Good Company

by Dale Lucas

  Rem was there to meet him. As the sweaty, flush-faced duke rose shakily to his feet, sword in hand, he caught sight of Rem, skittering to a halt just a few feet from him and leveling his own blade.

  The duke blinked, wholly confused. “Are you one of his, then?” he asked between gulps of air.

  “’Fraid not,” Rem said.

  The duke didn’t have anything more to offer. He lunged, offering a withering onslaught of varied attacks that Rem fought desperately to parry and redirect. Upthrust, slash, downward thrust, backward slash, slash, overhand chop—again and again, faster than almost any opponent Rem had ever faced, clearly making the most of his nobleman’s martial education.

  Maybe I won’t have to worry about killing him after all, Rem thought absently as he struggled to stay alive. I’ll be lucky to walk away from this.

  “Brother!”

  The duke spun, mercifully sparing Rem a killing blow, just in time to see Korin Lyr, the Red Raven, his own brother, charging for his own attack. Rem advanced from behind, intent on shoving the duke forward, to throw off his balance and give Korin some advantage—

  —but the duke heard Rem’s heavy-footed advance and countered it with a swift, high backward strike. The duke’s elbow and Rem’s face collided and Rem saw darkness strewn with whirling stars and felt himself moving backward and downward. Then his back was on the ground and he was blinking furiously, trying to regain his vision and his sense.

  He heard steel on steel, the grunting of men in a duel to the death. As his vision returned, Rem raised his head to see that Korin had purloined a sword from one of the tied-up horses and now met his brother with a furious series of his own attacks. Unlike a proper gentleman trained in dueling by other proper gentlemen, he didn’t just rely on his sword’s point or his sword’s edge, either. He regularly interspersed backhand strikes with his sword’s blunt pommel and hilt strikes toward his brother’s face in an effort to break his brother’s defenses and counter his more classical blade work.

  Rem propped himself up on his elbows, desperate to catch his breath, waiting for his vision to clear entirely, wondering just what he should do. He really couldn’t kill the duke unless the man was threatening someone innocent—that, at least, would provide a cover story if anyone tried to bring charges against Rem. But duke and outlaw, dueling on equal terms in a forest clearing? Rem didn’t care to be the one to strike the killing blow on the outlaw’s side in that contest.

  Then the duke made Rem’s choice for him. He countered a series of attacks from Korin with practiced assurance, and managed to slip one savage thrust through Korin’s defenses. From where he lay, still half-dazed and struggling for breath, Rem saw the Duke of Erald run the Red Raven through like a speared boar.

  Korin Lyr, to his credit, snarled and spat blood in his brother’s face. As Rem watched, the onetime duke turned outlaw struggled along the length of the blade, reaching out for his murderer, desperate to lay hands on him, to choke him, to gouge out his eyes—to do anything that could end the match in his favor, despite his own imminent death. It was too late. That wound was fatal, probably ripping right through the outlaw’s liver. Rem knew he’d be growing weaker with each desperate breath, the life and strength gushing out of him.

  Rem scrambled to his feet, desperate to join the fight, to stop the injustice unfolding before him . . . but as he stood upright, his vision swam again and he pitched forward. He was down on his knees in an instant, the whole world whirling around him. He raised his head and managed to catch sight of Korin Lyr hitting the ground in a heap as his brother, Verin Lyr, the Duke of Erald, strode past him, heading for one of the tethered horses.

  Rem crawled across the loam toward the Red Raven. By the time he reached him, his head was still throbbing, but he thought he might be able to stand without falling again. A quick glance told him the duke was mounted, whipping his horse with its reins, already bolting off into the woods.

  Along the same track as Tzimena.

  Rem had to go. Immediately.

  He looked into Korin Lyr’s watery eyes. Blood kept gurgling from his open, working mouth as he tried to form words.

  “Tzi—Tzi—Tzi,” he hissed.

  Rem nodded. “She’s safe. I swear it.”

