by Dante King
“Maybe you will,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. I figured it was about time to switch the topic. And it was probably best to introduce her to Fang when she was in a good mood, as she seemed to be at the moment. “Anyway,” I continued somewhat hastily, “are you ready to go? We have some miles to cover if we’re going to make it to Erst today.”
“What, are you planning on running there? We’re not going to make it in a day. It’s at least a two-day walk from here, more likely three.”
“Oh, I think we’ll make it there before dusk.”
She frowned.“I don’t see any horses around here, Vance.”
“I’ve got something better. But before I introduce you to my—our—mount, you have to promise not to freak out.”
“Promise not to freak out… What are you talking about? I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Look. A day ago, you might have… used your holy powers and your mace if you’d seen a walking skeleton, right? But after you met me, you were totally fine with sleeping in a campsite surrounded by walking skeletons. And I know you’re not too fond of them, and that you think that they’re unholy and evil and all that, but you tolerate their presence now, right? Well, it’s gonna be like that with Fang.”
“Fang?” She furrowed her brow before she groaned. “Enough dancing around the point. Tell me what kind of horse this is!”
I flashed a grin of boyish joy at her. “I’m not moving an inch until you promise.”
“Fine, I won’t freak out. Happy?”
“You churchies take your promises very seriously from what I’ve heard, so you’d better not break this one,” I said with mock sternness. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s go meet Fang.”
With that, I turned around and led her out of the campsite. I couldn’t help feeling proud when I saw Fang resting exactly where I had told him to wait.
“Creature of darkness!” Elyse roared when she walked up beside me, her hands glowing with a warm golden light as she spoke. “I will send you back to the abyss, and—”
“Hey, hey, whatever you’re doing, stop it!” I said, putting a hand firmly on her forearm. “Fang’s no threat to you.”
“It eats people!” she practically howled. “Have you lost your mind? I’m about to save both our lives here!”
With my free hand, I pointed at the skeletons grouped behind us.
“Yeah, and just yesterday those guys—or, at least, the men they used to be—were all hell-bent on killing me. Now, look at ‘em! Each and every one of them would die, um, die again, before letting any harm come to you or me! And it’s the same with Fang, okay? Yes, he was wolfing down soldiers like a fat kid let loose in a candy store yesterday, but today—just like these skeletons—he’s completely loyal to me, and he’d die for me if that’s what it came to. It took a lot of my power to resurrect this beast, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you blast him with your holy… whatever it is.”
Okay, it hadn’t really cost me that much to resurrect Fang, but I felt like I could bend the truth a little here for the sake of making a point. Fortunately, it seemed to work. The golden glow around Elyse’s hands subsided and then vanished altogether. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and her jaws relaxed, so I let go of her arm, confident she wouldn’t be trying anything.
“You promise he won’t try to eat me?” she asked.
“What is it your lot say again… circle my heart and hope to die?”
I drew an imaginary circle around my heart with my fingertip and smiled. This seemed to be enough to convince Elyse. She walked slowly around Fang, giving him a good looking over. She was still pretty nervous, but hey, who wouldn’t be around this beautiful thing? It was actually quite admirable, the way she maintained her composure.
“His eyes look… unsettling,” she remarked. “Wow, are they actually glowing?”
“It’s an effect of the enchantment,” I said, trying to sound as if I knew what I was talking about.
Fang showed no interest in Elyse at all and didn’t seem to care much about the skeletons either. He kept his eyes on me.
“He’s actually quite handsome, isn’t he?” said Elyse as she examined his head more closely. “His scales are such a striking tone of red.”
“He’s a good-looking fella,” I said. “And he’s gonna carry us all the way to Erst. You don’t happen to suffer from seasickness, do you?”
“I’ve been on ships a few times, and I didn’t get sick. Why?”
“That’s good news. When he walks, he does this side-to-side swaying thing that makes you feel like you’re sailing on a choppy ocean.”
“Are you sure we can’t… ride horses or something?” she asked, staring at Fang with trepidation.
