The Fighters: Ghostwalker

by Erik Scott Debie

  Then the Lord Singer stood, limping slightly from his bruised legs and backside. When Meris made no move to strike, Greyt straightened his collar and cuffs, holding the golden rapier between his legs. Supporting himself on the sword, Meris coughed and gagged. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Greyt smiled and walked toward him, stretch­ing his arms and holding the rapier horizontally behind his head.

  "Well, my boy," Greyt said. "It's been a good couple two and a half decades. I always admired your knack for pro­moting yourself higher in my esteem—and your dashing looks." He held up the golden rapier and inspected the tip. Giving it a snap, the metal vibrated back and forth. "I always saw such potential in you, but I see I was doomed to disappointment."

  Meris moaned, his tongue still thick. Greyt tapped Meris on the cheek with the rapier.

  "What a shame—I see so much of that Amnian strum­pet in you, too. Poor girl, killed by beasts in the woods. An 'accident.' " Something dawned on him and Greyt smiled. "Ah yes, thank you for reminding me—I had almost forgot­ten her fate."

  Meris's only reply was to stifle a cough. Blood ran through his fingers.

  Greyt grimaced. Meris was bleeding all over the carpet, creating stains that would take tendays to get out. No sense making Claudir do extra work.

  He drew the rapier back.

  * * * *

  I'll grind his bones an' tear his flesh with me teeth!

  The words cut to Walker soul and, once there, made it hard and cold as ice. Screaming power filled his body, imbu­ing him with fifteen years of hatred and pain.

  Walker leaped, stepped on the dagger in Bilgren's thigh, kicked off the one in his stomach, and flew over the barbar­ian's head, turning a forward somersault but flying backward, as though borne aloft on the wind of ghosts.

  Barely nicking his trailing cloak, the flail came down and splashed into the water. There it stuck, much to Bilgren's surprise. The big man roared and strained, but he could not pull out the flail—the water had turned to ice around the spiked ball, thanks to Talthaliel's magic and Walker's timing.

  Bilgren looked at the gyrspike in shock, then up at Walker, perched atop the fountain, his cloak billowing around him in the wind.

  "Ye little rat, I'll be killin' ye!" slobbered the barbarian.

  "And I'll be remembering you," said Walker, feeling at his chest. There was steel in his voice, and resolve shone so coldly from his eyes that Bilgren shivered despite himself.

  As Bilgren strained to wrench the gyrspike free, Walker pounced, head over heels, his cloak flying. The chain on the flail snapped, Bilgren lurched forward, reversed, and brought the sword down as the ghostwalker landed behind him.

  Walker parried the blow and threw Bilgren back as though the barbarian possessed all the strength of a child. Walker strolled a little ways away and beckoned the bar­barian to attack. Bilgren slashed again, but again Walker parried, pushing the blade up and over, creating an opening for him to stick a third dagger in the barbarian's torso.

  Bilgren blinked, his berserk fury shaken, then roared all the louder. With both hands on the gyrspike's handle, he slashed the blade at Walker as though it were a two-handed sword, but the ghostwalker dodged or parried each attack, slashing Bilgren slightly here and there, wearing him down. As the barbarian lost more and more blood, his fury increased to greater and greater heights. Regardless, though, of how much strength Bilgren gained from pump­ing adrenaline, Walker always slipped, snakelike, in and out of his reach, knocking the broken gyrspike aside with no more than a scratch on his cloak to show for it.

  Finally, as Bilgren foamed and raved beyond the realm of sanity, Walker staggered back over a rock, bending down. The barbarian roared, thinking his triumph coming, and hammered his sword down, once, twice, then up on Walker's blade. The final blow tore the sword from Walker's hand and sent it flying away, and the ghostwalker spun to the right with the force.

  Bilgren lifted his blade high, salivating at the thought of the death to come...

  Then he blinked down at the long sword jammed through his ribs. Facing away, Walker had drawn his second sword from under his cloak during the turn, and jabbed it back­ward. Bilgren had never had a chance to parry.

  The barbarian tried to bring the gyrspike down anyway, but his limbs would not obey his mind's commands. With agonizing slowness, he sank, limp, to the ground.

