by David Oliver
Cassius probably would have disapproved. He didn’t particularly like the idea of killing someone from behind. It was one of the first things the Academy had tried to hammer into us, that there is no such thing as a fair fight, just the living and the dead. We were actively instructed to fight as unfairly as possible. It was, after all, the very principle of Kaschan. It was actually one of the few areas where Cassius wasn’t excelling, but then again with his sword work he didn’t particularly need to fight dirty. I probably didn’t need to either due to the benefits bestowed upon me by Seya but whereas Cassius rebelled against the idea of fighting dirty I was a quick and enthusiastic learner. Afterall, revenge was my driving force and revenge wasn’t something that you could so easily accomplish with a sense of honour. Or at least not the revenge I had in mind which consisted of a substantial amount of gratuitous violence.
Eye for an eye and all that.
Put simply, men fell to my blade. I would like to say I was like a whisper in the night, a knife in the dark and all that romantic poetry that ends up embellishing folk heroes but in reality I was like a somewhat quieter though just as prone to coughing individual who could hear where his next opponent was. And as it happened, that was enough. I left a trail of dead or dying men on my way to the centre of the camp where the thunk of blades and claws on flesh still resonated. The Hrudan were making a good show of it, swinging their broad bladed axes with all the savage might that their corded muscles afforded, the axe heads parting fur and skin to bite deep into the troll’s flesh. For it was the troll, that much I could be sure, in all its strange blue skinned glory, and just as it had with the spiders its powers of regeneration made it a foe beyond that of the men. Bloody wounds that would leave a human dead were healing in a matter of moments. Unfortunately for the men that surrounded the troll they didn’t share the same ability. I watched through the dust as a warrior rushed in and swung at the creature’s leg, his axe slicing through to the bone and sending visibly clotting blood into the air. The blade caught slightly as the wound began to heal and the troll’s counter stroke removed his head in a very messy fashion, sending it flying through the air and leaving his body to join the visceral display that coated the ground. It had all the hallmarks of being a one-sided slaughter and if it had stayed that way I would have left the troll to its fun and gone to find my friends. Unfortunately the Hrudan, like all humans, possessed the same thing that made humans rise above animals time and time again. The ability to adapt.
It was clear that they had fought trolls before. Granted this troll was very different to the normal lumbering beasts of destruction, but it retained enough similarities that many of the same fighting moves could be applied. What was more impressive was that one of the men had recognised the enemy for what it was and given orders accordingly. Those men who ringed the troll knew that it was futile. I realised too late that they were there purely to keep it in place as bait. It was the other group of men hidden from my eyes but not my senses who were standing just outside the ring in a huddle that was the real threat. They finished rubbing something over the blades of their weapons and then with a whoosh the axe heads ignited. As one they turned and moved into the circle, each man taking the place of another who didn’t have a fire coated weapon - who promptly disengaged and ran to where the men had been huddled, where I could dimly smell over the dust and blood some sort of flammable unguent.
This time when one of the men ran in and struck the troll the flame singed away the hair, sizzled through the skin and seared the cut of the blade, effectively cauterising the wound. The beast roared and swung a claw but the man dropped and rolled out of the way, wrenching his blade out as he did so. Unlike before no blood spurted out of the wound and the men watched with hungry eyes as the wound failed to close. A shared murmur of success and the men began to close the circle, flaming blades held ready. The troll was roaring, one hand patting at its leg in an all too human movement, surprise evident in its eyes. With its other hand it swung out at the approaching group, catching a man by the shoulder and sending him tumbling to the floor. It was when another blade sliced down leaving behind the scent of sizzling troll fat and a flash of fear in the creature’s eyes that I knew I had to step in.
Three paces carried me to the closest man, my knife thrusting into the back of his neck and ending his life instantly. The downside to my plan was whilst the ash made me relatively difficult to spot, the flaming axe tumbling to the ground was enough to attract the attention of the three warriors next to me. I flicked my knife in the direction of the nearest, a well-timed stumble as he drove through the ash saving his life as the blade took him in the shoulder rather than the throat. Committed now and hoping fervently that the angry troll remembered me as a friend and not an enemy I swept forward, spinning as I moved, clasping the handle of the fallen axe and delivering an oblique cut that swept a line of fire down the front of the closest man. Stepping off line with the third I drove the handle of the axe into the chest of the warrior who had just recovered from being struck with the knife, sending him stumbling backwards and leaving me free to strike at the remaining member of the trio. He managed to parry the first two blows, his skill with the axe greater than mine, but my speed and strength kept him on the defensive allowing me to press the attack until an uppercutting blow removed his jaw, the follow up cleaving the unfortunate first man from neck to groin. The overwhelming smell of cooking meat radiated from the three bodies where the liquid fire still burned. I had heard of the substance but had yet to see it in action. It was fascinatingly deadly.
The troll didn’t let my distraction go to waste and closed the distance between himself and the closest foe with terrifying speed. The man barely had time to scream before he was torn asunder and the beast roared in challenge and fury before charging into its next victim.
