Will Power wh-2

by A. J. Hartley

  “Custody?” bellowed Lightfoot.

  “Yes, sir. The party that arrived in Stavis three-and-a-half months ago was described as looking just like them,” the sergeant continued, his voice rising, as he opted to disregard protocol. “I was on gate duty then and I remember. A pale man and a blond woman”-he said, indicating Garnet and Renthrette-“a black man”-stabbing a finger at Orgos-“and an olive-skinned man with dark hair and eyes, who may be Mithos himself.”

  The sergeant stepped closer to make the identification clearer and spoke the last words into Mithos’s face. The soldiers who had been lounging carelessly around the room were now alert and attentive, their spears swinging toward us menacingly. There was a new urgency to the situation, and the troopers felt it. Only the idiocy of their commander could save us now, and, given the grim surety of the young sergeant, even that might be insufficient.

  “And what about her?” asked Lightfoot, gesturing to Lisha in an offhand and slightly juvenile so-there gesture. The sergeant looked over Lisha’s almost childlike frame, her impassive face with its small Eastern features and long, raven black hair, and he faltered.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he spluttered. “I do not think she was with the party when they entered the city, but. .”

  “Exactly,” said Lightfoot, “and I will not have these good and loyal citizens harassed further.”

  “May we go?” I inserted, a little too eagerly.

  “Have you finished your supper?” asked Lightfoot. He looked doubtful.

  “Oh yes,” I blustered. “You’re welcome to what’s left. It’s quite good, but I had rather a large lunch and. .”

  “Yes, yes,” agreed the commander, hasty and anxious to be off. “Go on your way, and thank you.”

  “With all due respect, sir. .” began the sergeant, now with undisguised anger.

  “We’ll discuss this later, young man,” said Lightfoot, ominously.

  “You’re damn right about that,” murmured the sergeant, turning his back on his superior contemptuously.

  We needed no further encouragement. Within seconds I was holding the door to the street open as Renthrette and Garnet filed out. Behind us, Lightfoot growled formal charges to his sergeant. Perversely, I couldn’t help feeling a little disdainful pity for both of them. Still, this was not the time to show sympathy for the enemy. Taking up the rear, I stepped into the open doorway, smiling to myself at a job well done, some dignity saved, and so on. Then, the young sergeant, presumably figuring he had nothing to lose, walked away from his commander, dipped into The Book, and looked up the oldest trick.

  “Oh, Mr. Hawthorne?” he called.

  And, like the death trap/beer keg that I am, I turned. “Yes?” I began guilelessly.

  At that, even Lightfoot’s face fell. Then they started running.

  For a second I was rooted to the spot as if I’d been blinded by a combination of my own stupidity and the glittering of all those steel spear tips aimed at me. Then Orgos shoved me out into the street, drew his sword, and closed his eyes.

  For a split second there was amused disbelief on the part of the soldiers-this guy’s going to try and hold us off singlehandedly? But then the stone in Orgos’s sword seemed to swell with golden light, and there was a pulse of energy that radiated from it like ripples in a pond. I shut my eyes at the last second, but I still felt the firelight amber of the stone burst forth. When I opened them again, the soldiers looked dazed.

  Knowing the moment wouldn’t last, Orgos slammed the double doors shut.

  “Wedge them closed,” gasped Lisha. Garnet and Renthrette dropped to the ground, looking for suitable rocks or bits of wooden crate as Mithos joined Orgos, shoulders to the door. In seconds it jolted with the impact of the soldiers’ first charge, but the pale siblings were already positioning a pair of heavy planks up against the door handles. They would buy us a few moments till the troopers levered the doors off their hinges with their shortswords.

  I stood there, as I am wont to do in situations like this, looking vacant, uncomfortable and, more to the point, useless. As soon as the doors looked like they would hold, Garnet wheeled around and hoisted me up against a wall, plucking a knife from his belt. Déjà vu, eh? Still, at times like this, it’s nice to know that some things can be counted on. Why worry about the Empire plowing the door down like crazed buffalo when Will Hawthorne is there to beat up on, eh, Garnet?

