The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4), Fred Saberhagen [100 best novels of all time TXT] 📗

“I have thought much about those questions. And it seems to me that that sad young man must have killed himself.”

       “No,” said Lady Megara, softly but decisively. She had, it seemed, been listening after all.

      Mark scowled. “He stabbed himself in the back, with a weapon more than a meter long? That would take some doing.”

      “No, he did not stab himself. I think he went outside my house, where there was more room to dance and spin. And he hurled the blade, willing his own death-vengeance on himself, for the disaster he had caused that night, including his treacherous killing of the Lady Megara’s father.”

      And Gelimer went on to expound further on the behavior of Cosmo Malolo on that last night of his life. “Things might have gone differently, had he not fallen from his riding-beast and injured his head. Or the outcome might have been the same—who can say, now?”

      “I still think,” said Mark, “that Cosmo’s goal when he left his manor that night must have been simply to take the Sword of Vengeance out into an empty land somewhere—such as these mountains might provide—and lose it there.”

      “Or perhaps,” said Yambu, “to kill himself with it out there, where neither his body nor the Sword might ever be discovered.”

      “We’ll never know.”

      “What’s that?”

      Gelimer was pointing up into the sky. The others squinted, shading their eyes against the sun and peering.

      “Some truly giant bird.”

      “No. No, surely that’s a griffin, carrying someone.”

      Wood was known for using griffins. And now one of the bizarre creatures, bearing on its back a single human figure, was swiftly crossing the river from north to south, heading in the direction of Malolo manor.

Chapter Nineteen

      Mark and his companions embarked again, leaving Gelimer and Lady Megara behind them on the bank. At the last moment the hermit had asked to be allowed to bury Black Pearl’s body. This wish was readily granted, and the body unloaded from the boat. Zoltan made no protest; with every minute that passed, the horrible thing under the wet canvas seemed to have less and less connection with the girl he had begun to know three years ago. And in any case, he felt that duty now compelled him to go on with his uncle Mark without delay.

      Lady Megara, though saying very little, had conveyed to the others that she wanted to stay with Gelimer, and to climb with him to the cemetery where Cosmo lay.

      The remainder of the party got into the boat and pushed off. The prince, seated amidships, urged on his four rowers in a princely way. And those men, finding themselves now on a direct course for home, complied to the best of their ability. The boat sped downstream, headed straight for the fishing village in which Yambu and Zoltan had spent their first night in this country.

      Soft Ripple, as Zoltan observed without being able to understand the fact, was still accompanying the boat. It occurred to him to wonder whether the village ahead had once been her home—and possibly Black Pearl’s also.

      “Are you armed?” Mark asked Yambu, when they had been under way for a minute in silence.

      “Only with my wits,” she answered calmly. “In this most recent epoch of my life I have forsworn the use of steel. Except of course in dire emergencies.”

      “Then probably you are better armed than I, my lady,” Mark admitted. “Still there are times when steel has its uses.”

      “And such a time, you think, lies close ahead of us. I think it quite likely you are right.”

      Mark looked at his nephew. “If the Sword comes within reach of anyone in Malolo manor, they are likely to dispute its ownership with us. Especially if Bonar is still alive.”

      Zoltan nodded, and made sure that his own short sword and his knife were ready. Then he squinted ahead, looking along a western reach of river. The other boat, the one that had preceded them carrying Ben, Bonar, and Gesner, must by now be very far ahead—indeed, Zoltan, shading his eyes, was unable to see it on the river at all.

      “Quite likely,” said Mark, as if reading his nephew’s mind, “they’ve already landed.”

* * *

      Ben, Bonar, and Gesner had indeed docked and come ashore at the fishing village. There their oarsmen had vanished at once among the huts, pausing only long enough to tie up their boat. The other inhabitants of the village, Ben noticed, were keeping out of sight also, as if perhaps they expected trouble.

      Gesner, Ben, and Bonar, the latter looking around him in vague apprehension, at once started walking inland from the village, along the road that led toward Malolo manor.

      Ben’s presence put an obvious damper on conversation, a fact which did not bother him in the least. The three had traversed perhaps half the distance to the manor in near silence, when Gesner suddenly held up a hand, and said something to stop his companions.

      Now Ben too was aware of a foretaste of magic in the air. He turned, looking high, and then he saw the rainbow flicker coming toward them.

      Bonar, looking in the wrong direction, was just starting to ask a question.

* * *

      Meanwhile, Chilperic and his crew of mercenaries, who had finished making their way back upstream along the southern bank, had begun to move cautiously into position for an assault. With the demon still missing—today Rabisu’s absence had a kind of finality about it—Chilperic had just about abandoned the idea of attacking the manor directly, at least by daylight. Instead he hoped to be able to catch some of the enemy out in the open, or, failing that, to gain at least a good idea of the lie of the land before nightfall.

      Koszalin, on Chilperic’s orders, had deployed his ten men in something like a line of battle. They were combing a half-wooded area between the manor and the village. Thus Chilperic and those with him were also in position to see the Sword as it came hurtling down from the sky to