by Brandon Barr
He recognized the man. A face impossible to forget. It was the man who’d murdered his grandmother. Tanner Morgan.
Tanner stood, wide-eyed, a mixture of horror and shock paling the owl-faced man’s hollow cheeks. He’d aged in the fourteen years since that day his bloody boot prints were found on his grandmother’s floorboards. Cheeks more hollow, his reddish brown hair salted with grey. Daeken’s eyes tore into the man like daggers. It took all of his strength to turn away from the face he’d been hunting after for over five years.
His gaze lifted to the giant, but his ire, and the fresh-stirred embers of revenge lit the darkness behind his eyes.
“Who are you?” called the giant from his little mouth hole.
“Names Daeken. Daeken Zee Walton, descendant of Terry Henry Walton the slayer of Forsakens and all around kicker of bad guys’ asses.”
The giant’s head swayed on its thick neck, brows furrowing. “What’s a Forsaken?”
“An ugly monster,” replied Daeken. It was close enough to the truth, even if Daeken didn’t know what exactly a Forsaken was. If he could get his hands on Tanner, he might get his grandmother’s stolen items back, including the history book. “I think you fit the picture nicely,” added Daeken. “Big. Ugly. Ears large enough to lift your body off the ground if you could flap them.”
The giant grinned. “You want to die today, eh? You and all the puppies behind you?”
Daeken glanced back at the dogs. The number Justen had told him seemed about right. Around forty dogs stood behind him. At Daeken’s glance, several began to growl and bark.
The dogs were his one asset in this fight, but with only forty against an equal or greater force of brutals with swords—he doubted it would win the day. If he wanted to live to get his hands around Tanner Morgan’s throat, he had to somehow survive this showdown.
“I’m not aiming to die today, just looking to kill your nasty group of friends after I cut that hairy stunted growth off your neck.”
Taunting one’s enemies wasn’t usually in his strategy book, but he knew it could work sometimes—especially with brutals. Reckless bravery and extreme confidence were the only possible way to put a little fear in them. But the big oaf was taking Daeken’s heckling in stride, his lips remained in an amused smile.
Tanner, on the other hand, looked as humored as a fox with its foot caught in the jaws of a hunter’s trap. His pale blue eyes darted back and forth between Daeken and the dogs.
“Will you keep telling jokes when I’m pounding your face in?” boomed the giant.
“I might,” answered Daeken. “What’s your name?”
“Name’s Keeth. Keeth the Giant. But people I kill call me, ‘AAAHHGGG! AAHHHHHHG! AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!’” The giant’s booming voice screamed wildly for another few seconds as his hands gripped at his own throat mockingly. A few of the brutals behind him laughed, amused by the outburst.
When Keeth had finished, he dropped his hands back to his side and stared at Daeken with a sneering grin.
Daeken stared at him as if he were a child.
The giant folded his arms across his mammoth chest. “You don’t like my little joke? I thought you had a sense of humor.”
“I’ll make you a deal. Take these brutals back to whatever stinkhole you crawled out of and I promise not to kill you.”
Keeth chuckled. “Sure! I’ll leave right now!” he shouted in laughter, his throaty voice echoing through the woods.
Another idea sprang into Daeken’s mind. If bold taunting didn’t put the giant ill at ease, perhaps something else would.
“You do know I’m a mage,” lied Daeken.
Keeth’s right brow shot up. “Is that so? Mage or madman, makes no difference to me.” The giant shrugged, then looked up at the sky. “I’ve got somewhere to go and don’t have time for more banter. Why don’t you take your pups back home with you, and I’ll take mine with me. We’ll each go on our merry way.”
The offer was tempting enough, considering the odds, but Daeken didn’t let that show in his eyes. Somehow, he had to kill or incapacitate this big man. If he could do that, then he might have a chance at outwitting the brutals. If they believed he was a mage, that might be enough to put a little pee in their pants.
Daeken spat on the ground in response to the giant’s offer that they should each go on their merry way.
