I am not a good man; I know that, I accept that, and perhaps it could be said that I indulge myself in it. So be it.
But while I'm not a good man, the Khan and I are good at one thing, and that one thing does have its uses.
And as to that, too, I say: so be it.—Gray
The corridor stretched ahead.
Niko found it hard to breathe; his heart, in the slow red time, beat too slowly in his chest, and the song in his muscles and tendons was a thing that spoke of both agony and pleasure and he wasn't sure which predominated, only that if he let it go, he would only be partly alive until he felt it again.
But still, the corridor stretched silently ahead—no break, no sound, no threat. Nothing. Where was he? It was hard to focus his eyes—it seemed to keep changing. Not in any useful way—the floor beneath his feet turned from a solid expanse of curlicued black-and-white marble to tiles of some rough green stone, and then to a slick white expanse, as he looked.
It was the screams from the end of the corridor that drew him. He ran down it, Nadide held high over his head. The world was in slowtime, and as he tried to brake himself at the sudden bend in the corridor, his booted feet chitter-chitter-chittered on the interstices between the floorboards, and he slid, slamming hard into the rough stones of the wall, barely able to keep his feet.
And then the other was there, running up the broad stone steps, a sword reddened both from its inner glow and the blood that ran down its length held over his head.
He could feel Nadide's fear and anger reach out from her length, manifesting itself in a gout of too-slowly-flickering flame that—
—that dispersed itself without touching the other man, like a bucket of water vanishing into steam upon the hottest of fires.
And still the man came. He wasn't trapped in slowtime, like the rest of the world; his bare, hairy chest, glistening with sweat, heaved in and out, as though he, like Niko, couldn't fill his lungs with air quickly, thoroughly enough.
Niko had to run—but where? His back was to the wall, and the swordsman was at least as fast as he was, if not faster; it would be a simple matter to cut off any escape.
So there would be no escape.
Niko took up the stance he had been taught: Nadide's grip firm in his right hand, the scabbard still clutched in his left, his feet ashoulder's width apart, slightly diagonal to the onrushing swordsman. Elbow bent, point low-but-not-down-dammit-Niko, and as the man swung at him, he straightened his arm, raised his right foot, and lunged forward.
His vision blurred as the other sword whizzed past his head, its red glow blinding him momentarily, filling his eyes with tears that only squeezing his eyelids shut could dispel.
He had failed, he was certain. His lunge had met no resistance, and there was no time for—
No.
A smouldering pile lay at his feet on the smooth gray tiles, shards of metal, some of it still glowing red poking up through the ashes. But the red wasn't the red of Nadide—it was the red of steel, heated in a hot fire.
"Nnniiiikooooo—"
He spun at the too-slow voice from behind him, swinging Nadide about as he did, barely able to stop himself, and her, inches away from the blade cutting through Cully's neck.
It was hard to think, and—
Let me sleep, please, Niko. I need to rest.
In the part of his mind that was Nadide-and-Niko, she was crying. Not in fear—he had drawn her fear into himself, and it didn't slow him—but in exhaustion, and from something more, something he couldn't put a name to.
Please.
He slipped Nadide back into her sheath, and let his hand sag away from her hilt, and the world spun back into normality. Aches that had been distant and unimportant became real and immediate; the drumming of his heart was echoed by the slow counterpoint of his gasps.
His knees started to buckle; if Cully hadn't caught him, he would have fallen; he sagged into the old man's free arm.
"Easy, boy," Cully said, as he slipped an arm around Niko's waist, bearing him up. "It's just me." His sword was drawn, but down and at his side, and he had lost his scabbard somewhere. For some reason, Cully was smiling, although what there was to smile about escaped Niko entirely.
Cully looked down at the smoking mass at his feet, and frowned. "Well, there's one down."
"Sir Cully," he said, still gasping, "I—"
"Shh. We handle this now, as best we can. We feel about it later. One down, which leaves . . ." He shrugged. " . . . others."
"One what?"
Cully shrugged. "One enemy—one enemy with what was a live sword." He frowned at that, and shook his head. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
He set out down the corridor at a fast trot, one that would have done credit to a much younger man, although Niko, in fasttime, would have been able to pass him easily. He stopped, and turned. "Are you coming?"
"Yes, Father Cully."
The courtyard could have been anywhere, Nissim decided. He could have been anywhere—anywhere he hadn't been before. He would have remembered this place, not because it was so horribly grand or unusual, but just because that was his way.
The stone residence that stood at its center was large, certainly, by both Pironesian and Tikritizan standards, but not huge, although the cornices and square archways made it seem more English than anything he was used to.
