Adam of Albion (21 page)

Chavirage
roared again, this time in pain, but as Adam dove off to the side, the sword
still swept down so close it would have cut off his buttons if he’d had any.

As
he rolled clear and jumped to his feet, he saw that he’d missed his target, but
not by much—the spear was lodged in the knight’s chest, just where it met his
shoulder. Chavirage sheathed his sword, gripped the haft with both hands, and
yanked it free, cursing so venomously the words practically smoked coming out
of his mouth.

Then,
with blood streaming down his tunic and his eyes insane with fury, he leveled
the pike at Adam.

Adam’s
universe crystallized again—this time, on the spearpoint. There was no escape—with
that weapon in the hands of a trained warrior, he’d barely get his feet moving
before it skewered him.

And
yet, he felt a surge of pride. He, along with his friends, had fought an
overpowering enemy right up to the last. He’d given Chavirage something to
remember him by, too—and a scar from a fourteen-year-old
boy
wasn’t
going to add any bragging rights to the Templar’s precious honor.

At
least he would die worthy of the title Sir Adam.

But
he still
was
a fourteen-year-old boy, and there was one last thing he
could do. He stooped quickly, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and let it fly with
his best overhand fastball pitch.

By
pure luck, it smacked Chavirage dead center on his fresh wound. This time, he
let out a howl that would have made a banshee run for cover.

Then,
so suddenly she seemed to just materialize, Theodora was in front of
Adam—almost dragging her leg, but with her sword ready and her teeth bared with
cool ferocity.

“We’re
not done talking about Cristof,” she shouted. “I’ll wager that my sword will
send you to meet him again, one last time—as he watches you plunge into hell!”

Chavirage
growled like an angry bear—but she’d recovered enough poise to make him
hesitate.

In
the pause, Adam realized that he was hearing another sound in the distance—a
furious, high-pitched yipping, like a battle cry coming from many voices.

There!
At the valley entrance, a band of mounted men was appearing, galloping hard
into the fight—warriors wearing turbans and wielding scimitars that gleamed in
the rising moonlight. Their leader was riding a horse with four distinctive
white socks that flashed beautifully with its graceful stride.

Saladin
and Zuleika!

And
far off to the side, Adam glimpsed the skulking figure of Nicodemus of Edessa,
high-tailing it out of there as fast as he could go.

Chavirage
hurled the pike toward Theodora and Adam, but it missed and skittered
harmlessly on the ground—he was already wheeling his horse around, bent low
over its neck and spurring it viciously, to take off after Nicodemus. The other
Templars who could still ride were falling in behind him.

“First
in flight again, I see, O brave and noble knight!” Saladin shouted at
Chavirage. But as his own men started in pursuit, the Sultan’s command stopped
them. “Let the cowards go, to live forever with their shame.”

He
rode up and slid quickly off Zuleika, clasping Adam’s shoulder as he strode by
but going straight on to Theodora, who had sat down with both hands tightly
clasping her left knee.

“Are
you badly hurt, Sister?” Saladin asked, crouching beside her.

“Just
hobbled, lord Sultan—and I only have my own clumsiness to blame. I turned his
blade with my own, but my foot caught in the rocks and wrenched my knee.
Binding it will help. I have to see to the others—there are many worse.” As she
spoke, she produced a dagger seemingly out of nowhere, used it to tear a strip
from her robe, and wound it around her knee in a careful pattern, testing it
for tautness with each wrap. She’d obviously done this sort of thing many times
before.

“Take
care to see to yourself as well,” Saladin said. “Besides your Sisters, you’ll
soon have another patient who needs you.”

Her
hands paused and she looked up quickly, her eyes brimming with hope.

“Cristof?”
she breathed.

Saladin
nodded, and smiled as Adam yelled joyously, “He’s alive?”

“He
was treacherously wounded by an arrow from a hidden archer—one of Chavirage’s
men, I don’t doubt. But his brother Hospitallers came to his aid. The wound is
serious, but as we know, he’s not easily killed. They’re bringing him here
now.”

