by Sarah Hawke
Cassel grunted. “Great, so I’ll get to spend all my days in the Citadel reading through reports.”
“It’s not all bad. At least you’d be in Highwind more often. We could…”
He turned and arched his thick illusory eyebrows at me. “We could what?”
We could see each other more often. We could go and get lunch in the market. We could fuck in your office. This isn’t difficult, Serrane. What is your problem?
“We could attend most of the same boring meetings,” I said instead. “I, uh…I guess that’s not very motivating.”
“I don’t know, a lot of folks are afraid of you,” Cassel said. “I can think of worse things than watching you terrorize mid-level bureaucrats all day.”
I chuckled and turned away. Why does he have to be handsome and charming? This would be so much easier if he’d turned out to be an asshole whenever he had his clothes on.
“I don’t suppose there’s a point in waiting any longer,” Cassel said. “We know the clan-lord is somewhere on this side of the camp. It’s now or never.”
“Then let’s make certain we can communicate,” I said, reaching out the Aether and touching his forehead. Since he was also a channeler, it was relatively easy to establish a temporary link between us. At the very least, we would be able to communicate brief messages to one another through the Aether.
There, I told him.
He blinked and nodded. I’ve never done this with anyone who wasn’t a knight before.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said aloud. “Just remember what I told you about the ritual and you’ll be fine. Good luck, Captain.”
“You, too, General,” he said, clasping my hand. “Escar watch over us.”
With that, he shuffled out of our cover and began maneuvering through the trees towards the entrance to the camp. Assuming the perimeter sentries left him alone, he would be able to approach and challenge the clan-lord in a few minutes. In theory, that would give me plenty of time to get into position.
Taking a final deep breath, I drew the concealed dagger from my boot, crawled out from our little nest, and began creeping up the snow-covered hill nearby. The Roskarim sentry at the top looked incredibly bored, but I knew I couldn’t afford to underestimate him. If he spotted me, this would all be for nothing.
I slithered within fifteen yards, then ten, then five. He glanced back and forth occasionally, but for the most part his eyes remained locked on the camp.
He died without ever seeing his killer. My left hand clasped around his mouth at the same instant my right plunged the dagger through his lungs, and I flipped him face-down in the snow to further muffle his final protests. Once he finally stopped twitching, I plucked the bow from my back and took his place at the top of the hill.
Just in time.
Well, the sentries haven’t tried to kill me yet, Cassel said through our link. I guess that’s a good sign.
I squinted out at the camp. Even my elven eyes were having trouble picking him out in the dim moonlight. Where are you?
About thirty yards from the challenge circle. I haven’t spotted the clan-lord yet.
I finally latched onto him as he passed by a group of barbarians sitting around a fire. They didn’t even seem to notice him wandering by; the open nature of the encampment would probably work to his advantage, at least initially. Once the fighting started, unfortunately, the Roskarim would find it that much easier to swarm us.
I see you, I told him, reaching back and drawing an arrow from my quiver. Everything looks calm at the moment. Just get to the challenge ring and stoke the fire.
Right. He paused, and I could actually feel his tension through the Aether. If by some miracle I live through this, remind me to call your bluff and let you do this next time.
I smiled. This will work, I promise. I have your back.
Cassel made it all the way to the ritual brazier without incident, though a few of the nearby warriors turned and looked at him when he pulled the fire salts from his pouch. After several days of challenges, most of the warriors probably assumed—and hoped—that the bloodshed was finally over.
Here goes nothing, Cassel said, tossing the salts into the brazier. The rocks inside ignited almost immediately, and the smoke from the blue flames quickly billowed out across the camp. I nocked the arrow to my bowstring as I swept my eyes back and forth across the area. I highly doubted that anyone would attack a potential challenger outright, but it was always possible…
That got their attention, Cassel said.
Good. Now stoke the embers with your sword and shout the challenge just like I told you.
