The Shadow Of What Was Lost (14 page)

Gorron had been less amiable. To
be fair, his pile had dwindled the most of the three, and now consisted of
little more than a few copper pieces. Once those disappeared, the game would
likely finish for the evening. To that end, Davian intended to call Gesh the
very next time he saw a puff of shadows coming from Gorron’s mouth. Despite
feeling a little more comfortable than at the beginning, he still itched to be
far, far away from these men.

“Breshada must be as good a teacher
as she is a Seeker,” Gorron said with a growl as he watched his coins disappear
into Davian’s pile.

“One eight. Three coppers,” said
Altesh, laying a single card on the table. He looked across at Davian. “Tell us
more about Breshada, Shadat. Is what they say about Whisper true?”

Davian tried not to panic. There
had only been gentle banter around the table thus far; the game generally
required too much concentration for small-talk. This was the first time he had
been asked a question that he didn’t know the answer to. What was Whisper?

“I don’t know. What do they say?”
he asked, trying to sound casual. He laid two cards face-down. “Two twos. One
silver.” It was his standard bet, now he had the money. Small enough to not
matter if he didn’t win the round, large enough to be worthwhile if someone
called Gesh on him. Kelosh had been right – he
always
played it true,
and folded if he couldn’t. He had a guaranteed way of making money. There was
no point in gambling.

Kelosh snorted. “You know the
stories. Whoever holds it cannot be touched, by abominations or the Gods
themselves. One cut from Whisper steals your very soul and makes the blade
stronger. That sort of thing.” He stared at his hand for a moment. “Two sevens.
Six coppers.”

Davian hesitated. Kelosh was lying
about his cards, but Davian ignored it, instead thinking back to that night in
Talmiel when the young woman had rescued them. He thought about the way their
captors had died. “I don’t know about stealing souls,” he said quietly, “but
all it takes is a nick, and you’re dead. Instantly. I’ve seen it with my own
eyes.”

There was an impressed silence
for a few seconds, then Gorron snorted. “Likely story,” he said, shaking his
head in derision. “Three eights.”

Davian prepared himself. Gorron
had lied. It was finally over.

However Gorron paused before
making his bid, then stood, unbuckling the silver-sheathed sword from around
his waist. He drew it out, laying both sword and sheath on the table. The blade
itself was beautiful, elegantly curved with delicately worked gold inlay on the
hilt. It looked more than ornate though. Like the sword of a master craftsman.

“The gold alone is worth about
ten times what any of you have in front of you,” he said. “But the blade? The
killer of a thousand heretics and abominations? It is priceless.”

Kelosh gave Gorron a look of open
surprise. “You’re betting Slayer? Why?” He scratched his head. “This is just a
friendly game, Gorron.”

Gorron was silent for a moment,
then scowled. “I’m not going to lose to
him
, Kelosh,” he said, jerking
his head in Davian’s direction. “I don’t care who he’s trained with, how many
abominations he’s killed. Look at him! He’s a child!” He glared at Davian. “I
find it hard to believe he’s ever even seen a real sword except from the wrong
end. Let’s see him try and win one.”

Kelosh shrugged. “It’s your
decision, Gorron,” he said, shooting Davian an apologetic look. He looked
around. “Anyone want to call him on it?”

Davian saw Wirr shaking his head
from the corner of his eye. Gorron obviously loved the blade.
The killer of
a thousand heretics and abominations
. The fear that had been with him all
evening was suddenly gone, replaced with a burning anger. These men killed
Gifted. They
killed
people like him, Asha, Wirr. And they were proud of
it.

“Gesh,” he said softly.

Gorron stared at him in shock, a
stricken look on his face. Davian had so much in front of him to lose, and only
a fool would have assumed Gorron was bluffing with a bet that large. Kelosh saw
the expression on his friend’s face and groaned.

“Perhaps we can figure out an
alternate means of -”

Kelosh was cut short by a cry of
anger from Gorron. Before Davian could react the Hunter had drawn a dagger from
his belt and was lunging at him.

