The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  When his scrutiny reached Scorch’s cage, Scorch glanced away. But after a minute, when he was sure it was safe, Scorch looked back. He started slightly, because the man was still watching him, casting the same speculative glare at Scorch as he had the water bowl. Scorch idly wondered whether or not the man would try to sniff him next. He hoped not. After the few days he’d had, his odor could be nothing but disagreeable.

  The longer the man stared at him—rudely—the longer Scorch kept his eyes likewise fixed, until a flare of heat in his chest made him gasp and he had to turn away. Kio and Julian looked at him askance as he clutched a hand to his heart and sucked in several strained lungfuls of air. Embarrassed, he resigned himself to focusing on the floor and steadying his pulse. When he was just on the verge of smothering the fever whirling around his insides, the relative quiet of the cages broke into a metallic maelstrom. Scorch’s muscles seized as the heavy march of boots bounced malevolently off the dungeon walls. He found himself inching closer to Kio, who was shushing Julian, trying to calm him. Scorch needed some of that calmness, and when he pressed his shoulder against Kio, she said nothing, but reached out one of her hands and wrapped it loosely around his forearm.

  Ten masked men bustled into the dungeon moments later, going straight for the newcomer. When they opened his cage, instead of simply yanking him out as they’d done the others, they tossed a rope inside that caught over the man’s head on the second attempt. Scorch watched it tighten around his neck and held a hand to his own throat in sympathy as they hauled him from the cage.

  As soon as the man was on his feet, he attacked, slamming the heel of his hand into one of the masked men’s faces, making blood pour from beneath the mask. Then he jabbed with an elbow, ramming it into a second guard’s throat. He spun, kicked the sword from another man’s hand. Scorch was mesmerized. He moved so quickly. But there was a reason so many guards had come, and before too long, the prisoner received a blow to the temple that knocked him dizzy. The masked men took the opportunity to shove a bag over his head and tie up his wrists and ankles.

  The man struggled, but he was manageable now, and one of the masked men lifted him up and threw him over his shoulder. Scorch was humiliated for him. And then the remainder of the men turned to observe him in his cage.

  Scorch shook his head and Kio tightened her grip on his arm, but there was nothing to be done about it. They were coming straight for their cage and Kio had just returned from her fight. They wanted Scorch.

  They ripped open the door of the cage and grabbed his ankles, pulling him out carelessly. Scorch’s head wound scraped against the floor and he blinked away the tears in his eyes. They stood him upright and held him at bay with a sword pointed between his shoulder blades. Scorch looked back at Kio and Julian, possibly for the last time, and then let the masked men march him from the room.

  He watched his destined opponent being carried off down a separate hall, but the masked men led Scorch on the exact path as last time. Soon, he was back in the small room, watching the masked men open the door to the outside. They threw Scorch through before he could walk, and slammed it shut behind him.

  Again, Scorch was on his hands and knees. The ground was damp beneath him, but the sun was drying up the remainder of puddles and flooding his vision with blinding light. Shielding his eyes with a hand, he stood. The crowd on the other side of the wiry walls was bigger than before—the weather encouraged more interest in the morbid entertainment, he supposed—and the number of armed, masked men at the perimeter was greater. He wondered if that had anything to do with the dark-haired man being hauled through the opposite door. A masked man entered the circle with him, quickly cutting the ropes from his legs and wrists, unlooping the rope from his throat, and ripping the sack from his head before running back through the door and pulling it closed with a thud.

  The man stood leisurely. His skin was so pale, it practically glowed in the harsh sunshine. He took in Scorch’s presence across the circle, and then they both seemed to notice the weapon waiting for them in the center of the ring. A staff. Not two staffs like last time. Just one.

  Scorch imagined that if he bothered to look closely into the crowd, Ebbins would be there, grinning wickedly at his predicament, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from the man stealthily stepping toward him. He braced himself, remembering the swift movements of the man in the dungeon, but he wouldn’t be the one to try for the weapon, wouldn’t tip the fairness of the fight in his own direction. He tried not to stagger back when the man reached the center of the circle.

