Healers Read online

  He stopped and thought, wondering why someone else would be hiding off the trail in the woods here. Maybe they were hunting? Looking for mushrooms or other products of the forest? Tarc waited for a while, but the person didn’t move. Perhaps he’d misjudged Sam’s size, or, he realized, perhaps someone else could be up to no good.

  Tarc thought about his options. He’d like to confront Sam and get it over with. Perhaps slowing the flow in Sam’s carotid just enough to make Sam a little bit dizzy and clumsy. Then Tarc could take a few blows and deal one or two back, then cry uncle. Ideally, Sam would win, but find the fight difficult enough he wouldn’t try it again. While waiting for his wood, Tarc had tried this idea on the woodsman’s hound. He’d slowed the flow to animal’s carotid as it trotted near Tarc to be sure he could slow flow just a little in a moving target. The animal had stumbled a couple of times and looked confused, but once Tarc allowed full flow again it shook its head and moved on, apparently unharmed.

  So, if the person in the woods was Sam, Tarc wanted to approach as if unsuspecting, all the while reaching out for Sam’s carotid with his ghost. However, if this represented an ambush by a robber, Tarc didn’t want the man getting the drop on him.

  He reached back and checked the draw of the throwing knives strapped between his shoulder blades. None of them hung up. Tarc wasn’t wearing his forearm sheaths. He crouched and pulled the throwing knife out of his left ankle sheath. It was the hardest place to get a knife from in an emergency, so a good one to have in his hand.

  After another minute of thought, Tarc walked the bay horse a short distance off the trail on the right and tied it loosely to a sapling. He crossed the trail to the left and slowly approached the man in the woods. He used his ghost to keep himself from stepping on anything that might make noise, while keeping the bole of the tree the man was hiding behind between the man and himself.

  He stopped. Tarc had let his ghost collapse in, just keeping it large enough to show him the waiting man. But he’d heard something. He didn’t know what the sound was, but he didn’t think it came from the man on the other side of the tree.

  Re-expanding his ghost, Tarc found six more men a little farther off the trail!

  One of the men lay on the ground with two of the others standing over him. Tarc felt pretty sure the two men over him held swords touching his back. The swords were cool and therefore hard to detect with his ghost from this distance, however, the men’s postures suggested they held swords. Two more men stood nearby and one sat on a fallen tree, watching.

  Worried about what else he might have missed, Tarc expanded his ghost to a maximum. He found another man farther away down the trail on the right. Tarc thought the one he’d been sneaking up on and the one far away were probably scouts for the five surrounding the man on the ground. He recognized the sound that had tipped him off now. The little cluster of men around the one on the ground were talking quietly.

  He’d come on a robbery!

  One of the men knelt and started going over the man on the ground. Tarc’s ghost could feel the man’s hands searching for money and other valuables.

  Tarc dithered a moment. He didn’t want to attack these men, but they shouldn’t be allowed to rob people either. Even worse, Tarc feared they might decide to kill their victim to keep him from reporting their activities. And, even if Tarc did just let them rob the guy on the ground, Tarc would soon have to pass this point on the trail himself—at which point these men would presumably attack Tarc.

  Tarc took a few quiet steps closer to the bole of the tree the scout hid behind. Reaching out with his ghost, he slowed the flow in the scout’s carotids. As soon as the man started to sag, Tarc stepped quickly around the base of the tree and grabbed his arm, lowering him so he wouldn’t fall with a thump. Using the throwing knife he had in his hand, Tarc slashed the man’s sleeve off his arm and stuffed it into the guy’s mouth. The scout had been armed with a bow. Tarc pulled the string off the bow and used it to quickly bind the man’s wrists behind him. The man’s rope belt went around his head, holding the gag in place. His pants were pulled down around his ankles and knotted there with a bit of vine to keep them from being kicked off.

  Tarc took the pressure off the man’s carotid and he woke to find the point of a knife just above the surface of his right eye. Tarc whispered fiercely, “You’ll lie here quietly. If you don’t, I’ll be back to stick this knife in your eye, understand?”

