Ragged Heroes: An Epic Fantasy Collection

by Andy Peloquin

  “A silver coin for your thoughts,” a voice said.

  Tarin sighed. “They’ll cost you a thousand,” he said, shifting along the snowdrift to make room for Sir Jonathan. In truth, even a thousand silvers wouldn’t drag the information out of Tarin. The only thing that scared him more than his thoughts was telling someone else about them.

  Sir Jonathan plopped down with a thump, groaning slightly. He dropped his helmet and it rolled away, gathering snow. His dark ringlets hung limp and wet, brushing his shoulders. The top of his head glistened with a cap of fresh snowfall. The knight’s face was rough with a day’s worth of stubble, but Tarin knew it would be gone by morning. Unlike most of the other soldiers, Sir Jonathan did not bear a single scar on his face, a testament to his prowess in battle.

  Sir Jonathan was Tarin’s friend, sort of.

  My only friend, Tarin reminded himself, which was another reason he could never tell the man about the darkness in his heart and mind.

  “A thousand silvers is a rich inheritance,” Sir Jonathan said, using snow to clean the blood from his sword. A streak of red appeared on the ground, marring the white perfection. “Your thoughts must contain the secret to immortality.”

  If only, Tarin thought. Instead, they contained a darkness so deep he almost felt blind.

  He only grunted.

  “Do you know why I am your only friend?” Jonathan continued, sheathing his sword with the shriek of metal.

  Tarin didn’t. He shook his head.

  “Because most people would tire of hearing the sound of their own voice so often. Luckily for you, I could listen to myself talk all day and never grow bored.”

  Despite himself, Tarin finally smiled beneath the safety of the steel-mesh mask he never removed in public. “Then I consider myself fortunate,” Tarin said.

  “Yes. You do.” Jonathan flexed one of his legs, and Tarin wondered whether he’d taken an injury during the battle. He didn’t ask, however. The two had an unspoken rule to never discuss a battle during the aftermath. Or ever. History was for those who hadn’t lived it.

  They could, however, discuss future battles. “Will the easterners retreat?” Tarin asked. Though he’d experienced almost five years of war, it was but a heartbeat next to the two decades the knight had fought.

  “Do they ever?” Jonathan said.

  Not really, Tarin thought. Every so often King Ironclad would pull his legionnaires back for a month, or maybe two. But only as far as Crow’s Nest, the eastern stronghold just south of the Mournful Mountains. Tarin dreaded the next battle, if only because he dreaded the return of the thing inside him. The monster he’d lived with for six long years now.

  The same monster that had saved his life as a boy.

  I am still a boy, he reminded himself, though he knew it was a lie. Yes, he was only fourteen years old by the reckonings of time, but he was the size of a man—well, technically, larger than any man he’d ever met so far—a byproduct of the witch’s potion. It had also turned his skin pale and paper-thin, while bulging out his veins, which now ran thick with black blood. In the months that followed, he’d grown larger and stronger and taller.

  For a while, he’d found a new life as a melee combatant in the regular tourneys held across the northern kingdom, eventually earning his knighthood and a degree of fame, all starting with his defeat of the infamous Sir Draconius. He was knighted by Lord Darrin himself, requesting the title ‘the Armored Knight,’ before being conscripted into the king’s army. After being trained in Walburg, Tarin had been posted in Darrin, where he’d fought against the east ever since.

  Even in his own memory, the last half-decade of his life felt like someone else’s. A stranger’s life.

  “Arme?” Sir Jonathan said, waving a hand across his facemask. Tarin shook his head, dimly aware that the knight had said his nickname several times.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Your thousand-coin thoughts?” Jonathan asked.

  “Aye. My thousand-coin thoughts.” Tarin pushed to his feet, gripping the weapon that had brought him so much fame—the modified mace known as the Morningstar. The woman blacksmith who had invented it had also forged his black armor. Fay was her name. But like most people who had come into Tarin’s life, she was long gone now, a ghost of a memory.

  History for someone else to discuss.

