Edge of Destiny

by J. Robert King

  “You’re deluded.”

  Blue aura erupted from Logan’s hands and swarmed across his hammer. He hauled it overhead to smash into the sand. A profound boom shook the bearbaiting den, flinging Rytlock backward against the half-wall. He smashed it to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Caithe shouted at Logan.

  Rytlock roared as he climbed to his feet. “What he’s doing is picking out his burial plot.” He charged, and Sohothin fell like lightning.

  Logan rolled away, flinging sand from his heels. Some of the grains flared like tiny meteors in Sohothin’s mantle. The sword chopped through another half-wall, igniting years’ worth of spilled spirits. Flames raced around the pit and leaped to the stands.

  Scrambling along the base of the wall, Logan climbed to his feet and spun about, panting. “You’re as slow as an ettin.”

  “You’re as thick as one.” Rytlock charged again.

  Logan’s hand painted an arc of blue energy in the air before him. He staggered back as Rytlock thudded into the magical shield.

  Arcane energy sparked across the charr’s front, but Sohothin cleaved through. It swept down at Logan.

  Logan lunged to one side as the sword sliced past him. He whirled around and smashed his hammer into Rytlock’s wrist.

  “Ah!” the charr shouted.

  The blow sent Sohothin flying through the air. It spun just over Caithe’s head and embedded in one of the support beams for the upper boxes. Flames clambered up the wood.

  As Logan’s mystic shield dissipated, Rytlock charged through it, gripping his broken wrist. “You’ll pay for that!”

  Logan struggled to get his hammer between him and the charr, but Rytlock backhanded the weapon. It flew through the air, crashing through the back wall of the theater. Rytlock then grabbed Logan and hoisted him in the air, ramming his back against the bearbaiting post.

  “You have some nerve!” Rytlock roared.

  Logan grabbed the chains hanging from the post and hurled them at Rytlock’s face. The charr winced back, and Logan wormed from his grip. Dropping to the ground, Logan scuttled free and ran for the burning pillar where Sohothin was embedded.

  Rytlock followed, roaring.

  The gathered crowd roared, too, delighted to see the man and the charr battle in the burning theater. It truly was burning: walls of flame sent smoke and sparks high into the air.

  Logan reached the pillar and started to shimmy up.

  “No, you don’t,” Rytlock growled. His good hand pried Logan off the beam, hurled him into nearby seats, and reached up to snag the sword.

  “No, you don’t,” said another voice—a deep voice accompanied by a cutlass grip ramming into Rytlock’s throat.

  He looked to see his attacker—a norn with a tanned, dreadlocked, piratical face. “Who’re you?”

  “Magnus, one of the Captains of the Ship’s Council of Lion’s Arch, head of the Lionguard,” the man said grandiloquently.

  “That’s a lot to remember,” Rytlock replied.

  “Then just remember my nickname—the Bloody Handed.” Magnus nodded at the brute squad around him. “You, my destructive friend, are under arrest.”

  Rytlock’s shoulders tensed, bracing for another fight.

  “You have no weapon,” Magnus pointed out with a steely voice, “your wrist looks broken, and you’re more than surrounded.”

  Rytlock shot a look over his shoulder, where more of the brute squad were dragging Logan from the wreck of seats. Two other Lionguard flanked Caithe.

  “It’s off to jail for the three of you.”

  IN SEARCH OF WARRIORS

  Eir stepped from the frigid solitude of Hoelbrak into the bustling heat of Lion’s Arch. At her heels, Garm trotted through the asura gate, and Snaff and Zojja brought up the rear. The four who had nearly destroyed the Dragonspawn now stood as strangers in a new city.

  “Ah, Lion’s Arch,” Snaff said, clapping his hands together. He drew a deep draft of the salt-sea air and pounded his chest. “The Pirate Paradise. The Shore of the World. The Well of Races. The Freest City in Tyria—”

  “The Place Where We Are,” Zojja said dispiritedly.

  Snaff looked out at the folk that streamed down the avenue—every intelligent race in Kryta, all going peacefully about their business, coursing through a rankling maze of streets. Here sprawled a marketplace under blue canvas, there towered a keep fashioned of an upended ship. “Being in a city like this is like being alive.”

