Ashes of Dearen: Book 1

by Jayden Woods

“I’ll accept half my promised payment,” said Sean. “No less, and no more.”

  “It seems to me you didn’t complete your assignment.” The Vikand chief shifted on his feet, showing off the rolling sway of his large body, making sure the axe against his hip gave off a nice, bright sheen. “That means no payment.”

  “Two bodies, two assignments.” Sean gritted his teeth with frustration. Why must he always explain such simple reasoning? “I killed one, therefore I completed one assignment. And now I will accept my payment.”

  “Ram shit.” The chief pulled his axe from his belt. A matching movement rippled among his three companions as they drew their own weapons in turn. They probably felt empowered here, miles from any town, watched only by a jagged landscape of scrub and rocks. They had followed him here on their giant rams and mountain goats, probably hoping to startle him into submission. They didn’t, of course: he had smelled their stinky steeds half-a-day away, and he had picked this very spot to confront them. “You’re going to finish the job, Wolven. Or you get nothing, and you leave here with your tail between your legs.”

  “Neither,” said Sean.

  This reply took the chief by surprise, and it took him a moment to reply. “I don’t understand,” he said at last. “I thought you Wolvens killed anyone. You’ll kill a woman but you won’t kill a fucking blind man? You could have killed him with your little finger!”

  Sean shrugged, but used this movement to grab a throwing star from his suit. Most people assumed that the sharp metal studs along his leather outfit were purely ornamental. The truth was that they served both as armor and a weapon in hand-to-hand combat. But most importantly, they camouflaged his throwing stars: small shards of metal curved and shaped to fly like an arrow when cast with a proper flick of the wrist. Along the sides of his legs and forearms, he kept a dozen of the shards for easy retrieval.

  “Maybe you’re not as tough as they say,” snarled the chief. “Maybe you’re just a Belazar-burned—”

  “I would advise you,” said Sean, “not to insult me. Especially in the name of Belazar.”

  “Chief,” said one of his wise companions. “Maybe we should let it go.”

  This advice only seemed to enrage the chief further, for he next stared straight into Sean’s red eyes, lowered his voice, and said, “I said you and your Belazar can come over and suck my cock!”

  The throwing star seemed to sprout spontaneously from the chief’s neck, so quickly did it appear. Sean had actually thrown a great deal of strength into the maneuver, and his arm had moved further than most people would ever realize to gather the necessary momentum. But to anyone watching, they only saw a slight twist of his body, a blur of movement around his arm, and perhaps a glitter of metal as it sped through the air. It took a great deal longer for the chief to die than it took for Sean to kill him. For a moment his eyes goggled in the shock of his own mortality. Then the blood poured, and his limbs weakened, and finally with a wet sigh, he fell to the earth.

  His comrades took a few breaths before recovering from their own horror. By then, Sean had already made his next move. He lunged upon the largest man first, who had begun to lift his own axe. Sean waited until the man held the heavy weapon in such a position that his balance would be compromised. Sean then ducked and swept his leg around, knocking the man’s feet out from under him. Then Sean rose in time to aid the giant’s fall with a quick jab to the chest. The large man's weight did the rest of the work, knocking the wind from his lungs as he struck the earth. Sean threw a star onto the man’s breast—gently, only hard enough to make it stick. Then he placed his foot against the curve of the metal and stomped on it.

  Two more remained, and they came at him quickly. A swing of one man’s blade spat sparks as it glanced off one of Sean’s spikes. Sean dodged this blow and another simultaneously, though he had trouble discerning the second attack, for a black blur seemed to snap at him from thin air. He came up behind the man with the blade, caught his arm mid-swing, and snapped it at the joint.

  The sudden rope around his neck caught him completely by surprise, perhaps because when he turned to confront it, he saw that it was not a rope exactly, but a whip. The woman who held it gave it a firm yank and pulled him several feet across the earth. He used the spikes along his arms to grip the earth and stop himself, though this caused the whip to tighten around his throat. He held himself long enough to grab the axe discarded by his fallen chief, then released himself to the woman's pull.

  He could only guess that she planned to kill him with a dagger once she’d pulled him close enough, for she didn't have him tightly enough to choke him. He put his hands behind his head, making it appear as if he would grab the whip and wrestle it. Instead, he angled his body into the direction of her pull, and when the time was right, he curled into it. He kicked his legs up and over his head, then pushed off the ground with his hands. His boot struck her in the face, and as she fell, he uprighted himself atop her.

  He finished it quickly with a swing of the axe, then left the blade where it lie. From his neck, however, he recovered the whip and then hung it against his hip.

  For a moment he nearly left them that way. The vultures already circled above, and Sean thought it rude to keep them waiting. But as much as he loved throwing his stars, they were a costly and rare weapon, and his father would surely kill him if any went missing. So he gathered them all, wiped them of blood, and tossed the remaining droplets into the soil for good measure. “To Belazar,” he said. “Afithi fenturus zentaya.”

  He didn’t even know what the words meant. He only knew that he should always say them, after every kill, as his family had done for generations. Then he rummaged through the dead chief’s pockets and took his payment, which equaled half the agreed amount: not a penny less, not a penny more.