  “Where are you going?” Jonathan asked.

  “To sleep?” Tarin said, uncertainly.

  “No. You’re not. We’re having a drink. C’mon.”

  Another side effect of the potion Tarin had drunk as an eight-year-old lad was that he could handle his drink. In fact, he had never been drunk. He could throw back strong drink after strong drink and never feel the effects.

  It was another kind of curse in its own right, especially when Sir Jonathan was growing giddy beside him. “I am going to go home and make so much love to my wife,” the knight said, chugging the last quarter of his current poison of choice, a thick, dark concoction that was known to be exceptionally strong.

  Tarin chuckled, certain he would be delivering Sir Jonathan home in a state similar to that of a coma. He finished his own drink, and then raised a hand to indicate to the tavern proprietor that they were ready to close out their tab. The barrel-chested, gray-haired man named Borg jotted the tally on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the wooden bar, spilled ale soaking through it and making the inky numbers run together. Tarin counted out more than enough coin and stacked it atop the paper. He wondered whether this was the true reason Sir Jonathan was his friend: Because I always pick up the tab.

  Even if it was, Tarin didn’t care. Coin mattered little to him. Defending the north was all he had left.

  He slung Jonathan’s arm over his shoulders and helped the man through the throng of sloppy soldiers celebrating their victory and mourning their fallen comrades in equal measure. A familiar feeling rose inside him, of heat, of walls closing in, of suffocation, and he could picture his future:

  Slinging Sir Jonathan to the dirty floor, snapping the neck of the soldier directly to his right, spinning left, crushing the next soldier’s jaw. They would come from all sides and he would bloody them, break them, end them like the pitiful humans they were, cutting off their stares at long last, for he could never be one of them, only among them, a monster among soldiers, a thorn amidst roses…

  Tarin burst through the door and into the frigid night air which felt…

  Cleansing.

  He breathed. Deeply. Forced the feelings back inch by inch. Closed off the monster with a mental wall, a final hiss sneaking through before it was gone.

  Frozen hell, Tarin thought. I can’t live like this.

  But, he knew, it was the only way he could live. The monster was a part of him, and without it, he would be dead.

  He realized Jonathan, still clutching his shoulder and neck, had fallen asleep. An unexpected laugh snorted from his nose and he scooped up the muscular man as if he weighed naught but a feather.

  Tarin strode off into the glistening night.

  Jonathan’s wife, Lysandra, had thanked Tarin for bringing her husband home, but then she’d ushered him out the door like an unwanted visitor. Though she’d tried to hide it, he could see the fear in her eyes.

  He didn’t blame her. Then again, if he uncovered his face, she would truly know fear…

  Don’t be a fool, his own unwanted visitor whispered sharply.

  Go away, Tarin thought back.

  Is that really what you want?

  Yes. No. For Tarin didn’t want to die, not really.

  See? You need me.

  And you need me.

  Silence. That always worked to quiet the monster’s whispers. Which is how Tarin knew that if he died, the monster would die too.

  Even this late, the broad thoroughfare that led back to the barracks was thronged with drunken soldiers singing songs, slapping each other on the backs, and making enterprising offers to the few women who were out and about. Even the s
now and cold couldn’t stop them from celebrating their victory.

  Tarin considered taking a side alley, but decided against it—the drifts would be piled high and might even be unpassable.

  Instead, he steeled himself and started down the main stretch, hustling past the soldiers, many of whom called out to him. “Join us, Armored Knight!” “Show us your face, for it can’t be uglier than my mother’s!” “Can I touch the Morningstar!” And other such nonsense, words they wouldn’t dare speak while sober in the light of day.

  Tarin ignored them all, keeping his head down and striding faster. Abruptly, he realized the night had grown quiet. He glanced about him, noticing the soldiers had ceased their merriment, all of them staring—not at him, but beyond him, down the road.

  He followed their gaze to a group of mounted knights in full battle armor. At their head was the tallest man Tarin had ever seen, his hair as white as snow, long enough to brush his horse’s dark mane. His nose was sharp and beak-like, his skin as pale as fresh ice. There was something about his expression that was…cold…and not because of the weather.