  “You are alive,” Zojja pointed out.

  “Then I feel doubly alive.”

  A group of human warriors marched past, their eyes raking suspiciously across the dire wolf.

  Eir set her hand on Garm’s muzzle and drew him to sit beside her. “Exhilarating, yes, but we have a mission. We’re here to find warriors. And I know where we can start: Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed.”

  “Norn, I assume?” Snaff asked. “Can’t imagine an asura named Bloody Handed.”

  “Unless he was bad with a hammer,” Zojja remarked.

  “Norn, yes, and a sea captain. If anyone here could help us fight the Dragonspawn, it’d be Magnus. If he will fight.” Eir pointed to the harbor, where tall ships were moored. “Let’s get to the docks.”

  Garm trotted down the lane toward the forest of masts, black against the flashing waves. Snaff and Zojja had to jog to keep pace.

  “Tell us about this Magnus the Bloody Handed,” Snaff said.

  Eir shrugged. “He is a norn who once adventured and gained great fame for himself. Now he is leader of the Lionguard, the peacekeepers of this city.”

  “Impressive,” Snaff said.

  “He’s also a privateer—”

  “A pirate?”

  Eir shot Snaff a dark look. “Forget that you know that word. A privateer is sanctioned by the state to attack enemy ships.”

  “A legal pirate.”

  “Magnus is called the Bloody Handed because of what he does to those who insult him,” Eir said significantly. “But most often, those he fights are those who fight Lion’s Arch. He’s ruthless, but not for himself. For this city.”

  They strode out of a warren of maritime buildings onto the landings where ships unloaded. Lines of longshoremen carried crates to great skids, where they piled them high. All around the dock, taverns and flophouses crowded, eager to trade easy virtues for hard cash.

  “That’s real work,” Snaff said, nodding at the gangs. “Backbreaking, soul-crushing, hand-blistering work. They need more golems.”

  “Your solution to everything,” Zojja said.

  Snaff shrugged. “Magic could set these good souls free.”

  “Free to starve,” Eir replied. “I don’t think these good souls would thank you to hand their jobs to constructs.”

  Passing among the laborers, the band approached a great black ship—Cormorant. It was moored at the dock and built on a norn scale. The beam was twice as wide as that of a human ship, the masts twice as tall, the decks twice as thick. It was a monster of the sea, with massive black ratlines and thousands of feet of sail.

  Of course, the sailors on that ship were massive, too. Norn they were, but their skins were burned brown by a ceaseless sun and a flashing sea. Their clothes were not meant for holding in heat but for shedding it. Instead of bear fur and caribou pelt, these sailors wore tan homespun shirts and brown trousers tied off with old line. The higher-up seamen were garbed in leather vests over their homespun, and officers boasted greatcoats over linen.

  Grandest of all, though, was Captain Magnus himself. Intense eyes stared out beneath the silken band that wrapped his head. The captain’s neck was circled with a collar of walrus tusks, over which streamed his overlong brown hair and overlong mustache. His bare chest was crossed by a pair of leather bandoliers that sported wide-muzzled pistols. At his waist, the bandoliers became a belt, which held up a woolen kilt that draped to his knees. Leather boots were strapped from knee to toe.

  The captain’s eyes fixed on Eir.
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  As she approached the Cormorant, Captain Magnus strode to the rail and propped one foot on a cask and propped one elbow on a knee and stared with undisguised interest. “In all the days since I left my homeland, I have not stared upon so beautiful a woman as you, or one with skin so fair. Fair to the point of whiteness. Blinding. Where is your tan, woman?”

  Eir planted her feet on the dock and looked fearlessly into his eyes. “I fight ice monsters in black caves, and this fool of a norn asks me where my tan is.”

  Magnus scowled, his blue irises ringed in white.

  Garm’s lip drew back in a snarl.

  Snaff and Zojja clutched each other.

  Then Magnus laughed—a deep, threatening laugh. “And where do you think I’ve been, winning this brown skin of mine?”

