by Mark Acres
“Isn’t like they have much choice, is it?” the third voice responded, his laughter growing uproarious.
Marta’s mind flashed back to her fine wooden house with a manservant and a maid, now a heap of ashes in Shallowford. She saw in an instant the plump daughters of the prosperous farmers of the village, now also put to ruin by the soldiers of the demon-spawn Ruprecht. And she saw again the night when, within sight of her dead husband’s severed head, soldiers just like these had held her while Ruprecht personally burned into her back the dragon insignia that was his coat of arms. Then Marta thought no more.
“Death to Heilesheim!” she screamed and rose from her position, charging forward before her full bulk was off the ground. “Death to you beasts and bastards, one and all!”
The party of green recruits, five in number, turned their heads toward the light woods behind the open field where they stood. Shulana saw their expressions—the looks of men who are about to burst into laughter at the sight of something at once hideous and ludicrous. Fat Marta charged ahead out of the woods, straight at the knot of men, her war cry one continuous, wailing scream, her spear leveled in her right hand while in her left she brandished a small dagger drawn from her belt on the run.
Alarmed, Shulana looked back at Bagsby, who looked forward to George, who stood, shrugged, took up two short swords, one for each hand, and began to run forward. Bagsby groaned—there was no point in silence now. Shulana shook her head in disbelief.
So ridiculous a figure did Marta cut in the course of her charge—her long tunic flapping around her ankles beneath the short shirt of chain mail, her long hair flying in tangled globs behind her head, and her chubby flesh jiggling with every thundering step—that the soldiers didn’t react seriously in time. The three farthest from her managed to step back when they realized the madwoman was serious; the two nearest her stopped laughing and went for their swords, but it was too late.
Marta’s spear struck the first man square in the chest. The point rammed through his chain mail and leather padding, ripped through his ribs, lungs, and heart, and poked out his back, besmirched with gore. The man flew up and back, blood spouting from his mouth as his just-drawn sword dropped from his dead hand. Marta did not drop the spear, but rather carried it with its bloody trophy on into the cluster of three, swiping with her sword at the remaining man as she passed him. It was a glancing blow that bit into the top of the man’s shoulder, slicing off a chunk of leather, armor, and flesh as Marta continued forward, ripping the sword free. Her charge did not end until the burdened spear knocked into a third soldier, sending him sprawling, with the impaled corpse of his friend dropping atop him.
The fallen man screamed—his dead companion was the first man he’d ever seen killed—and thrashed about violently to get the bloody corpse off him. The wounded man was stunned, his breath coming in horrified gasps as he realized that the blood spouting from his shoulder, a source of fiery pain, was in fact his own. The remaining two, however, still untouched, were made of sterner stuff.
“Die, you fat behemoth from hell!” one roared, raising his sword as he lunged forward. He let fly a downward blow, aimed at the top of Marta’s head. But the enraged Marta possessed a quickness belied by her bulk. Raising her sword, she was able to strike upward awkwardly—not with enough strength to stop the man’s blow, but with sufficient effect to cause his wrist to turn. So what would have been a skull-splitting deathblow with the edge of the soldier’s blade became instead a blow with its flat that glanced off the side of Marta’s skull, hardly the softest portion of her anatomy.
“Kill that sow, Heinrich,” called his friend. He had drawn his sword and was about to step into the fray when George yelled a battle cry as he, too, charged into the open field. The remaining soldier turned to face this new threat, which appeared to be the more dangerous of the two; but unfortunately for the green fighter, he had not the slightest idea of how to meet a pike charge—especially when he carried no shield and was armed only with a longsword. In the heat of the moment he decided to plant his feet, extend the sword, and try to either parry the pike or, failing that, leap aside at the last moment.
George was more experienced than that; he had killed more than one highly trained knight on the battlefield. The only question in George’s mind, as he ran forward, was which way the man would dodge. He knew the blow of a longsword would not be strong enough to deflect the weighty pike shaft, and he knew from long experience that his own momentum would ram the weapon clean through his lightly armored foe.
