by Aaron Pogue
Corin stalked after the distant shadow of the prince. He drew his stolen sword, which brought a startled hiss from Avery. “Not here! Not now!”
Corin didn’t even answer. He quickened his pace. The sound of dwarves at work was distant now, but still enough to provide some muffled cover for the sound of Corin’s footsteps. Fear burned in Corin’s belly, and he stoked it till it glowed, gripping the rapier’s hilt so hard his hand began to ache. He fell into an easy jog and then a trot as Ephitel neared the cavern’s entrance.
Thirty paces still, maybe forty, but Corin felt close enough to lunge. Avery hissed some desperate caution, but Corin ignored him. He hoped to slash the sword belt with one clean cut, then bowl the lord protector over from behind and scamper down the hall while Ephitel was sprawling. He only hoped the gentleman could follow his lead. Corin raised his sword and burst into a silent sprint just as Ephitel emerged into the catacombs. The pirate followed, not five paces behind him now, and noticed only as he ran into the vault that the iron door was closed. The room was brighter than he’d left it, too.
And crowded. Half a dozen of the house guard were packed into the room, waiting for their master. Corin had a single instant to recognize Kellen—badly bruised but still alive, tied up in a wooden chair off in one corner.
All these things unfolded over Corin in an instant. This, he thought, is why the Nimble Fingers have rules at all.
Then he crashed into Ephitel, and both men went sprawling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Surprise at seeing Kellen fouled Corin’s strike. He’d tried at the last moment to bring the sword to bear, but it glanced off the prince’s shoulder. As the two went spilling across the cellar floor, the sword was torn from Corin’s hand.
Still, he was no stranger to infighting. He kicked and jabbed, aiming blows at any soft target, but there was nothing soft about the lord protector. Though Ephitel wore no armor, Corin bruised his knee trying for a kidney shot and split his knuckles on the elf’s hard jaw. The man seemed made of iron.
Corin grabbed for the belt on Ephitel’s waist, still hoping to get the sword, but Ephitel twisted under Corin, squirming like a snake, and closed one hand like a manacle around Corin’s left shoulder. He closed the other on Corin’s right hip, and as they slid to a stop, Ephitel heaved without apparent effort and slung Corin across the room. The pirate crashed against the stone wall at the feet of a pair of guards.
Ephitel roared in offended anger. “You little piece of trash! You dare invade my home?”
Corin didn’t try to trade banter. He rolled out of the reach of the stooping guards and sprang toward the sword he’d dropped. Ephitel came to meet him, but at a walk. Corin beat him to the blade, snatched it up, and leaped to his feet. Ephitel didn’t draw; he sneered. “Who do you think—”
Corin didn’t let him finish. He lunged. He likely could have cut the sword belt then. He could have caught the sword and run. The door wasn’t locked, and there were enough distractions. But the sight of noble Kellen, bruised and battered and tied up here for questioning, was enough to stop him. So was the thought of all that powder underneath the city. He remembered what he’d asked Avery before: Do you want Maurelle to die? Because that is what comes next.
He didn’t. He wanted Ephitel to die. So he forgot the fancy sword he’d come to steal and aimed his blade at Ephitel’s heart. He lunged and drove the sword with all his strength, hoping to end the tyrant god with one fell strike.
The prince slapped the blade aside with a casual backhand. “Guards! This grows tiresome.”
Corin darted left and slashed back to the right, a vicious strike toward the prince’s unprotected neck. Ephitel caught the blade in his bare hand. He held it for a moment, immobilizing the blade no matter how Corin wrenched at it.
Then with a casual pressure from his thumb, Ephitel snapped the blade in two. He tore its ruined grip from Corin’s hand, flung it across the room in a show of rage, then knocked Corin to the ground with a crushing backhand.
“I am Ephitel of the High Moor!” he shouted, enraged. “I am a lord of war and prince of all Hurope. You cannot hurt me, but you are making me most annoyed.”
Sprawled on his back, Corin aimed a kick at the elf’s right knee. Ephitel didn’t even try to dodge. He took the blow with no reaction, but Corin felt the shock of it all the way to his hip. He tried to roll away, but Ephitel caught his ankle so he was brought up short, facing back toward the dwarves’ cavern.
