by Billy Wong
"We've all had our share to drink," Zack said. "Maybe we should sleep on it, and tomorrow you can decide what you really want to do."
Gabriel's mouth bent upward in a faint smile. "That is not a bad idea. At least, a time of quiet rest to see things more clearly seems to work well for Deidre."
Kath gazed sidelong at the woman. "I wouldn't think she was the type." Just then, Deidre finished the last of her large mug of ale, put her head down and almost instantly emitted a loud snore. "Oh, you mean like that."
#
At sunrise, Kath and Zack went downstairs to find Deidre and Gabriel already waiting for them. "Marty doesn't want to come, so it'll just be us," Kath explained. She kind of understood, but was still somewhat disappointed that he refused to budge from his stance.
They headed out of the city and southeast across more gentle hills towards where Gabriel said their destination would be. Kath and Zack shared their backgrounds, leaving out the part about his gift as it wasn't relevant, then she asked, "So what exactly are you anyway, mystery man? Deidre is a mercenary, but you're..? And who are you trying to protect?"
"I am a guardian of the stability of the world," he replied in a completely serious manner. "The one we seek is a girl gifted with power that could cause great calamity, and I wish to prevent her from falling into the hands of those who would use it for such."
Zack tensed at the mention of gifts. "The cursed witch," he said.
Gabriel laughed, a yet short, controlled sound. "She is but a young girl, so that title might be overstated."
"And the two priests?"
"Were her parents. They thought they could hide her behind a shield of superstition and fear in the 'dark' temple, but they were wrong. At least one of them is already dead. He told me before he passed that her mother would be taking her where we go now."
Zack looked to Deidre. "The people doing this, you think they're in league with the government?"
She spat. "Someone in it, at least. They must have connections with one in power to pay and field all these anonymous sellswords."
"They could just be independently rich like Marty," Zack said.
"He is a noble," Gabriel pointed out, "therefore he is part of the government. As are you. And with the number of corrupt people in it, I would consider it likely some are involved."
Zack looked uncomfortable. "Why didn't you keep some of the sellswords alive to ask who hired them?"
"We tried that," Deidre said. "They don't know who they're truly working for. All contact between them and their employer is done indirectly through agents."
"Couldn't you have them lead you to those agents and then question them?" Kath asked.
Gabriel replied, "Perhaps, but we had not the time to spare, considering we might need to hurry to save the girl from the next group."
"You're smaller than I thought," Kath said to Deidre after a lull in the conversation. She had realized walking with the mercenary that she was really just under six feet and at least a stone short of two hundred pounds, with her thick boots and heavy armor making her appear taller and bulkier. "You're not that much bigger than me. Surprising for a woman to purposely dress to look larger."
"Looking scary as possible is often beneficial in this profession."
Kath smiled. "I don't doubt it." She considered that maybe if she ever became a military officer, she could put lifts in her boots to make herself seem more imposing. Visibly thicker than normal soles and heels like Deidre's would be too obvious and might subject one to ridicule...
She had plenty of other questions for the famed merc. "What's the strongest monster you've killed?"
"The strongest still classified as a monster? Probably the legendary dragon Garnfedomantilon, larger than a warship with claws that could shred steel and breath to split a hill."
"What's the largest weapon anyone has fought you with?"
"A fifteen foot sword wielded by a giant king."
"Have you ever tried to be something more than a mercenary, with your skills?"
Deidre took on a slightly flustered look. "I think I'll leave that as a mystery for the time being."
Less than an hour after leaving the city, a breathless voice called to them from behind. "Hey guys, wait up!" They all turned.
"Marty!" Kath cried with delight. "I've been holding out hope you wouldn't abandon us."
"Yes, I kept thinking about it and how even though I did come out here to help you, if I refused to accompany you now I'd be denying you my help too. So I decided to man up and brave whatever may come with you."
"Thank you, Marty. Your disagreement with what we're doing was quite reasonable. I'm grateful you care enough about us to change your position."
