Blades of Valor (8 page)

Two days later, as Thomas traveled a road that narrowed between large rocks on each side, bandits attacked. His first warning of the attack was a slight scuffle of leather against stone. Thomas looked over his shoulder and saw two men dropping from the top of a boulder, only thirty paces behind.

There was no mistaking their intent. Swords raised, scarred and dirty faces quiet with deadliness, they advanced toward him.

Thomas glanced ahead to determine his chances of escape.

Four more bandits had stepped onto the road. Walls of rock blocked him on both sides.

More terrifying than upraised swords was their silence and slow, patient movements. These men had no need to bluff or bluster. Their purpose was profit from the victim’s death, not take satisfaction from toying with the victim’s fear. These men had no need to waste energy through haste. Their victim could not escape.

A part of Thomas’s mind noted this objectively, just as it noted that he was their intended victim—a thought that brought to him a surge of adrenaline.

Another part of Thomas’s mind noted the terrain and evaluated his chances.

The road was one that wound downward from the hills of Galilee. The plains of the Valley of Jezreel were barely an hour ahead, but that fact helped Thomas little now. The huge boulders on each side of the road were too smooth to climb.

The bandits closed the circle on Thomas, step by certain step.

Thomas drew his sword.

Fifteen

T
homas did not waste his breath with threats. He, too, had the silence of deadly intent.

He began to back against a boulder for the slight protection it offered, then saw a break in the rocks beyond the four men advancing on one side.

“Use more than your sword.”
Thomas could hear the words of Sir William as he had once coached him in the art of fighting.
“Terrain, a man’s character, and surprise are all added weapons.”

Even in this situation, the thought of Sir William and betrayal brought bitterness to the back of his throat. It brought anger too. Anger that Thomas could direct at these bandits. He dropped to his knees and, without taking his eyes from the four men on his left, felt about for stones. He found two and stood.

Still silence from the bandits.

The two on his right were close enough that he could hear their breath quicken as they prepared to attack.

They expect me to attempt a break through the weakest part of their wall—the group of two, probably the stronger fighters.

So Thomas did the opposite.

He lunged at the four men on his left and, at the same time, threw both stones at head level. The bandits flinched and ducked, only for an instant, and the stones clattered on the boulder behind them.

But as they ducked, Thomas swung his sword in a vicious arc and plunged directly ahead.

The suddenness of his attack, the distraction of the stones, and the swiftness of his sword bought Thomas only a heartbeat of confusion.

It was enough to get him through their ranks.

Yet his intention was not to flee. What easier target than an open back? No, Thomas focused on the split rock ahead among the large boulders.

Was the split large enough?

Yes!

Thomas reached it only a step before the bandits.

He turned and faced them. Rock now protected him on three sides. The fourth side, open to the bandits, was wide enough to give him room to swing his sword, narrow enough to limit their attack.

The largest bandit spoke to the shadow that covered Thomas.

“Fool,” he spat. “You think this saves you?”

Thomas did not reply.

“You only succeed in irritating us.”

Thomas still said nothing and kept his sword ready.

“Throw us your valuables, and we will leave.”

For a moment, Thomas was tempted. Then he realized they would probably only retreat out of sight and wait for him to reappear in the open. And even if he did survive, without his gold life in this strange land would be next to impossible.

So Thomas only stared at the bandit. The stalemate continued for thirty seconds.

“Search the nearby hills,” the leader of the bandits then called to his men without turning his head. “Find wood and dried brush.”

Two of the men scrambled away from the road.

“You see,” the bandit said, resuming his conversation with Thomas, “I have no intention of risking even one man in direct combat. Few travelers pass here, we have much time, and a fire will easily move you from your shelter.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I will promise you this. The longer you delay us, the more we will torture you when we capture you.”

The bandit smiled faint amusement and began to whistle tunelessly.

Thomas wondered if this moment might be best to bolt from his shelter. With two bandits searching for wood, his odds were now only one against four.

Thomas noted the layers of scars across the bandit’s forearms.

He has survived many fights.

Thomas noted the relaxed but ready stance of the other three bandits.

Neither are they strangers to battle. I will be sliced to shreds. But better to die fighting than as a helpless captive.

Thomas did not have a chance to answer that question. For a short, high buzz interrupted the shrill whistling of his enemy. And almost in the same moment, there was a light thud.

The bandit looked down at his right shoulder in disbelief. The head of a crossbow arrow, gleaming red with blood, protruded an inch from his flesh.

Another short, high buzz. Another thud. One of the bandits fell to the ground, clutching the shaft of an arrow already deep in his thigh.

The leader turned. The next arrow pierced his hand and he dropped his sword, his mouth open in a soundless scream of agony.

The two other bandits were already running.

“Thomas!” a voice called. “You are safe to join me!”

Spoken in English! And the unseen attacker knows my name.

Thomas stepped into the sunlight.

Above him, a dark silhouette rose at the top of a boulder.

Thomas ignored the two men moaning on the ground in front of him and took another step closer to the man with the crossbow.

The sun behind the man was bright, however, and as much as Thomas squinted, he could not see the man’s features.

The man dropped to the ground.

“During attack, always keep the sun at your back,” the man instructed. “It gives you much light and blinds your opponents.”

The man grinned and kicked aside one of the fallen bandits to step forward and extend his right hand to Thomas in a weaponless clasp of friendship.

The voice and face belonged to the captured ex-Crusader that Thomas had last seen struggling in the bonds of slavery alongside a caravan of camels.

“I hope you will consider this a debt paid,” Lord Baldwin said. “The water you once offered a poor slave in return for your life now.”

Sixteen

K
atherine wished that she had been born deaf. For then she could not have heard the words that now pierced her heart.

