“Understood,” Randall said with a wry grin before taking to the street, with the light of the Wanderer beaming down from directly overhead and illuminating the streets almost as well as the lanterns, which were set at regular intervals.
Seeing the main palace of Greystone at the far end of the city illuminated by an absolutely massive fire burning at the very top of its spiral-shaped structure, Randall set out for his Great Grandmother’s towers.
Chapter XL: The Showdown
Near Midnight 18-0-6-659
Randall found himself nearing the steps leading to the towers where Phinjo made her residence when his scalp went numb. He stopped mid-stride and his hand went to Dan’Moread’s hilt as he scanned the area. There was a pair of alleyways to the right and a large, mostly empty plaza to the left.
He heard a noise to the right and he whirled to face the source, seeing a smallish person dressed in dark, simple robes near the entry to one of the alleys. Randall almost immediately saw curly red hair beneath the hood as a hand pulled it back slightly, revealing his Great Grandmother’s face beneath.
“Phinjo?” he hissed. “What are you doing here?”
“Now is not the time,” she replied in a flat, dire voice. “You are in danger; quickly, follow me.”
Randall looked both around warily before following her down the alleyway. When they were halfway down it, she turned and waited expectantly for him to meet her.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “And why are you dressed like that?”
“There is no time,” she hissed impatiently. “Quickly; move to the end of the alleyway.” She gestured to the far end, where a horse was saddled and waiting.
“I don’t understand…” Randall began as he moved past her a few steps before realizing something critical that he could barely believe he had overlooked: his scalp was still numb.
His danger sense had only ever made itself known when he was in actual danger, and as far as he could tell there were only two people in the alleyway. He stopped in his tracks a dozen paces past Phinjo and his hand went to Dan’Moread’s hilt slowly.
“The horse will take you outside of Greystone,” she explained tersely, “I will join you at the circle of stones to the west of the main gates. Everything will be explained there; now go!”
Randall’s heart was beating in his ears like only one other time in his entire life, and he drew Dan’Moread from its sheath in a quick motion as he assumed a defensive posture. “What’s going on?” he asked in a low, hard voice as he struggled to keep his hands from shaking by squeezing Dan’Moread’s hilt and reaching out with his mind to contact it.
“How dare you draw a weapon on me,” she hissed incredulously. “I am the Ambassador of the Ghaevlian Nation; you dare raise arms against me while I do nothing but work to protect you?”
“Tell me what I’m thinking,” he growled as he swept his foot backward slightly to improve his balance.
Phinjo’s eyes narrowed for a moment before her visage warped and twisted as her body grew, until she was no longer a diminutive, Ghaevlian woman. Slowly the figure’s shape became a towering human, wearing the all-too-familiar armor of a Senatorial Guardsman.
“The other way would have been easier,” he said in a cold, raspy voice which sent chills down Randall’s spine. “But this way I get my fun.”
In a blur of motion almost too fast to register, the guardsman lunged forward and closed the enormous distance between them and Randall took a step back in response, raising Dan’Moread before himself defensively.
There was a clang of metal on metal, followed by another as Randall instinctively brought his sword down to block an attack aimed at his chest, but he only partially succeeded in deflected the second blow.
The guardsman’s long dagger struck something hard against Randall’s chest, and he realized it was his Flylrylioulen which had intercepted the strike. The amulet beneath his shirt flashed with an unexpected, bright light and something happened which Randall had never experienced as his scalp went number than ever before.
The guardsman seemed to briefly appear in two places at once, and Randall instinctively blocked the left-ward figure’s thrusting attack with Dan’Moread, causing another clang as he barely managed to bring the weapon between himself and his opponent in time.
The guardsman took a step back and considered Randall for a moment before reaching up with his free hand to undo the clasps which secured his helmet. Throwing the helmet to the ground a moment later, he bared his teeth in a savage snarl and said, “You’re not bad…I might actually enjoy this.”
Randall felt his arm go numb in a familiar fashion, which spread across his body and down each of his legs but did not reach his left arm. He flashed a grin of his own, knowing that Dan’Moread was back and that together they just might have a chance. “Things just got a whole lot worse for you,” he said, feeling a thrill of anticipation at watching the sword work.
The Guardsman feinted left and lunged to the right, lashing out with his white steel-shod boot as he did so. But Randall was right; Dan’Moread was back, and he watched as it easily parried the incoming dagger strike while keeping solid footing and backpedaling down the alleyway a few steps.
Dan’Moread unexpectedly lunged with Randall’s body as they were backing away, and Randall watched as the sword’s tip drove toward the Guardsman’s breastplate. But it was deflected at the last moment by a downward thrust of the man’s armored forearm.
Allowing the blow’s inertia to work for them, Dan’Moread somersaulted past the hulking human’s reach. They immediately regained their feet once on the opposite side, and Randall caught a glimpse of the alley’s far end where the horse had been.
Except there was no horse; instead there was a large, wooden trap of some kind which looked gruesome and deadly. It was built of three to four inch thick spikes of wood which would have sprung together, skewering Randall at three separate levels and easily killing him in seconds. Had they taken just a few more steps down the alleyway, they would have fallen victim to the Guardsman’s illusion and Randall would now be dead.
