Martyr's Fire (27 page)

Twenty-two years had passed since the last banner of any of the German, English, or French Crusader knights had flown at the edge of the Holy Land above the stone walls of the town of St. Jean d’Acre, twenty-two years since shadows of those banners had danced upon the waters of the Mediterranean below.

The town then had been a riot of colors. Merchants from eleven European countries had competed for sales from their great fonduks, all supplied from ships arriving from the sea on one side and from camel caravans led by sharp-eyed Arab traders arriving by the Damascus road on the other.

Yet after nearly two hundred years as the main port to the Holy Land, St. Jean d’Acre, the last of the Crusader strongholds in all of the Holy Land, had finally fallen to Muslim infidels. Jerusalem had fallen long before, then Nazareth—the city of Christ’s boyhood—then the fortresses along the Sea of Galilee, and one by one, all the mighty castles of the Crusader knights who had battled and held the land for generations.

St. Jean d’Acre had fallen and now was a mere shell of the trading town it had been. To be sure, merchants still haggled, for occasional ships still arrived. But the walls of the city and the high turrets of its remaining buildings, a glorious illusion of strength from a distance away on the water, were actually war ravaged and doomed to crumble to dust with age.

Few now were those in the town with fair skin and blue eyes, the sure signs of northern European heritage. And none were those who dared display the colors of any knighthood among the Muslim infidels who so thoroughly dominated the entire land that Jesus Christ Himself had walked
during His brief and significant life on earth thirteen hundred years earlier. It seemed prudent, then, to be dressed in a way to disguise the fair skin and light eyes.

“I no longer feel half-dead.” Thomas grinned beneath his turban. “A rest tonight in a bed that does not shift with the waves, some food, and I will be ready to conquer the world.”

Katherine smiled back.

They gazed at each other in silence for several seconds, forming an island of privacy in the hectic motion of the market around them outside the bathhouse.

Don’t let those eyes fool you
, Thomas told himself.
Remember, you will only remain with her until you discover the truths you need. There is nothing more to this situation
.

To cover the flush he felt beneath her gaze, Thomas bantered and gestured at his robe and turban and sword at his side. “Do I not appear the perfect infidel? Especially after you tell me how it is I understand their language.”

“Perfect,” Katherine agreed lightly. “We—”

She frowned.

“Thomas, to your left. Is it not the same beggar who approached me about this clasp?”

Thomas turned his head quickly enough to see the beggar grasping the sleeve of two large men and pointing in their direction.

“The same,” Thomas confirmed.

All eyes locked across the space between them. The beggar and his companions were each armed with scimitars, those great curving swords. And Thomas and Katherine staring back at them in return.

“Do you find a startling resemblance between those two men and a pair of wolves?” Thomas asked softly without removing his eyes from them.

“Hungry wolves,” Katherine said. “I like this not. We should return to the inn and see to your puppy immediately.”

They backed away quickly. And soon discovered they were indeed prey for the two large men.

In a half run, Katherine and Thomas darted around market stalls and through crowds of people.

“This way!” Katherine cried.

“No …” But Thomas did not protest in time. Katherine had already chosen a narrow alley.

Why have they chosen us?
Thomas wondered as he ran.
Because we are foreign? Surely it cannot be because of the Druids. We have only just arrived
.

Thomas nearly stumbled on the uneven stone of the streets as he stopped and turned to run after her. His sword slapped against his side.

I pray I will not need to use this weapon
, he thought.
These men are larger and stronger
.

The two men gained ground. They were familiar with the twists of the alley. Thomas and Katherine were not.

Each second brought the men closer and closer. Thomas and Katherine were now in a full run, slipping beneath archways and around blind corners.

“Again! This way!” Katherine panted. “We are nearly there!”

“No …,” Thomas moaned. He did not know the town at all, but knew with certainty her path led them away both from the waterfront and from the inn.

Without warning, Katherine stopped and pounded on a door hidden in a recess in the alley.

“That is not the inn!” Thomas warned.

“Behind you!” Katherine said. She banged the door with her fist, while staring in horror at the approaching swordsmen.

Thomas did the only thing he could. He drew his sword.

Katherine pounded on the door.

