Free The Destiny of the Sword by Dave Duncan Page B

long. He gagged and then threw up more blood.
     
     
     
    “Adept? Tell me about Ov.”
    So Nnanji related the battle of Ov, his tones quiet and matter,of,fact. The anchor chain creaked slightly and there was a low mutter of voices from the stern.
    Then Arganari interrupted. Probably he had not been understanding very much. He was obviously in agony, trying not to whimper. “Nnanji. It hurts. I’m going to die?”
    “Yes, I think so,” Nnanji said. “Here, put your hand on your sword hilt. You promised to die holding it, remember?”    i “I wish it was my other sword.”
    “I’ll tell the minstrels at Casr,” Nnanji said. “In the saga of the Tryst of Casr, your name and Master Polini’s will be first among the glorious.”
    The boy seemed to smile. “I was trying to go home.” After a few minutes he said, “Nnanji. Return me?” “If you wish,” Nnanji replied calmly. “I think... I do. It hurts.” “Should I use the seventh sword?” Nnanji asked. There was no reply, but Nnanji rose and held out his hand to Wallie. Wallie stood also, passed over his sword, and turned away quickly. He could not do what Nnanji was now doing—not even if the boy was unconscious, not in a thousand centuries. Yet it would have been his swordsman obligation. Fervently he thanked the Goddess that it had been Nnanji who had been asked. He stared into the dark and tried not to listen. He heard nothing. Swordsmen must not weep.
    “No point in wiping it yet, is there?” Nnanji said. Wallie turned round and accepted his sword back again, not looking down, not looking near his feet. “No. Not yet,” he said, and the two of them headed aft, side by side along the obscurity of the deck, until they stood behind the line of sailors fencing the captives.
    “Do it!” Wallie snapped at Nnanji.
    Now even Nnanji’s voice took on a harshness. “Lord Shonsu, I denounce these men for killing swordsmen.”
    “Have you any defense?” Wallie asked. He was the judge and a witness and he would be executioner.
    A trio of voices began shouting indignantly. They all sounded
    quite young, but they all wore breechclouts and so were legally adults.
    Then one voice drowned out the other two. “They took our stop at swordpoint, my lord! There were four of them. We got the others...”
    Wallie let them rave on in the night for a while with their lies and slanders.
    Then he shouted, “Quiet! I find you guilty.”
    Then there was silence, except that one of the three was sobbing.
    Wallie was about to move, but Nnanji put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me do it, brother?”
    “No! This will be my pleasure!”
    Perhaps Nnanji thought Wallie did not want to do it, or was not capable, but he was shaking with rage, gripping his sword with every ounce of strength, his limbs quivering as if with eagerness. Shonsu’s manic temper raged within him. Wallie Smith was just as insanely furious. He was brimming with hatred and contempt, and nausea also. He wanted to take these murderers by the throat, or tear them apart with his fingers.
    No, Nnanji was begging. “Please, brother? As a wedding present?”
    “Stand aside!” Wallie barked. He pushed between Tomiyano and Holiyi, stepped forward, and began to slash at three unarmed youths. They screamed a lot and tried to parry the seventh sword with bare hands. He could not see properly, so he hacked them to pieces to make sure. It was no pleasure, but he had no regrets.
    He was senior. He spoke the words of farewell for Polini. At the end his voice cracked, and he asked Nnanji to perform the office for Arganari. As he listened his eyes began pouring tears, he trembled, he struggled desperately not to let the sounds of his sobbing escape into the night.
    He watched the River boil and hiss as piranha consumed the bodies in instantaneous frenzy.
    , They said no words over the assassins, but the River boiled as tad for them as it had for honest men.
     
     
     
    Then Wallie clawed back to self,control.