The Vanguards of Scion

by Michael E. Thom

  Before he closed his eyes, the red woman appeared in his vision. Her face was like an exotic beautiful sculpture with fine soft lines and a gentle chiseled nose. She studied him with her golden eyes cocking her head and pressing her brows together. She attempted to lift his visor only to have it bump against the arrow shaft in his head. It sent waves of dull pain through his skull.

  He dropped his sword then and tried to reach up to her, trying to point to see if she would even understand. "Velvet," he said. "My sweet Velvet. She's gone now and so am I."

  22

  EMMANORA

  Emmanora swung down the rope that hung from Grandmother Cypress. She had stuffed her travel pack with rations and three fresh waterskins. Water spiders flitted away, and frogs' eyes plopped down into the muck as she glided above the swamp water. She could've gone down the lift platform like most of her milg folk, but she had always loved swinging down that rope. She rarely visited the Vylket, so she went down the rope every chance she got.

  At the bottom Marlamba stood and waited for her. He threw up his hands. "You're late!"

  Emmanora removed her travel pack and laid it in the grass. "Fuck off!"

  "Very well, but we've only a short time for a grappling lesson or two before we head out with your uncle."

  Emmanora sighed. "So, you get to knock me on my ass ten times instead of twenty. Sounds like I'm winning again. Weee!" She threw up her hands and waved them in feign excitement.

  Marlamba stood still, hands relaxed at his sides. "All right, come at me."

  Emmanora frowned and raised a brow. "Um. You're just standing there. Aren't you going to assume a water stance? With your guard down, you're making it easy for me."

  "This is a different approach master Pyramus has been teaching us. Mushin Noshin, it means to react without giving visual cues to your opponent. Confuse them with diversion. Go ahead." He signaled slightly with the two middle fingers on his hands. "Come at me."

  Emmanora circled him, her arms up, her hands fisted. This time she would take him by surprise. She had a lot of rage that pressurized within her over all she'd learned about her mother. Things kept getting worse. She had to let off some steam. She bounced from one foot to the other as she made an orbit around him. Still, he didn't move. He simply stared ahead. She decided to try the fake-out move where one moved in to sweep the leg and then jump kicked a heel into the sternum. She had only learned it on her previous training stint with Marlamba, but she'd never tried it out on him in sparring. She darted in and hooked out her leg, but only halfway before she leaped into the air and drove her heel at his chest.

  He reacted instinctively by pivoting out of the way, but she caught a smile of approval on his face as he did. In his smile, he left himself unfocused. In a fraction of an instant, she jabbed him in the throat with her elbow on her way back down to the ground.

  Marlamba coughed and bent over, his face turning red. "Hey! That's a bit rough for sparring don't you think," he said after he regained his composure.

  Emmanora shrugged. "You're kinda shitty at this Mushy-Noshin stuff. What's that you said about not giving visual cues to your opponent?"

  Marlamba cocked an eye at her. "I see what you did there. That's good. You're learning." He rubbed his throat, wincing. "Still, you're fighting a little dirty. Remember, we're just sparring. No contact to the face or groin areas."

  "I thought Spiders trained to fucking kill. Now you want me to be all dainty." Emmonara crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

  As she stood there for a moment, Bandit crept out from the tall cattails and skittered over to her leg. He looked up at her and chattered. He flicked his ears back and forward. He turned and sniffed at something in the thick vegetation inland from the swamp.

  "Hey, what is it, buddy?" she whispered.

  He tugged on her black leather boot and chattered, ears back again.

  Emmanora peered out into the dense foliage and trees. In the shadows of the leaves, she could just make out the silhouette of a figure doing its best to stay hidden. Someone was watching them, and it was too tall to be milg. She upturned her hand at Marlamba to let him know to be still. She mouthed to him without sound, "Someone watching us."

  Marlamba turned his head and tried to catch a glimpse of what she meant.

  "Well, we'd best meet up with Uncle Lomah and his crew," said Emmanora. She grabbed her pack and tied Heartnail's sheath to her hip. "I'm sure they're grinding their teeth waiting to get on the road."