“I don’t think so,” replied Daeken coolly. “Those are my friends down in that valley. But since you’re in a hurry to go and kill them, I’ll make this quick. Me versus you, steel on steel.” Daeken drew out Wickedbane, resting the intimidating blade against his shoulder. “And I promise not to use my magic. You win. My dogs are yours to chase away. I win, I’ll brain twist your brutals so bad they’ll turn into the kind of ravers that just sit and drool all day…that is, the ones who survive.”
Brain twist…sit and drool all day. That sounded good, thought Daeken, and judging by the fear registering on the brutals faces, it had affected them just as he’d hoped. Now he just had to survive.
Keeth grunted. He pulled a strap on his belt and his sword in its sheath fell to the ground. “No blades. No weapons. No magic. Just our fists and it’s a deal.”
Normally Daeken wouldn’t have hesitated at such an offer, but a fist fight with this gargantuan was not a pleasant prospect. One good solid hit from Keeth and he might never wake up. But to show any weakness now went against the over-confident act he was playing.
With a curt nod, he tossed Wickedbane to the ground.
Keeth’s gums glistened above his brown stained teeth. He moved toward Daeken cautiously. Daeken turned to the dog pack and put his hands out. “Sit. Stay.”
Right Eye, the leader of the dogs, seemed agitated. He barked, ears raised.
“Stay,” commanded Daeken, as sternly as he could. He turned back to face Keeth, and began towards him.
The giant had stopped twenty feet away and was pivoting his head back and forth, rolling his shoulders. Loosening his outrageously large muscles.
“What did your mother feed you as a child?” asked Daeken.
“Duck eggs and pork belly, and animal tongues.” The giant licked his lips.
Daeken neared and Keeth raised his fists loosely out from his chest.
“I can’t make any promises about your puppies. My brutals do love them some dog meat.”
Daeken raised his hands and maneuvered slowly around the giant. “Brutals love them some meat no matter what they rip it off of.” Daeken smirked. “When I’m through with you, they’ll gather around you like a big juicy steak.”
Keeth laughed coarsely, then his fist came flying at Daeken’s face. Daeken arched his body back, just out of range of the skull-crushing blow. Stumbling, Daeken regained his footing, but Keeth was right there on top of him. The giant’s fist struck Daeken’s gut at close range, doubling him over and knocking the breath from his lungs.
The dogs started yapping in the background, as the giant leaned over and grabbed Daeken, lifting him into the air.
Not good, thought Daeken.
With a heave, he felt himself thrown through the air, then crashed onto the leafy ground and rolled onto his stomach. He lay there, unmoving.
Keeth’s footsteps stopped beside his head, then he felt a hand come down on his back. Daeken twisted suddenly, spinning up to a knee and throwing a punch at the looming head. Keeth’s head twitched on impact, but it was as if Daeken had struck the head of a full grown bear—and that bear’s left hand remained on Daeken, holding him steady by his strength. Then the blur of Keeth’s right hand came streaking out at him.
The impact rocked Daeken sideways onto the ground. This time, he knew he wasn’t getting back up. The left side of his face felt like a swarm of bees had all had a go at it, and his mind was spinning in a fog that he couldn’t find his way out of.
“You talk like a big man,” boomed Keeth’s voice overhead. “But you fight like a little girl. Come, I’ll give you a piggyback ride straight into a tree trunk.”<
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The giant’s hand clasped the back of his shirt, lifting him into the air. The dogs were barking furiously, but seemed to have stayed put as Daeken had commanded them.
Keeth chuckled. “Maybe we’ll see what was wrong with your head once it’s cracked open.”
Daeken’s only thoughts were vague memories of loved ones from his past. His wife and son. His grandmother. Somehow he found solace in picturing their faces. It appeared he might be joining them, wherever they were, very soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Payetta lay on her back, flat upon the wood planks of the house, staring up at Titannus’s lifeless eyes. His tight, enfolding arms stroked the nerves of injured shoulder like rat claws scratching into her raw flesh.
She breathed slowly—in and out—filling then releasing her lungs and concentrating on the effort as a way of dulling the pain. She had to do something, the longer she allowed Titannus to dictate the situation, the sooner he would get what he wanted.
