Another arrow took him in the side, and yet another in his left shoulder, but they were not fatal. He sprinted forward knowing that if he survived the next volley he would break their line in a whirlwind of blood and bone.
The volley came, and another arrow took him in the knee. This time his leg locked up momentarily and he fell forward. But his reflexes were the best in the ranks of the Senatorial Guardsmen, and he turned the fall into a forward roll that saw him spring forward and crash into the line with a grace that suggested he had planned to do so the entire time.
The first soldier died when the short, black claws of Hale’s left hand tore his throat open with a wild, impossibly fast swing of his hairy, bestial arm.
The second fell with a clearly broken spine as Hale’s right shoulder crashed into his midsection and left him in a pile on the ground.
The third he gripped with what remained of his mangled, right hand, and while doing so caused him enormous pain he merely howled and smashed the man’s head into his neighbor’s, sending both of them to the ground in instant death throes.
The rest would fall, and soon, but he savored each kill like a sip of fine wine.
After all, Hale knew that it was important to enjoy one’s work.
Randall leapt the sixth gap he had come to between the rooftops—which was nearly twice as far as the previous ones. His Ghaevlian blood granted him coordination and balance which was far superior to that of a pureblood human, but even that was unable to save him from losing his footing and falling on the rooftop after successfully clearing the gap.
He lost his grip on Dan’Moread’s hilt, and the sword began to clatter down the rooftop toward the street below. Without even thinking, Randall dove for the sword’s hilt—but he missed.
The sword continued to slide down the roof, and Randall knew he had only one more chance to retrieve it, so he jumped toward the edge of the roof with no regard for how he would keep from crashing into the street below.
His fingers wrapped around the sword’s hilt, and almost by luck his free, right hand caught on a nearby roof tile and pulled it loose. But the brief delay in his descent was all he needed to bring the swords newly-fashioned, insane-looking crosspiece down into another tile, and his descent was stopped just as his legs fell over the edge of the roof to dangle precariously some twenty feet from the stone street below.
Risking a glance back the way they had come, Randall saw the inhuman-looking Guardsman standing amid a ring of corpses less than fifty paces away. The Guardsman was clearly not a pureblood human—but Randall had no idea what he actually was.
Nimbly swinging himself up onto the roof, Randall scrambled a few steps up the pitched roof and resumed his run. He desperately hoped that the sword would be able to rejoin the fight soon, because he was running out of energy—and luck!
Hale watched as his prey resumed its run after nearly spoiling the entire hunt by falling to his death on the street. Looking around at the soldiers’ bodies, he picked up a pair of longswords and set off to follow his quarry.
His gait somewhat hampered by the leg wounds he had suffered, he knew he needed to bring his prey down quickly to ensure the fleet-footed whelp would not slink off into the shadows after he had left Hale’s line of sight.
Seeing a nearby stack of crates beside the building which his prey had just leapt onto, Hale knew this was his chance to end the hunt once and for all.
Ducking into the alleyway and leaping onto the first box, his powerful legs easily bounded each crate as though they were steps of a staircase. The gap between the last crate and the roof’s edge was significant, so he gathered his strength and leapt, sending the stack of crates crashing to the ground as he did so.
Randall heard a crashing sound behind him just as he leapt onto the next building, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the Guardsman was now on the roof of the building he had just left.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered as a pang of dread swept through him. He pressed on even faster, but still heard the beast-like man’s powerful strides closing on him.
Fairly certain he would make the next building, he kept his head down and ran as fast as he could. Randall nearly lost his footing when a tile broke under his left foot, which exploded in pain as the sensitive skin on the sole of his foot was sliced even through the sole of his shoes.
But he kept going forward, and when he reached the space between the buildings he hurled himself as far as he could, while almost certain he could feel the Guardsman’s hot breath on his neck.
