Scions of Nexus

by Gregory Mattix

  The horses gave Glurk as wide a berth as possible, leaping over Rhett and streaking out of the barn.

  Seeing his opportunity, Taren dove through the boards of the stall. Tellast’s eyes widened when he saw him. He reached for his sword just as Taren hit him with his shoulder. Although slender of build, Taren was bigger and heavier than the inquisitor, and his charge slammed the man back against the wall. The inquisitor grappled with him, but Taren had the advantage of surprise. He kneed Tellast in the stomach and wrenched his dagger from its sheath.

  Glurk bellowed and lumbered toward Taren, one huge fist the size of Taren’s torso cocking back for a swing that would crush him to pulp.

  Then Elyas was there. He shouted and jabbed his sword into Glurk’s upper arm. The ogre roared and pulled away, blood leaking from the wound.

  “Halt or I kill him!” Taren cried. He held his dagger to Tellast’s neck. “Tell your ogre to stand down!”

  The inquisitor stared coldly at Taren for a long moment, but then a look of fear crept into his eyes. Strangely, Taren saw pinpricks of fire reflected in Tellast’s eyes, as close up as he was, as if someone had lit a candle nearby. The inquisitor broke his gaze and looked over at Glurk, who stood with mouth agape as he watched the blood streaming down his forearm in fascination.

  “Move aside, Glurk,” Tellast commanded after a long, dramatic pause.

  “He stab Glurk!” The ogre scowled at Elyas. “Glurk mash him to goo.” He looked toward his huge club leaning by the door.

  “Aye, and I’ll stick you again,” Elyas replied, but he didn’t look quite so sure of himself now that he’d lost the element of surprise.

  “Step back, Glurk.” Tellast turned his attention back to Taren when the ogre complied, although with the demeanor of a sullen child. “You’re the one we seek. Fool boy, you won’t escape—I’ve got more than two score men outside. This village is surrounded.”

  Taren ignored him for the moment. “Get those horses, Elyas. We’ll ride bareback. Just bridle them.”

  Elyas looked at him strangely for a moment before he did as Taren bade him.

  Tellast chuckled, a dry unpleasant sound. “This gets better and better.”

  “Be quiet.” Taren jabbed him with the tip of the blade, just enough to break the skin. A thin bead of blood appeared on the inquisitor’s pale neck. Tellast hissed but didn’t speak.

  Elyas returned with the two horses after what felt like the longest couple minutes of Taren’s life. When Elyas finally led the mounts forward, he let out a long breath. Elyas carried both their packs and had his sword still in hand. He looked at Taren a moment then shrugged and swung himself onto one of the horse’s backs. The animal threw its head and snorted but seemed docile enough.

  How do I get on the horse without letting this bastard go?

  Tellast must have realized his dilemma, for he grinned at Taren. “What now, mageling?”

  “We’re leaving. Send your ogre outside. Elyas, keep the reins of my horse.” He gripped a fistful of the inquisitor’s coat and shoved him. “Let’s go. Don’t try anything, or you’re a dead man.” He realized trying to keep the knife to Tellast’s throat would be extremely awkward, so he settled for gripping his collar with one hand so he could guide the man, keeping the tip of the dagger prodding his back.

  They stepped outside, Glurk in the lead, followed by Tellast and Taren, then Elyas with the two horses. After only half a dozen steps outside, all eyes had turned to them. The villagers and soldiers all looked surprised at the unexpected development. For a long moment, the silence was thick enough to hear the rustle of a crow’s feathers as it glided down from atop the barn to a fencepost a short distance away. The bird watched the situation as curiously as everyone else, likely hoping for the prospect of a meal from the brewing violence.

  “The situation is beyond your control, boy,” Tellast said. “You won’t get out of here alive unless I command it.”

  “You’d better command it then, because you’re coming with us.”

  As if their conversation broke some spell, Nebarans began coming toward them with swords drawn—the rest of the inquisitors along with a handful of regular troops.

  “Keep back or I kill your leader!” Taren warned, but winced when his voice cracked. Surely in all the epic tales, neither Uncle Wyat nor any of his brave companions’ voices ever cracked.

