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Bannon could only watch. Those two were far out of reach below. In the main gallery, the fighting continued around them. He wanted to shout support for Ian, or even jump down and fight at his friend’s side, but he didn’t dare distract him. Adessa could kill in an instant.
Ian and the morazeth leader continued their deadly duel, blade against blade, and Adessa slashed with her needle-pointed agile knife like the stinger of a scorpion. But Ian was the champion, and he fought as well as his mistress and trainer.
She threw herself at him, ferociously swinging her short sword and slashing a long wound down his left arm, but Ian punched her with his empty fist and sent her stumbling on the loose sand. Adessa fell backward, twisting her body, and struck the wall. One of the iron spikes dug a deep red gouge along her shoulder blade.
Adessa didn’t seem to feel any pain, did not pause to recover. She threw herself forward, driving hard with her sword. Ian fought magnificently, but he hesitated. Bannon suddenly realized that his friend didn’t want to kill her.
Adessa jeered, “What’s the matter? Are you afraid of me, Champion?”
He responded as he had been trained to do, as he had been provoked to do. With a roar, he drove harder, battering her with his sword, smashing her blade away, hitting harder and harder, until he broke her wrist, knocking the sword away from her. The blade dropped to the arena floor, and he pounded the pommel of his sword against the side of her head. With an additional shove from his empty hand, he sent her sprawling onto the ground near the iron spikes. “I am not afraid of you.”
She was disarmed, propped on her elbows, shuddering and bleeding from the gash in her shoulder. Her sword arm hung limp with the broken bone. Ian stood over her, his sword raised for the deathblow.
“I am your lover,” she said. “Don’t you remember all the pleasure I gave you?”
Ian’s face was stony. He pointed his blade down, ready to plunge it through her heart. He hesitated, as she seemed to know he would.
“You can’t kill me, because there’s something you don’t know.” Her face twisted in a smile. “For these last four weeks I have been carrying your child.”
Ian was taken completely by surprise. He froze for just part of a second.
In that moment, Adessa snatched the object she had been covering with her body, the weapon she had found in the sand at the base of the pit. Lila’s dagger, which Bannon had knocked down there.
The morazeth woman grabbed the knife in her good hand and lunged like a cobra striking. She swept up with the blade, using all of her momentum as she drove her body upward with her legs. She thrust the dagger into the center of Ian’s chest, shoving it deep and twisting it in his heart.
He gasped, coughed blood, and hung like a dead yaxen on a hook.
“Ian!” Bannon screamed. “Ian!”
But his friend was already dead, and Adessa was too far below.
“Now you have made me angry, boy,” said another razor-edged feminine voice. Bannon turned just in time to see Lila, recovered now. She had picked herself up from the ground and charged toward him, her blade raised to kill him.
Though sickened and stunned by the death of Ian, Bannon spun to defend himself.
Nicci stepped in just behind Lila and slammed the pommel of one of her daggers down hard, bashing the morazeth woman on the already bloodied back of her skull. Lila dropped like a felled tree, crashing to the sandstone floor above the arena pits. Next to her, Mrra roared.
Bannon felt frozen, horrified. He stared down at Ian’s bloody form as Adessa cast the body aside, but she was too far down in the pit. He couldn’t get to her.
Lila lay unconscious next to him, blood matting her short light brown hair.
Beside him, Nicci scowled at Adessa. They both wished to be down there to tear the woman apart, but Nicci had a determined sheen in her eyes. Mrra thrashed her tail.
“We can fight here all night, Bannon, but we have a more important battle out in the city. We have to stop the bloodworking at the pyramid. Come with me. First, we need to find Nathan.”
CHAPTER 73
Once inside Cliffwall and surrounded by the smell of books and scrolls, Prelate Verna felt as if the Creator had rewarded her beyond her wildest dreams. She felt giddy over the wondrous information on shelf after shelf, room after room, tower after tower.
