Sarina's Barbarians

by E M White

  He almost pirouetted for a second upstroke to cleanly behead the beast. But he stopped. His muscles knew the combination and was already at it when his pride chose something different.

  He actually staggered on his heels to halt the move.

  Why the flourish?

  Who was he trying to impress? What did it matter?

  The crowd didn’t recognize the difference and roared ecstatically.

  The ogre bled out on the sand, one of its green legs, the good one, shuddering uncontrollably as it died.

  Onäs hopped on one foot, regaining balance, and scanned the arena.

  Forty paces away, the arachnoid and the praetorian were doing a halfway decent job of killing each other. For a duel it was…a bit of a mess.

  Onäs strode quickly toward the jumble of hairy legs and bronze and something like human skin in there somewhere. He quickened his strides and closed the distance, both hands on the two-handed sword as he trailed it behind at his hip.

  The sounds of the crowd became outright savage in their expectation.

  The praetorian’s gladius was clearly plunged through a gap in the spider’s scaled metal armor. White goo bubbled out, coating the wooden handle.

  But the praetorian himself must’ve been somewhere under the creature, under its hairy legs that stabbed furiously downward, pinching and pulling.

  Onäs was practically alongside the fight when he glimpsed the icky spool of blue webbing that encased most of the screaming, writhing human praetorian.

  Onäs actually winced at the sight. One human arm was free from the mesh. The spider quickly ripped it from the roll and sent it flying into a throng of spectators who promptly began brawling over it.

  Countless pokes and stabs pierced the tangle of web. But the dying wasn’t happening so quickly.

  Someone was playing the crowd.

  Clever spider.

  Onäs raised his sword to a high-ready position, in case the spider altered its choice of victim. He leaned over slowly to ascertain the gore below. From a gap in the gooey web, a human eye peered out, wide and horrified and searching.

  But the praetorian could make no other sounds than muffled screeches and wails.

  It was all Onäs could do to keep from feeling the panic and shock and all that helplessness of the soldier—that one wide eye expressed more than enough.

  In a blur, the arachnoid opened its mandibles and snapped them downward upon the praetorian, roughly where his neck would have been. The bite might have severed the neck, but in that bloody, jumbled roll of blue web, who could tell?

  The human eye remained open and fixed upon Onäs.

  But the screaming stopped.

  That was good.

  The spider squandered no time turning its attention toward Onäs, who was, admittedly, a bit lulled by the unexpected, gruesome sight of the praetorian’s demise.

  Onäs bounded backward, almost stumbling.

  A pincer snapped at his sword arm.

  Then another snapped at his leg.

  Then at his chest.

  Then at his foot.

  High, low.

  High, low.

  By the gods, the beast has technique! Who knew?

  Onäs Grimblade employed four quick slashes of his sword to remove three of the thing’s legs. It was a testament to the beast’s agility that all four slashes didn’t strike home. But it was in a savage rage now. The thing tried rising on its remaining three legs. Part of its armor was something of a helmet, a curved plate of pricey steel, and it flipped up. Its inky eyes, twenty, maybe thirty of them, rolled and sought out Onäs.

  Onäs feinted right. Then left. Then dodged with total commitment again toward his right, his elven-forged blade singing through the hot air.

  Two more hairy legs spewed foul, white sludge. They spun free to the dirt, twitching.

  Onäs sprung backward, keeping plenty clear of the angry mandibles.

  But the horrendous arachnoid creature was beyond threatening now. Only one leg remained attached to its bulky, dusky abdomen, merely scratching at the sand of the arena. White goo gushed and squirted in every direction. Five directions to be more specific.

  Its mandibles snapped at him. But it couldn’t threaten Onäs as much as it could move. Which was nil.

  The crowd had erupted in their own violent enthusiasm. Nearly every spectator in the place roared with calls for more death and dismemberment. Arms waved and shook their approval.

