“Why, Father,” I simpered, feigning astonishment. “Surely you and Mother were married when you first stuck her with your sword.”
My mild insult worked wonders. Finian roared as he whipped his blade from its sheath. He lunged, as quick as a striking snake. In attacking downhill, so to speak, he did so off-balance and awkward. A man less enraged might be wiser to hold the high ground and force me to come to him. As it was, I merely avoided his blade and his attack by stepping aside.
Finian recognized his error and amended it in a flash. A less adept swordsman might fall to his death at the hands and steel of my men. Finian turned on a toe and deftly avoided the trap he almost fell into. Now he forced me to retreat by stabbing his blade toward my heart, catching me off-guard. Once upon a time, I might best a child of nine in a swordsmanship tourney. In his element, Finian’s worst day made mincemeat of his opponent’s best. Only through sheer luck did I raise my blade high enough to block his blow and send it skidding sideways. Though he hadn’t drawn blood, Finian reclaimed his high position. His men gathered around him, hampering his movements.
I had indeed learned a great deal from our last fight. Long talks with Buck-Eye and Boden as we traversed the Shin’Eah Mountains explained to me what I did wrong and what Finian did right. Practice sessions in our evening camps improved my skills enormously. When I bested Buck-Eye, Torass and Boden in a three-on-one practice bout, even Iyumi applauded. As though at last I found the right teachers, I exulted in my swordsmanship and soaked up knowledge like a dry sponge.
Taking my hilt in both hands, I charged upward, hacking at his blade. Forced to give ground, he backed away, cursing his own men and me in the same breath. Swinging hard left, I slashed at my father’s blade, forcing him back another step.
‘Never fight while angry,’ Buck-Eye had said. ‘Anger your enemy instead. Keep him off balance. Focus on his chest. Not his eyes. Never his blade. His chest. His center point will tell you where he plans to move.’
“Oh,” I asked, my voice small. “You two weren’t married when I peeped out from between her thighs? For shame. Perhaps some other bastard sired me, for I always doubted I was yours.”
Finian grinned, spitting at my feet. “Enya hadn’t the guts to cuckold me, boy. You’re mine, without a doubt.”
His chest blatantly informed me he planned to feint a strike to his right, his sword’s tip aimed at my left cheek, then swipe backward to cut across my eyes. My swift counter-measure blocked the feint, and turned his blade hard left and wrenching his wrist in the process. Obviously, he didn’t listen to what my chest told him, and failed to realize my riposte went for his jugular.
“Son of a bitch,” he spat, jumping backward as my sword’s tip sliced his chin instead of his throat.
“Oh? Maligning Mother now? Bad Papa. Very bad.”
Easily avoiding his downward stab into my upturned face, I sent his sword sliding past my shoulder with rapturous ease. He gaped in almost comical amazement. I snickered, then halted as another of Buck-Eye’s lessons rebounded inside my head. ‘Save your triumph until your enemy bleeds at your feet. Never assume you’ve won the fight until the fight is finished. He is reading you as easily as you are reading him.’
As though recognizing my focus faltered a fraction, Finian attacked with a vigor that left my strength gasping. He almost had me with the two-handed, back-handed blow that should have taken my head off. I ducked, and the razor’s edge whistled over my blonde mane. With both hands on his hilt, he left his left side wide open and vulnerable. I countered with a rapid slash to his torso. Of course, he expected me to strike there.
I didn’t.
I feinted a blow to his heart, but ducked low instead. My sword’s edge sliced through the necessary tendons and muscle of his left thigh. His leg buckled under his weight, and, with a sharp cry, he staggered, unable to put any weight on that leg. His blade drooped. Like a ship without a rudder, he fell back, hot blood gushing down his knee and into his boot. Finian limped around to face me, snarling. His wound pumped that very necessary red stuff as one of his soldiers charged me, screaming an incoherent warcry.
Buck-Eye once more proved his worth as an adept archer. His arrow caught the soldier full in the left eye, slamming him backward to lie still in the stone dust of the slate floor. A second guard screamed a challenge and ran forward, brave and simply stupid. Dra’agor lunged forward, fangs bared. The crony fell to the floor beside his mate, weeping and shouting, his left hamstring bitten through. Boden paused long enough to send an arrow through his pulsing throat, and calmly watched as he gagged to death on his own blood.
