by Jack Porter
Kali glanced at the ground and then up into Maelon’s eyes. “No,” she said assuredly.
Maelon released her so suddenly she almost fell. But then she recovered her feet, and the two men who had brought her dragged her away.
“It’s too bad you need a seer to tell you whether or not to fight me like a man,” I said.
But Maelon ignored this. I didn’t care. I was rather enjoying the digs. Eventually, they would get under his skin.
“And now it is time for me to tell you what I want,” Maelon said, “when I carve your eyeballs out of your skull.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“First,” Maelon said. “The elves will send me tribute. And I’m not talking about food, although that will be expected. They will send me one out of every five females that is born to them.”
I heard a murmur and whispers behind me and knew that the elves were just as angry as I was as at this demand.
“Next,” Maelon said as if he hadn’t heard them, “I want this redheaded beauty of yours. Did you leave those scars on her body? Does she like pain?” He asked as if he couldn’t wait to find out himself.
I glanced at Sarina. “You couldn’t handle her,” I said, and I heard Sarina laugh. And then I grinned. It would almost be worth watching Sarina walk off with him and then transforming into a Hellhound. Still, that wasn’t our plan, and I wouldn’t put Sarina in that kind of danger.
“And so, we have a deal?” Maelon said.
I looked over at Raven, who nodded. I could tell that her acquiescence caused her pain, but the very fact that she agreed told me she had great faith in me.
And I was beginning to think anyway that Maelon was all bluff. And that he couldn’t really fight.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s set the rules and clear a ring.”
33
It was quickly decided that we would each choose a weapon with which to fight. A ring was formed in the middle of camp, with warriors from both sides marking out a line using small stones, guidelines to keep warriors out and the combatants in.
I removed my whip and daggers from my body, along with the sheath for my sword. Or anything else that would get my way. Maelon did the same, and soon we were standing facing each other, my sword in my hand, and him with a long battle ax.
That battleax had better reach than my sword, and although he was slightly shorter than I was, his build told me he would have no problem swinging that ax directly into my skull.
Sarina stood on one side of the circle, and Raven stood opposite her. These were my representatives, who would make sure that the rules of engagement were followed. Maelon had similar lookouts stationed on opposite sides of the circle.
There really weren’t many rules. Since we were fighting to the death, just about everything would go. Except however, we weren’t to use magic, we weren’t to leave the circle, and we could not enlist help from anyone else or any other weapon during the fight.
It began without much ceremony. I took my sword in both hands and planted my feet a sure distance apart. Maelon likewise took his ax in both hands and assumed the wide stance. The camp was deathly silent, and I almost wished for the sounds of battle around me, because it was what I was used to hearing.
I moved to the left, stepping sideways and watching what Maelon did with his ax. As I drew closer, he also sidestepped and shifted hands so that the long, thin battleax was pointing toward my more exposed side. But I didn’t have any problems using my sword with only one hand, so I shifted back, changing direction and watching to see how quickly Maelon moved. Fighting this man was not going to be like fighting a wraith or an orc. He wouldn’t move as quickly as a wraith, and he wasn’t as strong as an orc. But he was a big, dangerous man, powerful in his own right, and he had a gleam in his eye that suggested he knew what he was doing. And his footwork was definitely better than mine.
I had no intention of losing this fight, and if it came down to it, I would use my magic to kill him. Honor be damned. We didn’t have time to dick around, and although Sarina had said she worried about me, I was ready to take whatever action necessary to win.
However, I suspected that Maelon would do the same thing.
I felt the tension from the crowd, the anxiety from the elves, even though their faces remained stoic. The warlord’s followers looked on eagerly, as if they fully expected Maelon to kill me quickly. But he wasn’t making a move, and I was content to wait all day until he did. My shoulders were relaxed, and the sword in my hand felt steady and sure. At this point, it felt like an extension of myself, and I’d had enough experience fighting with it that I knew exactly where I should place my weight in order to give myself the best leverage.
Maelon grinned. “Afraid?”
“I can dance like this all day,” I said.
I felt a whisper of wind behind me, as if someone in the crowd had shifted, but I didn’t dare glance back in case Maelon decided to use it as a distraction. Instead, I had to rely on my allies that were standing just outside the ring.
“So,” I said casually, “how did you find yourself here in the forest? It’s unusual for a man to lead so many people.”
“Men are just as capable,” Maelon said. “Or at least, some men. As I’m sure you have found out for yourself. But this forest? It was an opportunity. I was tired of seeing the corruption and the stink and the slaving and the lies perpetuated by the elves and humans of Hell. And as it turns out, there are plenty of others who think that way as well.”
I nodded. “But instead of trying to help change the problem, you decided to add to it. That makes a lot of sense.”
Maelon scowled and continued to circle, and I followed him. By this time, we had circled around the ring at least three times, but neither one of us had moved any closer to the other.
“I am fixing the problem,” he said. “If it weren’t for me, most of these people would be dead or starving, or they would be toiling away in the Wraith King’s halls. They came to me because they had no one else. So don’t tell me that their lives aren’t better.”
