Youseff searched ahead on the road and saw no fresh tracks beyond a dozen or so feet. To the side of the trail, he easily found signs of the limping horse’s passage, and on the other side, a spot of blood and a lighter set of tracks, the footprints of a light man. Now it made sense to the monk. The horse had thrown the shoe and had then thrown the young man. Smiling widely, the monk started down the sloping ground, toward a copse of trees, in which, he suspected, he would find his second victim.
From high in one of those trees, Roger Lockless, rope, grapnel, and come-along in hand, watched the monk’s confident approach. Youseff slowed as he neared the trees, moving with more caution, darting from cover to cover.
Roger lost sight of the monk when he entered the copse. Again he was amazed when Youseff emerged at another point, quite far into the trees, for the man had traveled many yards without even stirring the thick underbrush. Roger looked to his items, to the finger he had purposely pricked to leave a blood trail, and wondered if his wits would be enough.
It was too late to change his mind about his plans, though, for Youseff was right at the base of the tree now and had spotted the last drop of blood.
The monk’s head slowly turned up, staring through the leafy shadows, his gaze at last settling on the dark shape high among the branches, hugging tight to the trunk.
“If you come down, I will spare your life,” the monk called.
Roger doubted that, but still, he almost began a negotiation.
“If you make me climb all the way up there to drag you out, then know that your death will be most unpleasant,” Youseff went on.
“I never did anything against your Church!” Roger replied, playing the part of a frightened child, which at that moment did not seem to him to be too much of a stretch.
“And thus I will spare your life,” Youseff repeated. “Now come down.”
“Go away,” Roger cried.
“Come down!” Youseff yelled. “I give you one last chance.”
Roger didn’t reply, other than to whimper loudly enough for the monk to hear him.
As Youseff started to climb, following a predictable course among the branches, Roger watched the monk closely. He tugged on one rope for the hundredth time, testing it. One end was tied fast to the tree, the other secured to one end of the come-along. A second rope, fastened to the grapnel, was tied to the come-along’s other end.
The knots were secure and the ropes were the right length, Roger reminded himself, but still, when he considered the enormity of his plan, the need for perfect timing and more than a bit of luck, he nearly swooned.
Youseff was more than halfway up now, fully twenty feet from the ground.
“One more branch,” Roger muttered.
Up came the monk, planting his feet on the last solid limb of the lower trunk. He would have to pause there, Roger knew, and map out the rest of the climb, for he was in an open area that afforded no ready branches.
As soon as Youseff was in place, Roger Lockless took his rope firmly in hand and leaped out. He plummeted between a pair of branches, getting a few nasty scratches in the process. Then, some feet out from the trunk, he hit another branch, as he had planned, and kicked out, launching himself on a circuitous route about the tree. He crashed and bounced repeatedly but held fast to his circular, descending course, passing the startled Youseff barely an arm’s length away.
How Roger breathed easier as he continued around, for Brother Youseff had been too surprised to leap out at him.
“Damn you!” the monk cried. Youseff had at first thought that Roger was using the rope to get ahead of him to the ground, but suddenly, as the loop tightened about him, pinning him to the trunk, as Roger swung around and below, he understood.
On the last turn, Roger, holding the rope in only one hand now, took up the other rope and launched the grapnel at a cluster of white birch. Then, hoping it would catch, Roger braced his feet as he came around the base of the trunk, the first length of rope playing out to the end. He dug in then, pulling with all his strength to keep the rope taut about Youseff.
He knew he didn’t have long, for with the many branches interfering with the pull, the rope was not tight enough to hold the agile and strong monk for long.
Not yet.
Roger pulled on the rope in the birch trees with one hand, using the other to crank the come-along and take up some slack. He groaned aloud as he felt the grapnel slipping through tangle. Finally, though, it caught fast.
Up above, Youseff was laughing and trying to extricate himself. He had the rope up above his elbows now and would soon slip under it.