  Marlamba's features turned confused for an instant, then he grinned as he caught on. "Oh certainly! You know how he gets when we're late!" he said, his voice a bit over the top in volume.

  Emmanora rolled her eyes and headed off down the bayou path that led away from the Vylket. About a mile away, Uncle Lomah indeed waited for the other Spiders to rendezvous with him to move out on a run. They weren't supposed to leave until dusk. Spiders traveled at night as when possible. She glanced over and again into the area where she'd seen the figure. The figure moved, and she saw a second and then a third head come into view. As soon as she reached an incline, she ducked into the overgrowth. She crept her way towards them from one shadow to the next. She felt an energy inside her she'd never experienced. Her body tingled all over when she entered a shadow beneath an outgrowth or tree limb. She found a rotted-out cypress log that bridged over an incline. There was a wide shadow in the space beneath the log. She drew her rapier and got down on her knees and elbows to crawl into the shadow. She was but a few paces away from the hidden figures.

  She reached forward and her eyes gaped as her hand and rapier both disappeared inside the shadow. Now she understood why it tingled. She remembered what the King of Scion had said to her. "You will walk as one with the shadows as a path to snuff out life." She was invisible in shadow. Why hadn't she noticed it at night or any time before this? "As a path to snuff out life," she whispered to herself. Maybe her intent had triggered it? That was the only explanation she could come up with.

  She got into a comfortable position. She counted six. They were tan-skinned and wore black linen outfits with sashes tied around their heads. They crouched behind a honeysuckle thicket that didn't hide their form as much as they believed it did. Four of them held crossbows at their sides with bolts notched. The other two carried scimitars that Emmanora recognized. When she caught a glimpse of a familiar tattoo on the cheek of one of the two that wielded scimitars. It was a tattoo of a sun bursting with spears. The same mark on the side of Liobe's face. These six worked for Edvard the Pirate King. Emmanora felt her face get hot with rage. She tried to slow her breaths and stay still until the right moment. One of them might break away, and then she would have an opportunity to cut his throat.

  A branch snapped behind her. She glanced back to find Marlamba crawling along through the grass, a dagger in each hand.

  She put her index finger to her lips to signal his silence. She realized when she saw his widened eyes of shock that he only saw her disembodied feet.

  She spun around and crept out of the shadow enough where he would see her torso. She gestured for him to head up over the far end of the log where they would be able to flank the hidden figures.

  Marlamba nodded. He pulled out his bamboo dart tube Spiders used to deliver poison and grinned at her.

  She grinned back and gave him a single nod.

  Marlamba headed the direction she'd indicated. He held his mouth agape watching as she vanished in the shadow of the cypress log.

  She pulled two iron darts from her shoulder belt and dipped them into the purple death spider venom. Something she'd borrowed from Uncle Lomah's hut. She didn't exactly ask permission for it, but he never got angry when she took a few supplies from him. She may not be the best melee fighter, but she could knock a sparrow in mid-flight from the air with a thrown iron dart. She could do it while lying prone if she had to. The venom would paralyze you before you could take ten steps, then stop your heart a few moments later. Some took longer to die than others, though.
She'd seen a pit fighter stay alive for half a day before the poison took him. Fear kept his eyes open for hours before his taut thick muscles went flat and his lips turned white.

  After a few more moments, one of the figures with a crossbow stepped away from the other five to go relieve himself. He walked straight towards her and set his crossbow down in the grass right next to her. He pulled out his cock right over her head. She was a little disappointed he had made it so easy. She sprung up from the log and shoved Heartnail into his ball sack and up inside his guts to the black hilt-cup.

  He went to scream but instead of sound, a puff of red dust escaped his lips.

  Heartnail's pommel vibrated in Emmanora's hand. She ripped it out from the man's groin, and a trail of red dust poured from his wound like sand in an hourglass. His blood had become dust.

  The man fell backward as stiff as a body that had been dead for hours.

