Shadow Of The Mountain

by D. A. Stone

  What else could he do?

  The moments that unfolded between Argos and the men were a strange, almost surreal stretch of heartbeats. They seemed to think he was one of their own, and at first no cries of alarm or moves against him were made. But that wouldn’t last forever.

  There was a man in the rear holding a hatchet in one hand and a clay jug of some drink in the other. He had a thick white bandage wrapped around underneath his chin to the top of his head, the left side stained with blood.

  It was the skinny looter with the broken face from the Baelik house Argos had released. His clay jug fell to the street cracking to half a dozen pieces when he saw who stood before them.

  “Oh shit,” the bandaged man said.

  ***

  Argos’s hand snapped forward, sending the iron-edged club spinning towards the man to the far left of the group. The club was aimed for the throat, but the young warrior’s release was off and it smashed into his face. The man stumbled backwards several steps before falling heavily on his backside.

  Argos’s double-bladed axe swung out, glimmering against the wall of fire like a foggy mirror.

  The remaining men charged. The Gallans rushing towards him were older than those in the jewelry shop, and the way they moved and held their weapons told Argos they were confident of what this outcome would be. The odds were in their favor. With one of theirs on the ground, it was still four against one.

  Except the skinny man holding the hatchet had already met Argos and wanted nothing to do with the one-handed youngster. He stood still, frozen, prisoner in the shackles of shock and fear.

  That made it three against one.

  A wicked grin grew across a bearded Gallan who was first to approach the axe-wielding youth. He must have spied Argos’s missing hand and couldn’t believe his good fortune. A one-handed axeman? Who had ever heard of such a thing?

  The Amorian would have to show him the error of his judgment.

  A man to the left of the group yelped in pain as an arrow tore into his groin from Natalia down the street.

  It did Argos good to know she was still there and knew what to do, so long as she was ready to take flight with Karin should this sortie go tits-up, which it still very well might.

  The lead Gallan feigned an attack towards Argos with a downward swing of his sword. The axe stabbed upward, using the tip of the butterfly blades like a spear to block the leader’s strike, but the Gallan threw himself backwards and Argos was temporarily vulnerable as his heavy weapon overextended itself.

  The ploy was executed perfectly. The leader knew the axe was cumbersome for one arm and when it was extended, Argos lost a precious heartbeat pulling it back. And a heartbeat was all the man to Argos’s left needed to send a nightmarishly sharp sword towards his unprotected side. The Amorian was dead and the Gallans knew it.

  His severed arm rose, the iron plates absorbing the vicious hack from the other’s blade. The piercing clang of iron on steel rang out across the plaza. The grin of the Gallan man that had leapt back turned to disbelief as the axe blades reversed direction and smashed into his friend’s ribcage with a chilling scream, cleaving through flesh and bone.

  The bearded swordsman charged, hacking and slashing with blistering speed against the young warrior. Argos blocked the first two assaults with the axe before his iron forearm rose to block the third. He saw the man Talia had wounded rise up and stumble towards him with a cry of rage, her arrow still sticking out below his belt.

  Kicking the bearded man high in the leg, the Amorian turned to intercept the thrust on his left from the injured man. The block came too late and the attacker’s sword stabbed him in the hip, glancing off the bone to rake a long gash across his abdomen. Argos ignored the searing pain and slammed his armored forearm into the man’s sword grip, crushing his wrist and forcing him to drop the weapon. Falling to one knee, the man watched as Argos raised his axe and brought it down in a great arc, crushing the sharp steel into his shoulder near the neck.

  Wrenching the weapon clear, a tremendous spray of blood burst from the gaping wound.

  The bearded man Argos had kicked recovered fast, and again launched a desperate attack. His strength and confidence had turned to panicked thrusts and lunges, but his assault pressed on. The Amorian easily blocked the blows with forearm and axe, each parry spacing out his opponent’s strikes to create an opening and finish the exchange.

