“Oh, my good friend! She’ll want to kill you, naturally. But she won’t. The ole’ Arch Wizard has a soft spot for me. Well, not really, but she’ll need us all. What we’ve seen… we can offer something she needs.”
“And what does she need?” His Common was slow and labored, not used to the syllables.
Scab clapped Crugen on the shoulder and gave him his best smile. “Information, of course. Say, do you mind if we have a drink? I find my mind works better when it’s relaxed. I must say Oakmourn whiskey is a fine choice.”
Crugen glared at him, eyes narrowed and feline lips twitching. He raised his fur lined hand, twiddling his taloned fingers.
“Wonderful, thank you, my good man. My throat is truly parched,” Scab said with a weary sigh.
An ensign hurried over to them with a bow while Crugen barked out orders in the guttural Tigerian tongue. The lean ensign returned with two glasses stuffed in his belt, then dragged the barrel out from under Scab’s boot. He inched the cork out with a hunting knife then proceeded to pour them glasses, water occasionally spraying over them.
Scab accepted the handed glass, giving it a sniff and relishing the scent of smoke and maple. Crugen stared daggers at him, tossed his glass back as if it were intended as an insult. Scab sipped and smiled. “Information. The Arch Wizard will want to know what happened, what tactics she used to take the city.” Scab gestured with his stump.
Crugen slowly nodded. “You know her by person. Will she welcome or attack our arrival?”
Scab shrugged. “Can’t say. Maybe you could try flying white flags.”
A growl formed in Crugen’s throat.
“Relax, it was a joke,” Scab said, sipping the silky-smooth whiskey. “You Tigerians are always so damned serious. Leave the majority of the armada a few miles out. Take a convoy to the Tower with me, yourself, and whoever else into port to avoid any mishaps. Some wizards can call lightning from the sky. You naturally don’t want to appear as an invading party. And leave them here too. Not sure they’d make a good impression,” Scab nodded toward a trio of human bounty hunters circled at the foredeck. They were heavily armed with daggers, swords, and crossbows. They wore the scars and had the stance earned from a hard life of murder.
“Why?” Crugen asked. “They are my favored.”
Scab snickered then sipped. “The Arch Wizard does not take well to bounty hunters.”
“Very well. Any other advice you can offer?” Crugen winced as he said it, as if asking for help was causing him a great deal of pain.
“No…” Scab trailed off, setting his gaze over the roiling sea in the direction of the Tower. “Don’t get put into her dungeons. I’ve caught wind of a new barrage of experiments she’s been conducting. You’d be better off dead, so just fight until you’re dead if it comes to it.”
TEN
The Champions
“The sun dies and rises in an endless cycle. Not all live to see it rise again. Senka promised me she would fight as hard as she could.” - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
“I have been waiting long for this moment, to finally face a foe worthy of my hammer’s crush,” said Bezog in a rising tone loud enough so she could hear. “And yet before me is a child, a filthy poisoner no less.”
Senka gave him nothing, her face a blank mask.
He sat slumped on a stool with a pair of Midgaard Falcon soldiers standing at either side, red-plumed helms swaying like wheat in the breeze. One soldier’s face was as placid as Bezog’s, the other frowning at Senka as if he were disappointed by what he saw.
Behind them was a line of twenty or so Black Guards, and farther behind them, Princess Larissa and King Ezra himself glared down at them from a makeshift dais of rough-cut timbers. The king’s beard stirred about his gaunt face by the dying wind. Senka thought Larissa might’ve been beautiful had she not looked so haggard, eyes cavernous and cheeks paled. Her mauve dress seemed to float over her bony figure.
The afternoon sun was high, below it the black outline of the circling walls of Helm’s Reach. The city was selected because it was a neutral ground and a land between their strongholds. The majority of the citizens were blessed by the touch of the gods and able to use magic. A great number of them still swore fealty to Midgaard and thus provided an acceptable place for the king and the Arch Wizard.