  Tellast laughed his dry laugh again. “I’m not going with you, mageling. Hear me, men—these boys do not leave here alive, except in chains. I think this one hasn’t the stones to kill me, but assuming he does, you capture him and hurt him but make sure he remains alive. The warlord wishes to see this one.”

  “Glurk hurt boys?” the ogre asked eagerly. He stood a few paces away from his master, shuffling his feet anxiously.

  The Nebaran soldiers were moving to cut off any potential escape, already encircling them to the left. Their right was clear, for the moment, although a squad was moving in that direction.

  Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to go this way. Taren looked around, trying to gauge their best chance for escape. Nearly a dozen men were armed with loaded crossbows. None of the soldiers had mounts except for the inquisitors, but all their steeds save Tellast’s were grazing in a pasture a bowshot away.

  “Taren, we better go now,” Elyas warned.

  “Come on.” Taren pulled on Tellast’s collar, prodding him with the dagger, but the inquisitor resisted.

  “Take them!” Tellast commanded. He started walking forward, arms raised.

  Taren held onto his collar. He’d either have to kill the man or let him go. Crossbows were being pointed at them from all around. The soldiers had closed off the gap on the right, a full score now surrounding them and more advancing by the moment from the opposite end of the hamlet.

  The dark trees of the nearby forest loomed a bowshot away, promising concealment and escape. But how to get there past the soldiers?

  Elyas nudged the horses up close on Taren’s right. “Taren?”

  Of all the oddest possible things to think of in that moment, the thought of Yethri popped into Taren’s mind. Beautiful Yethri, who he’d never see again. Her mouth formed words in his mind. “Take the wand.”

  Of course. Knowing what he had to do, Taren yanked on Tellast’s collar, hard. The inquisitor stumbled back into him. He raised his dagger and drove the pommel into the back of Tellast’s head, dropping the man to his knees. In the next instant, Taren leaped for the horse. It shied sideways when he grasped its mane, but fortunately he managed to get his leg across its back.

  Then everything happened at once. One of the other inquisitors shouted a command. Glurk bellowed in anger at the sight of his master down in the dirt. Elyas and Taren sent their mounts leaping forward toward the line of soldiers between them and the forest. Nebarans loosed their crossbows, and bolts streaked through the air. One dug a gash in Taren’s thigh. Another shot past his head. He and Elyas ducked low on their mounts as they charged forward. Taren pulled Gradnik’s wand from his pocket.

  “Firrsu!” he cried, remembering the command word Gradnik had spoken.

  He aimed the wand at the soldiers before them. A pair of them hadn’t yet fired their crossbows, drawing a careful bead on him, and he knew they wouldn’t miss. Others were awaiting them with swords in hand.

  Streaks of scintillating light erupted from the wand, bursting into small explosions of blue, red, and gold in the midst of the soldiers before them. The Nebarans cried out, staggering away, some blinking, temporarily blinded. Taren aimed the wand to his left and unleashed more pyrotechnics at the knot of inquisitors running for their mounts. They threw themselves to the ground almost comically as green and orange starbursts erupted around them. The next burst sent the inquisitors’ horses scattering, racing away farther down the pasture.

  Elyas shouted a warning from up ahead. Two soldiers remained, moving to block their escape, one with a crossbow, the other with drawn sword. Elyas swung his sword at the crossbowman, who raised
the weapon as he was ridden down. The sword flashed, and the bow split apart, as did the crossbowman’s head. Elyas’s next swing took the swordsman’s hand off at the wrist, the weapon spinning through the air, still clutched in his hand. Blood spurted from the soldier’s wrist as he fell away. Then Elyas was past the disorganized line of soldiers and galloping into an open field, Taren right at his heels.

  Taren glanced over his shoulder to see more Nebarans running after them, along with Glurk. The ogre’s huge lumbering strides kept him within a dozen or so paces.

  Another burst from the wand sent colorful starbursts right at the ogre’s face. Glurk yelped and swatted at his face and head as if being attacked by an angry swarm of hornets. He ran blindly away, trampling a Nebaran soldier beneath him. The others scattered to avoid the small explosions and maddened ogre.

