by R J Hanson
“What warlock?” Loucura barked in her harsh, cracked voice.
“Nothing to concern yourself with… yet,” Verkial said as he stepped around his witch and toward the single door of the shack. “Just the same, I’ll want a few charms ready before the week’s end. Some for defense against mental intrusions and some against breath attacks by dragons.”
“Fire, frost, acid, water, or lightning?” Loucura asked, unphased.
“What?”
“What type of dragon attack?”
“Oh. I’m not sure, but its name is Isd’Kislota.”
Verkial walked alone down a back street of Wodock; his path illuminated only by the full moon and its reflection on the snow-covered ground. He could hear the sounds of revelry echoing from the ships at port and several taverns along Horse Eater’s Walk, the main street of the pirate city. The celebration had been going on for four days now.
It had been four days since he’d sent word to his generals at the front and his sea captains with their new orders; four days since he’d made his separation from Ingshburn final and sealed his bargain with his own armies. While his soldiers celebrated their liberation from Ingshburn and the Iron Gauntlet of Tarborat, Verkial waited for the King of the Stone Throne’s response.
As Verkial looked up the abandoned street, he saw that his wait for that response would be short indeed. A dozen pirates and cutmen began to ease out of the shadows on both sides of the street ahead of him. A quick glance over his shoulder told him there were at least ten more closing in from behind him and from his flanks. He had been wondering when it would come and who it would be. He wondered no more.
“Captain Norost, I thought you smarter than this,” Verkial said as he continued his pace up the street toward the gathering cutmen. “How much is he offering?”
“Seven hundred and fifty gold for your head, but he does want the head,” Captain Norost, a huge man of uncommon girth, said as he stopped in the middle of the street. “Apparently, he has a need for displaying the head to discourage any others that might be having disloyal thoughts.”
Verkial had known Captain Norost for over two decades. Anyone who laid eyes on Norost could tell he was a man of almost morbid obesity. Only his crew, and those who’d seen him fight and lived, knew that all that fat hid a mountain of muscle and inhuman strength. Verkial had seen him pop a man’s head and crush his skull in just one hand and had seen him tear the arm completely free of another. Norost was as dangerous as he was fat.
“Me and you?” Verkial asked as he continued stepping forward in that constant gait. “No blades or cudgels?”
“Now, why would I give you the chance to pull a rider’s pike from a boot to stick me with when I can just have my men here fill you with arrows and bolts?” Norost asked with a laugh as he stretched his arms out wide.
“That’s what I was thinking as well,” Verkial said, his long stride bringing him ever closer to the twelve men gathered before him.
Verkial unbuckled the belt that secured his shrou-hayn to his back and let the large sword fall to the muddy snow in his wake. As the sword struck the ground, Norost’s men began to raise their crossbows. They were, however, behind the curve of reaction time. For, when Verkial’s sword hit the ground, the twang of crossbows resounded from the deep shadows and rooftops that surrounded them. In less than a second all but Norost and his bosun, Retten, were dead or dying.
Verkial’s pace did not change. He did not slow. He did not speed up. He just kept marching toward Norost. Retten stepped to the side, moving his hands away from the cutlass that hung at his waist and wide out to his sides. Norost’s lips pulled back in a smile that revealed a host of broken teeth.
“You really think…” Norost began.
That was all he was able to get out. Verkial had seen this all before. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone made the move, so his counter needed to be devastating. Verkial allowed most of his men free drink and women, for soon enough, they would all be sober and fighting for their lives. There were a carefully chosen few, however, who did not get to spend the previous four days drinking and carousing with tavern girls. Those men, quiet men, had been shadowing the new Warlord constantly.
Now Verkial had to tear down Norost. It was one thing to counter his ambush with an ambush of his own. Now he had to make a vicious example of the pirate captain. Verkial, a large man himself and a full foot and a half taller than Norost, had a deceptively long stride. In one step, he was inside Norost’s defenses.
