Clang! Ching! Ching! Clang!
The soldier, Ruland, a captain in Kling’s guard, parried with both hands on his hilt. The mouth on his clean-shaven face puffed for air. The collar of his leather armor was coated in sweat. He swatted at her striking steel. Elypsa sidestepped a desperate swing. She slipped her blade between the man’s ribs. Ruland’s eyes bulged. With her second sword, she stabbed him again.
Glitch!
Elypsa yanked out her blades. With her boot in Ruland’s chest, she shoved the man backward. He stumbled from side to side. His sword slipped from his grip. Falling backward, he died. He lay in a growing pool of blood right beside another dead soldier.
Kuurn applauded. A smile of sharp teeth filled the underling’s elongated face. “Well done, Elypsa. Well done!”
Elypsa hadn’t broken a drop of sweat. With blood dripping from the blades hanging at her sides, she faced Ebenezer. “Are you certain that you don’t want to warm up?”
“Watching you fence warmed me up enough.” Ebenezer smiled. “Am I to assume that this match will also be to the death?”
“It depends on how well you fight. I get offended fighting those that are not any kind of match for me.” She shook her wrists, shaking some blood from her steel. Eyeing him up and down, she added, “I’m certain you will fare better.”
Ebenezer removed his finely embroidered long coat in Castle Kling’s colors. He tossed it onto the arena wall. Fixing his gaze on Master Sinway, he said, “Is this going to be a death match?”
“It will be a death match for you,” Kuurn said. “Impudent human.”
Master Sinway’s gaze was elsewhere.
“Are you looking for some kind of mercy?” Elypsa lifted her swords for display. “I think having twice the steel in my hands should be a concern for you.”
“It gives you an advantage. Two—if not three—strikes to my one.” He dropped his hand to the hilt of his broadsword. The blade was almost twice as heavy as one of hers. “It certainly gives you an edge, in a manner of speaking. My sword is made for battling an opponent in heavy armor.”
She circled him. “True, but you have a towering advantage in length, size, and strength.”
Looking at his dead soldiers, he said, “That didn’t bode well for them.” A bead of sweat ran down the side of his cheek.
“You have a fine choice of lighter weapons over there.” She tipped her chin at a nearby weapons rack. “Take a pair of them.”
“No, this blade is sentimental. Besides, if you want my best, it would be with this.”
With his chin resting in his hands, Kuurn said, “Please, get on with it. The sooner she spills your entrails, the better.”
Ebenezer and Elypsa squared off. He was over six feet of solid man. Though tall for an underling, she rose to no more than five feet. It wasn’t any different with the men that she’d just finished off. She made quick work of the both of them. He drew his sword. The metal scraped out of the sheath. “Your beauty is paralyzing. There’s no avoiding its use against me.”
“That’s the problem with the men of your kind.” She made a bouncing little wiggle. “Lust blinds your eyes.” She struck.
He parried.
Clang!
She hopped backward. A grin formed on her face. “Your steel might be heavy, but it’s very quick.”
“Just a natural reflex.” Ebenezer sank into his stance.
Elypsa’s eyes narrowed into lavender slits. “No, I think you saw it coming before it came. Well done.”
She moved in. Metal clashed. The pair went back and forth like a wolf battling a mongoose. Elypsa cut. He parried. Using his superior height, he kept her strikes at arm’s length. She slashed at his ribs, missing the mark by inches. The dance of swords led them all over the arena. Elypsa faced him with a mask of concentration. She struck. He parried. She slashed. He moved. They went back and forth for a minute. She sprang away, lowering her guard.
Kuurn and the other underlings sat on the edge of their seats.
Ebenezer dripped with perspiration. He took deep draws of air through his nose. Elypsa showed a thin film of sweat on her neck. “This is much more to my liking.” She switched swords.
It was a strange move, one that Ebenezer had hoped for. When he parried, he parried hard, ripping his sword down, jarring her arms. He might not be able to move more quickly than her, but he could tire her out if he was patient. Perhaps then she would yield.
He advanced. “Again?”
