“You are the hero these people need. If they don’t give you what you deserve, you should just take it.”
“I’m still not going to take anything from anyone. Let alone a king that probably has a bunch of guards. Maybe there’s a better way to approach this than just telling him everything right away.”
“Big, strong man like you, with all your special skills?” Nyvea purred. “If I had gold, I’d spend it all on you.”
“Thanks, Nyvea,” I said and felt a smile spread my lips. “Barodan was right. You really are a good companion to have. I’m still a little pissed that he took me from my world, but I’m glad that you are with me.”
“You and your silver tongue,” she said in her silky voice. “You’re making me wish I was out of this amulet so I could put that mouth to good use.”
The mental image made things uncomfortably tight in my pants once again. I blushed furiously and realized people were looking at me. Men, women, and children had stopped to stare at my strange clothing, boots, and axe. It also didn’t help that I was talking to thin air.
The realization just made me blush more, and I rushed up the street to get away from the gawking people.
“First money I get, I’m going to spend it on new clothes.” My cargo pants and T-shirt stuck out like a sore thumb, and the bundled turnout gear was sure to draw attention, especially my bright red suspenders.
“Yay, I get to watch you change again. I love my job.”
I ignored Nyvea’s comment as I strode up the street. The commotion of the market fell quiet as I left it behind and walked up the broad avenue that cut through Whitespire. The farther into the city I went, the larger and more lavish the buildings grew. Soon, I was standing before two and three-story homes of brick and stone. The structures were made with marble facades that glimmered white and gold in the sunlight. The surrounding citizens were better-dressed with nicer clothes, shoes, hats, and heavier waistlines.
It seemed as if all eyes were turned toward me, since I looked even more out of place among the richer men and women near the palace. I searched the street for any way to get away from the main avenue and wondered if any of them would take me to the palace without having to walk past all the staring people.
An alley to my right caught my attention, so I dodged a passing cart, twisted between two merchant stalls, and ducked into the quiet, shadowy street. Thankfully, it was empty and silent.
I strode up the alley and found myself confronted by two smaller back streets that ran behind the fancy houses. I took the one to the left, which led toward the palace.
Unlike the broad avenue of Whitespire, these streets had no paving stones but were nothing more than mud. Garbage was piled high against the walls of the surrounding houses, and an odd-colored stinking muck oozed across my path. I picked my way gingerly past a snoring bundle of rags and stepped over a trio of empty clay jars that lay scattered beside an unconscious man.
“Hey, Nyvea, why do the homes look so nice up front on the main street when their back alleys are all so shitty?”
“The city has fallen onto hard times,” she replied. “But they still keep up appearances.”
“Ahh,” I said as I picked up my walking pace. This was just the sort of place I’d learned to avoid back in Chicago, and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.
Relief filled me as I caught sight of an exit from the alleyway just thirty yards ahead of me. Wagons and pedestrians moved in the street beyond, and I heard the commotion of the busy life in this medieval city. I nearly broke into a run to get out of here, but two burly men stepped in my path and barred my way.
“Ahh shit,” I hissed under my breath.
I skidded to a halt when I caught sight of the dagger in one man’s hand and the club in the other’s. I turned my head around to see if I could fall back, but my way was blocked by two more men nearly as tall as me and carrying nightsticks.
My heart sank. I was trapped.
“Don’t worry, Ethan,” Nyvea whispered in my ear. “Four men are no match for you.”
Chapter Four
I quickly stepped to the side and turned to put the wall at my rear. My eyes went back and forth between the two pairs of men sauntering toward me, and I readied my axe. The men wore smiles, but there was no mistaking the wicked twinkle in their eyes.
“Hello, there. What brings you to the wrong part of town, fancy boy?”
The man who spoke was the shortest of the four. He had long dark hair that hung in a greasy ponytail down to his shoulders, and the few teeth in his mouth were stained a dark brown. He wore clothes with more holes than my oldest pair of socks, and just about as ratty and faded. The knife in his hand, however, looked as sharp as the smile on his scruffy face.
The other three men seemed as if they were cut from the same rough mold. They had close-cropped hair, thick noses, sloping foreheads, and shoulders a few inches broader than mine. I’d always been the biggest guy around, but these men gave me a good run for my money. The grins on their faces, though, told me they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.
“Took a wrong turn,” I told the little guy who was clearly their leader. They had surprised me, but I wasn’t afraid of them. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”
I stepped toward them, but they made no move to get out of my path.
“Now, now, where you off to in such a hurry? It’s rude of you to leave before we’ve had a chance to get to know you.” The little man hefted his knife and gave me a wicked smile. “My friends here do nasty things to rude people.”
I sighed but felt my stomach clench. These guys wouldn’t let me go easily, and they didn’t seem intimidated by the red painted axe in my hand.
“What do you want?” I asked. “I’ve got to get to the palace—”
“Ooh, mister high and mighty!” the short guy said with a laugh as he turned his nose up into the air. “Thinks he’s too good for the likes of us.” He stepped aside and swept an exaggerated bow. “Your lordship, you’re free to be on your way.”