Every eye was fixed on Corin. Three guards by the left wall, standing over a terrified Kellen. Three guards by the right wall, just now stepping away from the table where they’d been waiting. In the bright light of the guards’ lantern, Corin saw what he had not when he first passed through this room: that the table held the hand cannon that Avery had mentioned before.
It was a flintlock pistol fit for a prince. Gorgeous dwarven craftsmanship, with a stock of polished bone, its grip and barrels plated gold. And at a glance, it looked to be loaded, half-cocked and primed. Corin felt a flash of hope.
And another when he saw a wash of motion. Every eye was on Corin, so only Corin saw Avery now creeping into the room. Still hanging half-suspended, Corin met Avery’s eyes, then shot a glance at his broken sword, and then turned to Kellen.
“Kellen!” Corin shouted. “Kellen! Help me!”
The poor yeoman could not have answered, but the ruse shifted the guards’ attention from Corin to Kellen.
Behind him, Ephitel barked a condescending laugh. “The coward can do nothing for you, manling.” Then he took Corin’s captured foot in both hands and twisted.
If not for the druid’s strange boot, Corin’s ankle would have shattered for the second time in as many days. Instead the whole boot spun, tearing painfully at Corin’s knee for a moment before he hurled himself up and over, twisting with the motion. He folded his knees and bent at the waist, grabbing for Ephitel’s wrists, but the prince was already turning, half a spin, and he released Corin to fly across the room.
This time Corin’s head bounced off the stone wall and nauseating lights flashed behind his eyes. He rolled when he landed, out of instinct more than any clear intention, but he fetched up short against some piece of furniture.
The table! Ephitel had clearly thrown him away from the ally he’d tried to call upon, but in the process, he’d thrown Corin within reach of the pistol. Surging on a thrill of victory, Corin leaped up—and instantly collapsed again. His right knee throbbed, and whether from the pain or the blow to his head, Corin’s vision swam. He grabbed the table leg to stay upright and blinked against the sickening blur.
Avery was in the room now, silent as a cat. Corin only saw him as a splash of black, and perhaps the guards saw little more because he moved so fast. The gentleman thief dove toward the broken sword, reaching with his left hand even as his right lashed out. He must have found some bit of stone within the excavation, because it smashed into the soldier’s lantern with a crash of breaking glass, and most of the light fled from the room.
The guards cried in surprise—then one of them in pain—then Corin heard the sound of ropes snapping under strain. He saw the new blur of motion, too, in the colors of the Royal Guard’s uniform. Kellen was free! Another scream, this one cut short with a thud, and Corin knew the yeoman had joined the battle.
Ephitel had turned at the disturbance. “Age of reason!” he shouted, furious. “Is that a Violet? Will you let yourselves be beaten by a Kellen and a Violet? Kill them! Kill them all!”
Corin’s vision cleared at last, and even in the darkness he saw Kellen on his feet, the broken leg of his chair in one hand and his empty scabbard in the other—both heavily battered. Avery stood back-to-back with him, armed with the broken sword and Kellen’s heavy work knife. Both blades dripped black with the soldiers’ blood. Two of the guards were on the ground, and another three were limping from blows already taken. None looked anxious to approach the pair at bay.
None but Ephitel. The prince went like
an avalanche, a living doom approaching with a roar. He had the legendary sword of Aeraculanon raised, noble Godslayer ready to slay two base knaves, but Corin seized the chance. He heaved himself upright, leaning hard against the table, and grabbed the heavy gun. It was indeed a flintlock pistol, but unlike any he had seen before. Six separate barrels extended from its stock, the topmost evenly aligned with the gold-plated lock.
Strange though the contraption was, its operation was obvious enough. He leveled it at Ephitel, fighting down a surge of panic. He hated guns, but he hated Ephitel even more. He aimed it center mass, at Ephitel’s black heart, and squeezed the trigger.
The pistol jerked within his grasp like a thing alive, wrenching at his shoulder even as it let off a deafening boom within the confines of the stone-walled room. A dragon could not have outdone its roar, nor the pace-long lick of flame that stabbed toward the prince. That flash lit the room red for one terrible instant.