  Right eye fluttering shut while the left one crossed the midline to stare at the point of the blade, the man nodded microscopically. Tarc smelled piss.

  He pulled the knife out of his right ankle sheath and stood with a knife in each hand. He began walking quietly toward the men clustered around their victim on the ground. He knew there would be no way to render all five men unconscious and wondered if he was about to have to break his promise not to kill.

  The closer Tarc got, the better his ghost could feel cool things like the swords the men held against their victim’s back and the trees surrounding them. Tarc worked to keep behind trees as he approached. He had an “aha” moment when he realized the bandit closest to him had a bow, arrow nocked and aimed at the man on the ground.

  Tarc could picture it now. Someone walking down the path, unsuspecting. Suddenly, a swordsman or two in front, the same behind, and a bowman to the side. Even if you felt confident enough that you might challenge or charge the swordsmen blocking the trail one way or the other, hoping to break past them, the archer would cut you down as you ran.

  The bowman posed a problem for Tarc in that he might shoot their captive or at least threaten to if Tarc interfered with their little enterprise. Even if Tarc tried to make him dizzy by cutting flow in the carotid, he might drop the string and shoot their captive.

  Tarc reached out with his ghost, found the semicircular canals in the archer’s inner ears and gave the fluid in there a little spin. As he had hoped, the archer, overcome with severe vertigo, twisted, leaned hard to the side, and staggered off into the brush at the side of the little clearing. He did drop the bow but his aim had swung wide before he did.

  As the other four bandits stared after their comrade, Tarc stepped out from behind the tree and said, “Let your victim up, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The four men turned goggle eyed to stare at Tarc. To them he’d simply appeared where their compatriot with the bow had been standing. All of their attention had been focused on the bowman’s staggering exit, so, like with a magician’s misdirection they hadn’t noticed Tarc stepping out.

  If Tarc had looked dangerous, perhaps they would have responded differently. However, they saw a teenage boy holding a couple of small throwing knives. Since they held swords, Tarc didn’t appear the least bit threatening to them.

  The one who’d been sitting on the log barked a laugh as he stood. “Boy, I don’t know what you did to Ezra there,” he waved his sword vaguely after the bowman who’d staggered away and could be heard throwing up in the brush. “But if you want to live,” he snarled, “you’ll drop to your knees and place yourself at our mercy. Jessup,” his eyes flashed to one of the men standing over their victim, “if he’s not on his knees by the time you reach him, run him through.”

  Jessup turned and stepped towards Tarc.

  Thinking, Aw crap! Tarc let his first knife fly. When it plunged into Jessup’s eye, the man convulsed, his sword flying end over end away from his thrashing hand and barely missing a comrade.

  The other swordsman standing over the victim gathered to plunge his sword into the prone man. Tarc could almost hear him thinking, I’ll make sure this one’s out of the fight first. Don’t want him rising up and causing trouble.

  Tarc threw his second knife and reached back for a knife out of his shoulder holster. When Tarc’s second knife drove itself into the swordsman’s eye socket, the man simply collapsed like someone had cut his strings.

  The big swordsman who’d been sitting on the log charged.

  Tarc threw a third knif
e and reached back for a fourth.

  As the big swordsman fell, his sword clanging uselessly on a hidden rock, the bandit who’d been kneeling to go through the victim’s pockets raised his hands and slowly lifted himself to a crouch.

  Making sure the bandit wasn’t about to return, Tarc glanced in the direction of the bowman who’d staggered away. He turned his attention back to the crouching bandit with the elevated hands, then glanced down at their victim.

  Dark leathers, dark hair. A sick feeling came over Tarc.

  Sam!

  Uncertainly, Sam’s head rose from the ground. Since no one stopped him, he pushed up, lifting his shoulders and looking around. A moment later, he was looking back at Tarc. At first startled, then he looked calculating and finally sneeringly angry. “What?! Did you hire these assholes to try to put me in my place?! Are you thinking this is going to get me to back off?!”

  Tarc simply stared at Sam, wondering what Lizeth saw in him.