“Thank you.” I moved toward the gap but found my way blocked by one of the ugly brutes.
“After we exact a small donation from you, of course.” The little man waved his blade with what he clearly believed to be a good deal of menace. “To help the poor folks of Rags’ End. What do you say, boys? Two gold pieces should do the trick, right?”
“I don’t have any money,” I sighed as I shook my head. “I’m not from around here.” I backed toward the alley wall so I could keep all four of them in my line of sight and dropped my bundled turnout gear behind me. It was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way out of this, and that was going to be too bad for these assholes.
“That’s pretty obvious by the funny clothes you’re wearing, and the fact that you wandered into our turf,” the little man snarled. His smile faded and was replaced by a sneer. “If you can’t pay in coin, perhaps we’ll just have that axe, then. Looks sturdy enough.”
I gripped the handle of my axe tighter. It was one of the few things that had come with me from Earth, and if Barodan thought it was important enough to send it with me, there was no way I would lose it to these thugs.
“Not gonna happen,” I told them. “Just let me go and I won’t say anything to the king about you trying to rob me.”
“Hear that, lads?” the little man said, and his eyebrows shot upward. “He’s not going to tell the king about us. How generous of him!” The three big brutes laughed, which seemed to encourage the little man even more.
“Hand it over, or you’ll find yourself in real trouble,” he snarled.
“No fucking chance.” I lifted the weapon over my head, brought it down with a practiced swing, and stopped it in mid-air a few inches above the cobblestones of the alley. “You want it, come and take it from me.”
For a moment, the three brutes hesitated. They exchanged glances with each other and looked at my axe as if trying to weigh up the danger I posed versus the
value of my weapon. For a second, I thought that they might actually let me pass, but then the little man’s face scrunched up
“Get him!” he shouted and stabbed a finger at me. “Bring me that axe.”
The three big thugs charged me, but I was ready. I brought my weapon swinging around, and they jumped back to avoid being sliced by the sharp blade. Instead of swinging again, I let go of the axe with my left hand and sent a quick jab into the nearest thug’s nose. The man stepped into the blow and my fist collided with his face. There was a loud crunch of cartilage, and blood gushed from his nose. The big man stumbled away from me, clapped his hands to his face, and fell to his knees with a cry of “By dose!”
The other two thugs rushed toward me and swung their heavy clubs at my head and chest. I used the handle of my axe to knock the club aimed for my head aside, but I wasn’t quick enough to block the other one. I grunted as the other crashed into my left shoulder, and my arm went numb.
They attacked again, but I ducked the one strike and drove the butt of my axe handle into one man’s solar plexus. I expected to hear a grunt or a groan of pain, but instead there was a loud cracking sound as his sternum snapped like a rotten piece of celery. The thug fell back with a gagging sound and collapsed to the muck-covered alleyway, where he lay wheezing and struggling to breathe.
I stared down at the man in shock. There was no way I could have done that much damage on Earth, but I’d forgotten about my extra strength here on Agreon. That, and the magic coursing through me had fueled my blow with such power that I had shattered bone. And it wasn’t even using all the force of my arms.
“You bastard!” the little man shouted and charged at me with his knife raised to strike.
I’d only spent a few months learning martial arts at the Academy, but it had been enough to learn the basics of combat. His attack didn’t really surprise me, so I brought my foot up in a kick that caught him on the face as he bent low to stab my stomach. His head gave a sickening crunch when my boot slammed into it, and he flew ten feet to crash against the alley wall. The asshole slid to the ground like a thrown piece of cooked pasta and landed face-first in the muck.
He didn’t get up, and I turned to find the last thug frozen with his club raised to strike. A dumbfounded shock froze him in place, and his gaze darted to the unmoving form of his leader lying beside the wall.
“You don’t have to do this,” I told him as I took a step back from him. “You can walk away, or help your friend there fix his nose before he bleeds out.”
“You killed my brother!” the man shouted and charged.
“Well, shit,” I sighed as I blocked the first two strikes of the big man’s club with the center of my axe handle. He moved to make a third swing, but I was quicker and brought the heavy axe head around to punch him in the face. His nose cracked like a firework, and he staggered backward.
I didn’t give him time to recover. My right-handed haymaker caught him in the jaw and snapped his head around. The force of the blow sent him whirling, and he crashed against the wall behind him. I shuffled forward to hit him again, but he fell to the ground groaning.
“And you say you’re not a hero?” Nyvea purred. “You sure fight like one, big boy.”
I stared at the four men in shock. I’d never been in a fight outside the Academy sparring ring, but my instinct and training had just kicked in. Not only was I stronger than I’d been on Earth, but it felt like I moved faster, too. I’d taken those four guys down with nothing more than a bruised shoulder to show for it.
Maybe Nyvea was right.
I stooped to retrieve my dropped turnout gear, but a loud voice called from up the alley. “You there!”
My head whipped up and saw a man standing at the entrance to the main street. He wore a tall, conical steel helmet and a flowing white cloak over a pearl-white steel breastplate displaying the insignia of two crossed swords over a gryphon.
“What’s going on here?” he asked as he strode toward me with his finger pointed. Three more steel-clad figures tromped behind him, and they each had their hands on the grips of their sheathed swords.