  The Ice Lord, Tarin thought. Though he’d never met this man, the descriptions were accurate. He was the only skinmarked in all the north, having been born with a strange icicle marking on his skin. The marking gave him a deadly power, a power he used at the Dread King’s command alone.

  And he’d come to Darrin.

  There could only be one reason why.

  He’d come to fight.

  Tarin stepped aside and the Ice Lord and his procession rode past, barely giving him, or any of the other gawking soldiers, a second glance. Tarin waited a few moments before deciding to take one of the side alleys—drifts be damned—back to the barracks, feeling better away from the stares of the other soldiers. Even the sudden appearance of the Ice Lord wasn’t enough to stay their drunken taunts.

  He was almost to his destination when a shadow stepped from behind a snowdrift just ahead, blocking his path. A half-dozen other shadows fell in around the first, and even in the dark Tarin could make out the gleam of steel.

  An icy finger of fear drew a path down his spine. Not for himself.

  For them.

  Oh yes, the monster purred.

  No, Tarin thought, turning quickly and preparing to run back the way he’d come.

  He stopped.

  More shadows emerged from where they’d been hidden as he passed. At least a dozen. Two dozen including the ones now behind him.

  Not enough, he thought, and his monster hissed in agreement.

  He turned back to the original group, knowing who would emerge from the shadows an instant before he appeared. Sir Draconius wore silver plate and a cocksure sneer, his eyes alight with excitement.

  Greater is the fool who assumes victory before the day is won. It was something one of his trainers in Walburg had once said. It had stuck with him.

  And yet, despite this man’s arrogance, Tarin wanted him to win. Because the alternative was far worse. Wasn’t it?

  He wanted to lie down and take his beating. His body, with the help of the thing inside him, would heal swifter than a normal man, and he would live to fight another day. The only problem, he knew, was that it wouldn’t end at a beating. Draconius might try to kill him, but even that wasn’t his greatest fear. No, he feared the knight would unmask him, stripping him of plate and underclothes and revealing the true monster beneath the armor.

  The other soldiers already feared him, but not as much as they should. He would be shunned and cast out, and then he would have nothing left. Defending the east was his final sanctuary, a chance to do something good with his curse.

  I can’t lose that.

  So he stood stock still, saying nothing, even as seasoned soldiers and knights surrounded him, their hands drawing swords, their lips pulling into cruel smiles.

  Tarin’s Morningstar was coiled in his belt, where it always was. The urge to grab it was there—Oh, yes, use it…USE IT!—but he fought off the temptation. He did not want to kill on this night.

  Liar, the voice whispered. He could feel its claws scraping at his mind.

  It was a lie. He wanted to kill these men, knew it would be like a great release. But he also knew he would hang for it.

  So he left the Morningstar at his hip, watching the swords gripped by his enemies.

  They came, not one at a time but all at once, charging with deadly intent. His veins throbbing with black blood, he felt the monster lunge to the forefront of his mind, sending invisible strength to his bones, his muscles, lending quickness to his cumbersome body.

  He ducked three blows at once and the swords ratcheted off each other above him, but he was already pushing forward, using his head and shoulders like a battering ram, smashing into the midsection of the soldier before him. The man gasped and flew back, knocking two others to the ground.

  Steel flashed and Tarin raised his gauntlet to block it, the clang so close it was like the gong of a bell. He grabbed his attacker by the throat and picked him up with one hand, swinging him around to block several other slashes while the soldier tried to beat him on the back. The impacts were nothing, akin to flies settling atop his shoulders.

  He slung the man down, kicking another soldier high in the chest, rocking him back.

  Steel flashed on the edge of his vision and he twisted away, the blade whistling by his ear. He swung his arm around, catching the latest attacker on the side of the head. The man’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed, his knees sapped of strength.

  There were still a dozen foes standing, though they’d backed away to regroup. Draconius was one of them, breathing hard.