  "Rest, peaceful as the grass in the meadow, my murderer," Walker whispered over his shoulder as he drew the sword out from between the barbarian's ribs. He recovered his throwing knives, wiped them on Bilgren's hide armor, and slid them into their sheathes.

  Only one murderer left—one last haunting face that chilled him at night, one last sword to face, one last heart to still.

  Then a sphere of cold energy crackled around him, and Walker froze.

  The black-cloaked Talthaliel descended before Walker's eyes and smiled at him. Memories of pain and hatred fled from the ghostwalker, replaced by an oath for being dis­tracted, and he realized that the one who killed him did not have to be one of his hated enemies.

  "We meet, Spirit of Vengeance," said the moon elf. "For the first—and last—time."

  Chapter 21

  30 Tarsakh

  Walker hacked his borrowed long sword into the bubble of force that contained him—a slash that would have split Talthaliel's head—but the barrier held firm. The throwing knife he had palmed fell, bouncing off the crackling sphere and sliding down to Walker's feet as though down the inside of a bowl.

  In the face of this black-cloaked mage, Walker's supernatural determination vanished and he felt his strength and endurance fleeing. This was not one of his enemies, and that left him at a severe disadvantage. He chopped and slashed at the bubble again and again, but the sword rebounded from the force each time and vibrated in his hand enough to numb his entire arm. He saw the spirit of Tarm outside the bubble, but he knew calling to the spirit would do no good.

  "Do not trouble yourself, Rhyn Thardeyn," came a voice from outside the bubble. "My magic is quite impenetrable."

  The ghostwalker lowered the battered sword, and stared into Talthaliel's eyes.

  "Interesting," the seer said, as though he had just observed something and was probing to see if Walker had as well. "Ah, well. It is not relevant." The diviner shrugged. He continued, putting aside whatever he had found interesting. "I regret interfering with your quest, Spirit of Vengeance. You have fought valiantly, as befits your training and skill, but your fight against the Lord Singer is over."

  "Your master deserves death," Walker said. "Release me."

  "Please; the Lord Singer is not my master." The tiniest flash of irritation crossed his face, but Talthaliel's words remained even and solid. Walker felt a tiny chill—he had rarely met one who could suppress his emotions so force­fully. "Regardless, you are right. But, for the moment, I do his bidding, and that bidding means your defeat."

  "Then you have me," said Walker. "My quest is at an end." He lowered his head. "Kill me then—if you serve such a villain."

  Talthaliel didn't flinch.

  "Actually, I have a different plan for you."

  Walker met the elf's gaze, his eyes confused.

  Talthaliel shrugged. "All is occurring as I have foreseen. I have but to borrow a few moments of your evanescent time, then we will escape the Lord Singer's clutches together, though we shall never meet again in this world."

  Walker furrowed his brow, but accepted without fully understanding. He felt, rather than saw, that the diviner meant him no harm—even encouraged his quest.

  Hope flickered, but not at the thought he might defeat Greyt. Rather, this meant he might see Arya again—

  Sitting, Walker folded his legs beneath him and closed his eyes.

  "In the next moments, would you like me to tell you of your past life? What I have seen and you cannot remember?" asked Talthaliel. "This may be your only chance."

  After a long moment, Walker shook his head. "Rhyn Thardeyn died fifteen years ago,"
he said. "Whatever you would tell me of the past would mean nothing to me now."

  Talthaliel nodded.

  "One thing only," he said.

  Walker inclined his head to hear.

  "Your voice was beautiful," the seer said. "For that of a human."

  Walker almost smiled.

  * * * *

  Greyt thrust at his son, but Meris stood with a flourish, brought the shatterspike from right to left, and cut the golden blade neatly in two.

  Greyt watched, stunned, as Meris continued into a spin and brought the blade snaking around, only to plunge the point between the Lord Singer's ribs.

  When Greyt looked at his son in shock, the wild scout spat out a chicken heart and a small flow of blood trickled down his chin. That was why his voice had seemed odd. Greyt's bracer knife had merely pierced flesh—no vital organs.