  Onäs backed from the beast, though it still chittered and quivered. He looked to the shade canopy over the center seats. He shook the mix of white and red blood from his sword. Pink globs splattered the hot white sand.

  There was the burgomaster taking to his feet. He was clapping and yelping. Which was good.

  There were the Imperial representatives, trying to look aloof. Which Onäs didn’t give a damn about.

  Looks like Sarina will get her grain after all, he thought.

  The burgomaster and his attendants were all cheering, making the kill sign across their own throats. Slaughter him, they were gesturing.

  The burgomaster was even yelling the words repeatedly, “Kill him! Kill him!” Onäs’ acute elven eyes could read the man’s thin, spitty lips even at a hundred paces.

  Onäs slowly turned all around to observe the crowd in its morbid entirety. He found Sarina and her tent maiden, his half-kith Akimi, standing at their seats not far from the shade canopy. Their fingers were clasped at their chests, holding still. The others were not there with her, not Captains Markus and Vadric. Nor the white mage, Zacharius.

  It bothered him immensely that Sarina was not seated in one of the arena’s places of honor, out of this miserable heat. Who do these peasants think they are?

  He turned back to the grating, not-dying screeches of the arachnoid, drawing out the final blow.

  Then, he looked up. A-ha, there is one!

  Far atop the highest riser of the arena, above everyone and almost completely unnoticeable, crouched Zacharius in a shadow, the blazing sun behind him. It was not a place spectators were supposed to get to.

  How in the world does he do that?

  Onäs smirked and waved nonchalantly at the perplexing mage, from the hip. From his dizzying height, Zacharius waved a subtle greeting in return.

  Still the crowd screamed for the final kill.

  The burgomaster, now stomping like a child, practically foaming at the mouth at not being obeyed that very instant, motioned for Onäs to run the one-legged creature through. To make the kill. To conclude the deal.

  Onäs thought about it for a moment longer.

  The sun cut through the sky like a torch to a wound. The blue seemed to burn and shrink away. The whole sky was difficult to look at.

  Onäs Grimblade considered the horrid arachnoid one last time. He leaned in a bit, as if the creature could understand him, “Sorry, nasty. Today, you need to come by your own way to die.”

  He strolled over to where he’d dropped his scabbard and picked it up and tucked it under an arm.

  A few paces later, he picked up his fur and swung it over his shoulder.

  The crowd at this point was, of course, beside itself. Never had these seats heard so many boos and hisses directed at a single person at one time. Or at an elf, for that matter.

  Onäs looked up, squinting against the brilliant sun, and saw that Zacharius was gone from his stealthy perch.

  Then he looked back down to the scabbard.

  Black seal skin.

  Completely smooth.

  You know, he thought, you just don’t find that much anymore.

  Sarina watched from her seat as her new champion took his leave from the coliseum’s field.

  There was some confusion whether the guards at the gate were supposed to let him out or not. But the lean, shirtless elf—his sword still drawn, the screeches of the arachnoid not far behind him—wasn’t about to be contained.

  “What do you think of him, Akimi?” Sarina asked, leaning down to her
tent maiden, shouting over the ruckus hoots and howls all around them.

  Akimi’s palms were pressed together in front of her lips, as though she were, despite the crowd, deep in thought, her chin pressed down, her long ears pointed up. “We finally know what he can do with a blade, don’t we?”

  “And he’s…handsome.” Sarina smiled, the only person in the entire arena now clapping.

  The image of his long formidable limbs, glistening and swinging with that unusual grace, the geometry of all those tattoos weaving together as he performed—it was a performance after all—those images were still nestling their way into her mind.

  Akimi looked up at her human mistress. “I believe we knew that already.”

  And she did. Sarina was a barbarian at heart. Seeing her champion, her first champion at that, so sure of his steps, so quick with his aggression, made something tingle inside her tummy.