“Rok tal’os!” he shouted so loudly I could hear him from almost two hundred yards away. “Matah ros’aklah!”
Cassel plucked the great sword from his back and plunged it into the flames. A mighty blue plume burst up from the brazier every time he stabbed the embers, and within a few seconds every conscious Roskarim warrior within about fifty yards was staring at him.
Again, I said.
“Rok tal’os!” Cassel repeated. “Matah ros’aklah!”
Slowly but surely a few groups of warriors began lumbering towards him. They looked more confused than excited, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. Everyone here probably assumed that the last of the challengers had been fed to the wolves by now.
These guys don’t look happy, Cassel said. A few of them look like they’re going to grab their weapons.
My fingers twitched along the bowstring. Ignore them unless they attack you.
Okay…and what if they do?
Kill them. Interfering with a ritual challenge is sacrilege.
Great, he muttered. And what if their friends get mad?
Kill them too. You’ll be fine unless one of the shamans tries something. And even if they do, that’s why I’m up here. Just focus on the flames and keep screaming.
Cassel obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and after another minute he was surrounded by a ring of Roskarim almost three men deep. At this point, I already wasn’t sure I could adequately cover him if they all decided to attack. I just had to hope that the clan-lord would show himself soon…
A final group of barbarians gathered around the brazier, and some of the men in front finally mustered the courage to attack. Three of them rushed straight at the interloper, spears in hand, and with their superior reach and numbers they would have posed a serious threat to any normal soldier. But Cassel was a trained Knight of the Silver Fist, and he was more than up to the challenge.
He rolled away from their charge with seemingly impossible grace for a man his size, and he cut one of the barbarians down with a brutal, chest-high slash that splattered blood across the other two. One of the men was smart enough to stumble away and retreat at that point, but the other was not. Cassel’s backswing nearly chopped him in half.
Son of a bitch, he snarled. What happens when they realize they can all just charge me at once?
We’ll be all right, I soothed, still scanning for any sign of the clan-lord. If this doesn’t work, there’s always the backup plan.
Backup plan? What backup plan?
The one where you run like hell and I kill as many of them as I can behind you.
Escar’s mercy, he breathed, jabbing the fire again. This was such a terrible idea…
I bit down on my lip as I continued surveying the camp. I spotted a few shamans in bone masks approaching the brazier, but I still didn’t see the clan-lord himself. Had I miscalculated that badly? I couldn’t understand how a new leader could have possibly solidified his position so quickly and so thoroughly that his shaman would put down a challenge in his stead. But if he had…
If he had, then my hubris was about to get Cassel killed.
Shit, I hissed. All right, you need to get out of there before any more of them show up. I’ll fire at the wagons to the east and set them on fire. The distraction should—
Wait, Cassel interrupted. I see our boy coming right now.
My
eyes flicked to the north, and when I squinted through the smoke I finally spotted the clan-lord approaching the challenge ring. The closer he got, the more intimidating he looked. His wyvern-hide armor was genuinely impressive, and the axe slung over his back was taller than I was.
Stoke the fire again, I said.
Cassel shoved his sword bank into the brazier. “Rok tal’os! Matah ros’aklah!”
Another group of warriors looked like they were about to charge him, but then the clan-lord pushed his way through the horde and stepped into the challenge ring. A stunned silence fell over the crowd, and they all retreated several steps.
What an ugly son of a bitch, Cassel said, spinning around and clutching his blade in both hands. Now what?
Raise your weapon and say the words just like we practiced, I said.
Even my elven ears couldn’t actually hear him, but I was confident he would pull it off. The linguistic part of the challenge was the least important—body language was all that really mattered, and he was doing a fine job.
Knowing that didn’t stop my heart from pounding in my chest, of course. Realistically, there was no way I could actually help Cassel win a duel at this point. If the challenge ring had been closer, I would have just taken out the clan-lord and ended this myself. But a two hundred yard shot through darkness and smoke was beyond even my abilities.
