Child of Fate

by Jason Halstead

  “Warm,” Tristam said.

  “Like a sunny day shining on what hurts,” William agreed.

  Karthor nodded. “That makes sense. When Jarook’s magic touches you, it fills you with fear.”

  “Let’s hurry,” Alto said. “More are sure to come.”

  Tristam nodded and looked about. He seemed hesitant until they heard the sound of an explosion accompanied with a flash of light from the southeast. “What in the name of the saints was that?”

  “Kar’s signal to the army,” Alto guessed.

  “Some signal!” William stared at the glow in the sky and shook his head.

  “He’s always loved to put on a show,” Karthor sighed.

  “It’s our signal, too,” Tristam said. “Kar’s trying to crush the snake’s body but we still need to cut off the head.”

  Tristam turned to Highpeak’s palace they sheltered against and climbed up the stone steps to the entrance. Large stone statues of the first lord and lady of Highpeak had once stood on pedestals on either side of the doors. The invaders had knocked the statues over and smashed them, leaving the entrance littered with rubble.

  Alto held his red-glowing sword at the ready while Tristam tried the door. It was locked. The elder warrior kicked the door near the latch and splintered the wood. The door flew open to reveal a man with a crossbow waiting for them. Tristam threw himself to the side but not before the bolt made a sickening sound that drove the breath from him.

  Alto burst through the door, using his shield to deflect any other threats. He didn’t stop until he felt his shield hit something soft and yielding. The man he’d run over grunted and cursed. Alto jammed his sword forward twice before he backed away and let the dying crossbowman fall to the ground.

  “Tristam!” Alto said after he spun around and made sure nobody else was going to try to kill him.

  “Just knocked the wind out of me,” he gasped. Tristam staggered into the foyer, holding his hand around the end of the bolt that was protruding from the left side of his belly.

  Alto stared at the injury. His mouth opened and closed a few times but no words came out.

  “What are you afraid of?” Karthor asked.

  Tristam put his hand out to the wall to lean against it. He looked down and frowned. “Getting shot with a crossbow,” he muttered.

  “Then drinking your potion should be easy,” the priest said with a smile. “We’ve got to get it out first.”

  Someone shouted a warning from their right. Alto spun to see a man wearing hastily donned armor standing at a junction in the hall they’d entered. He held a sword in his hand but wore the look of a man recently awakened.

  “Tend to him,” Alto said before he took off running down the hall.

  “Hey!” Tristam wheezed behind him. “William, go!”

  Alto ignored the wounded veteran and ran on. He smashed his opponent’s raised sword down with his first swing and then bashed his shield into the man’s chest to knock him back a step. Alto followed with a swing that he misjudged the range on. His sword swept across with inches between his opponent’s chest and the tip of his blade. The counter-attack hammered into the metal scales on the shoulder of his shield arm.

  Alto stepped closer to his foe and raised his shield up. He caught the sword on the lip of his shield behind the crossguard and yanked it up and out of position. The young warrior brought his blade back in a backhanded cut. The supernatural edge parted the steel rings and hewed into the man’s bottom ribs.

  Alto’s opponent cried out and fell back. His left hand went to his side and he doubled over. He managed to hold his blade up in a defensive posture but Alto smashed it aside with his sword. “I yield!” the man cried out, but it was too late. A bolt from William’s bow that was treated with the alchemical ointment Thork had given him punched a hole through the defeated man’s head.

  Alto stumbled to a halt and stared back over his shoulder. William was cranking his crossbow back to reload it. “He surrendered,” Alto said.

  “Not soon enough,” William replied. “Watch out!”

  Alto spun as another man emerged from a doorway a few steps away from him. He raised his shield in time to deflect the sword that thrust against it. Alto’s broadsword rose up to strike but he paused as he glanced at it. The red glow along the fuller had nearly reached the hilt. His delay cost him a gash along his left thigh.

  Alto spun his arm and twisted his wrist, slapping the attacking blade away from his leg and out to the side. Alto followed it with a kick that caught his attacker between the legs. His leathers softened the blow but no amount of cushion would be enough to protect the sensitive region from the full force of Alto’s boot. Alto brought his sword up and around, reversing his grip on the hilt as he did so. He drove it point first into the junction between the man’s neck and shoulder as he bent forward to grasp at his bruised genitals.

  Alto heard William’s crossbow twang again with the release of another bolt. The barbed missile flew past him with little more than a whisper as it sailed through the air and struck a man in the upper thigh. He clutched his leg and fell back, and then managed to rise up and stagger forward.