That quickly the circle that could have spelled death for the troll was broken. Facing attack on two sides the Hrudan warriors fell into disarray, fighting bravely but quickly succumbing to the whirlwind of fury and claws that was the troll. Those that came towards me fought bravely but didn’t come in enough numbers to counter my physical advantages. I danced between four men, cutting in swirling arcs - the flaming axe leaving fire trails in the air and by the time the third man was dead the fourth was in the hands of the troll. Once his screams were over the two of us stood in the Hrudan slaughterhouse and caught our breath, eyes watching the other intently. I slowly and carefully put the axe on the floor before holding my hands up to show I was no threat. I already knew that it recognised me - I wasn’t dead - but I didn’t know if it would react strongly to the flaming blades that had inflicted such damage. The troll glared at me with such raw hatred in its eyes that I felt inclined to pick back up the weapon. Forcing the impulse back down I stood my ground and locked eyes with the creature. Slowly the look in its eyes softened to a low bubble of anger and I no longer immediately feared for my life.
Inclining my head in respect I spoke up, grating the words out past my ash parched throat. “Thank you.”
For a moment the troll did nothing then stiffly inclined its head in an all too human nod, accompanying the motion with a grunt that I took to have the same meaning. We might not like each other - or at least it didn’t like me - but apparently we could work together well enough and for that I was grateful.
“We’re going to head back to Jadira’s fort,” I said after an uncomfortable pause. “You’re welcome to join us.”
With a snort the beast shook its head and stepped backwards into the still swirling dust, a hulking shadow for a second and then gone.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered before picking up my knife and turning down the hill. “Grumpy bastard.”
Chapter 20
Winter
In the end I think the troll had more sense than me, though it pains me to say it. I re-joined the others and we checked that the pass was fully blocked before joyfully heading off back in the direction of Jadira’s fort. Lives saved and mission done
.
How woefully, utterly unprepared we were for the deep of winter. We thought we had seen the worst it had to offer on the trip in, but the deep snows had taken their time in coming and made the trip back at best miserable and at worst murderous. Luckily we had the clothes and equipment that we had scavenged from the Hrudan and so comparatively we were much warmer, but even thick clad leathers and furs were no match for wading through waist deep snow day in and day out. After the second day of the journey we were exhausted and our clothes were soaked. By day three we were desperately searching for firewood to dry out our layers and save our extremities. By day ten we were on quarter rations. On day twenty-two we came across a half-eaten frozen deer carcass. We ate it half raw, barely waiting for the ice to melt before the might of our pitiful fire before ravenously tucking in. From day thirty-eight to forty-one we were stalked by wolves that were so hungry as to no longer be afraid of fire. We killed two, leaving one for the pack and one for us. I don’t know if the pack ate their own but they didn’t bother us again.
It was day fifty-two when we finally stumbled into the shelter of the fort. Each of us painfully lean, scarred, grizzled and sunburned. One of us - I’ll let you guess who - was missing two toes and another the bottom of an ear lobe. Jadira didn’t recognise who we were at first and awe was on the faces of the Meredothians as we piled into the first proper warmth we had experienced in nearly two months. It wasn’t awe at our bravery in facing such a wintery onslaught, but awe at our complete and utter stupidity...and as I sat there nursing a hacking cough and frostbitten hands with warm mead I could not blame them in the slightest for such a reaction.
I think Jadira felt responsible for our sorry state as we did not want for anything for the remainder of our stay at the fort. She took our report on the pass, dispatched men to organise forces and fortify the Meredothian side of the canyon as soon as the snows lessened and then spent the rest of the time mothering us like only a hard-nosed Meredothian warrior queen could. Which primarily meant mead.
Lots of mead.
The rest of winter at the fort passed in a haze of food, alcohol, and most importantly, warmth. The team rarely left the blaze of the hearth fires, content to lay on the floor rushes in mead assisted stupor. Slowly but surely we built up the fat reserves that we had lost during the trek and began to look somewhat like our old selves, just with more scars and less appendages. It took time but the gaunt features and serious eyes of those who had suffered for long, arduous hours slowly began to disappear. Yet that isn’t to say that everything was forgotten and that we were once again our young teenage selves. Even within the confines of the fort, wrapped in the warmth of blankets and fires and fuelled by rich food and mead, we couldn’t forget. The trauma that each of us had experienced in that place was more than we possibly could have expected. More so because we had been thrust into the fight, tortured and exposed without having any time to prepare...not that we could have prepared for such a thing, but you had to admire the Academy’s gall at unleashing such an experience on its students. There was still a small chance that it wasn’t the Academy who had kidnapped us of course, but it didn’t tally with the very real feeling but seemingly non-damaging torture as well as us just so happening to end up at a location where our support could fulfil a promise of the Emperor. No. It had to be the Academy. The more I thought about it the more it all made more sense. I doubted that any of the fourth-year tests were the same and yet they probably all fulfilled some purpose of the Academy or Emperor and were equally horrifying - providing some measure of the team’s ability to deal with pain, heartache and still being able to function to provide some important service to the Empire. It practically had the stamp of being an Imperator trial all over it and would go a long way to highlighting why no one back at the Academy had ever wanted to discuss the test; it likely brought back unpleasant memories and thoughts of friends now lost. Afterall, considering what we had been through I held no illusions that every single person or team came back.
