Page 170 of Swordheart
“Do you ride horses a lot?”
“Never if I can help it.”
“We have to do it again tomorrow.”
“We do.”
Halla joined them, stretched out on her side of the bed, and made a noise that Sarkis would have likely compared to a yak.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”
After a long minute, Halla said, “What are we going to do with the paladins tomorrow?”
“I told them to drop us inside the city gates,” said Zale. “Since I think there’s a good chance we’ll have to kill some people, I’d rather not get them involved. They are… um… not so good at making a virtue of expediency.”
The story they had concocted was straightforward, if not terribly original. Family friend had visited, accompanied by scholar. Family friend had left in a hurry, having taken several valuable artifacts. They weren’t particularly worried about the artifacts, but they were very worried that the scholar had some undue influence over him and wanted to make sure that he was not in any danger. The paladins had nodded and not asked any further questions.
Halla propped herself up on one elbow and looked at their gear. She had a small travel pack with a change of clothes, and Zale had much the same. The crossbow, however, lay atop the two packs, unstrung but exuding quiet menace. “Are you sure we’ll even be able to kill them?”
“No. If we’re lucky, we won’t have to find out. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the sort of case that lends itself well to binding arbitration, so I’d rather be prepared.” They rolled partway over, a pained look on their narrow face. “Ah… Halla, I don’t know how to say this… I am not trying to shuffle this off on you, I promise. But all else being equal… it will be easier if you are the one who does the killing, should it come to that.”
Halla lifted both eyebrows.
“I am a better witness in your defense than you are in mine,” said Zale. “Priest and lawyer and all that.”
Halla nodded. The thought had occurred to her. And she could not suspect Zale of trying to save their own skin—not after they had told her to run, knowing that Alver was far more likely to kill them than her.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, and closed her eyes.
The next day was worse. Halla stopped even trying to make conversation, and now clung silently to the paladin’s back, hoping that her hip joints did not grind away to powder before they arrived. When Mare halted her horse and said, “We’re here,” it took Halla several long seconds before the words penetrated her private misery.
She had to be helped down out of the saddle, where she stood, legs trembling, while Mare took her pack down from the horse’s back and offered it to her. “You don’t look so good,” the paladin said.
“I’m used to riding donkeys,” Halla admitted. “Only donkeys. Actually, only one donkey. His name was Sugar.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to offer the donkey’s name, but Mare nodded gravely, as if this was indeed vital information.
Zale looked better than she did, but not by much. They had their cloak draped over their crossbow, which made it look a great deal more suspicious than if they’d just been carrying it normally. Still, presumably it was the thought that counted.
The paladins waved to the guards at the gate, who saluted. Halla abandoned any idea of sneaking into the city unnoticed.
“Thank you,” she said to Mare, grabbing both of the paladin’s hands. She was wearing gauntlets, so this wasn’t much fun,but never mind that. “Thank you for getting us here. Maybe now we can get to Bartholomew before this scholar does something… well… regrettable.”
“Glad to be of service,” said Mare, smiling. “And you did us a good turn, too. Jorge would never have agreed to stay out of a fight with demons. The half day we might have lost bringing you here is more than made up for by not losing Jorge.”
She waved to her comrade, tossed a casual salute in Zale’s direction, and mounted her horse. The last Halla saw of them was glints of light off armor, riding away into danger.
Sarkis swam up out of the silver sword-dreams, and discovered that he was looking at a corpse.
More specifically, he was looking at Bartholomew’s corpse. There was quite a large knife buried in his back, and he was face down on a cluttered table that Sarkis recognized from their previous visits.
“I gather you’re the wielder now?” he said to Nolan, studying the corpse dispassionately.
“I didn’t want to do it,” said Nolan defensively. “He left me no choice! He kept changing the terms of the bargain.”
“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” said Sarkis, shrugging. If anything, the scholar had saved him the trouble. “Refused to sell, did he?”
“It’s been a nightmare,” said Nolan, collapsing on the bench opposite the body. “First, he contacted our order saying he had one of the Smith’s swords. I nearly killed myself getting here, only to find that his story had changed and now he just knew where the sword was andexpectedto have it in his possession. Then your whole entourage showed up, and Bartholomew was all for stealing the sword in the middle of the night, even though I told himthat wouldn’t work, and anyway, you didn’t spend the night, so then we would go to Rutger’s Howe and take it as part of the bargain with Mistress Halla, even though it was blindingly obvious that if you were the sword, she wasn’t going to part with it. And I still didn’t have any proof that youwerethe sword.”
Sarkis nodded, folding his arms. “I suppose he was working with her relatives, then?”