  “How many more are there?” Alto growled.

  “All of them,” William said while putting his foot in the end of the crossbow so he could reload it.

  Alto ran forward to meet the wounded enemy warrior. He took the readied attack on his shield, knocking the sword aside so he could level a low swing with his sword. It hewed through the wounded man’s leg just above the knee. He crashed to the ground and reached for the stub at the end of his thigh. Alto’s blade rammed him back into the ground, pinning his chest to the floor.

  Alto pulled it free and felt as much as saw the red stripe in the middle of his blade spread into the crosspiece and fill the black pearl. Red lines spread throughout the hilt and filled the pearl at the pommel, causing the sword to glow brightly with an almost fiendish reddish hue. Alto stared at it, amazed, and then was smashed from behind by something that drove him into the wall.

  He fell over the corpse and rolled over, raising his shield by instinct alone. It saved him and deflected a sword even more massive than his own. His shield arm ached from the impact and his shoulder, already bruised, felt like it had been jarred from its socket. Alto tried to pull his feet beneath but found only one of them twitching; the other lay still on the ground.

  “Alto!” William cried out. His crossbow was far from drawn. He hurled it at the man that had attacked the young warrior and drew his sword at his side.

  The man spun at the shout. He swatted the crossbow out of the air with his greatsword and laughed at William’s approach. He stepped out of range from Alto and readied himself. He held his two-handed weapon in front of his steel cuirass, content to let the man approach.

  Alto glanced down at his legs and tried again to will them to move. They refused to obey him. His clenched teeth relented to a gasp when he noticed a dark liquid spreading beneath him. A liquid that looked even more sinister in the light his blade gave off. Wasn’t this how the Kelgryn hero had died, by fighting for his people until he could fight no more?

  The potion! Alto pulled his arm free from his shield and reached into the pouch at his side. He gasped, his breath coming faster for some reason he couldn’t fathom, and then put thoughts of breathing aside as he desperately gulped the foul-tasting liquid.

  Would his fingers cramp up on him? His hands, maybe? Or worse, would he face some other fear he didn’t realize he had? Alto looked up and saw William retreating from the large warrior. His greatsword gave him a greater range than William and his steel cuirass protected him, but his legs were only protected by leather pants with greaves hastily buckled over them. The man’s arms were bare other than the leather gloves he wore.

  William lunged forward, trying to pierce the man’s leg. The warrior kicked up with his foot and caught the flat of William’s blade. It snapped up and smacked William in the forehead and nose. William didn’t have a ch
ance to react to the sword thudding into his head; the warrior’s greatsword swept across and buried itself in his arm and side.

  William was hurt and probably dying. Tristam was wounded and possibly dead. He’d abandoned Karthor with Tristam much as he’d abandoned his father and his family. Was that how his life was to be? Drefan and Gerald were gone already. He’d left Trina behind, safe perhaps, but if he couldn’t stop the men that were out to disrupt their nations, she might be next.

  Alto blinked the tears out of his eyes at his failures. If only he could stand, he might be able to save William. If only he wasn’t dying from the earlier attack. He blinked again and saw the man standing above him.

  “You’re just a boy,” the man sneered. “Pity, you killed several of my men, such promise tied to such cowardice.”

  Alto blinked the moisture away and stared up at him. He was dying, much as his friends had. He’d face it like a man, even if it had been his drive that had doomed them. The fear of failure faded like a mist rising with the morning sun. The effects of the potion ran their course in him. “Who are you?” Alto asked.

  “Barador.” The man turned his head briefly, distracted by something down the hallway. He looked back at Alto and kicked his leg aside so he could stand directly in front of him. “Time to die, boy.”

  Alto gasped at the pain in his leg. The pain in his leg? His eyes widened even as Barador’s sword rose up above him. Alto kicked out, striking Barador in the knee and glancing off the armored greave. Barador’s leg twisted from the strike, making him stumble to the side.

  Alto swatted with his sword to bat away the greatsword that hung threateningly above him. He grabbed his shield and rolled across the floor three times before daring to climb to his feet. He blocked a powerful strike from the sword on the battered shield even as the strike drove him back. His shield arm hung at his side, the bottom lip of the protective device catching on his belt to keep his exhausted arm from dropping completely.

  Barador snarled at him. “Tougher than I thought. I’ll not make the same mistake twice!”

