The Weapons Master's Choice

“You could still come with me,” he said. “Back down to the Southland. Your people are safe now. The Het won’t return if there is no one to pay for their services. There are Healers at Storlock who could help you. There are medicines …”

He spoke the words in a rush, as much to convince himself as to persuade her. He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t. Not when there might be a chance, however slim, that she could be saved.

But she shook her head. “No, Weapons Master. I have to stay here. This is where I belong. Take the gold and go and know you did something important by helping us. We had no one, and we were being destroyed. Even lepers have a right to the life that is given them, no matter their condition, no matter their fate. Others would have passed us by. You were not one of those, and we will never forget you.”

She paused. “I will never forget you.”

Her eyes held him, and what he felt for her was so strong—even knowing how sick she was—that he could barely stand it. He had never felt like this about anyone before, and he was stricken at the thought of simply walking away.

She pointed to the doorway. “Go left down the hall, then take the stairs. From there, go straight through to the door at the end. It will lead you outside. You can find your way from there.”

He nodded, knowing there was no other choice. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t belong here. His life was outside these walls, but hers was not.

“Lyriana.”

He spoke her name once and stepped close, bending his face to hers. This time she didn’t move away, didn’t flinch, didn’t tell him not to touch her. Instead she lifted her mouth to accept his kiss and kissed him back.

He left her there and went down the hallway, out through the door into the streets of the city and over its walls to the world beyond. It had been a long time since he had cried, and he didn’t cry now.

He understood better now why he had been drawn to her, what it was that had attracted him so. He had sensed the connection between them, but had not understood it. Now he did. He was as damaged as she was, and just as lost. He was fated to die of a cause not of his making as surely as she was; it was only a question of when. But while she had achieved peace of mind, his own remained a slippery and elusive thing. Lyriana had shown him how he must be if he were ever to find his way, and it had generated in him something that approached love.

Perhaps, in its own fashion, that’s what it actually was.

The courage she evidenced in accepting what was to happen to her was the true measure of her strength. He would learn from that. He would find grace as she had. But he could not help wishing he had been able to do so with her beside him. He had wanted his kiss to express how much he wished it.

So much so that even the risk of contracting leprosy by placing his mouth on hers had not been enough to dissuade him from doing it.

For the first two days of travel back to Tombara, he was miserable. He could not stop thinking about her. He could not stop his aching. Then, on the third day, the pain began to ease as his thoughts drifted to other things. He was the Weapons Master first and always, and the time he had envisioned for himself and Lyriana—even in the best of circumstances—would never have lasted. It would have required him to change, and it was too late for that. His path in life was already determined, and he knew he was fated to follow it to its end.

In Tombara he found the commission waiting that would take him to Varfleet. And by then, Lyriana and Tajarin were already fading into the dark well of his past.





About the Author



TERRY BROOKS is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books, including the Dark Legacy of Shannara adventure Wards of Faerie; the Legends of Shannara novels Bearers of the Black Staff and The Measure of the Magic; the Genesis of Shannara trilogy: Armageddon’s Children, The Elves of Cintra, and The Gypsy Morph; The Sword of Shannara; the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy: Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr; the High Druid of Shannara trilogy: Jarka Ruus, Tanequil, and Straken; the nonfiction book Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life; and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars?: Episode I The Phantom Menace?. His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.





Read on for an excerpt from Terry Brooks’s

Bloodfire Quest





IN THE HOSTILE AND BLASTED COUNTRY OF THE FORBIDDING, the survivors of the search party for the missing Elfstones stared at the Ard Rhys in disbelief.

“What did you say?” Carrick was the first to break the silence, his stance aggressive. He glared at the Ard Rhys. “Tell me I misheard you.”