Golden Fool (Tawny Man #2)

The boy’s eyes were wide and running tears, but whether that was fear, shock, or his recent strangulation, I could not tell. Padget’s feist came after me as I headed toward the door. I steeled my heart, turned, and crushed the little animal with a stomp of my foot. It yelped sharply and was still. Did Padget depart with its death? I wasn’t sure. But as I staggered into the street, I saw Laudwine’s warhorse lunge against the framework of the shed that entrapped it. Across the narrow street, the goatherd’s children were clustered in his open doorway, staring. The horse’s huge shod hooves had splintered the planks in his fury to escape. It had weakened the structure of the old shed, so that it was now collapsing sideways around him, actually making it more difficult for the horse to fight his way through the wall.

But he wasn’t just a horse. Not anymore. My Wit-sense of him was confusing, a sensation of both man and horse embodied in one. I saw the stallion pull back from the opening he had made and suddenly appraise his situation with a man’s intelligence. I couldn’t give him time to figure out an escape. I ignored the people gawking in the street and ran toward the horse, yelling wordlessly. The warhorse tried to rear up and bring his deadly front hooves into use, but the shed was low-roofed, never intended to stable an animal of that size. The action only exposed his chest and I braced the hilt of my weapon against my own chest as I thrust it into him and rammed it as deep as I could make it go.

The animal screamed and a wash of Wit-fury and hatred near breached my walls, repelling me. I was flung backward, leaving my blade trapped in his chest. He surged forward against the splintered walls, screaming his fury. But for the shed entrapping him, I know he would have killed me before he died. As it was, he finally collapsed, blood coursing from his mouth and nostrils as the City Guard arrived. Their torches streamed in the winter night and sent confusing shadows leaping over me like springing wolves.

“What’s going on here?” the sergeant demanded, and then as we recognized one another, he snarled, “This is the second time you’ve caused trouble in my streets. I don’t like it.”

I tried to think of an explanation, but my right leg abruptly folded under me. I collapsed into the trampled snow. “There’s two dead in here!” someone shouted. I rolled my head to see a white-faced girl in a guard’s uniform emerge from Laudwine’s cottage. I blinked my eyes and then strained to see through the darkened streets. Civil’s horse had gone. It had either bolted, or the boy had made his escape. I tried to move, and was suddenly aware of the hot, wet flow of blood down my side. I clutched at my injury.

“Get up!” the sergeant barked at me.

“I can’t,” I managed to gasp. I lifted my hands and showed him the blood on them. “I’m hurt.”

He shook his head in angry frustration, and I knew he longed to add to my injuries. He was a man who took his duties personally. “What happened here?”

I gasped for breath, and blessed the goatherd’s son who ran barefoot out of his door, shouting confusedly that the horse went crazy and tried to kick his way out of the shed and then I came out and killed it. The snow grew wet and warm under my back and I felt the night closing in from the edges of my vision.

Tom? The Prince’s frantic Skill trickled through my crumbling walls. Tom, are you hurt?

Go away!

The sergeant leaned over me, demanding, “What went on in there?”

I couldn’t think of a lie. I told the truth. “The horse went crazy. I had to kill it.”

“Yes, we know that. But what happened to the men in the house?”

Tom? Are you hurt?

I tried to Skill back to the Prince, but pain was running over me in pounding waves now. I tried to move away from it, but a great spike of it nailed me down to the snowy street. A crowd was gathering around us. I scanned their faces, looking in vain for someone who would help me. They all just stared, eyes and mouths wide as they pointed and shouted explanations to one another. Then I glimpsed a face I did know. For just an instant, she stepped closer to me, and the look on her face seemed genuinely concerned. Henja, the Narcheska’s servant, scowled down at me. Then, as my eyes met hers, she turned away suddenly from me and melted back into the crowd.

Tell Chade! Henja’s still here, she’s here in Buckkeep Town. For an instant I knew how important that was. It was essential that Chade know it. Then pain washed all other concerns away from me. I was dying.

Stop. Make it stop. You’re ruining the music. Thick’s distress pounded me like surf on a beach.

“Answer me!”