Camber the Heretic (47 page)

All around, battle was closing now. Arrows continued to fly, though the bowmen's aim was poorer, now that they must distinguish between friend and foe, all moving. Robear had blocked one such arrow with his beloved lute in those first seconds of confusion and then had been forced to parry a swordblow with it, to the instrument's total ruination. Now, leaping over the splinters of the delicate instrument, with Jason fighting desperately to shield them both so that they could make their way to Robear's bow, he lashed out and savaged a man's hand with his dagger, as partial repayment for the lute's destruction, the while staying close to Jason's back.

They won through to the saddles and equipment, but then it was a second struggle to keep from being cut down or shot while Robear tried to get his bow out of its casing and strung. An arrow whizzed under his arm as he shook out the bowstring, evoking a blasphemous oath from him and a brisk and furious retaliation on Jason's part against another swordsman who had harried them all the way there. The squires had come running at the first sound of battle, and were now doing a valiant job of fending off attackers with daggers and hastily grabbed hunting spears, since they possessed no swords of their own. Dorn, the younger of the two, was holding his own against a swordsman nearly twice his weight, with the aid of a handily seized sapling.

Even Tavis was engaged in a dangerous running skirmish with an attacker, though it consisted mostly of the untrained Tavis running and his attacker pursuing, with occasional clashes when Tavis would whirl to pit his dagger against the man's sword. But at least he was leading the man away from Javan. The white-faced elder prince, his bare, clubbed foot held up gingerly, was clutching his own dagger and trying to keep a tree between himself and the fighting, hopping on his good booted foot and wincing involuntarily whenever an arrow would occasionally thud home around him. On a horse, Javan could have acquitted himself well against any of them, but on foot and without his supportive boot, he was clumsy and knew it.

Davin saw the prince's dilemma, and he gritted his teeth as he tried to beat back an attacker half again his size. He had to get to Javan! But as he flat-bladed the man and one of the squires finished him, he heard Rhys Michael scream behind him and whirled to see a man with an axe grab the prince by one thin arm, axe poised to strike.

Almost without thinking, Davin launched himself across the intervening distance and swung his sword two-handed, half cutting the man in two at the waist before the axe could descend on the screaming prince with deadly force. Rhys Michael took a shallow cut across the top of his thigh and collapsed shrieking beside the dead man, hysterical as more arrows started to rain down. One took the squire Dorn in the stomach.

Davin engaged another enemy. Robear had finally begun retaliation with his own bow, and was now firing blind into the underbrush as fast as he could, hoping to hit or at least frighten off the enemy bowmen. His initial barrage seemed to have little effect, however, for the enemy arrows kept flying. Several slithered off Davin's mail as he fought, and one even skewered the calf of the man who had been pursuing Tavis.

With an oath, the wounded attacker sank to his knees and tried to snap off the arrow in his leg, but he had not reckoned on Javan, lurking behind his tree. The elder prince leaped onto the man's back with a blood-curdling yell and held on like a limpet, one arm locked around the mailed head, drawing it back as he jerked his dagger across the upturned throat with a deftness which would have made the most exacting weapons master proud. As the two of them went down in a shower of blood, Davin glanced aside and then threw himself across Rhys Michael, just in time to intercept an arrow meant for the prince. The shaft buried itself in his lower back, the jagged hunting barb searing pain through his body.

Gasping, legs no longer able to function, he clasped Rhys Michael to his breast even as he lashed out with his sword to hamstring an attacker who was harrying Jason. Someone screamed from the brush into which Robear had been continuing to shoot, and the enemy arrows stopped. A frantic rustling of leaves told of another bowman beating a judicious retreat. As Robear swung on the last two attackers still on their feet, one of whom had been trying to keep the squire Tomais from impaling him on a hunting spear, the men threw down their weapons and surrendered.

“All right! It's over!” Jason rasped, prodding the hamstrung man with his sword until the latter also surrendered.