Roger gave one final tug, and then, seeing that the slack was nearly gone, he dove for the come-along, cranking hard and fast with both hands.
Youseff had just started to lift the rope over his head when it snapped taut, slamming him back against the tree trunk. “What?” he asked, for he knew that the skinny little man couldn’t pull so powerfully. He could see well enough below to know that no horse had come into the area, and so he stubbornly pushed back against the rope.
He heard the crack of a branch below, breaking under the strain, and was loose for just an instant before the rope pulled hard again, squeezing him against the trunk. Youseff’s left arm was free and under the rope now, but the binding crossed diagonally down his shoulder, right under his other arm, pinning him tightly. He continued his stubborn fight as the rope tightened even more.
Roger wasn’t looking up, was just pulling on the come-along’s crank with all his strength. The rope was no longer even vibrating, was out straight and tight, and so Roger finally stopped, fearing he would pull one of the birch trees right out of the ground.
He stepped out from under the tree and looked up to see the squirming, helplessly pinned monk. Now he did smile, with absolute relief. “I will return,” he promised. “With friends. It seems that you now have two murders to answer for!” And he turned and ran off.
Youseff paid the words little heed, just continued struggling against the impossibly tight binding. He squirmed and shifted, thought to try and slip out under the rope.
He realized that to be a foolish move almost immediatelybut too lateas the rope slipped up an inch, creasing the side of his neck.
*
Belli’mar Juraviel was first into the copse, moving ahead of Elbryan, Pony, and Roger. The sun was low in the sky now, its bottom edge dipping below the horizon. The group had hurried back to the spot as soon as Roger had come to them, wanting to capture and secure the dangerous monk before nightfall.
Elbryan and the others waited outside the cluster of trees, the ranger watching Pony closely. She had been silent all the way back to this place; the news of Connor’s death had hit her hard.
Strangely, her mourning did not incite any jealous feelings within Elbryan, only an empathy for her. He understood, truly understood, the relationship between Pony and the nobleman, and he knew now that with Connor’s death, the woman had lost a part of herself, had lost that time of healing in her life. So Elbryan vowed silently to keep his own negative feelings private, to focus on Pony’s needs.
She sat straight and tall on Symphony now, cutting a stoic and strong figure in the fading light. She would get through this, as she had come through the first massacre at Dundalis, as she had come through the bitter war and all the losses, particularly the death of Avelyn. Once again the ranger found himself marveling at the woman’s strength and courage.
He loved her all the more for it.
“He is dead,” came a call from the tall grass, Juraviel returning to the group. The elf cast a glance at Roger, one that perceptive Elbryan didn’t miss, and explained, “He was just about free when I came upon him, stuck in the tree just as you described. I had to cut him downit took several arrows.”
“You are sure he is dead?” Roger asked nervously, not wanting anything more to do with that one.
“He is dead,” Juraviel assured him. “And I believe that your horse, Connor’s horse, is just over there,” the elf added, pointing across the road.
“He threw a shoe,” Roger reminded.
“Which can be easily repaired,” Juraviel replied. “Go and get him.”
Roger nodded and started away, and Pony, on Elbryan’s signal, kicked Symphony into a trot after him.
“Your quiver is full,” the ranger noted when he and the elf were alone.
“I retrieved my arrows,” Juraviel replied.
“Elves do not retrieve arrows that have hit the mark,” the ranger replied. “Not unless the situation is desperate, which ours, now that the monks are both dead, is not.”
“Your point?” Juraviel asked dryly.
“The man was dead when you went into the copse,” Elbryan reasoned.
Juraviel agreed with a nod. “He apparently tried to get out of the bindings, choking himself,” he explained. “Our young Roger did well in tightening the bonds, and was quite clever in capturing the man in the first place. Too clever, perhaps.”
“I have battled with one called Brother Justice before,” Elbryan said. “And you saw the fanaticism at our ambush. Did you doubt that it must end like this, with the death of the monk?”
