He didn’t even know how to blow a horn, though he had seen it done and knew that it wasn’t like a hautboy or recorder; it involved buzzing the lips or somesuch. Just putting air in it shouldn’t work.
But the clear note that soared into the dark air denied all that. And it wouldn’t let him stop. Even as he sank to his knees, blood spraying from his arm, the horn blew louder, sucking the wind from him as the very rocks and trees seemed to take up the note, as the sky shivered from it. Even when Brother Lewes hit him and tore the instrument from his hands, the sound went on, gathering force like a thunderhead, building higher until it was deafening, until no other sound existed in the world.
Brother Lewes knocked Stephen roughly to the ground. Grinding his teeth, Stephen pulled the knife from his arm, nearly fainting from the redoubled pain that brought. He rolled onto his back, vaguely bringing the blade up in a gesture of defense.
But Brother Lewes was doing something odd. He seemed to have found a straight stick and driven it into his own right eye. Why would he do that?
When a second arrow struck the monk in the heart, it all suddenly made sense. He watched numbly as Lewes pawed at the shaft, gave a final mutter of consternation, and fell.
“Aspar,” Stephen said. He couldn’t hear his own words for the sound of the horn.
Clutching the knife, he stumbled to his feet. He willed away the pain in his arm, and it went, just as the feeling had gone out of his body on the faneway. Grimly he started toward Desmond.
The monk watched him come. Stephen was peripherally aware that Aspar was attacking Owlic, now.
In the air around them, the note from the horn was finally beginning to fade, but slowly.
“You’re the greatest fool in the world,” Spendlove screamed. “Idiot! What have you done?”
Stephen didn’t answer. His first breath after blowing the horn felt like a winterful of icy draughts. He knew Spendlove would kill him. He didn’t care. Raising the knife he began to run straight toward the other monk, his wounded arm forgotten.
Desmond glanced down at the bound woman and then, fast as a cat, he grabbed Brother Ashern, positioned over the first still slightly twitching victim. He stabbed Ashern in the heart. At nearly the same moment, an arrow struck Desmond near the center of his chest, and he grunted and fell back.
That gave Stephen an instant to choose, and in that instant he felt a bright certainty. He shifted his charge, putting his shoulder into the dying, goggle-eyed Brother Ashern and knocking him from the mound. Then he knelt by the other man, the one still gaping at his own bowels.
“Forgive me,” he said, and drove the shining knife into one tortured blue eye, pushing it in as far as it would go.
“Once the blade is in,” he remembered reading in the Physiognomy of Ulh, “wiggle well to scramble the brains. Quick death will follow.”
He wiggled, and something in the earth beneath him seemed to groan.
He looked up just as Desmond hit him. He felt his nose collapse and tasted blood in the back of his throat, and when he bounced down the sedos, he barely felt anything. Desmond came grimly after him, snapping off the arrow in his chest. Stephen watched him sidestep another arrow, and then the monk had him by the collar, and Stephen was in the air again. He crashed to earth on the other side of the hill.
He’ll have cover here, Stephen thought. Aspar won’t be able to shoot him without moving. I’ll be dead by the time he gets here.
Desmond came around the sedos and kicked him in the ribs. Stephen grunted; he couldn’t breathe through his nose, and his mouth was full of blood.
“Enough of you, Stephen Darige,” Desmond said. “That’s very much enough of you.”
Stephen felt something in his hand as he tried to flop back, and he realized he still had the knife. Not that he would ever have the chance to use it. Spendlove was too fast. He couldn’t throw it, the way Spendlove had.
Or could he? He remembered Spendlove drawing his hand back and flipping it toward him. As lightning-quick as the throw had been, Stephen remembered it, every nuance of the motion. He thought of his own hand making the same motion.
Spendlove came, almost contemptuously. Stephen, not even half risen, cocked his hand and threw.
He was certain he had missed, until Spendlove, eyes wide and unbelieving, reached for his sternum, where the hilt stood, just below the arrow wound.
Stephen leapt up, fierce exultation finally moving his limbs. Spendlove hit him again, in the chest. It felt like a sledgehammer, but Stephen lurched forward, throwing his arms around the monk.
Spendlove put both of his hands around Stephen’s neck and began to squeeze. The world went gray as the monk’s fingers bit into his neck. Stephen, with winter in his belly, wondered how Spendlove could be so stupid. Was it a trick?
He decided it wasn’t; Spendlove was just mad with rage. With both hands, Stephen grabbed the hilt of the knife and pulled down.
“Oh, shit me,” Spendlove said, watching his guts spill to the ground. He let go of Stephen, took three steps back, and sat down heavily on the mound. He wrapped his arms around his yawning belly.
“I wondered why you didn’t think of that,” Stephen commented, dropping to his knees.
“Too mad. Saints, Darige, but you know how to make me mad.” His eyes rolled back. “You’ve killed me. Me, killed by the likes of you.”
“You shouldn’t have betrayed the church,” Stephen pointed out. “You shouldn’t have killed Fratrex Pell.”
“You’re still a fool, Brother Stephen,” Spendlove replied.
“I know others in the church must be involved,” Stephen told him. “I know you took orders from someone. Tell me who. Make absolution to me, Brother Desmond. I know you must regret some of what you’ve done.”
“I regret not killing you when I met you, yes,” Brother Desmond allowed.
“No. That night on the hill.”
Spendlove looked very weary. If it weren’t for the sanguine river flowing through his crossed arms, he might have been preparing for a nap. He blinked.
“I never had a chance,” he murmured. “I thought they would make something better of me. They made something worse.” He looked up, as if he saw something. “There they are,” he said. “Come to get me.”
“Tell me who your superiors were,” Stephen insisted.
“Come close, and I’ll whisper,” Spendlove said, his eyelids fluttering like broken moths.
“I think not. You’ve still the strength to kill me.”
“Well, you’ve learned a little, then.” He lay back. “It’s better that you live to see the world you’ve made, in any case. I hope you enjoy it, Brother Stephen.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re here.” Spendlove sounded suddenly frightened. His head threw back and his back arched. “It’s only ashes, now. I was a fool to think I could be more. Great lords!”
The last was a shriek, and then he lay still, his body as quiet as his face was tortured. Stephen sat watching him, chest heaving, slowly trying to become sane again.
Aspar finally hit the troublesome monk in the neck and, while he staggered, put the last shaft in his heart. That left only the leader, who had gone behind the mound with Stephen. Aspar sprinted from cover.
The fellow he’d just shot hadn’t given up, though. They met halfway to the mound, and he cut at Aspar with a sword, the steel a gray blur. Aspar stopped short, hopped back, then leapt forward inside the length of the weapon, crossing his dirk and the hand ax he’d acquired in a village two days back. He forced the sword down, then brought the hand ax up, edge-first, under the monk’s chin, splitting his lower jaw. In return he got a blow from the sword-pommel that sent him sprawling.
The swordsman came on, stabbing down, slower this time. Aspar batted the blade aside and sat up fast, punching his dirk into the man’s groin. When he doubled, Aspar withdrew the blade and put it through his heart, which finally stopped him. Groaning, Aspar climbed painfully to his feet and resumed his run to the mound where Winna still lay bound.