Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  I pointed at the sword. "In other words, the blade should be mine—is mine—and I'll be taking delivery of it now."

  Takrakor shook his head. "My brother did not intend for you ever to gain possession of Khiephnaft. His thoughts on this matter were quite clear."

  "That's because he knew it was meant to be mine." I glanced at Aarundel, and the Elf nodded back. "He knew it, you know it, I know it, and the blade itself can prove it."

  Takrakor's hands flexed. "More treachery from the mountains?"

  "Just proof." I looked at the priest. "Unsheath the blade." I dropped my hand to the hilt of the scimitar I had borrowed from the natari I'd slain and took no comfort from the fact that Aarundel did not see fit to bring his ax to a guard position. "This better work, Aarundel."

  "It will. The priest already knows it will."

  The older Reithrese slowly stripped the scabbard from Cleaveheart's blade. As the leather sheath flaccidly slipped from the point, I saw a blade decidedly different from the one I expected. Whereas Cleaveheart had originally been the type of single-edged, serpentine blade the Reithrese upper crust favored, the blade had straightened. Now a broadsword, I saw orange highlights skitter across two razored edges, not just one. The hilt had changed slightly as well, and as far away from it as I was, I knew it would be balanced better than the broadsword I'd left back with the natari bodies and our horses.

  I didn't know how the sword had changed, but the transformation had not been lost upon the assembled Reithrese. "You see, when it was meant for a Reithrese hand, it appeared as a Reithrese sword. Now it is meant for the hand of Man." I walked down the short set of steps and through an aisle to the dais upon which the high priest stood. Heat pulsing out from the firewell tried to drive me back, but I would not be denied. "My sword, if you please."

  His flesh ashen, he gave me the sword. I turned to leave and found myself staring down the length of the blade at Takrakor's pale throat. "But for the wirt kalma, Takrakor . . ."

  "One day, youngling, I will have that sword from your hand and Mankind will scream in pain."

  "Will you, now?" I winked at him and tipped the blade toward the sky. "I'm to give this sword to an Elf in forty-five years, so you'd best be quick in getting it while it is still mine."

  I stepped around him and rejoined Aarundel. "Before I leave, for I've no desire to tax your wirt kalma, one last thing: I also lay claim to this empire of yours. Give it to whomever you want, but remember it's just a loan. Someday I'll collect it."

  Aarundel and I walked back into the tower complex and out through two cold bronze doors. Behind us angry voices rose and fell in time with the hot glow from within the towers. "I gather wirt kaima is breaking down?"

  "As with their magicks, 'chaotic' and 'elemental' can be used to describe their interpersonal relationships. As much as they would delight in your termination, they revel in their internecine battles. Even now Takrakor is defending his right to destroy you."

  "With luck that argument will last for a decade or two." I whipped Cleaveheart's bare blade up into a salute and felt its cold forte pressed to the flesh of my brow. I brought it down slowly after Aarundel acknowledged my salute with a nod. "Tell me, my friend, why does Finndali want this sword?"

  "The Consilliarii have asked him to obtain it."

  I bowed my head to him. "And why do the High Lords of Cygestolia want this sword?"

  I saw reflected in his dark eyes the war being waged between his brain and his soul. He had his loyalties to me, but they were of recent vintage and might well be unreliable. He also did as he had been commanded by the Consilliarii and their agent, Finndali. In all the time we had been together, he had never once returned to his homeland for new instructions. Whether he could or would answer my question depended upon his assessment of me and, I supposed, my perceived threat to him and Elvendom.

  A curt nod prefaced his answer. "Divisator is a blade of fate. It has many prophecies concerning it. It earned its name because of a black event in our history, proving the veracity of one prediction made of it. It is because of that prophecy being true that we have an interest in how the sword is used in case the others also come true."

  I frowned. "Such as."

  His dark eyes narrowed. "The blade will win an empire, but bring tragedy to the Man who wields it."

  "Came true for Tashayul." I spun the blade in my hand.

  "It was not necessarily meant to apply to Tashayul." The Elf looked back at the Reithrese towers. "That prophecy could possibly pertain to you, Neal. The Reithrese soothsayers were working from that same prophecy, but their translation may have been different from ours."