With a coy smile, she replied, “And I figured I’d have to make the first move again.”
“I was merely being polite.” Ebenezer swung hard at her face with a devastating chop.
Elypsa crossed her swords to parry. Metal skidded into metal. The impact drove her down to one knee. She ripped her blades away, rolling to one side. Ebenezer’s powerful strike bit into the ground. Rebounding like a cat, she was on her feet again, attacking with wide swings snaking in. Ebenezer hammered the smaller blades aside with sudden impacts. He shuffled out of reach, knocking aside her swords again and again.
Sweat stung his eyes. It astonished him that her wiry arms hadn’t given in yet.
She pressed forward. The tips of her blades twisted. He parried. Her steel skipped away in a counterattack. Rolling her wrist, she sliced into his sword shoulder. The iron in his sword arm softened. His timing was a fraction off. She’d struck faster than he could parry.
Elypsa’s sword sliced him across his bowels.
CHAPTER 16
Fogle sat with his head slumped into his chest. He swayed from side to side. The rough-handed mages kept him upright. Peeking from under his eyelids, he watched the fleeg slither away into the jar. Each of them had a brighter glow. The lid doused the light. With his stomach inside out, he said, “Glad that is over.”
“The fleeg will make for a juicy meal later.” Rane peeled Fogle’s eyelids back with his thumb. Peering into his eyes, he said, “How do you feel?”
“Like the marrow has been sucked out of me.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted, Fogle Boon.”
With considerable strain, he lifted his chin. “You know me?”
Rane snapped his fingers. A forest mage scurried away, returning moments later with the spell book in his hands, which he set at Rane’s feet.
Eyeing his spell book, Fogle said, “I could use a drink, Rane.”
“Not yet,” the leader of the mages said. “A dry throat makes it difficult to cast spells.” The man with the oddly painted face smiled. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Fogle lifted his narrow shoulders. “I don’t usually forget anything, and I’ve never been inside this place before.” He studied Rane’s face. “You speak with a northerner’s dialect, but I don’t recall your name. Why? Should I know it?”
“I’m one of many faces you’ve seen in the Halls of Wizardry. I must admit that I was not like you. I was more of an outcast.” Eyeing the dirt walls that surrounded them, Rane spread out his arms. “A fitting home for an outcast. Hah. The likes of you said that I’d wind up in a place like this.”
Fogle closed his eyes. His mind raced through his memories. Rane knew of the training towers in the City of Three. He controlled magic. He knew enough to realize that he and Fogle had crossed paths before. The life Fogle had once known in the City of Three seemed as if it was a hundred years earlier. He’d changed. He wasn’t the cruel and cunning wizard that he used to be. In a dry voice, he looked the man in the eye. “Say your name again?”
“Rane.”
Fogle chuckled. “I remember now.” The features on the man’s face became crystal clear. The heavy eyes of the man were a ghost from Fogle’s past. It wasn’t something he was proud to remember. “Enar.”
“So you do remember?”
“That’s a clever twist on your name, Enar,” Fogle said with a bit of a sneer. “Did you come up with that yourself?”
“Ah, so I see the old Fogle still remembers. He’s just hidden underneath too much hair. At least it matches yo
ur mouth now.”
“We were boys then, Enar.”
“It’s Rane.”
“Fine, Rane. Eh, so how did you wind up here? Were you kidnapped or something?”
Rane’s expression darkened. “You still jest at my expense, I see.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Enar—pardon me, Rane? You speak as if I had something to do with your situation.”
“You had everything to do with my situation! You humiliated me!”
“I humiliated everyone.”
“You singled me out. You tormented me to no end. I could not cope with your harassment then. I shamed my family. My family lost its household.” He poked Fogle in the chest with his finger. “It was all because of you.”
Fogle recalled every last detail. Enar had been awkward, desperate, and somewhat stupid. How the young man had managed to get into the Hall of Wizardry was beyond him. He was a cook and a chronic pain in the side who always sought Fogle’s help to the point of embarrassment. Rather than helping the needy young man, Fogle had humiliated him time and again.