Surrounding them was maybe a hundred soldiers of the Falcon, spears raised to keep any onlookers for making a lunge for the square. The bout drew practically every denizen from the confines of the city. From the beggars in Dirt Ring to the nobles from the inner walls, all were drawn to the prospect of bloodshed.
“I thought you’d want a bit more time to live,” Senka said, forcing her lips into a hard smile. She strode into the dirt covered square, passing between the Arch Wizard and her assistant Vesla. Thirty of the best veteran wizards of the Tower parted to let her through their ranks, a bevy of azure and scarlet robes shifting. The square spanned about twenty of Senka’s strides on either side. Torches bearing white balls of Dragon fire were driven into the ground to demarcate the fighting area.
Only she or Bezog would leave this patch of earth alive.
“My time always approaches its end,” Bezog said, shrugging his enormous shoulders, armored plates hissing as they slid. “The Shadow Realm welcomes us all, eventually.”
“Maybe it welcomes you before it welcomes me,” Senka said, stomach clenching.
“Maybe.” Bezog stroked the rounded pommel of his war hammer, the bottom tipped with a grisly spike. “You are Senka Graves then? The Arch Wizard’s Scorpion?”
“I am.”
“The same one who killed Dressna, the winged creature of Asebor’s Wretched?”
“The same.”
“The Senka who rescued Greyson Rogard from Tigeria?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“The one who entered the Shadow Realm and returned to the world of man?” Bezog slitted his dark eyes, gazing at something near her chest. “I thought they were all lies. I see you’ve been there, see your scar.”
Her fingers reached it, tracing the shape of the upraised figure eight scar on the back of her neck. It was the brand everyone who had gone to the Shadow Realm returned with. “Some lies, some half-truths,” she muttered. How did he know these things? Who was this man?
“The true truth, it’s never enough is it?” Bezog smiled on one side of his mouth, drawing up a mighty shield from the scowling Falcon soldier to his right. Its face was painted black to match Bezog’s armor, dented by what seemed like thousands of blows. He gestured with his shield arm. “I let all of my enemies hit it at least once. Do you like it?”
“Slow, heavy, too encumbering,” she said with a shrug and a twiddle of her fingers.
“Yes, but I only have to hit once,” Bezog said, his thick fingers curling around the haft of his war hammer, the steel whispering as he rose up to his fearsome height.
Senka doubted she would’ve been able to wield the thing, but it seemed like nothing but a dagger in his hands. A dryness settled on her tongue.
“Maybe there will be a story about us someday,” Bezog gruffed.
“Maybe. But only one of us will get to hear it.” Senka watched as he stepped forward, lumbering under all that weight of leather and steel. He had the height, more reach, greater strength, and armor. She had the speed and the cunning. She just had to outlast him. Outlasting was her forte.
“Not going to poison me, are you?” Bezog snickered.
“Where would the honor be in that? If I wanted to poison you, you’d already be dead.”
“It’s not too late to yield, give up now,” Bezog said, giving his hammer a twirl in his hand like it was merely a stick. “I’ve fought many men in many duels, none but me coming out alive. I’ve sent a lot of men into the Shadow Realm. You’re still sure you want to join them now?”
Senka said nothing, slightly raising her chin, and meeting his stare.
Bezog’s eyes took her in for the first time, scanning h
er body, her blades, judging her. She had eight daggers in all. The two on her hips were her fathers, two mounted against her forearms, two on the outside of her boots, two hidden across her back along her belt. She wondered what he saw, what openings, what spots of strength. “Never fought a woman though. Suppose there are always first times.”
“And last times. This will be your last duel, Bezog Boneslayer.” Senka raised her chin high, jaw clenched. “Your Northern gods will not protect you from my blades.”
She’d hoped to provoke him into some measure of rashness, a retorting taunt at least. All he gave her though was a pitying smile. “The bravado of youth. How I miss those years. I cannot be killed,” he said, reaching down to rub at an iron-bound book laying against his hip.
“By the Dragon, if you’re hearing me, give her the strength to win,” mouthed Isa. His hands were clenched so tight red sickles were forming in his palms. “Let her live, live.”