He waved helplessly. "I still disagree with it... but I was also getting pretty anxious waiting alone."
"Scaredy cat," Deidre remarked.
"A scaredy cat with less scars than you."
The redhead thrust her head threateningly at him, and he ran to hide behind Kath. Everyone but him laughed.
#
In the afternoon, they slowed down as a large group of men came into view walking ahead of them in the same direction. They wore similar generic armor as the ones in the Soullit Forest, and numbered two score. "They must be after the girl," Deidre whispered, hefting her axe while they crept closer.
"We can't be sure of that," Zack said. "Maybe we should watch them a bit longer, or-"
Deidre yelled, "Hey! Would you happen to be looking for a young girl?" Kath didn't fully approve of the lack of subtlety, but she probably itched for a fight.
"None of your business!" one of the warriors replied as he looked back. "You better leave well enough alone if you know what's good... wait a minute, are you..."
Another of the mercenaries, a pox-scarred man with stringy hair, grinned. "The great 'guardian of stability' and his bodyguard—and are those new friends I see? We would have had to deal with them at some point or another." He drew a thick saber. "Get them, boys!" He charged downhill at them, and the others followed.
"You heard him, get them!" Deidre parroted with glee. She ran to meet the mercs and Gabriel strode after her, a long thin sword emerging from beneath his dark cloak.
Zack held his weapon uncertainly before him. "But I've never killed anyone before..."
"I haven't either," Marty said, walking alongside Kath as she started forward. He added in a shakier voice than he must have intended, "Hopefully it can be a learning experience."
Deidre cleaved through the shoulder of a man down to his hips, blocked a stroke from a second with her buckler and sliced his arm with the blade before driving it through his solar plexus. Gabriel parried a slash, stuck a leg between his opponent's to trip him. He cut the throat of another man trying to attack, then stabbed down into the belly of the first and twisted. Deidre removed the top of a warrior's head with a backhanded axe swipe, grabbed another and threw him onto Gabriel's waiting blade.
Now Kath lost track of her allies as her own battle started. She sidestepped a spear thrust, cleaved away one of the wielder's hands. His scream made her cringe inside, but she silenced it by chopping into his skull and watched his body flop across the dirt. A pain in her back nagged at her and her arms felt heavier than usual, but she was strong enough. Another man came at her from the side with an axe. She dodged a swipe, blocked another and punched him twice. When he reeled back from the second blow, she swung low and gutted him. A big man hacked at her head. She ducked, almost ran him through but missed as he turned sideways. He clubbed her with a fist to the back of her skull. She staggered forward and he struck at her neck from behind. She brought her sword up in time to stop his, spun slashing at his throat. He leaned away, the tip falling short by a hair. But then her dagger landed in his eye and he fell. She took a moment to check on her friends. Zack hung close behind Deidre and Gabriel, probably in hopes of them coming quickly to his aid should he find himself in trouble, while Marty fought somewhere off by himself.
A four
th foe filled her vision, a wide tanned brute with a large gut. Kath deflected surprisingly quick slices from his broad glaive, tried to counterattack. He spun aside from her downward blow and kicked her in the small of the back. Recovering from a short stumble, she regarded him with narrowed eyes. Was this what Deidre had meant by better than most? The man ran at her, hammering at her guard with fast yet powerful strikes that battered her blade back and forth. She pushed the glaive out to the side after a clash and tried to slip inside his reach. He elbowed her in the nose, driving her back, and almost decapitated her with a upward swipe she barely dodged. His kick to the stomach put her on her back, and she blocked a chop she feared would break her sword. Though it held, she strained to hold her enemy's blade inches from her face.
"More zeal than skill," he said with a wide smile.
Fumbling for a comeback, she replied, "More lard than hard." Embarrassingly bad...
Without bothering to see if he understood the attempt at an insult, she kicked with both feet into his chest and drove him back. She got up. The man already rushed again. Off balance, she backpedaled from his first handful of slashes, but managed to open his guard with a hard parry and slice his ear. He grabbed it and whined, "You want to ruin my handsome looks? I'll carve ugly words on your corpse!"
