by Ty Johnston
Once atop the platform, he paused in front of the metal door, listening. There seemed no one inside. Still, it was better to err on the side of caution. There could be someone inside, perhaps someone sleeping, and he wished not to cause them alarm.
He rapped hard knuckles against metal.
An echo of his knock came back to him.
He waited.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Nothing again.
Bayne waited a few more minutes.
Still, nothing.
He reached out and tried the brass knob sticking out of the door. It turned with ease.
He pulled the door toward him a few inches.
“Hello?” he said to the dark crack of the opening.
No response.
“Hello?” he repeated. “Is there anyone here?”
Silence.
Bayne huffed and pulled the door all the way open. The moon’s glow filtered inside the building, but not far. The warrior could make out little more than a floor covered with some kind of thin gray rug.
He shrugged. There was no one present. Bayne was willing to wait until the morning if he must, but there was no need for him to remain outdoors in case the night should be chill.
He stepped through the doorway.
A light glared from above, causing him to squinch down nearly to a crouch, one hand reaching for his sword.
But nothing else untoward happened. Bayne squatted there waiting to be assaulted in some fashion, but seeing the building was empty other than himself, he supposed the light from an odd window in the ceiling was some form of magic that ignited at the presence of others. Genius, in its own manner.
He pulled the door closed behind him and better took in his surroundings. The place was small, as he expected from the outside, but it felt warmer than did the outside and the growing night. The rug he had seen stretched from wall to wall, covering all corners of the floor. The walls themselves were even and made of something pasty white, perhaps some form of plaster. A table of gray metal, looking something like a desk Bayne would expect in an officer’s quarters, was shoved up against the wall opposite him, in front of it a cushioned chair of wood with black wheels at the ends of its four curved legs. Atop the table were various instruments, none of which looked familiar to Bayne other than a metal can filled with what appeared to be writing utensils, a wooden stylus of some form.
The only other thing worth observing in the room was a colorful map pinned to the wall on the right. Bayne immediately stepped over to it and began following the lines and colors and text with his eyes.
It soon became clear that whatever language was used for the markings upon the map, with it Bayne was not familiar. Still, he was able to discover the road upon which he had traveled and could trace the red line that was the road back to the fields where he had awoken.
Still, this told him little he already did not know. He placed a finger against the road and followed the trail in what seemed to him to be a Northerly direction, past this station where he now stood. It seemed to him that some miles ahead, he guessed as many as ten based upon the distances he had already traveled by the map’s drawings, there was a town or city.
Standing back from the map, Bayne looked it over with a broader perspective in mind. This diagram showed nothing that remarked of his former lands. In fact, the map seemed to show little more than a few hundred or so square miles, though those miles were quite detailed.
Still, there was little new knowledge to be found here, just that a city lie close by.
There was where he must go.
Bayne could be a patient man, and he was not unaware that he was fortunate to find shelter for the night. He would wait for the rise of the sun. Until then he would try to be as comfortable as he could with that glaring light over his head and a lack of proper bedding.
Removing his sword and placing it on the ground near at hand, he sank down into a corner, easing his back against a wall and allowing his eyes to close. He could go days and days without sleep, but he knew better than to dismiss an opportunity when it had presented itself.
If one of these rangers had not shown by morning, he would make his way to the town. Surely there would be someone there who could help him, a teacher or wizard … someone.
Bayne dozed.
It seemed he had not been asleep long when he was woken by a wooden clunking noise outside, followed right away by a gnawing sound and a reverberation that buzzed throughout the build, through the floor and up into Bayne’s spine.
He grabbed his sword and jumped to his feet. Surprisingly, there was daylight peeking beneath a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. He had slept longer than he had thought.
That grinding noise intensified, shaking the room.
Bayne yanked his sword from its sheath, let the leather casing fall to the floor and thrust open the door, bounding onto the narrow walkway outside.
The brightness of the morning blinded him for a moment, but once his eyes adjusted he was brought up short by the view. He could see for miles, and it was a beautiful land of green tree tops and verdant fields in the distance. The night before had been too dark, even with the guiding moon, for him to take in his surroundings.
The flooring beneath his boots quivered and shook.
Bayne leaned forward over the ledge of the makeshift rope bannister to stare down at the ground far below.
What he saw was a surprise.
There were two men opposite one another at the bottom of one of the tower’s wooden support posts, a long dual-handled metal saw between them being worked back and forth by the men and tearing into the beam there.
Bayne blinked. Then noted another pair of men with another saw performing the same task at another of the tower’s supports.
The fools were going to bring the whole thing down.
Did they not know he had been inside?
“Belay there!” he shouted.
The sawing came to a halt and the four fellows craned back their heads to look up. The warrior could now better make out that this was a rough crowd. These men wore furs and rough animal skins, the flesh of their faces and hands grimy and their heads and chins layered in thick, matted hair.
“Belay yourself there, Bayne kul Kanon!” one of the men shouted back with harshness.
A second surprise. They knew his name.
