The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

Crossways during the past night and day. He considers it unlikely that the wheelwright has not heard gossip of the stranger who spoke with Trait in the tavern, the stranger who injured Ing Hardiston and another man at Tamlin Marker’s grave. He believes that Sought’s men will be ready for him.
    The sun’s setting behind him casts spots like fragments of Varder’s mother’s prayers through the boughs and leaves, spots that dance and waver in the low wind, obscuring more than they reveal. Each instance of brightness darkens what lies behind it. But Black does not regard them. He has other senses, forms of perception that are not misled by the sun’s last fireflies. He trusts what he is able to discern. All other concerns he puts from his mind. That he does not, can not, understand the purpose that drives his quarry dismays him, but it does not affect his resolve, or his haste, or his confidence in his mount. It does not make him less the servant of his own purpose.
    Lungs and livers, air and heat. And a hierophant from a land infamous for its winds, a land where wind and sun are worshipped as gods. If it is true that air and heat are elemental spirits, as necessary to life as bright and dark, it may also be true that a shaper born to a parched and baking world knows how to call upon gods that have played no part in Black’s homeland’s wars.
    The ability to make use of such knowledge here is incomprehensible to Black, but his lack of understanding does not make it impossible.
    His mount stretches to leap a fallen tree. It skitters aside from a thicket of longthorn briar, avoids a sinkhole in a wandering stream, picks a careful path between large boulders. Its care makes him a target for his attackers.
    He is aware of them while they still only hear his approach. He counts four men armed with sabers and other weapons. Herecognizes their stealth. He knows that the wheelwright is not among them.
    He detects a crossbow aimed at his hip from the brush on one side, a spear poised to throw from the shelter of an old oak on the other. A man with a dagger ready crouches to spring from atop the nearest boulder. Directly ahead of Black, ten or more paces distant, stands a fourth assailant, waiting with his quarterstaff in case Black is able to evade three simultaneous assaults.
    Black’s movements are mapped in his mind, as precise as though he has foreseen them. Snatching up the edge of his cloak, he catches the bolt of the crossbow in the tough canvas as he vaults from the far side of his horse. The spear plucks at his shoulder, but does not harm him. The man leaping from the boulder lands in the mount’s empty saddle.
    An instant of surprise slows Black’s attackers, an instant of harsh cursing. During that heartbeat’s pause, Black slaps his horse’s rump, causing the beast to buck the man from its back. Prompt to its training, its shaping, the horse begins to trample the fallen man.
    Two or three paces of ground are now clear in front of Black. As one assailant bursts from the brush and another charges past his oak, both drawing their sabers, Black invokes his longsword. Kelvera has warned him against the skill of Sought’s men. As he engages them, he sees that she did not exaggerate. His own skill suffices against one such opponent. Only the many ways in which he has been shaped enable him to counter two.
    Parrying with his utmost speed, he shifts his ground until hehas a boulder at his back. With both men in front of him, he fights for his life.
    Thrust and parry, slash and counter, his blade and theirs weave a skein of imminent bloodshed through the gloom. The last glints of the sun strike sparks like stars on the swift iron, gleams briefer than blinks. Black’s horse has fled among the trees. The beast has left one of Sought’s bodyguards broken or dead. There is much to be said for killing both of his immediate attackers, and also the last, who still waits. He