“And
Artemis?” Theodora said anxiously. “Where is she?”

Adam
was already looking for her, with his elation about Cristof quickly submerged
by worry. The scene around them was gruesome—in a way, worse than during the
fury of the battle. The ground was strewn with bodies of men and women both,
some lifeless and others twisting in agony, with their moans a nerve-jangling
chorus. The surviving Sisters were moving among them, changed from angels of
death to angels of mercy, and Adam realized that they were tending to the
Templars as well as to their own—by their code, apparently, enemies and
comrades alike deserved fair treatment when the fighting was over.

But
nowhere did he see Artemis’s wild pale hair.

Then,
when he’d worked up his nerve enough to start picking his way through the
fallen, terrified that he’d find her among them, he spotted her slight,
black-robed figure, sitting off by herself with her knees drawn up to her chin.
The reason he hadn’t seen her right away, he realized, was that her hair was
darkened by streaks and splotches—of blood.

He
ran to her in panic, dropped to his knees, and opened his arms to hug her—then
stopped, afraid he might aggravate her wounds.

“Hang
tough—I’ll get Theodora,” he panted.

But
strangely, Artemis didn’t act like she was seriously wounded. Her face had a
calmness that was almost eerie, and her eyes weren’t pained—
solemn
was
the word that came to Adam’s mind. In fact, he got the sudden sense that she
was somehow transformed—that just in these past few minutes, she’d both aged
and acquired a power that was awesome, but also was a weight that she would
have to carry from now on.

Adam
was a little scared by it, and a little jealous—and he wondered if he looked
the same way.

“I’m
all right—it’s not my blood,” she said. “One of them knocked my sword from my
hands, then grabbed my hair and was dragging me up onto his saddle—and then an
arrow struck him right under the chin. He fell off his horse on top of me, and
his hands were clenched so tightly I couldn’t get loose. I managed to get his
dagger and cut my hair enough to free myself. But it took a minute, and—he bled
all over me.”

Adam
shivered as he imagined it. Then he noticed that the sleeve of her robe on her
left upper arm was slashed and also bleeding, and this was definitely hers.

“But
you
are
hurt,” he said anxiously.

“It’s
not bad—I can hardly even feel it.”

“You
will. Can you walk okay?”

She
nodded. He clasped her other hand to help her stand, and they crossed the field
back to Saladin and Theodora, who welcomed her like a long lost daughter—then
immediately turned motherly, ordered her to sit still, and started tending to
the wound.

“So
this is the young lady I’ve heard about,” the Sultan said. “Headstrong and
prone to stirring things up, I understand. Reminds me of someone else I know.”
He glanced sidelong at Theodora.

Just
then, another voice sounded out, yelling from high up on the battlements.

“
Hello—oooh!
I guess nobody
remembers
the little guy who saved the day. Okay, fine,
I’ll just sit up here in this rock, and maybe in a few thousand years an
earthquake will knock me loose and I’ll get crushed by a huge shower of stones,
to lie broken both in heart and skull until some vulture comes along and pecks out
my eyes, then drops what’s left of me in the ocean—”

Saladin
stared up at the sound, then at Adam.

“Is
that—
it?
” he asked.

“It’s
actually a
he.
But yes, and I’d better go get him—he’ll never shut up.”

“See
to him, then, Adam—I must go my own way. But I’ll always hold dear this strange
miracle. If Allah grants me a quiet old age, I hope that Theodora and Cristof
and I will spend many pleasant hours trying to puzzle it out.”

“Sir,
can I just tell you two things?” Adam asked quickly.

“Of
course—say on.”

“I’m
sorry about Zuleika—the Templars were coming, and I had to turn her loose. I
figured she was smart enough to find you.”

“You
did rightly, and fate ordained that as my men and I approached here, she was
near enough to recognize us.”

Adam
exhaled with relief that the Sultan wasn’t angry. “And Mustafa—he’s been
incredibly loyal and brave. I just thought you should know that.”

