Iron Paladin

by Max Irons

  He and Iven weren’t expected. No sell-sword stood watch, and, judging from the drunken laughter ringing through the still night, they didn’t anticipate any problems.

  This is why I don’t drink. Galeron allowed himself a half-smile. Some of the men would be drunk enough to kill quickly, but if Rikard was as good as people said, then he wouldn’t be one of them. Luck might give them a few moments after entry before anyone reacted. Maybe. Best make use of it.

  “You’re going in first,” Galeron said.

  Iven blinked, wide-eyed. “Why me?”

  “Clear line of sight,” Galeron said. “You’ve got to put arrows in them before they know what’s happening. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Iven sighed. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Most of them are drunk. They shouldn’t pose a problem. Shoot the ones who look at you. They still have their wits about them.”

  “Wondering if I still do,” Iven said, nocking an arrow.

  “Try to leave one alive,” Galeron said. “He might know something useful.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  Galeron nodded. It was the best they could hope for. Nothing was ever guaranteed in combat. They approached, stepping lightly. Galeron pressed himself to one side of the doorway and grabbed the handle with his free hand. Iven took his position, just outside the opening arc, and raised his bow.

  Galeron mouthed a countdown. “Three…two…one.”

  He jerked the door open, and Iven stepped forward, bow rumbling with each unleashed arrow. Meaty thocks accompanied impact. Men screamed, and Galeron spun around the door, following him inside.

  Two sell-swords lay on the ground, one with a shaft embedded in the chain mail covering his neck, and another with an arrow through the eye. Two down. Seven to go. Others, dressed in arming doublets and carrying a variety of short swords or spears, scrambled to their feet. Some tripped and stumbled over their own feet, but a few others navigated the trestle tables with ease, even in the dim lantern light.

  Galeron stepped up and blocked a strike at Iven’s side, shoving the cross-eyed man back onto one of the tables. Soup and ale sloshed over him and the floor as cookery flew in all directions. The black sword drove through his doublet and stomach, and Galeron turned to hunt a new target.

  Iven’s bow hummed in a rhythmic count, arrows buzzing through the tavern. Some hit their mark, but others swerved and slammed into the walls.

  “I hate my sister,” Iven yelled as he drove an arrow into a man’s thigh with his bare hand.

  Galeron blocked the strike from another man’s short sword. “You’re telling me this now?”

  “Since Dianna hid my weapons in the kitchen,” said Iven, “some of my fletching resin melted. I can’t shoot straight.”

  Galeron groaned. In close quarters, it wouldn’t matter too much, but if Iven needed to make a hard shot, his accuracy would be severely reduced. He parried again and brought his sword in an upper cut, catching the sell-sword’s hand at the wrist. The man went down in a screech and spurt of blood.

  “Black paladin,” called a voice from above.

  Galeron looked up. A loft looked over the tavern’s main room, and a man in tarnished legion armor stared down at him, leaning on the railing. The other men stopped fighting and turned their gaze to him, as if waiting for a signal.

  “Rikard, I suppose,” Galeron said.

  “My fame precedes me,” Rikard said. “You know me, but I don’t know you. What’s your quarrel with my men?”

  Galeron glared and pointed his sword at him. “You have someone. Where is she?”

  “Living, and if you have ten thousand Rayan crowns, you may walk away with her,” Rikard said. “That’s the price of our job.”

  “I’ve barely got a coin to my name,” Galeron said. “I’m giving you one chance. Turn her over, or you don’t walk out alive.”

  “And forfeit such riches?” snorted Rikard. He brushed steel-colored hair to one side. “You didn’t really think I’d agree?”

  Galeron shrugged. “Some jobs aren’t worth your life.”

  “You assume you can take it.”

  Galeron tightened his grip on his sword. “I’d say you’ll regret that, but you won’t live long enough.”

  “Then come up here and try,” Rikard said.

  Galeron glanced at Iven. He held one of the mercenaries at bay with an aimed arrow. There were only three left down here. They’d taken out four in the first few minutes of combat. Rikard probably had one on the loft with him. That was all the sell-swords accounted for, assuming Evander hadn’t lied. Iven winked at him.

