by Randy Nargi
There was no evading the man’s massive roundhouse punch. The only thing Bander could do was to try to minimize the damage by taking the blow in his shoulder. Still, pain tore through his body as the vicious punch connected hard, the force of it sending Bander stumbling.
But the man didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate. Not even for a heartbeat. He roared and charged in with a low kick which probably could have demolished the heavy temple doors, smashed them right off their hinges into a million pieces. But the kick wasn’t aimed at the door. It was aimed at Bander’s side—right below his armpit. And even though Bander’s chest was protected by so much muscle it was like a suit of armor, the kick slammed into him with enough power to crack at least one of his ribs. Maybe more.
All the air was driven out of Bander’s body and everything dimmed again as he staggered back.
“Enough, Keave!” the short man shouted.
Bander gasped, every breath shooting burning pain up his side. But he was still alive. Miraculously.
He backed away from his attacker, eyeing him with something more like respect than fear. No one had thrashed Bander like that—at least since he was a young man.
But the man’s eyes were completely dead. Like nothing was registering at all. He regarded Bander like he was gazing at a side of a barn.
The shorter man, however, drew closer and looked Bander up and down. “My apologies for the roughhousing, sir. But it’s always good to take a man’s measure, is it not?”
This smaller man was clearly the leader. The brains to the other’s brawn. And he was smart enough not to get too close to Bander.
Bander breathed out slowly, trying to will away the pain. He didn’t have a lot of options. His back was up against the temple wall. To his right was the low wall with a three hundred foot drop beyond it. No way out in that direction. To his left was the courtyard and the ape-like man who had nearly killed him.
“My associate and I are inquiring after a piece of jewelry,” he said. “A pendant to be exact. Half the size of a coin. No bigger certainly.”
The leader drew even closer, squinting at Bander’s face. Probably trying to figure out if Bander was even capable of responding to spoken words.
Speaking slower, the man continued. “This pendant… it’s made of cast silver and shaped like a crescent moon.”
The aona, Bander thought. These men were after the aona.
“I don’t understand…” Bander whispered. He could taste blood in his mouth.
“I think it’s all quite clear. You came to meet Master Sward, didn’t you? Perhaps to sell him something. Fortunately for all of us, Sward is still alive, if not well. For now. He’s had quite the ordeal, I’m afraid. And now he’s resting. Trying to get his strength up for whatever’s coming next.” A cruel smile formed on the leader’s lips. “Keave, why don’t you fetch him?”
Bander had to force himself not to react. This man was sending away his deadly henchman? Why? Was he that confident that Bander wouldn’t try to escape?
Out of the corner of his eye, Bander saw Keave shuffle off towards Eton Sward’s cottage.
“So, my friend, it seems like we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Mortam Rowe.”
Purely for show, Bander groaned quietly like he was trying to fight the pain. Then he allowed a thin line of spittle to seep from his lips. It was red with blood.
“And your name, sir?” Mortam Rowe moved closer and Bander saw something in his hand. Some sort of weapon.
“Grannt,” Bander said quietly, like a man who was in pain.
“Ah, the elusive Mr. Leocald Grannt. Late of Gilweald, I presume? Friend of the Jeighs?”
This man knew him! But how? Bander’s mind was racing, but he kept his expression bewildered. Like this whole thing was a case of mistaken identity.
“And you came all this way to see if Master Sward might purchase the crescent,” Mortam Rowe continued.
“No,” Bander said softly. “I don’t sell nothing like that.”
“Come now, Mr. Grannt.”
“Wood,” Bander said.
“Wood, Mr. Grannt?”
“Firewood. I sell him firewood.”
“Firewood, really?” Mortam Rowe asked.
Bander shifted his weight, inched his right foot up against the temple wall.
“I think you’ve got the wrong man. Never been to Gilweald. Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bander muttered. “Can I go?”
“Of course, Mr. Grannt. But aren’t you curious about Master Sward? That is why you ran up here, isn’t it?”
“I’m hurt.” Bander hunched over, trying to make himself seem smaller.
“Yes, well, Keave does have that effect on one. Tell you what, Mr. Grannt. If you can get past me, you’re free to go. If not, well…” He shrugged.
Now Mortam Rowe was making no secret of the weapon in his hand. From what Bander could tell, it was halfway between a truncheon and a mace. Rowe flicked it out as if loosening up his wrist. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.
At this point it was all about eyes and feet—as most combat was.
Some fighters—the more inexperienced ones—might signal where they were aiming with a glance in that direction. Hard to control that. It was human nature to look before you leap.
More seasoned fighters learned to control their eyes. But almost no one could control their feet. It was nearly impossible to move, to get yourself in position, to turn—without shifting your stance even a bit.
Bander ignored Mortam Rowe’s eyes and watched his feet. He watched as Rowe got in position, leaned back on his heels. Confident that the half-dead woodsman wouldn’t pose any kind of problem.
“Come on,” Bander whined. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” Mortam Rowe gestured toward the gate that led out of the courtyard.
Bander glanced in that direction. A tell, to be sure. But intentional.
He feinted left, then lurched right. Staggering, unsteady. Also intentional.
