by Mike Truk
He could have stepped in before they formed their shield wall, but fuck it. He waited. Allowed them to regain a flicker of confidence. To hunch their shoulders, blades at the ready.
Too much. He’d called on too much power.
He heard Dragoslav’s panting, bestial breath: time to kill.
He stepped forward. Two swords came at him, twin thrusts. A simple matter to sweep his blade across, parrying them both. With his free hand he took hold of the upper edge of the closest shield, tore it free. Heard bones break, saw the splash of blood as fingers tore off. Tossed the circular shield up, caught it by the ironbound rim, then shoved it forward, slamming it edge first into the man’s face hard enough to collapse the iron nose guard and the structure of his skull.
Attacks from all sides. He didn’t need to see them. Could sense them coming. The shield wall was broken, the men folding around him, encircling him. He wove between the attacks, his body a vibrating instrument that responded with perfect speed to his every thought.
Hugh reached out. Took another man’s shield. Tore it free, ripped it without a problem from the man’s grasp. His own blade moving of its own accord, parrying, deflecting, whispering around him as he stared at the other soldier. Flipped the shield up, caught it by its rim and slammed it forward. Crumpled the nose guard, shattered the cheeks and upper jaw. Embedding the iron rim three inches deep into the man’s skull.
He went down.
Three left.
Thwipp.
A stone passed through a man’s chest.
Two left.
Events were happening too quickly for the men to panic. They didn’t even have time to glance at each other before Hugh reached out and took the third man’s shield.
Tore it free.
Flipped it, gripped it, slammed its iron edge into the man’s face.
The man went down, taking the embedded shield with him.
Morwyn was amongst the front rank like a fox in a hen house, shearing off spearheads and doing the close, bloody work she excelled at.
But oh, she was slow. So painfully slow.
The last soldier screamed and charged Hugh, blade coming down in a wide, panicked chop.
Child’s play to duck and step under the attack, the man stumbling past him.
To reach around him, take hold of his shield, and tear it free.
The motion pulled the soldier around, whipped him about in a near perfect hundred and eighty degrees.
Straight into the edge of his own shield.
Hugh pounded it so hard into the man’s head that he nearly sheared the top of his skull off.
The soldier didn’t even scream. His feet went out from under him, and for a second he hovered parallel to the floor before crashing down bonelessly onto the rutted remnant of the imperial highway.
All dead.
Hugh lowered his blade. It’s length clean and unbloodied.
Morwyn spun, a drawing cut across a man’s hamstrings, her other sword rising to parry a dagger stab by cutting off the man’s hand at the wrist.
Four men were bunched about her, and beyond, Anastasia was huddled as before on the far side of the bridge. An arrow sliced through the air, hit her right in the back of the hood.
Bounced off as if it had hit a stone wall.
Thwipp.
One of Morwyn’s attackers fell.
Hugh crossed his arms.
Morwyn glanced at him, took in the dead about his feet, and her eyes widened. She faltered, nearly tripped, but recovered in time to parry another stab. Rose, backed away, fighting off three men at once, her blades a web of living steel.
Her sword flickered out. One of the men screamed and clutched at his face, blood pouring out between his fingers.
Two left.
Thwipp.
One left.
Morwyn smashed his blade aside in fury and drove both of her swords into his torso, only to press her boot against his chest and shove him off, twin trails of blood spurting out as he fell.
Istlav.
Where…?
There.
The commander had leaped off the bridge onto a large boulder upstream. The waters rushed and roared about its base.
“Archers! Ignore the disciplus! Kill the lord!”
An arrow sped out of the underbrush in response, flying toward Hugh.
He swayed aside.
The seconds drew out. No more arrows came from the tree line.
“Archers!” shouted Istlav. “Loose, you cowards!”
Hugh pursed his lips. Where was Elena? Gone from the cart. Ah. She’d not wasted any time.
Hugh stepped up to the edge of the bridge. “Hello Istlav.”