George quickened his pace to his top speed. The soldier struck. Not only did his blow not deflect the pike, the vibration from the blow traveled through the hilt of his sword and stabbed his hand with terrific pain. The surprise of this caused him to hesitate, less than half a second. That was too much time.
The business end of George’s pike sliced through the man in an instant, cleaving him from sternum to backbone. George let go of the pike as the soldier stumbled forward and off to one side, dead before the pike point hit the ground. He flopped about piteously as his body slid down the shaft to crash against the cold ground. But George had no time to admire his handiwork. “Marta, behind you!” he shouted.
Marta spun around from her recent attacker to see that the man she’d sent sprawling was now not only up but swinging a level, neck-high sword blow at her. She ducked and then launched herself headfirst at her foe, screaming in rage as she flew through the air to crash into his chest. At the instant of impact, she grabbed his neck in her bare hands and wrapped her mouth around his nose, biting hard. She both heard and felt a satisfying crunch, and the taste of blood was in her mouth before the twosome hit the ground, for the force of her attack had sent the man falling over backward.
George, meanwhile, seeing that Marta was being taken from front and rear, waited until her second attacker was ready to strike her from behind and then hurled himself onto the man, wrapping his scrawny but strong legs around the man’s waist, and his arms around his head and neck. His left hand dug at the man’s face until his middle finger located an eye socket. George poked and gouged. His foe screamed in alarm as half his field of vision suddenly disappeared, and his one good eye saw its recent companion drop to the ground, trailing bloody tissue. The shock was too great for the soldier, who momentarily ceased his struggle. George grabbed his jaw and twisted hard. He heard the crack of the man’s neck, then rode the corpse as it fell to the earth.
Marta, meanwhile, had spit the Heilesheimer’s nose back into his face while her fat fingers clamped into his soft throat. The would-be warrior thrashed helplessly on his back, legs kicking, hands tearing at Marta’s hair, but he had not the strength to force her bulk off him. In less than a minute, the last of the life was choked out of him.
“Heilesheim scum,” Marta muttered, as she spit another mouthful of the man’s blood into his dead face. “You won’t be enjoying any more of our Shallowford cows, will you?”
“Well done, Marta! You’re a wonder, you are,” George exclaimed, climbing off the corpse beneath him and glancing about to find his pike. “By the gods, you’re a wonder!”
“The wonder is how we will ever be able to move undetected now,” Bagsby said dryly. George and Marta turned, startled by his voice.
“Guv! Didn’t know you’d joined the fray!” George sang out cheerily.
“I didn’t—there was no need,” Bagsby replied. “However, that fellow running for his life over there will start halooing for the rest of the company before long, and I suggest we be gone from here before they come.” Bagsby’s pudgy face was screwed up into a scowl of disapproval. “Once we get to safety, we’d better have a chat about the advantages of not being seen,” he added, turning to stride angrily back into the woods.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Marta explained, as the foursome held conference in a shallow depression surrounded by piles of rock on the very bank of the River Rigel. The big woma
n sat on a water-smoothed, flat rock, her gaze cast down at the shallow pool where she was washing off her large feet. “That village ahead was my home once, and those beasts did such things there that...”
“Yes, yes,” Bagsby interjected. The little man squatted on another rock, perched high enough above the others to accent his position of leadership. He gazed impassively out at the swift, rolling current of the Rigel—eighty yards wide at this point—with the enemy land of Heilesheim on the far side. “We’re all aware of your pain from your past experiences, and no one here blames you for your hatred of Heilesheim. But your actions have put us at serious risk. One of those five men has escaped. Right now, a swarm of Heilesheim troops will be combing the north bank of the river, looking for a big, crazy female and her deserter companion,” Bagsby explained.
“‘Ow would they know I was a deserter?” George challenged.
