The Lightstone: The Ninth Kingdom by David Zindell

Author:David Zindell [David Zindell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007396597
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2001-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

16

With Atara, Maram and Master Juwain still weak and trembling from what the gray men had done to us, Kane immediately took command. He ordered Master Juwain to tend to me while he walked around our camp counting the bodies of the slain. He numbered them at twelve, including the one that I had killed. Maram had managed to send two on to the other world, while Atara had added three more enemies toward her hundred. That meant Kane had accounted for six. As I lay with my head in Master Juwain’s lap, I blinked my eyes in disbelief. I had never seen anyone fight with such quickness, skill and sheer ferocity.

After Kane had completed his tally, he knelt by the gray men’s leader on the bloody earth. He used his sword to cut the black stone from his forehead. He studied this flat oval a long time before tightening his fist around it. Then he turned toward us and said, ‘This is no place to remain, eh? The sun will be up soon. Let’s get Val into the shade of the trees before it boils his brains.’

With Kane’s help, my friends carried me into the trees. They found a nice dry spot beneath an old oak, and there they re-established our camp. Atara laid out our sleeping skins while Maram got a fire going and Master Juwain went to work on making some tea. Kane brought over the packs from the dead horses. And then he went off into the woods to look for Altaru and the two sorrels. We heard his sharp whistles through the trees.

Sometime later he returned holding the reins of a big bay, which I took to be his horse. Altaru, Tanar and the sorrels followed them. I was as glad to see Altaru as he was me. He walked over to where I lay and bent his great head down to nuzzle me. Then Kane tethered him and the three other horses to a nearby tree.

‘So, Valashu Elahad,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘I’ve wandered the wilds of Alonia looking for you. And now that I’ve found you, you’re nearly dead.’

He spoke the truth. The coldness cutting through me was worse than that with which the gray men had touched me. I lay against the earth without the strength to rise. Having killed again, I wanted to die. But seeing the concern on Maram’s face and the love on Atara’s as they gathered around me, I wanted to live even more.

Maram laid his big hand on my head and said, ‘Once before he recovered from something as bad as this.’

‘Yes, after he killed Morjin’s assassin,’ Kane said. He seemed to know all about me–and much else besides. ‘But that was before the Grays went to work on him.’

‘Do you mean the Stonefaces?’ Maram said. He pointed toward the meadow where the bodies of the gray men lay in the dawn’s half-light.

‘No–I mean the Grays,’ ‘Kane said. That is their name.’

‘Who are they, then?’

‘Servants of the Great Beast,’ he growled out.

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