  "I don't understand."

  Aarundel shrugged. "Words can be chameleons, and translators can be magicians. 'Empire,' for example, could be read as 'immortality' or as a confluence of both terms."

  "That's not so bad." I spun the blade again. "Immortality or an empire or both? Certainly the fare for a hero, I'm thinking."

  "Yes, and more likely your get than any Reithrese. They read the word 'man' as a synonym for 'individual.' We believe it means Man."

  That sobered me for a moment. "So the Consilliarii want the blade to prevent the winning of a human empire?"

  "The infamy of the Eldsaga has not escaped us." The Elf opened his hands slowly. "A war with humanity sparked by a desire for vengeance is not something we wish to see initiated."

  My head came up. "But Finndali was willing to give the Reithrese fifty years to destroy us."

  "Ah, but Finndali knew Tashayul was wrong about the sword. After all, he did assign you a bodyguard to keep you alive until you reached your twentieth summer, did he not?"

  Aarundel had a point, and it made me think of Finndali as being far more shrewd than I had thought before. "Is there any alternate interpretation to the word 'tragedy' in this prophecy, then?"

  Aarundel shook his head.

  I shook off the chill cutting at my spine. "Then I'll declare it a tragedy if I'm not able to bore Finndali to death with the tales of my scars in two score five years."

  "It would be the height of tragedy indeed, my friend."

  I threw him a wink. "And this 'immortality,' might it not be in tale and song rather than in a physical sense?"

  "It could be indeed."

  "Then, I'm thinking, in deed I'll win it." I rounded the corner of the alley in which we had hobbled our horses and killed the natari. "Do you think we can ride from Reith before they've stopped their squabbling?"

  "Even if we were to carry our horses from here and not vice versa, yes."

  "Dead men do not carry horses."

  "Nor dead Elves."

  I laughed and swung up onto my horse's back. "Now that we have that settled, let us be away from this place. It's time for us to come back from the dead and give bards plenty of fodder for insuring we never die again."

  Chapter 1:

  An Encounter On The Way To Aurdon

  Early Spring

  A.R. 499

  The Present

  ***

  THE BANDITS SWARMED over the broken caravan like hyenas tearing at a carcass. Their howls of glee and yipped calls of triumph echoed through the vale, filling a placid dusk with the promise of a haunting night. Bright blades flashed red—tinted more by the sun's dying red light than by the blood they spilled—and left bodies scattered haphazardly on the road. Reduced to black silhouettes as they passed in front of a burning wagon, the bandits used their horses to herd crying women and terrified children into the grassy field on the downhill side of the road to Aurdon.

  Exalted in their victory and masters of the chaos they had created, the bandits did not notice the two riders watching them from the crest of a hill above their kill. Even if they had, Genevera suspected they would have dismissed her and her companion. No one, assuming sanity and a choice, would be foolish enough to do more than ride away, and ride away swiftly at that. There were other ways to commit suicide, and most all of them promised an easier passage into death t
han attacking a superior force of bandits.

  She looked at her companion, and Durriken smiled at her. "Only a dozen, m'love." He took the reins in his mouth and drew his two flashdrakes from the leather scabbard plate on his stomach. Holding one flashdrake in each hand, he cocked the spark-talons with his thumbs, then winked at her. The brown-haired man dug his heels into his horse's ribs and rode down into the tiny valley.

  Genevera reached out toward him for a final touch, but her slender fingers just missed her lover's shoulder. Would you have waited were it two dozen, Rik? From their three years together she knew, had she asked or urged caution upon him he would have remained there with her, but she also knew she could never have made such a request. She accepted that as easily as she accepted the differences in their races, and drank in the fearful excitement rippling through her.

  She followed him into the valley as quickly as she could. Her horse, a roan gelding named Spirit, was not as game as Rik's mountain pony in traversing a steep slope in the twilight. When Spirit reached the level grassland that ran from the road to the hills, his long strides regained much of the lead the pony had built up. Even so, Durriken reached the bandits first, giving Genevera time to begin her spell.