  The Red Raven stopped trying to speak, relaxed. Rem felt he should stay with the man, not abandon him to bleed his life out upon wild ground in the middle of a forest, all alone . . . but he had something far more important to do. Feeling the sting of tears in his eyes and a murderous rage in his heart, Rem shot to his feet, pounded across the ground to the nearest horse, untethered the animal, and swung into the saddle.

  Save her, he thought. That’s all that matters now.

  Kill him if you have to.

  Hang for it if you have to.

  Don’t let him take her, too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Torval had counted seven soldiers in the clearing before everyone began to emerge from hiding. Four of them stood in a broad semicircle around their master, while the other three hung back, near the big pond on the west side of the clearing where their horses drank. That count proved to be misleading, however, when the fight was joined. Suddenly there were more men in the clearing who, though wearing no livery, were clearly intent on wiping out the Lady Tzimena’s bodyguards and the outlaws who’d come to trade her. Intermittently arrows flitted down in shallow arcs from the tree line on all sides, indicating that at least two—perhaps as many as three—archers remained in hiding.

  And here stood Torval, caught among the lot of them and a stone’s throw from an orcish war band already on the rampage among his enemies.

  Fight side by side with those orcs if you have to, Rem had said.

  Don’t let those brave women die, he’d said. They need allies, and you and I and those orcs are all they’ve got.

  Torval’s confusion and frustration made his whole body shake. How he longed for a good, straight brawl in a Yenaran tavern, where his own job was stopping the fight and dragging a few belligerents into the watchkeep when it was all over and done with. Pure. Simple. Uncomplicated.

  The world around him was a storm of complications. Chaos everywhere. Ringing steel. Spat curses. Hasty orders. A few quiet pleas for mercy. Fists on flesh and blunt instruments cracking bone. The lord marshal had joined the fight alongside the duke’s house guard, rallying a tight knot of troops to defend themselves from the oncoming orcs while ordering small contingents of two or three against the rest of their enemies—newly declared, still haunting the clearing.

  “There! Stop them! Bottle their escape!” he cried, indicating the remainder of the Lady Tzimena’s swordmaidens.

  “Traitors!” he shouted, clearly indicating Wallenbrand and Croften, the last two mercenaries remaining who had been—until just moments ago—his loyal companions and in his employ. “No mercy!”

  “The outlaws!” he called to the men on the farthest side of the clearing. “Leave none of them alive! Not a one!”

  Strangely, the orcs seemed the least of the lord marshal’s worries. But even as he struggled to keep the men of the duke’s house working in concert and aware of the consequences of failing to prevent the escape of their declared enemies, the orcs lumbered among them, seeking contest and demanding bloody attention whether the lord marshal had formally declared them enemies or not.

  There, that big, sleek, spear-wielding orc, moving slowly and steadily among the fighters, parrying blows and plunging in his blade with an elegance and deliberateness Torval had never seen among the hack-and-slash orcish raiders from the mountains, or even in the streets of Yenara.

  Or that female, sword flashing swift and true as she waded in among her human adversaries, her muscular curves sliding and tautening beneath her gray-green skin as she lunged, whirled, parried, and slashed, a fencer of unparalleled ferocity and savage grace.

  The troll, by contrast, had no technique at all: he just stomped about, snatching up anyone who seemed to be threatening one of his mates,
disarming when possible, tossing sloppily when disarming proved too difficult. As Torval watched, the big, hulking brute took a pair of arrows from adjacent firing positions, roared in defiance, then snatched up one of the duke’s house guards and threw the man overhand as though he were flinging a stone. The guardsman arced through the air and collided with an archer hidden in a tree some distance away, and both men fell end over end through the branches to the ground, landing together in a bloody, broken heap.

  And what was this? Here came an orc! Short, fat, stocky, a huge battle-ax lifted over his bald head, barreling forward on thick, squat legs, right at Torval. Was he mad? Hadn’t Rem said the orcs knew Torval was an ally? That they wouldn’t attack? Torval tightened his grip on his maul. This was how far you could trust orcs! Once their blood was up, they’d kill anyone—anything—that got in the path of their onslaught. And here came this green bastard, howling for blood, ready to cleave Torval’s skull in two!