“You cannot avoid the assassins’ pledge,” the first man snarled as he lifted his scimitar.

Thomas managed to parry the first blow, then step aside as the other swung.

I have only seconds to live
, he realized.
In cramped quarters, against those great swords, I might as well be dead
.

“Katherine,” he said quickly. “Run while you might.”

In answer, he felt her presence plucked from his side.

The door has opened
, he realized with the part of his mind that was not focused on survival.

Another whistling blow. Thomas met it with his own steel, and the echoing
clank
was almost as painful as the jar of contact that shivered up his arm.

Thomas brandished his sword and prepared for a counterattack.

If I’m to die, they will pay the price
.

Both men hesitated and stepped back.

“Cowards!” Thomas cried in the full heat of battle.

“No,” came a strangely familiar voice from the very spot Katherine had stood only moments earlier. “They are simply prudent.”

Both men stepped back farther.

“Yes,” the voice continued, now directed at them. “This crossbow truly reaches farther and faster than the sword. Go back to the men who hired you. Tell them the blood they wish to spill is now under protection.”

The swordsmen nodded and quickly spun around, then hurried around the nearest corner of the alley.

Thomas, still panting, turned to look at his rescuer.

“Well, puppy,” he was greeted. “Must we always meet in such troubled circumstances?”

Thomas only stared in return.

Sir William. The knight who helped me conquer Magnus. The knight who disappeared three seasons ago on his own private quest
.

Thomas finally found his voice. “You describe harmless gnats such as those two as trouble? Truly, you must be growing old.”

Now, as when the knight had bidden farewell long ago in Magnus, Thomas fought a lump in his throat.

Then, an early morning breeze had gently flapped the knight’s colors against the stallion beneath him. Behind them both had been the walls of Magnus. Ahead of them had been the winding trail that had taken the knight to a destination he could not reveal.

This destination.

St. Jean D’Acre. On the edge of the Holy Land.

The sorrow Thomas felt in remembering their farewell mixed like a sweet wine with the sorrow of a renewed remembrance of Magnus.

He blinked back emotion.

Sir William smiled, switched the crossbow to his left hand, and extended his right hand in a clasp of greeting.

The knight had changed little. Still darkly tanned, hair still cropped short, now with a trace of gray at the edges. Blue eyes still as deep as they were careful to hide thoughts. And always, that ragged scar down his right cheek.

A sudden thought struck Thomas.

“You are one of us.” Although it was a guess, Thomas spoke it as a statement. “An Immortal.”

The assassins had failed. It had been so simple to follow Thomas by learning his destination on each of the ships that had taken him. It should have been equally simple to arrange what she wanted. Their instructions had been to kill the woman and capture Thomas alive. Her plan had been to eliminate the woman and appear to rescue Thomas. That would have been so satisfying. Both aspects: Eliminating Katherine, who had spent far too long with Thomas for Isabelle’s liking. And to sweep in and rescue Thomas and earn his trust and his arms around her in gratitude.

But the assassins had failed.

They had returned to Isabelle at the harbor with a description of a knight armed with a crossbow. A knight with a curving scar down his face.

Isabelle well knew this knight. She had traveled with him and Thomas—it seemed like a lifetime earlier—on their quest to conquer Magnus.

It did not surprise her that the knight was in this land too.

After some thought, she realized it was merely a complication.

The three of them were unaware she was here; whatever was ahead, it would be easy enough to ensure that the woman and the knight died together.

Once Thomas was alone, he would belong to her.

See where Thomas’s journey began

Before Magnus, Thomas was an orphan with a destiny. Catch the beginning of his journey in
The Orphan King
, book 1 of Merlin’s Immortals.

Follow the story of orphan Thomas as he works to retake the kingdom for the Immortals and then is caught between Druids, corrupt noblemen, and unknown enemies. Can secrets from his past conquer the evil he now faces and save his kingdom?

Read an excerpt from these books and more at
www.WaterBrookMultnomah.com
!

More great Young Adult fiction
from
Sigmund

When Caitlyn and her companions find themselves the prey of a terrifying enemy, they must escape from Appalachia—the nation carved from the heart of the United States after years of war—in a frantic search to understand the dark secrets behind Caitlyn’s existence and her father’s cruel betrayal.