The man stared up at him, eyes wide with panic and disbelief, then looked about himself, trying to figure out a course of escape. “I… it seems I underestimated your - ah - insistence on your brother’s illegitimate…”
Hugh placed his hands on his hips. “Who are you working for?”
“The elders of Erro, I told you.”
“Things aren’t looking good for you right now, Istlav. You sure you don’t want to try the truth on for size?”
Istlav drew both his blades. “As if you’d spare my life if I did. Get down here and get this over with.”
“Very well.” Hugh stepped off the edge of the bridge and fell the five yards to land on a rough boulder about whose sides frothed the Mandroga. “There’s nothing I can do to make you talk?”
Istlav drew himself up. “My whole life my brother told me I was a braggart and an idiot and an arrogant son of a bitch. Said I’d never amount to anything. Well, maybe he was right. But I won’t die a traitor or a coward. Come at me already! End this!”
Hugh drew his blade. “So be it.” He leaped from his rock to the next closest, sprung up to a higher, more massive boulder dead center in the rushing stream, and from there plunged down upon where Istlav stood.
Istlav sought to parry with one blade and thrust with the other. Hugh turned his downward chop into a lateral sweep, the strength curdling within his arms and shoulders allowing him to smash the man’s swords aside, so that as he landed he was able to deliver a head butt with all the momentum of his fall behind it.
To Istlav’s credit he kept his footing; allowed both blades to sweep around, not seeking to stop them, and turned the movement into a falling swirling attack, dropping into a crouch and seeking to take Hugh out at the knees and waist.
A downward stab parried both blades; Hugh brought his fist down like a falling rock across Istlav’s bloody face, crunching his nose even flatter against his skull. The man rocked back, roared, and sought to rise; whisked both swords up the length of Hugh’s own blade to slide them clear just shy of his cross guard and into Hugh’s chest.
Or tried to. Hugh swayed back, allowed both swords to slice up and past his face, then kicked the man’s feet out from under him so that Istlav crashed down onto the boulder and almost rolled off into the river.
Almost, because Hugh pinned him down with a boot to his chest, the tip of his blade moving neatly to hover over Istlav’s heart.
“Last chance,” said Hugh, voice quiet over the rushing roar of the waters. “Who sent you here? Are there reinforcements coming?”
Istlav jerked his arms up, a final attempt to slash at Hugh, who dug the point of his sword into the man’s flesh and caused him to cry out and cease moving.
“Go on,” hissed Istlav, face a bloody ruin. “Get it over with. Stop wasting time and send me to the Ashen Garden with a good death.”
“The Hanged God cares nothing for how you die,” said Hugh, feeling that certainty resonate within him. “He’ll welcome you all the same.”
And he leaned forward and slid his blade into Istlav’s heart. The man let out a choked cry, dropped his swords to seize Hugh’s blade, blood spattering over his lips, then went limp and lay still.
Bitter disappointment filled Hugh, only to be replaced by a sense of growing dread. He looked up and saw the specters gathere
d all around him. Foughtash with his double axes up above on the bridge, the other men crouched or perched on the river rocks, Black Evec leering at him, great hat pushed back from his brow, Kevanir, the others - and Dragoslav himself, hunched and brooding on the far bank, a granite cliff of a man, eyes sunken, cheeks and jowls the color of iron, his worn brigandine armor belted and hanging down over his thighs, shoulders and upper arms covered in rusted plate.
The sight of so many of the dead drained the fire from his veins and replaced them instead with ice. They all stared at him, and in their hollow gazes he saw the mute accusation of what he’d done.
The horror caused his gorge to rise.
His fault.
His fault they’d all died.
Morwyn was calling down to him from the bridge. He couldn’t imagine talking to her and the others while the dead looked on.
Couldn’t imagine standing there, waiting for their accusations to come.
It was a primal reaction. Beyond all thought and reason. A simple, violent need to get away from these dead men. These former brothers whom he’d betrayed.
Hugh leaped from one rock to the other, onto the bank up whose steep side he scrambled, gripping roots to haul himself up, reached the top, and ran into the woods.
