Swords: 10 - The Seventh Book Of Lost Swords - Wayfinder's Story by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online Page B

says! He’s the one Blue Temple wants!”
           That name made Ben redouble his efforts to break loose. It was useless, though. He might have been able to fight off two or three of the ill-clad, ill-equipped bandits at a time, and the remainder of them might have been poorly coordinated or plain cowardly enough to stay at a safe distance. But when the Sarge himself jumped in and grabbed him, using the biggest hands that Ben had ever seen or felt, while two of his more stubborn minions still clung on, Ben no longer had any chance of wrestling free.
           This time he was down flat on his back. Raising his head as well as he was able, he peered through a drifting haze of dust and barnyard chaff to take a count. There were six or eight of them altogether, and two of them at least, the ones whose heads he’d banged, were just as flat as he was. He hadn’t done so badly at that.
           Now, though, four or five held Ben more or less in position, and another was commencing operations with a coil of thin rope brought from the barn, tying his wrists skillfully behind his back.
           Ben, looking at the world through a reddish haze of exhaustion, his chest heaving, his pulse thudding in his ears, had the sudden notion that at forty-two, give or take a year or so, he was definitely getting too old for this kind of thing.
           Now, Ben’s arms immobilized, a couple of his stronger captors took him by the arms and heaved him to his feet.
           It seemed there were going to be formal introductions.
           “Sergeant Brod,” growled the walking hogshead, standing directly in front of Ben, and extending one enormous hand as if Ben ought to be able to snap free of his bonds and shake it. “Better known to some of me own followers as the Sarge. I am the leader of this small but efficient band.”
           “Pleased to meet you,” said Ben. Squinting at Brod and the men who surrounded him, Ben decided that Brod’s men all appeared to be more or less afraid of him, and with some cause.
           Brod’s coloring was fair, right now still red-faced from his recent efforts. His features were fairly regular except for a nose that approached the size to qualify as a disfiguring defect.
           Fancy tattoos adorned the Sarge’s massive shoulders, which bulged out of a sleeveless leather vest. His dirty hair, some indeterminate shade between blond and red, was tied in long pigtails.
           From inside his vault of a chest, his bass voice rasped out what sounded like an accusation: “You’re Ben of Purkinje.”
           Ben blew a tickle of straw free of his upper lip. Trying to get his breathing back to normal, he replied as nonchalantly as he could: “You have the wrong man. My name is Charles, and I’m a blacksmith.”
           The Sarge had a good laugh. He really enjoyed that one.
           “Aye, and my name’s really Buttercup, and I sell cobwebs for a living!” Fists on hips, he sized up his prisoner’s size and shape, and appeared delighted with what he saw. He clouted Ben a friendly buffet on the shoulder, rocking him on his planted feet.
           In another minute the little gang was on the march, away from barn and farmyard. Ben, arms bound, marched in the middle of the group. No one bothered to grip his arms now; he wasn’t going to run away. From snatches of conversation between Sergeant Brod and his followers, he gathered that he was being held for delivery to certain representatives of the Blue Temple, who had a standing offer of a great reward for the live body of Ben of Purkinje, or some lesser amount for that body dead. To Ben the proposed transaction sounded all too convincing.
           That the Blue Temple wanted him was easy to believe. But that those notorious skinflints would consider paying any reward at all was frightening. It showed how badly they craved getting their hands on him.
     
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