  Durriken thrust his right hand forward as if his flashdrake were a lance. She saw a small spark as the talon fell, then heard an earsplitting crack as the handcannon vomited out a gout of flame that reached halfway to the nearest bandit. Durriken jerked his head to the right, pulling the pony back away from the caravan, then pointed his left hand at another bandit and triggered the second flashdrake.

  As she had seen before, the flashdrakes worked as well as a spell to shift the nature of the battle. The first bandit Rik had shot slipped from the saddle and fell into the dust without much drama. The sound of that first shot had a strong effect and prompted half the bandit horses to shy, rear, or run. Rik's second target sat astride one of the bucking beasts, so when the lead ball from the flashdrake hit him, he catapulted into the air. Already dead, his limp body did a slow backward somersault, then landed with a thump on the rutted roadway.

  Rik dropped his flashdrakes and drew the rapier from his saddle scabbard. He brandished the blade as if he meant to slay the rest of the bandits by himself; then he pulled his pony away and invited pursuit. He moved off diagonally, heading away from the road, and drawing four of the bandits near the burning wagon as they came after him.

  Genevera smiled and concentrated for a second. She thrust her left fist toward the wagon, cocked her hand back, and opened it palm-first toward the fire. She felt a tingle as a bluish spark leaped from her flesh; then the burning pinprick streaked all but invisible through the air to its target. Yes, it will hit!

  The wagon exploded as everything that could burn, that would eventually burn, ignited all at once. The ravenous fireball engulfed the four bandits, consuming their flesh and swallowing their screams in its golden sphere. The thunderous detonation dwarfed the flashdrake's noise, and the hot wind from the hell it spawned had her long golden hair snapping behind her like ship's canvas in a fiery gale.

  Two other bandits fell from their saddles as their horses reared up in panic. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the fireball's brightness, allowing her to see shadow-wreathed refugees descend on the fallen men. Another bandit chose to cross swords with Durriken while the last three galloped out into the night, each heading for a different point on the compass.

  Durriken's pony stopped and turned quickly as the small man tugged on the reins. As his right-handed foe bore down on him, Rik shifted his rapier to his left hand and nudged his pony back to the right and across the line of the bandit's charge. He parried the bandit's awkward cross-body saber slash, then took him through the chest with a riposte.

  The rapier came away wet as the bandit spurred his horse out into the night. Durriken turned to watch him run, but did not pursue him. He smiled as he trotted the pony back toward the glowing circle of coals in the middle of the road. "Lungstuck. Needs to staunch the wound. Someone spells it, he might live."

  Genevera acknowledged his comment with a nod and dismounted. She moved slowly and deliberately as she slung the canteen over her shoulder and rummaged in her saddlebags for her healing bag. "Were you injured, Rik?"

  Swinging his right leg up and over his pony's head, he kicked free of the left stirrup and slid to the ground. "Nay, nary a scratch, love." He slapped his pony affectionately on the neck. "Benison here got his tail toasted." Durriken leaned forward, bringing his ear near the horse's mouth. "He says if the Elven princess will give his master a kiss, she will be forgiven."

  "I will, will I?" She tucked a strand of golden hair behind her pointed left ear. "Were his master a proper equestrian, Benison would not have been so close to the fire."

  "Don't listen to her, Benison, she's a sorceress." The slender man led his horse to the edge of the road and dropped the reins. "Bewitch you, Gena will, as she has me."

  Gena caught Rik's smile and returned it, then flicked her head toward the huddled shadows on the downslope. Her violet eyes saw through the gathering darkness as if it were but a thin fog. For all she knew of Rik being sharp-eyed for a Man, she knew he would see only crouching silhouettes. She envied him as he could not see the stark terror in the caravan refugees' eyes, nor read the fatigue in their drawn, pale faces.

  Rik looked past her toward the figures and broadened his smile. He stabbed the rapier into the ground, then waved his right hand in a big welcoming gesture. "You're safe now, people. Come up, come up. Nothing here to hurt you. The bandits are running to the end of the world." He punctuated his comment with a hearty laugh that brought a smile to Gena's lips in spite of the grim tableau before her.

