Percepliquis Part 32

Arista moved to Gaunt's side. The short, foul-looking arrow had penetrated through his calf with both ends sticking out. "I can see why you were having such trouble running," she told him as she pulled her dagger and started to cut his trouser leg.

"At least someone gives me credit," he growled.

"You're lucky, Mr. Gaunt," Hadrian said, coming down the stairs and approaching them. He grabbed the first lit lantern and knelt down beside him. "If the tip was still inside your leg, this next process would hurt a lot more."

"Next process?"

Hadrian bent down, and before Arista or Gaunt knew what was happening, he snapped off the arrow's tip. Gaunt howled in pain.

"Get some bandages ready," he told Arista. Myron was already there holding two rolls out to her. "Now this will hurt some."

"This will?" Gaunt asked incredulously. "What you did befo-"

Hadrian pulled the shaft from his leg. Gaunt screamed.

Blood flowed from the wounds on either side of the leg and Hadrian quickly began wrapping and pulling the cloth.

"Put your hands on the other side and squeeze tight-real tight," he told Arista. Blood soaked through the white linen, turning it red.

"Squeeze harder!" he told her as he unrolled a second length of cloth.

As she did, Gaunt cried out again, throwing his head back. His eyes went wide for a moment and then squeezed shut.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

Gaunt groaned through gritted teeth.

Blood seeped through her fingers. It was warm-and slicker than she had expected, almost oily. This was not the first time she had found her hands covered in blood. In the square of Ratibor, with Emery in her arms, there was much more, but she did not notice it then.

"Okay, let go," Hadrian told her, and he redressed the wound. Once again he had her squeeze as soon as he was finished. More blood soaked the bandages, but it was spotty this time and did not consume the whole linen.

Hadrian wrapped another length and tied it off. "There," he said, wiping his hands. "Now you just have to hope there was nothing nasty on that shaft."

Royce handed him a lantern. "We should look for other entrances."

"Mauvin, Alric? Keep watch out the windows, shout if they return."

"I need water," Gaunt said, his face dripping with sweat. Arista slipped a pack under his head and grabbed his water pouch. It appeared more of it dribbled down his chin than went in his mouth.

"Rest," she said, and brushed the hair from his brow.

He gave her a suspicious look.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to enchant you," she said.

When she entered, her robe illuminated the grand hall with a cold azure light. A great stone table stood in the center with dozens of tall chairs surrounding it. A few had fallen to their sides, as had a half dozen metal goblets that rested on the table. The chamber was four stories tall, with great windows lining the high gallery and skylights in the ceiling. She imagined that they had once filled this room with a wonderful radiance of sunlight. Painted on the upper walls and parts of the ceiling were astounding scenes of battle. Knights rode on horseback with streamers flying from long poles, vast valleys were filled with thousands of soldiers, and castle gates, defended by archers, were a.s.sailed by machines of war. In one scene, three men battled on a hilltop against three Gilarabrywn. Those same men were seen in other images, and in one, they were pictured in a hall with a throne where one sat with a crown and to either side stood the other two. Below the paintings, a varied array of weapons lined the room: swords, spears, s.h.i.+elds, bows, lances, and maces. The one thing they all had in common: even after a thousand years, they still gleamed.

Words were engraved in a band encircling the room and could also be found on recessed plaques, yet Arista's training in the Old Speech was verbal, not written. Unable to decipher the meanings, she did spot the words Techylor and Cenzlyor.

A majestic stair gave access to the gallery above and she climbed it. At the top were a series of doors. Some rooms lay open and she spied small chambers, living quarters with beds, shelves, and closets. Lantern light spilled from one.

She found Hadrian standing near the bed, staring up at the opposite wall as if entranced. He was looking at a suit of armor, a s.h.i.+eld, and a set of weapons. The armor was not at all like the traditional heavy breastplates, pauldrons, vambraces, and ta.s.sets of typical knight attire. This was one piece and appeared as a long formal coat, but made from leaves of gold-colored metal. It hung from a display with a great plumed helm like the head of an eagle resting on top.