I can’t tell if he’s buying it, Cassel said, his mental “voice” thick with tension. The fact he’s wearing a skarl skull on his head isn’t helping.
Take your helmet off, I said.
What? Why?
It will demonstrate that you want to face him eye-to-eye, warrior-to-warrior.
I could feel Cassel’s hesitation, but I saw him remove his helmet anyway. Okay, now what?
Toss it to the ground and challenge him again.
He flung the helmet into the crowd and screamed at the clan-lord. Most of the onlookers seemed impressed. Unfortunately, the barbarian leader himself did not.
He doesn’t care, Cassel said. I thought you said he wasn’t allowed to refuse a challenge!
He’s not supposed to, I replied. The shamans should be upset with him.
They seem a lot more upset with me!
“Le’thos,” I swore. I had expected some hiccups, but this was not going at all how I planned…
My breath caught in my throat when the clan-lord suddenly reached for his axe. For a split second, I thought that all of our fears had been misplaced—I thought he was finally going to accept the interloper’s challenge. But then he inexplicably stopped, barked something at his warriors, and walked away. Every single one of the Roskarim clutched their spears like they were about to attack.
In other words, Cassel was going to die. And it would be my fault.
Oh, shit, Cassel hissed.
I lifted my bow and drew the string. I knew I had exactly one chance to salvage the mission and save him. It probably wouldn’t work. It almost certainly wouldn’t work, actually, but it was still our only hope.
“Felo’tala,” I whispered.
I fired. It was, without a doubt, the most important shot I had taken in the last several years. It may very well have been the most important shot I had taken in my entire life. The stakes couldn’t be overstated: if I missed, the clan-lord would disappear into a throng of barbarians, Cassel would be swarmed and killed, and every soldier stationed at Icewatch would die. The flight of one simple arrow would determine the fate of thousands upon thousands of people.
And it did, by splitting the clan-lord’s skull in half.
The enormous man crumpled into the snow like an empty sack, and it felt like the multiverse itself came crashing to a halt. The barbarians were paralyzed by the sight of their dead leader; Cassel was paralyzed by the sight of his dead opponent. No one believed what their eyes were telling them, least of all me.
But my warrior’s instincts screamed at me to move, and I snapped out of my paralysis a fraction of a second before anyone else did.
Run!
I didn’t have time to wait and see if Cassel listened. Reaching out to the Aether, I conjured a flaming arrow to the bowstring and fired at the tent right behind the challenge ring. The linen flaps instantly ignited, and the terrified shrieks grew louder and louder as I loosed arrow after arrow at the rest of the camp. Panic spread even more quickly than the flames, but I knew I was running out of time. I could feel the eyes of the perimeter sentries tracking me…
I rolled down the hill a split-second before three separate arrows stabbed into the frozen dirt behind me. I knew there was no point in trying to pinpoint the archers; they could have been spread out across a huge area for all I knew, and every instant spent searching was an instant I exposed myself to more fire. I would just have to hope that the darkness and rising smoke would cover my movements.
Crouching low, I dashed down the hill and towards the rough path we had planned to use for our escape. The nearest sentries were still trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. Their bows were drawn and nocked, but they couldn’t decide whether to run towards the commotion or search for whomever or whatever had set the tents on fire.
That indecision cost them their lives. Dropping to a knee, I shot both men in rapid succession, then swiveled on a heel and fired an explosive arrow at a nearby wagon filled with pillaged sundries. The detonation was even larger than I expected—flaming pieces of wood and metal showered a twenty-yard wide area and drove a dozen more Roskarim from their tents and bedrolls.
The path is clear. Hurry!
It was only after I sent the message that I realized our link had been broken. A lump formed in my throat, but I reminded myself that silence didn’t necessarily mean he was dead. Maintaining a mental connection through the Aether wasn’t easy, and at this point he was almost certainly focusing all his concentration on battling through the horde. He was alive—I just needed to buy him more time.
