The slice cut Lyran’s arm and shoulder nearly to the bone. The sword dropped from his fingers and he tried to fend off the liche with the right alone.
The Undead continued to press the attack, its blows coming even faster than before. Lyran was sent sprawling helplessly when it caught him across the temple with the flat of its blade.
Martis could see—almost as if time had slowed—that he would be unable to deflect the liche’s next strike.
She, Lyran, and the Undead all made their moves simultaneously.
Martis destroyed the magic that animated the corpse, but not before it had made a two-handed stab at the bodyguard.
But Lyran had managed another of those ferret-quick squirms. As the liche struck, he threw himself sideways—a move Martis would have thought impossible, and wound up avoiding impalement by inches. The Undead collapsed then, as the magic supporting it dissolved.
Freed from having to defend himself, Lyran dropped his second blade, groped for the wound, and sagged to his knees in pain.
Martis sprinted from out of hiding, reaching the swordsman’s side in five long strides. Given the amount of damage done his arm, it was Lyran’s good fortune that his charge was Masterclass! In her mind she was gathering up the strands of power she’d accumulated during the day, and reweaving them into a spell of healing; a spell she knew so well she needed nothing but her memory to create.
Even in that short period of time, Lyran had had the presence of mind to tear off the headband that had kept his long hair out of his eyes and tie it tightly about his upper arm, slowing the bleeding. As Martis reached for the wounded arm, Lyran tried feebly to push her away.
“There is—no need—Mage-lady,” he gasped, his eyes pouring tears of pain.
Martis muttered an obscenity and cast the spell. “No guard in my service stays wounded,” she growled, “I don’t care what or who you’ve served before; I take care of my own.”
Having said her say and worked her magics, she went to look at the bodies while the spell did its work.
What she found was very interesting indeed, so interesting that at first she didn’t notice that Lyran had come to stand beside her where she knelt. When she did notice, it was with some surprise that she saw the slightly greenish cast to the guard’s face, and realized that Lyran was striving valiantly not to be sick. Lyran must have seen her surprise written clear in her expression, for he said almost defensively, “This one makes his living by the sword, Mage-lady, but it does not follow that he enjoys viewing the consequences of his labor.”
Martis made a noncommittal sound and rose. “Well, you needn’t think your scoutcraft’s at fault, young man. These men—the archer, too, I’d judge—were brought here by magic just a few moments before they attacked us. I wish you could have taken one alive. He could have told us a lot.”
“It is this one’s humble opinion that one need not look far for the author of the attack,” Lyran said, looking askance at Martis.
“Oh, no doubt it’s Kelven’s work, all right. He knows what my aura looks like well enough to track me from a distance and pinpoint my location with very little trouble, and I’m sure he knows that it’s me the Guild would send after him. And he knows the nearest Gate-point, and that I’d be heading there. No, what I wish I knew were the orders he gave this bunch. Were they to kill—or to disable and capture?” She dusted her hands, aware that the sun was almost gone and the air was cooling. “Well, I’m no necromancer, so the knowledge is gone beyond my retrieval.”
“Shall this one remove them?” Lyran still looked a little sick.
“No, the healing-spell I set on you isn’t done yet, and I don’t want you tearing that wound open again. Go take care of Tosspot and find your mare, wherever she’s gotten herself to. I’ll get rid of them.”
Martis piled the bodies together and burned them to ash with mage-fire. It was a bit of a waste of power, but the energy liberated by the deaths of the assassins would more than make up for the loss—though Martis felt just a little guilty at using that power. Violent death always released a great deal of energy—it was a short-cut to gaining vast quantities of it—which was why blood-magic was proscribed by the Guild. Making use of what was released when you had to kill in self-defense was one thing—cold-blooded killing to gain power was something else.
When Martis returned to the campsite, she discovered that not only had Lyran located his mare and unharnessed and tethered Tosspot, but that he’d made dinner as well. Browning over the pocket-sized fire was a brace of rabbits.
“Two?” she asked quizzically. “I can’t eat more than half of one. And where did you get them?”
“This one has modest skill with a sling, and there were many opportunities as we rode,” Lyran replied, “And the second one is for breakfast in the morning.”
Lyran had placed Tosspot’s saddle on the opposite side of the fire from his own, just in front of the open tent. Martis settled herself on her saddle to enjoy her dinner. The night air was pleasantly cool, night creatures made sounds around them that were reassuring because it meant that no one was disturbing them. The insects of the daylight hours were gone, those of the night had not yet appeared. And the contradictions in her guard’s appearance and behavior made a pleasant puzzle to mull over.
“I give up,” she said at last, breaking the silence between them, silence that had been punctuated by the crackle of the fire. “You are the strangest guard I have ever had.”
Lyran looked up, and the fire revealed his enigmatic expression. He had eaten his half of the rabbit, but had done so as if it were a duty rather than a pleasure. He still looked a bit sickly.
“Why does this one seem strange to you, Mage-lady?”
“You dress like a dancer playing at being a warrior, you fight like a friggin’ guard-troop all by yourself—then you get sick afterwards because you killed someone. You wear silks that would do a harlot proud, but you ride a mare that’s a damn trained killer. What are you, boy? What land spawned something like you?”
“This one comes from far—a great distance to the west and south. It is not likely that you have ever heard of the People, Mage-lady. The Guard-serjant had not. As for why this one is the way he is—this one follows a Way.”
“The Way?”
“No, Mage-lady, A Way. The People believe that there are many such Ways, and ours is of no more merit than any other. Our way is the Way of Balance.”
“You said something about ‘balance’ before—” Now Martis’ curiosity was truly aroused. “Just what does this Way entail?”
“It is simplicity. One must strive to achieve Balance in all things in one’s life. This one—is on a kind of pilgrimage to find such Balance, to find a place where this one may fit within the pattern of All. Because this one’s nature is such that he does well to live by the sword, he must strive to counter this by using that sword in the service of peace—and to cultivate peace in other aspects of his life. And, in part, it must be admitted that this one fosters a helpless outer aspect,” Lyran smiled wryly. “The Mage-lady will agree that appearing ineffectual does much to throw the opponent off his guard. So—that is the what of this one. As to the why—the People believe that the better one achieves Balance, the better one will be reborn.”