There were sounds beyond the building—strange sounds, like the wind, although Nissim couldn't feel any breeze at all, what with the keep's walls all around him.
But a barracks, seemingly empty, stood against the keep's walls to his right. He would investigate—anybody would, of course—but neither Stavros Kechiroski nor Nissim al-Furat would want to do so empty-handed. Maybe there was a weapon in there.
He set off at a trot.
"Halt there," came from behind him. He turned to see Fotheringay running toward him, his boarding pike held up and across his chest. "You're that carpenter, from the Marienios?"
"Yes, Excellency—"
"Fotheringay—you can call me 'Sergeant.' " There should have been a smile to go along with the words, but there wasn't. "You fell through, or did those Abdullahs throw you through?"
Best to stick with the truth, at least until he could think up a good lie. "I came through the wave myself, Sergeant."
Fotheringay snorted. "And why would you want to do a fool thing like that, half naked and unarmed?"
Stavros ignored the question. "There's what looks like a barracks over there—I was hoping to find some sort of spear, or perhaps a bow." That came naturally, as did, "I used to hunt wild goats, as a boy."
Fotheringay grunted. "Take a strange bow, and no time to practice with it, and even if you were a wicked-good bowman as a boy, you'd be useless as tits on a boar-hog. Let's see if we can find you a spear." He frowned down at his waist, then shrugged, and drew his sword, tossing it hilt-first to Nissim. "Hold on to this in the meantime—not that it'll do you a lot of good."
They set out at a fast trot toward the barracks. The sounds of the wind—could it be wind?—and cries from beyond the hedgerow seemed to beckon to Fotheringay, and he waved Stavros toward the barracks, as he himself dashed off toward the hedgerow. "Better get something you can use, and if you can find some spares, maybe I can use them."
Stavros hefted the sword. Yes, of course—naturally, both Stavros Kechiroski and Nissim al-Furat would want to get involved in somebody else's fight.
In—how did the English put it?—a swine's eye.
The barracks was empty of people, but there were what appeared to be freshly made bunks for eighty or more men, and bundles of spears stacked in the far corner. And a rack of bows, too, strings hanging limply from one end—and quivers, already filled with arrows, on the shelves beside it.
He tossed the borrowed sword onto one of the bunks and retrieved a spear, then went to the door, standing just inside the shadows, to watch, then thought better of it, and went for a bow and strung it, grunting with the effort, before he retrieved a quiver, and then a spear, for his own defense.
He had said that he was going to go for a bow, and it would be best to be found with one, when this was all over.
Whatever it was.
Gray tumbled to the dirt, banging his head against the hard-packed ground so violently that lights danced behind his eyes.
Or were all the lights behind his eyes? Crimson flashes had seemed to pierce the air and the sky as much as his mind, and when he forced his eyes open, he caught the sun setting full in the eyes, dazzling him into bright blindness.
As he fought to his feet, he could more feel than see Bear beside him, as was only right and proper. But it wasn't Bear that he needed, now. No—that was wrong. Gray needed Bear—but Gray needed to be not-Gray.
His hands fastened on the familiar steel.
Yes.
And then the Khan was in his hand.
The world changed about him.
It was all much simpler, much purer now—purer in a way that only the Gray-Khan could have appreciated.
His vision cleared, resolving itself into the black and white that was the only proper way for a man—or something more than a man—to see, and the actinic whiteness of the sun no more blinded him than did the coal blackness of the sky.
His own body was somehow more distant and immediate; the blood still dripping from the nose where Cully had struck him but an annoying wetness.
The pain was there, but it was just the pain of a human man, and he was something far more than that. He was not just a witness standing behind his own eyes, although he knew he would remember it that way; and he knew, as he always did, that his memory, once again, would lie, that it was just Gray trying to deny that he and the Khan had become one thing, one soul.
There were others here. Even in quicktime, he could barely make them out in the dark, black shapes upon blackness, but the flames of the swords shot back and forth across the courtyard, as though they were pursuing something, a pack of wolves chasing a rabbit through the black night that was relieved not even a little by the harsh whiteness of the sun.
Yes, the world was, once again, as it always should be: black and white, and always, always red, with no gray to it, and no Gray in it.
"Help me, Gray," came from the blackness. It was Black's voice, but where? And, more important, where was Cully? Was he already dead?
It didn't matter. It was Gray who loved Cully, Gray who took the man who had pulled that sniveling little boy from the waterfronts and given him a life—the Gray-Khan was above such matters.