In one swift jab with his left hand, Verkial struck Norost in the throat. The blow wouldn’t kill the pirate, although it certainly would have killed a smaller man. As Norost instinctively reached for Verkial’s face and neck, Verkial swept his right arm under Norost’s, grabbed his thumb, and jerked violently, wrenching the arm out to the side and down.
Verkial moved with the arm, striking the nerves in Norost’s left armpit to numb the limb, and then sinking his teeth into the tendons that bound the pirate’s forearm to his upper arm. Verkial continued to push Norost to the right, avoid the pirate captain’s right hand, while twisting and biting the left elbow. In the space of fewer than five seconds of terror, Norost’s left forearm hung loose and ragged from the fatty and tattooed upper arm. Verkial continued to pace around the pirate in the same direction, kicking him violently in the back of the knee and dropping him to the ground.
Verkial bent, then, and pulled the bone axe from Norost’s belt. The axe had been looted from Zepute warriors Norost had captured many years before. It was the jawbone of some large creature that had been fitted with chips of volcanic glass. It had a vicious edge and was wickedly serrated. In Norost’s hands, that axe had slashed many throats.
Verkial continued around Norost until he stood in front of him once more. Now, Norost’s blood caking Verkial’s face and running down his neck, Verkial addressed Norost and Retten.
“If these wounds don’t kill you, then I want you to remember this encounter,” Verkial said, the control in his voice barely containing his rage. “I want you both to remember and tell the others. Retten, your right hand.”
Retten’s face twisted with fear that he tried to mask with mock bravery. However, he was no fool. To leave here without a right hand would be better than not to leave this snow-covered street at all. Retten laid down and held his right hand out, making sure to place his wrist over the haft of a club dropped by one of his dead compatriots. He wanted the cut to be as clean as possible.
Verkial struck without further word or warning. The axe ripped Retten’s hand free, and, just as he was beginning his scream, he saw the axe bit into Norost’s left knee. Verkial made several quick hacks, during which Norost passed out. Then, taking the unconscious man’s right hand, Verkial slowly cut off all but the thumb and smallest finger.
“You’ll want to tie that wrist off with a good, strong belt,” Verkial said to Retten. “You have some time before you’d bleed to death, but who knows how long it will be before you can find someone in Wodock to take you in. Take him with you, and bind those wounds of his as well. If I hear that you survived and Norost did not, then I will come for you. I will find you. You do not want that.”
Retten nodded his head stupidly and began pulling the belt from the fallen man next to him. Verkial signaled to his men, collected his sword from the street, and walked back toward Raven’s Nest, Norost’s warm blood beginning to cool on his face.
Chapter VI
Asunder
“That’s the best I can do,” Maloch said as he returned to the deep shadows of the underbrush where Dunewell lay. “If I alter the spell any more than the results may become… unpredictable.”
“It should be enough,” Dunewell whispered back.
Dunewell looked again to the small meadow where he and Jonas first met Maloch and where now a small fire burned. It was perhaps an hour after the sun had set, and the two girls, neither had spoken a word to Dunewell or Maloch the entire time, sat and ate of Dunewell’s smo
ked fish.
They had met Maloch in the afternoon, and Ranoct and his men should have encountered Maloch’s time spell while the sun was still high in the sky. Maloch had adjusted the outcome of that spell, a dangerous proposition so that Ranoct would be exiting the spell at night. Dunewell was counting on the drastic change to their surroundings to, at the very least, give Ranoct and his men pause. The girls by the fire should be easy enough for them to see, and perhaps the whole scene would cause enough disorientation that Dunewell and Maloch wouldn’t have too much trouble ‘commandeering’ horses.
“Pass me your rope,” Dunewell said as he and Maloch crept around the meadow toward the area where Ranoct would likely emerge. “I have an idea.”
Maloch did as Dunewell asked, having to shift one hand from the large tree limb he procured as a weapon. Dunewell had pointed out that none of Ranoct’s troops were to be harmed, and Maloch agreed whole-heartedly. Thus, clubbing weapons were all they carried.