“Thomas has failed our test.” The muscles around Sir William’s jaw tightened as he spoke through clenched teeth. “We must conclude he is not an Immortal.”

The test.
So long ago, it now seemed, she and Thomas had reached St. Jean d’Acre. And while he was in the public baths, cleaning away the stench of weeks in the brig of the ship, the beggar, a spy for Sir William, had taken her to the house she remembered from her youth. There, to her surprise and delight, Sir William had greeted her, and they had hurriedly devised a way to test whether Thomas was truly one of them. Two others of the cause—posing as assassins—would pretend an attempt on their lives as soon as she rejoined Thomas. This was very believable; for chances were that real assassins would have been sent for them by those on the other side.

Then, unfolding as they had planned, they would escape into the tunnel while Thomas believed assassins lurked nearby. In this manner, Sir William and Katherine could hurry Thomas into accepting the need for separate travel. In this way, they could give him something of pretended tremendous value. If he appeared in Nazareth, with the parcel still sealed, he could be trusted. If he did not appear …

“Can we not wait one more day?” Katherine asked. “Perhaps Thomas has been delayed.”

And,
she added to herself,
to wait means hope—any hope at all—that Thomas can be trusted and believed.

Sir William resumed his pacing of the inn courtyard and did not reply immediately, as if he were indeed considering her request. The sun had long since passed the highest point of the day. As the air cooled, so had Nazareth quieted and settled. The calls and babble of the town market beyond the inn was now the silence of an early evening breeze that rustled the leaves of the courtyard’s fig trees.

“No,” Sir William finally said. “We have waited two weeks. Each day I, too, have told myself he has been delayed. But that is only wishful thinking. We must force ourselves to accept the bitter truth. Thomas has deceived and betrayed us.”

Katherine heard a tiny voice speak. “Perhaps … perhaps he is dead.” She was startled to realize the tiny voice was hers.

How she was torn! For if Thomas were dead, there was the consolation that he had not betrayed them and she could always love his memory. If he were alive, she would have to learn to hate him, even though she would always harbor the slightest hope that somehow he might be part of their cause, and that her love for him could, against all odds, be realized.

“He is not dead,” Sir William said. “No matter how much I might wish to use that for an explanation. You remember the package and how we prepared ourselves for that terrible event, do you not?”

“Yes.” Katherine sighed. A great reward had been promised to the finder of the parchment inside the package entrusted to Thomas. If Thomas were killed by accident or murder, and the package opened—for what passerby or murderer would not be curious of a sealed package?—there would be found the message directing the finder to appear in Nazareth with the book to receive a great reward. Yes, should Thomas have been killed or found dead along a road, someone would have appeared, or at the very least, sent a messenger to inquire about the reward.

“Must we make this decision?” Katherine continued in the same sad voice.

Sir William stopped his pacing, moved toward her and placed his hands upon her shoulders. “Katherine, even a blind man can see how deeply you feel for Thomas. I have delayed my decision until now simply because of that.”

A single tear trickled down her cheek.

“He has not returned with the package. It means he opened it, either because he is one of them, or because he will not be one of us. He is a fool,” Sir William said softly. “A fool to choose evil, and a greater fool to walk from your love. But that is his decision, and now we must make ours.”

Katherine bowed her head and patted Sir William’s right hand where it rested upon her shoulder. Then she wordlessly turned away, and, head still bowed, began to move across the courtyard to her room in the inn.

Seventeen

T
he quiet acceptance of her grief was more powerful than if Katherine had protested in anger, and because of that, Sir William felt the urge to justify his decision.

He called to her back.

“Tell me again,” he said, “of the trouble in England.”

She paused.

He took three strides and guided her to a bench in the corner of the courtyard. Deep purple had spread across the sky as the sun dropped behind the far hills, and already the brightest stars could be seen. Doves chuckled and cooed as they settled on the roofs of nearby buildings. For a moment, Katherine said nothing, and the peace of the evening fell upon them.

“England,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Tell you again of England?”

Sir William nodded.

So she said, “The Druids have conquered Magnus by posing as priests,” she replied. “They claim power through the legend of the cup of the Holy Grail and by demonstrating miracles that are false. Now, in a large circle outward from Magnus, in one town after the other, they slowly gain converts to their cause.”

Sir William nodded again, then said abruptly, “Have you ever questioned
our
cause?”

The change of subject and change in his tone startled Katherine, and for a moment, she was at a loss for words.

“You have never once questioned the sacrifices you have made to be one of us?” Sir William persisted. “Not during the years hidden in bandages, forced to endure the pain of an outcast freak, simply that you might report to Hawkwood the activities of Magnus? Not when other young women your age were dreaming of love and children? Not once did you question your sacrifice?”

“I … I …”

“And now,” Sir William pushed, “as I make the decision to turn our backs on the one you
do
love, now are you at peace to be an Immortal?”

Katherine drew a breath to sit tall and faced him squarely with the dignity of royalty.

“I question,” she said. And waited.

“That is good,” Sir William said, “for a faith tested is a faith strengthened. And faith unable to stand questions is weak indeed. Here, now, I wish to answer your doubts.”

He stared at the brightening stars as he searched for what he must say. “For your sake, I am glad mere words cannot describe the evil I have seen, the ways that Druids have killed men, how terrible the fashion of their destruction of many of the best of us when they first conquered Magnus and forced us to flee England.

“Druid ceremonies involve the ritual murder of the innocent. They believe the death of that soul transfers life and fortune to another. This death? They place the innocent into a wicker basket and lower that basket into fire.”

Sir William clenched his jaw at unwanted memories. He stood, paced, and sat again before he could continue.