  “Lazing,” Eir replied without hesitation. “Perhaps in a hammock, after a night of rum.”

  The scowl returned. “You think I won this ship, gathered this crew, by—lazing?”

  Eir shrugged. “A typical man would not be able to. A typical man would have to work three lifetimes to gain a ship and crew like these. An extraordinary man could gain them with no particular effort. Hence, I assumed you were lazing.”

  Magnus’s brow beetled as he turned her words over in his mind. “Why, sure! It was easy. A moment’s thought.” He leaned over the rail, allowing his magnificent pectorals to strain against the bandolier he wore. “When you have charisma, you don’t have to work very hard.”

  “You’ll have to work harder than that,” Eir said.

  “Who are you, porcelain girl, and why do you trade riddles with me?”

  “I’m no porcelain girl. I’m Eir Stegalkin, who confronted and nearly destroyed the Dragonspawn, the greatest champion of Jormag.”

  “You confronted the Dragonspawn?”

  “Confronted and nearly destroyed. We reached his inner sanctum—”

  “If this is true, you are brave!”

  “We seek warriors to join us to finish him.”

  Magnus’s eyebrow cocked. “You want me to join you?”

  “The Dragonspawn is the champion of Jormag. He has declared war on the norn nation.”

  “Jormag is a great threat,” Magnus responded, nodding deeply. “But he is only one of three dragons who have arisen beneath our feet. The dragons are rising everywhere.”

  “Jormag is the dragon who afflicts your people.”

  “My people are in Lion’s Arch, and the Orrian dragon afflicts us. I fight his champion—Morgus Lethe. He rules the sea. He sends dead things up from the bottom to sink ships and to feast on the living. I destroy his monsters. I save this city!”

  “What about Hoelbrak?”

  A slow grin began on Magnus’s face, extending into his eyes. “The people of Lion’s Arch are my people. I have chosen my battles.” Magnus shook his head and laughed ruefully. “The world is changing, Eir Stegalkin. You must change with it. Perhaps I should ask you to join me. Get some sun on that lily skin.”

  Eir sighed. “When the Dragonspawn is dead, perhaps I will take you up on that offer. Just now, though, I need my own fighters.”

  Magnus’s eyebrows lifted. “If it’s fighters you need, it just so happens that I have a side business that specializes in them.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “It’s an arena where criminals can earn out of their jail sentences while providing the people of Lion’s Arch with entertainment.”

  “Brutal.”

  Magnus let out a broad-beamed laugh. “They’d much rather fight in my arena than languish in a cell. I buy their billets, and the Lionguard makes sure they don’t run off, and they fight until they’ve paid me back. It’s in everyone’s best interest.” He grinned. “My booming enterprise might just be the place for you to find the fighters you need.”

  Eir shook her head. “I come asking after a norn legend and get sent to jailbirds.”

  Magnus laughed. “I saw a pair yesterday, a man and a charr. They fought like devils and destroyed a bearbaiting pit”—he paused to spit—“which I personally was glad of. But as head of the Lionguard, well, I had to lock them up. They’re stewing just now in the dockside row house, but I’m about to send my agent to buy their billet.”

  “How much is their billet?”

  “About five hundred gold.”

  Eir whistled. “Thanks all the same. If you change your mind about the mission—”

  “I won’t,” Magnus said, smiling.

  Eir turned away. “Come along, Garm.”

  “Nice wolf,” Magnus called after her. “He’d be magnificent for boardings.”

  As Eir and Garm strode from the docks, she leaned toward her wolf and said, “You really would be.”

  He pricked up his ears.

  Snaff and Zojja ran to catch up to them.

  “What now?” Zojja asked.

  Eir looked at the sky, deepening to dusk. “Now, we figure out another plan.”

  Caithe sat on a wooden bunk propped against a wall of thick-stacked stone. It was the only bunk in the cell, and she shared it with Logan and Rytlock. “We’ll have to sleep in shifts.”

  “Logan better not sleep at all,” Rytlock snarled as he leaned against the wall of the cell, “trying to steal my sword.”

  “You stole it first!” Logan growled, pacing along the bars at the front. “And now neither one of us has it. They confiscated it—and my hammer.”