What mattered was the power, the glory of it, the way that the redness of the Khan cut through the darkness, the way that it filled his veins and muscles and brain, making the world all simple and sensible once more.
Because it was, finally, sensible.
Things were always too complicated for Gray. For the Khan, they had been simple—the world was divided into four parts: himself; those who walked or rode beneath his banner; the conquered; the dead. The Khan had reveled in that simplicity, and now, the world was more straightforward and not even four-times-complex, but two: there was the Gray-Khan; and there was everything and everybody else; he would crush them, and then the world would be even simpler, and more beautiful:
Just black, just white, and no red save his own.
There were enemies here, and if they wouldn't have been the Khan's enemies and perhaps shouldn't have been Gray's, the Gray-Khan had nothing in this world, here and now, but himself and adversaries.
Behind him, he felt the Nameless flare into white reality, and it was all he could do to not turn to deal with him first, despite the temptation. These flickers of red were not the threat that the Nameless's whiteness was, yes, but the Nameless was weak, weakened by mercy, crippled by compassion, neutered by detachment.
Not the Gray-Khan.
One of the flickering flames dashing in and out of the blackness dashed within his reach, and he stretched out his own fire to encompass it, relishing, bathing in the smell and taste of its burning and shattering, the silent screams of agony that echoed through the pure darkness to end in dark silence.
That was one, and he quickly dispatched another, and—
Agony flared in his side—not the distant pain of the Gray-body, but real pain, pain that touched the body and soul of the Gray-Khan—and he turned to face the source.
Had he been so mistaken?
Had the Nameless finally come to his senses?
No—it was another of the flickering little reds. They were small, but they were clever, and they worked in packs, like the dogs that they were. While he had been dispatching one, another had snuck up into the blackness behind him, and he could feel the strength drain from his Gray-body.
He drew strength from his total self, and spun about, sending this one into blackness with a dispatch and a fury that almost surprised himself.
No. There was no surprise. There was just darkness, and the reds hiding in it, and the white incandescence of the Nameless couldn't dispel it. Like a pack of wolves, they would nip at him, satisfying themselves with bite after bite until they brought him down.
No. That would not be.
It could not be allowed to be. It—
It always reminded Bear of the wine.
There was something almost indecent about how good it felt to join himself with the Nameless. And, of course, something more.
But it always reminded Bear of the wine.
Father had always insisted that decent wine was the right thing for Communion—it was wrong, Father had always said, for the Blood of the Lamb to be some insipid squeezings, barely aged enough to be called wine; it should be at least a decent vintage, properly casked and aged in good wood, whose taste would remind all who partook of the sacrament that God's power could turn a humble grape into something with at least a hint of wonder in it.
Mother would always laugh at Father's arrogance and presumption—if the sacrament itself wasn't wonder enough, then even the finest of bottle-aged Burgundian cabernet would hardly be sufficient, would it? She was under the impression that the baronial purse would not last long if he were to take that route, but if he insisted, perhaps—
Dammit, if he was going to provide the wine for the Fallsworth church—and he was obligated to support the church, in case she had forgotten—he could damn well decide to give the faithful a taste of decent wine, couldn't he?
And so it would go. Mother and Father loved their arguments, and never worried about the effect that they might have had on young ears listening in.
Intrigued by all the talk, David and Matthew and Michael—David had been the instigator, even though he was the youngest of the three—had snuck out at night and taken the winding path to the winery and into the cellar, late at night, and swallowed mug after mug from one of the barrels that had been set aside for the church.
All been discovered in the morning, brought before Father, and quite properly and thoroughly thrashed for it, of course.
But there had been a moment, just a moment, in between, as he recalled, his fourth and fifth mug, that a sense of peace had descended on him—before the passing-out that night, and the shaking-awake, and vomiting, and the the hangover, and the thrashing of the next day—a moment.
Or maybe a Moment.
He couldn't have described it to anybody else. It was a moment not just of peace and relaxation, and perhaps the illusion of clarity, but of connection—connection with his drunken brothers in a way that David, the odd duck of the family, had never really had, before or since; connection with serenity, with peace, with the uncovered dirt of the cellar floor, with the trees that had provided the wood for the barrel he leaned against, with . . . with everything.
Drawing the Nameless was like that. Always.
He was One—not just with the Nameless, not just with the rough bark of the tree beneath which the Nameless had sat—but with everything.
It wasn't intoxicating, just as that moment with the wine hadn't been intoxicating; it was clarifying.
