Lirith tightened her grip on his hand. “What did he tell you?”
The saloonkeeper’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I always thought I was a strong man. In my day, I could wrestle any man to the ground with one arm tied. But I can’t wrestle men like these. They said lightning would strike my saloon, that it would burn the place down if I didn’t say what they wanted. That it would be God’s punishment.” He drew his hand from hers and held it to his face. “It’s all I have, Lily. My strength is gone, if ever I had it. I can’t lose the saloon.”
“You won’t,” Lirith said, her voice resolute. “Those men are cowards, and it is they who shall be struck down.”
Travis wadded the notice back up, anger giving way to weariness. He moved away to don his apron and wash glasses while Lirith spoke quiet words to Manypenny. Whatever she said must have comforted the saloonkeeper, for after a time he laughed, and his cheeks were ruddy again. Travis shot her a look of thanks as she headed over to the faro table.
Dusk came, bringing welcome coolness if not many customers. As Travis had suspected, only the hardest drinkers and gamblers stepped through the saloon’s swinging doors. However, Aaron Locke and his clerks from the First Bank of Castle City came through at nine o’clock, right on schedule.
Travis was glad to see them. They were always polite and cheerful, and their presence brightened both the saloon and Manypenny’s mood. Aaron Locke himself came up to the bar, a smile on his boyish face, and bought a round of whiskey for the entire saloon.
“I think we could all use a drink tonight,” Locke said, eyes twinkling behind his gold-rimmed glasses, and this elicited a good deal of vigorous whooping. A number of people were drawn in from the neighboring saloons by the noise, and soon the Mine Shaft was, if not crowded, at least far from empty. Travis let himself think that maybe things would be all right after all. He smiled at Locke, and the bank owner tipped his hat in Travis’s direction.
“She’s so purdy she almost makes losing easy,” said one grizzled miner to another, as they left Lirith’s table and headed to the bar.
“Almost,” the other said, peering into his nearly empty bill-fold.
Travis poured two glasses of whiskey. “Don’t worry, gentlemen. Mr. Locke is buying the whiskey tonight.”
“Well bless him!” said one of the men.
“Now that’s how a man with money should behave,” said the other, setting down his glass. “Not like that Mortimer Hale. He owns half this town, but he never has two bits in his pocket for an old woman or a man down on his luck.”
“Well, I heard old Hale got his comeuppance the other night.”
“How’s that?”
Travis had moved away to pour more drinks, but he kept an ear tilted in the direction of the two miners. They were speaking in lower voices now.
“I heard Hale lost at paigow the other night. Lost big, fair and square. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand? Lord Almighty, the whiskey that could buy a man.”
“I heard Hale was in a royal fit. Only I say it serves him right. Half the land he owns, he’s swindled out of folk. He got Abraham Jesco to sell him the livery by threatening to foreclose on Jesco’s brother’s farm. And I heard he got Miss Ladyspur to deed over the Bluebell to him by promising to make her a society lady. He’s a liar and a thief.”
“Whoa now, watch what yeh say about Hale,” said the first miner, glancing over his shoulder. “He’s got ears everywhere in this town. And yeh know what happens to folk as cross him.”
The men headed back to the faro table. Travis watched them go. So Mortimer Hale had swindled Maudie out of her home. But why did it surprise him Hale would do such a cruel thing? The signs were clear; Hale was the man behind the Crusade. And in league with the sorcerer. Why else would the
Castle
City Clarion
print the stories it did?
“Travis.”
It was Lirith; he had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t even seen the witch approach. Her dark eyes were wide.
“What is it?” he said, his heart skipping in his chest.
She pressed her hands against the bar. “He’s coming. I think he’s taking a stagecoach from the train depot. His thread is so bright, Travis, even brighter than yours. I could see it like lightning in a clear sky.”
Wonder filled him. “Whose thread, Lirith?” But even as he spoke the words, he knew.
“It’s your friend,” the witch said. “The wizard, Jack Graystone.”
Five minutes later, Travis stood in front of the Silver Palace Hotel. He had told Manypenny he needed to step out for a moment and get some air, and the saloonkeeper’s mood had lifted so much he simply waved Travis away with a smile.
