Seeklight

“Look out!” cried Daenek, as he saw the guard clench a fistful of cloth and pull the Lady Marche on top of him. One eye in the ruined face still glared with pain and hatred. Three muffled roars sounded as Daenek ran towards them, each shot sounding longer and longer, the last like a rumble from below the ground.

He fell onto his knees and jerked the gun away from the Lady Marche’s stomach. It spun out of the guard’s hand, clattering on the floor behind them. The guard’s fingers spread in the final release of death, mirrored in the one dulling eye.

“Lady,” moaned Daenek. He cradled her shoulders in one arm and desperately pressed his other hand to her stomach. The blood welled out between his fingers.

“What does it matter… if an old woman dies,” she muttered, almost too soft to hear. Her eyes wandered away from Daenek’s face. “What was I so afraid of…”

He could say nothing, but silently supported her shoulders, those of an old woman, against himself.

“No time for that…” Her voice was a little louder. “The stick is useless now… leave it… take the gun. And the equine… go—”

“I—” began Daenek, then he compressed his lips and nodded.

“Where?”

“Where?” A small laugh that ended in a gasp, her eyes squeezed shut with pain. “Go anywhere. You’re the son of a thane.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him. One of her pale hands reached inside her clothing, then slowly pulled out a small chain of fine links. A tiny square of white metal dangled from it.

“There was so much—to tell you,” she said, her voice fading again. “But now… I’ve forgotten, and it’s too late.” The chain fell across Daenek’s wrist, the links miring in blood.

She was suddenly heavier in his arms. He laid her onto the floor a little distance from that of the guard. He stood up and, without thinking, looked over the room until he found the gun against the bottom of the stairway. Picking it up, his first thought pierced the numbness. She waited until the others were far enough away. So they wouldn’t hear the shots. The wet redness on the gunmetal ran, mixing with a few drops of salt water.

Chapter VI

The equine seemed to sense the urgency in its new rider, and ran over the trail through the hills with its mane streaming towards the dust that flew up from its hooves.

Daenek’s legs were shorter than the dead guard’s had been, so that he had to keep them tightly clamped against the animal’s sides. For the first few miles, every motion had jolted him painfully up and down in the saddle. At last he found the way to move with the equine as it ran. It was stupid but well trained, more responsive to him and less skittish than it had been with its former master.

The trail ended at the edge of a little stream at the foot of the hill. Daenek pulled on the reins, halting the equine. Its hooves splashed the shallow water into spray, and then it lowered its sweating head to drink. Twisting around in the saddle, Daenek looked back at the hillside they had just descended. Beyond its boulder-crested top, on the opposite slope, was the house with two corpses inside it. Further on, in the valley, the subthane and his men were probably roistering in the single inn of the stone-cutters’ village.

Daenek took from his jacket pocket the chain that the Lady Marche had given him. A key, he thought, looking at the little square of white metal. That’s what it is. He slipped the chain over his head and then tucked the pendant inside his shirt. The fine metal links felt cool and liquid on his neck.

Digging his heels into the equine’s ribs, he reined it around to face upstream. As the hooves thudded along the water’s bank, he thought about where he was heading. And after that? I’ll think about that when I have to.

There was still light when he reached the monastery, but the setting sun tinged the cluster of low buildings a dull red. As the equine trotted down the path leading out of the surrounding hills, Paenek heard the bell that was mounted on a little platform inside the walled courtyard. It rang seven times and then a robed figure walked away from it towards the central building.

Daenek had come across the monastery before, in the times he had spent wandering. That had been more than a year ago, but he had kept the location fresh in his memory, planning for the day he would seek it out with a purpose.

He halted the equine at the aged wooden gate and dismounted. The wall, made of crude earthen bricks, was too high for him to see over. He pounded with his fist on the gate, stopped and listened, then pounded again until he heard the odd, slightly different from human, footsteps of one of the priests striding across gravel.

The gate swung away from him and the priest’s impassive face, shrouded by the cowl of its robe, looked out at Daenek. “We offer no shelter, traveller,” it spoke in its flat, uninflected voice.