  She stared in bewilderment at her rapier. She couldn't believe what had happened. The King of Scion was real. She hadn't told anyone about the incident because she'd tried to make herself believe it was a dream. After all, she had been in shock from her shoulder wound, but she refused to contemplate it because it made no sense. She should've died right there under that tree. Now she had seen the magic the King of Scion had promised her with her own eyes.

  She snatched up the crossbow he'd dropped in the grass and targeted another crossbowman who was aiming for her. She squeezed the trigger in the same instant he'd released his own bolt. When her bolt sunk into his head, it knocked his aim askew. His bolt zinged over her head and stuck into the cypress log.

  That was two down. When she flung her first iron dart at the next crossbow wielder, she saw the last go down with his hand on his neck. Marlamba had landed a poisoned dart there. Her iron dart planted in the stomach of the only woman among them. She charged at Emmanora but fell flat on her face five paces away. That left only the two with scimitars.

  One came at her swinging a scimitar. Emmanora leaped out after him and overhanded another poison iron dart.

  He swiped the dart from the air with his sword and lunged at her with his blade.

  She dive-rolled between his feet. Milg, being of the smaller human variety, had their advantages. She easily somersaulted beneath him and managed to get a quick slash up his inner thigh as she came up. She knew there was a main artery there, but she'd only made a shallow cut, barely deep enough to need mending.

  To her surprise, before the man had the chance to cry out, his body went as stiff as the last she'd killed with Heartnail. He fell over as rigid as a statue, his blood solidified.

  "Go after him, he's fleeing!" Marlamba shouted to her as he ran by with his bamboo dart tube, dodging branches and hopping over vine thickets.

  "Fuck! Don't kill him!" She took off into the chase. "We must interrogate him!" They had to find out where Liobe was and when she planned to strike Uncle Lomah. What if they had seen the Spiders as they readied to go out on a hit? If they told Liobe, she could ambush them when they least expected it. Liobe would know what to look for, where they would hide, where the meet-up spots were in the city if it was a city. Uncle Lomah never disclosed the locations until the Spiders were on their way to it.

  She ran behind Marlamba for a good while before he stopped and leaned over onto his knees, panting.

  "He's gone. I lost him," said Marlamba, between rapid breaths. "He went through that thick patch of ivy back there and I couldn't see which way he came out. Damn! We gotta tell Lomah. Come on!" He jogged back and Emmanora followed.

  This new magic the King of Scion had bestowed on her was real. She found it hard to digest what had just happened with Heartnail, but it didn't keep her from thinking about Ruby. She thought about him the entire way before they met up with Uncle Lomah. She hoped her little camel might still be alive. She secretly hoped Liobe would follow them or show up during the run. She'd be waiting for her.

  23

  VENDRONIA

  The hornet flicked its wings. It crawled up the ladder and back down again near Vendronia. The man from her dream in the war camp screamed and charged at one of the Red Wolf knights. His longsword came alive with blue tendrils of lightning that coiled about its edges. He swung it at the Red Wolf knight and halved him, his longsword sparkling with magic. It had burned clean through armor and flesh. The knight's severed wounds steamed from cauterization. The man kept swinging at Red Wolf knights with his magical blade. He chopped fully armored knights to pieces one after another until he stood alone in a clearing. He spun around and taunted the Red Wolf knights, but they now backed away from him. Most of the fighting nearby his area had ceased briefly with both trogs and cucks watching a gasp. Red wolf archers loosed a cluster of arrows arching from the back of the Red Wolf lines. The arrows rained down on him and took him to the ground.

  Vendronia plucked the hornet off from the ladder and held it by its thorax. It curled its abdomen from side to side and thrust out its stinger at her fingers. She closed her eyes and stuffed it into her mouth and crunched down on it to try to keep it from stinging her on the inside. It pricked her inner cheeks and the spiny hairs on its feet got caught on her tongue. She heaved and gagged before she got it down.