  Torval raised his maul and charged, closing the space between him and the orc in three long strides. He drew back for a hard strike, planning to come in under the orc’s lifted ax blade and double him over with a solid blow to the ribs. Then, to his great astonishment, the fat orc skittered to a halt, seemed to hesitate, and nodded frantically, his ax still hovering in the air above him.

  “Nazhud washa!” he shouted.

  Torval knew more than a few words and phrases in the foul orcish tongue, and this was among them.

  Behind you.

  He spun and struck, just in time for his already-drawn-back maul to describe a wide, flat arc and slam hard into the leatherarmored gut of one of the lord marshal’s loyal comrades. The soldier, who’d been ready to bring his own sword down in a killing blow on Torval’s shoulders, bent double at the impact of the maul and almost yanked Torval to the ground with him as he fell hard and hit the forest floor. The man groaned as Torval yanked his maul free. Just as Torval stumbled backward to try to regain himself, the man moved sloppily. He seemed to be trying to rise, sword still in hand.

  The ax-wielding orc brought his blade down, adjusting his swing from high to low, like a mower wielding a scythe. The blade bit deep into the fallen man’s middle and his groan became a startled yelp. He was dead an instant later as the orc yanked his blade free.

  Torval stared, blinking. That man . . . he’d been coming up from behind, ready to end Torval with a single unseen blow. And that charging orc . . .

  The huffer shook now, delighted that he’d made his first kill of the day. He pumped his ax into the air, exultant. “Bohrutu mu! Bohrutu mu!”

  We fight! We fight!

  Torval could only nod.

  “Yes,” he heard himself say, “we fight.”

  Yes. They fought. Side by side. Allied.

  Gods, what a strange day this had turned out to be.

  Then, before he could even wrap his head around what was happening, the ax wielder sounded another curt battle cry and hurried off, intent on a new adversary awaiting his hungry blade.

  Torval watched him go, wondered what had just happened, what might happen next, how he’d ever gotten himself into such a mess. He was wondering about that—pondering that in stunned silence—when another human soldier suddenly charged him, this one with a sword in one hand and a small, light shield in the other, ready for a more equal contest.

  Torval rushed him. Time to fight. Time to kill.

  His opponent was on the ground, skull bashed in by his maul, in moments. Torval’s fevered brain, finally starting to orient itself and formulate a plan, reeled off fragmentary standing orders in an effort to get his pumping blood and pounding heart set to a task.

  Bolster the orcs.

  Stand with the women.

  Bolster the orcs. Stand with the women.

  There, not twenty yards away. Tuvera, Elvaris, and Galen, back to back to back, the two swordswomen taking on all comers while the bow-wielding scout laid down steady, well-placed cover fire against any distant enemies who might join the shrinking cordon around them. They were holding their own, but they were clearly outnumbered. Galen’s quiver—visible to Torval—had only three arrows left.

  Torval searched the melee, trying to find someone to back him up. There was Croften, the big scout from the lord marshal’s company, currently fighting off two members of the duke’s household, covered in blood and mud and roaring like an angry dragon as he hacked and slashed and struggled to defend himself. His blows were wide and wild, yesterday’s arrow wound and the fresh injury from that morning both torn open and bleeding again. He wouldn’t last long if he didn’t get relief.

  And he’d be a fine companion if he could be saved.

  Torval charged one of Croften’s attackers from his undefended flank, collapsed the man’s right knee joint with a well-placed strike of his maul, then planted the spike of the maul in the man’s skull when he fell prone. Torval was ready to attack the second man, now closing on Croften’s right, but that man’s momentary shock and concern for his fellow proved his undoing. As he turned and shouted the name of the soldier Torval had just slain, Croften took the opening and slashed sideward. His bloodied sword planted itself in the man’s neck and threw his now-limp body to the ground. The falling corpse took Croften’s sword with it. The scout didn’t have the strength to hold on to it. He waited until the body came to rest before stepping forward to try to fetch his weapon.