The thought was a sobering one as the Guardsman drove forward with a barrage of swipes and stabs, and as Dan’Moread guided Randall’s body through a series of blocks and parries he was able to see blood dripping down the Guardsman’s forearm where he had deflected Dan’Moread’s lunge a moment earlier.
“You’re getting him!” Randall cried, overcome with emotion at the prospect of actually winning a fight with one of the legendary Senatorial Guardsmen. They were elite warriors, ruthless despatchers of Federation will, and reputed to be powerful magic users—to which Randall could personally attest. “Don’t let up!” he encouraged the sword, thinking of nothing better to say.
Almost in response, Randall watched as Dan’Moread parried a particularly savage blow aimed at his belly by slashing downward, and then kicked out with Randall’s left foot. His lightly shod foot struck the Guardsman ineffectually in the thigh of his opponent’s incredible armor, and Randall watched in terror as the warrior brought his dagger down toward his exposed neck in an obvious counterattack to the ill-designed kick.
Time seemed to slow as he watched the dagger slice through the air toward him, and he knew that when it landed it would kill him. Even if the Guardsman’s weapon was not one of the legendary Equalizers of Federation fame, even a poorly-made arrow would kill a person if it landed where the dagger was aimed.
Suddenly, Dan’Moread came slicing up to meet the weapon in mid-air, and there was a sound like thunder crashing as the alley was filled with a bright, white light. Randall was thrown through the air down the alleyway toward the street by the force of the unexpected explosion.
Landing with a thud at the mouth of the alley and doing his best to roll with the energy of the powerful explosion, he maintained his grip on Dan’Moread’s newly-fashioned hilt until he came to a rolling stop—having sliced his chest in a few places where the new crosspiece h
ad pressed against him.
He paid the wounds no mind as he stood, mindful of the fact that Dan’Moread appeared to have lost control. “Are you there,” he whispered tensely as he looked down the alleyway for a sign of movement. “Say something!”
But the sword said nothing in reply, and he gave it a look to see if it had been damaged in any way. To his cursory glance it appeared to be in pristine condition, so he tightened his grip and considered his options.
He could flee toward the tower and hope he made it before his would-be assassin could recover, but that seemed like a foolish plan. The Guardsman had clearly expected him to be going that way, which was why he had set the trap where he did. If the Guardsman was still conscious, there was no way Randall could outrun him all the way to the towers.
He briefly considered running down the alleyway to try finishing his assailant, but the truth was he had simply gotten lucky in deflecting the initial blows of the exchange—to face the man again, even with his dagger likely destroyed, would only result in a quick death. Randall was no fool; he didn’t fancy himself a real swordsman, and as such, he opted for the third option.
Taking to the plaza, he quickly made his way past a small group of slack-jawed bystanders, one of whom took off down the street which Randall had taken from the Dragon’s Tooth just minutes earlier.
Ducking down an alleyway, Randall knew the only way he would survive was by buying time for Dan’Moread to get back into the fight, so he took off at a dead run into a completely unfamiliar part of the city.
Hale rolled over in the alleyway and blinked, uncertain of what had just happened. He stared down at the smoking remnants of his right gauntlet, which appeared to have been fused with the hilt of his Equalizer—from which the blade was now missing.
He had never heard of an Equalizer being destroyed—even in battle against an enchanted weapon—but he knew with one look that both it, and his gauntlet, were ruined.
Hale spat a pair of teeth out onto the flagstones of the alleyway and grimaced as he pulled his gauntlet off, revealing a badly burned but likely at least partially useable lump of ruined flesh and bone that used to be his hand. The enormous pain he felt only served to heighten his focus, knowing he had been hurt worse before.
Growling angrily, he assessed the rest of his armor and saw that much of it was damaged as well. The breastplate was cracked, the vambrace he had used to block the damned half-elf’s surprisingly quick lunge was nearly severed in two, and he no longer felt his suit’s reservoir of magical energy at his disposal. He cursed himself for letting the boy get the better of him, as even such a short fight should have ended many times over, but somehow the whelp had survived.
Hale began stripping his ruined armor off and casting its pieces to the alley floor. “I was killing whelps like this ten years ago with my bare hands,” he growled as he threw off the last of his armor. “I don’t need any of these tricks or trinkets!”
Rolling his head around and hearing a series of loud pops and cracks as he did so, Hale stretched his arms and smiled savagely as he felt freer than he’d felt in years now that he was out of that damnable armor. The night air against his hairy body was a sensation he had felt only in his dreams these past months, and it sent shivers down his spine as he flexed his inhumanly powerful muscles.
“Time to run, boy!” he roared as he set off toward the plaza at a sprint. “The hound’s at your heels!”
Randall ran as fast as he could down the alleys, careful to avoid the streets whenever possible. Whenever he slowed down for whatever reason, he tried to contact Dan’Moread but never received a response.