  Argos saw his gap and lined up for the kill. He blocked once more with his forearm and moved in for the strike, but a flying club hit him high in the shoulder.

  Temporarily distracted, he flicked a quick glance towards the direction it had come from. It was the man he had thrown it at moments earlier, and he’d used Argos’s own club.

  A rush of fury seized the warrior and he swept the bearded man’s sword away with his forearm, following it with a monstrous head-butt. His axe followed the blow, finding a death strike that plowed down the chest before butchering the soft skin of his belly. The Gallan fell to the street with a pitiful cry.

  Argos darted towards the other who had thrown the club, but by then the Gallan had turned and raced off across the market square.

  Breathing heavily, he scanned the street, seeing only the one with the broken face standing in the same spot, still holding his hatchet. When he moved towards him, the hatchet fell to the ground with a clang.

  Argos looked the terrified man up and down. “I give you a second chance at life,” he said, catching his breath, “and still you insist on traveling with poor company?”

  There was a moan of pain behind him.

  Turning, he saw the first man his axe had taken, wounded in the ribs. He’d crawled a few paces away, leaving a wide trail of blood behind that looked black on the dusty street. Walking over to him, Argos flicked his wrist, burying the axe into the back of his spine and ending his struggle. Pulling the weapon free he moved to the other two men, but neither were breathing. He’d killed them clean.

  “Well?” he asked the man again.

  Bending to clean his axe on the jerkin of the bearded Gallan, a searing pain lanced through his side. The heat of it was excruciating.

  Laying the weapon against his leg and ignoring the lone man, he reached inside his green tunic and probed the wound. His hand came away slick with blood. The wound was flowing freely and he could feel wetness dripping down his left leg all the way to the boot. The women came running up the street towards him.

  “Are you all right?” Natalia asked fearfully.

  “Never better,” he replied, wiping his bloody hand against his leggings.

  The bandaged man dropped to his knees. “I…I can’t do this anymore,” he said, pulling the white cloth from his wounded face and tossing it to the street.

  “You won’t be doing this anymore,” Argos assured him, carefully bringing the axe up to his shoulder.

  “Something is wrong,” the man went on, garbling through his crushed jaw. “I don’t know…I don’t know what it is, but they…changed us. They did something to us, gave us this…I have these thoughts,” he said as tears began to spring from his eyes. “Oh, gods! And I’ve done these things, these terrible things that I would never do!”

  “Who? What did they give you?” Argos asked, bending to the side to relieve some of the pain. It stung worse than any wound he’d ever had. “Did the Volrathi give you something?”

  The man shook his head. “You won’t be able to stop them. They’re…something different. They have men who are…they’re not even men. And there are beasts, these…monsters. Horrible things that not even your nightmares could conjure.”

  “What did they do to you?” Natalia asked.

  The man’s pained eyes scanned the plaza, the bodies, the fire. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “Just tell us what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sorry about your city,” he spoke after a long moment, his voice full of sincerity. “I always wanted to come here as a child.”

  The warri
or knelt down with a wince and looked at the man face to face. “What happened to you?” he asked quietly.

  The Gallan didn’t hear, seemingly mesmerized by the large fire behind Argos. “I just want to go home,” he said, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. More tears raced down his cheeks. “Yes…I want to go home.”

  Lurching to his feet, the man scrambled for a nearby sword.

  Before Argos could stop him, he fell to the ground, impaling himself on the sharp steel. Gasping deeply as the weapon slid into his stomach, he finally slumped to the side. A pool of crimson spread across the dusty street as all life drained from his body.

  Natalia covered her mouth and looked away. Karin put an arm around her, pulling her from the scene.

  Argos watched the blood puddle spread at his feet. The stain grew until he had to take a step back.

  What had he meant?

  The looter had spoken of monsters as if he were in a fevered dream. More was amiss here than he had first thought. The bodies he saw, the women and children laying about the streets like pulled weeds. Such acts were beyond some men, Gallans included. Their neighbors to the east were many things, but killers of women and children? He had trouble believing it, even now, after all they’d seen.