Travis peered into the night. Elk Street was empty, save for the slinking shadow of a dog and the occasional miner staggering between saloons. Then he heard it: the thunder of hooves, the rattle of wheels.
He saw the coach’s lantern as it hurtled around a corner. The driver pulled on the reins, and the horses clattered to a stop. Dust swirled around Travis. By the time it cleared, the driver had climbed down to open the door of the stagecoach.
“This is it, sir,” the driver said. “Castle City.”
“By the winged feet of Mercury, couldn’t you have hit fewer ruts along the way?” said a fussy, gentle, and familiar voice. Travis’s heart soared at the sound of it.
“Sorry, sir,” said the driver in a disinterested tone.
A figure climbed out of the coach and started down the steps. The satchel he carried got caught in the door, and he tugged at it to no avail. The driver helped him turn the bag sideways, and it came free so suddenly the man nearly tumbled down the steps. Only a fortuitously placed hitching post kept him from falling to the street. The driver shut the door, climbed back into the bench, and the coach rattled away.
“Blessed Isis, I thought I’d never make it here,” said the man, steadying himself and futilely trying to brush the wrinkles from his wool suit. He was an elderly gentleman, perhaps sixty years old in appearance, strikingly handsome, with vivid blue eyes. His white hair fluttered wildly about his head. “Zeus help me, what an utterly barbarous country this is!”
Gripping his lumpy satchel, he climbed up the steps to the boardwalk and promptly ran into Travis. The man stepped back, muttering more curses to long-forgotten gods. Joy filled Travis. It was Jack Graystone. His old friend, right there, looking just as Travis remembered him.
The white-haired gentleman frowned up at Travis. “Excuse me, my good fellow, but I’ve had a terribly long journey, and I—” He cocked his head, his blue eyes glittering. “Pardon me, but do I know you?”
Travis couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “No,” he said. “But you will.”
38.
The metallic odor of hot steel hung on the air, cauterizing Grace’s lungs. Atop its hill, the keep of Seawatch blazed like an alchemist’s cauldron full of naphtha. However, there was no time to think of Lord Elwarrd, who remained within the keep, or to wonder if the serving girl Mirdrid had escaped. In the bloody light of the fire, Grace could see her own desperate eyes reflected in the polished surfaces of ten onyx breastplates. Black swords naked in their hands, the knights urged their horses, closing the circle.
Grace started to reach down, to fumble with the knife tucked inside her boot. But that was ridiculous. What would she do with it? Cut through their armor as if it were cheese? She abandoned the knife and reached out with her thoughts, indiscriminately clutching the glowing life threads around her: those of men, horses, the wind-twisted plants that eked out an existence in the hard soil of the moors. She didn’t know what she would do with the strands, only that she had mere moments to weave them into a spell.
She was dimly aware of the others forming a triangle around her. Beltan gripped the sword Elwarrd had given him. Vani’s gold eyes shone in the darkness, and her hands were poised, ready to strike. Falken held only a slim dagger in his silver hand. He might as well have been holding his lute for all the good the blade would do him.
The enormous knight—the one with the three crowns of leadership emblazoned on his breastplate—was the nearest, and three others were close behind him. The remaining six knights were moving in as well, but the leader raised his free hand and they held back. No doubt the massive knight wanted to leave some room for him and the other three to swing their swords. Even with Vani and Beltan at her side, Grace knew four knights were more than enough. After all, it required only one to lop off her head. And that was what they wanted, wasn’t it? Not the others, but her—the heir to Malachor. They had been trying since she was an infant to kill her. And now they would.
“Get ready,” Beltan growled beside her.
Grace clutched the necklace at her throat and frantically wove the threads of the Weirding. A mist was starting to rise off the damp ground. Yes, she could weave a spell around the fog. She had done it once before, on the common green of the village of Falanor. She used the power of the Weirding to gather the mist in on itself, making it denser, pulling it toward her. Unseen by the knights, a gray wall rose up behind them. If she could get it closer, engulfing the knights, blinding them, it might give them the chance to get away.
The leader of the knights brought his charger to a halt before her, looking more machine than man in his black armor. His three closest companions joined him, the other six maintaining the larger circle, from which there was no escape.
