

“Because we will remain your prisoners until we will lead you to this treasure,” Katherine said evenly. “Our lives will be payment enough for a lie.”

“Yes, I understand,” the bandit said. He moved again.

“No!” Katherine said sharply.

“No?” The voice faked hurt surprise.

“No, you will not be able to reach me soon enough to get the scroll,” Katherine said. She began to tear the scroll into shreds, an action easy to see in the moonlight. Pieces of the scroll fluttered away with the breeze.

“We carry the knowledge of this treasure in our heads. Now you must let us live.”

Long moments of silence followed.

“This is acceptable,” the bandit said. “You have made a bargain.” He raised his voice. “Men! Hold your swords!”

Thomas let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Yet listen to my words, woman,” the bandit finished with silky menace. “Should you not lead us to the treasure, you shall all discover how it feels to die when your skin is peeled slowly from your bodies.”

Thirty-Three

Y
ou
do
remember all those marks upon the scroll?” Katherine whispered to Thomas. “We
shall
find that treasure?”

“Or die,” Thomas answered with a wry grin. “Last night, I wanted to dance for joy that you had found a way to save our lives. This morning …”

He shrugged and inclined his head toward the busy camp around them. Growing sunlight showed evidence of at least twenty men. The movement brought a wince to his face. Hours earlier, the bandits had savagely bound his hands behind his back with strips of wet leather. Now dry, the leather bit even deeper into his skin.

Katherine interpreted his wince as doubt.

“I had no choice,” she said quietly. “Your knowledge was our only hope.”

“
Is
our only hope,” Thomas corrected her. “And at the very least, you have gained us time.”

Thomas did not add that he wondered how little value there was in gained time. The odds of escaping, together or at all, seemed pitifully small. Katherine was bound, and, though an hour had passed since dawn, this was the first moment she had been able to speak privately with him. Sir William sat well guarded on a flat rock on the opposite side of the makeshift camp. Thomas watched the bandits carefully, gauging their alertness. All of them, lean and wary, moved with fast, certain efficiency as they performed their tasks.
Men who hunt,
Thomas thought.
And who have been hunted.
They would not be easy to deceive.

Their own guard was now returning with a bowl of water. Like most of the others, he had a ragged black beard. A short sword attached to one side of his belt. A scimitar, its heavy blade curved in a most wicked grin, lay against the captor’s other hip.

Water slopped over the edge of the bowl as the guard approached. Thomas gingerly licked his cracked lips as he watched the water soak into the ground.

The guard stopped in front of them. Thomas shook his head at the offered bowl.

“Slake the woman first,” Thomas said.

The guard stared, blinked, then grudgingly smiled. “The woman first,” he repeated. “She is not only protected by Rashim, but also protected by one with his hands bound.”

Katherine leaned forward to drink from the offered bowl. Since her hands were tied behind her back, she had to rely on the guard to tip the bowl as she drank.

Protected by Rashim.
The words echoed through Thomas’s mind. The leader of the bandits had seen Katherine at dawn’s first light and smiled with evil.

“She is not to be harmed in any way,” Rashim had said, his face dark as he stood against the light of the sun. He had stroked his beard and smiled coldly. “Not an angel with this beauty.”

There had been no threat in his words, but Thomas shivered every time he remembered the cruelty in his tone.

And now Rashim paced long, unhurried strides toward them again. He wore the long white cloth of a wanderer accustomed to endless hours in the heat. The top of his head was covered and a black band across his forehead held the veils away from his face. His eyes glittered black above a giant hooked nose. The lines around his mouth were etched deep into a permanent snarl.

“This day has already burned long,” Rashim announced. “I have readied my men for travel. At this moment, finally, I will listen to you bargain for your lives.”

“Last night—” Katherine began to protest.

“Last night only saved you until morning. Convince me first the treasure exists, then we depart. If not …” Rashim shrugged. “The vultures will feast upon your flesh.”

He stared at Thomas, trying to cow him with a harsh, unblinking gaze.

Thomas stared back, forcing his own eyes to hide all thoughts.

“Tell me the story,” Rashim commanded.

Thomas began, in a low and calm voice, to explain. “The story begins sixteen hundred years ago—”

“Impossible!” Rashim exploded.

“Sixteen hundred years ago,” Thomas continued as if he had not been interrupted, “in the land from whence we came. Britain. Then, before the Romans conquered, Druids ruled the land. They knew secrets of science and astronomy and kept that power hidden for themselves.”

