Guardians Of The Flame - Legacy Part 31

He shrugged. He'd be in for worse than damp clothes before the night was over.

Ignoring the two big sacks containing guncotton sticks and the small one with the detonators, he dug into the fourth one for a hunk of dried beef, and bit off a piece while he examined the near wall.

What appeared to be a picture window looked down on the nighttime sea.

Waves roiled beneath flickering stars, while a distant darkness covered the horizon. To the west, south, and east, other offsh.o.r.e islands lay, some only tiny rocky outcroppings sporting a tree or two, some large ones only technically islands, just barely separated from the sh.o.r.eline by pa.s.sages too narrow for any craft save a Mel dugout canoe. A bird flitted across his field of view; it was gone before Karl could make out what kind it was.

Off in the distance, a slaver ship lay, floating freely at anchor. That would make a juicy target, but not for tonight. The slavers were starting to pull in their outlying posts, but the process wasn't finished.

There was an old Vietcong trick Karl planned to try tonight, which should speed things along, another turn of the screw: He'd cut off tonight's victims' genitals, and leave them stuck in the corpses' mouths. He'd thought about doing so for days, and had decided to wait on it. Mutilating bodies didn't bother him, not at all. He had put off doing it to give himself something else to add to the pressure on the slavers.

He turned back to the window. It wasn't really a picture window, of course; the cavern was at sea level, but the view looked down from a height. The Eye, the sphere, which transferred the image to the gla.s.s, was on the island's heights, waiting.

For this.

Karl ran his fingers over the gla.s.s; in dizzying counterpoint, the view spun until the beach filled the window. Karl would have given a lot to be able to move the Eye out and over the forest to do a more complete remote recona"village Eriksen was hidden by the treesa"but even without that, it was a powerful tool.

Besides, he liked it; the Eye and window suited him.

It was magic-as-technologya"do this with this, and this happens, see? There was something far more satisfying about a device that he could see work, emotionally preferable to even something as useful, as important, as the amulet that protected him from being located.

He moved his fingers again, then examined the gla.s.s closely until he could see a distant fire that was at least a mile down the beach. It was the spot where, just a few nights before, he had killed the two watchmen, leaving one burning.

Right now, all it was was a vague glow, so he lightly touched his index finger to the flicker, and pressed down while the flicker grew, zooming in, the watchfire growing on the screen until he could see the two slavers sitting in front of it, one tending a head-sized piece of meat on a spit, the other scanning the water and forest. The view was flat, as though he was looking through a telephoto lens.

That didn't bother him. The trouble was that it looked far too easy. By now, the slavers would be trying to trap him; there would be a backup.

"So, let's find the backup."

It took him five hard minutes of scanning to find it: another pair of slavers, hidden in a blind built into a nearby tree, visible only momentarily when the more skittish one would shift position.

He still didn't like it, though. Ahrmin was clever; there was probably a second backup, at least, but a half hour of intense scrutiny, making minuscule motions to barely move the Eye, didn't reveal it.

Karl Cullinane sighed. He probably wasn't going to be able to hit that target. Not tonight. There had to be backups, or b.o.o.by traps on the approaches to such a tempting target; until he could figure out exactly what the slavers were up to, he'd have to give this target a pa.s.s. The next step had to be to persuade the slavers to pull their men in close, defensively. Pull all the outlying guards into one camp, and huddle together there.

So that Karl Cullinane could blow them to bits with guncotton bombs. He smiled. Just a little more, he thought. Just a few more deaths, and the slavers would gather together for him. And then, boom. Cut them down to size, then cut them to pieces.

Back to work.

Maybe he could spot the traps here. It would be nice to take apart a three-level trap; that would mean killing at least five slavers. Not a bad night's work at all. If he could do it.

He spun the view and looked westward down the beach, scanning slowly until a motion caught his eye. He zoomed in, yet again, and spotted three dark figures moving single-file along the treeline.

Not a bad job of skulking, he decided. The slavers wouldn't be visible except from the sea, and except for their own ship, there were no ships in evidencea"even a keen observer wouldn't have been able to spot them from the island, not without the Eye.

Too bada"for thema"that the slavers didn't know about the Eye.

Wait. He shook his head.

That hadn't looked right. There was something about the walk of one of them.

He zoomed in closer, but they were gone; they had probably ducked back into the trees. He scanned the Eye farther down the beach, and saw two others, trailing the first three by about a hundred meters. The hunting team's backup, probably, looking for traces of him, wisely figuring that Karl wasn't going to be skulking inside the forest itself at night, for the same reason that the slavers weren't: Only a few dozen meters inside the forest, the overgrowth of leaves blocked out all light.