  Sam slowly stood up, confused as to just what had happened, but furious to find the little Hyllis shit orchestrating it. He glanced at the man who’d been going through his pockets, astonished to realize the man was trembling with wide eyed fear.

  Wondering what the man was afraid of, Sam turned to follow his eyes. He assumed he would see someone else standing behind Tarc. Someone Sam had failed to notice when he first looked that direction.

  No one else was there!

  He looked back at the crouching bandit. The man’s eyes were definitely on Tarc. Sam’s eyes drifted to the other three bandits, wondering what had happened to them. The bandits’ leader lay face down, a few feet closer to Tarc than Sam himself. Another bandit lay prone right beside Sam. Neither were moving.

  Sam turned slowly to look at the bandit behind him. That one lay on his back, still quivering and twitching. He had the hilt of a throwing knife sticking out of his left eye!

  Sam’s stomach did a sudden flip-flop. He reached out a foot and lifted the shoulder of the bandit lying beside him. When the shoulder got high enough, the man’s head tipped over to expose the hilt of a knife protruding from his eye as well.

  Sam’s eyes rose to find Tarc on one knee, working a knife out of the bandit leader’s eye. Tarc’s eyes were on Sam and Sam suddenly realized Tarc didn’t look afraid at all. Sam’s mind flashed back through their previous interactions. The kid had let Sam yell at him, and shove him, and tower over him. Sam had assumed he must be frightened for his life, but Sam realized queasily the kid had never looked afraid.

  Not at all.

  White faced, yes, but white faced and trembling in a way that could have been anger instead of fear.

  Bowels watery at the thought of just who he’d been threatening these past days, Sam said, “You’re the one?! The one who killed all those soldiers in Walterston?”

  “I’m not proud of it,” the kid said evenly, giving Sam a wide berth as he walked around to pull a knife out of the eye of the bandit behind him.

  “Holy shit!” Sam breathed, knees folding so abruptly his butt thumped down onto the ground. His head felt light and his ears rang.

  Keeping a careful eye on Sam, Tarc came over and knelt at the body of the bandit right beside Sam. With a tug, he pulled the knife out of that man’s eye also. He wiped it on the bandit’s sleeve. Deftly cutting a bit of cloth from the dead man’s clothing Tarc stepped away. He used the rag to carefully clean the three knives. He paid special attention to the junction of the knife and its tang. His eyes remained focused on Sam.

  About the time Sam felt like he had his equilibrium back, the kid said, “What’re we going to do about them?” He nodded at something behind Sam.

  Sam looked where Tarc’s eyes were pointed and saw he was looking at the fourth bandit, still crouched as if trying to look small and unobtrusive. Sam shrugged, “Kill him. That’s what’s normally done with highway men.”

  The kid frowned and shook his head. “No killing. There must be something else we can do?”

  Incredulous that someone who’d just killed three men in a few seconds had any concern about killing another one, Sam said, “We can’t just let him go! They would have killed me when they were done.”

  “I don’t think so, or they would have killed you before they tried to go through your pockets. It would have been easier.”

  “Still, we can’t let them go,” Sam repeated.

  “Can’t we… turn them over to the guardia? I hear Realth’s always hungry for new slaves and I’ll bet they have a set sentence for robbers. Being a slave would be better than being dead, I’d think,” the kid said, looking speculatively at the man crouching near Sam.

  Sam looked at the man and saw what appeared to be a mixture of fear, apprehension, and relief in the man’s eyes. Sam shrugged and said, “Okay.” He stood and picked up his sword from where it leaned against a log. Strapping it on, he looked about for something to bind the man with.

  A man stepped a little unsteadily out of the brush at the edge of the tiny clearing. He looked as if he were punch-drunk. Sam recognized the archer who’d been there when the bandits first captured him. Sam and Tarc’s heads had immediately turned towards the newcomer, but then Tarc said, “Stop!”