  Galeron nodded and exhaled. His muscles quivered as he climbed the stairs under Rikard’s falcon gaze.

  “You better not have hurt her,” Galeron said.

  He snorted. “She’s dead at sunrise.”

  Galeron emerged onto the loft floor, blade at the ready. Another mercenary stood, a broad-bladed ax held in two hands, over a slender, bound figure in the corner. Lonni! She looked unharmed, for the moment.

  Rikard drew his own weapon, a broad-bladed arming sword similar to Galeron’s. “My patron warned me of your arrival, but I think she was mistaken to worry over your wrath.”

  She. Who hired him? Tulia or Arlana?

  Galeron took the hilt in both hands, holding the blade low in a defensive stance. “I’ve faced worse.”

  “You can kill mages, but that is no feat,” Rikard said, adopting his own stance and circling to his left. “Mages are arrogant. They put too much faith in their power, not in their wits.”

  Galeron shrugged. He was trying to bait him, but it wasn’t going to work. “You assume I care.”

  Rikard feinted a blow to Galeron’s skull and brought his blade in low, seeking his belly. Galeron held his ground, parried, and countered with a strike to the neck. Rikard stepped back, resetting his stance.

  “Not bad,” he said. “You have some talent.”

  Galeron snuck a glance at the mercenary standing over Lonni. He hadn’t moved. Good. He struck again, raining down blows against Rikard’s defenses, but he blocked them with an almost lazy contempt.

  “Broton swordsmanship,” Rikard said. “So…crude.”

  Blow and counterblow shrieked as their blades met again and again. Rikard swayed and blocked each strike as silver and black danced. White sparks exploded from contact, and the numbing clashes filled Galeron’s bones with an irritating buzz. His arms shook with each attack, and his breathing came thick and fast. Rikard was good, very good. He moved and struck with the precision and discipline accrued over a lifetime, and he was fresh.

  Galeron parried another strike, but instead of retreating, Rikard forced his blade down Galeron’s until their hilts locked. Galeron bent his knees deeper and held his ground as Rikard tried to drive him back. On a good day, he could have pushed him off his center and turned the attack around, but today was not a good day.

  His arms burned with the exertion, and muscles across his back strained so tightly he feared something might snap. Thunder rumbled in his ears. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. Galeron took a step back, and Rikard pressed the advantage. Another pace, and then another. Galeron slipped toward the loft railing. Was that the plan?

  “Yield, Broton,” growled Rikard. “Your skill can’t match mine.”

  He was right. Rikard had the greater experience, the benefit of age, and rest. But was that all? As Rikard drove him against the railing, wooden planks digging into the middle of his back, a thought sprang to mind.

  Rikard was all skill, like a dancer on the floor. Blade against blade, he’d win every time, but Galeron’s talent didn’t lie there. He fought like a boxer in the circle. He’d trained that way for most of his life. No rules, no holds barred. If he could just knock Rikard out of his fighting style, things might change.

  Galeron angled his blade to keep Rikard from driving his own weapon through his neck. His opponent wore plate armor. He couldn’t land sufficien
t blows when Rikard was encased in steel. Galeron gritted his teeth and pushed himself off the railing. Would it matter? If he could turn this around, it might stun Rikard. It might also break Galeron’s hands.

  Survive first, heal later.

  He wouldn’t do anyone good dead. Galeron took a deep breath and pivoted on one heel. Rikard, still expecting Galeron’s resistance, stumbled forward. Galeron lowered his shoulder and charged. He plowed into Rikard’s side and kept driving. Wood splintered and cracked, the world spun, and Galeron’s stomach rushed up into his throat. There was a short, sharp pain in his right knee, and crackle of breaking wood again.

  Air screeched and rushed from his lungs. Was that his scream or Rikard’s? Galeron flopped on his back, his knee pulsating with a constant dousing of hot lead. He inhaled, but air drifted, rather than rushed, into his lungs. He couldn’t get…what was happening? His chest bobbed up and down with a panicked rhythm. Where was Rikard?