  “Worthless hunk of metal! I can’t believe you would compare my sword to your hammer!”

  Logan whirled. “I don’t. That’s the whole point! I’m not carrying a fabled, sacred charr weapon.”

  “And neither am I, thanks to you!” Rytlock spat back.

  “Enough!” shouted Caithe, suddenly standing between them, her slim hands held out to either side. “You’re stuck together in a cell, and you’re fighting over an empire? Over a sword that neither one of you has?”

  The man and the charr snarled one last time before turning away from each other.

  Just then, a dark-complected man strode up the cell corridor. He had a stern face beneath long black hair, and he wore embroidered silk robes. Behind the man came an entourage of muscular warriors.

  Logan glanced nervously at them. “Those guys aren’t Lionguard.”

  The man stopped, planted his feet, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You fight well.”

  Rytlock nodded. “If you’re talking about the bearbaiting den back there, yeah, we sure do.”

  “I am Sangjo, an agent of Magnus, head of the Lionguard and member of the Captains—”

  “The Bloody Headed,” Rytlock interrupted.

  “The Bloody Handed,” Sangjo corrected with a wan smile. “He would like to purchase your billet.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rytlock snarled.

  “Your debt to society—specifically, repairing the portion of the city you burned down,” the man said sedately.

  “Which is?”

  “Five hundred gold.”

  Rytlock’s eyes flew wide. “How are we supposed to get that kind of money?”

  “Agree to Magnus’s offer,” Sangjo said placidly.

  “Which is?”

  “My boss is prepared to pay for your billet—if you agree to fight in his arena.”

  “What?”

  “Master Magnus has an arena where you could fight for your freedom, earning money to pay him back. Or you could sit here and rot. It’s your choice.”

  Caithe asked, “If we fought, how long would it take to pay him back?”

  “Not long,” Sangjo said, “perhaps a dozen matches—if you win.”

  “We can’t fight,” Rytlock said. “We have no weapons.”

  “Your weapons will be returned to you before each match and taken from you afterward.”

  Rytlock huffed, “Well, we can’t fight for at least a week, since grawl-boy here broke my wrist.”

  Sangjo’s enigmatic smile only widened. “Then let grawl-boy fix it.”

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nbsp; Rytlock glared at Logan. “You could heal me?”

  “Not all at once. A little bit now, and then an hour later, a little more.”

  “Why didn’t you try?” raged Rytlock.

  “You’d’ve taken my head off!” Logan shouted back.

  “There’s that,” Rytlock growled. He sighed. “All right, I won’t. Promise. Now, get to it.”

  ARENA

  Next morning, Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe walked among stern-looking warriors who led them from the jail to the arena. Rytlock’s wrist was fully healed, but the rift between the man and the charr was only partially so. Last night, both fighters had fidgeted and fussed as Logan healed Rytlock. This morning, neither had spoken to the other.

  They walked through a narrow set of winding lanes, with half-timber houses leaning over them. At last, they reached a much-trammeled plot of land with the overturned hull of a huge ship in its center. Many people milled outside the wooden hull, and money changed hands. A few of the people there stared with lurid admiration at Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe.

  “Fresh meat,” one man said darkly.

  Rytlock reached for Sohothin but, of course, his sword and scabbard were gone.

  The guards marched them toward a wide rectangular entrance cut into one side of the overturned hull. The passage was preternaturally dark, shielded by a curtain of magic, but sounds came from within.

  Feet pounded. Voices shouted. Swords clanged. Someone screamed.

  “Are we making a mistake?” Logan asked.

  “Quite possibly,” Caithe responded.

  Rytlock scowled. “You two got any money?”

  “No,” they chorused.

  Rytlock swept his claws forward. “Then let’s go.”

  The three strode among their guards through the mystic curtain. They emerged into a gigantic space—a huge arena carved into the ground. Rows of stone benches descended toward a broad, sandy arena. Warriors practiced there. To the right, a man and a centaur faced off. To the left, an ogre battled a charr. In one spot, a team of gorilla-like grawl assaulted a pair of scaly skritt.

  “This must be the place,” Logan said.