"Planning on moving in?" she asked. "I got a little worried when you didn't come back."

"Sorry," he said, embarra.s.sed. "I didn't hear any shouts. Is everything all right?"

"Gaunt is sleeping, Myron reading, Magnus is arguing with Alric, Royce still hasn't returned, and Mauvin wandered off. And what are you doing?"

She sat down on the bed, which promptly collapsed under her weight, issuing a cloud of dust.

"You all right?" he asked, helping her up.

"Yes," she said, coughing and waving her hand before her face. "I guess the wood rotted over the years."

"This is it," he said.

"What?" She brushed the dust from her robe.

"This is Jerish's room, Jerish Grelad, the Teshlor Knight who went with the emperor's son into hiding."

"How do you know?"

"The s.h.i.+eld," he said, and pointed across the room at the heater s.h.i.+eld hanging on the wall. On it was an emblem of twisted and knotted vines around a star supported by a crescent moon. Hadrian reached back and drew forth the long spadone sword. He held it up so that she could see the small engraving at the center of the pommel that matched the one on the s.h.i.+eld. Then he stood up and crossed the room. As he did, she noticed for the first time that the suit of armor had no sword, but there was a sheath of gold and silver. Hadrian fitted the tip into the opening and let the great sword slide home. "You've been parted a long time."

"Doesn't quite match anymore," Arista said, noticing how the sword was marred to a dull finish.

"It has seen a thousand years of use," Hadrian said, defending it. He looked back at the armor. "The sword was the only thing he took. I suppose he couldn't expect to hide very well dressed in s.h.i.+ny gold armor." His fingers played over the gleaming surface of the metal.

"Looks like it would fit," she said.

He smirked. "What would I do with it?"

She shrugged. "Still, it seems like you should have it. Goes with the sword, anyway."

"It does, doesn't it?"

He lifted the coat. "So light," he said, stunned.

Arista looked back down at the bed and, as she did, noticed a small object-a figurine carved from a bit of smoky quartz. She picked it up and rubbed it clean. It was a statuette of three people, a boy flanked by two men, one in leaf armor and the other in a robe. The likeness of Esrahaddon was remarkable, except that this figure had hands. Whoever the artist was had a rare gift.

"Interested in what he looked like?" she said, and held out the figurine.

"He was young," Hadrian replied, taking the statuette and turning it over in his hands. "A good face, though." Then his eyes s.h.i.+fted and he smiled and she knew he was looking at Esrahaddon. "So this must be Nevrik, the heir. Doesn't look like Gaunt, does it?"

"How many generations are there in a thousand years?" she asked. "Funny that he left this. It's so beautiful you would have thought he'd taken it with him, or at least..." She paused and glanced around the room. Except for the expected silt of a thousand years, the room was neat and ordered, the bed made, drawers and cabinets closed, a pair of boots standing side by side at the foot of the bed.

"Did you... straighten up in here at all?" she asked.

He looked at her curiously and appeared as if he might laugh. "No," he told her.

"It's just that it's so tidy."

"What, because he was a knight you think-Okay, so there is Elgar, but he's more of an exception. No one is as messy as he is, but-"

"That's not what I meant. It's just that after Jerish left-after he took Nevrik and ran-I would have thought they would have searched this room, tore it apart looking for clues, but nothing looks out of place. And this figurine-don't you think they would have taken it? Why didn't they ransack the room? It's been a thousand years. You'd think they would have gotten around to it by now, unless... maybe they never got the chance."

"What do you-"

The blare of a horn blowing from somewhere outside the guildhall reached them, followed by the distant beat of drums.

"What's happening?" Hadrian asked, returning with Arista to the front of the hall, where Alric was once again at the windows. He carried the armor in a bundle and the s.h.i.+eld over his back.

Alric shrugged. "I don't know. I can't see a thing out there. Did you find an exit?"

"No, everything is sealed by rubble. So on the one hand, we're safe, but on the other, trapped."

"I think more are arriving out there," Alric mentioned.