So he kept running. He briefly had the thought that he should have tried to climb the stairs and seek refuge in the Phinjo’s tower, but he was more certain of that path’s danger than any other available to him.
Ducking into an alleyway, he stopped to catch his breath for a moment. He was surprised that he wasn’t even more out of breath than he was, but Randall supposed that his constant exercise on the trail to Greystone had improved his physical condition more than he had believed.
“Think, Randy,” he muttered between breaths. “We can’t run forever; have to find someplace to make a stand,” he wheezed, doing his best to get his emotions under control. Randall was certainly scared—terrified, even—but he knew that he needed to push everything except his next course of action to the side until this was over.
The Flylrylioulen hanging around his neck was far warmer than he had ever noticed it being, and he looked down in alarm to see it pulsing with a faint, red light in time with his heartbeat.
He felt his scalp go numb and he readied Dan’Moread reflexively, peering around the corner of the building his back was against. Seeing nothing, he focused hard, hoping it was the sword attempting to contact him rather than his danger sense warning him.
There was something at the edge of his consciousness, but it seemed unfamiliar somehow so he ignored it as he continued trying to make contact with the sword.
He heard a bestial-sounding howl come from the direction he had come, and decided he needed to get moving again. Breaking down the alleyway and heading off in a slightly different direction, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him away from what he could only guess was his howling pursuer.
Hale stopped at the entry to an alleyway and heard the clatter of iron-shod boots behind him. He ignored the fools who most likely wished to apprehend him and focused on the alley itself. His quarry had fled this way, of that he was certain, but he needed to pick up the trail before heading off in what might be the wrong direction.
“Halt and surrender, by order of the Jarl,” he heard a man’s voice call out from behind him, just as he was kneeling down to check the scuff mark he noticed in the stone of the building’s wall. After just a glance he knew that it had been caused by the whelp’s enchanted weapon—Hale had seen many magical blades in his life, but never one as sharp as that one!
He stood and ran down the alleyway in pursuit of his prey, ignoring the hail of arrows which clattered into the wall beside which he had stood a moment earlier.
He let loose another howl as the thrill of the hunt coursed through his veins like an elven drug. Hale’s senses had not been this sharp in years, and he knew with every fiber of his being that this would be one of his finest kills.
If the Greystone fools got in his way, he would tear out their throats without breaking his stride.
If not, he had a warm trail to follow.
Randall tore down the street as fast as his feet would carry him as he heard another bestial cry from behind him—this one considerably closer than the last.
Keeping a firm grip on Dan’Moread’s hilt, he ducked into a nearby alley and saw a ladder propped up against one of the walls. After just a quick glance at the distance between the buildings in this part of the city, he decided to risk it and he clambered up the ladder as fast as he could.
His sensitive hearing alerted him to a large group of armored men coming down the street a hundred paces or so behind him, which only served to spur him faster up the ladder. He reached the top and climbed onto the heavily sloped roof, which was covered in some kind of tile which was far slicker than he had supposed.
Randall hesitated briefly, considering climbing down the ladder and returning to the streets—until he saw his pursuer come around the street corner and his jaw went slack.
The Guardsman was no longer wearing his armor—that much was clear. But the part which sent a chill down Randall’s spine was the sight of thick, black fur covering the man’s entire body from the neck down. Not only that, but he seemed to be loping on all fours as he came around the corner, only returning to an upright posture as he leaned forward and sprinted down the street with his eyes locked onto Randall.
Those eyes were no longer human, but decidedly bestial as they reflected the nearby torchlight with a sickly, green hue.
Needing no further encouragement to put distance between himself and the man—or whate
ver it was—pursuing him, Randall almost set off across the steep, slick rooftop before remembering the ladder.
Giving the ladder a good, hard kick, he was more than a little satisfied to see the thing topple ponderously before crashing to the stone street below and shattering into a pile of broken pieces.
Glad for the distance he had just created, Randall turned and ran across the rooftop as quickly as he could manage without losing his footing. He heard the growling, snarling sounds of his pursuer on the street below, which only served to press him forward even faster.
Hale mirrored his prey’s movements from the street level as the half-elf ran along the perilously steep rooftops, leaping from one to the next as effortlessly as a deer leaps a creek.
He could appreciate his prey’s physical ability, but a choice between flight and fight was no choice at all; one was the act of prey, the other of the predator.
His entire life, Hale had known which he was, and the further he ran in pursuit of this surprisingly resourceful quarry, the more grateful he became for the thrill of the hunt
He almost didn’t notice when an arrow stuck into his left calf, or even when one pierced his right shoulder. But when one hit him in the knee, and he nearly crashed to the ground as a result of the briefly impaired joint, he stopped and turned to the source of the missiles.
A line of Greystone soldiers—not watchmen, but true veterans of combat to a man, judging by their armor and scent—six wide and two deep had formed at the intersection ahead of him and the front, kneeling line was nocking fresh arrows into their bows while the rear line loosed another volley.
Too consumed by his bloodlust, Hale cursed himself for letting them get the angle of him. Without even considering the options, he howled and charged toward them.
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 43