  “Galeron, get up!”

  Iven’s voice came from somewhere across the room. Galeron pushed himself up on shaky arms, staring at the gaping hole in the loft’s railing. Interesting. It was above him now. Had they fallen?

  “Get your lazy bones up,” yelled Iven. “You aren’t at the bath houses.”

  Galeron swallowed, spit blood, and stumbled to his feet, pressing down hard on his left leg. Rikard, holding a hand to his forehead swayed in place a few feet away. Blood dribbled from his mouth and the back of his skull. Both swords had vanished in the table splinters.

  Galeron scooped up a shattered trestle and cracked it across Rikard’s skull, but without the use of his right leg, the blow collided with his shoulder instead. The pauldrons rang with the strike, and Rikard stumbled but remained upright. His metal gauntlet backhanded across Galeron’s temple. The world went black for a moment, and Galeron hit the ground. Rikard landed on top of him before rolling off.

  Galeron dragged himself away, hauling his wounded leg behind him, and flipped onto hands and knees. Balancing on one hand, he slammed his other down in a hammer blow over Rikard’s eye. Bone cracked beneath his fist, and Rikard screamed. Another blow from the gauntlet caught Galeron’s chin. The flat metal taste of blood filled his mouth, and he hit the ground again. Everything spun. He flipped onto his stomach and crawled away from Rikard on his elbows, the floor tilting every which way.

  Something dug into the middle of his back, and hands grabbed his skull by the hair. His face hit the floor once, twice, three times. Nose met floorboards, and a stunning lance of pain pierced his forehead. Warm liquid gushed from his nostrils as his nose bent sideways. A screech of metal, a shriek of pain, and the pressure on his back vanished.

  Galeron rolled over and hauled himself on all fours. His head pounded and threatened to split open. Rikard tugged at an arrow protruding from a gap in his pauldrons. Another buzz, and a line of fire spread across Galeron’s cheek.

  “Sorry,” Iven called. “Bad fletching. I—blast it, why aren’t you dead?”

  Sounds of a scuffle to the far right. Galeron turned, achingly slow, and saw the arrow that had narrowly missed him, still quivering in the floorboards. He shuffled his way to it, wrenching the missile free and throwing himself onto his back with the effort. Rikard was suddenly on him, knees crushing his ribs. Gauntlets pounded on his face. He let them, one Rikard becoming two in his sight.

  Galeron turned the arrowhead around and jammed it under Rikard’s flailing arm. He froze, and then gagged, bloody bubbles foaming in his mouth. Galeron drove the arrow in further, feeling it rip through muscle. Rikard stumbled off him, and Galeron struck him across the head with another hammer-fisted blow to the temple. A glancing strike, but it sent him sprawling

  Galeron got on his own shaking feet and snarled through rattling gasps, “Told you…warned you…”

  Rikard’s eyes widened, and Galeron collapsed, driving his good knee into his throat. Rikard’s windpipe crumbled under the blow. His eyes widened, and his face purpled. Galeron shuddered as his eyes glassed over and his struggles ceased.

  Done.

  “No one move!”

  Galeron tilted his head, vision sliding in and out of focus, to find the new voice. At the top of the stairs, the other sell-sword held a bound and gagged Lonni close to his chest, a knife at her throat.

  “Make a move toward me, and I’ll cut her,” he said.

  Iven, arrow nocked and ready, stepped from behind one of the tables. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “I’m walking out of here with her,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Iven chuckled. “I’ve got an arrow pointed at your head. If you can run that fast, I’d like to see it.”

  “You couldn’t hit me,” sneered the sell-sword. “You almost killed your friend.”

  “Bad arrow,” said Iven. “I’ve got a good one now.”

  “You’ll kill her, too.”

  Galeron looked from Iven to the sell-sword and back again. That would be a lucky shot, even for him, with Lonni so close. One misstep, one movement from either person could throw off the target.

  “Do it,” said the sell-sword. “You’ll kill her anyway.”

  “Giving up on life so soon?” asked Iven.