The blurred shapes dashing across the courtyard in pursuit of their quarry didn't slow in their mad pace, but became sharp and clear. One of the men, the Red Sword glowing above his head in the dim light of the dawn, had a quirk in his thick eyebrow, as though it had grown over an old scar; another's mouth was wide in fear that should have had him trembling, but didn't. None of the stones of the gravel-strewn courtyard was just a stone, but each had its own shape, its own identity, different from all the others.
And then there was Gray and the Khan. He didn't pity either of them—it was only right that they be precisely as they were, the two of them, and the two-as-one, and though he would have cut them down, without anger or hatred, if that had been proper, it wasn't . . . it wasn't clear now.
The only thing that didn't gain clarity was the blur of the Wise—or maybe it was otherwise? Maybe the Wise really was of an indeterminate shape, never quite coalescing into something sharp-edged and substantial?
It was all so sharp and real that it was all he could do not to dive into the individuality, the uniqueness of each stone, of each blade of grass that had worked its way through the gravel, reaching for the sun.
But, of course, that was not was required. The world was the stream, and he was not the rock to be washed over by it; he was a drop in the stream himself, glistening more than some and less than others, and he was never more aware of it as he lowered the Nameless to brush away the other glistening drop that had attacked Gray, sending it spattering into a million drifting motes without anger, without hatred, with only the sense that it was right that this drop be dispersed, right here and right now; and then another, and another.
And it was only right and only proper, he thought, when another drop splattered into him, sending the Nameless dropping from his nerveless fingers, and making him one with the stream, no longer having any need to be a distinct drop himself.
It was a pity, all in all, he thought, that he would never know how it all ended.
And the pity was part of the perfection of it.
Cully grabbed Niko before he could make it out the doorway into the courtyard.
"No," he said. "Wait. It's beyond the likes of me, and even of you, right now."
"But—wait. Give them a chance—they should be able to, perhaps."
He shook his head. "No. There's too many."
"Then we—"
"No. Wait."
Blurred forms moved quickly, too quickly across the gravel, sending stones flying into the air. Niko thought that he saw some of them pursuing some other blurred shape, but he wasn't sure.
Gray and Bear stood, back to back, in the center of it, almost unmoving, but as one of the blurs approached Gray, he seemed to do nothing more than perhaps twitch—
—and a broken body tumbled through the air, to lie still, on the gravel, shards of metal raining down with a horrible clicking that seemed never to end.
Gray's smile was awful to see. He seemed to lower the Khan slowly, yet its tip cut back and forth through the air so quickly that it seemed to vibrate, and—
—he fell, clutching at the stump that was all that remained of his right hand, while the Khan clattered to the ground.
And then Bear fell, and Cully turned to Niko, ignoring the two knights lying bleeding, dead or dying on the ground. It was hard to read his expression—but was there, perhaps, a trace of a smile? How could that be? How could he smile as the tears ran down his cheeks and into his beard?
Niko didn't understand, and he wanted to ask, but the words choked in his throat.
And, besides, there wasn't time.
Cully looked down at the scabbard held in his left hand, and threw it to one side, then tossed the sword after it. They clattered on the hard stones as he drew his stick from his sash, and touched the end of it to his head, as though in a salute.
"I'll go first, and try to distract them as well as I can—while they're killing me, you'll have your chance. Don't draw Nadide until you have that chance—they'll see her fire as easily as you see theirs." He clasped his free hand to Niko's shoulder, once, the way Grandfather used to. "Make the most of it, Sir Niko."
"Yes, Father," Niko said. "As you will."
Cully walked quickly out into the courtyard, though each footstep anchored him to the earth before he went on to the next. Balance was the way of it, as he had long ago learned, and longer ago taught.
Three of the flashing reds were left, blurring around the courtyard in pursuit of the Wise, the speed of their passage whipping dirt and gravel into the air. Too fast, too strong for the likes of him, and once again, he had let his children throw themselves against against forces too many, too strong for them, and once again, most of them lay, dead or dying, on the ground.
He had murdered more of them.
Gray and the Khan could have brought down the whole keep around them in a hellish inferno, killing them all, but that would not have protected the Wise.
Was that why Gray had not done the needful?
No, of course not—he would have sacrificed the Wise, and himself, but even under the influence of the Khan, it would not occur to Gray to bring Bear and Cully down with him, not if there was another way, another chance, another possibility, and there had always been an arrogance in the boy of sorts, about his own abilities if nothing else, one that had not been tempered by his years carrying that Khan. Gray had thought that he could win, that they could.
A chance? For winning? None. Niko would try, of course.
The boy had a good sword, good instincts, and a good heart, but Cully had thrown boys with good swords, good instincts, good hearts and better training into the meat grinder before—and not just when he and Bedivere had done so directly against York's men.