"Get your head back from the window before you catch an arrow," Royce told him, returning from a side hall Arista had not taken.

She knelt down beside Gaunt and looked over his wound. The bleeding had finally stopped, but his face was still moist despite the chill in the air.

"Anything?" Hadrian asked.

Royce shook his head; then he looked around, concerned. "Where's Myron and Mauvin?"

"This is the Teshlor Guild," Alric said. "Mauvin has wanted to explore this since he was ten."

"And Myron?"

Alric glanced at Gaunt, who looked up painfully, blinking. Then all of them turned to Magnus.

"Don't look at me like that. I don't know where he went. He wandered off."

"I'll look for him," Royce said.

"Wait." Alric stopped him. "How are we going to get out of here?"

"Don't know," Royce replied.

Alric slumped against the front wall with a miserable look on his face. "He's not serious, is he?"

"You're the king," Gaunt said. "You tell us. You wanted to be in charge. What does your family heritage and blue-blood breeding say now? What insight has it provided you that we commoners can't see?"

"Shut it, Gaunt," Mauvin ordered, trotting down the stairs.

"There you are," Royce said.

"I'm just saying that he's the king," Gaunt went on. "He's in charge. So far all that he's managed is to get me bleeding to death and all of us trapped. This is a perfect chance for him to s.h.i.+ne and prove his worth. All the other teams that came in here didn't have a n.o.ble king to lead them. Surely he will not leave us to the same fate as they. Isn't that right, Your Majesty?"

"I said, shut it," Mauvin repeated in a lower, more threatening voice. "Have you forgotten he just risked his life to help save yours?"

Alric looked at each of them as they sat around the entrance hall in the flickering light of four lanterns, each casting four separate shadows of everything.

"I don't know," he said. He peeked back out the window. "You heard the horn and the drums. There could be dozens of goblins out there by now."

"I doubt that," Hadrian replied, and Alric looked hopefully at him. "I would say there were hundreds by now. Ghazel prefer uneven battles, the more one-sided, the better, as long as it is in their favor. Those horns and drums are calling all goblins within earshot. Yeah, I would say a couple hundred at least are gathering."

Alric stared at him, shocked. "But... how are we going to get out, then?"

No one replied.

Even Gaunt gave up his taunting and lay back down. "And I was going to be emperor."

"The imperial hunts were ma.s.sive." They heard Myron's voice echo as Royce led him back. "You can see by that tapestry. Hundreds partic.i.p.ated-thousands of animals must have been killed, and did you see the chariots?"

"He was looking at the art," Royce told them.

"They were master bronze craftsmen, did you see?" the monk asked. "And this building, this is the guildhall, the knights' guildhall. This is the very place mentioned in hundreds of books of lore, often thought to be a myth-the Hall of Techylor-and isn't that amazing-not Teshlor at all.

"It's astounding, really, in all the years of reading about the Old Empire I never found anything about it, but clearly it was true. Techylor is not a combat discipline or martial art any more than Cenzlyor is a discipline of mystical arts. They're names. Names! Techylor and Cenzlyor were the names of people who were with Novron at the first battle of the Great Elven War. The Teshlor Knights were literally the knights trained by Teshlor, or actually Techylor."

"This is hardly the time for studying history!" Alric snapped. "We need to find a way out, before they find a way in!"

"I see a light," Mauvin announced. "There's a fire, or a torch, or some-Uh-oh."

"What?" Gaunt asked.

"Well, two things, really," the young count Pickering began. "Hadrian was right. I can only see silhouettes but-oh yeah-there's a lot out there now-a whole lot."

"Second?" Hadrian asked.

"Second, it looks like they're setting up for flaming arrows."

"What good is that?" Alric asked. "This place is stone. There's nothing to burn."

"Smoke," Hadrian replied. "They'll smoke us out."

"That doesn't sound good," Gaunt said.

"Another locked room," Hadrian said to Royce. "How many is this? I've lost track."

"Too many, really."

"Ideas?"

"Only one," the thief said, and then looked directly at Arista.