  "I have learned many habits from you," said Meris. "Gloat­ing is not one of them."

  Fighting the agony, Greyt tried to stab at Meris with the blade in his gauntlet, but the scout slapped it aside with his axe. Then he twisted the sword, wrenching a gasp from the Lord Singer. The shatterspike burst from Greyt's back.

  Greyt slumped to his knees, the blade through his body, and fiery pain spread through him. Words came from his lips, along with a trickle of blood.

  "Meris, please," he croaked. "Lyetha... tell her I... I am sorry. I killed Tarm and little Rhyn... all those years ago. I alone! Tell her—I'm sorry."

  Meris laughed at him.

  "Lies to the last, eh, Father?" he asked. "I suppose it's close enough to true—true enough to keep me Quaervarr's hero." He smiled.

  Greyt choked. Then he tried to speak again. "Talthaliel... you lied to me... you said you would fight... and defeat... my son... you lied..." With one shaking hand, he clutched the amber amulet that hung around his throat.

  Then a boot fell upon his hand and Meris held him down.

  The dusky youth grinned hideously. It was time for the final act of revenge.

  "No, no he didn't, Father," he laughed. "He kept his prom­ise. He has fought and defeated your son." Then he pushed with his foot, pulling the sword out, and the Lord Singer fell over.

  Awash in a sea of pain, Greyt's face was wracked with both agony and confusion. Then, understanding came upon him, and his eyes softened.

  "Lyetha... why didn't... didn't you tell me?" He gasped one last time. "Beloved ... forgive me ... for ... what I did not see..."

  As the room faded to black, he imagined that he saw a laughing face before his eyes. It was a young Rhyn—his Rhyn—and his dazzling blue eyes, so like those of his beau­tiful Lyetha, gleamed in the lamplight.

  He heard Rhyn running toward him, but from so far away. He would never arrive in time, Greyt knew. Rhyn and Lyetha had never been his, and he had hurt them so much, he was almost glad they would never be his now.

  "We will meet again," he whispered, almost fondly. "In a world free... of hate and pain."

  For the first and last time in his life, Greyt felt regret.

  Then he felt nothing at all.

  * * * *

  Talthaliel's mouth curled up at the edges. "Ah," was all he said. Then he vanished.

  As he went, the shimmering sphere around Walker dis­appeared. Tarm, his father, was at his side, silent as always, urging him to stand.

  And stand Walker did.

  Walker ran for Greyt's manor. Lightning crashed overhead, threatening fierce rain as before, but nothing came down.

  In the courtyard, the cherry trees—imported from far south—were just beginning to blossom, showing white and pink all around him. The cobblestone path running from the gate to the front door seemed impossibly long and Walker ran for all he was worth, his cape billowing behind him black against a sea of beauty.

  Once through the front portal he slowed, watching every shadow for hidden attackers. He stalked through halls he did not know but remembered, somehow, as though he had walked them before—a memory washed away with his own blood that night fifteen years ago.

  After his meeting with Lyetha, he found his memories creeping back, as though his shattered mind had pulled itself back together. Now he regretted turning her away, refusing to hear what she might tell him. His anger had blinded him, and now he wondered.

  There were, after all, the mysterious memories of Greyt's manor that crept into his mind.

  There was something eerily familiar about this building he had avoided studiously for the last fifteen years, lest his thirst for revenge get the better of him. That wall hanging there, that end table... The layout of the corridors, the design of the carpet... Walker could have sworn he could say where each and every door led, as though...

  Even as he ran through the halls of his greatest enemy, Walker felt the cruel sensation of coming home.

  "Empty as the darkness," he said under his breath, wash­ing his mind of the memories. With the words, Walker pushed the painful, bittersweet sensation out of his mind, much as one would ignore a moment of deja vu. It was difficult, but he did it.

  Then he heard cruel laughter from ahead and knew his destination: Greyt's study.

  * * * *

  After running a hand through his black curls, Meris took his time wiping the blade with a kerchief from his pocket. Then he slid the shatterspike back into its scabbard and dropped the bloody cloth on his father's corpse. Absently picking at the blood spatters on his white leather armor, he paused to consider the fallen man. Greyt's face knew an almost peaceful expression, but there was sadness there also—a duality of emotion.

