Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 36 of 57

The seven dead men lay where they fell. Damian's students slumped against the walls, bruised and breathing hard. He knew a harder truth. The scrap in Rolo's hand meant a new enemy, and a new enemy meant a second wave. His students could not fight again. Not tonight. He crouched and gathered the poison darts from the floor, one by one, before someone stepped on a green tip. "We can't hold another push," he said. "So we don't wait for one." Rolo dropped from the beams and landed light. "You want to run?" "I want to move them off the road." Damian looked at the small girl. She held her wooden blade, but her arm shook. The tall boy pressed a rag to a cut on his brow. "If they come at dawn, this doorway won't save us twice. We need walls we can hold with tired hands." Rolo thought, then nodded. "There's a place down the valley. A drinking hall by the crossroads. Thick timber. One door. I've slept in the rafters." Damian made the call. He would not gamble on his students standing again in the temple. He wrapped the dart bundle in cloth and pushed it deep in his coat. Then he lifted the small girl to her feet. "Walk," he said. "Lean on me if you must." They left the temple under cover of dark. The tall boy carried the youngest. Rolo scouted ahead, quick over the fences. The drinking hall sat sturdy at the crossroads, its wide porch dark, its double doors shut. Damian barred them from inside. Only one way in. He set his students behind the long tables and put Rolo in the rafters again. "Now we rest," he said. "In turns." They did. For three hours no one came. The students slept in shifts on the plank floor. Damian sat by the barred door with his runed sword across his knees. The jewels along its guard caught the low fire. When the small girl woke, her hands had steadied. When the tall boy woke, he set his feet without thinking. The new enemy's men came at gray light. Damian heard hooves on the crossroad and boots on the porch. He counted five voices through the door. Five, against a doorway wide enough for one. He smiled without joy. The drinking hall had made his fight for him, just as the temple's doorway had. He unbarred the door and met the first man on the threshold. Rested, his students held. The girl swept a leg. The boy turned a blade. Rolo dropped a knife from above. Five became four, then two, then none. When the last man reached into his coat, Damian struck his wrist before the darts came free. Damian stood in the doorway, breathing steady, his students on their feet beside him. The second wave had come and broken. But when he turned the dead man's collar, he found the same strange mark Rolo had shown him. Whoever sent them still had more to send.