Saladin
gave a firm nod. “The kind of young man I wish to keep close to me. Don’t
worry, Adam. I’ll raise him as one of my own—and I’m sure that Cristof will
gladly undertake his education both in combat and learning.” He clasped Adam’s
shoulder again, a gesture both of affection and blessing, then strode back
toward his soldiers, raising his voice to issue orders.

Adam’s
eyes dampened at saying goodbye to another great man, one he barely knew, and
yet who felt like a close old friend.

Theodora
was taking Artemis away to bandage her wound and wash off the Templar’s blood.
Adam hurried to the fortress to get Orpheus, who was still carrying on with his
self-pitying rant about the miserable fate awaiting him, but nobody even cared,
did
they?

“
Took
you long enough,” Orpheus sniped, as Adam lifted him out of the niche.

“Did
anybody ever tell you that nobody likes a whiner?”

Orpheus
went livid with outrage. “Whiner? Well, isn’t
that
just right. Whenever
somebody who’s downtrodden has the courage to speak up, somebody else who’s
wearing the boots calls them a wimp. Ohhh, I shudder to think how a champion of
the oppressed, like Spartacus, must be turning in his grave right now. ‘Cus,’ I
told him,‘this rebellion of yours doesn’t stand a chance, but it’ll go down in
history as a great symbol of—’”

“Can
it, will you?” Adam said, with the feeling that he’d said it a thousand times
before. “We’re going to get Eurydice!”

“Believe
it or not, Adam, I haven’t forgotten that,” Orpheus answered sarcastically.
“But as the saying goes, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. With a
certain amount of allowance for poetic license in my case, of course.”

Adam
rolled his eyes. “You can
talk
and do just about anything else at the
same time, we all know that.”

Orpheus
didn’t respond to the barb—he seemed suddenly withdrawn, with a silence that
was almost deafening—and then Adam understood what was really going on.

Orph
was stalling and blustering because he was
scared.
Scared that after his
centuries of lovelorn yearning, after all of this incredible adventure and
danger, the moment had come for him to lay his heart at Eurydice’s feet—and she
might reject him.

Adam
tried to come up with something encouraging to say, but nothing came that
didn’t sound outright stupid, like,
Don’t worry, it’ll all work out fine.
Besides, he was remembering Orph’s warning that Theodora, and maybe even
Artemis, might waver on their promise.

He
perched Orpheus on his shoulder and hurried back down the stone staircase to
the courtyard, just as Artemis and Theodora were arriving, too—and then Mustafa
came bounding along, still holding his bow and looking exultant.

“My
friends! I could die of happiness to see you safe!” he cried out.

Artemis
fixed her gaze on him, her eyes shining.

“It
was
you,
wasn’t it?” she said. “You killed that horrid knight who was
dragging me off!”

Mustafa
bowed humbly. “Allah guided my arrow to protect you, angel lady.”

After
all she’d been through, she was still able to smile. “You’re very sweet,
Mustafa. But I’m no angel, and right now, I must look absolutely frightful.”

“I
see the angel beneath,” he answered gallantly.

Whoa!
There were no flies on this dude when it came to babes, Adam thought—he wished
he had more time to hang around and pick up some lessons.

“Mustafa,
the Sultan wants you with him,” Adam said. “I told him about all you’ve done
for us—he’s going to take you in, and have Cristof be your teacher.”

Mustafa’s
eyes went wide at the news—but wider still when Artemis stepped to him and
planted a kiss firmly on his lips. He looked like he might actually pass out.
He tried to stammer something but couldn’t get the words out, and he ended by
bowing again in a hasty
salaam,
then spinning around and running like he
was afraid that if he stayed a second longer, he’d awaken from a dream.

That
left the four of them—Artemis, Theodora, Orpheus, and Adam—all now thinking
about the fifth:

Eurydice,
the tiny, precious elephant in the room.

“Come—I’ll
take you to her,” Theodora said.

But
she didn’t look happy about it.