The shot from the dwarves’ hand cannon ended Ephitel’s charge. It pierced the prince’s back just left of his spine and exploded out his chest, ripping a fist-sized hole out of his fancy-dress uniform. The flash burned out as quickly as it had come, then time and darkness rushed back in to fill the gap.
Ephitel fell. Corin saw it in vague silhouette, shadows against gloom. The prince fell to his knees, Godslayer limp within his grasp. The four guards still on their feet took flight, throwing down their swords and dashing from the room. Avery and Kellen stood ashen faced and motionless, every bit as frightened as the departed guards. They had never seen a firearm in use before. Corin hadn’t seen it often, and never from this close.
But he felt no sympathy for Ephitel. The beast had still not fallen. Even with a hole clean through him. He sat upon his heels with his chin drooped down against his chest. Remembering the powder barrels in the cavern, Ephitel’s dark plans for the city, Corin aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger one more time. Corin had half suspected this strange gun, with all its extra barrels, might fire other shots, but nothing happened. The pirate shrugged, almost glad, and went to fetch Godslayer.
Before he’d gone one step, Ephitel’s corpse shook with a violent tremor. Avery and Kellen shrank away, and even Corin hesitated. When nothing happened, Corin took another step. This time Ephitel fell forward, bowing prostrate to the other two. His frame began to shake, and through the ringing in his ears, Corin heard what he took at first to be a death rattle. And then a cough. And then he cursed.
“The sword!” He threw aside the gun and sprinted forward. “Get the sword! Gods’ blood, get the sword!”
The others didn’t move, too baffled or afraid. Corin dove forward, scraping over the rough stone floor beside the fallen elf. He reached with both hands, grabbing for the legendary blade.
But Ephitel wrenched it away. Corin leaped on top of him, grabbing at his wrist with both hands, and beneath him Ephitel shook and shook with laughter.
“It didn’t work!” he boomed. “Even guns cannot defeat me!”
Corin wrapped arms and legs around Ephitel’s arm. He planted one foot against the prince’s jaw and the other against his rib cage. He grabbed the crosspiece on Godslayer’s guard in both hands. He strained his legs and heaved with all his might, and for one crushing heartbeat he feared it still wouldn’t be enough.
Then the godling gave a groan and the sword slipped from his grasp. As hard as he’d been pulling, Corin flung the sword away. It rang out when it struck the stone floor, throwing sparks, then skipped off into the darkness of the cavern.
Corin tried to scramble after it, terrified. Nothing he had done had stopped this monster, but his every hope lay in capturing that sword. He made it to his feet as Ephitel roared. “Nevertheless!” Then the lord protector curled his hand into a fist and bowled Corin across the room with one blow.
As Corin sprawled, Ephitel climbed unsteadily back to his feet. His shirt and pants clung to his frame, slick with blood, but beneath the gap torn in his tabard, he had only pale flesh, smooth and perfect as new-quarried marble. There was no wound at all. “I am Ephitel of the High Moor! I am a lord of war and prince of all Hurope! You cannot hurt me!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Avery and Kellen darted over to check on Corin. He saw the terror in their eyes, and it was no surprise. The last three minutes had contained three of the most horrifying things he’d ever seen. But if they didn’t act fast, Ephitel might add three more.
Corin waved a hand toward the prince resurgent and hissed toward the others, “You’re both elves. Can you do that?”
Kellen and Avery both shook their heads, the yeoman’s bruised complexion answer enough.
“But Ephitel and Oberon—”
Again they shook their heads. Kellen said, “The only one I’ve ever heard of who could survive a blow like that is…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. Corin’s people knew that legend, too. There had been a pagan lord of war named Memnon, invulnerable in battle. He’d been slain by the hero Aeraculanon, who had forged the sword Godslayer to the task.
Then Corin understood why Oberon had sent him for the sword. It was not to save him from the traitor, but so the traitor might be cut down. Perhaps he’d meant that task for later, but Corin would take care of it right now. He knotted a fist in Avery’s shirt and jerked himself upright. Nose to nose, he growled, “Get the sword!”