“Rane, that was long ago. I’ve changed. I apologize. I never would have foreseen such a demise for you.”
“You called me the future sewer king. The lover of swine. The hog hugger.” Venom was behind Rane’s words. “Your pompous friends delighted in it as much as you did. You set me up for failure. A simple spell you helped me with went awry.” He pushed his robes up over his elbow. His arm was burned so badly Fogle could see black, charred skin stretched out over the muscle. “It hurts. It always hurts.”
Fogle remembered the day that Enar had cast a water spell that set his arm on fire. Everyone burst out in laughter, but the mystic fire did not go out. Enar’s startled cries became horrified. A stench of burning skin and hair had permeated the room. Fogle could still smell it. It wasn’t entirely Fogle’s fault. Enar had managed to make it worse than it needed to be. He’d been a horrible student. Careless.
“I know a healer.”
Rane set the spell book on his lap. He traced the ridges of the spine. “I know healers too.” He leaned forward. “But I like the pain. It gave me strength. It fed my hunger for power. Cast out by my family, I set out to find my own way. This is where I came. Now I lead them.”
“You?”
“Don’t be so surprised, Fogle. There were many, but I am a survivor most of all. I conquered through attrition.”
“I’d be curious as to how that happened.” Seeing the fires begin to glow in Rane’s eyes, he adjusted his tone. “Not because I don’t trust your word, but can I not assume that the forest magi are centuries old and that you’re relatively new to their order?”
Rane’s expression cooled. “You might find it hard to believe, but I actually did benefit from my studies in the hall of wizardry. It gave me an edge. Heh.” He slung his head back, rattling the small bones entwined in his locks. “We’ve had many interlopers in the forest over the years. The magi, consumed in their lust for magic, crossed some that they should not have. A pair of underlings dropped in with so much power that the very trees shook. They wiped out a dozen with a single word, barely audible, that filled my kin with shards of lightning.” He pointed to some clay canisters along the walls. “Only their ashes remained.” He fished something out of his robes. “And this.”
Fogle squinted. Rane held up a charred silver coin with an underling’s face on it. Fogle’s eyes widened. He knew that face as well as he knew his own. The silver-eyed underling was etched in his memory.
“You are wise to fear the underlings,” Rane said. The coin vanished in his clothes. “I know they give pursuit, but the less powerful ones are not confident enough to come into the forest. We are safe from them here.”
“No, Rane, you are not safe from the underlings anywhere. That’s why we came in here. If two of them invaded this forest before, it’s only a matter of time before we see more like them.”
Rane’s dirty fingertips grazed the pages of the spell book around the middle of the spine.
Fogle’s jaws clenched. He is still an idiot.
In an aloof manner, Rane said, “I’m not concerned about the affairs of the rest of the world. That is not the way of my brood. But it seems that the Red Clay Forest has blessed me with a gift.” He ripped a page out of the spell book.
“What are you doing?” Fogle exclaimed.
“I’m hurting you where I know it will hurt the most.” He ripped out another page. “You will watch. You will suffer.” Rip. “One page at a time.”
CHAPTER 17
Disguised in traveling cloaks, Venir followed Melegal east, walking over a mile parallel to the City of Bone. Billip and Nikkel came too, as did Jasper. She stayed right at Melegal’s hip. The farther away from Bone, the better. Hoff had insisted on coming too. The renegade royal knight was hard jawed and persistent. He wore a vest of scale mail and stayed clean shaven with a razor-sharp knife.
There were still knots of people spread out all over. Wary eyes searched the party when they passed. Melegal did a good job of avoiding unwanted attention as the end of the day neared and the campfires began. Watchful people guarded the small camps. When the people had fled the south, they’d taken what they needed. Weapons were a necessity along with good boots and a pack for storage.
Just beyond a mile from the southeast corner of the city, Melegal came to a stop by a stone well in the remnants of a small village that had long ago decayed in Bish’s dust. It was a place of refuge where Venir and Melegal had met before.
Hands on the stone rim of the well, Nikkel peered into it. “Hello?” His voice echoed.