“Where else would you have learned to use a pike? And if you weren’t a deserter, why were you attacking regular troops in the company of this crazed... lady?”
“Unnhh,” George grunted.
“The soldiers will be searching for us even now,” Shulana said. “At the rate we’ve been traveling, they’ll overtake us within a few hours—a day at most if we’re very lucky and try to go back the way we came.”
“Then,” Bagsby said, suddenly cheerful, “we’ll lighten our load and go where they’ll never think to look for us.”
Marta flinched visibly at the mention of lightening their load. “Those goods,” she said, pointing to the bundle that inevitably became George’s bane on the march, “are all I have left in the world. If you think I’m going to give them up without a fight…”
“Not at all,” Bagsby said, leaping to his feet, “You can carry all your loot, Marta, and we can carry treasure, too.”
“‘Ow?” George asked.
Bagsby leaned over and placed his face squarely in front of George’s, a twinkle in his eye, and a good-natured smile on his face. “Magic,” he said.
“Of course,” Shulana interjected. “I could diminish some of these things.”
“I thought that only worked for a little while,” Marta said, still suspicious.
“That particular spell lasts until it is canceled—usually by using a command word,” Shulana explained. “I can shrink the Golden Eggs down to the size of pebbles and then, when the command word is spoken, they’ll return to their normal size.”
“Excellent!” Bagsby shouted, clapping his hands. “Let’s get going. With the Golden Eggs no larger than pebbles, there’ll be no need to shrink any of your things, Marta. He began grabbing items off the rocks and tossing them toward Marta’s precious pile of goods. “You and George can easily share the burden now.” He stopped in midstride then suddenly turned to Shulana. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we all knew the command word, in case one of us is killed or captured?”
“‘Ere now, that’s good thinkin’!” George agreed. “If anything ‘appens to you two, I wouldn’t want to be stuck with little gold pebbles instead of the greatest treasures in the world.”
Shulana’s brow creased in a small frown. It was dangerous, involving novices in anything magical. Indeed that was the reason she had not used the spell earlier to ease their journey. But, still, it was only one word, and it would have a very limited effect, she reasoned. “Very well. Gather round and listen closely.”
In the waning moments of darkness Shulana taught the three humans one word of elven magic, the word that would break the spell she then cast on each of the Golden Eggs of Parona. Bagsby held the two shrunken treasures in the palm of his hand, then slid them into a tiny purse attached securely to the leather strap around his waist. Secretly, he felt an enormous sense of relief. Now he alone could carry the treasure. It was a wonder to him that Marta hadn’t noticed the strange warmth that sometimes emanated from the eggs. Nor, apparently, had she noticed that, from time to time, there were strange vibrations from deep within them. Now, he no longer had to worry about her making such a discovery. He wondered if Shulana had pried around them and noticed these strange facts, but he dared not ask. No matter. His plan was working. Now it was time to be off.
“It’s done. Let’s march, before those troops are on to us.”
“Wait a minute,” Marta asked, puzzled. “You never said where we were going.”
“I said we were going where the troops would never think to look for us—and we are,” Bagsby replied merrily.
“Where?” Shulana asked.
“There!” Bagsby said, extending his arm and pointing straight out across the River Rigel. “We’re crossing the river into Heilesheim.”
A Healing
VALDAIMON staggered back from the window of his tower room at Lundlow Keep, his mind so filled with pain and rage that he could neither think nor speak. Incapable of intelligibility, he emitted an animal scream of pure hatred.
With the one eye that remained to him he surveyed the ruin of what, only moments before, had been a major magical laboratory and study. Still screaming, he strode across the circular room, kicking this way and that the charred remnants of tables, chairs, shelves, and reading stands, shattering further pieces of glass that were already burnt shards, completing the destruction of ancient tomes whose price was beyond naming—now all consumed by the flames and lightning that had engulfed the room.