But . . . that didn't make sense. Maybe they would put out one man as a Judas goata"Ahrmin seemed to have little concern for his men; likely most were hired mercenaries and not guild slaversa"but not three, not with two following. To justify using three men as bait, there would have to be a much larger party waiting to spring the trap.

Granted, the two following looked to be fairly tough: two large men, one half crouching as he followed their trail, the other holding two loaded crossbows.

But still. It didn't make sense at all. Unless . . .

Karl spun the view again, leaving the two hunters while he searched for their quarry.

He found them. Three figures, hiding in darkness. Not hiding well enough.

The three came to a spot where a wide trail led away into the trees. The right move would have been to go into the forest, and cross the trail under cover.

Even Karl knew that; Walter Slovotsky had taught him.

You didn't cross open s.p.a.ces, not if you didn't have to.

They crossed the open s.p.a.ce.

"No!" His heart pounded in his chest as he zoomed in tight on their faces, his fingers automatically making the minor corrections to keep them in view.

It was Aeia, Tennetty, and Bren Adahan. What were they doing here?

Getting themselves killed, in just a few minutes, if Karl didn't do something.

Wait a minute, he thought, and then smiled. If they were here, that meant that Jason had been found; they'd still be looking for the boy, otherwise. This had to mean that they'd found the boy; they were here to pull Karl's head out of the noose.

He knew how Atlas felt after his shrug.

Change of plans, Ahrmin, Karl thought. "I, Karl Cullinane, hereby cancel my last run, and promise to get my b.u.t.t out of here in one piece, if at all possible."

He would take another try at Ahrmin, and soon, but with better odds than were offered here and now.

Now, to rescue his rescuers. . . .

He ran to his gear and pulled out his bowie, then went into one of the leather sacks and produced a dozen guncotton sticks, each carefully sealed for water-tightness. He dug into the small bag for sealed packets of detonators, igniters, and fuses, putting all of the retrieved explosives and equipment in a canvas rucksack. His guns, powder, and sword were cached in the woods with his boots; he hadn't wanted to expose his guns to the water, and, once having tried swimming with a sword, had no intention of swimming with it and other gear.

His clothes were still wet, but dark clothes would provide more cover in the night than his bare skin. On top of the explosive, he set a bra.s.s flask of healing draughts. Just in case.

No. He shook his head. He couldn't afford to take the bombs, because he couldn't afford to use the bombs. If he did use explosives on the hunters, it would only call attention to this areaa"and while the offsh.o.r.e island probably could stand a casual search, it probably couldn't take a more thorough one. There was a crack in the outer chamber that let in air and, during the day, a bit of light. A thorough search might involve someone putting his eye to the crack, and seeing the crystals inside.

Worse, any use of the bombs might suggest to Ahrmin what Karl's game plan was; the slavers would spread out to several smaller camps, and wait Karl out.

But what if he needed the bombs?

s.h.i.t. If I need the bombs, I'm dead anyway. He set the canvas sack down. Best not to take it.

There was something wrong. It felt suddenly colder in the chamber. But only physically; inside, he was warmed.

For a moment, he wasn't alone anymore.

He closed his eyes, and they were there. Maybe. He was never sure if it was real or just his subconscious sounding an alarm in a way it knew would get his attention, but it was as though the three of them were there, with him: Fialt, Rahff, and Chak.

He opened his eyes, and they were gone; but when he closed them again, he could almost see them; their presence was almost palpable.

Saturnine, slow-speaking Fialt, who didn't want to be a warrior, but had died on an Ehvenor dock, distracting a.s.sa.s.sins for a priceless second. Karl knew the price of that second; it had been Fialt's life.

As Karl squeezed his eyes tightly shut, he could almost see Fialt shaking his head no.

Young Rahff, his face a mirror to his soul, never able to resist asking whya"like his brother Thomen, but even more so. He'd died here, in Melawei, protecting Aeia, here on the G.o.ddam Melawei sands, his belly sliced open, gutted like a trout.

Karl could almost feel Rahff looking up at him, a puzzled frown on his young face that would never grow old.

And short Chak, an easy grin always on his dark face. Chak, who had spent too much of his life protecting Karl's back, making sure it didn't start sprouting knives. Chak had died outside of Kiar, blown to pieces in an explosion of slaver powder, protecting the myth of the invincibility of Home forces.

It was as though Chak was there, c.o.c.king his head to one side.

Leaving the bombs behind doesn't make sense, kemo sabe, he seemed to say. Since when do we count on getting out of anything alive? There was a distant chuckle. If you need them, you need them. Take any weapon you can carry.

Karl Cullinane opened his eyes.

There was n.o.body there. But there was.

Take the bombs, Karl.