  Now that he was only a few feet away, Scorch admired him with the luxury of nearness. The stranger was slight and slim, with a narrow waist and cords of lean muscle visible through the snug material of his armor, which Scorch decided must be leather from the way it reflected the light. He wore his dark hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, but a thick strand had escaped and was hanging straight and smooth over one eye. Scorch squinted, trying to determine an eye color, but he couldn’t; he was still too far away.

  The man stood at the center of the circle, appraising Scorch with equal vehemence, and Scorch resisted the instinct to quaver under the stare. His hand flexed at his side, itching to run through his mess of hair, but he banished the thought from his mind. If he was about to be in a fight for his life, he didn’t need to primp.

  The man’s lips were pursed in a severe line as he finally looked away from Scorch and down to the staff at his feet. He bent over, a fluid motion that Scorch would have enjoyed under different circumstances, and scooped it up. He threw the staff up in the air and caught it again with dexterous hands, testing its weight. Scorch could tell he was practiced by his stance and the way he gripped the wood, twirling it with ease.

  The crowd grew restless watching Scorch’s opponent waste their time. They wanted blood. They wanted screams. Scorch didn’t flinch when the man met his eyes again, but he wanted to. There was an innate volatility about him. The mere act of being looked at by him seemed risky. When he finally drew the staff back over his shoulder, Scorch readied himself to dodge whatever was coming.

  The man took several quick steps forward and launched the staff into the air. It whizzed high over Scorch’s head. He threw a quizzical frown at the man before turning to watch the progression of the staff. It cleared the wall and commenced to sail downward until it collided with the surprised eye of a crude spectator.

  The first reaction was stunned silence, everyone watching as the man fell to the ground, the staff firmly lodged in his skull. The second reaction was wild cheering. Soiled shoes kicked the dead man out of the way and greasy fingers shook the walls of the circle. Shocked, Scorch whipped around to face the other man and jumped; he’d closed the space between them and was standing right in front of him.

  Scorch had time to notice his eyes were an eerie shade of amethyst before he had to duck the first attack. Since Scorch was taller, his reach was longer, but the other man was faster. He moved with impossible speed, sending an elbow flying at Scorch’s face. He blocked it with his forearm and spun away from a flurry of fists. He backed up as the man tracked him across the dirt. It was nothing like his previous fight, when he had been pitted against a boy with no skill. The man stalking him was a trained fighter. Scorch thought back to what’s-her-name in the sparring ring and almost smiled. Then the man rushed forward and there was no more room for thought.

  Scorch had a reputation for being one of the best apprentices in the Guild for a reason. He’d mastered every level of training they’d thrown at him, and that included hand-to-hand combat. He utilized that expertly honed skill, sending silent thanks to his instructors every time he narrowly missed a flying knee or snuck a strike through the other man’s scarily resilient defenses.

  It soon became clear the fight was even, their skills a kismet match, and Scorch’s heartbeat fell into the familiar rhythm associated with the give and take of a thoroughly enjoyable spar. A blur of white zoomed past his block and struck his neck. His he
ad knocked back and he coughed, but recovered with adamant speed, letting lose a kick that hit the other man in the chest. The man grasped at Scorch’s leg in retaliation, but Scorch snapped it out of his reach before he could complete the hold.

  For a time, they were trapped in an endless volley, neither man getting past the other’s guard. It was a storm of strength and speed, and they were both caught up in the wind of it. Until, of course, the inevitable happened and the scales tipped slightly in one man’s favor. Scorch feinted a punch to his opponent’s gut and threw a side-winding fist toward his head. When the man made to duck the hit, Scorch caught him with a brutal knee to the chin. The man went down and Scorch came down on top of him. The fight was in Scorch’s hands. But then he made a mistake. It was a small mistake, but an integral one. He peered down at the man trapped between his thighs.

  And he hesitated.

