by Joseph Lallo
The city began to thin, and the roar of the crowd faded. Behind him, he now heard the pounding of hoofs. Duule and his men had taken to horses, and without the crowded streets to contend with, they were gaining ground. Since their prey had remained visible, they had managed to outrun their hounds. Lain pushed himself harder, leading them as far from the city as he could. The ground was sloping upward when the first bolts of a crossbow, fired wildly from horseback, began to streak past. He cast a glance over his shoulder. There were six horses. One carried Duule, lagging far behind. Two carried men with crossbows, now attempting to load and draw them while at full gallop. Dihsaad rode a fourth horse, and the remainder were ridden by swordsmen.
Lain looked to the sea now. Against the climbing sun, he could see the familiar sails of The Path of the Sun just beginning to pull away from the docks. He looked back to the path ahead. It was leading to a stretch of sandy ground overlooking the city. Behind him, the sound of rope cutting through the air buzzed to life. An instant later cords and weights wound themselves around his ankles, sending him hard to the ground. He pulled from his belt a pair of daggers and rolled to his back. With two deft motions, he let them fly. Each one buried itself in the throat of a crossbow-wielding thug. A few moments more was all it took for the other horses to surround him. He pulled a third dagger and severed the ropes binding his ankles. By the time he made it to his feet, the riders were dismounting. He pulled his sword and bared his teeth.
“Kill him! Kill him, kill him, kill him!” bellowed Duule.
The swordsmen descended upon him, battle-notched longswords at the ready. Lain raised the black blade in one hand and the dagger in the other. The clash began. The men he faced were strong, but slow. They heaved their weapons with all of their strength, and where they clashed with the black blade, sparks scattered and flew. Dihsaad dismounted and drew a whip from his belt, lashing at Lain whenever it seemed he would gain the upper hand, and attempting to entangle one or both of his weapons.
The battle raged for minutes, Lain's speed and skill keeping him just barely from harm. The stress of blocking such powerful blows, it seemed, was beginning to take its toll, as the blows came nearer to their marks with each moment. Finally, with a roar of effort, the malthrope swiped the sword through the air with blinding speed. There was a horrid screech and a blinding flash as his masterpiece of a weapon sheared through the blade of one of the longswords. Lain took advantage of the distraction to deliver a punishing kick to the fingers of the swordsman who was still armed, prompting a howl of pain as he dropped the weapon and clutched a clearly broken hand.
Dihsaad lashed his whip, finally meeting his mark. Lain's sword jerked from his fingers, the weapon entangled. The disarmed swordsman dove upon the malthrope and began to rain blows upon him. Lain deflected some, but more and more of them began to connect. He swiped with the dagger, but the enraged thug with the shattered hand seized the wrist with his healthy one and wrenched it hard, knocking the weapon from Lain's hand and leaving him unarmed.
“Restrain him!” Duule ordered.
The healthiest of the henchmen wrestled Lain's wrists behind his back. Duule smiled and dismounted. He leaned down and plucked the black blade from where it had fallen.
“Quite a weapon you've found,” Duule said, admiring it. “You were gone for quite a while. What was it? Four years? Five maybe? See, any proper creature—any thinking creature—would have known to stay away. It would have known that I am not a man to be trifled with. I was actually banking on it. A rather powerful sorceress who seemed to hate you as much as I came to me after you'd been gone for a while. She wanted to know if you were dead. She made it very clear that she wanted to hear me say yes. I was glad to do so, assuming you'd either drowned or wised up. But not you. You're a blasted malthrope, so you come back. You fall into the old ways because you don't know anything else.”
“I do not think you should take him so lightly, Duule. Finish him quickly,” Dihsaad advised, kicking the fallen dagger away and then retreating to a safer distance.
“That is not how I conduct business, Dihsaad. You see, to me it is important that my enemies know precisely what mistakes they made before they die. Call it an act of charity. At least they may enter the afterlife a little wiser. Now, malthrope, what you need to understand is that you were never truly my match. You—look me in the eye when I talk to you!” He screamed, slapping Lain across the face.
Lain merely kept his eyes on the horizon. Watching . . . waiting . . .
“I am going to tell you one last time, malthrope. Look me in the eye when I speak to you, or I will make sure this death drags out for days.”