As they stalked through the woods, Dunewell began tying loops in the rope, keeping them about eight feet apart. Once he’d tied more than a dozen loops in a single stretch of rope, he coiled it about one forearm. Dunewell and Maloch waited, both realizing that this time, the time of waiting, was the most dangerous for a soldier. Waiting is when soldiers fell asleep or when they grew too anxious. Waiting sometimes caused them to act too soon. Yet, Dunewell and Maloch were both seasoned warriors and knew the pitfalls of surveillance, and both handled the temptations of the slow moments with the stoicism of professional soldiers.
As they watched, the air before the glade began to shimmer like the air heated about a red-hot stove. The shimmering continued, quickened, until all at once eight stout horses were thrust upon the small grove making a violent entrance, kicking up dead leaves all around, and stirring the fog of the night with their hot breath.
The experienced soldiers reined in their horses immediately, and weapons slipped from scabbards and rings with little to no effort. Each set of eyes among them scanned their surroundings, pausing only briefly on the two young girls sitting next to the campfire only a few yards away. The air was thick with the smell of cooked meat and freshly boiled stew, an idea suggested by Dunewell, who had traveled the hungry road of one in pursuit before.
There were nine of them, including Ranoct, who was at their lead. Ranoct hauled out his scimitar, a trophy from the deserts of Tarborat, and scanned the area while five of his men slipped from their saddles to encircle the small camp. The girls eyed them dangerously, and the red-headed girl hauled the short sword taken from the drow up from under her cloak. Dunewell stood ready to intervene, even if it meant his death. Fortunately, Ranoct’s wisdom won out.
“Hold,” Inquisitor Ranoct commanded his men. “Hold. Young ladies, we mean you no harm. We are men of the crown and pursue criminals against the throne. Are you in danger? Do you seek aid?”
“Drow took us,” the young girl with the red hair said.
Dunewell’s shock was complete when she managed to form the words and utter them. He was even more shocked by her next words.
“We were rescued by men, Great Men,” she continued. “They left us here, three days ago, and said you would come. They said you were honorable and would see us back to our homes south of here. Homes only a few leagues north of Dolloth. There’s stew, if you’re hungry.”
Ranoct and the rest of his men dismounted and approached while four took to the shadows around the small camp as scouts and lookouts. The horses were left behind, and ground hitched as war horses were trained to do.
Dunewell crawled on his belly up to each horse in succession, twisting the loops of the rope into figure 8’s and slipping them over the front hooves of each horse in order to hobble them. He left three unfettered. The hobbled horses were now all linked to one common length of rope.
Dunewell took the reins of the other three and closed his eyes, saying a quick prayer to Bolvii and Silvor. He knew Ranoct’s men would likely hear these three horses’ movements through the dead grass and leaves, which made up the winter carpet of the forest. The noise would begin the moment he moved to lead them away from the glade, and he and Maloch would only have a few heartbeats of lead time. Dunewell picked their route through the trees and around a nearby outcropping of rock that would provide some cover should any of the kingsmen loose arrows or slings at them.
Dunewell took one last look toward the campfire and saw something curious. He was too far away to hear exactly what was being said now and could only hear the murmuring of voices. He could see the entire glade clearly, though. He watched as one of the girls, the taller one with red hair, shivered as though she were cold, pulled a pepper weed from near the campfire, and threw the weed into the flames.
Dunewell smiled and mounted the warhorse he was next to, a shining black mare with white mane and tail, wrapped the reins of the third horse around the saddle horn, and urged his own mount forward. Maloch, not one to falter, was in the saddle of his mount, a chestnut gelding, in almost the same moment. As they moved, the flames of the campfire shot up to engulf the entire spread of the pepper weed. The loud crackling sounds of each of the thousands of pepper seeds bursting in the heat masked all surrounding sounds for several seconds. The sudden sound drew the attention of even those scouts that had moved to the edges of the glade as sentries. The sudden bright flame ruined the night vision of all those about for several long moments as well.