‘Level the playing field,’ Buck-Eye’s voice advised. ‘Meet your enemy on your ground, not his. Make him pay for every piece of turf he wins.’
Snaking my sword at Finian’s face, I leaped up into the antechamber and forced him backward. Limping, snarling, Finian raised his sword to defend himself, but his blows were feeble, desperate. Boden surged upward, at my side, raising his bow. In swift succession, he took down not just one, but three of Finian’s soldiers in quick succession. Dra’agor, snarling, launched himself at a burly guard. The man, used to fighting men, tried to defend himself by hacking his sword toward Dra’agor’s head. The wolf ducked, and charged forward in the same motion.
I almost faltered in my attack on my father to watch, fascinated, as Dra’agor slashed the poor man’s genitals with those wicked fangs. The soldier screamed, his sword dropping to clang on the flagstones. When he bent to clutch himself, Dra’agor leaped up. Laying open the poor man’s throat, he dashed aside to attack yet another soldier. Having witnessed their brother’s very gory death, several stumbled back. That left room for my lads to charge up the stairs and enter the fray.
“Are you through yet?” I inquired politely as Finian fought to keep both sword and legs upright and functioning.
My insult worked wonders. Screaming incoherent threats, Finian charged, his blade high. I ducked under it, and slashed downward. My edge caught his lower leg, severing his hamstring. Much as a wolf’s fangs sliced through thick muscle and those interesting tendons one needed to put weight upon, my sword put paid to Finian’s ability to stand. He staggered, his arms flailing, his sword falling to clang, resounding with a metallic zinging sound, to the stone floor.
My foe helpless, for the moment, I ignored him and faced the next, and larger threat, to my life and the lives of my lads. And Iyumi.
“Uh, Boden?” I asked, pointing my left finger at the five or six soldiers bunching together to attack. “Might you, er –”
“Right, right,” he answered, his tone casual. “Torass, Lyall, bows to the fore.”
With an almost offhand manner, Boden nocked his arrow to his bowstring and raised his bow. Likewise, Lyall and Torass stood to his left and right, aiming at the tight group of stupidly brave soldiers who lifted their swords in preparation to charge. With half my attention on him, I knew Finian retrieved his sword, but as he had staggered behind the protective line of burly men bearing his royal insignia on their mantles, I couldn’t exactly kill him just then.
I rested for a moment, leaning on my sword as the King’s voice ripped across the small antechamber. “Kill them!”
His loyal guard roared their challenge and charged, six against four. No doubt their superior size and numbers would win the day. That my lads pointed lethal arrows tipped with razor barbs at their armor mattered little to them. Their steel breastplates protected them, of course. Forget that at such range, perhaps two rods at most, those steel heads easily punched through the heaviest armor. My lads wouldn’t dare aim at the vulnerable and exposed face or throat of His Majesty’s loyal bodyguard. Of course they wouldn’t.
Three bows twanged. Boden’s arrow took his target through the eye, dropping him to the stone floor instantly, on his back. A lone trickle of blood oozed down his cheek, along his nose and dripped across his throat. Torass’s barb struck his man deep in his throat. Choking, gasping, the soldier fell, trying in vain
to yank his death from his gushing neck, his mouth working. No sound emerged to follow the panic in the man’s eyes. He died, his hand still trying to pull the arrow out, as though that might keep him alive.
Lyall almost missed. His arrow bounced off his target’s cheekbone, cutting deep but without lethal damage. The soldier cursed, bleeding, and continued his charge with his sword high. Lyall swore fluent and very creative oaths as he frantically nocked another arrow to his bowstring and aimed. He failed to move fast enough. Dra’agor, concerned that the soldier closed in too closely on me for his comfort, lunged in to rectify Lyall’s mistake.
His tremendous weight struck the man dead center and brought him, screaming, to the slate tile floor. My father’s brave guardsman screamed in horror as jaws strong enough to break an elk’s neck fastened on his face. The man’s trousers darkened at the crotch as his bladder let go, his heels drumming a swift beat on the slate. Vicious fangs tore open his throat even as the soldier tried valiantly to stab Dra’agor through his chest. But swords at that angle didn’t work very well. Its edge sliced a thin, bloody vein across Dra’agor’s shoulder and went no further. My noble friend leapt aside as his victim squirmed and thrashed, bleeding out like the sacrificial lamb on the altar.
