A shadow slid out of the shrubbery ahead. It ghosted to the middle of the path, blocking his way.
Neither moon was up yet, but by faint starlight Tol could see that the person wore a cloth hood, completely covering his head. Immediately, Tol drew his saber.
“Very good,” stated the hooded man. “You never were one for useless banter.”
“This time you won’t get away so easily. I owe a debt to the man you killed.”
“Old, forgotten history. We have new business, you and I. The artifact, please.”
He held out his hand. Tol swung his blade at it, but cut only air.
“Betraying your masters now?” asked Tol, inching closer.
“I live by what I know,” the fellow replied. His hand dropped, then rose again gripping a long thin dagger, like the one he’d used on Gustal. “I’d rather not have to use this. Give it over.”
“Never!” Tol cried, lunging.
The man twisted out of reach of Tol’s blade, then flipped his dagger at Tol’s face. Tol batted it away with his sword hilt. By the time he recovered his stance, however, the black-garbed killer had melted into the darkness.
Tol cut a swath through the air in a complete circle, striking nothing.
“Would you really skewer me, Tol?”
He stiffened.
The killer emerged from the shadows to one side of Tol. He tossed the hood at Tol’s feet, lifting his face to the feeble starlight.
“Crake?” It came out as a gasp. “By Corij, I thought I recognized your voice-is it really you?”
“Been a long time, Tol,” he said with heavy irony.
Tol’s head reeled. “So you’ve become an assassin?”
Crake’s dark eyes narrowed. “Not an assassin-a man of work. Your soldier friend shouldn’t have laid hands on me.”
Tol shouted, “Gustal was drunk! You could have brushed him aside! You killed him for nothing, Crake!”
“We’re not boys anymore, Tol, and Daltigoth isn’t Juramona.” Crake shot back with equal heat. For a moment Crake’s eyes grew distant, as memories flickered there. He presented the point of another dagger.
“Last chance,” he said. “Give over the millstone.”
Tol couldn’t believe he was facing Crake with a sword in his hand. Crake and Narren were his oldest friends, starting from the very day he arrived in Juramona. When Crake fled town under a cloud for having killed a man at the tavern, Tol never doubted it had been done in self-defense. Now, two years later, the man facing him seemed an utter stranger. A deadly, intent stranger.
“I won’t hand it over,” Tol said tersely. “Not while I live.”
In answer, Crake flung a dagger. Caught unaware, Tol couldn’t even get his sword up in time to deflect the knife. It thudded hard against his breastbone, but no blood appeared. The dagger fell to the gravel with a metallic clang. His mail shirt had saved him.
Tol brought his saber down in a long, wide cut. Crake fell back with a grunt, a diagonal slash on his chest. Blood welled from a shallow wound.
Tol had no time to celebrate. Crake commenced a whirling, two-handed attack, a long dagger in each fist. Tol parried shakily, then gave ground to avoid the flashing blades.
By now he was off the garden path, on the dewy grass. Crake stopped his windmill attack and came on, daggers held low.
They traded cuts and parries, Crake’s lightning moves against Tol’s strength and longer blade. Still, the young soldier was forced to retreat.
But Tol had a second blade, too. Breaking contact just long enough to step back a few paces, he drew Amaltar’s gift dagger with his left hand.
“You’re good,” said Crake, voice steady. He wasn’t even winded. “I thought you’d have given it up by now.”
“Foot soldiers must stand and fight. Can’t outrun horses, you know.”
Crake’s hands came up and he threw both daggers at the same time. Tol knocked down the one whizzing at his face, but couldn’t prevent the other from burying itself in his left thigh. Crake drew another dagger, advanced a step, then stopped, dumbfounded.
Tol showed no signs of going down. In fact, while holding his saber at full extension, he grasped the handle of the dagger and yanked it from his leg.
Crake folded his arms, tapping the point of his last dagger against his chin. “I see this task calls for more iron,” he said. “Another time.”
“No,” Tol said through gritted teeth. “One of us will not leave this garden alive!”
Crake shrugged, turned, and ran. Tol pursued, leg wound or no. Blood sluiced down his injured leg, staining the grass. By sheer force of will, he kept up with the fleeing man. Crake knew of the millstone. He couldn’t be allowed to escape with that knowledge.
Unnerved by Tol’s implacable pursuit, Crake erred. He blundered into the torchlit plaza. Several hundred guests of the emperor had gathered there before the banquet. They looked on in astonishment as the black-clad Crake, bleeding from a long cut on his chest, entered the circle of firelight.
Guards came running. Crake tried to double back into the shadowy garden, and there was Tol. More consternation broke out when Tol appeared, sword and dagger in hand. Not knowing who was who, guards swarmed out of the barrack by the main gate. They swiftly ringed both men. Hundreds of swords were drawn.
“Keep off!” Crake yelled. “Out of my way!”
He drove straight at Tol, his thin dagger piercing Tol’s forearm. Tol hardly felt it go in, but his hand immediately went slack. His saber clattered to the mosaic.
Tol threw himself backward, pulling his arm off Crake’s blade. Again, his childhood friend was amazed at Tol’s stamina. Switching to an overhand grip, he darted in, aiming for Tol’s throat.
Imperial guards were closing in. One shouted, “It’s Tol of Juramona!” and the rest voiced shock that the crown prince’s favorite was dueling at the very steps of the Imperial Palace.
Tol struck with Prince Amaltar’s dagger. The broad blade caught Crake’s thin one, and Tol used his superior strength to throw Crake back.
“Hey, Juramona! Have this!”
A sword came winging through the air. Tol snatched it with his right hand, forcing his weak fingers to close on the handle. His attack was awkward because of the injury to his left arm, and Crake skillfully turned the plunging blade aside with his dagger. However, the sword had distracted his attention. With a mighty thrust, Tol buried his own dagger in his opponent’s belly all the way to the burnished brass hilt. Crake gasped as their bodies thudded together.
Eye to eye, they stared at each other for a silent, frozen moment.
“Well done,” Crake gasped, and fell backward, Tol’s blade still in him.
Tol’s leg and his strength failed. He collapsed beside his former friend.
Chapter 15
He awoke in daylight, in a bright sunny room with a ceiling so lofty he could scarcely believe it. He was lying in a big bed between cool linen sheets, naked but for a breechcloth. He felt no pain, but was terribly weak.
The room was enormous. Sunshine poured in through a phalanx of windows four stories high. Other beds lined the walls, but all were empty. Someone close by made a noise, a little cough just loud enough to be heard. Tol slowly turned his head and beheld Valaran, seated in a tall wooden chair alongside his bed. She had an open scroll spread across her lap.
“You’re awake! Good! If you’d slept much longer, I would’ve run out of things to read.” She got up and held a beaker of cool water to his lips. He drank gratefully.
“I can’t believe it,” he said hoarsely. “What is this place?”
“The Hall of Healing, in the palace. How do you feel? Better?”