  Onäs didn’t simply defeat his opponents. He owned the entire arena. Not one sour bellow of disapproval, filling the air at that moment, could convince Sarina otherwise. He’d withheld the killing blow for a reason. Not to let the loathsome creature live. But to infuriate the mob. She was now, more than ever, quite fond of her new champion.

  That was when she heard a tinny wail calling her name.

  When she turned to the burgomaster, ten yards away, red-faced and sweating profusely, he was pointing at her in a rage.

  It took a moment for Sarina to make out his meaning among the clamor. But he was very intent on it.

  Trash and food were being thrown about the stands now. The whole place was about to riot.

  Finally, Sarina picked out the words the burgomaster was yelling at her.

  “No deal, Princess!” He was screaming like a girl. “You hear me? No goddamn deal!”

  Onäs Grimblade

  4

  Politicians Are Bastards

  You chose this path Sarina…

  …this slow burn of soldierly validation…

  …this unforgiving crucible of leadership…

  …when it would be far easier, far more pleasurable to play the part of the unruly barbarian—to seize what you want with sword and savagery.

  Ask yourself, Sarina, when its passage gets difficult, why you choose this path.

  Sarina sighed as Big Markus’ speech replayed in her head for the umpteenth time.

  She and her companions were a quarter league outside Bolzheim’s wooden ramparts, stomping over the brittle grass and parched foxflowers toward their army’s camp, when Zacharius spotted the dust cloud moving in their direction from the tower gates.

  “Riders,” Zacharius said and stopped, raising a hand to the biting afternoon sun.

  The others did the same.

  Sarina backtracked through the group to look at whoever was following them. They were too far to see. They weren’t on any road, for her army always bivouacked in the wilds, where no significant force could steal upon them quickly or without notice. So it made no sense for any mounted unit to approach. Horses were expensive around these parts.

  “What do you got?” she said to Zacharius.

  He leaned his staff toward the approachers, closing his eyes. Atop the staff, the enchanted heart glowed green. A pale green mist lifted and drifted from it in the feeble breeze. “A fool. And his guard.”

  “How many?”

  Zacharius opened an eye to his companions at his side, to their brawn and their weapons and, above all, to their ferocity. “Not enough,” was how he left it.

  Captain Vadric, her half-orc, tromped to the lead position in front of Sarina and Zacharius, neither of whom had worn armor to the arena. Sarina was in a damn dress of all the unbecoming things. Vadric wasn’t wearing armor either, but that wouldn’t matter to him.

  “Tell him mark what he says.” He gripped his tremendous axe just below the blade.

  Sarina put a hand on his dark skin, between his mighty bare shoulders. He’d have point position, sure, but she’d be right behind him, calling this play. To be in charge of such raw power meant constantly asserting one’s dominance. Which came from very different places other than tribal titles and royalty. And a pretty face. Sarina was already quite aware that, in these dark times, pretty faces eventually end up wearing scars.

  The rest of them, Akimi included, spread out defensively as the sound of the hooves grew louder, eventually becoming distinct just as the burgomaster’s face bounced its way into view. Seven guards flanked him upon their steeds, their pikes pointed skyward in a halfway respectable display of prowess.

  The sun was about to kiss the tops of the far-off mountains, but it was still burning the landscape mercilessly. It was, with five hours left of daylight in the middle of summer, the hottest hour of the day. Nerves were at their most brittle.

  The riders were within earshot when Sarina called out, “Blades down! Eyes on me!” Which was more a message to the riders, We already expect the worst. Blood and carnage would meet the first Bolzheim guard to lower his spear tip.

  Sarina felt a knot working into her empty stomach. Her brain was running through all the possibilities, trying to find the advantage before contact.

  Onäs was already moving up in the high grass on her right, in her periphery, to save Captain Vadric the trouble of first blood.

  She put out her whole arm to signal him to stop. Which he’d better react properly to.

  Half over his shoulder, Vadric said to Onäs, “My guess, you gotta kill opponents when it’s a duel to the death, elf.”

  Sarina didn’t have time to shush him.

