Free The Destiny of the Sword by Dave Duncan Page A

cursing. The victims would be murdered and dropped overboard before he could arrive. The piranha would dispose of the evidence.
    “Polini! Hang on!” he roared. “We’re coming!” He wanted to weep and scream with frustration. He drummed fists on the gunwale.
    The fighting had stopped. Oh, Goddess! Help them.,.
    Stroke. Stroke. Someone cried out—high, shrill, full of pain. Then the hull loomed suddenly close. Tomiyano swung the tiller and yelled to ship oars, barked a warning not to stand up yet. The dinghy veered and struck hard alongside; rocked. Swords glinted above them, faces showed as lighter blurs. Nnanji caught the rail with a boat hook. Holiyi stood and swung an oar. Wallie ducked under the stroke and caught the rail with his left hand as he drew the seventh sword with his right. Then he was up on the gunwale, parrying a blade. Nnanji was there, also. Metal rang in the night.
    But they knew they were too late.
    Swordsmen must not weep.
    Polini was dead, killed in that last desperate attack. Young Arganari was going to die very soon. He had been run through, and there was nothing that all the healers in the World could do for him now. He lay on the black,stained deck, with Wallie kneeling at one side of him and Nnanji at the other. Fortunately the light was so poor that nothing was very distinct.
    Amidships lay Polini’s body, and two others. Three live men were penned at the stern, hemmed in by a line of dragons’ teeth —swords held by Sapphire’s crew, angry and silent and waiting.
    The anchor had been dropped and the sails lowered.
    “Water... my lord,” Arganari whispered again.
    Wallie raised his head and Nnanji gave him another drink.
    “Thank you,” he said, his voice quavering. Then he turned his face and vomited a rush of blood, black in the night.
    Swordsmen must not weep.
    “What happened?” Wallie demanded, but he had already guessed. Of course the victims still wore their expensive boots
    and kilts and harnesses, their silver hairclips. Polini had not taken Wallie’s advice, as Wallie had known he would not. The World was a place of poverty. Murder could be committed for much less tfapn fancy clothes. Now the fancy clothes were all soaked with blood.
    “They took our silver,” the prince said. “We paid them.” Even his whispering had a singsong strangeness to it, “They came for us last night.” He gasped with sudden pain, and Nnanji took hold of his hand. “Master Polini held them off.”
    All night and all through the day? Stalemate—the big swordsman had made his stand in the bow, holding back five men, defending his ward. One against five. The boy would have been no use.
    Polini had cut the forestay, causing the foresail to collapse. That would have made the boat unmanageable. Perhaps he had hoped, too, that it would attract attention and bring help. All night and all through the day until, when he had been weakened by exhaustion, by lack of food and water, they had come for him again.
    And the Goddess had moved the boat.
    But not soon enough!
    Wallie’s teeth ground like millstones. His fists trembled.
    “I think I wounded one, adept.” Arganari was ignoring Wallie now. Nnanji was his hero, the young Fourth who had killed sorcerers at Ov. Perhaps only three years lay between them, Wallie thought with sudden wonder, five at the most.
    “You’ve done very well,” Nnanji said. His voice was always soft, and now it was even softer, calm and level. “We’ll get a healer to you shortly.” He sounded totally under control. Wallie was beyond speech, his throat and eyes aching fiercely.
    “Adept?”
    “Yes, novice?” Nnanji said.
    “You will take my hairclip.”
    “Yes, all right,” Nnanji said. “I’ll take it and wear it against the sorcerers. I’ll wear it to Vul and when I get there, I’ll tell them that you sent me. ‘Novice Arganari sent me,’ I’ll say. ‘I tome in the name of Arganari.*”
    There was no point in trying to move the boy. It would not be