  By contrast, Meris felt nothing.

  That only made him smile.

  His smile faded as the lithe Talthaliel stepped out of the air next to Greyt's body. Meris dropped his hands to his weapons.

  The black-robed diviner ignored him entirely. Talthaliel knelt over the Lord Singer's body.

  "I am to assume that Walker has been dealt with, then?" snapped Meris. "Did you kill the wretch? Where is Bilgren?"

  "Yes, no, and dead," Talthaliel replied absently.

  "What? Make sense, elf!" shouted Meris. "You were my father's slave, and he's dead, so you are mine now! Speak!"

  Talthaliel looked at him with an expression Meris might have called amusement. He pulled an amber amulet from Greyt's dead hand and admired it.

  "I serve no man," said the seer, "unless he holds this."

  Meris looked at the amber without comprehension. Then he thought he saw a tiny gleam. "And what is that, your life-force? Your soul, or whatever you rat-faced elves have instead?"

  "My daughter," said Talthaliel. He stood, and Meris watched as the amulet vanished into his robes. "But to answer your question, the Spirit of Vengeance has been defeated, once, but I have not slain him. He comes for you even now, and I do not have to see the future to know the violence he will bring."

  "You fish-skinned, tree-kissing, elf bastard," growled Meris. "You get back there and—"

  Talthaliel vanished as though he had never been.

  Meris's frown deepened. Walker? Coming here?

  Then it seemed obvious. The fool was trying to rescue Arya. Meris could ambush Walker and rid himself of the ghost at last—the shatterspike should do the trick.

  First things first, though.

  "Guard!" he called.

  The door opened and one of the Greyt family rangers looked in. From his face, he did not find the carnage surprising,

  "Too many liabilities," Meris said. "See that that wench Venkyr and the others have accidents in their cells. Imme­diately. When they are dead, post six men there. I want anyone who comes looking for them killed just as quickly, no matter who it is." The man nodded, then Meris continued. "And gather all the other rangers in the courtyard. I am coming soon."

  "As you command, Lord Greyt-Wayfarer," the scout said. Then he disappeared out the door. Out in the hallway, Meris could hear voices as the two guards left.

  "Lord Greyt-Wayfarer," murmured the scout. He enjoyed the sound of that.
>
  After a moment, Meris bent over Greyt's body and seized the left hand. The gold wolf's head ring—the Greyt family crest—sparkled from the fourth finger. Meris wrenched it free, let Greyt's arm fall with a satisfying thump, and slid it on. It was too big.

  "Once, I would have given anything to have your name," said Meris. He cradled his father's head in his hands. "I would have done anything to be worthy—anything to make you love me."

  Then he dropped the head and rose, drawing away from the corpse. When he had gained his feet again, he slipped the ring off and admired it.

  "It seems, however, that all I had to do for your name," said Meris, "was kill you."

  He turned and started for the door.

  But it was only to stop. He had noticed something new about the ring—something he had not seen before. Meris squinted to see. There was tiny lettering on the inside, elegant letters scripted in Elvish.

  " 'It is easier to destroy than to create,'" he read aloud. He touched his stubbly chin as though in thought. "Stupid sentiment. Why create when others will do it for you?"

  With a derisive laugh that echoed through the halls, Meris walked away from the corpse of his father, toward the door. As he opened the door, he slipped the ring on. Then he stepped out.

  Lancing from the shadows, a blade bit through the white leather and into his stomach.

  * * * *

  In the darkness of her prison cell, Arya could see a light approaching down the dungeon corridor, and a feeling of foreboding hit her such as she had never known before. So the great and mighty Lord Greyt had finally ordered her murdered. She would almost welcome death to free her of the pain of watching Walker die, of sending her dearest friends to their deaths, and of knowing that such a twisted lunatic as the Lord Singer was soon to be the most vaunted hero in the land.

  Almost.

  The knightly oaths that bound her, however, would not allow Arya to give up. Even if it was hopeless—even if every­thing else was gone—at least she could try.