"Do it if you can." They continued to trade blows, him cutting her arm, her stabbing his thigh in return. He pushed their weapons down when they next locked together and headbutted her. She reeled back, groggily raised her sword as he made to attack high. He altered the trajectory of his swing and before she could adjust, sliced her badly across the stomach. She staggered on her feet, her middle aflame with pain.
"Told you, no skill." Before the merc could try to finish her off, however, one of his comrades ran in and rammed a sword into her side. "What are you doing, stealing my kill?!" her original adversary barked. Ignoring him, the other man shoved the blade deeper. A pitiful moan of utter anguish and defeat reached Kath's ears, which she shuddered to realize came from her own throat. Her abdomen was a sea of agony the likes of which she could not have imagined before. She couldn't even feel her arms, which she knew hung defenselessly at her sides. Her eyelids drooped, and she began to fall backwards.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Marty. He was wounded, the sleeve of his sword arm soaked red, and struggled to ward off two enemies with sword held in his off hand. Kath reacted without conscious thought. Almost like she was just watching, her hand came up and cleaved away her stabber's arm. As he fell away spurting blood, her legs stood solid beneath her again.
The hefty mercenary blinked. "What the..? You a berserker?" She blitzed him with a frantic flurry. Unbearable pain still wracked her body, yet she pushed it aside with will and resolve. He defended competently, yet was soon forced back under the storm of blows. "How are you doing this?" She didn't answer him, but knew the answer. He wasn't faster or more skilled than her. She had been hampered by her wounds, and only now focused past it. Hopefully she wouldn't die when that focus passed, though...
He thrust at her neck. She leaned aside and in the same motion, laid open his ribs with an upward cut. "Ah, screw it," he said, shoved her back and ran. Kath thought to chase after and kill him, then remembered something more important. She looked to where Marty had been. He lay on the ground alongside one of his foes, the other raising a sword to finish him off. She limped their way hugging her midriff, screamed a desperate challenge when she saw she wouldn't make it. The merc dashed to meet her. Before they could reach each other, her body gave out and she collapsed.
The man hesitated for a second, then advanced to finish her with a downward slash. She rolled under it towards him and chopped into his thigh. He tried to retreat, but she lunged up and bore him down by the legs. As he squirmed beneath her, she bashed his face with her hilt until the bones caved in with a crunch. Dragging herself off him, she crawled with excruciating effort towards Marty. "Are you okay?" she rasped. "Marty, answer me, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he said dazedly.
Relieved he was all right, she rolled over wearily to her back. It sounded like the fight had ended, for no more shouts nor ringing of metal could be heard. The lack of noise was so peaceful... Kath lay there shaking, eyes wide open yet so blurry she could hardly see. She slipped in and out of consciousness, wondering with each brief period of awareness if it would be her last.
She felt two hands press against her torn abdomen, and another pair of arms cradle her head. "Kath!" Zack pleaded. "Please don't die!"
"Yeah, hold on!" Marty said. To Zack, "I think she's dying. Can't you heal her?"
The hand of death reached for her spirit, but strengthened by her friends' concern she pushed it forcefully away. She blinked her eyes somewhat clearer, regarded Marty trying to stop the blood welling out of her wounds and Zack reaching for them as if to apply his gift. "No, don't," she whispered. "I'm hurt real bad; if the harm to you is proportional to the injuries healed, doing that might kill you."
"But if I don't, you'll..."
His grave look touched her, for it let her know how much he cared. "Calm down, that doesn't mean I'll die from this. I'm a lot stronger than you. Besides, I've seen so little of the world, there's no way I could leave yet."
Deidre snorted nearby. "'I've seen so little of the world' indeed. A bit overdramatic aren't they? I hardly act like that when I take a hit."
"It looks pretty bad," Gabriel said. He and the female mercenary had obviously done the bulk of the bloody work. "Maybe you should go over and check on her."
