by Lawrence, J.
“And here I thought you rode all this way to give me the thanks a lot sign.” Thaniel started to mockingly run his two fingers along his forehead but the big man snatched his hand out of the air.
“Don’t do that. I haven’t done anything to earn it.” The man released his hand with a corrective shake of his head. “Come with me.”
Thaniel wondered if the man just wasn’t one for sarcasm, or if he really put some stock into his gesture, as if it would somehow bind the two of them in a way he hadn’t intended, but he decided it was better to just let it go.
Instead of grabbing him, the big soldier sidled up beside him. Thaniel looked up, expecting the man to be gesturing him to leave or be cuffed. Instead what he saw there was tenderness mixed with a steady dose of resolve. It didn’t look right on the man, a man so big, but Thaniel understood. The man was a soldier after all. He’d lost friends too.
His new found ability had already, according to Lars Telazno, come at great cost. The whole melting thing was his fault. Lars said that there would be devastation beyond anything seen in thousands of years. The old man liked to exaggerate.
Some big deal his ability was now. If he had been able to use this Jen’Ghon Lars was so fond of, maybe he would have been able to help Jorel. He didn’t have any problem killing the wolf. Or calling a dra… Yet this wonderful gift from the Creator, meant to be used as a force of good in this life, had proved useless when his best and only friend needed it most. Thaniel’s eyes filled anew with hot tears. Even if he really truly had a grasp of how to focus it, and was strong enough to stop Jorel from falling, it hadn’t even occurred to him to try.
Thaniel stared at Jorel’s blood as it ran down the wet street and disappeared into the gloom.
Chapter 53
Somebody
He would never see him again. Never be the brunt of his sharp tongue or feel his knuckles in his side. Strange that their friendship had started, endured, and ended with violence. He would miss that.
Was he imagining it or was there a lot more water running down the street? The constant flow had already washed Jorel’s blood away as if he’d never existed. It trickled over the paving stones in steady and ever widening rivulets.
“Caller.” The insistence in the big man’s voice pulled him from a world of dark thoughts.
What did it matter? Whether it was Lars Telazno and the Order, Ghile and the Guild, or the Ontar and her Dra, Thaniel would not be free. Thaniel knew that his life was destined to be spent at the whims of the powerful.
“I’m coming.” He answered, shielding his eyes from the falling water as he peered at the man.
He hadn’t come alone. Further back, two more, were still mounted. Thaniel squinted, trying to make out the two other rider’s features, but there was no use. They were definitely members of the First. Even in the wet gloom their bright crimson weave and shiny plate mail stuck out like a beacon. One of them had what appeared to be a little girl wriggling in front of him.
Ontar Hold, without apology, both bought and took slaves at will. They didn’t see anything wrong with taking a person’s life from them if it met the needs of the hold. They saw everything and everyone within their reach as subservient to their needs.
The little girl, whoever she was, didn’t seem to understand that there was no escaping these men. With the spirit of a wild animal, she wriggled around like she was lit on fire.
Thaniel was admiring the little girl for what they would eventually beat out of her when he noticed movement behind them. As Thaniel watched intently, dark shapes stealthily emerged out of the murk. At least two dozen men crept forward. They were just villagers, but they were big men that normally tended the machinery powered by the great wheel or tanned the hides. Tanners, carpenters, and other types of craftsmen were armed with cudgels, pickaxes, hammers, and knives. A couple even brandished old rusty swords.
As Thaniel and Ghile approached the tannery that morning, Ghile had explained with an odd enthusiasm that the town was full of big strong men. The work in the tannery was as grueling as it was dangerous. It paid well, was as about a secluded a place as a man could find, and the owners didn’t ask questions about anyone’s past. That combination brought a steady supply of rough men looking to try their hand at it. Even then it was hard to find men up to the task. The only ones that were, either started out as big hardened men, or if they survived long enough, the mill turned them into them. Not a one of them had a back that was any smaller than Gabril’s. They didn’t look as dangerous, of course. No one seemed to carry themselves like that man did. But the place was definitely full of large muscle-bound men.