The far roof was flat, hewn of stone and lower than the previous building so Randall had no difficulty making the landing. He turned and saw a glint of metal flash through the air, and just barely managed to bring Dan’Moread up in time to deflect the weapon—which turned out to be a longsword—that clattered down to the rooftop near Randall’s feet.
The Dan’Moread clanged into the oncoming sword and sent it clattering to the side, but the Guardsman had still managed to distract Randall long enough to leap the chasm between buildings and land safely just a few steps away.
Randall stood his ground, not really knowing what else to do. He was outsized and outclassed—without Dan’Moread’s help there was no path to victory. He desperately wanted to keep running, but he knew the time for that was over.
“You’ve led a good chase,” the bestial man rasped in a deeper voice than before. “Let’s put a proper end to this; just give me the sword and I’ll let you live.”
The urge to flee left him immediately and Randall squared his shoulders defiantly. “You’ll have to kill me to take this sword,” he growled, and he knew that he meant every word.
Dan’Moread had risked itself for him, and had even bled for him and his friends in its own way. There was simply no chance he would turn his back on it now. If I have to die here, then I have to die here, he thought to himself as his tightening grip cracked his knuckles around the sword’s hilt, but there is no way I’m turning my back on a friend who needs me!
The Guardsman sneered, and Randall saw his teeth were even inhuman with long, sharp canines extending nearly twice as far as they should have. “Have it your way, boy.”
The Guardsman came with an overhand slash of the longsword still in his left hand, and Randall managed to block it with Dan’Moread as he took a step back. The Guardsman followed up the attack with a swipe of his right, mangled hand, but Randall easily ducked it as he backed away again.
The Bestial man grinned savagely as he swung his sword in a broad, sweeping arc aimed at Randall’s midsection, and again Randall stepped away and out of the weapon’s path.
The Guardsman brought the sword up and over his shoulder in a graceless, savage attack which would have surely cleaved Randall in two if left uninterrupted.
But Randall assumed one of Drexil’s positions—position one—and blocked the attack easily. But the punishing force of the man’s attack drove Randall to his knees and nearly wrenched Dan’Moread from his grip.
The Guardsman followed with another strike, and this time Randall had to roll out of the way. He barely avoided a stomp from the Guardsman’s left foot as he dove past him, and the bestial man growled. “Stand and fight, coward,” he snarled as he charged forward, forcing Randall to bring Dan’Moread up to parry the incoming blow.
He managed to intercept the incoming attack, but realized too late that he was out of position, and a brief look at the Guardsman’s eyes told Randall that he was done.
The Guardsman isolated Dan’Moread away from Randall’s body and with a powerful grunt, he brought his longsword down onto Dan’Moread’s blade.
The impact severed the longsword in two at the mid-point of the blade, but it also broke Randall’s grip on the weapon and sent it clattering to the rooftop while he barely avoided the follow-up kick from the Guardsman’s clawed foot.
“Pathetic,” the Guardsman growled as Randall backed away toward the ledge they had both leapt onto moments earlier. The hairy, beast man tossed his broken lon
gsword to the street below and knelt to gather Dan’Moread in his left hand, and only then did Randall realize just how badly damaged his foe’s right hand was.
Scrambling backward as the Guardsman approached, Randall’s hand came to something sharp and cold, and he looked down in surprise at the longsword which he had deflected with Dan’Moread. Without thinking, he picked it up in his hands and, surprisingly, found that while it was far longer and broader than Dan’Moread, it wasn’t as heavy.
“Oh, you want another go?” the Gaurdsman snickered in his raspy, menacing voice. “Promise you won’t just run this time?”
Seeing Dan’Moread, his only friend these past weeks, in that monster’s hands filled Randall with an anger he had never really known before that moment. His Flylrylioulen was burning at his chest, and even the Guardsman looked down in surprise to see it pulsing rhythmically in time with Randall’s heart.
“No running,” Randall agreed as he prepared for the final moment of his life, “because I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
“Stupid boy,” the Guardsman growled.