Avery waved helplessly toward the gloom of the cavern. “It’s lost!”
“And without it, so are we. Find it!”
Avery blinked, then turned and fled into the cavern. Kellen caught Corin under the arm and helped him to his knees. “What about me? What do you want of me?”
“We keep him talking,” Corin answered quietly. “Bless his wretched heart, he loves to talk. So we buy time. And when Avery gets back with the sword, we do everything we can to bury it in Ephitel.”
Ephitel was on his feet now, prodding curiously at his uninjured chest. “That is…interesting,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever died before.”
Leaning on Kellen, Corin climbed to his feet. The motion drew Ephitel’s attention, and Ephitel took a moment to consider them. “So. He is a shrinking Violet. I can’t pretend I am surprised.”
“He has gone to warn the king,” Corin said. “He’s slipped your trap twice now.”
“Three,” Ephitel said, bored. “But that was before your time.”
“When was that? Is that why you knocked his house from favor?”
Ephitel waved an admonishing finger. “I will ask the questions. Who are you?”
“A manling vagabond,” Corin said. “No one of importance.”
“But the druids think that you are outside time. There are prophecies, you know.”
Corin frowned. “Prophecies. I thought they were just rumors.”
“When they come from the lips of gods, they’re all the same.” Ephitel stooped to retrieve the spent pistol. He weighed it in his hands and shook his head. “You taught the coward Kellen how to use his sword. You convinced a Violet to enter my domain. And you know what to do with this. The druids call you Corin Hugh, but that is a false name if ever I heard one. How did your father call you?”
Corin didn’t know the honest answer, but he seized the chance to confuse Ephitel. If there ever were a future, if Corin ever found his way back home, he didn’t want the lord protector to remember him. So now Corin hung his head and offered a dramatic sigh. “Very well. I hoped to preserve my family’s honor, but you have found me out. I’m Ethan Blake of House Vestossi.”
Kellen snickered. Corin didn’t kick him, but it was a close thing.
Ephitel missed that exchange. His attention was focused more closely on the gun Corin had shot him with. “Ethan Blake. I will remember that. You are draped in infamy. You’ve barely been inside my city for a day, and already you have firebombed a public house and assaulted royal guards. Back in the dungeons, you killed old brave Bryer in cold blood!” He chuckled. “But that on
ly saves me the effort. His young partner Pau will be easy to destroy.”
“You monster!” Kellen shouted. “Traitor! Knave!”
“The coward Kellen speaks,” Ephitel said. “Wonder upon wonder. But if you call me knave again…” He grabbed the bundled barrels of the strange gun, turned them easily, then pressed a new barrel against the lock with a clear click. He caught a little leather pouch from off his belt and tipped a bit of powder in the pistol’s priming pan. Then he cocked the gun and lowered it at Kellen.
He smiled at Corin. “Well, you knew most of what to do with this.”
Kellen’s face was ghostly pale and his voice wavered when he spoke, but he said, “I will repeat again, you are a knave.”
Corin elbowed him. “You do not have to goad him.”
The yeoman raised his chin and addressed the prince still. “I marvel that you didn’t balk at traitor. Shall I call you worse? Bastard. Villain. Scientist.”
Ephitel screamed, enraged, and fired. The shot took Kellen in his right shoulder, spraying blood and bone. Kellen screamed and hit his knees. His body shuddered. He caught his breath to scream again and didn’t stop. Ephitel just rolled his eyes and spun the barrels of the gun.
“That was not a miss,” he said, raising his voice above Kellen’s wail. “I have been practicing. I could kill a frisky cat from fifty paces. I’ve three shots left. Enough for each of you.”
Corin forced himself to forget Kellen’s pain. He had to keep the prince talking. “But Avery is gone. I told you, he is heading to the king right now.”
“Unlikely,” Ephitel said. “I suspect he’s safe in the hands of my loyal dwarves.”
Corin shook his head, showing his genuine surprise. “How did you win the loyalty of dwarves?” In my time, they hate your name.
“Bought and sold,” Ephitel said, while he primed another shot. “They’re hungry little curs, and I had food.”
“You used your soldiers’ rations? How did you feed the regiments?”
