"An exile."
"No one will be looking for this one."
"They always have good clothes, sometimes money."
Then harsh hands grabbed him, and laughter rang out as he howled in pain, trying to shake them off, reaching for his sword with numbed fingers that scrabbled at the hilt. More laughter as he was disarmed, his cloak ripped away, his arms twisted behind his back, forcing another scream from him.
He was staring into the face of a man perhaps his own age, but the face was bearded, the mouth open to show teeth missing, and those present black with rot.
"What have you got, exile? What can you give us for your life?"
"Nothing," Lenardo gasped, knowing they wanted him to grovel and plead before they killed him anyway.
The bandit hit him in the stomach. Gratefully, Lenardo blacked out. He came to with the pain of someone twisting his branded arm again. "Beat him," the. bandit instructed, and while two held him, others punched and kicked at him, ever careful to keep him conscious. Against the pain in his arm, the blows hardly registered. Hanging limp between the bandits, he waited for death to release him from pain.
Suddenly he was dumped to the ground, stripped of scabbard, boots, money pouch. Then one of the bandits felt under his shirt and pulled forth the amulet old Quintus had given him.
There was a gasp. The bandits dropped Lenardo and the amulet as if both had become red-hot.
"The wolf-stone!"
"Aradia!"
They scattered like startled birds, disappearing into the hills. Lenardo tried to sit up. They had taken everything, leaving him weaponless, without even boots to protect his feet from the rocks or a cloak to wrap up in against the night. He needed water, but they had taken the water-skin too.
He tried to Read around him, not moving. There must be a spring somewhere in these hills. He was deathly thirsty, and he had to clean the wound on his arm, where the bandits had burst the blisters with their filthy hands.
Far, far up in the hills, he Read water. He couldn't stand; he could barely get to his knees to crawl. After a while, it ceased to matter. He slumped into unconsciousness.
Feverish sleep possessed him, thirst and. pain awakening him several times to see stars overhead. One time he was freezing but couldn't find cloak or blanket. Then he was burning, his lips splitting with thirst, the sun blazing down on him. The pain in his arm was gone.
Somehow he found the strength to turn his head, meaning to look at his arm, but caught instead by a vision. Hallucination, he told himself firmly, but still before his bleary eyes, swimming in and out of focus but stubbornly remaining, sat the white wolf.
It was not the abstract alabaster symbol, but a living animal, dusty about the feet, watching him curiously from a safe distance. Safe? Who was the one hi danger here?
Perhaps the animal would tear him apart, and his troubles would be over.
The wolf rose and made a sort of whining noise, like a dog. It ran a few paces away, turned to look at Lenardo, came back to its original position, and whined again. Twice more it repeated the performance. Bemused, Lenardo wondered, You want me to follow you, boy? I'm not going anywhere. Probably not ever again. The effort of focusing his attention on the animal sent him back into unconsciousness, and when he next woke, the wolf was gone. // it was ever there.
He focused his eyes on his right arm, lying like a separate thing, swollen, red streaks running from the yellow, scabrous brand up toward his shoulder. He had seen such marks before. It meant his arm must come off if he were to live.
But I'm not going to live, he thought. Alone, far from help, he would die of thirst before the day was out. Carefully assessing his situation, he came to the same conclusion twice more and decided he was thinking clearly enough. It was truly hopeless. There was no need for him to suffer the lingering hours. He could not move to compose his body, but it didn't matter. He would not be returning to it.
In utter peace, he Read outward until he floated above the wreck of his physical form. Now there was no pain or fever; he was free. When his body died, he would be fully released-but while it still lived he must see Master Clement or Portia. They must know he had failed, must do something about Galen…
Before he began to concentrate on Adigia, however, other minds attracted his attention. Four men were coming from the hills. More bandits? He Read them and found there were five, one of them shielded against Reading. An Adept!
The savage Adepts could not Read, but neither could they be Read; a part of their training apparently included barriers against such intrusion, even though it could not come from their own people.
Focusing himself to see and'hear, Lenardo saw five men in clean, serviceable clothing, moving purposefully down the hillside. One of them stopped, pointing to Lenardo's body. "Look! There he is!"
They all began to run toward the crumpled form. "Is he dead?" asked the oldest of the group, a stoop-shouldered man with a gray beard.
"Do you know him, Wolf-stone?" asked another as the apparent leader of the group knelt beside Lenardo's body.
"No," he said, and Lenardo Read that this was the one. barricaded against him. He was a young man, a Nubian-a Nubian Adept? But if not Adept, why shielded? And they called him Wolf-stone? He was lifting the alabaster wolfs head with the violet eyes, comparing it with one he wore about his own neck. Lenardo wondered vaguely if the white wolf had gone to get him. "He wears the wolf-stone," the black man said. "It is the sign-yet…" He examined Lenardo's wounded arm. "An exile fresh from the empire -how can he wear Aradia's sign? Never mind; we must take him to her if he can survive the journey."
"Is he alive?" asked the graybeard.
"Oh, yes. Don't you see him breathing? He will suffer less if we can avoid waking him. Helmuth, wet his lips, but be careful he does not breathe water in. The rest of you prepare the litter."
Reluctantly, Lenardo realized that he was not to be relieved of his mission. He must return to his body and live-for wherever these men took him, he might learn more of Galen. He would lose his right arm, his sword arm, but, he thought with bitter humor, the brand of dishonor would go with it. If he should ever return to the empire…
If there was to be an empire to return to, he must regain his body. He had not thought to have to do so. It was a slow, painful, nearly impossible process when the body was as debilitated as his was. Finally, he opened gummy eyes to see the gray-bearded face swimming above him, as gentle hands wetted his parched lips from a water-skin.
Thirst was his first concern. Helplessly, he tried to speak, had no voice, but the old man lifted his head so he could drink, saying, "Lie still, son. You're all right now."
The black man immediately turned back to him. "Don't give him too much at once, Helmuth."
Then he spoke to Lenardo. "Do you understand me?" He now spoke in Aventine.
With the water to release his throat, Lenardo managed, "Aye." It was too much effort to say that he understood the other language too.
"You're safe now. We'll take you to Aradia. I'm going to make you sleep, so the journey will not pain you."
Lenardo wanted to protest, but he was too weak. The black man began to chant something in a language Lenardo didn't know, and he fell into dreamless sleep.
The dreams came later, as he was carried smoothly along in the litter. Or was that a dream too? Four men walking could not carry a litter so that it did not lurch or bump.
The confusing smooth motion was interspersed with strange images-worry about his pregnant wife… her time was due… when he got home, he might have a son. He tried to cry out to hurry-yes-the babe was born. A fine, healthy boy. Maj is fine… happy…
A horse… lame… nothing seemed to help. Poultices. Must ask Aradia…