Mortam Rowe came right at him—as expected.
Normally when someone is attacked with a striking weapon like Rowe’s, they have a fraction of a second to react. No more than that. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people will flinch or try to dodge away. Nearly all won’t be able to move quickly enough to avoid the blow.
It is possible to dodge a greatsword. You can dodge a polearm. A flail. And even an axe sometimes. But it exceptionally difficult to dodge a small handheld weapon like a truncheon—especially if it is wielded the correct way, using short choppy strokes.
But Bander wasn’t trying to avoid the blow. Not at all.
In fact, without warning, he drove forward with his legs, exploding up towards Mortam Rowe, slamming his fist against flesh and bone just as the smaller man was in the middle of his backswing.
Bander’s uppercut connected with Mortam Rowe’s chin with all the force of a blacksmith’s hammer and Bander felt the other man’s jaw shatter and blood spray from his face.
Rowe’s head snapped back and his body jerked up in the air like a puppet on a string. Then he fell back down. Hit the packed dirt hard. Like getting punched all over again.
“No!” The ape-like man Keave screamed and dropped the body he had been carrying. He was fifty yards away and frozen in horror. His scream was much more than the anguish of losing a comrade-in-arms. It sounded like the wail of a man losing his brother.
Then he roared in anger and sprinted towards Bander like a runaway ore cart flying through a mine.
Not really thinking clearly, Bander snatched up the unconscious body of Mortam Rowe. The man was as light as a rag doll.
Just as Keave was upon him, Bander pitched Rowe’s body over the low wall.
He didn’t have a rational reason for doing so. There was no carefully calculated strategy. Maybe on a visceral level he just wanted to hurt Keave by throwing his friend’s body off a cliff. A show of disrespect. A way to disorient his opponent. Unsettle him
.
But Bander wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
Instead of slamming into Bander and trying to rip him limb from limb, Keave dove over the wall and hurtled after his friend—to his death.
“Mort-a-a-a-a-m!” His voice echoed off the cliff side.
Bander watched the two bodies fall towards the lake, almost intertwined.
But they didn’t hit.
There was the barest shimmer of light and both men disappeared into nothingness.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next six hours were a blur.
Bander raced over to Eton Sward, crumpled on the ground. The mage was alive, but it looked like he had been beaten unconscious.
It wasn’t easy—with his own injuries—but Bander managed to get Sward out of the compound and onto one of the horses. He climbed on the other animal and rode slowly down the hill. It was tough going and painful to ride, and it took him nearly half an hour, but he finally made it back to the skiff. Then he got Sward off the horse and propped up against a large boulder, upright so the mage wouldn’t choke.
Next he paddled to the island. This was the toughest part of his ordeal and his side burned with every stroke, but Bander knew he couldn’t stop.
Finally, he made it back to the dock. Valthar was livid, but once Bander explained what had transpired, his friend took the paddle and proceeded to row them back to the temple.
“He knew me,” Bander gasped. “Knew my alias at least. And knew I had been in Gilweald.” He shut his eyes and slumped back in the skiff.
“Don’t die on me yet, you oaf. I want every detail of what happened up there.”
Bander recounted everything, and Valthar asked him to repeat the part about the two men vanishing in midair as they plummeted off the cliff.
“That sounds like a teleport spell to me,” Valthar said. “Incredibly difficult to cast while falling. That big man must have been a skilled mage. A battle mage, most likely.”
“And yet he fought me into the ground with just his bare knuckles.”
Bander recalled when he and the sorceress Silbra Dal escaped from Asryn’s Falward in Laketon. She had been able to work with another mage to teleport them while falling. It was certainly possible. He was living proof of that.
“They may return,” Bander said. “We need to get Eton Sward away from here.”
Valthar shook his head. “Even the most powerful mage would be depleted after a feat such as that. He will have to regain his strength. I agree we must be away, but we have a little time.”
They took the boat all the way back to Mrs. Heffring’s place, and while she tended to Bander’s wounds, Valthar, Langer, Albech the miller, and his son headed back to the ruins of the temple with Albech’s wagon. They returned an hour later with Eton Sward. He was still unconscious.
There was just one healer in the village, and Albech’s wife had fetched him while Valthar and the others were retrieving Eton Sward. The healer, whose name was Roban or Robelyn or something, tended to Bander and managed to stabilize Sward when the mage arrived, but he couldn’t do much beyond that. They would have to take Eton Sward to the Steading for some more intensive healing. The healer recommended someone on Tacomb Street, and Langer drove Bander, Valthar, and Eton Sward the six miles to the Steading.
Bander was very familiar with the Steading. It was a low sprawling city of sixty thousand people. No city walls. The bare minimum of city guards. Most of the residents kept to themselves and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Especially of strangers.
They entered the city and drove to the Windmarch District where Langer stopped the wagon and Bander and Valthar got out to confer privately. They really should have taken Eton Sward directly to the Guild Hall. An attack on a mage was a serious offense and, under normal circumstances, the Guild would devote considerable resources to hunting down the perpetrator of such a crime.