  Fortunately, Garnet wasn’t the only one in character. With a strong arm and a baleful glare, Orgos liberated me and began spitting insistent words like “priorities,” which I could sympathize with, and “time for this later,” which I was rather less keen on.

  Lisha interrupted him. “Garnet, run back to the Hide, load as much of our campaign equipment as you can onto the wagon, and meet us tomorrow morning at the Black Horse Inn. It’s about twelve miles north of here on the road to Vetch. Go. Quickly.”

  Garnet paused only to shoot me the briefest but most murderous look imaginable, then was off and running. Lisha began walking swiftly, talking as she did so. “We have to move quickly, avoid the major roads. We need to get past city limits before news of this fiasco spreads. Run! Mithos, go with Will.”

  “You mean,” I gasped, wheezing to keep up with her as she strode through the dark streets, eyes fixed ahead, “we’re going to walk twelve miles? In darkness and on foot? You must be out of your. .”

  “Will,” she said, coming to an abrupt halt and turning on me, an edge in her voice that I hadn’t heard before, “I suggest you shut up and run, or, and I mean this quite sincerely, this is as far as you go with us.”

  I wasn’t certain if that was a warning that they would abandon me, or the prelude to a possible stabbing, but I couldn’t really chance it either way. And I didn’t like the way that Mithos had slipped soundlessly behind me, as if waiting for the word to lop my head off. Back down the street, the doors to the Waterman roared and splintered. They’d be after us in seconds.

  “Right,” I said. That was the last word I uttered for some time. When I turned I saw Lisha running away to the west, Renthrette and Orgos having already ducked around a corner out of sight. Mithos laid a powerful hand on my shoulder and, almost lifting me with the force of it, pushed me into motion. We sprinted into an alley and were barely in its shadows when the door of the tavern burst asunder. Orders were barked, then came the sound of running feet, their armor jingling with each pounding step as they came after us. We ran.

  SCENE II Who Goes There?

  I had no idea where we were, where we were going, or what we were doing. All I knew was that there were Empire soldiers behind me, and that Mithos was the only person I could count on to keep me alive. Given the fact that he was almost ready to kill me himself, this was kind of ironic, though not in the way that actually makes you laugh.

  We were in a residential district, the houses built of bluish stone in large, regular slabs, each street narrow and numbingly similar. We took a right, then two lefts. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the next turn had brought us back to where the Waterman still spewed forth soldiers through its ravaged doors. Not an appealing prospect. Still, Mithos seemed to know where he was going, and since it was taking all my energy to keep up with him, I stopped thinking about it. This is often the way I deal with alarming situations.

  We came to a corner and Mithos peered around it. He froze. “Listen,” he hissed.

  Horses. Some of the guards had grabbed mounts from the stables and were gaining on us fast. Mithos reached into his tunic and drew out a sword wrapped in leather, its blade not much more than a foot long. He glanced at me. I, Will the idiot, Will the confirmed cretin who should have learned by now to always carry a weapon, could only shrug and smile sheepishly. He sighed and dashed around the corner. Then I heard the clatter of horse hooves and turned to see a mounted soldier, his armor glinting palely in the twilight. Enter Will the decoy.

  The rider had been passing the end of the alley, but brought his horse to a stuttering,
sliding halt when he saw me. The horse’s hooves sparked on the cobbles as he turned the beast and spurred her at me, his shortsword drawn and raised to strike.

  I sprinted thoughtlessly in the direction Mithos had gone, tripped and fell heavily on the stony ground, where I opted for one of my favorite combat strategies: blind hope along with the appearance of having unexpectedly died.

  The soldier charged out of the alley toward me. Mithos, emerging suddenly from the shadows to the rider’s right, flung himself at the horse’s flank. The steed, no combat-trained mount, whinnied with surprise and reared on its hind legs, tipping the soldier back and out of the saddle. Mithos was on him before he could get to his feet. Since the trooper’s weight had fallen on his sword arm, he could not block the blow across the face with the sword hilt and was knocked unconscious.