  “You two are mad enough to fight all of us. I don’t think—”

  Iven’s arrow tore through the sell-sword’s thigh. He screamed and reached for the wound on reflex. Iven’s second shot ripped into his neck. He was dead before he hit the bottom of the stairs.

  Galeron’s shoulders sagged with relief, and he shuffled his way to an undamaged trestle table, collapsing on the bench. Iven bolted up the stairs and tore off Lonni’s bonds. With a small cry, she hurried to Galeron’s side. Wetness rimmed her green eyes as her fingers traced Galeron’s limbs.

  “Is anything broken?” she asked. “When you and Rikard fell, I thought…”

  Galeron swallowed. Aside from a few cuts and scrapes on her face and hands, Lonni didn’t seem to be any worse for wear. He hadn’t been too late. Iven wandered over, rubbing his shoulder absently.

  “Tough old mule, wasn’t he?” he asked.

  Galeron nodded. His nose still throbbed. Lonni reached up, pinched his nose between her fingers, and wrenched it back into place with a cartilage-grinding crunch. Reflex tears burst from his eyes, and he grunted with the pain.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you wanted your nose to heal flat against your face.”

  “True enough,” he said, voice rasping against his throat.

  “How did you find me?” asked Lonni. “I thought…I thought…”

  “Now that’s a long story,” Iven said. “I don’t know if you’ll believe half of it but…”

  With that, they told her the tale.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “If it hadn’t come from the two of you, I don’t think I would have believed it,” Lonni said after Iven finished.

  Galeron grunted. “I’m still having trouble myself.” He dragged his satchel over his head and handed it to her. “I thought you might want these.”

  Lonni opened it and pulled out her pistolettes, a faint smile on her lips. “You brought them, and night dust ingredients.”

  “We can’t fight mages without you,” Iven said. “We need a little magic of our own.”

  She shook her head. “It’s alchemy, not magic.”

  “As long as it works, I don’t care,” Iven said. He rubbed his stomach. “While you mix up your magic dust, I’m going to get something to eat.”

  Galeron blinked. “How can you think of food right now?”

  Iven frowned. “You dragged me around the city all afternoon without bothering to stop for lunch, or supper, come to think of it.”

  “What if the food’s infested with knife gut?” asked Galeron.

  “Then I’ll die full,” Iven said. “If you have to go, why do it on an empty stomach?”

  With that, he walked to the back rooms. Lonni gathered a tankard and a few pieces of the sha
ttered table, setting to work on dividing and mixing the night dust components.

  “I’m surprised you remembered my powder horn,” she said as she dumped sulfur onto the table.

  “I can be surprising now and then,” Galeron said, acutely aware that he and Lonni were alone. Iven had probably planned it that way, too, the blasted archer.

  “So I noticed.” Her voice turned cool, and she narrowed her eyes on the shard of wood she was using to divide the powders.

  “Is there something you need to say?” asked Galeron. He rubbed at his throbbing knee.

  “I think you said everything we needed to hear last night,” Lonni said.

  It was understandable that she was still upset. She might have even brooded over it during her captivity. He knew what her attention meant, but his own feelings toward Lonni were a bit mixed. Perhaps there was something there. Perhaps not, but was now really the time to be discussing such things?

  He asked her as much.

  She raised one eyebrow. “Some days I wonder just how good you were as an informer. You can’t see anything in front of your face.”

  Galeron sighed. “As you say.”

  “Galeron Triste, how do you think a woman would react if you took her to the ball and then slept with another one that night.”

  His face burst into flame. “We didn’t—”

  “Because I walked in,” she said. “Don’t lie. You would have happily bedded her without interference.”

  Galeron opened his mouth, and then closed it. She had a point. Arlana caught him at a vulnerable point, on little sleep, and just after escaping the crypt. Ordinarily, Arlana’s courtesan act didn’t work on him, at least, not that well. It brought up another question. Why had she done it in the first place?

  “I’m missing nitrate,” Lonni said.

  Right. Galeron reached for his coin purse and undid the drawstring. He pulled out the tied-up sample procured from the physician’s house and froze. The nitrate had been cushioning the vial of mousebane.