It was a ragged, clumsy escape. He careened off trees as he went, smashed through the undergrowth with all the grace of a wild boar. Deeper and deeper, ignoring the shouts, till at last his foot caught on a root and he tripped, sprawling all out in the leaf rot and loam.
Silence but for the pounding of his heart. How far had he run? The canopy was thick overhead. Dusk wasn’t far away. Hugh rolled over. His blade - had he dropped it?
He’d fallen into a small hollow, too small to be called a glade. Ringed on all sides by old, hoary trees, their roots interwoven like snake coils.
Someone was there. A large, brutish figure. Others behind him.
The specters. Of course they’d followed.
Hugh levered himself up onto his elbows and crawled backward, unable to tear his eyes from Dragoslav as the giant of a man ducked his head under a branch and stepped into the opening.
His face was all bleakness and craggy features. Few men had scared Hugh as much as Dragoslav. Sweet Severin might have cut an innocent’s throat without a qualm, but Dragoslav - he’d not blink if ordered to burn an entire village to the ground and cut down any and all who tried to run away.
Which he’d done, being the first to set flame to the thatch roofs of that small, nameless hamlet whose residents were supposed to harbor the fae folk and trade with them.
Hugh’s second week with the Lost Reavers, and the memory of that night with the flames raging from cottage to cottage and Dragoslav cutting down men, women, and children as they tried to flee their homes had been carved deep into his mind.
Dragoslav stood over him, expression remote, staring off into the middle distance. By Fortuna he was huge. Foughtash was a bear of a man, but something about Dragoslav made you feel like a child when you looked up at him.
You summoned me at last, he rumbled, voice like rocks shifting deep within the earth. I’m glad. I thought you too scared to face me.
Hugh snarled. His back pressed against a tree. Fear warred with shame and fury.
Dragoslav lowered himself into a crouch, relaxed, hands hanging between his knees. His face was almost kindly. You are and have always been a pissant, Hugh. But here, now, you have a chance to redeem yourself. Take your knife. The one in your other boot. Cut your throat. A bright red smile, ear to ear. Bleed out. Kill yourself. Be a man and let us go.
Hugh’s heart was pounding so violently in his chest that he could barely hear the other man’s words.
Aye, said Black Evec, stepping up alongside Dragoslav. I’d thought perhaps you’d redeem yourself. But no. You’re fucking a fox girl like some depraved piece of shit. Polluting yourself and what remains of our good name each night. You know what we’d have done with the likes of you while we were still alive?
“I know,” growled Hugh.
Foughtash stepped up on Dragoslav’s far side. His axes gleamed dully in the gloom. I’d kill you myself if I were still alive. Hack you apart. But I can’t. You saw to that. So kill yourself instead.
Hugh pressed back against the tree. “I’m not ready to die.”
Dragoslav, who remained crouched before him, narrowed his eyes. What’s ready got to do with it? Are you still a man, Hugh of Stasiek? Or are you a sniveling coward? A traitor to your kind?
The others were standing just behind them. Akilina with her blonde hair shorn near to the scalp. Old Waldimir, the oldest member of the Lost Reavers, gray hair hanging past his shoulders. Yaros and Bolek, each built like an oak but otherwise each other’s opposite, though Yaros’ smiles were all gone now.
Kevanir. Off to the side. Arms crossed, leaning against a tree and staring away into the shadows.
Come on, Hugh. Dragoslav sounded almost kindly. Are you a man or dog?
They were all around him. Stealing the air. He couldn’t breathe. Wanted to answer, but didn’t know what to say. His shame had him by the throat. He thought of Zarja by his side, soft and supple, caressing him, warming him, not judging - and felt his shame increase.
Kill yourself, growled Foughtash. Enough with this madness. Release us. Cut your damn throat.
Black Evec ran his fingers through his beard. He won’t do it. The boy’s a coward. Look at him. Near pissing himself, he is. You going to go running back to your lisica, boy? Hide behind her skirt?
Fucking disgrace, said Bolek from the back, spitting.
