View Single Post
Old 09-01-2008, 06:01 PM   #268
littlemanpoet
Itinerant Songster
 
littlemanpoet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
Posts: 7,072
littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.littlemanpoet is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Ulfast

He saw Uldor walking to his room. Ulfast went swiftly to his own and closed the door shut behind him. He did not want someone spying on him, including Jord. He looked to the table where the dagger lay. He picked it up and fingered its delicately carved handle. The fingered the edge; it was sharp. He slipped it inside his jerkin and left his room, determined to thrust the dagger in Uldor's breast.

He strode out into the main hall. How to go about it? What should be done? He paused, uncertain, to see Jord coming from the dungeon, rubbing her throat. She looked pale, as if something had happened that had put her out of her humor.

"Did that clown say something to you to make you frown so?"

She stopped and stared at him. "He tried to strangle me." Her voice sounded tight and forced.

Ulfast was immediately enraged and started toward the dungeon.

"Leave off, he is dead. The guards pulled him off me and killed him."

"Ah," he said, relaxing, "so much for torture."

She scowled and brushed by him. But her words had given him an idea. He sent a guard to Uldor to report that there had been no torture, that the prisoner was dead. It was not long before Uldor came out, scowling.

"What is this I hear? How did the prisoner die so quickly? Was there no torture?"

"I have not been told," Ulfast lied. "The guards are still below with the prisoner. Perhaps they should be questioned."

"No doubt you put them up to it," Uldor growled at him as he started for the dungeon. Ulfast followed, fingering his hidden dagger. As Uldor came to the final step, Ulfast drew the dagger and raised it. Suddenly he felt a hot streak of pain in his own chest. His weakening hand could no longer hold the dagger, and it dropped from his hand. Who? Ulfast looked behind him to see Broddha's satisfied but grim smile.

"Lord, your brother was about to murder you," said Broddha "I have taken his life instead." He pulled the blade from Ulfast's back, cutting on the way out. Ulfast gasped with the second pain, worse than the first, and his blood ebbed from him. His eyes widened in horror. He was dying! His knees buckled and he fell to the floor in a heap. He could not breathe. All went black and he knew no more.

Last edited by littlemanpoet; 09-07-2008 at 01:27 PM.
littlemanpoet is offline