He was probably right. Too bad he wasn’t a nicer guy.
“Still,” I said, “you prefer to use dark magic to keep an innocent elf queen captive? And you send out raiders to take more innocent lives?”
“They aren’t innocent!” Maelon moved to slightly closer to me. “Anyone who upholds the laws of the land supports the Wraith King.”
“Looks to me like you support him yourself. And if you could, you would like some of his power.”
“I am my own man,” Maelon said, his footwork bringing him another step closer into the circle. “But you, you seem to have an agenda that only includes elves and the occasional whore. You have no other purpose. A man without purpose might as will be dead.”
“I don’t know what whore you’re referring to,” I said, “except for those of your harem that you use to entrap the warriors you wish to kill.”
A murmur ran through the crowd then. Maelon’s face grew redder, and I could tell it struck a nerve. “You don’t know anything about what happens in my camp,” he said, “because I know my females. They are loyal to me. Even that seer over there.”
“Through dark magic only,” I said. “What about the others? I bet you need to use magic on them to get them to suck your dick, as well.”
That almost broke him, and a vein popped out on Maelon’s forehead. He refrained from moving closer to me, but I could tell by the grip on his battle ax that I had struck a blow.
So I kept up the taunting.
“Or maybe it’s worse than I thought,” I said with a smirk, “and you have to use magic to get hard at all.”
Maelon laughed, and after a second’s hesitation, his warriors laughed with him.
“You are good at insults,” he said. “But I’d like to know if you can fight. So I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
I was about to come up with a retort about his own reluctance to move into the middle the ring, when someone hit me fr
om behind. I heard Sarina give a loud shout, but it was too late, and I was already being propelled forward into the center of the ring. Maelon was ready, and he stepped forward, raising his battle ax as if he would strike one blow and that would be it. But I wasn’t caught off guard for long enough to let it end right there. I swung my sword at him, parrying his blow, and our weapons rang out with the clash of steel on steel.
Behind me, I heard the gasp of a dying man, as I was sure that Sarina had taken care of whoever had thrown me into the center of the ring. But I didn’t have time to look, nor did I really care. Trusting that she would have it well in hand, I focused all my energy on Maelon. I was tired of waiting, tired of the childish taunting, but it seemed to have enraged him more than he was letting on. For his blows, although strong, were almost manic. He rained his weapon down on me time after time, and I blocked each one. At one point, he tried to use his weight to shove the tip of his battle ax in my chest, but I caught it with the hilt of my sword, did a nifty little twist, and spun the man around. As his body turned, I saw the horror in his eyes as he realized that his entire back was open to my blade.
But he recovered quickly, his foot coming out and attempting to break my kneecap. I was forced to change the direction of my movement, and we disengaged. He turned around to face me, but I saw that he was barely sweating. And he was good with that battle ax. Apparently, he had not been lying about that.
We didn’t trade any more jibes at each other, and this time no one shoved me from behind. I swung my sword in a downward stroke, but this time when he blocked me, he misjudged, and my blade sliced through the fingers of his left hand. I saw three digits fall to the ground, and he almost lost the ability to grip that battleax.
Maelon howled in pain as the blood gushed out of his hand, but he didn’t relent and drove forward as if to skewer me. I had recovered from my swing and was already trying to get a blow in at his thigh, which seemed unprotected. He blocked it, but I lunged sideways and renewed my swing, this time catching him in the shoulder as he sidestepped away. A deep gash opened at the top of his arm, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from raising the ax again. Blood flew from his hand into the air, and I watched almost in slow motion as the droplets flew into the ring above me as some landed on my face.
At the sight of blood, my battle rage began to take over, and at this point there wasn’t much I could do to stop it. In fact, the bloodlust felt pretty good, and I was really working myself into the fight. We traded a few more blows, but already I could feel the quickening of the magic in my blood, and it seemed that my brain was on fire. That hadn’t really happened before, but I really liked it. It was true lust for killing after all, and it had been days since I’d had a good fight.
Although Maelon was a true warrior, able to adapt to the situation even when injured, and able to face an enemy without fear in his eyes, I soon saw that the magic he had could not match mine. And I have to admit I was almost disappointed. This fight was going to be too easy.
A few more strokes, and I managed to catch his battle ax with my hilt once again, only this time the warlord didn’t have quite have the leverage to hold it, and I spun it right out of his hands. The weapon flipped away and landed on the ground on the other side of the circle. But Maelon wasn’t ready to give up, and without the ax, he was still able to judge my blade quite well.
But he couldn’t stay out of reach for long, and I backed him ever so carefully toward the edge of the ring, where warriors and elves stood in a tight circle. I saw Sarina on guard with her sword drawn, and Raven with her bow on a string. But I didn’t see in any other commotion and figured that it was just their way of making sure that no one else tried to interfere here at the end of the fight.