Fox fucker, whispered Akilina.
You think you can keep using our strength to compensate for your own? asked Dragoslav. We’ll find a way to get you. There must be a way to come through the veil and put our hands around your throat. Soon as we do, you’re a dead man, Hugh of Stasiek. Though if I can, I’ll delay our entry to the Ashen Gardens as long as it takes to break your mind. You mewling piece of cowardly shit -
“Enough!” shouted Hugh, drawing his knife. A wild, uncontrollable fury suffused him. For a second he didn’t know if he meant to cut his own throat, and then he threw himself forward, passing his blade through Dragoslav’s impassive face.
Crashed to his knees, whirled about, slashing at the specters who ringed him. “You all died! You’re dead, and I live! You were weak, you couldn’t take the magic – it’s not my fucking fault, you assholes!”
His shout echoed in the small glade, and they were gone. He stood, panting, staring at the shadows where Kevanir had stood, the darkness truly falling now, the sun dipping behind the tree line.
“So leave me the fuck alone,” he whispered, unable to deny the hypocrisy behind his words. He sank into a crouch, covered his face with his hands, and simply tried to not think, to not be, to wait for the world to change around him so that he didn’t have to consider his cursed state of existence.
Tears burned in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Rubbed them angrily away. Remained still and silent, barely allowing himself to breathe, until he heard gentle footsteps approaching through the brush.
Only one person could track him out here.
Zarja.
Hugh dropped his hands and looked up as she emerged from the trees. She wore Elena’s clothing, but stood in her true form, honey-colored eyes gleaming in the dark, blonde hair a dark caramel in the gloom.
“Hugh?”
“Leave me alone,” he rasped.
She glanced around the tiny glade. “A nice spot, but I’m sure there are accommodations in Erro that’ll be more to your liking.”
Hugh snarled. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not.” She stepped in, releasing a branch after she ducked under it, and crouched down before him, perhaps only a couple of yards away. Her golden eyes were eerie in the gloom. “I’m trying to understand what’s going on. One moment you… well. I don’t know quite how to describe what you did by the river. There are four men lying on
their backs with shields sticking out of their faces. And then you fight… whatever Istlav proved himself to be. Cut off his head. And… run away?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, “especially not with a fucking lisica.”
“No?” She didn’t sound offended. “You’re not looking too good, Hugh. I think talking about it is exactly what you need to do.”
“Leave me alone!” He burst to his feet and took an aggressive step forward, fists clenched.
“Or what?” asked Zarja, not moving a muscle, simply craning her head back to look up at him. “Or you’ll hit me?”
Hugh didn’t know what to say. Could feel Dragoslav’s eyes on him. Black Evec’s. Were they watching him right now? Did they watch him all the time?
“I won’t stop you,” said Zarja, rising at last to stand before him. “Where do you want to do it? In the face? Break my nose or jaw? Or perhaps you’d rather punch me in the stomach, kick me around this glade till I cry for mercy?”
“Stop,” grated Hugh, nausea passing through him in waves.
She canted her head to one side. “What do you want, Hugh? To kill me? Punish me? For what? For who I am? For mistakes you’ve made in your past?”
His whole body was shaking. He couldn’t keep his hands fisted any longer. The very thought of hurting Zarja was anathema. And yet. And yet.
Fox fucker…
She stepped in closer, placed her hands on his arms. “Talk to me, Hugh. I’ve seen more than you can imagine over the course of my years. Talk to me. I know what you were. I know what you’ve done. But I’m still here. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He worked his jaw, trying to find a way to unlock his throat, to cough out the words. But what words? The presence of the Lost Legion hung in the air like an acrid stench.
You going to go running back to your lisica, boy? Hide behind her skirt?
Hugh took a long, shuddering breath. Forced himself to stand straight. Wiped the back of his forearm across his eyes. Another deep breath. And inch by bloody inch he brought himself back under control. Roughly shoved the horror and shame down, clamped a lid over their oubliette, and forced himself to gaze into Zarja’s golden eyes without expression.