  At the Guild, the fight would be over. But Scorch recalled, with a dark spoiling in his stomach, that he wasn’t at the Guild, and it wasn’t a sparring match, and he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t being held down with his head under the water. There was no knife in his hand or earth shattering panic in his heart. He sat uselessly on top of his opponent for the shortest of seconds, hesitating, and then his world flipped over. Literally. The man rutted up and flipped him to his back, sinking on top of him, his knees pinning Scorch’s shoulders. He bent low, one hand tightening in Scorch’s hair while his forearm pushed against Scorch’s windpipe. Their faces were intimately close. His eyes narrowed at Scorch, and his lips parted, breathing harder than he had the whole fight.

  Scorch struggled but the smaller man was ridiculously strong. He choked in a gasp of air past the pressure on his throat, positive that, in a moment, it would become too much and he’d lose the fight in an irrevocable sort of way. But that moment didn’t come. If anything, the pressure eased from his neck after his desperate gasp. Scorch’s hands grappled at the man’s waist, pinching and scratching in an attempt to make him move, but the man held utterly still, keeping his knees pinned ruthlessly against Scorch’s shoulders.

  Somewhere in the corner of his mind, he was aware the crowd was spurring them on, but he had no mind for anything but the stony expression of the man on top of him. Scorch was so focused on the curious bow of his mouth that he hardly understood that first rough whisper.

  “What?” Scorch gasped stupidly, his voice straining and rasping beneath the abrasive forearm.

  The man’s eyes flashed with annoyance and he bent lower to speak in Scorch’s ear. “Pretend I’m killing you.” His voice was a deep, static rumble.

  Bewildered, Scorch asked, “Aren’t you killing me?”

  Hair tickled Scorch’s face as the man increased the pressure on his throat. “I’d rather kill everyone else. Shut up and make it believable. Then follow my lead.”

  The man sat back before Scorch could agree or disagree, and landed a hard smack across his jaw that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Then hands wrapped around his throat. The man maintained eye contact as he bore down, not on Scorch’s windpipe, but against his own thumbs, pushing them together in a discreet hover above Scorch’s skin, tensing his hands and creating the illusion of life-squeezing effort. Scorch played along, slapping at his wrists, trying to break his hold, and enjoying the smooth texture of—yes, he’d been right—leather beneath his fingers. He bucked, kicked, writhed, and wriggled until he received an irritated look from his murderer, and then he wrapped it up as best he could. He grew still, twitching sporadically. He closed his eyes and forced his limbs limp. Hands gave his throat a squeeze before letting go, and then the weight of the man disappeared.

  Scorch remained sprawled and frozen in the darkness of his own eyelids, trying to make out the following events by sound alone. He heard light footsteps beside his head. He heard the crowd raving like vultures and shaking at the walls. He heard the creak of the far door opening and the familiar trudge of masked men crossing the grounds, making it vibrate against Scorch’s supposedly dead body.

  He was beginning to worry about what kind of lead, exactly, he was going to be given, when he heard a whoosh, followed by a crack, followed by a “Now!”

  Scorch’s eyes flew open and he sprang to his feet. A short storm of violence sped by, tumbling past one of the masked men, popping up behind him, and snapping his neck with a flick of his hands. He pried the man’s sword from his hand and tossed it to Scorch. Scorch caught it and his hand warmed instantly around the grip. He turned with a sweep to meet the masked men attacking from behind and blade clanged against blade.

  There were twelve men in the circle with them, Scorch counted. Ten meant to handle the difficult survivor and two meant to drag Scorch’s dead body away, he guessed, but one of them was already down, and as Scorch looked beyond the swordsman in front of him, he spied the difficult survivor downing a second masked man, then a third, then a fourth. Somehow, he’d gotten his hand on two swords in the time it had taken Scorch to knock the blade from a single man’s hand. The masked man scrambled for his fallen sword and Scorch brought his foot up in a swift kick to his face. The man fell onto his back, blood and bits of teeth spraying from his busted mouth, the mask lopsided and hanging from his face.

  Scorch surveyed the result of his aggression and found he was hardly bothered by it, not when it was delivered onto such a deserving party. He turned to face the next masked men, two boxing him in on either side, and met their attacks with a flourish of his sword. It felt good to have a blade in his hand, and he smoothly unarmed them both.