Just as I had anticipated, Maelon would not be content to die without trying to use magic. The burst of power was small, but it caught me squarely in the chest. I stumbled backward, but kept my sword in my hand. I hadn’t really seen him do anything except for make a fist with his still good hand, but I figured he’d use some sort of spell against me.
Smiling, I knew that since he’d done it first, I really wouldn’t have any qualms against using my own magic.
So, I held out a hand in front of me to block him while I tossed my sword to Sarina. She caught it by the hilt, and I saw her nod. She was ready for me to finish this.
I felt the power coursing through me, fueling the bloodlust that was already there. My magic was always close to the surface these days, and it didn’t take much for me to release an arc of fire directly towards Maelon.
Surprisingly, and impressively, he was able to deflect it, and the fire spewed off toward the right and hit one of his own female warriors. She screamed as it caught on her tunic. And I saw others move to help her put it out. If it had hit her directly from me, it would have killed her.
I launched another attack at him, this time pushing with everything I had to create a wall of flame that he wouldn’t be able to deflect so easily.
I saw Maelon try to hold it back, but his hand that had lost fingers couldn’t seem to form any signs for the spells he needed. And truly, his magic was no match for mine. I stepped closer, wanting to see his eyes when they popped out of his skull. But he was managing to hold me back just enough, and so I made another sign, this one a spell I had learned recently to knock an enemy on his ass. Ilana had taught it to me, and she had picked it up from her days as a slave to the Wraith King. I’d never used it before because it had made me sick to think about using something that the necromancer used himself. But in this case, it seemed fitting.
I made the sign with my hand and felt the power leave my body and fly toward Maelon. It hit him in the throat, and he fell backward onto the ground, his hands going to his throat, and blood spewing out of his mouth. I had broken something in there, perhaps even severed his artery.
That was new. I don’t think I’d ever slit someone’s jugular before without opening their throat as well. So he wasn’t drowning in his own blood, but he was slowly bleeding out into his neck, and I saw it soon swell with the fluid, and he was struggling to breathe. I glanced at Sarina, who tossed me my sword once again. Then I looked down over Maelon and gave him a good kick in the ribs just so I could feel one of them crack beneath my boot.
Then I knelt down. “You called me the son of a fuck, and you are right. Because that is exactly who my father is. He is a monster, and although the thought of that repulses me, it does make me sure of one thing.”
Maelon was still gurgling on the ground, but his hands were already going limp. But before the light left his eyes, I raised my sword above my head and said, “My father is the Wraith King. And I’m going to kill him. Just as I kill you.”
And then I swung my sword and ended him.
34
The flames from my last spell continued to burn Maelon’s body, but I put them out with a simple word.
Then I turned, with my sword still bloody and the bloodlust still on me, and said loudly, “The combat is over. You’ve seen what I can do, and you have heard who I am. If any of you wish to challenge me on the outcome, he or she may do so, but I would advise against it.”
I felt extremely powerful standing in front of all those people, elves and men and women. More powerful than I’d ever felt after a battle with orcs or wraiths. I thought that perhaps it had something to do with officially declaring who I was in front of strangers. And even though the thought of my lineage repulsed me as I had said, it felt damn good to be able to say it. As if the magic inside me had wanted nothing more.
I watched as Sarina moved closer to me, stepping inside the circle, her green eyes wary but her voice calm when she said, “Let’s take the elf queen back to her home. She’s had to wait long enough.”
I knew Sarina’s words made sense, but it took me a minute to process them. And I knew her voice was meant to jolt me out of my battle lust. But I still had to fight it, as I always did.
Finally, when I had mastered myself, I was able to really look
at everyone standing around me and noticed that most were simply staring.
However, Kali had opened her eyes and was now looking directly at me. “You knew who I was,” I said. It wasn’t a question but a statement.
She nodded.
I had a lot of questions for her, but Sarina was right. We needed to get the seer back home.
It wasn’t going to be that easy, though, because the warriors whom I had hoped would disperse after looking at the body of their dead warlord were now looking at me. My gaze traveled from the men and women in the camp to the wood elves who had formed Maelon’s harem. And although I had hoped to find that they had simply been duped or bewitched into staying with him, I saw that that wasn’t the case. Several of them were crying, but others were looking at me with a strange expression in their eyes.
Finally, Willow stepped toward me into the ring. I wondered if I was going to have to fight her, or even kill the harem members. It occurred to me that they could cause trouble if they wanted to.
But when the elf spoke, that idea left my head completely.
“Jon,” she said, and lifted her chin high. “It would be our honor to serve you from here on. You are a great man, and we have sworn to pledge ourselves only to the warlord. And you are obviously the greatest of them all.”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I did this. We’re leaving.”
But the elf didn’t move out of my way, and she in fact moved forward to try to put a hand on my chest. Sarina was quicker, however, and knocked Willow’s arm away before she could touch me.
The elf practically hissed at Sarina, but she didn’t try to fight her. Instead, she looked back at me and said, “We will make you very happy, human. I’m sure we can show you many delights that you would never otherwise experience in the arms of elves. And we want nothing more than to follow you and live with you and have your children.”
