Wordlessly, she accepted his offering, walked over to the other side of the fire, spread the blanket, and rolled herself into it so that her back was to him.
He remained awake awhile longer, thinking through what she had told him, trying to come to a decision. It should have been easy. She was asking him to risk his life to save her people; he deserved complete honesty. If she was not telling him the entire truth, he should send her on her way.
But there was something about her that intrigued him, something that drew him—an undeniable attraction. He felt it in the mix of determination and vulnerability she projected. The contrast was compelling in a visceral way. He couldn’t quite explain it, although he felt a need to do so. He would have to think on it some more.
He lay down finally, having no reason to remain awake longer, and was almost asleep when he heard her say, “You should make up your mind as soon as possible.”
He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. “Why is that?”
“Because I might have been followed.”
*
He didn’t sleep much after that, but when he sat up suddenly sometime after midnight, the moon had moved across the sky northwest of the clearing and the stars had shifted their positions. He hadn’t heard anything, but he was the Weapons Master and his highly developed instincts warned him even in his sleep. He sat up slowly and looked around.
Lyriana was sitting on the log once more, still wrapped in her blanket. She met his gaze and pointed into the trees. He couldn’t imagine how she had heard what was out there before he did, but apparently she had, and he reassessed his view of her abilities immediately. She was definitely something more than she seemed.
He slipped from the blanket, rolled it into the shape of a sleeping man, and left it on the ground. Then he brought out a pair of throwing knives from beneath his loose garments. He made no sound doing so and none as he moved toward the trees, listening. For long seconds, he heard nothing. Then there came a slight rustle of clothing and the scrape of a boot against the earth.
He dropped into a crouch at the center of a deep pool of shadows. There were at least two of them. Possibly three.
He glanced over his shoulder at Lyriana, sitting on the log, and motioned for her to lie down. If she remained sitting up as she was, she presented an inviting target for a blade or an arrow. He waited for her to comply, but she just shook her head.
Then he realized what she was doing. She wasn’t simply being stubborn. She was offering herself as a target to distract their attackers.
He quit breathing and went perfectly still.
They came out of the trees, three of them, wrapped head-to-toe in black, faces covered, hands gloved, no skin showing. Two carried knives, the third a crossbow. Because they were looking for him to be sleeping by the fire with Lyriana, they didn’t see him in the shadows, even when they were right on top of him.
Then the one with the crossbow raised it to eye level and sent a bolt whizzing toward Lyriana.
He was fitting a second into place when Garet Jax killed him, piercing his heart with one of the throwing knives. The Weapons Master went straight at the other two. Agile and cat-quick, he killed the first before the man could defend himself and was on the second an instant later. Locked in combat, the pair rolled across the campsite and into the fire. Flames snatched at their clothing and began to burn, but neither relinquished his hold. In a silence punctuated only by gasps and grunts, each fought to break the other’s grip.
Until, finally, Garet Jax employed a twist and pull that yanked his adversary’s knife arm down and in, turning his own momentum against him. The man stumbled away, his own blade buried in his chest. He was still trying to figure out how it had happened when the Weapons Master finished him.
Everything went silent then, a hush settling over the campsite and its occupants, living and dead. Garet Jax rolled to his feet, snuffed out the last of the flames that burned his clothing, and did a quick search of the shadows. Nothing moved, and no one else appeared.
He turned back to Lyriana, remembering the crossbow. But she was still sitting on the log, the bolt lying at her feet. She watched him a moment, read the unasked question in his expression, and shrugged. “I was ready. He waited too long, so he missed me.”
Garet Jax moved over to the dead men, pulled off their masks, and began to search them. All three had a triangle with a star at each corner tattooed on their right wrists. They were Het—mercenaries out of Varfleet, killers for hire and very good at their trade. He looked back at Lyriana. How a Het could have missed his target from no more than twenty feet, even at night and in shadow, was difficult to imagine.
But he left the matter alone.
The Weapons Master's Choice
Terry Brooks's books
- Alanna The First Adventure
- Alone The Girl in the Box
- Asgoleth the Warrior
- Awakening the Fire
- Between the Lives
- Black Feathers
- Bless The Beauty
- By the Sword
- In the Arms of Stone Angels
- Knights The Eye of Divinity
- Knights The Hand of Tharnin
- Knights The Heart of Shadows
- Mind the Gap
- Omega The Girl in the Box
- On the Edge of Humanity
- The Alchemist in the Shadows
- Possessing the Grimstone
- The Steel Remains
- The 13th Horseman
- The Age Atomic
- The Alchemaster's Apprentice
- The Alchemy of Stone
- The Ambassador's Mission
- The Anvil of the World
- The Apothecary
- The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
- The Bible Repairman and Other Stories
- The Black Lung Captain
- The Black Prism
- The Blue Door
- The Bone House
- The Book of Doom
- The Breaking
- The Cadet of Tildor
- The Cavalier
- The Circle (Hammer)
- The Claws of Evil
- The Concrete Grove
- The Conduit The Gryphon Series
- The Cry of the Icemark
- The Dark
- The Dark Rider
- The Dark Thorn
- The Dead of Winter
- The Devil's Kiss
- The Devil's Looking-Glass
- The Devil's Pay (Dogs of War)
- The Door to Lost Pages
- The Dress
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- The End of the World
- The Eternal War
- The Executioness
- The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)
- The Fate of the Dwarves
- The Fate of the Muse
- The Frozen Moon
- The Garden of Stones
- The Gate Thief
- The Gates
- The Ghoul Next Door
- The Gilded Age
- The Godling Chronicles The Shadow of God
- The Guest & The Change
- The Guidance
- The High-Wizard's Hunt
- The Holders
- The Honey Witch
- The House of Yeel
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Living Curse
- The Living End
- The Magic Shop
- The Magicians of Night
- The Magnolia League
- The Marenon Chronicles Collection
- The Marquis (The 13th Floor)
- The Mermaid's Mirror
- The Merman and the Moon Forgotten
- The Original Sin
- The Pearl of the Soul of the World
- The People's Will
- The Prophecy (The Guardians)
- The Reaping
- The Rebel Prince
- The Reunited
- The Rithmatist
- The_River_Kings_Road
- The Rush (The Siren Series)
- The Savage Blue
- The Scar-Crow Men
- The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da
- The Scourge (A.G. Henley)
- The Sentinel Mage
- The Serpent in the Stone
- The Serpent Sea
- The Shadow Cats
- The Slither Sisters
- The Song of Andiene