“Sorry,” Lyall muttered, his eyes sliding toward me in shame and embarrassment.
“Don’t force it,” I said, my tone light. I rested my hand on his broad, muscular shoulder. “Just relax your fingers, Lyall. Your arrow knows where it belongs. Trust it.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
Bleeding profusely, on his feet through sheer stubbornness, Finian bellowed. Only two men remained to guard his royal self, but his rage and panic forced him into attacking outside his comfort zone. The sound reminded me of a bull in rut as he raised his blade in a two-handed grip, high over his head. Avoiding the corpses on the floor, Finian charged, his intent clear. Kill me and all will be well again in Raithin Mawrn.
Is he serious? I asked myself, raising my own blade in preparation.
He was totally serious. His wicked sword swung toward my head forced me into a swift duck and shoulder roll. His sword whisked across my scalp by several inches. Those nasty laws of physics trapped his blade into careening past his own path of no return. He couldn’t possibly recover in time. I knew he knew. I read it in his deep-set eyes, his grimace of despair. In that same instant, I struck deep, and wrenched in one fluid motion.
My razor-tipped steel tip plunged deep into his heart, twisting, merciless, separating his precious life from his body. I yanked my blade free, and stepped back. Purple-red blood poured from his chest wound, soaking his royal tunic and trailing freely down his cloak. Though I brought him to his destiny’s door, he yet tried to fight. The firelight glinted off his blade. I raise my own, tense, waiting for him to spring like a lion upon a hapless, unwary deer.
He was dead. I know he was. But he hadn’t realized the facts facing him, stubborn as he was. Still on his feet, his blade lax in his hand even as he gazed at me, confused. Stumbling forward, he slashed downward. I sidestepped. Come on, die already. That’s not battle. It’s like shooting fish in a frozen pond. I lowered my blade and watched, fascinated.
Finian’s face drained of all color. Tripping over the corpses of his men, he yet maintained his questionable footing. Finian staggered past me, toward the stairs. Concerned about his bared sword and Iyumi, I swung around. But I needn’t have worried. Iyumi, calm and ruthless, reached out a slender foot. Finian tripped over it. He screamed as he fell down the steep stair way, bouncing down the merciless stone steps. When his scream suddenly choked off, I knew his neck had snapped.
I eyed her sidelong. “Is he dead now?”
Iyumi nodded. “Of course.”
“About bloody time.”
Saluting Iyumi with a quick grin and my sword, I turned back to the fight. I learned so much about fighting, had defeated the champion of champions, I poised to fight the next wannabe. None accepted my mute challenge. I almost sighed, annoyed. With such efficient men, I might not have someone to kill. Ever again.
“He’s dead,” Iyumi said from behind me, her voice triumphant. “We can turn back now, Flynn. Your family is safe. He can’t harm them now, right?”
I spun around, my high spirits crumbling into bitter ash. “I wish we could, Princess. You remember what he said. Even if I killed him, the Witch still holds them hostage. I have no choice. We have no choice.”
I turned my back as the fear Iyumi once held back filled her eyes. I didn’t want to witness her fall into hopelessness, see her rebellious soul break open and bleed. She knew what awaited us inside that room. While I wanted nothing more than to obey her, believe her, take the kid and run back down the stairs, I dared not. For what if she was wrong? What if Enya, Fainche and Sofia were held captive, but alive, behind those doors – how could I abandon them to their fate? That slender chance, that tiny hope in my heart, spurned Iyumi’s fear and forced me forward. They had to be alive. For without them, I am, and forever will be, nothing.
I drew in a ragged breath, and tried to focus on the problem at hand. Two of my sire’s loyal brutes remained alive. Their eyes alternating in frantic haste between the corpses, the blood and the wolf, they lowered their steel. Swords fell with ringing clangs to the stonework at their feet. Raising their hands high, the frightened soldiers dropped to their knees.
“Please, sir,” one begged. “We surrender.”