Time slowed.

From the rage on Gorron’s face,
Davian had no doubt the man was going for a killing blow. Still seated, he
snatched Slayer from the table, desperately putting it between himself and the
leaping Gorron.

The tip of the sword caught
Gorron in the chest.

It slid in smoothly, more easily
than Davian had imagined a blade would go through flesh. Gorron froze, the
dagger clattering from his hand to the floor, then stumbled back. He looked
uncomprehendingly at Davian; he gave a wracking cough and blood sprayed from
his mouth.

Then his eyes rolled upward and
he collapsed. Altesh rushed to his side, but Davian knew what he would say
before he got there.

“He’s dead,” said Altesh,
stunned.

The entire tavern was silent,
everyone looking alternately at the corpse on the floor and Davian, who was
still holding the bloodstained sword. He lowered the blade.

Kelosh stared at him solemnly for
a few moments.

“I have never seen
anyone
move that fast,” said the Hunter eventually, his voice soft with awe. “You do
Breshada credit, Shadat.” He sighed, shaking his head as he looked at Gorron’s
motionless body, then gestured to the table. “You and your friend should go.
Take your winnings; I will deal with the Watch. I’ll tell them it was between
Seekers, and it will be fine. If they see how young you are, though, it will only
hold things up.”

Davian just nodded, too numb to
respond otherwise. He and Wirr quickly swept the pile of coins into their
satchel, and Davian snatched up the silver sheath.

Before anyone could move to block
their exit, they were outside and hurrying into the night.

***

They ran for a quarter hour
before Wirr held up his hand, breathing hard, and came to a gradual stop.

“I don’t think anyone is
following us,” he said between gulps of air. “We can probably -”

He cut off with a cry of pain as
Davian’s fist crashed into his nose.

“What in
fates
were you
thinking?” Davian hissed, putting as much venom into the words as possible
without making too much noise. “You knew! You knew they were Hunters, and you
sent me right to them. Worse. You didn’t even tell me!” His friend had
struggled back to his feet, but Davian stepped forward and drove his fist
squarely into his nose again, eliciting another moan of pain. “This is not a
game, Wirr! We could
die
out here!”

Wirr stayed on the ground this
time, looking up at Davian with pure shock on his face. “Dav!” He scrambled
backward in the dirt as Davian took a menacing step forward. “I’m sorry!”

Davian looked at his friend –
stunned, upset,
scared
– and the anger drained from him, exposing the
emotion it had tried to cover.

Shame.

He sunk to his knees next to his
friend, suddenly realising his entire body was shaking.

“I killed him, Wirr,” he
whispered after a few seconds. “I just picked up the sword, and….”

Wirr hesitated, but seeing his
friend’s rage had subsided, shifted over to sit next to him. He tested his nose
gently with a finger. “It wasn’t your fault, Dav,” he said. “He was going to
kill you - just like he killed all those other Gifted. Remember what he was.”

Davian stared at the ground,
unable to concentrate with all the emotions swirling in his head. “And that
makes it right?”

Wirr bit his lip, silent for a
few seconds. “It couldn’t be avoided, Dav. Same as Talmiel,” he noted
eventually.

Davian screwed up his face.
“Except I wasn’t holding the sword in Talmiel.”

“So it’s okay for someone else to
save your life, but not if you do it yourself?”

Davian ran his hands through his
hair. “I don’t know, Wirr,” he admitted. “I just feel… dirty. Sick to my very
core. Like I just made the biggest mistake of my life, and there is no way I
can ever take it back.”

Wirr just nodded, obviously not
sure what to say. They sat in silence for a while, then Wirr cleared his
throat. “I should have told you. But I knew you’d never go along with it.”

Davian took a deep breath. The
silence had given him time to order his thoughts, push the shock of what he’d
just done to the background. “How did you know who they were? And, fates - why,
why
did you choose them in the first place?”