  His instincts were whispering again and they were trying to tell him that something was off here. None of this was right.

  One of the blazing buildings behind the fountain partially collapsed, spraying the night sky with a thick burst of burning cinders. Forceful and unsettling, the street beneath them trembled from the weight of it—a reminder that they couldn’t afford to dawdle.

  Returning the axe to the case at his back, he tenderly touched the wound at his side again. It should have been minor, but it felt too hot. Already he was getting lightheaded. A troubling thought began to flower.

  Scanning the bodies, he found the man Natalia had landed a hit on with her bow. It was the same man who’d wounded him. Gritting his teeth, Argos bent down and retrieved the Gallan’s fallen sword. Taking one sniff of the blade, he wrenched his head back, nostrils on fire.

  Poison.

  “Of course,” he said bitterly under his breath, tossing the weapon away.

  The shit was falling on him in heaps now.

  He thought of the women and the enemies surrounding the capital. He saw the distance they’d have to travel to the safety of the Gambit and imagined all the dangers they would meet within the forest. The warrior threw his head back, letting out a silent scream.

  Argos, the one-hand. Disgraced officer of the Amorian light cavalry, charged with escorting the princess to safety and he likely wouldn’t even get her outside of the city walls! He was fuming.

  “We must keep going,” he told them, nearly unable to keep the anger from his voice. The pain was making the simple act of speech a difficulty. “The wall is not far, and once in the forest we have a few days of hiking before you can reach our destination.”

  Natalia and Karin looked to each other but said nothing. He motioned for the two to take the lead and they moved past. The wound was still bleeding and his left side was now covered in warm wetness. He should get it stitched up, but would it even make a difference? Best thing to do was keep them moving. Maybe he could even get them up and over the wall.

  But already his strength was rushing from his body in rivers.

  Argos followed them across the market several strides before collapsing to one knee.

  Damned poison blade. He felt drunk but knew he wasn’t. He was dying.

  Rolling to his back, he looked up into the glowing embers that swirled above him in the darkness. He heard Natalia cry out, but her voice was too distant and gradually the sound of the raging fire was all he could hear.

  Then it all went black and quiet.

  Chapter 15

  Tenlon looked down into his fourth mug of ale, noting the wavering reflection that stared back. His hair had grown longer since Goridai, hanging in a dark tuft over his forehead. He’d lost a bit of weight on the ride too, thinning his face out. But it was his eyes that had changed the most. They weren’t sleepy or red, they were just tired. Tired eyes, tired heart.

  Taking another sip, he slid his feet off the rungs of the barstool and let his legs dangle, kicking them gently back and forth. The egg was locked up in their room and all they could do now was wait out the next two days, when they’d finally go to the Broken Shield Inn.

  Desik had mentioned to him earlier—rather offhandedly—that attending the meeting was dangerous. The warrior said he didn’t like being expected, that these were risky times to be meeting with strangers.

  The words had troubled Tenlon. He couldn’t stop thinking about all they’d been through, all the screams and blood and dying they left on that mountain pass, and how one tiny mistake now could see them killed just as swiftly. Just one poor decision and they could lose everything. The egg, their lives. Everything.

  Swirling the ale around his mug, he pressed the gloomy thoughts into the back of his mind. They really didn’t have a choice in the matter. There was no way around it. Even if they knew it was a trap, the two of them still had to try. A dragon of Draxakis’s strength was too important to abandon, and it would take more than men to stop the push of this black army. The Volrathi didn’t just have the troops, they had the mages too, and now they even had the sky.

  So this is where it starts, Tenlon told himself resolutely. Right here. Himself, Desik, and the egg upstairs. If they had a dragon, they had a chance. And if you were aiming to win a war, having a dragon offered you some damn fine chances.

  He sipped his ale. It was heady and bitter, but each mug tasted better than the last.