And she was quite confident that meant her blood.
With one last exhale, she feebly reached out into the room with her Eartheye. She needed a weapon. A creature that could cause injury. The closest thing she found was a small colony of red ants—the little tiny ones, not even the big angry ones. What good could they do—bite him and make him mad?
She refocused her search, forming her Eartheye into a cone to move farther out. She swept her focus toward the door she’d entered the house through.
To her delight, beneath the rosebush on the left side of the door was her faithful critter, She Grunts.
Payetta beckoned her, saving her energy, for She Grunts didn’t need coddling.
The skunk knew her master’s voice and could hear the desperation with which Payetta’s mind was calling to her.
Titannus’s weight suddenly shifted. Payetta’s eyes snapped open. For a brief moment, the dark mage’s eyes were again inhabited and no longer lifeless, but then his presence fled from them as fast as it had come.
But then his right arm pulled away, momentarily releasing her from his vice like hold, but she still couldn’t move away, for his weight was shifted onto her injured arm pinning it painfully to the floor.
Titannus’s fingers slid over her neck, stopping at her throat. She twisted her head in resistance, but Titannus began to squeeze.
Payetta wheezed, pinching her chin against Titannus’s hand, desperate to create a pathway for air. Her breaths came in rasping heaves, but they came, just barely. Titannus’s eyes were still distant, and she knew he was preoccupied somewhere with Justen and the Heroes Brigade. The bastard was trying to kill her with whatever energy he had while keeping her friends fooled.
She stared at his pale smooth face, her teeth clenched. If only she could gnaw it off with one of her little varmint friends!
Where was She Grunts?
Had her little skunk been spooked so badly, she wasn’t going to come?
Titannus’s lips parted. “Percy,” he rasped, his breath spilling upon her face like a nasty perfume. “Come. Kill her.”
The words came cold and terrifying in Payetta’s ears. Now it seemed certain. Percy had given himself to Titannus, and the mage was asking him to finish her. Percy—damn that son of a bitch! She knew he was a self-important walking rectum, but this level of assholery she wouldn’t have thought possible. To betray his own people for the mages?
A scrape sounded on the floorboards to her right.
“Don’t touch the sword,” snapped Titannus. “Crawl over here.”
A muted clank rattled on the wood. The sound of a blade dropped from only inches off the ground.
“I don’t know,” whimpered Percy. “I’m not—”
“You’ll do as you’re told if you want to live.”
Payetta heard Percy’s shaky breaths, accompanied by a sound much like a sack of wheat being dragged across the floor in spurts and stops.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Percy in a steady voice.
Payetta glared up a Titannus’s dirty lips, waiting for them to declare her fate.
“Put your hand…over her mouth. We’ll suffocate her.”
Percy’s shadow fell over Payetta. Frantically she searched for something she could do before Captain Ratfink slid his fingers over her mouth. She could barely breathe as it was. Titannus had her neck, had her shoulder pinned agonizingly against the floor.
She glared up at Titannus, the dim fire of rage burning in her eyes. If she was going to die, she’d go out burning a proverbial hole in the Mage’s retinas.
The cold touch of Percy’s fingers against her cheek was the equivalent of a snake rubbing its oiled skin across her own. A shudder ran through her body as his hand moved up to her mouth. Then suddenly, his fingers curled into a fist, and they swung upward, straight into Titannus’s unguarded face.
The blow was weak, but so was Titannus, and it was enough to knock him half-off Payetta. Titannus’ right hand slipped from her neck, and she gasped, filling her lungs, but she didn’t stop there. With all her strength she threw her left knee into Titannus, hitting him hard enough to roll him off of her. Her right shoulder suddenly felt release—the crushing pressure Titannus had placed on it was gone.
Wincing, Payetta pushed herself up on her elbows. Percy lay on the floor beside her, grimacing. She noticed the deep, bloody wound running across his chest, and for the first time in her life, felt both sorry for him and thankful for his act of courage, but she had no time for compliments.