Through the greasy, stinking smoke that still filled the chamber, he perceived the form of a man who appeared in the doorway—a man in chain mail and shield. It was a guard… one of the guards, one of the entire company of guards… one of the imbeciles whose sole reason for existing was to have prevented this intrusion and destruction from happening!
“Lord Valdaimon! Are you harmed?” the man called, vainly waving at the smoke that assaulted his face and lungs.
Valdaimon turned to face the man and screamed his rage.
“By all the gods!” the man exclaimed, his face growing visibly pale even through the black smoke. “Oh, by all the gods!” The man staggered backward, turned, and stumbled out the door, visibly ill.
“Come back here, you coward! Come back and face the wrath of Valdaimon!” the ancient wizard shrieked. At least, that’s what he thought he had shrieked. There was no response from beyond the door, only the sound of a single man being sick. “Answer me!” Valdaimon called, listening carefully to the sounds of his own voice. The words! The words were not right. He tried again. “Guard,” he called in softer tones. To his own ear, it sounded as though he said something more like “groourd.”
Horrified, Valdaimon raised his right hand to his face—or at least, he thought he had raised his hand—until his remaining eye informed him that his right arm and hand were gone.
In the main hall of Lundlow Keep, far down the great spiral staircase that led to the tower room, the assembled guards listened with fear to the animal bellowing of the man they had been assigned to protect by no less a personage than King Ruprecht of Heilesheim himself. Only the most stupid among the men were worried about their future as soldiers; most were certain that the penalty for their failure to stop the intruders who had ransacked Valdaimon’s private chamber would be death.
The captain of the guard was nonplussed: he didn’t know how the thieves had gotten in; he couldn’t comprehend how they could have defeated his skilled guardsmen in combat, and he hadn’t the slightest notion of what they might have stolen. Normally, he would have ordered a quick pursuit, but no one had seen the plunderers leave. Worse, he feared that any men he sent out in pursuit would immediately desert rather than face the penalty for failure.
“Caaaannn,” a firm voice called from the stairway.
The captain ordered his men to fall into ranks, then turned to see the source of the sound. His horror was complete when he saw the form of Valdaimon on the steps—but a much modified form. The old wizard had always been an ugly devil with his shrunken, shri
veled old body, wrinkly, jaundiced face, and a mouth that held only a handful of pointy yellow teeth. But now the hideousness was, if anything, more complete. The entire right side of the wizard’s face was terribly burned. Flesh peeled from the bony ridge above the right eye socket, revealing the white of bone, and beneath the empty socket, even larger strips of flesh drooped downward, peeled away from the scrawny, stringy muscles of the right cheek. There were burns, too, in a bizarre, random pattern down the old wizard’s chest. His tattered robe was charred, and great, gaping holes revealed the flesh beneath—and at times, more hints of bone. But worst of all was the mouth. The entire right side looked as if it had simply melted, the lips and flesh forming one bulging mass that had dripped obscenely onto the narrow chin, then hardened and clung there.
“Caaann,” the nightmare figure called again, waving with its left hand and arm for the captain to approach.
“Lord Valdaimon,” the captain replied, walking slowly toward the base of the stairs, “you are... injured. What can I do?”
Never had the captain seen more pure hatred in a face as Valdaimon’s one eye burned into his soul. But then the old wizard released his gaze and hung his head, shaking it slowly from side to side.
“Is there nothing I can do?” the captain inquired cautiously.
Valdaimon gestured vaguely behind his legs and squatted as though to sit. He looked inquisitively at the human cretin—had he understood?
“A chair, a chair!” the captain shouted. “A chair for Lord Valdaimon!”
Valdaimon nodded affirmatively, pointing back up the great spiral staircase. Then he turned, without attempting to speak further, and trudged laboriously upward, lifting his scrawny, yellowed feet with their long, hardened nails one at a time onto the next step, and then the next. Two guards followed his slow progress, carrying a large wooden chair and several pillows for the wizard’s use in the tower room.