Maloch was still recovering from the exertion of manipulating his initial time spell but did manage enough power to whisper a prayer and touch a large stone as they rounded it. Both he and Dunewell were tempted to give their horses their reins and charge from the area at full gallop, but the sound of the pepper seeds bursting was dying off already, and a horseshoe striking a stone would be heard for leagues around in the still winter night. Maloch took the lead and chose a path that took them toward a valley to the north.
Dunewell wondered why they were heading north when their destination was to the west, but, in spite of the fact that Maloch was a drow, Dunewell was coming to trust him. Whitburn had vouched for the paladin, of course, and Dunewell had seen him wield the power of Father Time, no mean feat. Yet, Dunewell had already begun to like Maloch before anything else began to influence his opinion. Dunewell had always had a nose for the true character of a person. He had, time and again, selected the right soldiers for different duties, and picked out the suspect of a crime before most of the evidence was gathered.
Those thoughts led him to think about his brother, Silas. Could he have been so wrong about his brother, or was there something there, something so substantial that it could make up for his sins? Was Dunewell allowing his desire of Silas’s redemption to so strongly influence his actions? Is that why he so readily accepted Maloch’s hopes of redemption, thinking that, if Maloch could gain forgiveness, then so to might Silas?
Those thoughts swam around in Dunewell’s mind while his soldier’s soul kept his ears alert for odd noises, and his eyes scanned their surroundings.
They continued north until the sun began to rise, and they were in the midst of a deep valley thick with tall trees. The air was crisp, and still and the strong smell of their warhorses brought memories back to both Maloch and Dunewell. Maloch rode into a small clearing where he dismounted, unsaddled his horse, and began to rub the horse’s back and chest, whispering to his mount the whole time. Dunewell rode up next to him and did likewise with his mount and the third horse they’d brought for Jonas.
They unrolled heavy blankets that had been packed on the saddles and wrapped the horses with them. Then they found a sack of dried corn among the ‘commandeered’ packs and fed a few handfuls to each of the mounts. Once that was done, they hobbled the horses and released them to graze for what forage they could find.
Once the horses were cared for, Dunewell and Maloch sat cross-legged and back to back, as was the Silver Helm custom, and ate some of the smoked fish they had left.
“That was a cleaver fishing
spear you put together by the Whynne,” Maloch said, referring to the simple wooden spear Dunewell used to catch the fish he smoked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it. Where did you learn to make it?”
Dunewell’s thoughts went back to the first spear, the only other spear, he made like that. It was a pronged design using the natural fork of a stick that branched. With a small amount of whittling, the prongs were barbed, so once the fish was stabbed, it could not shake free. Lady Belyska had learned to make them from the Zepute when she had traveled to JunTeg, the one city of the jungle tribes.
His thoughts returned to her and his daughter, a daughter that should have been born by this time, in the year of the Wolf. He didn’t expect to ever see or hear from Belyska again, much less his daughter, but, against the advice of his brain, his heart continued to hope.
“A woman then,” Maloch observed without even having to turn.
“Yes,” Dunewell finally managed. “A woman that I love.”
“Love? Not loved, past tense?”
“No, not loved. I loved her then and love her still. I will always love her.”
“I thought the vows of a Lord of Order forbade…”
“They do.”
Dunewell’s last words seemed to hit the air with a tone of finality; a cue Maloch did not miss.
“I would imagine you wonder why we rode north through the night,” Maloch said, changing subjects promptly. “This valley, although out of the way and a bit more treacherous, leads up the back side of this slope and will allow us to approach our meeting place without silhouetting ourselves on a ridge or peak for our pursuers to see.”
“I wondered about it, but I trust you,” Dunewell said absently.
“Trust, really?” Maloch’s tone made it clear he was surprised by Dunewell’s statement, but Dunewell was also confident he’d heard hope in there as well.