“They attacked me,” I said as I pointed to the four men. “I was trying to get to the palace, but I took a wrong turn and ended up here. They were going to rob me, but I had nothing for them to steal, so they tried to kill me.”
The man who spoke stroked his long red beard as he studied the scene. A frown furrowed his forehead as he crouched over the body of the little man. “It’s Risky Jack,” he said to his companions. “He’s dead.”
The three men looked at me with wary eyes, and their hands seemed to tighten on the handles of their swords. One actually drew his blade and pointed it at me threateningly.
“Shit,” I sighed, and I felt a shiver of ice run down my spine. “I didn’t mean to kill him. The asshole was trying to rob me, and--”
“Save it for the king.” The bearded man snapped his fingers and the three guardsmen stepped toward me.
“Wait a minute,” I said and took a step back. “Why are you arresting me? They were going to rob me. I just defended myself.”
“As is your right,” the bearded man said with a nod of his head. “But unless there is a way to prove that they were going to kill you, you cannot claim that you killed them in self-defense. You should have stopped with just knocking them out and reporting them to us.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” I snapped and raised the axe like a shield to keep them at bay. “But you can’t just throw me in prison for trying to stay alive.”
“You are not going to prison yet. By my authority as a White Guard, I am bringing you into the palace, where you will be held until you stand trial before King Obragar. He will decide your fate.”
I had a split second to decide what to do. I could probably fight these guards and get past them, but that would just put me in trouble with the law. I needed to get to the king and plead my case, so this actually seemed like a good solution to my problem.
“Fine,” I said and released my grip on the axe and fought against a smile. “But I demand a fair trial before King Obragar.” I just had to get in the room with the king and explain the misunderstanding.
“As is your right as a human in the last free cities of man on Iriador,” the guard said. “You will be brought before the king.”
The three guards moved toward me with a wary expression. I didn’t want to accidentally hurt them, so I set the axe and turnout gear on the ground and held out my hands for them to clamp the manacles.
To be fair, these guards weren’t as rough as they could have been. They didn’t slam me against the wall or force me to stand spread-eagle like Earth cops would. However, the cuffs they slapped on my wrists were tight enough to make me wince, and they searched me far rougher than even the grumpiest TSA agent before their morning coffee. One of the guards actually passed his hands right over the egg-sized red gemstone that held Nyvea around my neck, but he didn’t remove it, so I guessed they must have had a rule about taking riches from their prisoners. Once they finished their search, two of them grabbed my arms and shoved me toward the mouth of the alley, while the third sheathed his blade and hauled the still-bleeding thug to his feet after us.
People stopped to stare as the White Guards marched me out into the main street and up the broad avenue. A crowd quickly gathered and whispered about my strange clothing and the odd-looking axe one of my guards carried. I gave the group of men and women my best smile, and then one of the citizens actually asked the guards why they were arresting me. The guard didn’t answer, and they pulled me past the group on the street and led me up the hill toward the palace.
Up close, the palace was even more impressive than I’d expected. It stood five stories high and was easily three hundred yards wide, with massive marble pillars holding up soaring arches and domed roofs. The chateau-style was like something out of a history book of France, with a white marble façade that gleamed brightly in the sunlight.
I was led up e
normous steps toward the palace, but instead of taking me inside, they led me along the perimeter and through a small wooden gate. The minute we passed through the gate, the marble walls were replaced by plain brick and rough stone that were made with wooden beams instead of elegant pillars. There were no high-vaulted domes, only low ceiling beams and clay tiles.
The walkway led for twenty yards along the wall before turning to the left, into the palace itself. A solid door of iron-banded wood stood closed on the far corner of the castle, and one of the guards pounded on the door when we arrived.
“What?” demanded the man who opened the door.
I’d thought the three thugs who tried to rob me were ugly, but compared to this guy, they could have been Miss America. He had an egg-shaped head without a trace of hair anywhere on it, not even his eyebrows or a mustache. His skin was as white as an egg, too, which painted a sharp contrast with his dark eyes and made his lips seem a startlingly vivid shade of red. He wore leather suspenders that held up his pants, and his bare-chest and gut sagged like they were filled with pudding instead of flesh and muscles.
“Got one for you, Dulgin,” the leader of the White Guard company told the man. “He’ll be staying in the visitor suite until he stands trial.”
“Visitor suite, eh?” Dulgin asked. He scratched his bald head with one hand and his oddly hairy belly with the other. “What’s he on trial for, then?”
“Murder,” the White Guard said.
“Self-defense,” I insisted, which earned me a cuff from the guard holding my left arm. It took all of my self-control not to hit him back. I could do some serious damage even with my hands shackled, but that would just make things worse.
“He looks like trouble,” Dulgin said as he fixed me with a hard glare.
“If he causes problems, just stop feeding him.” The White Guard turned to me and gave me a nasty grin. “Or, just beat him until he learns his place.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I told them. “I’ll be no trouble.”
“Good.” Dulgin nodded. “Got enough of them down here, we do.”
Dragon Slayer Page 5