  Fading daylight poured in through the shuttered windows behind him, covering the floor and nearby tables in slats of glowing red. Tenlon closed his eyes for a moment, thinking about the noon meeting. They could both be dead two days from now, too, he supposed.

  The tavern area of the Lonely Fox had a wide, wood-framed mirror hung behind the bar. Above the mirror rested a great broadsword with a saw-toothed back edge, suspended on hooks. Tenlon examined the weapon again, seeing the marks and dents, the worn leather grip and bent cross guard. A beast had clearly seen the other side. It looked a heavy weapon, but the man behind the bar was no featherweight.

  Brock was easily four hundred pounds of greasy bartender with thin wisps of hair swept across his balding crown and a drooping mustache that hung down past his heavy chins. His arms rivaled uprooted tree trunks and his apron could’ve been used to cover a wagon. During the rare lulls when he wasn’t filling Desik’s mug with ale, he would disappear behind the swinging doors to the kitchen, likely preparing food for the night’s rush, or whatever passed for a rush in this quickly emptying city.

  A tall, lanky man dressed knee to neck in a purple velvet suit would occasionally blow a note through a silver flute from a back corner of the tavern. One side of his wide-brimmed purple hat was pinned up, while the other sported a lengthy, brown feather. He carefully placed a porcelain jar atop the mantle of a smoldering fireplace before testing another light melody.

  Slim chance for him to make pay tonight, Tenlon knew, or any other night really. Sooner or later this would be an occupied city. Tenlon hoped that if it were sooner, he and Desik would be long gone.

  A weather-worn man with long silver hair held a seat near the end of the bar on their left, but aside from speaking quietly with Brock, the old sailor said little else. Returning his eyes to the long mirror above the bar, Tenlon saw himself and Desik occupying a dimly lit tavern of empty tables. He was glad to notice the reflection that looked back at him this time wasn’t as depressing as the one hiding within his ale.

  Sad little boy, he thought idly, looking down into the well-like depths of his drink. Trapped within a mug, his life measured only by my thirst. Tenlon laughed.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Desik asked next to him, lifting a forkful of fried potatoes into his mouth.

  The warrior was leanin
g against the bar, still in his ankle-length jacket, with a short sword and who knew what else hidden from view. Not one for sitting, that man. Liked to be on his feet.

  Tenlon smiled, beginning to tell him about the little boy held prisoner within his mug. It sounded even funnier out loud and he laughed a good deal just trying to get the whole story out.

  Desik took another bite of potatoes, thinking his words over. Reaching across the bar, he wrapped his hands around Tenlon’s mug and slowly slid it away. The empty space was soon filled by the warrior’s half-eaten plate.

  “Splendid,” Tenlon said, eyes growing wide with hunger.

  He interlaced his fingers and stretched them over the plate, cracking the knuckles.

  Forgoing the fork, he dove in with his hands, picking up a seasoned wedge and taking a bite. Fried in fat, still warm and crispy, they were tiny wedges of perfection. It was true that ale made everything better, especially food.

  Brock’s skeletal wife came through the swinging doors, followed by her ox of a husband. She carried a tray of unlit candles in glass jars and nearly dropped everything when Brock’s massive hand slapped her on the ass.

  “Gather yourself, you fool!” she snapped.

  Brock laughed, the tone of it deep and rumbling like the waves against the cliffs from earlier.

  Tenlon saw the wife in the mirror’s reflection moving about the tavern, placing a candled jar on each empty table.

  “Another?” the bartender asked.

  Desik tilted his mug back and finished, settling it back on the polished bar. “Sure.”

  “And the boy?”

  Tenlon was struggling with a mouthful of potatoes.

  “What do you think, boy?” Desik asked, slapping him on the shoulder. “Another? Yeah, let’s get him another.”

  Brock filled their mugs, sliding both into place before them with practiced ease.

  “You come from anywhere special?” he asked, wiping the other side of the bar down.

  “No,” Desik told him flatly, taking another sip from his mug.