“Sure, saddle up! Oh, wait, I forgot mine. Did you bring yours? You don’t generally find them walking around in the middle of the woods, saddled and ready to go, you know.”
“I know, I know, it’s just—”
“I get it. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay. Come on; I’ll get on first, you climb up after me.”
Fang seemed to sense what we were about to do, so he meekly lowered his head so that I could climb up onto his neck. I helped Elyse up behind me, and once again positioned myself just behind Fang’s shoulders. I felt Elyse get settled behind me, her hands around my waist.
Fang set off at a trot on my command. It took a while to get used to his swaying gait again, but once we got into the rhythm of it, it really wasn’t that bad. I was surprised at how fast our mount was able to move; my pack of skeletons had to sprint to keep up with him. It was a good thing they seemed to have essentially unlimited stamina.
After a while, Elyse and I had grown comfortable enough to chat.
“So,” she asked me, “you’re really Lord Chauzec of Brakith, huh? How did you end up losing your lands and title, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My uncle,” I muttered. “He’s a real piece of shit. Just like your Nabu. He stole everything that was rightfully mine. Ripped it all out from under me and made me an outcast in my own lands.”
I paused to spit into the woods; I had a bad taste in my mouth.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Vance,” said Elyse gently.
“No, it’s fine. Really, it is. Talking about that troll-fucker keeps me motivated. I will take back everything he stole from me: my title, my castle, my lands, my reputation… And I’ll stick his ugly head on a spike in the town square and leave his Sunsword cloak there for Brakith’s beggars to wipe their asses with.”
“This thieving uncle of yours… was a Sunsword?”
I turned and smiled wryly. “Yes, one of the Church of Light’s elite holy knights, believe it or not.”
“They’re renowned as some of the mightiest warriors in all of Prand,” murmured Elyse. “They train with the blade from the day they can hold one in their infant hands—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Twelve hours a day, every day, and when they’re not training, they spend their time praying and living like ascetic monks, so fucking devout and holy and selfless and all that horseshit. Well, maybe some of them really are like that, but my uncle very obviously isn’t. He’s a greedy, lying piece of rancid garbage who used his position as a Sunsword to manipulate those in power. Fuck him and all the other Sunswords with him.”
“I’m sorry to hear your uncle’s such a… such a piece of work,” said Elyse. “He sounds all too similar to Bishop Nabu. Such things are unfortunately common among the clergy, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a Sunsword doing such a thing.”
“Well, you learn something new every day, huh?” I muttered. “Anyway, fuck it. I don’t want to talk about the sack of shit that turned the whole of Brakith against me anymore. That’s the only reason I haven’t killed him, you know… because I need to expose his lies, get the people of Brakith back on my side first. There’s no point in killing him and taking my title and lands back if everyone in Brakith believes I’m a rotten
scumbag.”
“That’s true,” said Elyse, sighing. “Nabu tried to pull a similar stunt on me. Fortunately, his lies were so ridiculous, nobody in Erst believed them… Nobody but the Archbishop of Radiance, who saw fit to strip me of my rank and banish me.”
“You know, we have a lot more in common than I’d initially thought.”
“Beyond the sewer we’ve both been pushed into, you and I have nothing in common. You dabble in dark sorcery, while I serve the Lord of Light. You, Vance Chauzec, are a man who revels in violence and kills men as easily and as remorselessly as any common man would swat flies. I, on the other hand, reject violence, and—”
“You did a great job of ‘rejecting violence’ when you caved that soldier’s skull in with your mace,” I said with a smirk, glancing over my shoulder.
Elyse folded her arms across her chest and huffed. “He was threatening my life. I was acting purely in self-defense!”
“And when you were about to burn our friend Fang to ashes, was that self-defense?”
“He was eating people yesterday. Can you blame me for acting, um, preemptively?”
I chuckled. “I’m just yanking your chain. Forget about it.”
I managed to catch a glimpse of Elyse’s amused smile. She was enjoying the banter, it seemed.
The rest of the day, we talked about lighter topics: our childhoods, favorite foods, the usual. In spite of what Elyse had said about us sharing nothing but the unfortunate status of being victims of similar thefts, she was doing her utmost to get to know me—while pretending not to care.