Heavy footsteps approached, and Deidre loomed over her. "Can you walk?"
Kath took on a dubious expression. "I got nearly gutted and skewered and that's what you ask?"
"I know you want to emulate me. Come on, what will it be?" She extended a hand. While the boys stared, Kath took it and Deidre yanked her to her feet. "Up you go."
She continued to clutch her middle. Her heart beat quickly at how close she'd come to death, and the confident front she put up had been for show, but she continued to make light of it. "Somebody better wrap me up so I don't have to keep holding my guts in."
"Er, you might want to sit back down for that," Marty said in a small voice.
They took a break to treat Kath and Marty's wounds. He just had a shallow gash on his upper arm, but hers were so bad Gabriel told her an average person would have a good chance of dying from them. Though she'd already figured as much, hearing it out loud shook her again. When she touched her bandages in fright, Deidre reassured her that considering how well she held up so far, Kath must possess the same kind of toughness as her and would most likely live. "It's a girl thing," the redhead said.
"Hardly true," Gabriel amended. "There are more reports of men showing extraordinary resilience in battle than women."
"That's just because there are more male warriors in general. Don't be a spoilsport."
"Shouldn't somebody carry you?" Zack asked when they resumed traveling. "You look like you're in an awful lot of pain."
Despite her supposed toughness, Kath suffered immensely. Now that the excitement of battle was over, she experienced the pain as being even more acute, and couldn't do anything without making it worse. Every step, every movement for that matter sent new pangs through her torso. The longer she stayed awake let alone mobile, the weaker she felt. She feared she was still in danger of dying. But she replied, "No, it's all right. I wouldn't want to be such a burden."
"You can't be that heavy. What do you weigh, one fifty?" She shook her head firmly. "One sixty?" She shook it again, and his eyes widened. It seemed like he didn't dare to probe further, as he concluded, "Can't be that much more than one sixty, right? I can handle it!"
"I'm sure you can carry me, but all the way there and back on top of your gear? Even if you manage, it would slow us down too much. I'll just walk."
"But you're so hurt... we could take turns..."
She gritted her teeth and continued on, despite feeling weighed down
by a perpetual haze. It wouldn't do to look soft and easy to keep down while Deidre watched, after all.
#
When they arrived at their destination at dusk, they saw the cave they sought rested above a steep rock wall. "Can you do this?" Gabriel asked Kath as they prepared to climb.
She was sorely tempted to ask someone to haul her up with a rope. But she said, "I'll try. If I'm really too weak, then we'll do something else."
Zack followed behind yelling encouragement to her while she made the grueling ascent, stopping now and then as her whole body trembled when the hurt grew to be too much. Sometimes she thought she wouldn't make it, and closed her eyes resting her cheek against the stone. How could her slim fingers muster the strength to keep pulling her onward when the body they were attached to had already endured such grievous damage? But she carried on, and after what seemed an eternity reached the ledge. She dragged herself up to lie gasping on her back. In her pain and weakness, the fading of the light in the sky made her imagine the fading of her life. No, don't think that way, you'll be fine...
"I think you guys might have to lower me back down with rope," she conceded.
Gabriel smiled down at her. "That was still very impressive. Rest for a moment. There is no rush right now."
After lying there for a few minutes, Kath reached up to let Zack and Marty help her to her feet. They lit torches and entered the lumpy-walled circular cave that stood before them, the older pair leading. A young female voice spoke from the darkness ahead. "Who is it?"
"It's me, Gabriel, and Deidre... and some friends."
"Oh, it's you. Mother will not appreciate you coming here."
"What must be done, shall be."
They advanced further, into a chamber lit by a hole in the ceiling. Sitting in the spot of light was a girl of about fifteen wearing a black dress. "Lucia," Deidre said. "When I last saw you you were just a little girl. You've grown up well." So she wasn't just any mercenary Gabriel decided to hire, Kath thought. She and Gabriel, and this Lucia, must have some history together.
"And when I last saw you you were thinner. Why did you get so big?"