But perhaps that was a good sign. Perhaps these were men of Ursia. Perhaps these fellows could tell him the way back.
Trolg sauntered from behind a tree, shattering any illusions of aid from this group. A sour grin was spread across Trolg’s face and his big knife was out and gripped in a hand.
“Toss down that sword of yours, Bayne,” the knife-wielder said, “or we’ll be forced to cut down the station and pry it from your body.”
“Are you mad?” Bayne asked. “You would kill a man over a sword?”
“That sword’ll bring at least two thousand dyns in Lichton,” Trolg said, “a rare curiosity like that. I’ve never seen such a thing outside of picture books and flickers.”
Bayne did not understand most of those words, but he knew the intent. “I should have trusted my first impressions of you, Trolg. And here I was, thinking you were a common man, a good man.”
Trolg tossed back his head and laughed. “Just trying to make a living, you fool!”
“The sword!” another of the bandits yelled.
No. Bayne would not throw away his sword. He did not necessarily need it, being deadly with his own might, but he knew these men would continue to cut away at the station’s beams even if they had what they wanted. It was their way, the way of those without honor.
“I have a better idea, Trolg,” Bayne said. “I will bring my sword to you.”
With that, the big man vaulted the walkway’s ropes and plummeted.
He fell the distance of five man-heights, landed hard and rolled to one side, coming up crouched on his feet, the sword extended, no bones broken. Not eve
n a bruise.
Gasps all around from the bandits. They were too surprised to rush to the attack.
Bayne stood tall, flipped his sword around in one hand and planted the end of the heavy blade into the soil next to his feet. His fists on his hips, he turned to face Trolg. “Here is my sword. If you still desire it.”
There was a rush of stamping feet from behind. Bayne turned in time to find one of the woodsmen charging, a hatchet waving above the man’s head. Bayne grabbed the fellow by the neck and twisted, tossing his attacker over his shoulder. The man flew through the air to land with a crunching noise in a pile of broken tree limbs.
For a moment there was stillness and silence. Bayne had been momentarily astonished one of these men had been so bold as to attack him, but it seemed the others were just as surprised.
Then Trolg let forth a yell.
The assault was on.
The other three under the ranger’s station whipped out weapons, bone-handled knives and small axes, and ran at the big warrior with the sword sticking out of the ground next to him.
A swift glance told Bayne that Trolg had vanished into the woods. So much for the valor of leadership.
Bayne turned back.
The three were on top of him.
A knife scrapped along one arm, leaving a line of red.
Bayne popped out a fist, connecting with a chin, shattering bone to splinters and snapping his foe’s head back so fast the neck was broken and the man dead while still on his feet. The body dropped as another bandit lashed out with an ax.
The warrior thrust up an arm. The head of the ax thunked into flesh, burying itself deep in the muscles of the biceps of Bayne’s left arm.
The other attacker stabbed with a knife, the blade skating along chain links.
Bayne spun away, taking the ax with him, the head of the lodged weapon bobbing with his swift movements. He came to a halt and faced his enemies once more, crouching defensively.
The two bandits backed away, their features pale and showing their bewilderment that a foe could continue with an ax embedded in an arm.
Seeing their surprise, Bayne used precious seconds to reach up and around with his right hand. Strong fingers wrapped the haft of the ax and tugged, pulling the weapon free and spraying scarlet. The warrior seemed no worse for it.
One of the bandits turned to run, the one without a weapon.
Bayne tossed the ax.
The blade flipped over the handle several times, then bit into the back of the fleeing man’s head, splitting the back of his skull and dropping him.
The other man was paralyzed in fear, his knife falling from his hands.
Bayne gave him no time to recover. The big man sprang, pulled his sword from the ground and gyrated about, the long weapon extended at full length.
A head hit the forest floor. Followed by a body.
Bayne paused, glaring about.
No more enemies.
He glanced down at his wounded arm. The injury was already nearly vanished. Merely a pale red line of drying blood gave evidence to the attack.
Slowly, Bayne spun about to assure himself there were no more attackers. He had thought Trolg might be foolish enough to try to sneak up on him, or that the man had more comrades near, but neither seemed to be the case.
Bayne sighed and knelt, cleaning his long blade on the leggings of a fallen foe.
Then it was up the wooden stairs of the station once more to retrieve the dropped scabbard of his weapon. The sword firmly at home on his back once more, Bayne ascended and spent a half hour dragging bodies beneath the shelter of the ranger’s station and then covering them with fallen leaves. He would have given the men a proper burial, but some sense in the back of his mind told him it was time to move on. Trolg might have run, but these bandits might well have a hideout where the fool could find further comrades. Bayne would not wait to find out.
Soon enough he was marching along the road once more, thick tree limbs hanging over his path. The sun blazed down between the limbs, bringing warmth to the morning chill. The expected birds flitted by overhead and made their bird noises. Animals burrowed and dug and hid and did whatever it was animals did in the forest surrounding the road. If not for the death dealt less than an hour earlier, it could have been considered a beautiful day.