Cully had also done it indirectly, distantly, but not one whit less responsibly back when he was teaching at Alton, every time he had signed the approval for a first-former to graduate to second-form; every time that he stood, his silence mute consent, as sealed fourth-formers knelt before His Majesty to arise as knights of the Order.
He had done the same to Gray when he had let Ralph give him the Khan, opposing it only with his threat to appeal to His Majesty—as he had done; His Majesty had heard him out, and refused him—and to Her—She had, too, refused him—and finally his threat to leave the Order, a threat that Ralph had taken as the opportunity that it indeed had been.
Words and pleas and threats had not been enough. Cully should have cut Ralph down when the decision was made, and not relied on his failing abilities to persuade, not counting his value to His Majesty and to Her.
If they were not to be persuaded, they would not be bullied with his threats.
Was it cowardice that had stayed his hand, or obedience? He wished he knew.
The one thing he knew was that he didn't deserve to die with the sword of a knight of the Order in his hands, and that was something that he could control.
Mordred the Great had been right: Arthur the Tyrant had murdered all those babies, and he had not been fit to rule. Yes, certainly the Great had other reasons for taking the Crown, but a decent man could have selfish reasons for doing the morally requisite, couldn't he?
And how many babies had Cully already murdered? How many of his own, as much his children—more so than if they had merely sprung from his seed?
And how many more to come?
One, certainly. But let that be the end of it.
There was at least the chance that Cully could make it to Gray's and Bear's sides, and make his last stand there, and give a good account of himself.
Let the ones who cut him down remember their own fallen comrades and know that knights' lives might be taken, but not easily or cheaply. No, it would not end here. The Order had feuded with the Table for centuries, and whoever was behind this would forever have to look over their shoulders, worrying that the last thing they saw would be the face of Big John, or Walter, the Beast, Lady Ellen, or even that idiotic Guy of Orkney.
Let them fear; let them die. Let the world know.
But since it would end for Cully here, let it end as a knight. For a moment, just one last moment, let him be Sir Cully of Cully's Woode, sealed Knight of the Order of Crown, Shield, and Dragon.
"Over here," he shouted, as he raised his stick over his head. "You won't be able to kill the Wise until you've killed the last of us. It isn't over," he said. And then he smiled. "Not while I breathe."
One of the blurs detached itself from the pack and streaked toward him, and Cully dropped back, his stick held out to one side, an extension not just of his arm and his body, but himself.
One blow. Give him just one blow.
It was time, Niko decided. He had waited long enough. He felt almost, well, rested, at least by comparison with but a few minutes before—he felt like could actually breathe again, and while he didn't have to listen to hear his heart thumping in his chest, it didn't pound painfully anymore.
It was time. His hands fell to Nadide's hilt.
Will it hurt, Niko?
I don't think so, little one. Not for long, in any case.
I miss her, Niko. Will I be with her?
I wish I could tell you yes, but I can't lie to you, Nadide. I just don't know about such things. Perhaps. I hope so.
Then what do you know?
That these are the ones, or part of the ones, that hurt the One Who Smells Like Food, and my sisters—and Father and Grandfather.
Will we hurt them?
We will try.
I'm scared, Niko.
That's . . . as it should be, I expect.
He drew her, and she flared from a close presence to an intimate one. Oh, yes, he thrilled to the way that the fiery redness pulsed throughout his body with every too-slow heartbeat, the deep thrummm of his bones that echoed through every tendon.
But it was much more. It was . . . right.
Perhaps it should have bothered him that each time it became more comfortable, more intimate—Cully had said there were dangers in the drawing of a live sword from such things—but it didn't feel that way.
It felt like being whole.
He leaped from the steps and ran across the ground in as low a crouch as he could, hoping that the man bearing down on Cully would not feel their flame; he couldn't see them, not with his back to them.
And, perhaps, neither of the other two would notice? That was the part of them that was Nadide; Niko didn't believe it for a moment.
He was going to be too late; Cully's attacker was every bit as much in the quicktime as they were, and his treacherous heart refused to pound any more quickly, his traitor body refused to move any faster, and—
They cut down through the swordsman's back, the soul-and-steel cleaving more than just flesh and blood and bone. The fiery end of both of them should have bothered them, but perhaps it was just that babies were selfish, or that Niko was enraged, or perhaps it was something else.
But he was—they were moving so quickly that it was impossible to stop, and they slammed into Cully, bowling him over, and knocking him—them to the ground, as well. He tried to protect Cully as they fell, but the action slammed both their bodies' weights down on the hand holding the sword, and his fingers opened as they rolled across the hard stones.