As he brought Dan’Moread up over his head with the clear intention of delivering a killing blow, the Flylrylioulen flashed brightly and for a moment Randall seemed to be seeing double again.
Time seemed to slow, and Randall decided he would try to free Dan’Moread the only way he knew how: by cutting this bastard’s left arm off.
Putting everything he had behind the blow, Randall brought the longsword up toward the Guardsman’s arm, knowing it would be the last thing he ever did.
Hale brought the surprisingly heavy sword over his head, and the foolish whelp of a boy actually seemed to think he still had a chance to win as he swung the longsword in a painfully obvious attempt to wound his sword arm.
Just as he was about to bring the enchanted sword down through the boy’s nonexistent guard, Hale’s body was wracked with a violent spasm which seemed to originate in his sword arm. He fought through the jolting, numb sensation, but it still saw him stood still for a brief moment—and that was all the whelp needed to bring his sword up and through Hale’s left arm.
Roaring more from outrage than pain, Hale watched as the magical sword—and his still-clutched left arm—flew off and came to a stop near the boy.
Screaming wordlessly, Hale charged forward with the sole intention of tearing that boy’s throat out with his teeth.
Randall was almost caught off-guard by the fact that it had worked, and barely managed to react in time to dodge to the screaming man’s left.
The Guardsman reached across his body with his right arm, but missed Randall as he dove out of reach, letting go of the longsword in an attempt to gather Dan’Moread up instead.
His fingers wrapped around the exposed portion of Dan’Moread’s hilt, and Randall immediately felt his right arm go numb and he cried in joy before he even got to his feet, holding the star metal blade before himself.
The Guardsman was clearly taken by a blood fury, as he screamed and launched himself through the air like a wolf leaping upon its prey.
Randall watched as Dan’Moread flashed up to meet the man’s head, and Randall felt his body spin through the swing with the sword’s weight carrying them well out of the beast man’s path.
There was almost no resistance that Randall could detect as the sword struck the Guardsman, but he couldn’t see where they had taken him. Now controlling all but Randall’s left arm, Dan’Moread turned them lazily to face the Guardsman as his body collapsed to the stone rooftop. Randall actually cheered when he saw that Dan’Moread had sliced through the man’s open mouth—and cut clean through the back of his head, decapitating him completely.
They stood there in mutual silence after his emotional outburst. But the silence was soon broken by a woman’s voice, which said, “Under the light of the Wanderer, it is done.”
Randall felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as the numbness left him and Dan’Moread relinquished control.
“Who said that?” he demanded, whirling around to find the author of the voice.
“I did, Randall,” came the voice again, with more than a hint of annoyance to it.
Still seeing no one, Randall tightened his grip on the hilt. “Whoever you are, come out and show yourself,” he growled in what he hoped wasn’t too obvious of a bluster. “I’ve already killed one man today; I’ve got no problem adding to the—“
A jolt ran up his arm and cut him off mid-sentence, but he managed to keep from dropping Dan’Moread.
“Hey, knock it off,” he hissed. “We might need to fight again.”
“I doubt we will be fighting again this night, but we most certainly will sometime in the near future,” the woman replied indignantly, and Randall’s eyes slowly fell to the blade which was pulsing with a faint, blue light with each word the voice spoke. “And to that end, you must improve your grip strength; you should have never been disarmed by such a simple attack.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Randall said warily, trying desperately to wrap his mind around what he seemed to be hearing, “who are you?”
“I am Dan’Moread,” the woman replied, and again the sword’s blade pulsated in time with the words, “and our Union is now complete. I admit I am surprised it happened so quickly, but—”
“Wait,” Randall protested, “you’re trying to tell me that you’re…a woman?!”
There was a brief silence. “I did not see how it was relevant; I am a sword first and foremost,” she replied coldly.
Randall slumped to his knees and looked down in utter shock. He tried to replay every conversation he had shared with her, and the more he thought about it…
“Well, I guess that figures,” he muttered.