As Davin slowly raised up on one elbow, he could hear a horse galloping away—the retreating bowman making good his escape, no doubt. Corund lay dead where he had slept, the young squire Dorn did not move from where he had fallen, and four attackers likewise moved no more. As Robear and the remaining squire lashed the hands of their two captives behind them at wrist and elbow, Jason trussed up his own crippled captive, then went charging into the brush to look for the second bowman. Rhys Michael, hauling himself from under Davin's protection, took one look at the wound across his thigh and began to wail.

“My brother! He's hurt!” Javan cried, scrambling so quickly to his brother's side that his limp was scarcely noticeable. “Tavis, help him! He's bleeding!”

Davin had rolled onto his side as Javan approached, so the blood-stained prince did not notice the arrow protruding from his lower back. But as the Healer came to kneel beside the younger prince, Jason emerged from the brush dragging a gravely wounded bowman and turned him over to Robear. Jason blanched as he came up behind Davin and saw the arrow.

“Eidiard! My God, man!”

“It can wait,” Davin whispered, with a fierce shake of his head, though he did accept Jason's support and help in easing further onto his left side.

He was sore hurt—that much he knew. Too hurt, he expected, for even a Healer like Rhys to do much for him. He had no feeling below the burning shaft protruding from his back, and he had to reach back and brush its feathers with his fingertips to know that it had passed just beside the spine, leaving his lower body numb and lifeless. His heart sank with that realization, for he had never heard of a Healer being able to mend such a wound.

He could sense Bishop Alister's frantic inquiry, now that the fighting was done; and as he leaned against Jason's knee, he closed his eyes and let the older man read his injuries through his own faculties, praying that his pain and fear had exaggerated the seriousness of his situation.

But Alister's assessment came back stark and stunned, with the soul-chilling addition that the barbed arrowhead, besides grazing the spine, had lodged hard against one of the great blood vessels which fed from the heart—had, in fact, already cut partway through the vessel's wall. Any chance movement could complete the job. A really competent Healer, working very fast, might be able to Heal that damage before the pressure blew it wider and he bled to death internally, but it would require two good hands as well as skill, and Tavis O'Neill had only the latter.

Nor dared he let Tavis even try. For Healer's ease, a Deryni must lower almost all his shields, so that the Healer might draw from the resources of the patient's body, as well as his own strength—and Davin could not go shieldless before Tavis. It was inevitable that the Healer would learn that he was Deryni, but Tavis must learn nothing more. The Council and their work must not be jeopardized because a chance arrow had rendered one of their number a dying cripple.

Davin stifled a gasp as Jason jostled the arrow in trying to get a better look at his wound, knowing that the barbed head had moved him that much nearer to eternity, but he knew what he must do, and gave his decision to Bishop Alister. There was grief in the old man's response, but he understood all the logic which Davin had pursued, and that there was no other choice.

In a breath, though there was no outward sign, Davin opened all his soul to the bishop, sensing the answering absolution and blessing like a whisper of a caress flowing across the link which bound them. Almost he could feel the touch of the anointing oil as the last sacrament was projected through the link as real as if the bishop had knelt by his side and physically touched him with the holy balm.

He was at peace as Tavis finished healing Rhys Michael's leg, at peace as the Healer shifted on his knees to move to Davin's side.

“He's got an arrow in his back, m'lord,” Jason said urgently, before Tavis could even touch him.

Davin's eyes fluttered open in time to see Javan's white-faced horror as he scrambled nearer.

“My God, Jason, why didn't you say something?” the prince gasped, staring at the reddened hand which the knight displayed for Tavis's inspection. “Rhys Michael could have waited. Tavis, do something!”

But as Tavis reached out, Davin grabbed the handless wrist with his good right hand.

“No! Lord Tavis, if you try to remove the barb, I will die immediately. There's nothing you can do. My legs are gone already.”

Steadily Tavis reached out and released his stump from Davin's grip.

“Suppose you let me make the medical judgments around here, Eidiard. You're neither Healer nor D—you
are
Deryni!”

