Teron spun and tried to hook Roon’s heels with a leg sweep, but his trembling leg made him a little too ponderous. He only caught a part of Roon’s foot, and the burglar stumbled out of range.
Teron rose, slowly and not at all in the manner in which he’d been trained.
Roon smiled, and did a taunting little shuffle step. “Looks like you’ll be meditating on nothing soon, friend,” he said.
Teron cursed himself for his lack of concentration. Roon must die, he thought. That is my purpose. He focused himself, trying to channel his energy into his aching limbs. He felt the rise of a familiar wave of nausea building in his gut.
Roon charged again, this time leading with his front weapon, a stepping forehand slash followed by a backhand thrust. Teron feinted, then dodged right. His left hand hooked upward to brace Roon’s wrist, while his right hand punched Roon squarely on the elbow. There was a flash of red and the sound of ligaments and cartilage breaking under the impact as the joint gave way. Roon yelped, and his planned combination move with his rear sword became a wild, flailing swing that carved a light cut across Teron’s chest.
“Dolurrh!” cursed Roon. He staggered back, the sword dropping from his nerveless left hand. He looked confused, fearful.
Teron leaned forward and vomited up a small wad of stomach juices before he regained command of his uneasy esophagus.
Roon’s eyes lit up with the possibility of escape.
Seeing this, Teron swallowed hard and pushed out every ounce of energy his spirit had left, forcing the power into his fists. His face contorted with rage, pain, and tormented intensity. He lunged forward, reversed his direction and feinted a kick with his left leg, then reversed again, launching a roundhouse kick with his right. It connected squarely with Roon’s thrusting sword, although between the thrust and the force of the kick, the sword’s blade opened a long, nasty gash along Teron’s shin. The monk used his momentum to spin around and, with a loud cry, he struck Roon as hard as he could with both arms, his hands molded into veritable spear points.
His strike landed true, hitting Roon just below the breast on each side. He heard a loud crack but was unsure if he had broken Roon’s ribs, his own fingers, or both.
The last thing he remembered was seeing the sweep of the lantern light as he fell to the floor.
High above the earth, a small falcon stooped to a dive, falling closer and closer to the ground and the two mounted women who awaited it. The raptor swooped out of the dive at grass level, beating its wings and rising again to land on Oargesha’s outstretched wrist.
Oargesha turned to the Shadow Fox and shook her head.
The Fox set her mouth in a grim line and exhaled, a sigh that was almost a growl of frustration. “Rander, Gramm, and Roon. This was … a very expensive excursion.”
Oargesha tried to look at the Shadow Fox, tried to meet the weight that hung in her leader’s eyes, but couldn’t. “I can’t believe you just left him like that.”
“I had to. This bag is more important than all of us. Do you understand that? If we’d stayed, maybe we’d be dead, too.”
Oargesha hung her head. “We knew following you wouldn’t be easy, Fox,” she mumbled. She cast a longing look back toward the Crying Fields. “But … oh, I don’t … Fox, what was all this for?”
The Shadow Fox looked at the heavy, black leather bag that they had stolen. Although roughly rectangular in construction, it bulged with something large and round inside. “I’m not sure,” she said.
Oargesha looked at the Fox, her chin quivering. “What do you mean, you’re not sure? Don’t you know?”
The Shadow Fox met Oargesha’s eyes. “No, I don’t. The message that we took from Roon’s elf friend didn’t say much about the Black Globe other than it was a powerful artifact with the ability to effect dramatic changes in the world.”
“You mean maybe we could use it to try to restore Cyre?”
“Possibly.” She grasped the bag’s handles, which she had draped over the saddle horn, and pulled. When she tugged on the heavy handles, the bag did not react naturally. It resisted moving as if it were extremely heavy, but when she got it moving, it gathered an inertia that defied instinct. As she hefted it up to her lap, the bag kept moving upward, and she had to wrestle it down until it sat, quiescent, in front of her.
She glanced at Oargesha. Oargesha shrugged.
The Fox tested the heavy latches that held the bag closed. “Locked,” she said. “No surprise. We’ll have to open it later. That’s probably best, anyway. If we opened it here, we’d spend our time looking at it instead of getting away.” She patted the bulging leather and then pushed the bag back down to its resting place, draped over her saddle horn. “So. We have five horses, two of us, and one Black Globe. We should be able to make good time. Barring magical intervention, we’ll make Ghalt before anyone can pass word to the authorities.”
Oargesha nodded.
The Fox paused, looking around even though there was nothing to see but red-tinged grass out here at the fringe of the Crying Fields. “Come to think of it, let’s not ride to Ghalt. It’s the nearest town, and when the pursuit starts asking questions, folks there might remember seeing two women with five horses. And I don’t know about you, but that’s where I stole mine.”
“Then where do we go?” asked Oargesha. “Hook around and make for Athandra?”
“No, that’ll take too long. No decent roads, plus we’d be spending too much time near the Monastery of Pastoral Solitude. They’ll be scouring the land east, I’m sure.” She considered her options, then made her choice. “We’ll cut north by northwest from here, skipping Ghalt altogether. Instead, we’ll find the Orien trade road and push hard straight to Lathleer. Once there, we can reappraise our situation. I’d like to switch modes of transportation if possible, and see if maybe we can get a couple of dim-witted sots to join as on the trip to Fairhaven. Once there, we’ll hook the lightning rail to Thrane.” She drummed her fingers on her saddle, nodding to herself. “I think that’s our best bet. It’s fast, and it doesn’t retrace the route we took here. There’s no way to know whether or not any of the people we lost might still have had their lightning rail passes with them.”
Oargesha fought back some tears. “Right.” She sniffed. “Let’s go.”
The Shadow Fox paused a minute before spurring her horse. “It’s hard for me, too, Oargesha. Just remember that they died for a good cause.”
Oargesha said nothing as she flicked the reins.
Praxle reclined on his thin mattress, idly practicing his cantrips as the sun crept toward the horizon. Jeffers was on the floor beside him, testing the bulls-eye lantern, trimming the wick and checking the lenses. Praxle paused in his practice when he heard footsteps approaching. “That’s odd,” he said. “Last time they only sent one to summon me.”
Jeffers looked over at Praxle, then stood and set the bulls-eye lantern on the side table. An instant later, the door rattled as someone pounded on the other side. “Praxle d’Sivis!”
“One moment,” Praxle called. “Let me finish dressing.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed Jeffers to the corner behind the door. He made some shuffling noises, then opened the door until it rested against his firmly planted foot. He made a show of adjusting his trousers.
Outside the door stood Prelate Quardov, Master Keiftal, and roughly a half-dozen monks in black. Quardov did not look happy. Each of the monks wore an absolutely blank expression.