  When Sam looked at Tarc, he saw Tarc now had his eyes on the previously crouching bandit who’d been going through Sam’s pockets. When they’d turned toward the archer, this bandit had apparently stood up and started to creep away. Sam had no idea how the kid had known the bandit was trying to escape. Must have expected him to try to get away, Sam thought. The escaping bandit raised his hands as he dropped to his knees, trembling. The man looked like he might shit himself!

  The archer appeared to be as astonished as Sam felt. Sam saw his eyes dart from one to the other at the three bodies, then to the kneeling bandit. Presumably he saw something frightful in the kneeling bandit’s eyes, because he dropped his bow and raised his own hands.

  The kid stepped over, deftly unstrung the bow, and used the string to bind the bowman’s wrists behind his back. Sam bound the wrists of the kneeling man. Then he went through the man’s pockets, taking back a few of his own possessions as well as the man’s knife and some extra coin from the man’s pockets. Sam looked up, wondering where Tarc had gone. The kid was no longer in the clearing!

  Sam wondered if the kid had just taken off and left him to deal with the two bandits. Tempted to just kill both of them, instead Sam just glared at the bound and weaponless bowman and said, “Don’t move!” Next he crouched and went over the dead bandits, collecting more knives, coin, and a few bits of jewelry.

  Tarc reappeared, leading another man with his wrists bound behind him. Tarc led him up beside the bowman there in the clearing and told him to stay put. Turning to Sam, he said, “There’s one more, I’ll be back with him in a bit.” Tarc exited the opposite side of the clearing and disappeared into the brush again.

  Sam turned to the bandit who’d been kneeling through all this. “Is there really one more?”

  The bandit nodded.

  “And that’s all of you?”

  Another nod.

  How did the kid know there was another one? Sam wondered. And just one?

  “And he’s off in that direction?” Sam said pointing after Tarc.

  “Yes sir.”

  Sam just shook his head. Uncanny!

  It took longer this time before Tarc returned with a confused looking bandit, but return he did. Apparently this bandit was also a bowman as Tarc had bound him with a bowstring as well. He added one more low-quality bow to the stack they had their in the little clearing. Looking at Sam, he said, “Do we need to bury the dead guys before we go back?”

  Sam shrugged. “If we’re taking the rest of them to the guardia, I think we have to assume the guardia might want to come back and look over the dead ones.”

  Tarc looked like he hadn’t considered that possibility. He appeared to be upset by it and motioned Sam to come with him off to the side. “I don’t want the guardia finding them with
wounds in their eyes,” he said.

  Surprised, Sam said, “Why not?”

  “I don’t want… people thinking I’m some kind of killer!” Looking a little sullen he shook his head, looking off into the distance, “I’m supposed to be a healer,” he whispered.

  Wide-eyed, Sam said, “What else are they going to think when you come back to Realth with four bandits as prisoners and tell them there’re three more dead bandits out here in the woods?!”

  “You take the bandits in as prisoners. Tell folks you came up on them trying to rob me but you got the drop on them.” Tarc shrugged, “You want people thinking you’re dangerous!”

  Sam blinked a couple of times, “You want me to take credit?!”

  Tarc nodded.

  Sam barked a laugh, “Well then, you lead our captives back to the road. I’ll lag behind and stab these bodies a few times with my sword.”

  Tarc considered this for a moment, then said, “Okay, thanks. You’ll keep my secret?”

  Sam lifted an eyebrow, “If I’m going to take credit for capturing these guys I’ll have to.”

  Tarc thanked him! Sam found himself again thinking of the kid as some kind of wimp, then reality crashed back in. He reminded himself this kid was by far the most dangerous killer he’d ever even heard of, much less actually known. Someone who could throw a knife so accurately he hit people in the eye, every damned time. Someone who’d just killed three men in a matter of seconds! Sam flinched away from Tarc a little, then steadied himself. I need to man up!

  Sam stayed behind to stab and slash the bodies a few times while Tarc led the four bandits away. When Sam got back to the trail, Tarc turned the prisoners over to him, saying he had to go back for his horse and its load of wood.

  Shaking his head, Sam led his prisoners out the trail towards the merchants’ plain.

  ***

  Kazy looked around, “Where’s Tarc?”