Those feelings did not remain long with Bayne.
He had covered not quite two miles when he spotted a trio of figures some distance ahead of him, three man standing across the road. They wore dirty and tattered jackets, faded blue pants similar to Trolg’s own, plain shirts. Each looked to be a rough man with snarly beards and splayed hair. Even from a distance, Bayne could make out each of them gripped a weapon of sorts. One held a bow in front of himself, an arrow ready to launch. Another hefted a long spear, the weapon’s head black as coal. The third fellow carried a short club of an odd sort, the body of the weapon made of an oily black substance that was yet solid, with a glass bulb protruding from the far end.
The warrior slowed his walked, allowing his senses to fully take in his surroundings.
Trolg had been quick to seek aid. Bayne had told him of his martial past, and the man had witnessed the warrior’s strength. Was that not enough to prove Bayne was not a man with whom one should cross?
Apparently not.
As Bayne drew closer, he could make out three more men settled behind bushes in the thick woods on the right side of the road. If they were attempting to hide, they were doing a poor job of it. As were another three shadowy figures planted behind trees on the left side of the road.
Nine men altogether. Not even a challenge. And Trolg nowhere to be found. Perhaps the man wasn’t a complete fool, though despicable he was for his lack of care for his cohorts’ lives.
Bayne halted a good distance away from the bandits. “Where is Trolg?”
“Around,” one of the men said.
Bayne shrugged and unslung his sword, bringing around the massive weapon in a two-handed grip. He would have preferred to be on his way with no bloodshed, but obviously these men were not willing to step aside.
A single arrow was loosed.
Bayne watched the wobbly dart sail across the sky in his direction. The archer had been nervous, his aim lousy.
The arrow planted itself in the ground several feet wide of the warrior.
None of the bandits moved. Had the arrow been an accident, a mistake?
The men screamed and charged.
Not a mistake.
Bayne stood his ground.
Three more arrows were loosed, these from the woods, as well as a stone, a leather snap revealing a sling was at work.
The first arrow flew wide, snapping into lower tree limbs above and behind Bayne. The second arrow fell short, digging dirt at the warrior’s feet. The third arrow was true, however, and slammed into the big man’s left arm where an ax had wounded him earlier in the day. The flying stone, too, struck true, hammering against the knuckles of Bayne’s right hand, spraying a splash of blood.
The warrior did not so much as flinch. He did not even bother to remove the arrow sticking from his arm.
This did not stop the others from charging, however, the bandits caught up in the fury of their numbers against a single opponent.
The first man to Bayne wielded a club, little more than a thick tree root dug from the ground. He swung low, going for his foe’s knees.
Bayne kicked out, his weighty boot crunching into the man’s neck and crushing it.
The next fellow bore a spear, iron tipped. He thrust at Bayne’s stomach as another bandit curved in from the side with a long knife swinging.
The swordsman’s heavy blade knocked aside the spear’s head, then swept around faster than the eye could see and chopped crossways, cutting the knife wielder from his right shoulder to his crotch. That man died screaming with his intestines spilling out on the dusty road.
Bayne sidestepped the next stab of the spear, then spun about, his sword swinging wide. The blade slic
ed across another bandit’s face, cleaving through eyes and into brains and out the back of the skull, separating the top of the head from the rest of the body. This man, too, dropped dead.
More arrows sailed. Two of them caught the spearman in the back and he cried out a woman’s name. Bayne stepped forward and with a stab put the man out of his misery.
Then a heavy weight fell about the warrior, nearly dragging him to the ground. Momentarily a gloom filled his vision, but Bayne kept to his feet. He found himself restrained, his arms entangled in heavy hemp cord.
A net had enveloped him. It was a heavy netting and large, like something found on a ship for dealing with whales or other large sea monsters.
Solid thumping noises caused Bayne too look around behind himself.
Three more men, one of them Trolg. They had dropped from the trees above.
The idiots.
Bayne arched back and roared to the heavens, his muscled shoulders rolling in an attempt to slough off the weight of the netting. Still, the heavy mesh was too large, and Bayne only managed to shift the cords about while further entangling his limbs.
A chuckle. The fool Trolg stepped in front of Bayne, within striking distance, his big knife out in one hand.
“I bet now you’re wishing you’d just handed over that sword,” Trolg said.
Bayne glared at the man.
Trolg snickered, then waved the rest of his men to approach. “Fill him with arrows,” he ordered the nearing archers.
Bayne glanced around. Four men with rough bows. One with a leather sling.
He dropped his sword, the weapon already entangled and nearly useless. From his belt, a knife came out.
“Now!” Trolg shouted with trepidation as he and his two companions from above darted off to one side.
Arrows flew, a couple trapping themselves in the webbing, the other two sinking into Bayne’s left leg. The slinger let loose with a rock, the bullet smacking against the warrior’s head and causing him to flinch.
Bayne slashed up with his knife, cutting away a thread of the net, thankful for the hours he had spent over the years scraping a sharpening stone against the smaller blade.
More arrows flew.
