Read Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story for Free Online Page B

the web of magic had to respond in his own way to the wrenching internal change imposed from without. Some of the bandits cast down their weapons violently, some sheathed them with great care. Several of those who were not thrown dismounted voluntarily, while others went galloping in little circles, shouting incoherently like drunken men or lunatics.
           Among the bandits only their leader remained physically almost motionless. He bowed his head for a long moment, and his rough hands gripping the reins went white-knuckled.
           His shoulders heaved. Moments later, he raised a tear-stained face to plead with Murat. “Forgive me, lord!” the robber cried in a breaking voice. “I did not know you—I could not see you clearly when we approached, I did not realize—”
           “You are forgiven,” Murat called back mechanically. His chief emotion was relief that the armed threat had disappeared, that his life and his son’s life were safe. And at the same time he knew horror at what he had been forced to do. The Sword in his right hand felt very heavy; on drawing the Blade he had raised it overhead, but now he let his right arm sag down slowly to his side.
           Suddenly remembering Carlo, the Crown Prince reined his riding-beast around. His son, sword still drawn in his right hand, was just bringing his own plunging mount under control. And with a pang Murat saw that Carlo, like the bandit leader, was weeping.
           The young man stretched out a hand toward him, and choked out words. “Father … are you all right?”
           “Yes, of course I am. And you?” Hastily Murat sheathed the radiant steel in his right hand.
           Carlo sobbed. “If—if any of them had hurt you, I’d—I’d have—I don’t know what.”
           Deeply moved, and vaguely alarmed, Murat rode closer to his son. “Put up your sword, Carlo. It’s all right now, they can’t hurt either of us.”
           Meanwhile the bandits, all of them now dismounted and empty-handed, were prostrating themselves among a litter of discarded weapons, groveling before the Crown Prince.
           “Lead us, Master!” one of them cried.
           “Lead you?” he whispered, startled as if he did not understand at first. Later he was to wonder why he had not understood at once.
           Instantly the plea became a chorus. “Lead us!”
           “Take us with you, wherever you are going! Don’t abandon us here!” shouted another bandit. It was a cry from the very bottom of the heart.
           Murat cast one more look around him, while his left hand, trembling, sought out the black hilt once more. The Mindsword’s radiant power was sheathed, quenched for the time being, but its presence persisted strongly in the surrounding light and air, as the sun’s heat might linger in low country after the sun had set.
           Gradually the men who were prostrate on the ground, and Carlo weeping in his saddle, managed to regain full control of themselves.
           “Get to your feet,” Murat curtly ordered his new devotees, as soon as he judged that they were calm enough to listen to him. Being an object of worship was already making him uncomfortable.
           Now instantly obedient, his former enemies got to their feet only to advance on their new lord with empty hands raised in supplication. They clustered timidly yet eagerly around the Crown Prince, daring to clutch gently at his boots and stirrups, relentlessly importuning him to become their leader.
           The gray-mustached man who had been their leader before the Sword was drawn now came pushing his way through and ahead of the others, pleading as fervently as any.
           “Master, allow me to introduce myself. I am called Gauranga of the Mountains, and I place myself and my poor company of villains entirely at your service. I am their leader, and the only one with any skill at all in