The Saphire Rose by David Eddings

Sparhawk ran his sword through another Zemoch, even as Kalten sent another head rolling down the corridor.

Adus brained one of his own soldiers, roaring like an enraged bull. The roar suddenly broke off. Adus gaped, his eyes bulging. His mismatched armour did not fit very well, and the back of his cuirass did not reach all the way to his hips. It was there, in that area covered only by chain-mail, that Talen had stabbed him. Chain-mail will ward off the blow of sword or axe, but it is no defence against a thrust. Talen’s dirk drove smoothly into the half-witted brute’s back just under the lower rim of the cuirasss, seeking and finding Adus’s kidney. Talen jerked his dirk free and stabbed again, on the other side this time.

Adus squealed like a stuck pig in a slaughter-house.

He stumbled forward, one hand clutching at the small of his back and his face suddenly dead white with pain and shock.

Talen drove his dirk into the back of the animal’s knee.

Adus stumbled a few more steps, dropping his axe and grabbing at his back with both hands. Then he fell writhing to the floor.

Sparhawk and Kalten cut down the remaining Zemoch soldiers, but Talen had already snatched up a fallen sword and, standing astride Adus’s body, he was chopping at the brute’s helmeted head. Then he reversed the sword and tried desperately to stab down through the breastplate into Adus’s writhing body, but he did not have enough strength to make his weapon penetrate. ‘Help me!’ he cried. “Somebody help me!’

Sparhawk stepped to the weeping boy’s side, his own eyes also streaming tears. He dropped his sword and reached out to take the hilt of the one which Talen was trying to drive into Adus. Then he took hold of the sword’s cross-piece with his other hand. “You do it like this, Talen,’ he said almost clinically, as if he were merely giving instructions on the practice field.

Then, standing one on either side of the whimpering Adus, the boy and the man took hold of the sword, their hands touching on the hilt.

“We don’t have to hurry, Sparhawk,’ Talen grated from between clenched teeth.

“No,’ Sparhawk agreed. ‘Not really, if you don’t want to.”

AdUs shrieked as they slowly pushed the sword into him.

The shriek broke off as a great fountain of blood gushed from his mouth.

“Please!’ he gurgled. Sparhawk and Talen grimly twisted the sword.

Adus shrieked again, banging his head on the floor and beating a rapid tattoo on the flagstones with his heels. He arched his quivering body, belched forth another Gusher of blood and collapsed in an inert heap.

Talen, weeping, sprawled across the body, clawing at the dead man’s staring eyes. Then Sparhawk bent, gently picked the boy up and carried him back to where Kurik lay.

*Chapter 29

There was still fighting in the torchlit corridor, the clash of steel on steel, cries, shouts, groans. Sparhawk knew that he must go to the aid of his friends, but the enormity of what had just happened left him stunned, unable to move. Talen knelt beside Kurik’s lifeless body, weeping and pounding his fist on the flagstone floor.

“I have to go,’ the big Pandion told the boy.

Talen did not answer.

‘Berit,’ Sparhawk called, ‘come here.’

The young apprentice came cautiously out of the alcove his axe in his hands.

‘Help Talen,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Take Kurik back inside.

Berit was staring in disbelief at Kurik.

‘Move, boy!’ Sparhawk said sharply, ‘and take care of Sephrenia. ‘

“Sparhawk!’ Kalten shouted. “There are more of them coming.” ‘

“On the way!’

Sparhawk looked at Talen. “I have to go,’

he told the boy again.

‘Go ahead,’ Talen replied. Then he looked up, his tear-streaked face savage. ~Kill them all, Sparhawk,’ he said fiercely. ‘Kill them all.’

Sparhawk nodded. That would help Talen a bit, he thought as he returned to retrieve his sword. Anger was a good remedy for grief. He picked up his sword and turned, feeling his own rage burning in his throat. He also pitied the Zemoch soldiers as he went to rejoin Kalten. “Fall back,’ he told his friend in a coldly level tone. ‘Get your breath. ‘

‘Is there any hope?’ Kalten asked, parrying a Zemoch spear-thrust.

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry, Sparhawk.’

It was a small group of soldiers, no doubt one of the detachments that had been trying to lure the knights into side passages. Sparhawk went towards them purposefully.