Karl squeezed his eyes shut once more, and then nodded as he opened them to stoop for two of the packets, packed them in a small leather pouch, then tied that tightly to his left shoulder. It was less than a tenth of his stock, but that would surely be enough for now; with any kind of luck at all he wouldn't even need it.

He patted his bowie for a moment, then shook his head. He was going to have to make a run from the sea, and take out the two of them before they could react. It was a chancy gambit, at best. Better to have more than fourteen inches of steel to use.

He dashed back to the cavern of the sword.

It still hung in the air, the spidery letters playing across the surface. Take me, they said.

He fastened his fingers around the grip. It was blood-warm, alive.

"No promises, Deighton," he said. "No deals. But I'd like to borrow this, for a while. With no obligation." He tightened his fingers around the hilt and pulled.

The sword didn't give.

Take me for your son, the letters said.

"No." He pulled once more, hard. But the sword was anch.o.r.ed tightly in the air.

"f.u.c.k you, a.s.shole," Karl Cullinane said.

He dropped his hand from the hilt and ran from the cavern of the sword of Arta Myrdhyn and into the outer chamber. He paused a moment before the pool leading to the underwater tunnel that was the only exit from the caverns. Karl Cullinane didn't believe in ghosts. It must have been just his subconscious acting up, trying to prevent him from making a mistake.

Still, it wouldn't hurt. He hefted the canvas bag.

"Fialt, Rahff . . ." He choked for a moment, "Chak. My friends. Thank you. For everything." He raised his bowie in a quick salute, then slipped it back into its sheath, thonged it into place, took a deep breath, and dove.

He broke surface on the seaward side, quickly crossed the rocks, and resubmerged on the landward side of the island to keep the island between him and the offsh.o.r.e slaver ship.

Good. If only he could keep the island between him and any possible observers, he might be able to take out the hunters without drawing any undue attention.

Tennetty's group was more than a hundred yards to his left as he crept up on the sh.o.r.eline; the two slavers were too intent on them to notice Karl Cullinane silently rise from the water and bear down on them. The only sound he made was the whisking of his bare feet on the sand, and that was covered by the lapping of waves on the sh.o.r.e.

The slavers crept on silently, the leader in his curious half-crouch, the bowman lagging behind.

Unstrapping the package and setting his packet of explosives gently on the sand, Karl Cullinane drew his bowie and closed in on them.

Perhaps he was breathing too loudly, perhaps an unconscious growl forced itself from between his lips, perhaps his heart was beating too hard; he was never quite sure why, but when he was only about six feet behind the bowman, the slaver gave a gasp and turned, bringing his bow up.

Karl Cullinane took a broken-field half-step to one side and launched himself toward the bowman, just as the bowman fired.

The bolt burned against the left side of Karl's ribcage; he knocked the weapon aside, the slaver losing the other bow as the two of them rolled around on the sand.

The slaver clawed for Karl's eyes with one hand; he tried to block the downward thrust of Karl's knife with the other, fingers straining to grip Karl's wrist.

Fingers snapped as Karl Cullinane stabbed downward, once, twice, three times into the slaver's chest, then jerked his knife from the enemy and rolled free, coming to his feet to rush at the other.

The other man stood silently wide-eyed, his mouth working as though he was trying to say something. But only a harsh moan and a trickle of dark blood escaped his lips as his spastic hands pulled at the knife that projected from his throat.

Knife? The slaver fell to his knees.

Another knife thunked home, this time into the slaver's chest.

"Tennetty, Aeia, Bren, freeze," Walter Slovotsky hissed from behind Karl. "It seems that we found him."

Karl turned to see three people: Slovotsky, Ahira, and someone he didn't rea"no, by G.o.d! it was Avair Ganness!a"emerging from the trees.

"O ye of little faith," Slovotsky said, his smile unforced. "You think I'd send them out without giving them an escort?"

As Karl stripped off his b.l.o.o.d.y tunic and examined the six-inch-long shallow gash on his side, Ahira hauled the bodies past the treeline, the others gathered around him.

"Bad?" Ahira asked, dropping to his knees, scrubbing at his arms with handfuls of sand.

"I'll live." It hurt like h.e.l.l, but it wasn't deep. Certainly not bad enough to waste any of his precious supply of healing draughts; he let Tennetty apply a bandage and tie it in place, then he took a brief moment to exchange hugs with Aeia and Ahira and handclasps with Bren, Tennetty, and Ganness before turning to Slovotsky.

"Is he back in Biemestren or with you?" Karl asked.

"Who?" Slovotsky's brow furrowed. "Oh, Jason. Well, I hope he's back in Holtun-Bieme, or Home. a"Now, let's get the h.e.l.l out of here. We've got Ganness' ship hidden in a cove abouta""

"You hope?"