We stopped for a brief lunch next to a river but made good progress throughout the day and reached the borders of Erst just before dusk. We kept to the woods that lined the vineyards, as we knew the peasants would still be out picking grapes. But we immediately noticed something was horribly wrong. The peasants were shackled, while burly, thuggish overseers whipped the backs of those they perceived as slacking. The overseers wore crude leather armor and had swords in scabbards at their sides. They were also wearing white tabards with a sigil of a golden sun on them. These were Church of Light troops.
“I didn’t know slavery was legal in Erst,” I remarked dryly.
“It isn’t!” exclaimed Elyse, who was clearly as shocked as I was. “At least, it wasn’t when I was still here. These people all worked in the vineyards for their love of the trade and for the pride they took in producing some of the finest wine in all of Prand. This perversion of their passion is the work of Bishop Nabu. His greed knows no bounds. I will have my revenge on that vile viper, and I will free my people.”
“What’s going on over there?” I asked, pointing up ahead.
Just on the edge of the woods, a few hundred yards away, some of the troops were cornering someone.
“All I know is that these sanctimonious vipers are about to enter a world of pain.”
I chuckled; I liked it when Elyse’s feisty side came out.
“Good. Because my dagger is thirsty,” I growled, pulling Grave Oath out of its sheath and flipping it in my hand. “Let’s go show these assholes that the real Bishop of Erst is back in town. Fang, to the soldiers!”
Fang let out an earth-shaking growl and sped off, with my skeletons sprinting along behind him. As we came to within a dozen yards or so, I ordered Fang to stop, and we waited, hiding behind a screen of shrubbery.
Over a dozen Church of Light soldiers had cornered someone, but it wasn’t a peasant; it was a young woman dressed all in black, with clothes unlike any you’d see anywhere in Prand. I’d seen people wearing garments like her before, and they’d come from the land across the Sea of Storms.
Clad as she was in a tight, figure-hugging suit that shimmered in the light, it was plain she had a killer figure. She was petite but had generous breasts that strained against the material of her catsuit. Lower down her body, her round ass and strong thighs and calves indicated an impressive degree of athleticism. I had no doubt that her slim arms were stronger than they looked, and the weapons she wore on her hips—a pair of sais—as well as the curved sword slung over her back, revealed she was a warrior.
Her face, frustratingly, was hidden; a black mask covered everything but her eyes, enhanced with a good deal of eyeliner and kohl. Silky, jet-black hair tumbled out behind her mask and cascaded halfway down her back.
“Come on, love,” one of the brutish soldiers said as he took a threatening step toward her. He sneered and twirled his battle-axe slowly in his warty hands. “I ain’t never seen the tits of a Yengishwoman… Get ‘em out and let us give ‘em a squeeze.”
“Yeah, slag,” grunted another soldier, stepping closer to her, a flail gripped in his hand. “Let’s see how well a Yengish pussy handles a bunch of Prandian cocks.”
My hand gripped my dagger even tighter, and Elyse’s hands around my waist squeezed. I motioned for her to hold off. I figured waiting a little while longer might reveal who this woman was and what she was doing here. If I burst in to help her now, she might run away while we fought the soldiers, and she had me curious.
“Get back,” hissed the woman, her speech colored with that typical Yengish lilt. “I’m warning you, all of you, get back!”
She may have been a skilled warrior, but the fact was that she was outnumbered 13 to one.
“You’re gonna taste the prick of every man here before the sun sets, love,” snarled the soldier with the flail as he took another step toward her, while she whipped out both of her sais and shifted into a fighting stance. “And then I’m gonna cave that pretty little skull in with this flail o’ mine.”
They were all clearly wary of her obvious fighting skills; nobody wanted to be the first one to try to overpower her.
It seemed she wasn’t going to reveal anything more.
“I think it’s time for me to suck a few more souls into my dagger,” I whispered to Elyse.
“And it’s time for me to exert my God-given authority as the true Bishop of Erst.”
