Part 5 (2/2)

'I choose to live here. I have merchants looking after my investments. I will give you a letter to one of them in Drenan. He will pay you.'

'Even after you are dead?'

'Even then.'

'I don't intend to fight for you,' said Angel. 'Understand? I will be a tutor to your daughter, but that is all.'

'I need no one to fight for me,' snapped Waylander. 'Not now. Not ever.'

Angel nodded. 'I accept your offer. I will stay and teach her, but only so long as I believe she is learning. When the day comes - as it will - when I can teach her no more, or she cannot learn, then I leave. Is that agreeable?'

'It is.' Waylander rose and moved to the rear wall. Angel watched him press his palm against a flat stone, then reach inside a hidden compartment. Waylander turned and tossed a heavy pouch across the room. Angel caught it, and heard the c.h.i.n.k of metal within. 'There is a part-payment,'

said Waylander.

'How much?'

'Fifty gold Raq.'

'I'd have undertaken the task for this alone. Why pay so much more?'

'You tell me?' countered Waylander.

'You set the price at the same level as the hunt-geld upon you. You are removing temptation from my path.'

”That is true, Caridris. But not the whole truth.'

'And what is the whole truth?'

'Danyal was fond of you,' replied Waylander, rising to his feet. 'And I wouldn't want to kill you.

Now I'll bid you goodnight.'

Waylander found sleep elusive, but he lay still, eyes closed, resting his body. Tomorrow he would run again, building his strength and stamina, preparing for the day when the a.s.sa.s.sins would come.

He was pleased Angel had chosen to stay. He would be good for Miriel, and when the killers finally tracked him down he would ask the gladiator to take the girl to Drenan. Once there she would inherit all his wealth, choose a husband and enjoy a life free from peril.

Slowly he relaxed and faded into dreams.

Danyal was beside him. They were riding by a lakeside, and the sun was bright in a clear blue sky.

'I'll race you to the meadow,' she shouted, digging her heels into the grey mare's flanks.

'No!' he shouted, his panic growing. But she rode away. He saw the horse stumble and fall, watched as it rolled across Danyal, the pommel of the saddle crus.h.i.+ng her chest. 'No!' he screamed again, waking, his body bathed in sweat.

All was silent. He s.h.i.+vered. His hands were trembling and he rose from the bed and poured himself a goblet of water. Together he and Danyal had crossed a war-torn land, enemies all around them. Werebeasts had hunted them, Nadir warriors had tracked them. But they had survived. Yet in peace-time, beside a still lake, Danyal had died.

Forcing back the memories he focused instead upon the dangers he faced, and how best to tackle them. Fear settled upon him. He knew of Morak. The man was a torturer who revelled in the pain of others - unhinged, perhaps even insane, yet he never failed. Belash was unknown to him, but he was Nadir, and that meant he would be a fearless fighter. A warrior race, the Nadir had little time for weaklings. Constantly at war the tribesmen fought one another with pitiless ferocity, and only the very strong survived to manhood.

Senta, Courail, Morak, Belash ... how many more? And who had paid them? The last question he pushed aside. It didn't matter. Once you have killed the hunters you can find out, he told himself.

Once you have killed the hunters ...

A great weariness of spirit settled upon him. Taking up his tinder-box he lifted a bronze lantern from the hook on the wall above his bed and struck a flame, holding it to the wick. A golden light flickered. Rehanging the lantern, Waylander sat down upon the bed and gazed at his hands.

Hands of death. The hands of the Slayer.

As a young soldier he had fought for the Drenai against Sathuli raiders, protecting the farmer and the settlers of the Sentran Plain. But he hadn't protected them well enough, for a small band of killers had crossed the mountains to raid and pillage. On the return journey they stopped at his farmhouse, raped and murdered his wife and killed his children.

On that day Dakeyras changed. The young soldier resigned his commission and set out in pursuit of the killers. Coming upon their camp he had slain two of them, the rest fleeing. But he tracked them and, one by one, hunted them down. Each man he caught he tortured, forcing information on the names and likely destinations of the remaining raiders. It took years, and on the endless journey the young officer named Dakeyras died, to be replaced by the empty killing- machine known as Waylander.

By then, death and suffering meant nothing to the silent hunter and, one night in Mashrapur, his money gone, he had been approached by a merchant seeking revenge on a business rival. For forty silver pieces Waylander undertook his first a.s.sa.s.sination. He did not try to justify his actions, not even to himself. The hunt was everything, and to find the killers he needed money. Cold and heartless he moved on, a man apart, feared, avoided, telling himself that when the quest was over he would become Dakeyras again.

But when the last of the raiders had died screaming, staked out across a campfire, Waylander knew Dakeyras was gone forever. And he had continued his b.l.o.o.d.y trade, the road to h.e.l.l carrying him forward until the day he killed the Drenai King.

The enormity of the deed, and its terrible consequences, haunted him still. The land had been plunged into war, with thousands slain, widowed, orphaned.

The golden lantern light flickered on the far wall and Waylander sighed. He had tried to redeem himself, but could a man ever earn forgiveness for such crimes? He doubted it. And even if the Source granted him absolution it would mean nothing. For he could not forgive himself. Maybe that's why Danyal died, he thought, not for the first time. Perhaps he was always to be burdened by sorrow.

Pouring himself a goblet of water he drained it and returned to his bed. The gentle priest Dardalion had guided him from the road to perdition, and Danyal had found the tiny spark of Dakeyras that remained, fanning it to life, bringing him back from the dead.

But now she too was gone. Only Miriel remained. Would he have to watch her die?

Miriel would fail the test. That's what Angel had said, and he was right. Dakeyras recalled the day he himself had tested Danyal. Deep in Nadir territory a.s.sa.s.sins had come upon him, and he had slain them. Danyal asked him how it was that he killed with such ease.

He walked away from her and stooped to lift a pebble. 'Catch this,' he said, flicking the stone towards her. Her hand snaked out and she caught the pebble deftly. 'That was easy, was it not?'

'Yes,' she admitted.

'Now if I had Krylla and Miriel here, and two men had knives at their throats, and you were told that if you missed the pebble they would die, would it still be easy to catch? The onset of fear makes the simplest of actions complex and difficult. I am what I am because, whatever the consequences, the pebble remains a pebble.'

'Can you teach me?'

'I don't have the time.' She had argued, and finally he said, 'What do you fear most at this moment?'

'I fear losing you.'

He moved away from her and lifted a second pebble. Clouds partly obscured the moonlight and she strained to see his hand. 'I am going to throw this to you,' he said. 'If you catch it, you stay and I train you. If you miss it you return to Skarta.'

'No, that's not fair! The light is poor.'

'Life is not fair, Danyal. If you do not agree, then I ride away alone.'

”Then I agree.'

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