A grim silence fell over the crowd as the champions took their places in the square, chairs removed. A dust devil tore across the weed-choked landscape. A trio of vultures circled the square, their calls harsh and grating at his ears. A boot squeaked as someone readjusted their footing, standing on tiptoes to get a better view.
The Arch Wizard joined King Ezra in the empty space between Senka and Bezog, casting her with a scowl before he turned to face the crowd. “Are you both prepared to fight?” The king’s voice bellowed over the crowd. Nods from both fighters. “Are you ready to die? To be welcomed into the arms of the Shadow Realm?”
Bezog’s body was thick as a mountain, chest raised up proud. He hefted his great hunk of shield, war hammer hanging limp in a two-fingered grip. “May the gods give me the strength to fell my enemies,” he rumbled.
Senka crouched low, daggers whispering murder as she ripped them from their sheaths. She bared her teeth in a cruel smile. “Ready!” Senka spat.
The Arch Wizard nodded to the king, who threw a red silken handkerchief into the air. It floated on the breeze as he backed away. Down and down it drifted, undulating and reflecting the bright of the sun. Every eye was fixed on it, every breath held deep in chests. It whirled on an eddy, moving slightly up before resuming its fall.
Isa wasn’t one to spend much of any time praying to the gods, but now he prayed. “By the Dragon, by the Phoenix give her the strength to win, let her live.”
When that bit of fluttering fabric touched the ground. Senka launched herself at Bezog like an uncoiling spring. She had not forgotten her father’s lessons. Be the first to strike. No hesitation. No mercy. Always strike. The wind rushed in her ears over her first stride. Bezog blinked, an ancient and immovable statue. On her second step, her heel caught the handkerchief, launching it into the air behind her with a stream of earth. Bezog watched.
On her third stride, she was near enough to attack, screaming, stabbing upward with one dagger, the other poised to loop around and take him in the throat. Bezog shifted, eyes wide, lunging in to meet her charge. Her daggers clashed against his shield, carving a long groove down the metal, throwing out a shower of sparks. The crowd roared.
Senka felt then that this had been the strongest opponent she’d ever fought. Not even Dressna was as strong as this man. She’d fought opponents with shields before, and they always gave a bit upon impact. His hadn’t yielded a nudge. The force of her blows could stagger even the most stalwart of Death Spawn. Striking Bezog’s shield was like trying to hurt a boulder. His hammer came down, the flat lined with spikes and gleaming death. She got her daggers up in time, body twisting away, parrying the blow, and sending a vibration down her arms that rattled down to her toes.
Senka’s resolve was as deep as an iceberg, her roots as stubborn as an ancient oak’s. A deterrent only encouraged her.
Bezog’s swing left his arm exposed, and she darted after it. Her dagger sliced at the opportunity, cutting him across the top of his wrist where armor met leather. Ruby beads followed her cut, spattering across the stomach of his breastplate. Despite his bulk, he leaped deftly back with a grunt and a smile, perhaps a laugh. He fell in behind his shield.
Bezog stepped, great hammer whipping and blurring. She stumbled low and to the side, barely dodging in time as it whooshed over her head with enough force to remove it from her body. The weight of that blow could’ve ripped shields in two, stoved in armor, and flattened helms. As she rose, she waited for the opening that would inevitably be left from such a mighty blow and was aghast to find nothing. He’d learned from his error.
She swallowed. Bezog handled his hammer as if it were a pin, no mindless rage in it, but measured control in his movements. His expression was calm, his shield held strong with her new mark upon its face. She would be its last, she resolved. She danced a step back, screamed and charged in with a whirling flurry of blades. Each and every strike connected with steel, two against his shield, another his hammer, breastplate, and another his plated shoulder. Bezog inched back with every strike, slowly giving up ground.
He rammed her with his shield, sending her staggering back and reclaiming all his lost earth. It was a blow that might have knocked the wind from her lungs had she not turned her shoulder in time, wrenching something in the socket like it had been filled with fire. She growled, stuffing the pain down deep where it couldn’t bother her now. She gave the shoulder a testing circle, finding it working perfectly well.