  She climbed back up the ladder to the dais platform with a storm brewing in her stomach. She buckled over backward and grabbed a side railing behind her. Her throat tightened and clamped off her breath. A column of hornets erupted from her mouth and expanded into a giant swarm of thousands. The swarm hovered for seconds before clumps broke away and attacked the Red Wolf army. They seethed over the faces and shoulders of knights. They stung them beneath their armor. Many fell to the ground flopping and clawing at themselves, their faces swollen.

  The trogs charged out and plunged their weapons into the afflicted knights. The Red Knights would be soon overwhelmed and outnumbered.

  Vendronia rushed down the ladder. She ordered two warriors to bring him behind the trog fortifications. She needed to find out who he was. He moaned, though an arrow stuck out from the forehead of his helmet and one went all the way through his thigh. Vendronia wanted to heal him. Why did she see him in a dream, or was it a dream? She knew it would not be easy to convince the trog to let him live.

  "Bring me my component packs!" she told the two warriors.

  They frowned at this.

  "The Witch God has spoken to me and said that this cuck should live. He has powerful secrets. His blade channels powerful magic! Go now! Hurry!" She tried to open his visor gently to see if it had lodged in his skull. The visor hardly moved, and blood fountained over his face. She sighed. She would have to leave the arrow in his head for now until she could remove it later and administer healing. She went ahead and broke the shaft coming out of his leg on one side. She would remove the rest of it later. The wound in his leg was shallow, only piercing through a small piece of muscle and nothing that would impair him for life. It was minor compared to the situation in his forehead. That wound might render him mad or cause severe vision or hearing problems. She had healed trogs with similar wounds. Sometimes, their entire personality had changed in strange ways. If not for his helmet, the arrow would've gone into his brain and out the other side of his head. She knelt down to speak into his ear. "Stay strong," she said, hoping he would understand the trog dialect of common. "Do not die."

  * * * *

  Hours later, the battle was over and won. Vendronia sat beside the man from her dream in one of the bed chambers in the second story of the inn in Nodet. It had taken hours and a lot of patience, but she finally managed to work his helmet off and remove the arrowhead from his skull. It was fate that kept it from going any deeper than a pinky knuckle, but it still had punched a small hole in his skull. The shaft in his leg had been easier to remove. A quick kiss from the side of her heated dagger blade had closed the wounds. He had been so out of it, he hadn't flinched when she did it, nor when she had sewn up his wounds. Now, she had cleaned the wounds one last time before she administered po
ultices to speed up the healing process.

  "Have you brought this cuck back from the dead?" asked Borlin, entering the bedchamber with Yurka following behind.

  "He wasn't dead," Vendronia told him. "His head injury is not so bad. With my poultice patches and some rest, he should recover soon. Then I can talk to him."

  "Why talk with a cuck?" said Yurka before spitting on the floor. "I know Torvul made you Crone Mother, and I respected him and his choices, but I do not think Torvul would have approved of you nursing a cuck." Yurka uncrossed her arms and unsheathed her wide blade. "You should have let me take his head and his cock for my trophies on the battlefield."

  "I know how our people feel about this. But listen. Varl Torvul made me Crone Mother because he knew I should've been Crone Mother all along. It is only for the same reason you can't open your minds to the ways of other humans besides trogs. Are we not all humans with minor differences in size or skin color?

  Crone Mother Ona wanted me anointed Crone before she died. Torvul would not concede it because of my skin color and that I was not as tall as a trog woman. I had to fight harder than most to prove myself worthy simply because I looked strange to you.

  This man you call a cuck is no different in appearance than you except for his height and dark hair. Have we not seen some of his kind almost as tall as a trog? You must trust me as Crone Mother and my wisdom that there is something important and powerful about this man. It is critical that I find out what it is once he has recovered enough to speak."

  "I'm allowing this because you are Crone Mother and because this man killed many of his own. You must see the warriors are losing faith in you as Crone Mother. This is not the trog way," said Borlin. "I'm only a Varl for a couple of days, and they know you appointed me. There is much bickering and unrest. I am worried even for myself and Yurka's authority. This act of bringing in the cuck and healing him is frowned upon. This could cause a mutiny."