  “My thanks, half-pint,” Croften said between ragged breaths.

  “Save it,” Torval said. “I need your sword. Tuvera and the others—”

  Croften yanked his blade free from the dead man’s half-cleaved neck. He looked pale, ragged. How much blood had he lost from those open wounds?

  “Let’s go,” he answered, summoning a grim smile. He marched, tottering visibly, toward Tuvera and the rest. Torval followed. He yanked a few arrows from downed adversaries along the way.

  They were just in time. Galen had fired her last arrow and resorted to her own hitherto-sheathed sword. She, Elvaris, and Captain Tuvera were struggling mightily to defend their shrinking perimeter, but someone had set a great many of the duke’s men upon them. The three women were surrounded by half a dozen soldiers.

  Torval and Croften arrived just as Tuvera parried a probing thrust from one soldier only to feel the bite of another’s sword. Elvaris fought savagely on her side of the shrinking circle, her work with that fancy blade that Rem so admired a wonder to behold—but her wounded leg put her at a distinct disadvantage. More than once during their short, desperate approach, Torval saw her lunge and threaten to topple, the leg making it impossible for her to keep her balance as she might in an unwounded state.

  Torval indicated the right side of the contingent. “You take those,” he barked at Croften. “The rest are mine.”

  Croften nodded gravely and waded in. “Understood, master dwarf.”

  The first man was cut down before he even realized Croften was closing. The second and third, however, adjusted and attacked quickly.

  Torval had no time to watch. He’d joined the fight on his own terms by then, downing one man with a hard blow from behind to his unprotected crown, then diving forward to throw all his weight into another man’s gut and send him sprawling. He caved in that one’s face with his maul before the third, just a few steps away and currently engaged with Elvaris, saw what was happening and tried to make allowances.

  His moment’s distraction was enough. Elvaris ran him through. Down he went.

  For a moment Torval and Elvaris stood, satisfied, gulping breath. Then, suddenly, the swordswoman’s eyes grew wide.

  “Torval!” she shouted, and lunged forward. Torval was about to spin on his heels, sure that she saw something or someone charging from behind, but he had no time; the Estavari swords-woman shot right past him and all but knocked him aside with all the weight of her body as she went. As Torval stumbled and turned and tried to keep himself from falling, he heard the ring of steel and saw what he’d been saved from.

  I
t was the lord marshal himself. He’d crept up on Torval, almost unnoticed in the fray, then charged at the last instant for a killing blow. Now, as Torval watched, Elvaris met the lord marshal, blade to blade, parrying every strike he made and daring more than a few of her own. The two adversaries were well matched, the lord marshal’s forceful, direct style frustrated at every hack and slash by Elvaris’s smooth, confident blade work. It occurred to Torval that she was as good as Rem—probably better, if she was still so deadly while wounded. The grunts and curses that escaped both as they dueled made it clear no love was lost between them, either. Clearly this was a contest to the death, fueled by rage and hate.

  But already Torval could see that Elvaris was flagging. It was that wound in her left thigh. No amount of stitching, cauterizing, or bandaging could have kept it closed once the battle was joined. Blood stained the swordswoman’s torn leather trousers, the pool getting wetter and tackier by the instant, and Torval could see in Elvaris’s increasingly unsteady movements, the way she favored that bad leg and kept stumbling about, that she couldn’t stay upright much longer. He had to get her out of there, and fast.

  But how? More than once he’d thrown himself at Rem and knocked him out of a fight—literally—in order to take his place and finish things, but doing so now struck the dwarf as rather foolhardy. Putting himself into the middle of that contest might just get Torval wounded, or Elvaris killed. And no matter how Torval circled and tried to approach from the rear, to creep up on the lord marshal and get the better of him while his back was turned, the moment could not be found. Every time he was ready, the two combatants reeled or whirled, and their blades would dance into the dwarf’s line of sight, keen and deadly, ready to bite if he got too close.