Billip pulled him back by the elbow. “Who are you saying hello to? The underlings? Sheesh.”
“Just being friendly.”
“It seems our secret place is no longer a secret,” Melegal said.
Venir immediately saw what he was talking about. The landscape had patches of rocks and brush spread out and settled on the ground. Many of them were big enough to provide shelter from the sun. Some of them contained small caves ideal for a hermit or critters. All of his life, Venir had known them to be abandoned. But with all the fleeing people, the strange spots had been discovered. Worse yet, the cave that led to the secret tunnel back into the city was occupied.
Venir sighed through his teeth. “Nothing worth doing is ever easy.”
Standing at Venir’s shoulder, Billip said, “That’s quite a number.”
As best as Venir could tell, about ten men had made camp around the cave. Not a single one of them was slight in build. They wore armor. Knives and swords were strapped to their belts. A quiver of arrows hung from one man’s back. A fire burned. The smell of cooked meat drifted into Venir’s nose. “Someone is eating well.”
Rubbing his stomach, Nikkel said, “It makes my stomach growl.”
“Those are soldiers,” Melegal said. “Royal soldiers.”
“Let me go speak to them,” Hoff said. “It won’t take long for me to learn whose side they are on.” He pulled back his cloak, revealing his royal house’s insignia. “I can spin a fair enough story.” He started forward.
Venir clamped his hand around the meat of the man’s arm. The stout knight tried to pull away. Venir held him fast. “Two would be safer than one.”
“You’ll draw suspicion.”
“Maybe, but two targets are harder to hit than one.”
Looking Venir up and down, Hoff said, “You’ll certainly be easier to hit than me. Let’s go, then.”
Behind Hoff, Venir gave Billip a glance. The archer nocked an arrow. Nikkel loaded a bolt.
Venir and Hoff approached the royal soldiers’ camp slowly. Many sets of eyes locked on them as soon as they came within twenty yards of the soldiers. Hands up to his chest, Hoff said, “Brethren, I am Hoff of the banner of—”
“I don’t care who you are.” Swords scraped out of their scabbards. Venir and Hoff were closed inside a half circle of men. “Go away.”
That man who’d spoken bore th
e royal marks of a captain. He wore chain mail and leathers. Built like an oak tree, the veteran made it clear he had better things to do.
Hoff continued, “Soldier, I am a royal horseman. That’s nothing to trifle with. I seek refuge. You will honor it.”
The leader snickered. “There are no laws out here aside from what I say. You and your friend best move on if you know what is good for you.” He gave his men a look. They crept in closer. The soldiers on the edges lowered spears on them. An archer stood on the rocks of the cave with an arrow pointed at Hoff.
Hoff’s Adam’s apple rolled. His blinking became rapid. “But I’m a knight. A horseman. You cannot turn me aside.”
“You won’t be the first. You won’t be the last. You’re just more wood for the underlings’ fires.”
“What manner of soldier are you that serves the underlings?” Hoff asked. “I would die first.”
“That can be arranged.” The leader lifted his hand.
The bowstring from the archer on the rocks stretched.
Venir burst into action. He punched Hoff in the shoulder with an open hand.
Clatch—zip!
Nikkel’s heavy crossbow bolt whistled through the air. An arrow buried itself in the archer’s head.
Thunk! Thunk!
Two arrows punctured the royal leader’s chest. The veteran gaped.
Venir overwhelmed the nearest flat-footed soldier and sidestepped his spear. His fist collided with the man’s face. The spearman’s eye socket gave in. Venir filled his hands with a long piece of ash wood and impaled a charging soldier in the gut.
***
Hoff rolled over the ground while snaking his sword from its sheath. He slipped underneath a soldier’s potentially decapitating swing and stabbed the man through the chest. The last spearman bore down on him. He swatted the point aside. With a counterswing, he cut the man’s foot out from underneath him. The solider collapsed and wailed in pain. Hoff pounced. He ended the man’s cries with a single stroke. Coming to his feet, he searched for his next adversary. Only Venir remained. The towering man ripped a blood-coated spear from a man’s side.
The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces Page 88