Twisting her body to try and sit up, a knife flashed above her, held in Titannus’s hand. Then came the sound of a tight furry hole releasing a powerful gaseous burst. Payetta wrinkled her nose and held her breath as she turned her head to see She Grunts inches from the mage’s face, tail raised in odorous fury.
Titannus screamed, dropping the knife, his hands flying to his face to rub the stinging liquid from his eyes.
Without a second thought, she stumbled to her feet and ambled like a drunk toward the door. Her head spun, but she couldn’t stop to let the swaying motion calm.
Payetta burst through the door, falling on her knees to the ground, pain forking like lightning from her wounded shoulder.
Heart pounding at her throat, she looked about in a panic. “Justen!” she shouted. Her husband and the Heroes Brigade were nowhere in sight. To where Titannus had led them she could only wonder.
She forced herself up again, determined to override the dizzying throb of agony by sheer will. The morning light bathed the farm fields before her, and not too far beyond, the refuge of the forest beckoned her like an old friend. Out amongst those tall trees were allies.
Something banged against the farmhouse door behind her. She rushed forward without looking back, then stumbled and fell. With a sense of dread, she glanced over her shoulder. Titannus clung to the doorframe, back bent, face grimed in skunk scat and nose dripping blood from where Percy had sucker punched him. Smoldering behind the mage’s puffy inflamed eyes was the most pissed-off look she’d ever witnessed on another human being.
Payetta couldn’t help herself. Something primal in her had to be released—whether the blame fell on the adrenaline-fueled rush of having just escaped death, or simply her lack of self-control—she didn’t get up and run immediately, but parted her lips in a big, mocking smile. “Can’t convince anyone to join your club? Not even an asshole like Percy?”
Titannus’s chest heaved as his eyes bored silently into her like twisting knives.
“And another thing,” snarled Payetta. “You look and smell like shit.”
With that last outburst, she rose to her feet and stumbled toward the forest. Not far behind came the scuff of Titannus’s boots scraping the ground close behind her.
Too close.
***
Keeth’s hand pinched like a vice around the back of Daeken’s neck, lifting him in the air while a second hand clasped around his leg. Daeken stared bleary eyes at the trunk of a tree before him, his mind beginning to clear fro
m the thunderous punch Keeth had given him a minute ago.
“Daeken Zee Walton, you made me laugh, and for that, I’ll make this quick and painless.” Keeth laughed. “Let me know if this hurts, okay!?”
“How kind,” grunted Daeken, his senses suddenly returning with vigor.
The giant reared back, swinging Daeken in his arms like a ramming pole being readied to hurtle into the tree trunk. The dog pack began to yap wildly.
In a rush of renewed strength, Daeken twisted, trying to free himself from Keeth’s grip. The man’s unhumanly large hands were also freakishly strong, and as Daeken realized there was no escaping them, he instead reached out as the giant drove him headlong toward the tree and clasped onto the man’s broad leg.
Keeth stumbled as Daeken hooked onto his leg with his arms. In that moment, he managed to twist his neck free from the vice-like grip, but Keeth still had one of his legs. Daeken spun and kicked the giant across the face with the other leg, his boot cracking the side of the giant’s squat head.
Keeth still held firm to Daeken’s left leg, but seemed dazed now from where he’d fallen to a kneeling position. This put his face directly in Daeken’s wheelhouse, and Daeken delivered. With each blow Keeth’s head quaked back and forth upon the thickly muscled neck. Daeken alternated from his left to right fist for each successive punch—and he’d just finished his seventh blow when Keeth’s hand sprang up and deflected a right hook.
The hand still holding him by the leg yanked hard, slamming Daeken onto his back. Keeth unleashed a bizarrely cheerful laugh as he leaped upon him with crushing force. Daeken groaned—the man had to weigh over 350 pounds
“Fun and games are over. Now you die, little girl.”
Keeth raised a fist into the sky, a fearsome glint of death emanating from his eyes. Daeken turned his head, putting his arms up in defense. He knew it was a desperate gesture, and would do little to block the flurry of fists that were sure to come hard and fast.