Rashim’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

“When the Romans conquered, the Druid leaders in Britain formed a hidden circle within society, a hidden circle with great wealth. Later, a Roman general discovered this Druid circle. The general, Julius Severus, who ruled Britain some hundred years after the death of Christ, did not expose what he knew of the Druids and their accumulated gold. Instead, Severus plundered the Druids and their fortune for himself.”

Thomas did not add the rest of what he knew—that Julius Severus also managed to find and keep the book of the most valued Druid secrets. A book to stagger the imagination with the power it might yield its owner.

“You have my interest,” Rashim admitted. “But the story is old, from a land halfway across the world.” Rashim took a dagger from his belt and with its tip, casually began to pick dirt from beneath his fingernails. “How did such a treasure come to be hidden here?”

“You searched us,” Thomas replied. “In my possession you found a small, tightly bound book of parchment.”

Rashim nodded.

“That book contains the notes of many who searched through the centuries for clues to the treasure. It is meant to assist any who held the scroll that Katherine destroyed last night. Without the scrolled map, this book is useless.”

“A book in your possession because …”

“That story is long and tedious.” Thomas affected a sigh of weariness, hoping Rashim would not press him. It was not the time to reveal the Immortals or their battle against Druids. It was not the time to reveal that the small book had contained directions to the monastery in Jerusalem where Thomas had sought the scholars who would help him continue his search.

“Then make me believe that the gold did reach this land,” Rashim demanded. The dagger was now clenched in his fist. “Force me to believe how it might still be hidden.”

“The Roman general was summoned from Britain to quell a revolt of the Jews, here in the Holy Land. Severus could not trust his treasure to be left behind, so he arranged to take it with him. Once here, he and his Roman soldiers destroyed nearly a thousand Jewish villages, and a half million were
slain. The Jewish rebels were finally defeated in their last refuge—caves in the Judean desert, near the Dead Sea.”

Rashim’s eyes flashed greed that belied his disbelief. “The Caves of Letters! We all know of those myths,” he said. “Entire families living for months inside the earth. Bah!”

“Severus was recalled to Rome almost immediately after his victory in the Holy Land,” Thomas continued. “The treasure he had taken with him from Britain, he could not take to Rome, for discovery of it by Roman officials would mean his death. And shortly after arriving in Rome, he died of sudden illness, taking his secret to the grave.”

“Why the caves?” Rashim persisted. “In this entire land, how can you be certain the treasure lies in the caves?”

Thomas closed his eyes and recited the letter of a man now dead. “General Julius Severus lost twenty men in battle against a handful of unarmed rebels. These twenty men, Severus reported, died as a portion of the cave collapsed upon them, and their bodies could not be recovered. But is it not more likely that these twenty men transported the treasure? Wealth that great would take such assistance. Is it not likely that that the surest way for Julius Severus to guard his secret would be to bury those twenty in the cave alongside his treasure?”

“Aha,” Rashim purred.

Thomas nodded.

Before Rashim could speak next, a bandit, almost exhausted, ran into camp and called for him.

Rashim scowled and hurried away. He spent several minutes with his head bent low, listening to the man. Several times Rashim glanced back at Thomas and Katherine. Then he spun and returned.

For a moment, he did not speak. Only stared downward at Thomas.

Without warning, Rashim lashed out with his open hand and slapped Thomas across the side of his head.

“You have deceived us!”

Thirty-Four

T
homas tasted warm, wet salt. Blood. He refused to lick it away from the corner of his mouth as it began to dribble into tiny spots onto the rocks at his feet.

Another wild lash.

Thomas stared back. He concentrated on the pain, knowing that to think of anything else would weaken his resolve not to show response.

“You have deceived us!” Rashim repeated again. He raised his hand again, but Thomas did not flinch.

Rashim dropped his hand without striking.

Had he decided Thomas could not be intimidated?

He studied Thomas. In return, Thomas studied him.

A long moment of silence, broken only by the buzzing of nearby flies. An idle part of Thomas’s mind noted the flies were swarming the blood at his feet.

“You told us of treasure,” Rashim thundered. “But you did not tell us of soldiers!”

“Neither did we tell you of the ocean. Or of mountains. Or of birds. Or of anything else that exists in this world. What significance is there in soldiers?” It took effort for Thomas not to slur the words as his lips began to swell from the blows.

Rashim narrowed his eyes, as if exerting great control over his rage. He opened them wide again. “One is not followed by the ocean. Nor by mountains. And the birds that follow you may soon find their efforts rewarded, for they shall feast upon your dead bodies.”