“To the abbey!” Giavno yelled again, and Cormack understood that it was for his benefit alone, a warning to him that his three friends would desert him here. A lightning bolt followed that warning, off to the side where it sent a trio of trolls hopping wildly and weirdly, the residual jolts waggling their spindly limbs in a frenetic dance.
A troll leaped at Cormack, and another went for the powrie and its wrestling companion. The young monk dodged a spear thrust, then a second. He turned sidelong, bent back and down as the third thrust angled high, past his head. Cormack’s left hand, his inside hand, grabbed the shaft and he wrapped his right arm over it, just below the seashell tip, as he brought it down. He turned to face the troll and thrust his right forearm, now under the shaft, upward at the same time he drove his left hand down. The sudden movement and Cormack’s redistribution of his weight snapped the spear at midshaft, and as soon as he heard the break, Cormack tugged the remaining troll weapon aside and crashed against the troll, grabbing a firm hold on the broken piece of the spear as he went. He felt that sharp piece drive into the troll’s torso, and he wrapped his left hand about the creature, boring in harder.
The troll went into a frenzy and tried to bite at him, but Cormack stayed too low for that. The frantic creature wasn’t done, though, and it used yet another of its many weapons, its long and pointed chin, and repeatedly drove the bony feature hard against the side of Cormack’s head.
Both fell to the ground, Cormack on top, and he shoved up immediately to his knees, his movement pulling free the spear shaft. He flipped it in his hands as he went, and came right back at the troll, this time with the seashell head leading.
The troll scrambled and thrashed, slapped and squirmed, but to no avail, and Cormack fell atop it again, pushing the spear right through its chest. He tugged left and right, ensuring that the wound would be mortal, and finally he fell aside-to see the other troll, the one hit in the back of the head by the thrown powrie staff, standing over him, a rock in hand.
An explosion of bright white light filled Cormack’s head as that troll struck. He covered and rolled and somehow even managed to get back to his feet without being hit again too badly.
But the troll was there, punching and biting at him, and all the world was spinning.
Cormack found his sensibilities just enough to punch out, a stunning right cross that through good fortune alone connected solidly on the troll’s jaw, snapping its head aside and sending it back and to the ground.
Cormack tried to straighten, staggering left and right. He saw the powries and the trolls, one big pile of confusion and fury.
Then he saw the ground, rushing up to swallow him. He thought of Milkeila, his secret lover, and was sad to know that he would not rendezvous with her that night at their special place on the sandbar to the north, as they had planned. He thought it silly that he thought of that at all, for he didn’t know why that image of the beautiful barbarian had flooded his thoughts at this critical time.
He knew then the reason. The thoughts, the image, were a blessing, a moment of peace in a roiling storm. He tried to say her name, Milkeila, but he could not.
The sounds receded, the light disappeared in a blink, taking her beautiful form with it, and Cormack drowned in a cold and empty darkness.
FOUR
The Crutch
Bransen rolled off Cadayle and onto his back. He threw his arm up over his face and even miscalculated that action, thumping himself hard on the forehead. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes, and with much trembling and shaking, he managed to guide his arm down to cover them. Cadayle came up to her side on one elbow to look over him.
Down below, Bransen’s foot twitched and shot out to the side, smacking against the front support of their tent, nearly caving in the entrance. In ultimate frustration, the man managed to clasp the soul stone which lay at his side.
Cadayle gently stroked her husband’s bare chest and whispered soft assurances to him.
Bransen didn’t move his arm, didn’t look at her.
“I love you,” Cadayle said to him.
Despite his stubborn pride, Bransen reached over and clasped the soul stone that he had placed at his side. “You would have to, to suffer my… my clumsiness.”
Cadayle laughed, but bit the chuckle off short, realizing that it wasn’t being taken in the manner in which she was offering it. “We knew that it would take time,” she said.
“It will take forever!” Bransen retorted. “And I do not improve! I dared believe that by now I would be free of the soul stone. I dared hope…”
“It takes time,” Cadayle interrupted. “I remember the Stork, who could hardly walk. You can walk now without the stone tied to your head. You have improved.”
“Old news,” Bransen replied, and he finally did lower his arm so that he could look at his wonderful and understanding wife. “My improvements were dramatic and I dared to hold hope. But they have stopped now. Without the stone I am a clumsy oaf!”
“No!”
“Without the stone I cannot even make love to my wife! I am no man!”
Cadayle pulled away from him and sat up, shaking her head. As Bransen rambled on she began to laugh.
“What?” he asked at length, growing very irritated.
“I am unused to the Highwayman so full of self-pity,” she said.
Bransen stammered and could not even give voice to his anger.
“You have brought down a laird and robbed the prince of Delaval-twice!” Cadayle said. “You are a hero of the folk-”
“Who cannot make love to my wife!”
Cadayle kissed him. “You make love to me all the time.”
“With a gemstone bound to my forehead. Without it I am too clumsy.”
“Then be glad that you have it!”
Bransen looked at her blankly. “I want-”
“And you will find it,” she cut him off. “In time. But if you do not, then so be it. Be glad that we have the soul stone. Indeed, I am.” She frowned. “But even if we didn’t have it, even if you could not make love to me with any grace, do you believe that it would affect the way I feel about you? Do you think it would diminish my love and adoration for you?”
Bransen stared at her.
“If I could not make love to you,” she challenged him, “would you throw me from your life to find a ‘whole’ woman?”
Bransen’s stammer was powered by more than his physical infirmities.
“Of course you would not,” Cadayle pronounced firmly. “If I believed you could, I would never have agreed to marry you.”
Cadayle’s expression softened. “I love you, Bransen,” she said, her small hand stroking his chest. “The physical act of making love is sweet to me with or without the gemstone upon your head. There is no more to be said, and no more of your self-pity, if you please. I cannot suffer it from my beloved, who could kill a dragon protecting me. You have stepped yourself so far above the common man that self-pity from you is worse than irony. It is foolhardy and laughably ridiculous. You are the Highwayman. You are the best man I have ever known. A better does not exist. You are my husband, and every day I awaken and thank God and the Ancient Ones that Bransen Garibond found his way into my life.”
Bransen tried to answer, tried to respond that it was he who should fall to his knees in thanks, but Cadayle silenced him by putting her finger over his lips, then bringing her own lips in to brush his softly. She moved atop him, then, straddling him and kissing him all over his face, whispering assurances all the while.
Bransen knew that he was the fortunate one here, but he let it go and lost himself in the softness and beauty of his beloved Cadayle.
She’s not to like this,” the scraggly-faced old man said through his two remaining teeth.