Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 7 of 19

Merlyn saw the dead ash and the keeper pressed to its bark. His new sight was clear. His body was not. His legs shook under him, and the ground pitched. He reached for the tallest stone and missed. Ten years had left his chest hollow. His hands, once strong on the hammer, now trembled like an old man's. Kjell caught his arm. "Sit." "I can't stay here." Merlyn's voice cracked. "The keeper. He'll turn on us." He looked at the leaf-haired keeper, who had gone still by the trunk. Orange eyes fixed on Merlyn. The rune had drunk the tree dry, and the keeper knew it. Thorin planted his axe in the grass. "Then we move. Now." He watched the keeper, not Merlyn. "That one won't stay quiet long." Merlyn tried to rise. His knees folded. He hit the cold ground and stayed there, breath rasping. "I can't walk." The words shamed him. He had spent his years to see. Now he could not carry himself from the ring. Gunnar knelt and gripped Merlyn's shoulder. His soot-black hand felt the thinned muscle there. "Bone's fine. Meat's gone." He said it flat, the way he named cracked iron. "You need carrying." "There's no time to carry me slow." Merlyn pointed a shaking finger at the keeper. "He'll wake the whole wood. We go fast or not at all." Thorgar stepped over the dead roots. He was wide as a door, bear pelt heavy on his shoulders. He looked at Merlyn on the ground, then at the keeper, then said, "Fast, then." He bent, hooked one thick arm behind Merlyn's knees and one behind his back, and lifted him like a sack of grain. "Put me on my feet," Merlyn said. "Your feet don't work." Thorgar turned toward the gap between the stones. "Argue when we're out." The keeper made a low sound and stepped from the trunk. Thorin swung his axe up between them. "Go," he told the others. He backed after them, facing the keeper the whole way, iron rings clacking in his beard. Kjell led. Gunnar took the rear beside Thorin. Thorgar carried Merlyn through the gap and down the slope, fast, his breath even under the weight. Merlyn watched the ring shrink behind them. The keeper did not follow past the stones. It stood at the edge of its dead tree and let them go. They stopped when the ring was gone from sight. Thorgar set Merlyn down against a rock. Merlyn sat, drained, and drew his master's tome from his pack. The stone-toned cover was cold in his weak hands. He could read it now with his own eyes. But his fingers shook so badly the pages blurred. "I have my sight," Merlyn said. "I traded the strength to use it." He closed the book. "I need my body back before the wood decides to hunt us."