“Don’t kill us, m’lord,” the other whined. “We’ll swear loyalty to you, m’lord.”
“Oh, please,” I commented, my tone dry. “You’re so full of shit you squeak.”
The pair glanced at one another, confused.
“Oh, I know you plan to stab me in the back after swearing fealty,” I said, my tone confident, controlled. “Your loyalty is for the birds, in truth. With my father dead, you’d swear obeisance to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, for you, I ain’t bidding.”
My lads covered them with their bows, their rapid glances toward me asked permission to fire. I flicked my hand, staying them. I strolled toward the nervous pair, Dra’agor licking his bloody lips as he paced at my side.
“Want to live?” I asked. My free hand on my hip, I pointed my sword’s tip at their throats and tipped their heads up to meet my eyes.
“Yes, Your Highness,” the big soldier on my right whispered. His pal only nodded, tears swimming in his huge blue eyes.
“Here’s the deal. You both pick up your blades, and sheath them. With your hands on your heads, you leave now. This day. Should I catch you within the borders of Raithin Mawrn, I’ll hang you by your ankles. And set loose the starving dogs.”
I leaned toward them, my steel kissing their throats. “Am I clear?”
“Y-yes, Y-your Highness.” “C-crystal, s-sir.”
I relaxed my stance. “Get lost.”
The pair scrambled to obey, slipping on the blood of their companions and their King. Sheathing their blades while trying to bow at the same time, they skittered sideways like frightened colts, edging around me and Dra’agor’s hulking presence. My lads made no move save keep their arrows trained on them as they saluted, sweat pouring down their faces. I didn’t turn around as their hobnail boots clumped down the stairs, at first walking then speeding up to a run. The echoes drifted upward for several long moments after the sound of their flight vanished.
I glanced at Iyumi, crouched by the stairs, watching the doors into the inner chamber. She still held the quiet infant close to her chest, her pale face impassive. During the fight, she could have fled back down the stairs. I didn’t pause to wonder why she hadn’t. Instead, I jerked my head at Buck-Eye, silently ordering him to his duty. Protect her. With a quick nod, he helped her to stand, and urged her forward behind Boden, Lyall and Torass.
The floor ran red with blood. Filled from one end to the other with corpses, the chamber reeked of death and shit and piss. Dra’agor whined, his tone low, as though asking a question. I shook my head. “L
et’s finish this,” I said, my voice soft.
My sword in hand, unmindful of the dead and the blood, I strode toward the double doors.
I kicked them open.
As the great oak doors swung wide to crash against the stone walls, I noticed two things at once. Through the huge glass wall, the sun had risen. At its side, inching closer to its red-gold glory, a black ball also rose. Its hideous edge stained the sun, creeping closer on its journey. Within moments, that blackness would steal across the sun’s face and the moment of the dark power would come. White, savage lightning flickered across the orb, almost obliterating the new daylight. Outside the tower, the wind rose and howled. Crashing thunder couldn’t quite mask the sound of the tempest.
In the same instant, I saw my mother.
She stood at the glass wall, staring out at the monstrosity outside. Her back to us, she never flinched in neither shock nor fear at the sound of our entrance. Her hands slowly lifted from her sides to rise above her head. Her silken gown trailed from her hands as though she’d grown wings. “My son,” she murmured. “I knew you’d not fail me.”
“Mother –” I began, but choked off.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Enya turned. She smiled. Those eyes I worshipped, no longer crystal blue, glowed garnet in the light of the hearth fire. Long lush tresses cloaked her, a burial shroud, pouring down her shoulders to her hips. Her hands, still high above her head, dripped red. Blood coated her from nails to elbows, her pristine cream and gold gown sewed with lace and precious seed pearls was splashed with gore.
“What –” happened, I started to ask.
Dull amazement struck me numb. “She was right,” I muttered, hoarse. My voice didn’t sound like mine. I cleared my throat and tried again. “She’s right about you. I didn’t believe her. But it’s true, isn’t it? You’re the Red Witch, the demon’s whore. Aren’t you – Mother?”
Chiming laughter tinkled from the red slash, formerly her lovely smile, in her face. “What a clever boy you are. To have figured it all out by yourself.”
The Unforgiven Page 54