  Suddenly, a rope closed over his throat and Scorch spun—the friction burning his skin—to face the man pulling him in. Scorch sliced down with his sword, disconnecting himself from the rope lead, and brought the pommel down on his assailant’s skull, adding him to the accumulating pile of bodies in the center of the circle.

  There were four masked men left now, three of them surrounding Scorch’s nameless comrade and one eyeing Scorch warily. Scorch held his sword before him and cocked a pale, inviting eyebrow. The masked man took a few steps back before spinning on his heel and flat-out running toward the door. He made it halfway there before a sword speared him through the chest. Scorch’s eyes widened as he looked at the dark-haired man. He’d taken down one of the three remaining men and thrown his sword like he’d thrown the staff.

  Scorch ran to help him with the final two men in the circle, and, together, they finished them off, one falling by Scorch’s punishing knock to the head, and the other run through to the hilt by the merciless, yet brutally efficient nameless man.

  They were the only ones left standing in the circle, but Scorch knew it was only a matter of time before more guards were sent to capture or kill them. His temporary companion didn’t seem interested in waiting. He ran for the wall, Scorch following close behind, and they started climbing, the wired texture making for perfect handholds. People in the crowd screamed and finally began to disperse once they realized their own lives were in imminent danger.

  They had crested the top of the wall when Scorch stopped. He watched as the other man threw a leg over the side, pausing long enough to fix Scorch with a put-upon glare.

  “Hurry up,” he said, a line forming between his eyebrows.

  Scorch swallowed hard. He wanted to leave, wanted to keep climbing, but his body stopped him. He sighed, looking back toward the building. If he followed the man over the fence, he’d be protecting himself, but who would protect Kio, Julian, and the dozens of others below, still in cages?

  “I have to get the others,” Scorch heard himself say.

  The man stared at him for a moment before swinging his other leg over the wall and descending at a rapid pace. Scorch climbed back down on the side of the circle grounds, his hand fastening over the hilt of his sword. He cast a final glance toward the stranger, already down on the opposite side of the wall and disappearing into the crowd.

  Scorch took a deep breath. He had a sword and he was riding a burst of confidence. The maske
d men inside would know the fight had taken an unexpected turn. They would be coming for him, and he was sorely outnumbered, but he wouldn’t be for long, not if he could make it to the dungeon before he was overpowered. It may have taken his lissome opponent to make him see it, but escape was possible. Scorch was a guardian with a weapon. Green or not, he was a superior fighter.

  He steeled himself and headed through the door he’d entered by. A hush of silence enveloped the room as he closed the door. He cocked his head, listening for telltale sounds of trouble and hearing the faint echo of footsteps and muffled talking, but it was still a few hallways away. Scorch opened the second door and stepped into the maze of halls, recalling the path he’d been dragged along.

  He walked as quietly as his boots allowed down the torch-lit hall and hoped the masked men were headed down the alternate route to the circle. He paused, listened, and made his first turn— left. The hall was empty, but Scorch could hear nearby yelling. He tightened his hold on the sword and quickened his pace. After heading down the stairwell, he reached the next turn—right—and then the next—right—and then the door to the dungeons was right there, at the end of the hall. Already, he could hear the cages banging.

  Scorch ran.

  The door to the dungeon was locked when he reached it, but he kicked it in with no trouble, busting into the room with a crash. If the masked men hadn’t known his whereabouts before, they did now. There was no time to waste.

  He went straight for Kio’s cage first, heaving his sword through the lock. The cage door fell off its hinges and she crawled out. Scorch offered his hand. The rest of the room had grown silent. His heartbeat felt like the loudest thing in the room before he said, voice pitted, “Kio, help me.” She nodded and he handed her the sword. Without direction, she began sweeping down one side of the room, hacking the locks off every cage, while Scorch started on the other side, kicking at rusted locks until they came free. In minutes, all the cages were open, and weary, injured, furious women and men were crawling from them and helping each other to their feet.