“You sure you’re okay?” Thomas asked the woodsman, looking with concern into his eyes. He was remembering everything he’d been taught in the University about cursed swords. Some of them were only mildly dangerous, affecting their owners only so long as they were holding them, but others had a permanent affect that lasted the rest of their lives. Thomas prayed that the Runeblade belonged in the first category.
“I’m fine,” insisted the soldier, gently pushing the wizard away. “Just came over funny for a bit, that’s all.” He pointed to Andricus. “So what’s his story?”
“I wanted him dead,” replied the Konnen, indicating where Rakkus’s headless body was settling gently into the cave's deep floor. “He, I mean, he wanted to, er...” He glanced over at the women, unsure how to phrase it delicately.
“It’s okay, we know,” said Matthew, coming to his rescue. “We know what he was like.”
An alarmed, sympathetic expression suddenly appeared on Andricus’s face. “He didn’t...”
“No,” replied Shaun with a grin. “Lord Basil warned him off. About the only thing we have to be grateful to him for.”
Thomas glanced over at Lirenna, who was looking sadly at the body of the man she'd enchanted. "You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied. "I know it's silly to grieve over him. He would have killed us without the enchantment, but the fact remains that he did die defending us."
"Like you said, he would have killed us without the enchantment. He would have done worse than that to you. Forget him."
She nodded and Thomas turned her gently away from him. He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and, when she looked up at him, he indicated her Ring of ESP. Then he nodded his head at Andricus. Lirenna glanced once more at the man she'd enchanted, but then looked back at Thomas and nodded. She looked at the Konnen and fingered the ring. “He’s telling the truth,” she said after a moment's concentration.
“The ring!” exclaimed Andricus. “That’s why he sent us out after you. He wants it back, really bad.”
“I can imagine,” replied the demi shae with a small smile.
“Well, you can’t go back to the city now,” said Shaun. “What are you going to do?”
“I was hoping you’d let me come with you,” replied the Konnen nervously.
“There’s a problem there,” said Shaun, though. “We’re going back to the city.”
“What!” exclaimed Andricus. “But you can’t! You’d be committing suicide!”
“We have to,” explained Diana, undoing the straps of his breastplate to get a better look at his wound. “We have a job to do.” She lifted the massive steel breastplate free, amazed at the penetrating power of the magical Runeblade, and let it drift away. Then she pulled up his thick, bloodstained woolly jerkin and put a hand on the edges of his wound. He was lucky. An inch or two deeper and he’d have been a dead man. She prayed to Caroli, and to the Konnen’s amazement the wound closed under her fingers, leaving not a single mark amongst the older scars that covered his body.
“So it’s true,” he gasped. “You really are a healer.”
“I am a follower of Caroli, the Lady of Healing,” she replied, moving off to look at Thomas’s wound. She seemed to have forgotten the wound on her own head, despite the fact that her hair was plastered with blood.
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
The Caverns of Kronos
काल्पनिकThomas Gown and his companions have escaped from captivity, but only by fleeing deeper into the unknown, to face new dangers. They are carrying a secret that could save the world, though, and they have a duty to take it to those who can make use of...