  Taren turned forward again just in time to see the thick bough of a tree rapidly approaching his face. He gave a startled yell but was just barely able to duck in time. The bark parted his hair and gave him a painful scrape along the scalp.

  Then the two of them were plunging into the cool, shadowed forest. The farmstead was quickly obscured from sight by the trees and bushes. Pursuit swiftly dropped off behind them, the shouts and cries of the Nebarans disappearing in the distance. After galloping on for several minutes, Elyas finally slowed his horse to a walk, and Taren’s mount slowed as well.

  “By the gods, we got away!” Taren had a wide grin on his face as he rode up beside Elyas. “I don’t know how, but we bloody well did it!”

  Elyas turned and looked over, his face pale and clammy. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes rolled back. He lost his balance and tumbled from his horse.

  Taren was off his mount in an instant. A streak of fresh blood glistened down the flank of Elyas’s horse. He knelt beside Elyas, and only then did he see the crossbow bolt lodged deep in his cousin’s ribs.

  Chapter 21

  The raucous squawking and squabbling of scavengers slowly pierced the dark shroud of death. Hard on the heels of the commotion was the overpowering stench of the battlefield. Rotting flesh, offal, excrement—all were present en masse, an overpowering reek prodding the stomach to empty its contents.

  Creel could’ve remained under the pall of darkness for some time longer, for he should’ve been dead, yet the century-old magical experiments that sustained him wouldn’t grant him even that simple peace.

  Thus, he awoke to an unpleasant welcome. A nearby flutter of wings was followed by a painful pinch on Creel’s ear as a scavenger’s sharp beak tore at the soft exposed flesh.

  The pain was a rope that reeled Creel back to consciousness, hoisting him from the depths of a dark well.

  He gasped, shuddering fully awake, and instinctively swatted at the crow. The bird, startled that he was still alive, took to wing with an annoyed squawk in search of a meal that wouldn’t put up any resistance, for those were plentiful enough. Creel’s arm struck the crow’s tail, knocking a dirty black feather loose.

  That shooing motion was the best he could manage, for a wracking pain stabbed through him, originating in his spine and spreading into his extremities, sending him into convulsions. He lay there on the soft ground, face in the cold mud, squinting against the bright daylight as spasms shook him.

  Gods, how long has it been? A day or two after the battle, judging from the pain. And I had my last potion the day prior to that. He briefly wondered if the pain would eventually kill him if he neglected to assuage it with his soothing elixir. The longest he’d ever managed to go without was five days, and the pain had been truly debilitating.

  The effort to remain awake was too much, and Creel drifted back to a semiconscious state, images of shadowy figures and stabbing swords flooding his mind.

  ***

  Full consciousness returned some unknown hours later, his sharpened instincts alerting him to potential danger. A boot squelched in the mud nearby, and he heard the quiet breathing as someone stealthily moved about. Cracking his eyelids, he saw dusk was settling, a splotch of orange and yellow on the horizon the only remainder of the sun’s descent. His body was cold and achy from lying in the mud for hours, perhaps days. Rain must have fallen earlier, for the mud was soft again.

  “Bloody well been picked over already,” a quiet voice muttered nearby, somewhere out of Creel’s line of sight.

  Armor jingled, and the person grunted, then a heavy object hit the ground with a thud.

  Scavengers of a different sort—this type after coin instead of a meal.

  “You findin’ anything, Ferret?” This voice was different, calling from a distance away.

  Creel saw a figure about fifty paces away standing up and looking in his direction.

  “Nay, not even a damned copper,” the second person, Ferret apparently, responded from nearby.

  Creel guessed Ferret to be a young boy, judging from the pitch of the voice.

  “Keep lookin’. Mudge’ll be pissed if we don’t bring him nothing.”

  “Mudge can ram a rusty rake up his arse sideways,” the boy muttered quietly, so that the other couldn’t hear.

  Mud squished underfoot near Creel’s ear, and he felt someone’s breath on his exposed neck then nimble fingers pawing at his belt. After a curse, hands seized his shoulder and heaved, trying to roll him over onto his back.