The way the small band approached, there wasn’t any doubt they intended harm. They moved like a pack of wolves. The men caught up to the first soldier before he saw them coming. A woodsman’s axe fell in a deadly arc towards the man’s head. He shifted just at the right moment. The heavy axe blade missed his head and took one of his legs off instead.
Though they landed the first blow, the soldier nearly responded as if it didn’t matter. In the blink of an eye, even as he was toppled from his rearing and wounded horse, his own axe spun into his grip. It came up fast, and down even faster. He managed to cleave someone in two from shoulder to hip in one swift chop. The man slid apart in a gush of blood and entrails, crumpling to the street in a heap. The soldier was trying to get up on his remaining leg when men crowded around him. Even in his state, he sent one of them flying with a lightning fast strike. The broken man twisted away, end over end, as if he were made of straw, and hit the stone at a bizarre angle, never to move again.
All together, the group of big men rushed in from every direction, cutting and pummeling the soldier with a shower of sharp tools and weapons. The noise of the gorge and the tannery, with its monstrous spinning wheel, was so loud that the soldier in the saddle not twenty feet ahead of the other, the one with the girl still squirming in front of him, didn’t hear a thing.
After a few agonizing moments the group turned their attention to the second man. Thaniel couldn’t help but watch as the rest of them crept toward the soldier with the girl. There were more than three bodies left behind. The warrior had obviously managed to take some more with him before they finally killed him.
The soldier in front of Thaniel, in spite of the insistence in his voice, had still been hesitant to physically force him to move. The look in his eyes said he was about out of patience. Yet, still, even then, he only squeezed his arm in a surprisingly gentle gesture that it was time to go.
Thaniel couldn’t take his eyes off the scene unfolding in front of him. He realized his mistake too late. The soldier’s oversized head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing with alarmed suspicion. Recognition flared in his eyes. The man had obviously seen people’s responses to such violence before. Every one of his oversized sinuous strands of muscles flexed at once. His head spun around. Two axes appeared in his hands. He moved so fast that Thaniel hadn’t even seen the man reach for them.
The soldier roared. Thaniel stood pinned to the ground in awestruck silence as the man leaped ten feet into the air. Like a giant cat, he landed lightly on churning feet, every powerful step sending him hurtling faster. Within a mere fraction of the time it took Thaniel to realize he was shaking, the man had transformed into a tower of muscle and whirling steel, heading straight for the fight.
The mounted soldier saw his comrade in arms running and heeled his horse in the ribs. He didn’t even bother to look back until he was safely out of their reach. He took in the mob and his man coming at them at breakneck speed and didn’t seem to be concerned. It was obvious that he didn’t think his partner needed help. He took the time to tie the girl over the back of his horse, and patted her bottom before he rushed back their way.
The villagers didn’t seem phased in the least by the fact that two men were coming for them. They were obviously emboldened by their numbers and the fact that their weapons were already covered in gore. Thaniel knew this encounter would be differ
ent. The villagers caught the first soldier by surprise. Now, they were about to face two hardened Ontar warriors, members of the First at that. It would all be over in moments. He knew the untrained villagers, even the rough sort they were, wouldn’t have a chance.
Thaniel stood peering helplessly out into the gloom as the huge soldier slammed into the wall of men, his sheer momentum throwing them back. Some of them fell right then, rolling awkwardly on the wet stone street. Legs and arms flailed wildly until their dead bodies slid to a stop. Weapons and tools went flying.
Then, the first head flew into the air, spinning in a wet red spiral. Men watched the grisly face, forever locked in a death scream, soar above them. Their hesitation cost them their lives. The soldier’s axes cut through the shocked men like a spoon through oatmeal. The head hadn’t hit the ground before the second man calmly walked through the carnage. With ice cold efficiency he dispatched anyone his partner only wounded.
