The Fellowship of the Talisman

17

The wind off the fen fluttered the rags that clothed some of the humped figures lying on the sand-not all of them, for it was apparent that some of the dead were hairless ones, and they had no rags to flutter. Huge black birds perched upon the corpses or hopped angrily about among them; and there were other birds as well, although they were not noticeable at first, little birds of the forest and the strand that hopped or ran about, pecking with their vicious little beaks at morsels scattered on the ground or at the pools of black, coagulated blood that lay puddled on the sand. The bodies lay within a small area, as if the Reaver's band had come together to present a solid front to the massed attack, which must have come on them from three sides, giving them no way to escape except into the fen, which would have been death itself. Luggage and saddlebags, pots and pans, blankets, pieces of clothing, drinking mugs, and weapons lay scattered all about. The campfire still smoldered feebly, sending up thin threads of tenuous, finespun smoke. Far up the strand a half dozen horses stood with shot hips and hanging heads. There was no sign of the rest of the horses; by now they could be widely scattered.

Against a tumbled pile of firewood lay carelessly stacked saddles, saddle blankets and other harnesses.

Duncan stopped when he came around the clump of willows, and the others stopped with him, staring at the scene of carnage. Looking at the grotesque scattering of bodies, Duncan felt the bitter taste of bile rising in his throat and hoped he would not vomit, for that would be a disgraceful thing to do. Although he had read in the history scrolls at Standish House the lurid, spine-chilling accounts of battles and the somber, black descriptions of their aftermath, this was the first time he had seen at firsthand the butchery of combat.

It was strange, he thought, that it should affect him so. He had felt nothing like this in the garden skirmish with the hairless ones or in beating off the werewolves. Only a few hours ago he had cleaved the skull of the unsuspecting Robin, and it had been no more than a detail, a necessary job that must be done in the struggle for survival. But this was different. There was nothing personal about this. He was not involved. This was death on a fairly massive scale, the evidence of death and the violence that had brought it on this short stretch of ground between the flatness of the fen and the sharply rising ground.

Here lay the men, he told himself, who had threatened violence and torture to himself and the others with him, and, staring at the small patch of crumpled bodies, he tried to tell himself that he was glad this had happened to them, that it freed him of his fear, that it might even be, in some way, a product of his hatred of them, but he found, surprisingly, that he could not hate the dead.

It was not that he had never known human death before. He had first met it when he was ten or so, when Old Wells had come to his chamber, where he was hiding, and taken him to that great room where his grandfather lay dying. The rest of the family had been there, but he had seen no face clearly except for the hawklike face of the old man who lay upon the bed. Thick, tall lighted tapers stood at the four corners of the bed, as if the old man who lay there might have already died, the flickering light of the tapers doing little to beat back the gloom of death. His Grace had stood beside the bed, draped in his brilliant yet somber robes of office, muttering Latin prayers for the solace and the benediction of the dying man. But it had been his grandfather he had watched, the only one he had really seen, a frail old body surmounted by the fierceness of the hawklike face.

And yet despite the desperate fierceness of the face, a shell-like man, a man made out of wax, a waxen replica of a man already gone.

Conrad touched his arm. "M'lord," he said.

"Yes," said Duncan. "I am sorry. I was thinking."

They walked forward slowly, tramping ponderously, and at their approach the large black scavengers, squawking in outrage at this disturbance of their feast, spread their ragged wings and pumped them mightily to lift their heavy bodies. The smaller birds waited for a time in an attempt to brazen out the intrusion, and then they, too, flew away in a blizzard of whirring wings.

White and empty faces, some of them with the eyes already plucked out of them by the ravenous birds, stared uncomprehendingly at them here and there from the heap of tangled bodies.

"The thing that we now must do," said Conrad, "is find what they have taken from us-your sword, the amulet on which you place so much trust, Daniel's saddles, our blankets, some food for us to eat. And then we can leave this place behind us, thankful that it all is done."

Duncan stopped and Conrad went ambling on, circumnavigating the area of the dead. Meg scuttled about, humped over, resembling in certain ways the scavengers that had flown away, snatching up items that she found lying on the ground. Andrew stood a little way in the rear, leaning pensively on his staff, his peaked face peering out from beneath the cowl. Tiny trotted at Conrad's heels, snarling softly at the tangled dead.

"M'lord," said Conrad. "Please come, m'lord."

Duncan hastened around the heap of dead to reach Conrad's side. He looked down at the body indicated by Conrad's pointing finger. The eyes in the body's head came open and looked up at him.

"The Reaver," said Conrad. "The son-of-a-bitch still lives. Shall I finish him?"

"There's no need to finish him," said Duncan. "He's not leaving here. His last hour is upon him."

The Reaver's mouth worked and words came dribbling out.

"Standish," he said. "So we meet again."

"Under somewhat different circumstances than the last time. You were about to skin me."

"They betrayed me, Standish." The words ran out and the Reaver closed his eyes. Then the words took up again, but the eyes stayed closed. "They said for me to kill you, but I did not kill you."

"And I'm to feel great charity because of that?"

"They used me, Standish. They used me to kill you. They had no stomach for the job themselves."

"Who are the 'they' that you talk about?"

The eyes came open again, staring up at Duncan. "You'll tell me something true?" the Reaver asked. "You'll swear it on the Cross?"

"For a dead man, yes. I'll swear it on the Cross."

"Is there any treasure? Was there ever any treasure?"

"There is no treasure," Duncan said. "There never was a treasure."

The Reaver closed his eyes again. "That's all I needed. I simply had to know. Now you can let that great lout who stands beside you…"

Conrad lifted up his club.

Duncan shook his head at him.

"There's no need," he said. "There is nothing to be gained."

"Except the satisfaction."

"There'd be," said Duncan, "no satisfaction in it."

Andrew had moved up to stand beside them. "Some last words should be said," he told Duncan softly. "Last rites for the dying. I am not equipped nor empowered to do it. But surely some small words…"

The Reaver opened his eyes again, but they did not stay open. The lids simply fluttered, then went shut again.

"Get that sanctimonious bastard out of here," he muttered, his words so low they could scarcely be heard.

"You're not welcome," Conrad said to Andrew.

"One last mercy," whispered the Reaver.

"Yes, what is it, Reaver?"

"Bash in my goddamn head."

"I would not think of doing it," said Conrad.

"I lie among my dead. Help me die."

"You'll die soon enough," Conrad told him.

Andrew dropped his staff, snatched at the club in Conrad's hand, wrested it from him. The club went up, came down.

Conrad stared in astonishment at his empty hand.

"A final word?" asked Duncan. "This is your last rite?"

"I gave him mercy," Andrew said, handing back the club.