And then he was just-Niko again, struggling to free himself from Cully, so that he could get Nadide back in hand. The old man was trying to help, he was sure, but his struggles were more interfering than helping. In desperation, Niko kicked away from the old man, his finger clawing at the gravel as though that could bring him the scant few inches he needed, knowing as he did that they were two and he was one, and that he would not—
And then the twin streaks stopped, and resolved themselves into two men, shards of metal that had been swords falling from their nerveless fingers, who writhed and screamed as their skin crackled and popped like meat cooked on the flat rock of the fireplace, and then more fell in on themselves than fell to the ground.
A man stood panting in front of him, his face streaked with dirt and sweat.
He was dressed in an Arab merchant's flowing robes, although the robes were filthy with dust and twigs, and tattered, as though he had just crawled through some thicket that had somehow torn his clothes but left his skin intact; if he had a wound on him, Niko couldn't see it.
But the scabbarded sword that he held in his left hand hand was straight, the hilt plain, plain as Nadide, plain as—
A knight. It was another knight.
The knight snickered as he kicked Nadide away from Niko's outstretched hand, sending her halfway across the courtyard.
"You may . . . as well stop smiling, boy. I'm no . . . friend of yours," he said, still gasping for breath.
Cully had started to rise, but despite his obvious exhaustion the man immediately gave him a quick kick in the head, and Cully fell flat on the ground, motionless.
The man then moved toward where Gray and Bear lay bleeding, carefully not getting any closer than necessary to them before kicking the Khan and the Nameless away from them, as well.
He wasn't moving quickly, but he was obviously as bone-tired as Niko was, and he started to sway, his knees trembling, but he managed to right himself. "Haven't had the sword in hand for that long in a long time," he said, as though talking to himself. "And I'd not care to take it in hand again, not at the moment. Dangerous, eh?" There was nothing friendly in his smile.
Niko forced himself to his knees, readying himself to lunge at Nadide, but the man stepped between him and the sword. "Easy, boy. I . . . I don't want to have to serve you right now, not with the Sandoval, but I will if you rush me. Go easier on all of you if I do it with ordinary steel, I expect, and it'll surely go easier on me." He smiled down at Cully's prostrate form. "And don't think I'll come within range of you, Father Cully, not without the Sandoval in hand—I'm dog-tired, for a fact, and feel weak as a newborn, but I'm not stupid."
Sandoval? That meant—
"Yes, yes, I'm the one they used to call Alexander, although they surely call me something else now. And you, Father Cully, you may lie there if you'd like, or rise no further than your knees. Any more, and tired or not, I'll let the Sandoval eat you."
Cully lay on the ground, his legs sprawled over Niko's, unmoving.
"I can see you breathing, Cully." Alexander cocked his head to one sided. "And that bastard Gray is still breathing, too. Have to fix him after I fix you." He glanced quickly around the courtyard. "Hmm . . . didn't any of these fools have a mundane sword on them? Apparently not." He shrugged. "Then again, neither do I. Special circumstances, he? Well, Bear's will have to do. Good old Brother Bear, always happy to be of service."
He carefully walked around, keeping Bear's body in between himself and Gray's prostrate form, then stopped for a moment, his brow furrowed. "No, that's a bit too close, eh?" he asked, answering himself by stooping and seizing hold of Bear's right boot.
Bear had been a big man in life, and death hadn't changed that; the stranger—Alexander grunted and groaned as he dragged the body just a few feet away, never taking his eyes off where Cully and Niko lay, always seeming to watch Gray as well.
He'd have to make a try. Perhaps this Alexander would set the Sandoval down on the ground when he turned Bear over. Nadide was far away, too far away, but he had to try, and Niko could feel his own strength returning with each breath.
He stared Alexander right in the eye. Maybe if the traitor was watching his eyes he wouldn't see Niko make the slight movements necessary to set his hands and feet into the ground for his lunge.
Cully was still motionless next to him, facedown on the ground, his left leg sprawled over Niko's.
It twitched twice.
Twice. Two for "no." Two for "disagree with me." Two for "not yet."
Two for "Cully was still with him."
He forced himself not to smile as Cully's foot twitched again, three times. Three times for "talk more."
Niko could do that.
"Why?" he choked out.
"Why what? Why is Bear so damned heavy? That's what I'm wondering," he said. "Why did the noble fool fall covering his scabbard? Why, when I dragged him, didn't the damn thing work itself a little loose, so I could get hold of it? I'm wondering that, too." He managed to get his free hand and a foot under Bear, and rolled him over. "Ah, now, that's better."