Thaniel blinked. He stared at the two soldiers who stood a head and shoulders over the already big men the tannery was full of. The soldiers weren’t just bigger. They were massive by comparison. With every move they made, it became more and more apparent just how unnaturally faster, stronger, and bigger they were. Thaniel knuckled his eyes, finding it hard to believe even though he was seeing it. The battle, if a massacre could be called a battle, looked like the two men of the First had casually decided to hack down a group of children.
Thaniel’s knees trembled with self loathing. Somehow he knew it had something to do with him. Something to do with the dra he called for Lisella Ontar. He knew it like he knew his name.
The axes rose and fell in a raw display of merciless methodical mayhem. A head rolled down the street, bouncing sickeningly before it salmoned over a disembodied limb. A man stumbled around on wobbly legs, trying to stuff his entrails back inside. Another stared at his bloody stump of a leg, trying to figure out why he couldn’t get his foot back on, until the second soldier hacked the top of his head off.
Thaniel stiffened as it occurred to him in a flash that the soldiers were really after him, not the villagers. A pang of guilt swept away his ability to swallow back the lump already forming in his throat.
He had to do something.
If they thought he was escaping…
If he ran, maybe the soldiers would chase him and forget about the villagers.
Thaniel knew it was his only chance to stop the mayhem. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think. He just acted.
Frantically he jumped up into the air, waving his arms up and down, in the hopes that either of them would see him. The first soldier was busy, but the second soldier noticed him right off.
There was something very familiar about the man. Something about the way he moved…
Thaniel didn’t have time to get a better look at him. He bolted up the street heading for the tannery with every bit of speed he could muster. His feet, used to years of running messages in icy Ontar Hold flew across the wet stone.
He looked over his shoulder. Both soldiers were coming for him fast. They were a lot closer than he thought they should be already. Thaniel flew by the horse, arms pumping. He caught a glimpse of men, the ones left alive anyway, running in the opposite direction.
His heart hammered as he rounded the corner and tore into the tannery.
He saved somebody.
Chapter 54
Savages
Lars Telazno worked his way through the milling people, eyes flitting from face to face as they passed. The roar of the water wheel and the rush of the gorge seemed louder here. Now it made a little more sense to him. It was possible this was all some accident. Maybe the boys somehow only fell out of the compartment. He imagined Harkanin not hearing a thing and just rattling forward, especially with how shaken the man seemed by his encounter with the First. He half expected to see the pair of them walking toward him any second.
Yet, the blood on the door bothered him. Why would there be blood? If the soldiers had taken them out of the wagon, wouldn’t they have slit Harkanin’s throat for the trouble? Harkanin wasn’t lying. The man was telling the truth as he saw it. That was the only thing he was absolutely sure of.
Lars kept scanning the crowd. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. Maybe the soldiers had them spooked, he thought. Yet, it seemed like something else was happening.
“What’s going on?” Lars Telazno asked a bent old man. The fellow had blotchy tan spots spreading over his face. The only area that wasn’t marred by the things was his bright red bulbous nose.
“Are you stupid?” The old man shook his head and just kept walking.
He asked someone else.
“The water’s been rising for days.” She half curtsied while she clutched a bundled up child to her breast. She was a pretty girl. “They say the dam is gonna fail tomorrow.” Her eyes regarded him skeptically, as if he should know what she was talking about. Then, in a hurry, she started past him.
“Tomorrow?” Lars called after her, “How do they know that?”
“Good luck, sir.” It was all she had time for. He didn’t watch her go.
“Lucky it’s still today then.” He muttered.
Lars Telazno saw the crowd far ahead shift and surge toward him. There was some sort of commotion near the entrance to the dam’s street. He bolted forward and leaped up on a crate, allowing him to see over the crowd.