  Creel allowed himself to be rolled over. He gritted his teeth as the arrowhead was driven deeper into the meaty part of his back near the spine, a bright spark of pain that sent a surge of adrenaline through his veins. He abruptly opened his eyes and seized the corpse robber’s wrist.

  “Coin purse is long gone—someone beat you to it.” Creel squeezed the boy’s wrist hard.

  The robber, Ferret, let out a startled squeal. The scrawny boy’s brown eyes, large beneath a mop of dark hair in a thin, dirty face, went wide with alarm. He tried to pull away, but Creel’s grip was too strong. He yanked Ferret down across his chest and clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth before he could shout for his companion’s aid.

  “Ferret? What was that? Sounded like ya near wet yerself.” The other boy laughed loudly.

  “How long since the battle?” Creel asked Ferret quietly. “Don’t scream, or I’ll break your wrist.” He slowly removed his hand from the boy’s mouth.

  Instead of giving an answer, with his free hand Ferret jammed the blade of a small knife into the meat of Creel’s forearm. He obviously thought his surprise attack would loosen his grip on the boy’s arm, but he was mistaken.

  Creel grimaced at the newest source of pain and gripped the front of Ferret’s dirty tunic, yanking him down and slamming him to the ground, rolling over and pinning the boy.

  “That wasn’t very nice, lad,” he growled. “Answer my question, lest I get angry.”

  Ferret’s wide eyes went from the knife jutting from Creel’s bleeding forearm, to his face. The boy’s eyes held an edge of cunning, not only the fear Creel had expected. This one’s not so easily cowed.

  After a tense moment, Ferret relented, relaxing in Creel’s grip.

  “Battle ended day afore last,” he said sullenly.

  “And the Nebaran army?”

  “They were mopping the ground with your lot till reinforcements came and pushed them back. Last I heard, they retreated to the southeast a few miles.”

  “My lot, eh?” Creel snorted in amusement. He was surprised the motley force had been able to hold—the contingent of reinforcements must have been sizable. “The Ketanians are your people too, are they not? The Nebarans are the invaders here, last time I checked.” He released the boy and sat up, looking around. He could hear the rustling of crow feathers and squeaking of rats among the corpses.

  Ferret scurried away from him a few feet yet made no move to flee, eyeing him with something between resentment and curiosity.

  Creel’s many injuries, save the arrow wound in the back and knife jutting from his forearm, had healed some time ago. The ache in his bones and spas
ms of pain would never go away and would incapacitate him soon enough, yet for the moment, they were tolerable.

  I need to return to the Disarmed Bandit, gather my gear, and hit the road.

  He plucked the boy’s knife from his forearm, studied it a moment, then tossed it beside Ferret with a flick of the wrist. The knife landed point-first in the mud, wobbling slightly. Fortunately, nobody had stolen Creel’s old boots yet. He knew a few spare coins were tucked inside, enough for a warm meal and some strong spirits to muddy the memories of the battle, assuming he could drag himself all the way back to the Disarmed Bandit.

  Creel groaned and lurched to his feet, his muscles and joints achingly stiff from lying in the cold mud for over two days. A spasm of pain made him stagger, but he regained his balance, putting hands on his knees.

  “How the Abyss are you not dead?” Ferret asked in disbelief. His eyes ran over Creel’s gashed tunic and the dried blood caking the dozen wounds to his chest and belly and back.

  “The gods must’ve been watching over me,” he answered bitterly. He remembered being the last one standing amidst a group of Nebarans then taking an arrow in his back, their swords slashing and stabbing into him, and swiftly falling to their blades.

  Palam or one of his cockless bootlickers shot me in the back—bloody arseholes. The thought of taking revenge on the captain wasn’t as welcome a thought as he’d imagined it would be. He wanted nothing more than to begone from there. Fool decision, not leaving Ammon Nor sooner.

  The arrow still lodged in his back was a painful reminder that the wound wouldn’t heal until the shaft was removed. He reached for it, groaning at the stab of pain, his fingers tickling the edge of the broken shaft, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  “Hold still.” Ferret rose smoothly to his feet. He grasped the shaft of the arrow and yanked.

  It tore free of Creel’s back with a fresh burst of agony.