I felt a heat on my sides and looked down to see her hands glowing with golden light again.
“I’m havin’ the first romp with the Yengish slut!” yelled the ugly soldier with the battle-axe. “You lot can bloody well have sloppy seconds!”
“You ready?” I whispered to Elyse.
“Oh, yes, I’m ready alright.”
“Good. Let’s mete out some justice. Some sweet, violent justice.”
Chapter Eight
The second we broke into a charge, the girl in black attacked the soldiers. I didn’t know if the sound of Fang crashing through the undergrowth was a catalyst for her actions, or whether it was just perfect timing, but at that instant, she darted forward with astounding speed and agility and buried her left sai in the closest soldier’s eye socket, the one who’d just said he’d be taking her first. He got a taste of her all right, 12 inches of solid steel through his cranium, courtesy of the girl.
Before this soldier had even fallen to the ground, she backflipped and then cartwheeled to the side. The,n she somersaulted over the soldier with the flail. After landing just behind him, she spun on her heel and punched her sai through his neck. He stumbled forward, dropping his weapon and grabbing futilely at the solid steel rod-blade that had impaled his throat.
At this point, Elyse and I entered the fray, and I laughed aloud at the looks on the soldiers’ faces when they saw us charging out of the woods on Fang’s back. I even saw dark, wet stains spreading across the crotch areas of a couple of the soldiers’ tabards. Those poor, stupid fuckers.
Their day was about to take a turn for the worse.
The nearest soldier didn’t even try to put up a fight; he shrieked like a teenage girl, dropped his sword, and turned to run. He only managed to get three steps away before Fang lunged at him with gaping jaws and slurped up the unfortunate thug like an overripe peach.
Two soldiers tried to sprint past Fang’s flank as he was wolfing down their comrade. Fang may have been an oversized lizard, but he wasn’t stupi
d. He saw them trying to flee, and, without ever looking up from his meal, smashed his long tail into them with a vicious lash. The men were killed instantly by the brutal force of the blow before they were hurled a good 20 feet through the air.
I jumped off Fang’s back. I wasn’t going to let him and the mysterious girl in black—who by now had picked up the dead soldier’s flail and was using it with blinding speed to simultaneously fight off two soldiers—have all the fun. I needed to snatch up some souls for Grave Oath before they were all gone if I was going to get more than just that taste of Isu I had the night before.
As my skeletons converged on the soldiers, Elyse made her way to the ground after me, her hands glowing brightly. A tall soldier, figuring Elyse was an easy target, barreled at her with his spear leveled. She showed not even a sliver of fear, and with a shout, she blasted two beams of golden light from her hands.
The first ray hit the spear, causing it to explode in a cloud of splinters in the soldier’s hands. The next one blasted past him but then whipped back around and spun itself around him like a rope. I remembered seeing this ethereal rope trick of hers before. This time, though, she used the man on the end of the rope of light like a giant flail, swinging his body through the air and smashing it into another soldier, sending him flying from the crunching impact. Then, in a glorious display of violence, she hurled the man high into the air, stretching her rope taut, and whipped him down headfirst into the ground, immediately turning his head to mush and breaking his neck.
“What was that you said to me earlier about rejecting violence?” I asked with a grin. “It wasn’t exactly necessary to create that bloody spectacle just to neutralize the threat that poor soldier posed.”
I didn’t wait for her answer. Two soldiers—one lanky, the other short and chubby—charged, converging diagonally on me from two sides. Thinking fast, I feinted with Grave Oath at the short soldier, who jumped back to avoid the attack, and then flipped the dagger into my left hand and parried a cut from the tall bastard. When the short guy then lunged at me with his sword, I turned the blow but deliberately left my upper-left side wide open, pretending to half turn to deal with the tall soldier’s next attack. As I knew he would, the short guy aimed a vicious but clumsy slash at my neck. In a flash, I dropped like a stone to the ground, doing the splits, and grabbed a fistful of the tall guy’s tabard, yanking him forward. He caught the full brunt of his friend’s hacking attack, which almost took his head off.