“I wish he had not died at young Roger’s hands,” Juraviel replied. “I do not believe that he is ready for that.”
Elbryan glanced to the road, to see Pony and Roger walking together, leading Symphony and Connor’s limping horse.
“He must be told the truth,” the ranger decided, and he looked to Juraviel, expecting an argument.
“He’ll not take it well” was all the elf warned, but Juraviel did not disagree with the ranger. The road ahead for all of them would be dark, no doubt, and perhaps it was better to get this unpleasantness over with here and now.
When the pair arrived with the horses, Juraviel took Greystone and, after examining the injured hoof, led the creature away, motioning for Pony to take Symphony and follow.
“Juraviel did not kill the monk,” Elbryan said to Roger as soon as the others were gone.
Roger’s eyes widened in panic and he glanced all around, as if expecting Brother Justice to leap out at him at any moment. The man had unnerved Roger more than any other foe, even Kos-kosio, ever had.
“You did,” Elbryan explained.
“You mean that I was the one who defeated him,” Roger corrected. “And that the kill by Juraviel was no large matter.”
“I mean that you killed him,” the ranger said firmly. “I mean that you tightened the rope and it somehow slipped about his neck, choking the life from him.”
Roger’s eyes widened again. “But Juraviel said” he started to protest.
“Juraviel feared for your sensibilities,” Elbryan bluntly replied. “He was not certain how you would accept such grim reality, and thus feared to speak plainly.”
Roger’s mouth moved but no words came forth. The weight of the truth was hitting him hard, Elbryan realized, and he could see that he was swaying.
“I had to tell you,” Elbryan said, softly now. “You deserve to know the truth, and must get beyond it if you are to handle the responsibilities that have now been put on your young shoulders.”
Roger was hardly listening, was swaying more pronouncedly now and seemed as if he might simply topple over.
“We will speak later,” Elbryan said to him, walking up to him and dropping a comforting hand on his shoulder. Then the ranger continued past, going to join Juraviel and Pony, leaving Roger alone with his thoughts.
And with his pain, for truly Roger Billingsburyand suddenly he craved for that title again and not the foolishly pretentious Roger Locklesshad never been hit by anything like this. He had known grief many times, too many times, in his young life, but that pain was different. That pain allowed him to keep himself up on a pedestal, to continue to view himself as the center of the universe, as somehow better than everyone else. In all the pain and all the many trials young Roger had ever known, he had been able to hold on to his somewhat childish Roger-centric view of the world.
Now, suddenly, that pedestal had been kicked out from under him. He had killed a man.
He had killed a man!
Without conscious choice, Roger was sitting in the grass. Desperately, his rational side battled against his conscience. True, he had killed a man, but what choice had the man given him? The monk was a killer, pure and simple. The monk had killed Connor right before his own eyes, brutally, evilly. The monk had murdered Abbot Dobrinion!
But even those truths did little to assuage Roger’s sudden sense of guilt. Whatever the justifications, and in spite of the fact that he had not intentionally killed Brother Justice, the man was dead, and the blood was on his hands.
He put his head down, laboring hard for breath. He craved all those things that had been torn from him at too young an age: family warmth and the reasonable, comforting words of adults he could look up to. With that thought, he looked over his shoulder to his three friends, to the ranger who had so bluntly told him of his crime and then left him alone.
For a moment Roger hated Elbryan for that. But it could not hold; soon enough he understood that the ranger had told him out of respect for him, out of confidence in him, and had then left him alone because an adultand he was an adult nowhad to work through such pain, at least in part, alone.
Pony came for him soon after, saying nothing of the monk’s death, but only informing him they were going to gather up the fallen monk and then go south to retrieve Connor’s body.
Silently, Roger fell into line, purposefully averting his eyes from the spectacle of Brother Justice, slung over Greystone’s back. The horse was walking better now, for Juraviel had shaved its hoof to level, but still the pace was slow. Night fell in full, and still they walked, determined to get to Connor’s body before he was torn apart by some scavenging creature.