Bezog carefully settled his stance, shield and hammer returning to their favored positions by his side. He twisted his giant foot in the dirt. “Come, girl,” he beckoned with his shield.
“She’s an incredible warrior,” Claw hissed as Senka dashed at Bezog, slashing at him with another series of strikes. Metal shrieked on metal. “Yes!” Her blades worked new scars in Bezog’s shield and along his armor.
Isa’s forearms were starting to hurt, relenting a bit on his grip as he watched. He sucked in a hard breath as she rolled to avoid a crushing blow from Bezog’s hammer, throwing up clods of dirt. She came up growling, hacking at his legs and only getting armor, trying to stab at his shield arm as he leaped back. Senka fell into a strange dance, stumbling around the square as if she were drugged, making it almost impossible to determine where her next attack would come. Her legs flowed under her form, always catching herself before what might’ve been a fall, tempo unpredictable.
Bezog studied her over the top of his shield, eyes narrowed and hammer raised.
“He is careful,” the Arch Wizard breathed at Isa’s side.
Isa nodded, saying nothing, unable to pull his eyes from the bout.
“She wounded him,” Juzo said with a pleased tone. “He fears her now.”
Bezog twisted the balls of his feet into the earth, settling his legs like pillars in the Dread Temple. He was motionless as Senka danced, watching and waiting.
“He is the mountain, and she is the storm,” Claw gruffed.
“Over a long enough time, the storm always wins,” said Nyset.
“Time…” Juzo murmured.
Would there be enough? Isa thought. “She will live, she will live,” he whispered.
Bezgo’s shield was portcullis of iron. Senka had no hope of breaking it but had to attack the chains holding it up. Weaving her way around it would likely not prove to be any easier. He had to get tired eventually, had to show some weakness. She’d never seen a shield worked so well. He was quick to shift it, use it as a weapon, a ram, and a primary tool. His lead leg was showing below it, sometimes stepping a bit too far forward, but it too was armored. It was a weakness, but to target it, her strikes had to be quick and precise to get between his armor at the joints.
Was he baiting her? Maybe he was offering her the leg so a well-placed hammer blow could crush her flat. It was tempting, but Bezog was no dullard. A man who’d made it this long with so many dents on his shield certainly had a portfolio of tricks at the ready. She wanted that leg.
She was faster, hardened by the scourges of the Nether, more shrewd, Isa reminded her befo
re the fight. She had her own gambits and wouldn’t fall for another’s.
Senka’s gaze fell on his leg, licking her teeth in anticipation, making sure Bezog saw it. She leaped for it. His hammer came down hard like a viper to a mouse, but she was prepared, twisting around it. One dagger tore up and across, not low on the back of his knee where he’d expected. She saw the flicker of recognition in his bulging eyes. He leaned back, ripping his shield up, the top snaring her wrist but not fast enough. Her blade bit deep and into his mouth. It whispered through the corner of his lip and up his cheek, clattered along teeth, and came out giving him a lopsided smile.
She thought the shock of the blow would’ve sent him reeling back, but on he came. The wound was nothing to him. Bright blood rolled down his chin and throat, pink tongue lapping at the split flesh. The only recognition he offered from the strike was the slightest narrowing of his eyes as he lunged at her, shield lowering and driving up. She stumbled back before his shield caught her in the throat and crushed it flat. Instead, it collided into her chest and sent her staggering.
She got her footing and her breath after a few steps, thanking the Dragon for the surprising lack of pain. Bezog’s figure sharpened, the screaming of the onlookers falling away. She saw how the sun reflected from his shoulders, the tip of his shield, and from the blood rolling down to his chest. She must have taken a notch from his tongue given how badly he was bleeding. Bezog charged with a mighty scream, giving no quarter now, hammer chopping only air as she dodged.
She coughed up something hot and tasting like iron, spitting it out of the side of her mouth. Blood, bright on the earth. His shield blow did something, but what, she couldn’t feel.
The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7) Page 18