Five men wearing shining armor plating and the crimson garb of Ontar were running his way. Two soldiers led the rest. Whoever wasn’t able to get out of their way fast enough paid for it. People flew left and right as they charged through the masses as if they were playing in high weeds. The two men in front had their eyes locked on someone that was running ahead of them.
The boy, big brown cloak flapping horizontally behind, ran like he was on fire. Lars only caught a glimpse of his face as he darted in a wild zigzag pattern through the crowd of moving people.
Thaniel.
Lars was already running. Now that he was off the crate he couldn’t see Thaniel but there was no missing the soldiers on his heels. They were all big men. If the crowd was a sea, Lars headed straight for the floating heads.
He’d only seen Thaniel for an instant but he recognized a peculiarity in his face. Any normal boy running from even one soldier would’ve had fear painted all over him. Thaniel, for some reason, didn’t. Acting when others froze was a skill some took years to develop. The boy seemed built for it.
He ran like a rabbit ran from wolves. At first it appeared nothing more than a wild dash. But if you looked closer, it was clear that he moved with purposeful focus. His arms pumped for every ounce of speed he could muster as he dodged, feinted, and spun forward. In the face of death or capture this slave boy’s eyes were all concentration. It was all or nothing.
Still, it was clear that the big men were gaining.
Lars needed to get to Thaniel before they did. As he judged the distances, he needed just a little more speed than he could muster to make it. His lungs heaved in and out as fast as he could breathe in a desperate push forward. People were everywhere. No matter which side of the street he ran on they just seemed to be in his way. Lars saw a pocket of openness and darted into it. Now that he didn’t have to duck around or knock people over, he was gaining some ground. Then, just when it looked like he might make it, the front two broke left into an alley.
He hadn’t even seen Thaniel head that way.
Lars made it to the throat of the thin passage just before the remaining three soldiers. There was no sign of the two leaders, or Thaniel.
Maybe it was time to even the odds a bit. He turned to face the rest of the pursuers.
As the three soldiers burst through the crowd and into the alley, Lars Telazno’s face lost some of its color as he realized what had upset Harkanin. Every one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. They were half again as wide as Gabril. The man would have looked like a little brother to the smallest of them. Their
skin was too thick. Their muscles, every stretched piece of sinew, flexed and contracted in perpetual movement. They looked part man, part beast. Whatever had happened to these men, if they could still be called men, these were not mere soldiers.
Lars Telazno opened himself, stretching out with his senses and grasping the Jen’Ghon. He took hold of the air around him and flattened sheets over on it itself in an interlacing pattern that was stronger than steel. He felt the air solidify and harden in his grasp. At his urging it became a simple bar. With a viciousness that surprised even him, he swung at the first man’s legs. He went down hard, rolling over the wooden plank. Following right on his heels, the next man tripped over him and they both went down in a tangled mass of arms and legs.
The third man leaped over the other two. He was coming straight for him with a speed and mass Lars could only equate with a charging bull. Only this bull’s horns were spinning twin axes.
Lars smiled at the man’s snarl. It was obvious he thought the first two had merely tripped. As the soldier swung an axe straight for his head, Lars brought up the bar. All the while swinging it with practiced ease, he managed to both flatten and stretch it out so that it formed a perfect square shield.
Lars slammed the invisible shield into the axe and sent the weapon spinning out of the man’s hand. It buried in the face of one the other soldiers with an appalling crunch. The man’s dead body flipped over from the force of the impact and struck the man behind him in the gut.
The man’s head turned watching his friend fall as Lars swung the shield back the other way, catching him in the side of the face. He felt cheekbone snap against the shield.
Lars stood, legs wide, holding the shield of air in one hand as he formed a second weapon, this one a long blade, in his other hand.
One of the fallen men looked up, stared at the axe buried in the soldier’s face and then back at Lars. Without a word or warning he sprang for Lars like a dagger toothed cat, two great axes raised high.