  “Leave,” Tarin growled, barely able to stop his feet from moving toward them. Killkillkill! the monster screamed, the sound no longer a whisper but a high-pitched shriek that blocked out all other sound.

  Draconius’s lips were moving, but he couldn’t make out the words, could only understand his intent by the contradictory expression on his face, a mix of resignation and burning hatred.

  They were leaving.

  But it wasn’t over.

  No, it wouldn’t be over until one of them was dead.

  Tarin stood on the battlefield three days later, fleeting thoughts of that eventful night cycling through his mind. Draconius hadn’t threatened him again, nor, apparently, had he told anyone about what Tarin had done. And as for the Ice Lord…

  The skinmarked man hadn’t been seen since. Until now. Astride his magnificent white destrier, the Ice Lord looked untouchable. Fearless. Soldiers rallied around him, but at a safe distance. For all they knew, icicles might shoot from his fingertips at any moment. The skinmarked were not to be trifled with.

  “So the rumors are true,” Sir Jonathan said. “The Ice Lord has come to Darrin.” Tarin might’ve failed to tell his friend what he’d seen that night. Also, about his scrap in the alley.

  Now he said nothing, watching as the enemy advanced across the snowfield.

  “Nothing to say, Arme?”

  Tarin’s eyes darted to Jonathan, who looked at him expectantly. “You knew?” Tarin asked.

  Jonathan rolled his eyes toward the sky. “Of course I knew, you dolt. The only thing more interesting than the Ice Lord riding through Darrin in the black of night was the Armored Knight stomping along like he was being chased by wolves.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tarin said. “I—” There was no excuse. Jonathan was his only friend and he barely shared anything with him, other than an occasional drink.

  “It’s fine,” Jonathan said, though it was clear it wasn’t. “Let’s just drive these eastern bastards back where they belong. Between you and the Ice Lord, we cannot be defeated.”

  Their leader, Commander Corry, seemed to agree with the knight, because he gave the signal to march.

  Snow bit at Tarin’s eyes, but he blinked it away, focusing.

  He felt a strange calm, as he always did before battle. It was the calm before the storm, he knew.

 
My storm.

  The thought was not his own, and he winced. Though he knew other men would kill to have the strength of this monster inside them, he loathed it. Not because it helped him kill. Because of the way it helped him kill.

  Death is death, the monster purred. Honor is a human invention, nothing more.

  Tarin didn’t want to believe that. As a boy, he’d played Snow Wars and Knights ’n Trolls with his best friend in the world, Annise. He’d always wanted to be the knight.

  And now I am one, he thought, which should’ve been a dream come true.

  Then why did it feel so different now?

  With that unanswered question fading in his mind, the monster roared and he charged, though Commander Corry had not declared it. He separated from the other soldiers, ignoring the shouts behind him—Jonathan, urging him to stop.

  A command was given and trumpets blared. War cries shattered the silence like a hammer on the surface of a frozen lake.

  Tarin galloped forward, the line of enemies beginning to take shape, materializing into individual foes. Men. Women too—the easterners didn’t forbid able-bodied women in battle the way the north did. Humans, mostly solid built and rugged, experienced in killing. Orians also, the lithe forest dwellers known for their agility and ability to manipulate ore, bending it to their will. The latter were clad in silver armor that seemed to fit them seamlessly, without gap or weakness.

  Arrows rocketed out from the bows gripped by the Orians, but Tarin merely batted them away like pesky flies. One was shot with such precision it would’ve breached his eye slit, but he managed to duck at the last moment, hearing the zip! as it whizzed past.

  And then he was past the danger zone, too close for the archers to be effective. He brought the Morningstar up and began to spiral it over his head, slow orbits at first, but then increasing speed and power until…

  Clang! He brought it crashing into the chest of a human legionnaire, the force such that the man flew back, colliding with two other soldiers. It was like a great release in Tarin’s chest, like he’d been gasping for air, drowning, only to emerge from the dark waters and take his first breath.