It was good to be fighting. Fighting demanded every bit of a man’s attention and pushed everything else from his mind. Sparhawk moved deftly against the half-dozen Zemochs. There was a certain obscure justice working now. Kurik had taught him every move, every technical nuance he was bringing to bear, and those skills were supplemented by a towering rage over his friend’s death. In a very real sense, Kurik had made Sparhawk invincible. Even Kalten seemed shocked at his friend’s sheer savagery. It was the work of no more than a few moments to kill five of the soldiers facing him. The last turned to flee, but Sparhawk passed his sword quickly to his shield-hand, bent and picked up a Zemoch spear. ‘Take this with you,’ he called after the fleeing man. Then he made a long, practised cast. The spear took the soldier squarely between the shoulder blades.

“Good throw,’ Kalten said. “Let’s go and help Tynian and Ulath.’

%towards the turn in the corridor where the Alcione Knight and his Genidian comrade were holding back the soldiers who had rushed into the maze from the throneroom in response to Adus’s bellowed command.

‘I’ll take care of this,’ Sparhawk said flatly.

Kurik?’ Ulath asked. Sparhawk shook his head and began killing Zemochs again. He waded on, leaving the maimed behind him for his companions to dispatch.

‘Sparhawk!’ Ulath shouted. ‘Stop! They’re running!’

‘Hurry!’ Sparhawk yelled back. “We can still catch them!’

‘Let them go!’

‘No.’

‘You’re keeping Martel waiting, Sparhawk,’ Kalten said sharply. Kalten sometimes made a show of being stupid, but Sparhawk saw immediately just how smoothly his blond friend had brought him up short. Killing relatively innocent soldiers was no more than an idle pastime when compared to dealing once and for all with the white-haired renegade. He stopped. ‘All right,’ he panted, nearly exhausted from his exertions, “Let’s go back. We’ve got to get past that sliding wall before the soldiers come back anyway. ‘

‘Are you feeling any better?’ Tynian asked as they started back towards the alcove.

‘Not really,’ Sparhawk said.

They passed Adus’s body. ‘Go on ahead,’ Kalten told them. ‘I’ll be right along.’

Berit and Bevier awaited them at the entrance to the alcove.

‘Did you chase them off?’ Bevier asked.

‘Sparhawk did,’ Ulath grunted. ‘He was very convincing.”

‘Aren’t they likely to gather reinforcements and come back?”

“Not unless their officers have very large whips, they won’t.’

Sephrenia had arranged Kurik’s body in a posture of repose. His cloak covered the dreadful wound which had snuffed out his life. His eyes were closed and his face calm.

Once again Sparhawk felt an unbearable grief. ‘Is there ,any way -?’ he began, even though he already knew the answer.

Sephrenia shook her head. “No, dear one,’

she replied.

‘I’m sorry.’ She sat beside the body holding the weeping Talen in her arms.

Sparhawk sighed. ‘We’re going to have to leave,’ he told them. ‘We have to get back to those stairs before anybody decides to follow us.’ He looked back over his shoulder.

Kalten was hurrying to join them, and he was carrying something wrapped in a Zemoch cloak.

‘I’ll do this,’ Ulath said. He bent and picked Kurik up as if the powerful squire were no more than a child, and they retraced their steps to the foot of the stairs leading up into the dusty darkness above.

‘Slide that wall back in place,’ Sparhawk said, “and see if you can find some way to wedge it shut.’

.We can do that from up above,’ Ulath said. ‘We’ll block the track it slides on.

Sparhawk grunted as he made some decisions. ‘Bevier,’

he said regretfully, ‘we’re going to have to leave you here, I’m afraid. You’re badly wounded, and I’ve already lost enough friends today. Bevier started to object, but then changed his mind.

“Talen,’ Sparhawk went on, “you stay here with Bevier and your father.’ He smiled a sad smile. “We want to kill Azash, we don’t want to steal Him.’

Talen nodded.

‘And Berit -‘

‘Please, Sparhawk,’ the young man said, his eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t make me stay behind. Sir Bevier and Talen are safe here, and I might be able to help when we get to the temple.’

Sparhawk glanced at Sephrenia. She nodded. ‘All right,’

he said. He wanted to warn Berit to be careful, but that would have demeaned the apprentice, so he let it go. “Give me your war-axe and shield, Berit,’ Bevier said, his voice weak. “Take these instead.’ He handed Berit his lochaber and his burnished shield.

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