But Bander and Valthar both knew that these were not normal circumstances. If they brought Sward to the Guild Hall, they may not see him again for months—if at all.
A further complication was the fact that Valthar had been hunted by the Guild for many years. He couldn’t risk showing his face anywhere near a Guild Hall. In fact, he couldn’t even risk bringing a mage to a healer. So Valthar pressed a pouch filled with gems and coins into Bander’s hands.
“It is time for our company to part, my son,” Valthar said. “I shall return home. You tend to Sward, and when it is safe, bring him to me.”
Bander nodded. That was the best course of action. It might be several days before Eton Sward could travel.
Valthar turned and hobbled off into the crowd. Bander watched him go and then returned to the wagon.
Several hours later Bander’s broken ribs and cracked cheekbone had been ministered to and he was feeling back to normal. But Eton Sward wasn’t so lucky. His injuries were much more severe and it would be a few days before the mage was able to travel.
Bander decided to walk over to the guildhall and see if anything was happening there. He had been concerned about Mrs. Heffring’s safety should Mortam Rowe or any other attackers return to Irfals. So Bander had instructed Langer to stop at the guildhall on his way back to Irfals. If the hired hand did what he had been instructed to do, all the Guild would know was that one of their mages had disappeared in a suspicious fire. They’d naturally send people to investigate and that should keep Mortam Rowe away.
But as far as he could tell, the guildhall was quiet. No one was being mobilized just yet. Maybe the mages were discussing it. Maybe they already sent out some investigators.
He didn’t want to linger, so he returned to the healer’s place and checked on Eton Sward. The mage was still unconscious and was expected to stay that way for another twelve hours at least.
It was a messy situation, to be sure, with more questions than answers, but Bander knew he would have to be patient.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mortam Rowe still couldn’t believe he had survived.
The incident two days ago had been the closest he had ever come to death—permanent death. There was no resurrection if your body is smashed on rocks after falling off a cliff.
Thankfully, Keave had been there. Once again his old friend had come through for him. It wasn’t the first time. Or the tenth. But this was probably the most remarkable, most dramatic way Keave had saved him.
The locestra was difficult to live with—that was a certainty. But every time Mortam Rowe found himself getting annoyed at his friend, he reminded himself of what Keave had done for him over the years. That knowledge gave him strength.
And that’s what he needed now. Strength. For even though he had one friend here with him now, he had lost another. A very dear friend. A precious friend.
Belle.
Where was she…?
Of course he had gone back to that cursed hill in Irfals to try to look for her, but the place was swarming with Guild forces. There was no way he could get close to those ruins. At least not for a week or so.
Deep down in his heart, he felt that Leocald Grannt had stolen Belle. He had no proof of this, of course. It was just a feeling. The man seemed like the kind of villain who might kill a man and then steal his weapon.
Of course, if Mortam Rowe were to be honest with himself he would have to admit that it was his own fault. This whole thing was his fault. Keave had bested the sellsword, fair and square. Leocald Grannt had been at their mercy.
But a slight error in judgment—an overabundance of arrogance perhaps—caused Mortam Rowe to underestimate the mercenary. And then, as was so often the case, many small mishaps cascaded together to form a rather colossal failure.
Mortam Rowe rubbed his jaw. It was still sore, but Vocklan had been able to heal it—thank the stars.
Yes, Mortam Rowe knew he had been fortunate. But now, standing outside Harnotis Kodd’s estate, he wondered if his luck would hold.
“Tell me again how you had the man right in your grasp, but managed to let hi
m go,” Harnotis Kodd said.
“It was an unfortunate series of events, Master. I take full responsibility.”
“I am beginning to think you are not up to this task, Mr. Rowe. Or any task, for that matter.”
“I most certainly am—”
“What of the mage, then. This Eton Sward?” Harnotis Kodd’s jowls quivered as he said the name.
“We interrogated him for a bit—”
“Define ‘a bit’ if you will.”
“He had a rather weaker constitution than expected, Master.”
“He’s a mage for Dynark’s sake! Of course he has a weak constitution!”
“Had, Master.”
“What do you mean?”
“By all accounts the mage perished. I heard the Guild investigators speak of it. Perhaps he died in the fire, but more likely he died at the hands of that villain Leocald Grannt.”
Harnotis Kodd leaned back. “Why would the mercenary kill him?”
“Gold of course.”
“But he was there to sell Eton Sward the aona. There would have been no other reason the two men would have come together.”
“Sward didn’t know anything about a mercenary with an aona to sell. I think that we got there an hour too early.”
“So this whole mess was just a spot of bad luck? Bad timing, was it?”
“It appears so, Master. I believe that there was a very strong possibility that after we were out of the picture, Grannt robbed Eton Sward and finished him off. And if that is so, Grannt will still be in possession of the aona.”
“But you have no idea where he was going?”
Mortam Rowe’s mouth became dry all of a sudden. He swallowed and pressed on. “I believe it was you, Master Kodd, who said there might be another interested party…”
The mage’s jaw visibly tightened, and he looked away. “Would that I could trust you to investigate that other interested party.”
“You can trust me, Master. I will not fail you.”