The time we spent at the fort was, in all, time well spent. As winter began to release its grip on the country we began to emerge into the blinding light of the outside world, helping Jadira and her men to begin clearing the snow and ice melt, joining in to repair what the winter storms had broken and beginning to cycle back through the motions we had learnt to keep our bodies limber and weapon skills sharp. By the time spring was properly in motion we were back at our prior levels of physical prowess, the dust of the past few months shaken off and our skills resharpened. First up in the morning for fitness training and last standing for combat practice - sharpening the Meredothian skills in addition to our own. And so it was an early morning when we saw the eagle pass overhead, its leg bearing a message only for Jadira’s eyes.
A message to bring us home.
Part II
Cards on the Board
Present day
Simultaneous detonations echoed along the tree line, thundering away into the distance to be replaced by the terrifying sound of shifting rock. The landslide started slowly, a trickle of rocks and dust that slowly shifted into a torrent of mud, stone and despair. The thyrkan forces beneath us split in the centre and ran for the illusion of safety.
A nod and Issan gave a shout. Flaming arrows arced down from the mountain side and the remaining barrels of black powder hidden on either side of the path erupted in a blinding flash of light and smoke, sending thyrkan staggering back, bleeding and bruised and straight into the path of the landslide.
Issan and his small contingent of Scourge troops let out cheers at the sight, exultant in the crushing of the region commander. I kept my gaze firmly on the tumbling rocks. Whilst it would have been difficult to survive such an event the thyrkan had an annoying tendency to not die easily.
The thunder rumbled away as the rocks began to settle, the dust cloud thick and suffocating. I summoned from my small pool of seraph and sent a gust of wind to clear the dust from our vision. If they had surviving warlocks then it might not have been the smartest move, but having the ability for the ten strong team of Scourge citizens to feather anything that survived would be likely more useful in the long run. Besides, perhaps it was over, perhaps the rockslide annihilated everything in its path and all there was to do was celebrate.
A rock moved.
I let out a sigh and unsheathed Asp. Nothing is ever easy.
A flash of black light from between the gaps in the rocks and then I was diving, tackling Issan to the floor as the boulders were flung in all directions. When I regained my feet three thyrkan stood in a crater now void of any rock bigger than a speck of dust.
“Warlocks!” Issan hissed. “Had to be warlocks.”
“They’re not alone,” I murmured, concentrating my senses across the debris field. There! A boulder was flung aside, sailing in a high arc across the sky. In its place stood a hulking brute of a thyrkan.
“Reaver,” I confirmed and Issan paled. Silly really - a warlock was far worse than a reaver in most situations. But I had to admit, reavers looked far more terrifying.
“Get your archers on those warlocks,” I ordered. “Thunderheads first.”
“What about the reaver?” he shot back.
“The reaver will be nearly invincible with warlocks backing it up. Take them down!” I had no wish for Cassius to meet the reaver head on again, if that happened then I would inevitably end up fleeing for my life yet again.
Black lightning crackled as the two warlocks began their retaliation. The third member of their trio which I could only presume was the commander of the region and intended target of this raid, stood in complete calm, analysing and watching everything that it could whilst the reaver let out a mighty bellow and began sprinting towards the hilltop.
The lightning condensed into orbs of arcing energy, each one vibrating with power that, having seen it in action before, would quite literally and very vividly melt flesh off bones. Thankfully Issan had come prepared. Arrows screamed into the sky, coming down to deto
nate in a series of thunderous flashes that blinded and deafened their intended targets. As I knew all too well from my seraph lessons many years ago, the easiest way to kill a caster was to interrupt its concentration. The arcing energy released as the noise disoriented the warlocks, loosing across the countryside in a devastating but randomly directed show of power. Before they could recover more arrows arced in, these ones fitted with heads heavy enough to puncture armour. One warlock fell in a spray of blood, multiple arrows punctured through its torso. The second dropped to a knee but still moved.
Still dangerous.
Two arrows arced towards the commander. A blade lashed out faster than thought and sent them tumbling into the ground. If I hadn’t been watching closely I wasn’t sure that I would have noticed the creature move its action had been that fast.
“Keep firing!” I bellowed over the sound of a rising roar as the reaver made its way closer. As big and scary as they were, something about the transition to reaver made the thyrkan lose any inkling of intelligence that it may have had, which meant that it was clawing its way up the loose rubble with all the subtlety of a charging great boar and sliding back a foot for every two it made.
As more thundering booms echoed across the valley I swept Asp out in a wave of motion, releasing a blade of pent-up energy that screamed through the air to slice through one of the reaver’s legs. Smoke billowed as the wound immediately began to fester with the black acid-like substance that gave Asp its name and the reaver screeched in agony, the high-pitched sound surprising from such a large beast. I gave a grim smile. Without a warlock to support it I had the advantage. Raising my blade I began channelling power for a second strike.