That was it. With all of the live swords out of reach, Alexander would slip the sheathed Sandoval into his sash, and then Niko would make his move.
That's what Cully was thinking.
He forced himself not to look at Bear's dead face, at the way that his open eyes, already glazed over and covered with dirt, stared unblinkingly at the sun. No. You couldn't think about that at times like this, you couldn't dwell on Bear's gentleness and kindness, and—
Cully's foot twitched once. And then again and again.
Talk more? Talk about what?
"Mr. Alexander?"
The only reason that Alexander didn't look up was because he never had looked down. But at least Niko had stalled him, if only for a few moments. His fingers fumbled clumsily for the hilt of Bear's sword. "My name is Abdul ibn Mahmoud," he said, showing anger for the first time. "If you want to beg for your life, boy, you can at least beg me by my name, eh? Ah. There it is." His fingers had found the hilt.
For one moment, Niko hoped that, by some miracle, Bear had managed to sheath the Nameless, that what Smith had kicked away was just Bear's mundane sword, Smith would be laying his hands on a White Sword that would burn him at the touch.
But, no: the sword slid smoothly from its sheath.
And then a miracle happened.
It wasn't a big miracle, granted. Niko had been read to enough from the Bible to know that real, big miracles were things like the sun standing still, like water being turned to wine, the raising of the dead.
But a strand of grass, just about halfway between Niko and this man who wanted to be called Abdul ibn Mahmoud, but who was the murderer Alexander Smith, poked its tip up through the gravel, and grew quickly, becoming the length of a fingertip, and then a finger, and then a hand.
Smith saw it too, and his brow furrowed.
"What the—"
There was a shout from behind Niko, and Cully's foot twitched, once.
Yes, it meant.
Niko lunged forward, scrabbling on the gravel, trying to gain his feet while Fotheringay, his short pike held out chest-height in front of him, dashed out of the bushes, the sound issuing from his mouth something somewhere between a battle cry and a growl.
Niko was already at a dead run around Smith, toward where Nadide lay. There was a chance, if not much of one, that Smith wouldn't have time to both draw the sword, and then kill Fotheringay and Cully and then Niko before Niko got Nadide in hand, and even if he could, could he and Nadide possibly defeat Alexander and the Sandoval?
He had to try.
Smith had been startled for a moment, but not for long; he dropped Bear's mundane sword and reached toward the Sandoval—
—stopped by an arrow that seemed to sprout from his chest.
It staggered him for a moment, just long enough for Fotheringay to reach him. The old sergeant slammed the butt of his pike into Alexander's chest, knocking him back, then slashed out with the pike's point, cutting into his sword arm.
Alexander fell back, the sword falling from his arms, but as Fotheringay moved in for the kill, Alexander's fingers managed to grasp it, and the redness flared.
And then he was blurring away—leaving behind a trail through the smashed hedges from which Fotheringay had emerged.
And Niko's fingers were reaching for Nadide.
"Wait, boy," Cully shouted. "Both of you. He's fled. Don't take the swords in hand—but keep them near."
Gray had somehow or other managed to crawl across the gravel, leaving behind a trail of blood, and while what was left of his right arm was thrust into the robes over his chest, his left hand was but inches from the Khan.
He sagged down to the ground, and stretched his hand out.
Niko didn't see where Sigerson's man Bigglesworth had come from, but he quickly ran up to Gray. "Easy there, sir," he said. "You been hurt, hurt bad. Best just to rest." He raised his head.
"Help me up."
"Sir, you—"
"Help him up, Biggles," Sigerson said, walking quickly toward them.
His voice was preposterously calm as he unfastened the belt that held his wizard's robes tight against his waist. He tossed it to Bigglesworth. "Bind up his arm—and hold his sword for him, keep it ready for him, but hold it by the scabbard; don't touch the metal with your flesh."
"You don't have to tell me that twice, sir," Bigglesworth said. "Matter of fact, and meaning no disrespect, Mr. Sigerson, you didn't have to tell me that once."
Cully gripped Niko's hand and helped him to his feet, then tore a scrap of cloth from his own robes and wrapped it about Nadide so that he could pick her up. "Easy, Niko," he said. "Stand easy."
"No," Gray said, more of a grunt than a word. "Alexander's not stupid. He'll not come back . . . not injured, not to face two . . . two knights of the Red Sword."
Bear lay dead on the ground at his feet, but Gray didn't look down at the body.
He looked over at Niko, and he smiled, and his smile was an awful thing to behold.
Sigerson took charge; there was no objection.