Immediately, there was another jolt which ran up his arm—but this one was thankfully less severe than the others.
“Hey!” Randall protested. “What was that for?”
“I would appreciate a little gratitude,” Dan’Moread snapped, and her voice was now fully articulate—not the dry, monotonous droning it had previously been. “It was not easy for me to gather my wits and return to save you—none of my other wielders ever asked so much of me so quickly.”
“Save me?!” Randall blurted. “Wait-wait-wait; I was trying to save you!”
“Such would be difficult for an outsider to ascertain,” she said haughtily. “Was being disarmed part of your brilliant strategy?”
“Well, no,” he muttered, “but I was doing my best to keep us in the fight.”
Dan’Moread sighed, and it was an airy, wistful sound. “We would do well to egress this place and return to your Great Grandmother’s residence.”
“No arguments there,” Randall said gruffly as he made to slide the sword back into its sheath. He paused awkwardly, “Uh…it’s ok if you go back in your sheath, right?”
“Where else would you put a sword while not using it?” she asked wearily.
As he went to put the sword in its scabbard, Randall saw the carving he had made on the grip plates and he hung his head almost immediately. There on the grip plates, as plan as the Wanderer passing overhead, was the engraved imaged of a woman with long, flowing hair. “How did I miss that? I mean, honestly” he lamented as he finished placing Dan’Moread back in ‘her’ scabbard.
“For a professional seducer, you are surprisingly bad at ‘reading between the lines,’ as they say,” she quipped as he tried to find a way down from the rooftop.
After finding said route to safety and making it down to the street below, Randall set off toward the palace as the sound of iron boots approached from that same direction. Upon seeing them holding torches and calling for order, he muttered under his breath, “I think I liked you better when you weren’t so expressive.”
“I heard that,” Dan’Moread snapped, but Randall had already released her hilt and chuckled as he placed his hands high above his head in the universal sign of surrender.
Epilogue I: The Next Step
Mi
d-morning 1-1-6-659
“So…that’s it?” Randall asked warily as he stood before the Jarl’s large, wooden chair inside the palace. “There won’t be a formal investigation?”
Standing to the Jarl’s left, Phinjo blinked her large, doll-like eyes before shaking her head. “The Jarl has declared your actions of last night to be in the best interests of Greystone and its people by destroying that monstrous creature,” she reiterated before slicing a glance over at the Federation Ambassador.
The black-skinned, pureblood human stood to the Jarl’s right with an unreadable expression on his face as he inclined his head, “Indeed; it is a wonder such a foul beast slipped past Greystone’s watchmen. I only hope this is not the beginning of a worrisome relaxation of security throughout the Hold.”
The Jarl turned his head pointedly toward the Federation Ambassador. “Greystone’s security is its own affair,” he rumbled, and his voice echoed throughout the massive hall. “If the Ambassador no longer feels safe within our walls then he will be permitted to return to where he belongs.” He smirked before turning back to place the full weight of his gaze on Randall. “We would not wish to cause our guests undue discomfort.”
The Ambassador bowed deeply. “I belong at your side, Jarl,” he gushed duplicitously. “Your discomforts are our discomforts; the Federation would never dream of abandoning her allies—especially in light of such troublesome events.” The Ambassador straightened and flicked his eyes toward Randall as he made a slight gesture with his outstretched hand. “But as a friend, I must point out that the matter of this weapon’s ownership is still very much unsettled.”
Phinjo cocked an eyebrow. “You dispute the matter of his lineage, then?” she asked, her tone carrying the faintest hint of amusement.
“His lineage is not at issue,” the Ambassador replied smoothly, and Randall knew this was all way over his head. He only hoped he could avoid metaphorically stepping in something foul for however long he remained in the company of these trained politicians. “However,” the Federation representative continued, “blood alone does not provide for the ownership of such a remarkable, yet mysterious weapon.”
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 44