“Le’thos,” I hissed. Gritting my teeth, I nocked another arrow and dashed into the camp. It didn’t take long for the panicked warriors to notice the elf woman flitting through the smoke. I shot two more of them just before they grabbed their weapons, then conjured another explosive arrow and fired at a nearby barrel of lantern oil. The explosion bought me just enough time to lunge out of sight behind a nearby rock.
I could practically feel the sands in the hourglass slipping away. Every second I lingered would make it that much more difficult to escape before we were overwhelmed, and to make matters worse my arms were starting to tingle from channeling so many spells in such a short period of time. Pretty soon I would have to rely entirely upon normal arrows, which simply wasn’t going to cut it when they closed in on me.
“Fuck it,” I snarled, throwing my bow over my back and drawing the twin blades from my hip. If I couldn’t shoot my way to Cassel, I would just have to carve my way to him instead.
Gritting my teeth, I leapt out from behind the rock and began scything my way through any barbarians that got in my way. While the Roskarim had the obvious advantage in strength and numbers, they had obviously never fought anyone with blade dancer training before. I whirled from target to target, never lingering in any one spot for more than a second. When I parried their vicious attacks, my fluid stance—the Lin’faleel—allowed me to turn their own brutality against them. I bent like a supple reed in a storm, then sprung back with twice the power as I sliced them apart.
But every time one barbarian crumpled, another quickly took his place. I was almost to the challenge ring now, but the Roskarim numbers seemed endless. I slashed open the throat of one after another until my armor was splattered with blood, but they still kept coming. Eventually the corpses had piled around my feet faster than I could move past them, and when I tripped and stumbled to a knee I knew it would be a fatal mistake. A mighty axe swept towards my head before I could lift my weapons and block—
And then an enormous silver sword speared through the man’s chest.
“Escar take you!�
� Cassel growled as he flung the corpse from his blade. The knight-captain‘s armor was splattered with even more blood than mine, but at a glance I couldn’t tell how much of it was his. He quickly offered a hand to help me up. “I thought you were supposed to be covering me from the hill?”
“I was, but you looked like you needed more help,” I said, bouncing to my feet and standing back-to-back with him as more barbarians closed around us.
“So now you’re trapped down here with me,” Cassel grumbled. “Fantastic. You should have run when you had the chance!”
Another Roskarim lurched out of the smoke and tried to chop me with his axe, but I easily parried the blow with my left blade then stabbed him through the gut with the right.
“The Duskwatch doesn’t leave its soldiers behind,” I snarled. “We’re not paladins.”
I heard him cleave down two more men behind me. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that martyrdom is a poor substitute for survival.”
Cassel snorted. “Well, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure we won’t be surviving this either. Not unless you have a brilliant new escape plan.”
“The original one will work just fine.”
“What part of being completely surrounded is fine?”
I grinned as I slashed another barbarian who got too close. “We’re just lining them up for our cavalry to trample.”
“Cavalry?” Cassel asked. “What cavalry?”
I took a deep breath and reached out through the Aether. “This one.”
A cacophony of keening howls pierced the air, and the Roskarim barely had time to turn before their own wolves burst free of their pen and began rampaging across the camp. I couldn’t truly control them—or at least, not this many of them—but my connection to their bestial minds was more than strong enough to send them into a frenzy. And the fact that half of them were starving certainly didn’t hurt.
“Escar’s mercy!” Cassel gasped, lowering his blade as the barbarians around us scattered in panic. “How…?”
“Come on!” I said, grabbing his wrist.
We sprinted down the path out of the encampment, trampling any Roskarim stupid enough to get in our way. The smoke had become so thick my eyes were stinging, so I promptly closed them and reached out through the Aether instead. I called out to one of the nearest wolves, and I soothed his feral mind until he was willing to approach us. He was still wearing his saddle, fortunately, and I leapt up onto his back and beckoned for Cassel to do the same.