His hand jumped back from Davin's like one stung, his psychic shock reverberating. Javan's face was pinched and drawn so tight that Davin could not help wondering whether he had felt it too. Jason had simply frozen behind him in shock, and Davin extended just the slightest amount of control to make certain the knight did not leave him prematurely.

“Yes, I am Deryni,” he whispered. “But I swear, it was not to do any of you harm that I came here—and I was
not
of those pigs who tried to kill us all just now. You must believe that.”

“Who are you? How can you be Deryni?” Tavis managed to whisper. “I
probed
you! Right after you came, when that horse kicked you, I Healed you! I would have sworn you were not Deryni!”

“I was sent to guard the princes, and to keep watch over you,” Davin murmured, sensing Tavis's growing intent to try to read him further and knowing he could not permit that. With a part of his mind, he reached out to Jason again and urged one of the man's supporting hands to move closer to the arrow in his back. “Believe me, Tavis, I am neither of these pigs nor of the butchers who took your hand. I am a friend.”

“You deceived us—”

“It was necessary,” Davin responded, playing for time as he set triggers in his mind to ensure that there would be nothing there to read, when his shields failed. “Had I not been here, you would have had that much less warning of the attack today. And this shaft which now sends me to my grave would have taken Rhys Michael instead.”

“You're lying,” Tavis whispered. “You must be lying. Who sent you? Why did you really come?”

His probe lashed out, clashing against Davin's shields even as the Healer's hand and stump pressed against his temples. The shields held, but Davin knew he could not hold them for long.

Into Thy Hands, Lord
, he sent his final prayer, at the same time nudging Jason's mind just enough to move the man's hand awkwardly against the arrow shaft.

The barb shifted within him, but there was no pain. He felt only a warmth flood through his gut as blood began pumping where blood was never meant to go.

He gave a little gasp as his vision began to dim, and he knew from the look on Tavis's face that the Healer realized he was hemorrhaging internally, but the Healing energy which Tavis tried to divert to him was too late now. As he closed his eyes and sagged more heavily against Jason's supporting knee, he reached out a final time to the one who anguished in the Council chamber and tried to force his own strength across the fading link.

He had time only to sense that last futile caress, and to wonder again at how Bishop Alister reminded him of his grandfather Camber; and then, for just an instant, the old Camber presence that he remembered from childhood flooded through him and enveloped him in love.

His last image, as the final darkness descended, was of the face of his grandfather, weeping, and of the strong hands reaching out to buoy him up—and then a nothingness which was pervaded by a blinding, incredibly beautiful light of all the colors of time.

And Tavis, pressing relentlessly at those last vestiges of consciousness as he realized his subject was dying, gasped and pulled back in awe and momentary panic. Of all the things he had expected to encounter, the presence of Saint Camber had been the last! Almost immediately, he re-engaged; but it was too late by then. Davin was dead, and all his memories fled away, the erasing triggers having done their work.

Suppressing unbidden tears whose source he could not trace, Tavis withdrew, slamming his fist against the ground in sheer frustration—then catching his breath in awe as the still, handsome face seemed to shimmer. Slowly the curly blond hair went straight and fairer, the chin became more pronounced, the face changed shape just enough so that it was no longer Eidiard's. The eyes, when Tavis peered hesitantly under one slack lid, had gone from brown to palest grey.

“Jesus Christ!” Jason murmured, letting the body slip to the ground and edging back a little on his knees as he wiped his palms against his thighs. “That isn't Eidiard!”

“I know him!” Tavis whispered, hugging his arms across his chest to keep them from shaking. “I've seen him before, but I can't remember—”

“Good Lord, it's the Earl of Culdi!” said Robear, joining them from his task of binding the prisoners. “But—that's Eidiard's harness, and—”

Javan, kneeling dazed on the other side of his sleeping brother, could only shake his head in stunned disbelief and whisper, “Why, Tavis? Why?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him
.

—Wisdom of Solomon 2:17