Gray's arm was quickly bound, and the stump didn't seem to bleed much at all. Fotheringay quickly gathered up scabbards, and the Khan was, safely scabbarded, in Gray's hand where it belonged, freeing Bigglesworth to be to find something to cover Bear up with.
Niko, with Cully at his side, just stood on watch, as did Gray, his back to them, watching, ignoring the way that Bear just lay there, dead eyes staring up at the sky.
Niko didn't look away.
It wasn't that he forced himself to look at the body. He could look at it, or not. It didn't make any difference.
It was all very strange.
He should have been feeling . . . something. He should have been recalling Bear's kindness and gentleness, and the knowing that it was gone forever, that what had been a big, gentle man was now just a pile of dead flesh rotting in the sun should have made his heart ache—it should have made the stones weep.
But they didn't, and neither did Niko.
He didn't feel anything. It was just a body, and there were bodies, and pieces of them, aplenty scattered about the courtyard, and it didn't matter.
He kept his hand near Nadide's hilt, but didn't touch it. If he touched her, he would feel something. Cully and Gray were as silent and motionless as he was, and Niko almost jumped out of his skin when Cully laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently.
But it just startled him. That was all. Maybe he could feel something later. Maybe not.
He ignored the chattering of Sigerson and Bigglesworth and Fotheringay—
No. That was unfair. It wasn't chattering—they were getting necessary things done, and if they were congratulating themselves, just a little, they more than deserved it.
Bigglesworth and Sigerson had intercepted Fotheringay in the hedges, and the three of them had waited for the right moment, before making their move—Sigerson coming up with the only distraction that he could improvise on the spot, and Fotheringay charging Smith, hoping that he would get through, while Bigglesworth had run around the far side, hoping to get around behind Alexander, and the fact that it hadn't worked out quite as well as they hoped, well . . . it could have been much worse.
Fotheringay dashed off toward the building that he said was a barracks in search of a blanket to cover Bear up with, and came back with both a blanket and the man that Niko recognized as the carpenter's mate, the one on the Marienios—Stavros Andropolounikos.
Of the lot of them, Andropolounikos was the only one unmarked and unbruised. He carried a short bow in one hand, had a quiver of arrows belted about his waist, and wore a crooked smile across his face.
Fotheringay silently covered Bear's body up, but when he turned away, he was almost jolly. "Damn me for a fool," he said. "But this man is by far the best bowman I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I've known some damn fine bowmen in my time, I do swear," he said. He looked like he was about to hug Andropolounikos. "What a bloody marvelous shot, you beautiful son of a—of a wonderful Hellenic woman, and I'll hold down any man who says otherwise while you bugger him, or carve on him, or do whatever the hell you want, eh?"
If Niko could have felt anything, he would have wanted to slap Fotheringay silly.
"Thank you, Sergeant. It was . . ." Andropolounikos shrugged. " . . . it was all I could do to help."
Fotheringay snorted. "Damn your modesty, man. That would have been an impressive shot if that'd been the bow you'd practiced with from the minute your mother squirted you out—I would have sworn that you'd have been just as likely to hit me as that traitor, if I'd had to bet."
Andropolounikos seemed to have trouble speaking. "I'm . . . pleased to have been of service," he finally said.
Cully finally spoke. "Perhaps . . . perhaps your arrow was guided from above. Miracles do happen," he said.
Andropolounikos just shrugged again.
Cully's hand rested on Niko's shoulder. "Can you spare me?"
"Eh?"
"I think it's safe now, for now," he said quietly. "Keep on watch, the two of you. Please. Please. I have to. Somebody has to—and Gray can't."
Please? Please what? Please watch?
It was easy to just stand and watch.
Cully walked over to the blanket covering what was left of what had been Bear, knelt down, and made the Sign over Bear.
"Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," he said. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever. Amen." There was no emotion or intensity in the words; he just spoke them quietly, quickly, as though trying to get them over with. "Incline Your ear, O Lord, unto our prayers, wherein we humbly pray Thee to show Thy mercy upon the soul of Thy servant David, whom Thou hast commanded to pass out of this world, that Thou wouldst place him in the region of peace and light, and bid him be a partaker with Thy Saints, through Christ our Lord. Amen."
He knelt there, silently, for the longest time. And then he buried his face in his hands, his body shaking silently.
"My lambs," he finally said, his voice a low whisper, barely audible, "my poor, poor babies. I murder you all, don't I?"
Cully knelt there for a long time, weeping, while Gray stood watch over him, his face without a trace of expression.
Niko just stood. He knew how to do that.