Oliver and Peretta had returned home to a great deal of rejoicing. The veteran scholars rushed out to greet them, full of questions, as well as news of their own. Peretta introduced her aunt Gloria, the new leader of the memmers. Oliver happily brought forward Franklin, an owl-eyed gifted scholar who did not seem ready for any sort of leadership role, although he was the new scholar-archivist.
While most of the D’Haran soldiers built their camp on the canyon floor, the general, the prelate, and the two young travelers had climbed the narrow path up the cliffside. In the cavernous alcove filled with enormous buildings, other scholars met them, leading the visitors inside the great archive.
Before they entered the imposing stone façades, Peretta gestured toward the canyon vista. “This was covered by a camouflage shroud for thousands of years. Few ever discovered these canyons at all, and if outsiders did look up at this cliff, they saw only a blank wall rather than these buildings.”
“But now the hidden knowledge is open and available to all,” Oliver said.
“Yes,” General Zimmer said in a deep, serious growl. “And that concerns us greatly. The Sisters will certainly help.”
The numerous scholars gathered in a main communal room, while workers hurried to prepare a midday meal. The general made sure that his soldiers and their mounts were cared for below. “The horses can water at the stream and graze in the pastures alongside the sheep, but my men will be tired of eating pack food. If I could press upon your hospitality?”
Gloria dispatched her memmers to see that it was done. Verna sat on a long bench in the dining room, as servers hurried in with platters of meats and fruit, baskets of bread. Verna selected a small green apple from the top of the fruit bowl, turned it in her hand to inspect for worms. Finding none, she bit into it and savored the tart juiciness. She let out an appreciative sigh.
Franklin addressed them all, happy to meet Verna, the general, and their companions. “Nicci spoke of the Sisters of the Light, and we wished we had someone like you to guide us. We are pleased you came so soon.”
“We hurried,” Peretta said. “After talking with Prelate Verna, we decided it was important for us to lead them back here.”
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nbsp; “We sorely needed you,” Franklin said, scratching his brown hair as he gave a thankful nod to Verna. “Scholar-Archivist Simon was killed, and then we also lost Victoria. We have been muddling along, but we weren’t sure how best to select a leader. There’s so much work to do.”
Gloria added, “We promised Nicci we would not attempt any of the magic we found in the books. We’re merely trying to organize and catalog the thousands of volumes.”
“We’ve been told that our books on prophecy are no longer relevant,” Franklin said. “Useless, in fact.”
Verna let out a sad sigh. “Yes, I spent much of my life studying prophecy, learning the meanings of countless books, tracing various forks, interpreting possibilities, all for naught. When the Palace of the Prophets was destroyed along with that copious knowledge, I thought my way of life was ended.” She forced a hard smile. “But I endured. The rest of the Sisters endured. We served Lord Rahl, and we found extensive libraries in the People’s Palace and other central sites. We decided to learn what we could and preserve the information. Then, with the star shift…” She shook her head again.
Amber spoke up, holding a fresh hunk of bread in her hand. “Now we have a different focus. We can help you.”
“We can guide you,” Verna corrected. “My Sisters and I trained many students, including Richard Rahl himself. And although the rules of magic are now different in unpredictable ways, we shall learn, and you’ll learn along with us.”
Peretta added, “The memmers have to learn how to be scholars as well. Oliver agreed to show me.”
Beside her, Oliver blinked as if the news was a surprise to him. “I … well, of course I will.”
More servers brought in bowls of steamed leaves and sliced tubers topped with dollops of melting sheep’s butter. “It’s delicious,” General Zimmer said, as one of the scholars passed him a platter of cold mutton roast. He carved some of the meat with his own knife, then cut off a piece for Verna. “Prelate?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Franklin said, “Ever since Nicci, Nathan, and Bannon left us, we’ve been rebuilding. We are returning to normal. Settlers are coming back to reclaim what was once the Scar.”