  “Well, Princess!” The burgomaster’s voice cut above the ruckus as the horses stomped to a halt. A safe ten paces away, Sarina noted.

  She wanted to stick him between the ribs more than ever. “You better get on with it, your honor. I don’t have much control over these barbarians when the sun turns us foul.” She stepped forward, her eyes moving over the lead man of the guard.

  “Strong words, Princess. Let me remind you that you’re walking empty handed back to your tents.” He pointed to the four streams of smoke that were rising far beyond a line of oak thickets.

  It should’ve been ten dinner fires, one for every three hundred soldiers. But there was less and less to cook these days.

  “Witches and orcs and…” he peered disdainfully at Onäs, “elves won’t put food in the pot. Eh?”

  It’d be so much easier just to kill him and raid the granaries.

  “What could be worth the trouble of seeing us off?”

  “Worth the trouble? You want to know the trouble?” He pointed directly at Onäs.

  Onäs lowered his chin. He looked about two breathes from drawing his sword. He was a walking embodiment of charisma and cunning. Maybe moody, a little jaded, but Sarina hung onto the glimpse of his profile longer than necessary.

  A killer with a conscience?

  An emotionally sensitive romantic with a violent streak?

  The burgomaster said, “I don’t cash in on bets when the contestants don’t finish the game. That’s the trouble, Princess.” He was still looking at Onäs. Like somebody used to scolding underlings all day. It wasn’t so smart. “You don’t make the coin if the man doesn’t make the kill. Or the elf.” He sat back on his mount. “Or the whatever.”

  Onäs spoke to Vadric out the side of his mouth, “You might’ve been right, Vadric.”

  Vadric grunted, his death stare still forward.

  The little man continued with his rehearsed lesson. “You were supposed to earn the right to buy supplies for your army by fighting in my coliseum. Good. You deferred this to your champion. Fine. You’re royalty. That’s the law. But you cost me money, Princess Sarina. That wasn’t in the bargain.”

  He was risking death for the sake of a purse.

  “I’m going to get my money back that I lost due to him. You see, you owe me.”

  The knot was back in Sarina’s gut. Tighter this time. Man gets out of this alive this time, I’m gonna die of surprise.
<
br />   “Let me explain how this will go. You still need to eat. I’ve got a giant party to throw. You have coin. I’ve got grain to sell. But…” He dragged out the last word.

  Captain Markus spoke up this time, from behind Sarina, a calm low voice from the big man. “The price just went up.”

  The burgomaster snapped his gloved fingers. He sat there on his horse, looking down at them, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. Then he added, “A lot.”

  Now he was leaning forward again on his horse’s mane. From his thin lips erupted that little, self-contented squeal.

  This conversation wasn’t going to be about letting blood, Onäs’ or anybody’s. This conversation was about starving an army, having maneuvered beyond its usual supply lines, until Mayor Ratface got his way.

  Sarina did the math in her head. In the dizzying scorcher. Counted mouths to feed and leagues to march. Tallied the mood of her soldiers and the heads in need of cracking once they started getting sick—and started blaming her for it. She counted attrition. Without even being engaged in battle.

  The longhouse songs exalt gritty battles and heroic sacrifices and the lamentations of the vanquished. None of them groused about the inglorious need to…haggle.

  “We won’t be buying your grain,” she said.

  She turned away from the mounted men and resumed her trek back to camp.

  “You don’t understand, Princess!” The burgomaster elevated his voice unnecessarily, really relishing the moment. “It’s not an offer. I’m going to get my money back. You need supplies, and I’m all you got. You have to trade with me!” Now the man’s squeal wound itself up with convulsive laughter.

  Sarina was facing her distant army, her back to Mayor Ratface, when she whispered to Captain Markus, her lover going on six months now, “Tell me, Markus. How do we raid an entire town’s granaries…without it turning into a total massacre?”

  The burly man chuckled, more shoulder than sound.