Wirr grimaced. “Geshett is a
Hunter’s game,” he admitted. “They say it helps hone their ability to tell when
people are lying, and to conceal things themselves. It’s the
only
game
they play, Dav, and no-one else is allowed to play it.” He shrugged. “Your
ability doesn’t set off Finders and isn’t covered by the Tenets. It was the
only way I could think of to get enough money.”

Davian gritted his teeth. It made
sense, though they had been beyond fortunate that none of the Hunters had been
suspicious enough to check them with Finders. “Just… tell me everything next time.
It was all I could do not to run when I realised who they were.”

Wirr gave a slight smile and
hefted the satchel, which made a jingling sound as he shook it. “All things
considered, Dav, you did very well.”

Despite everything, Davian
laughed softly. “All I could think of half the time was what Breshada’s face
would look like, if she ever found out I was using her name to dupe her
‘brethren’.”

Wirr smirked. “Angry. Angry is
how I picture her.”

Davian smiled, and a tiny part of
the pain – the worst part – faded just a little. He stood, sticking out his
hand. Wirr hesitated for a moment, then grasped it firmly, allowing Davian to
pull him back to his feet.

“I think you broke my nose,” Wirr
grumbled, pulling a kerchief from his pocket, dabbing at his nose and grimacing
as the cloth came away soaked in blood.

“Nothing you didn’t deserve,”
noted Davian.

Wirr grunted. “I suppose that’s
true.” He looked at Davian, expression thoughtful. “Dav… I have to ask. How did
you do it?”

Davian stared at his friend in
confusion. “Do what?”

“How in all fates did you move so
fast? One second you were sitting there, and the next, that sword was sticking
clean through Gorron. I don’t doubt you have fast reactions, but that was….” He
shook his head. “Something else.”

Davian looked at the sword, still
in his hand. He unsheathed it, hefting it, admiring the sense of balance, the
clean lines of the blade. “He called it Slayer,” he pointed out. “If it has a
name….”

Wirr snorted. “A Hunter trying to
sound important, nothing more. It’s not a Named sword, Dav. It would be easy to
tell. Like Breshada’s.”

Davian nodded, acknowledging the
truth of the statement. As soon as he’d seen Whisper, he’d known there was
something different about it, even before seeing how effectively it killed. Most
Named swords he’d heard of, the names themselves hadn’t made sense to him.
Having seen Whisper in action, though, he knew it was the perfect word to
describe it.

‘Slayer’, on the other hand,
didn’t fit. It was a nice sword – a
very
nice sword – but Wirr was
right. It had no unusual powers.

Gently, he tossed the sword into
the long grass at the side of the road. Valuable or not, he wanted nothing more
to do with it.

Wirr looked about to protest but
then just sighed, nodding.

“If it wasn’t the sword, then I
don’t know,” Davian finally admitted. “Everything seemed to move more slowly, I
suppose. I grabbed the sword, and….” He trailed off, stomach churning as he
remembered the moment. For an instant he thought he was going to vomit, but a
few deep breaths settled him again. “I can’t explain it, Wirr.”

Wirr grunted. “Whatever it was,
it saved your life.” He grimaced. “Probably both our lives. I was about to try
and use Essence to hold him back.”

Davian gave a low whistle. “First
Tenet or not, that would have made things interesting.”

“You have no idea,” muttered
Wirr, almost to himself. He glanced around. The sky was clear tonight and
though it was too early for much moonlight, the stars provided enough
illumination to see the road. “We should keep moving. The further we are from
here come dawn, the better.”

They walked for a while in
silence, the quiet of the night calming Davian’s jangling nerves somewhat.

Abruptly, Wirr cleared his
throat. “I meant it, you know,” he said hesitantly. “I really am sorry.”

“I know, Wirr,” said Davian.
“It’s okay.”

There was silence for a while
longer, then Davian rubbed his hands together, keeping them warm against the
chill of the night air. The motion caused his sleeve to pull upward a little,
and he found himself staring at the carefully covered patch on his forearm.