  In describing the motley collection of wagons scattered along the road, "caravan" was an extravagant term to use. Four wagons remained more or less intact. One had overturned going off the road, while the others stood scattered on the hard dirt surface. The oxen that had been pulling them were dead, pinned to the ground by bandit lances.

  The wagons themselves were all of different design and crude manufacture. A pair were two-wheeled affairs with a small bed ringed by crooked ribs of old wood. Sticks had been woven between them to provide some solidity around the base, and torn canvas stretched taut across the heavy load piled in them.

  The third, like the one that Gena's spell had consumed, had been built like a box and mounted on four wheels. It required a pair of oxen to draw it and had wooden walls and a flat roof, which even provided an overhang to ward the driver from the sun. Ropes tied down a lumpy, canvas-swathed load on the top of it, and a water barrel mounted on the side bled moisture through a cracked stave.

  The last one showed the most work and had four wheels rimmed with iron. Its long, flat bed nearly overflowed with filled grain sacks. Above them, swinging like gallows, rested highwaymen, crudely built cages containing chickens and a pair of geese hung from a latticework of stout poles.

  Around each of the wagons, or lying bloody and slumped over the dead oxen, Gena saw the bodies of the men who fought and died defending the caravan. The pitchforks and scythes they had used in their efforts lay bloodless on the dusty roadway.

  Gena looked over at Rik. "Farmers heading for Aurdon. That grain should be in the ground, not heading to market."

  Rik crouched next to the first man he had shot. "And these men should be burning in the Outlands."

  "Haladina?"

  Rik nodded and peeled the dead man's upper lip back. Gena easily saw the filed front teeth and the dark dots on the canines that meant each tooth had been drilled and fitted with a small gemstone. "Haladina they are, or I'm a Centisian noble out hunting marmosets."

  "Haladina raiding this deeply into Centisia? Perhaps now we have an answer to the question of why Count Berengar Fisher sent for us." Gena turned away from the body as Rik ripped open the tunic and used a dirk plucked from the bandit's belt to probe the hole his flashdrake had made in the man's chest. She understood Durriken's fascination w
ith his Dwarven weapons and the destruction they caused. She even applauded the determined and methodical way he experimented with them; but his willingness to poke, prod, and even cut corpses left her uneasy.

  It is a strange Man you have chosen to love, Gena. She smiled unconsciously as she recalled fond moments of their time together, then looked up as the first of the refugees came up onto the roadway. Gena slowly squatted down and focused her smile on a young girl clinging to her mother's hand. The Elf held her arms open and nodded to the child.

  The little girl ran forward a few steps, her bare feet slapping against the ground, then stopped and looked back toward her mother. The woman did not look down at her daughter, but continued to stare at where ashes and embers smoked, hoping perhaps the wagon that had been destroyed by magic would magically reappear. The darkhaired little girl ran toward Gena again, slowing and stopping shyly before she got within arm's reach.

  "Hello," Gena whispered in a gentle tone. "I am Gena. What is your name?"

  The little girl folded her arms and looked down. She smiled, but refused to look up or speak. Then, quick as a bird on the wing, her head tipped up and her brown-eyed gaze flicked over Gena's face seconds before the girl hid her face behind her hands. She mumbled something, and Gena caught enough of it to puzzle out what had been said.

  "Andra? Is your name Andra?"

  Peering out from between splayed fingers, the girl nodded silently.

  "I am pleased to meet you, Andra." Gena held her left hand out, and the child took it. Slowly straightening up, the Elf lifted the girl up in her arms and perched Andra on her left hip. The little girl giggled, making the first happy sound in the vale for what, Gena would have guessed, had seemed like a very long time to the refugees.

  As they came in, Gena saw them segregate themselves. The male children, the eldest standing as tall as Durriken but appearing barely past puberty, and the youngest no more than a year older than Andra, walked over toward Durriken. They approached him cautiously, clearly curious about what he was doing and likely a bit afraid of him because of his flashdrakes. As they crowded around him, he looked up and smiled, then stood and nodded at them.