“You know what to do, brothers!” the enormous man shouted. “It’s time for death to come to those who deserve it. Now!”
Beltan raised his sword. Vani started to move, her dark form melding with the gloom. In unison, the four armored men raised their swords——and whirled their horses around to face their six brethren. The gigantic knight let out an earsplitting roar as he spurred his charger forward, sword raised before him. The three knights closest to him did the same.
Grace stared, the spell unraveling as her shocked mind tried to grasp what was happening. Clearly the six more distant knights hadn’t expected this turn of events any more than Grace. Before any of them could move, the gigantic knight swung his sword. There was a bright
clang
! A visored helm fell tumbling to the ground, a head still in it, and a lifeless body followed after, armor clattering like a heap of junk.
Now the five remaining knights reacted. Swearing and shouting, they turned their swords on their attackers. However, they could not move fast enough. Another toppled from his horse, crumpling to the ground where he lay motionless.
It was chaos. Riderless horses screamed. The mist Grace had gathered broke apart into swirling eddies, obscuring what was happening. The sound of steel on steel rang out again and again.
“What’s going on?” Falken shouted.
“I can’t see,” Beltan called back.
A patch of fog broke apart, and a horse came charging through, pounding straight for Grace. The rider pulled his sword back, then swung it around to strike her down. She could only watch as the blade sped toward her neck.
There was a chiming sound. Sparks flew as the sword contacted Falken’s silver hand, which he had thrust into the path of the blade. Falken tumbled to the ground, and the sword went wide—just barely. Grace watched as a lock of her hair drifted down into her outstretched hands. The knight recovered, pulling his sword back for another blow.
The darkness above him unfurled, like a black rose. Vani fell upon the knight, knocking him from the saddle. The knight spilled to the ground, landing on his back with a grunt. Before he could move, Beltan was there. He planted a boot on the man’s breastplate, then threaded the tip of his sword through the slit in the knight’s visor. Beltan clenched his jaw and leaned on the sword, driving it down. There was a crunching sound. The knight flopped once, like a fish on dry land, then lay still.
The night fell silent, save for the roar of flames from the keep. Beltan jerked his sword free; the tip was dark with blood. Vani peered into the fog. Falken had recovered his feet, and he moved close to Grace, taking her arm. Then they heard it: hooves against hard ground. A bank of mist broke apart, and four knights rode through.
One of them was the gigantic knight with the crowns on his breastplate. The others seemed to be the three that had followed him in the attack. Grace felt the others tense beside her. What did these four want? Did they have some terrible purpose the others would have opposed? As the fog dissipated, Grace saw six black forms on the ground scattered among the twisted bodies of the
feydrim
. Behind her, the keep consumed itself. Cinders fell gently all around like black snow.
The four knights came to a halt a few paces away. Falken stepped in front of Grace.
“What do you want from us?” the bard said.
The knights said nothing. Then, suddenly, the enormous one began to laugh. The sound echoed from inside his visor: booming and ferocious. When the big knight spoke, it was in a voice every bit as loud and deep as his laughter.
“By the foamy mane of Jorus, I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be saving the Grim Bard’s neck. I always thought I’d be wringing it instead.”
Beltan lowered his sword. Falken stared, mouth agape. Vani gave him a puzzled look.
“What, Falken Blackhand?” the enormous knight thundered. “Don’t you recognize your protector?”
With that, the man reached up and plucked the helm from his head. So much shaggy red hair spilled forth that Grace wondered how it could ever have been contained within. The man’s beard looked as if it could have housed several robins’ nests; only his nose and eyes were visible above it.
Falken took a staggering step back. “King Kel!”
The gigantic man grinned. “So you recognize me at last. I suppose that means I won’t have to kill you after all.”
He sounded slightly disappointed. The three men beside him had removed their helms as well, and while none was so prodigious or shaggy as the man Falken called King Kel, they were wild-looking all the same.
Falken sank to his knees, and Grace had no idea if this was a sign of obeisance or if the bard was simply collapsing in shock. Regardless, she followed suit, and Beltan and Vani did the same, although the
T’gol
’s eyes remained suspicious.
This display seemed to please the gigantic man to no end, for he threw his head back and laughed again, and the sound rose above the crackling of flames, filling the night with his mirth.