Squinting his keen eyes against the sun and its glare on the sea, Lain watched as the sails of the ship carrying Sorrel crossed the line of buoys. His bloodied and bruised face pulled into a weak grin.
“What could you possibly have to smile about?” Duule growled.
“You are out of time. She's on her way.”
Duule's brow furrowed in confusion. In a blur of motion, Lain's foot darted up, striking the pommel of the sword and sending it twirling out of Duule's grasp and skyward. The heel came down with punishing force on the foot of the man restraining him, allowing him to pull his right arm free and deliver a lightning strike to the throat of the other swordsman. He then brought the elbow back and drove it into the gut of the first swordsman. Freeing the other arm. He reached out and plucked the descending sword from the air and, with two well-placed swipes, ended the henchmen. Duule tried to run, but a quick thrust of the blade split his heart. Dihsaad made it a few more steps before Lain closed the gap and, in one strike, separated his head from his shoulders.
And so it ended. Not with a stirring speech or a thrilling duel. Such are the things of stories and legend, but this was an act ill-suited for such things. Such are the acts of heroes, but Lain was no hero. He ended it as he had been taught to end it, the way an assassin would: first with deception, then with efficiency. Taking lives, even vile ones, was not something to be enjoyed or savored. It was a task to be completed, and now it was done.
There was nothing left but to watch as the ship carried its precious cargo over the horizon. When the last glimpse of its mast had slipped from view, he turned his back to sea. He had to return to his purpose. It was all there was now.
Epilogue
With the death of Duule, his empire swiftly devoured itself. A hierarchy of scoundrels and thieves scrambled to seize what power it could. It was a profitable time for Lain, as men and women across Tressor suddenly found that those previously too fearful of Duule's wrath to take action were now only too eager to settle scores. In a few months he completed more than a dozen jobs, thinning the ranks of Tressor's underworld considerably before things finally settled into a new stability. It was enough to earn him a small fortune, and with it he managed to convince some of the slaves he'd freed in the past to purchase a whole plantation and everyone on it. Fittingly, he chose Jarrad's land.
Seeing the place that had at once been his home and prison freed of its yolk forever stirred something in Lain's soul. With Sorrel gone, this bit of land and the suffering it had brought were the last real connections he had to Tressor. Now he had destroyed it, broken its chains. What it symbolized was gone.
He thought about what he'd seen in his travels. He remembered the tight, isolated cities of the north, and the way the people dressed in heavy clothing. His purpose would be easier to pursue there. He could pass among the people of that land unrecognized, just another face hidden in the hood of a cloak. Yes. He would go north . . . but before he left, there was one thing that remained to be done.
He made his way back to Delti, to the home of Goldie. The elf was working at his desk as he always was, a single light illuminating the charts and lists. Lain slipped inside silently and spoke the elf's name. Goldie shuddered, but did not gasp or scream, as though he'd been expecting the interruption. He simply opened a drawer and pulled from it a small rag. Lain accepted it.
/> “She said she knew there was a question you wanted to ask,” Goldie said, “and that the answer was yes. Any idea what that means?”
He nodded.
“Good. Is my debt paid?”
He nodded again. Without another word or even a sound, he slipped back into the shadows, and out into the street. He made his way west, to a hole in a mountain, its walls etched with patterns and its floor scattered with smoothed rocks. He placed the rag reverently beneath one of the stones. Sorrel was gone, but she was safe, and she was happy. His heart would always be with her. It was hers, and it was just as well. Without her, he had no need for it any longer.
His most cherished memory laid to rest in a fitting memorial, he stepped once more into the light and set off for the north. There were slaves to free. There were jobs to be done. There was a purpose to serve. Always.
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Thank you for reading this prequel to The Book of Deacon Trilogy. Below you can find links to other books I’ve written. If you enjoyed the book, please consider reading the others in the trilogy. Whether you liked my work or not, I would love to hear what you think, so please leave a review. It will help me to improve the things that you didn’t like, and to give you more of the things you did.
Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:
The Book of Deacon Trilogy:
Book 1: The Book of Deacon
Book 2: The Great Convergence
Book 3: The Battle of Verril
Other stories in the same setting:
Jade
Science Fiction Titles:
Bypass Gemini
Unstable Prototypes
Connect with Joseph Lallo
Website: http://www.bookofdeacon.com
Twitter: @jrlallo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Book-of-Deacon/239647549418500