  I winced at the idea of knocking out Empire soldiers. I had not seen any fighting for some time and its reappearance in my life sent my heart racing with exhilaration and panic.

  Oh joy, I thought, more adventures.

  Mithos, meanwhile, was tugging at the horse’s bridle, bringing it back under control and then vaulting into the saddle. Once mounted, he turned and saw another Empire soldier advancing up the alley. After a fractional hesitation, which I rather resented, he offered me his hand.

  Wordlessly I staggered to my feet. He caught my wrist, dragging me up behind him in one rough motion. I straddled the beast’s broad haunches painfully and clung to Mithos, wheezing my terror and exhaustion into his shoulder. Then he set his boots to the horse’s sides and we were away.

  We surged down narrow, empty streets of locked doors and shuttered windows, passing the soft, warm light of taverns gasping whiffs of beer and song. We thundered through the night and each turn in the road was a looming disaster, a dead end, or an Empire patrol. We charged through the deepening shadows, scattering cats and rats in garbage, waking the good citizens of Stavis from blissful dreams of profit and safety. A drunk stepped out in front of us, bickering with himself and rolling like a war barge. Mithos spurred the horse on all the same. We missed him by a whisker, and the rush of wind through his hair made him pause in curious thought.

  Then the houses fell away and the roads broadened. Mithos paused, looked doubtfully about him, and wheeled to the right, uncertainty in his eyes and sweat on his face. At the next junction he brought the horse to a complete halt. It snorted with fatigue in the sudden silence. Mithos was glancing wildly about, his desperation all too apparent. Not good. He turned and looked at me for assistance and then I knew we were really in trouble. My sense of direction is legendary, meaning that it is a minor miracle that I can make it to and from the toilet by myself. I shrugged, as bewildered by his asking me as I was about where we might be. He gazed quickly about him and made a snap decision. We went straight for another block and turned right. The street ended abruptly in the irregular brick of a tanner’s yard.

  Cursing under his breath, Mithos turned the horse and headed back the way we had come, but at the second junction, three infantrymen saw us and called out. They were directly ahead, blocking the street, their spears raised to shoulder height like javelins. I caught the sound of footsteps behind me and turned back to the junction we had just passed. Five more soldiers-their cloaks and armor spectrally pale in the gloom-were emerging and advancing on us like phantoms.

  So this, as they say, was it: the end of my rather erratic career as an adventurer, and probably a lot of other things, including-the thought butted in like a friendly moose-my life. The Empire, in their idiocy, had elevated me to the same rank as Mithos and the rest of them, and while this had brought me a faintly invigorating sense of notoriety, it would now bring no more than a pretty horrible death. I had faced the possibility of being reduced to a sobering lesson for the people of Stavis rather a lot over the past few weeks, but I can’t say the novelty had ever really worn off. The prospect of the rack, the curved and spiked knives they used for disemboweling, the gibbets, the flails, the thumbscrews, and the other knickknacks the Empire used to make passing into the next world just a bit less enticing filled me with the same cold dread it did the first time I found myself running from a patrol. The sight of the soldiers now in front of me had me clutching desperately at Mithos’s back without a coherent thought in my head.

  Mithos put his head down and I felt his muscles clench across his back and shoulders. Then, as if waking from a nightmare and finding that reality was just as bad, I felt the rolling leap of the horse as it powered forward like a tidal wave. We were charging them.

  The three soldiers in front of us were almost as surprised as I was, but they recovered rather quicker. As I clung to Mithos’s waist, barely daring to look around him to see what was happening, they formed a tight line across the street. Mithos raised his sword and dug his heels into the mare’s flanks. She leaped on, but she was distracted and scared. I doubted she’d try to break through all that muscle and steel. Not that I could really blame her.

  The impact, when it came, was more of a thud than a crash. The soldier in the middle panicked and dropped his spear as the horse’s great breastbone barreled into him and sent him sprawling. The man on his right held his position but abandoned his lunge to defend himself from Mithos’s fearsome sword strokes. The other stabbed at us from my left with his spear. Crying out in terrified desperation, I kicked wildly at him.

  He dodged my boot, like someone avoiding a wasp, and stepped back. This was no retreat, however, but a way of better picking his striking spot. His spear was poised in his right hand, pulled back and ready to plunge into me with full force as I sat there with no weapon or armor to protect me.

  With a cry of aggression, the product of a dubious marriage between horror and bravado, I flung myself on him, falling from the saddle and sending him sprawling backward. The spear clattered to the ground. Rather than trying to recover so unwieldy a weapon, he dragged his shortsword from its sheath. I was virtually straddling him, my right hand holding his left from my face, my left fumbling for his sword hand. I grabbed it, but his arm was strong. A dark smile spread across his face. He hissed through his teeth and his blue eyes lit with triumph. The weapon was almost completely under his control, and I felt its blade pressing below my rib cage. He pushed upward, and I struggled to hold it down. His strength was too much for me. His hands came on, one reaching for my eyes, the other pushing the shortsword into my thorax.

  With a sudden shift of my lower body I put a knee to his stomach, and, as he gasped for air, rolled off and seized the fallen spear. By the time I had turned on him again, he was up and ready, the sword extended and his body hunched over and balanced, feet apart. He was a big man. I, by contrast, was not as athletic as an eighteen-year-old probably should be, wiry of limbs and a touch overfed about the middle. Still, I gripped the spear with both hands as Orgos had shown me, and, nervously, held my ground. At my back, the other troopers were hurrying toward us and the soldier who had fallen in front of our horse was getting to his feet.

  My adversary cut at me, testingly, and I parried neatly, turning my left shoulder toward him and throwing my weight onto my right leg as I’d been taught. A flicker of a smile crossed his angular features, as if the fact that I was less incompetent than I had looked would actually make his inevitable victory more entertaining. He launched a feint attack, pulling back and actually chuckling as my block and lunge whistled through empty air. The footsteps behind us were getting closer. This was not the time to play for a draw.

  I stabbed at him, extending my left leg, keeping my right planted and then, as he parried and cut, pulled back to my original position. Textbook. He grinned. I lunged short and, as I recovered, set my body weight squarely over my front foot, throwing my balance off in ways I could only hold for a couple of seconds. He had parried my attack easily and was looking smug, overconfident. I sprang forward, landing on my right foot and lunging as far as I could reach.

  The speed and aggression of the flèche attack caught him off gu
ard, and by the time he saw it, it was too late. The spear tip punched through the starched white linen of his cuirass just below the shoulder and a spot of crimson blossomed and spread. His eyes rolled back and he sank to the cobbled road, holding his wound.

  “Will!” called Mithos, from the saddle. I turned and found the others were almost upon us. Though Mithos had dealt one of the original troopers a cut across the shoulder blade, which had been enough to take him out of the struggle, the other was now trading blows with him, clearly reluctant to get too close till his fellows from the other end of the street were on hand. This was our chance.

  Once again, I took Mithos’s powerful hand and was hoisted into the saddle. As I warded off the remaining soldier with the spear, our steed shuddered into motion. Behind us, the remaining soldiers, realizing they could not hope to catch us on foot, threw their spears in an erratic volley. One whistled over my head and clattered on the road ahead, another sparked against the stone wall to my right and fell to earth.

  Three more turns, seven or eight blocks traveled, and no sign of the enemy. Our mount, however, was struggling. One of the flung spears had caught her hindquarters and the weapon’s point had torn a hole in the tissue of one thigh. It was a minor wound, but it was bleeding heavily and giving the animal a lot of pain. She wouldn’t run much further. Two more blocks and her canter became erratic as she tried to favor her other legs. Then, even this became too much for her and she stuttered to a halt.

  Mithos glanced at the wound, slid to his feet without a word, and began to run. I followed, amazed we’d held off death this long, but still fully expecting to begin our Kingdom of the Damned tour within the next ten minutes or so. Unless they caught us and took us back for Lengthy Torture and Languid Execution, in which case the tour might start later.