  He swung his sword at Alto, forcing the young man to block with his broadsword time and again. Barador’s snarl grew with every foiled strike. Alto’s arm grew stronger and quicker, unlike his shield arm, which had dropped and hung at his side. Barador caught him with a kick that doubled Alto over and nearly cost him his head as the greatsword clipped his helm and sent the piece of armor bouncing down the hall.

  Alto stumbled back and shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears. Barador advanced and then paused long enough in his assault to shout out, “Leave him for me!”

  Alto heard the shuffling noise of men moving behind him. He’d nearly been surrounded and cut down. He shook his shield arm to work the shield loose, and then cast it to the floor. Alto grabbed the broadsword in both hands and pointed it at Barador in an attempt to look threatening.

  “I just figured out what’s wrong,” Alto told his seasoned opponent.

  Barador laughed. “What’s that, boy? Forgot to have your mommy nurse you this morning?”

  Alto grinned. “No. I forgot that defense isn’t for me.”

  His brows furrowed until Alto leapt forward and struck with his sword. He hammered mercilessly at the leader of the enemy forces, forcing him back several steps until Barador deflected Alto’s strike to the side and brought them both shoulder to shoulder. Barador released his sword with his left hand and drove his fist into Alto’s belly.

  Gasping for breath, Alto stumbled back and barely blocked the next three crushing blows. Frustrated, Barador swore and promised, “Soon as I’m done with you, I’ll make sure your friends are butchered slowly! And just wait for the day I find that wet nurse of a mommy of yours!”

  Alto drove his sword up into the next swing, forcing Barador’s greatsword to rebound. Alto pressed the momentum again, striking out at him and forcing Barador on the defensive. “This blade’s meant to defeat enemies of the Kelgryn,” Alto hissed at him. The pearls flashed, pulsing with a red light that cast a demonic look across the young man’s face.

  Alto swung again and felt a surge of exhilaration as his sword sheared through the steel of Barador’s greatsword. The tip chewed through Barador’s chest plate, digging a furrow in his chest. Barador fell back, stunned, and stared up at Alto.

  His chest heaving, Alto stared down at the man and growled, “Never threaten my people!”

  “Kill him!” Barador shrieked, using Alto’s brief monologue to his advantage.

  Alto ended the evil leader’s call for help with a second slash of his sword. Barador crumpled and left the hallway deathly silent. In spite of his last wishes, Alto could hear that no one had dared to approach him yet.

  “I’m turning around and I plan to kill any man that I see,” Alto growled. He waited a moment and then turned. What remained was an empty hallway. Alto grinned until he remembered William and the others.

  “I’m not afraid this time,” William whispered when Alto knelt beside him. He lay in a pool of blood. “My hands still work.”

  “Hang on. I’ve got another potion Thork gave me. Here, drink it!” Alto lay his sword down and noticed in the back of his mind that the red glow faded instantly. The sword’s magic didn’t matter anymore; all that was important was finding the original potion. He pulled it out of the pouch and fumbled the cap while unscrewing it. A second attempt succeeded but when he put it to William’s lips, he saw the man staring at the ceiling with eyes that would never see again.

  Alto stared down at him for a long moment. The exhilaration of killing Barador was gone. Driving away the others meant nothing to him now. He hung his head and let a sob slip past his lips.

  “Come, Alto, you can do no more for him.”

  Alto looked up, uncertain how much time had passed. Tristam and Karthor stood in front of him. Blood stained Tristam’s clothes but he moved without sign of pain. Karthor offered Alto a faint smile and a nod.

  The young man screwed the cap back on the potion and put it in his pouch. He grabbed his sword and glanced around for his shield that he’d dropped earlier. It was just beyond Barador’s body.

  “Now what?” Alto whispered.

  “Now we wait for the army to arrive,” Tristam said.

  “What of Namitus and Kar?”

  “If they’re dead, we can’t help them. If they’re alive, they’ve got plans to stay that way and we’re too far to help them without getting ourselves killed,” Tristam said.

  Alto scowled. They were his companions and his friends; he didn’t like the thought of abandoning them to the fates. “I’ll go.” He retrieved his shield and added, “We’ve lost too many this day already.”

  “Don’t be a fool, boy; even if we all go, we’re hurt and there’s an army of unwholesome savages between us. Kar’s the smartest man I know; he’ll have found a way to survive if there’s one to be found.” Tristam moved past him and began to go through the bodies, looking for coins and wealth.

  Alto walked to a doorway and stared through a window that was unshuttered. Flames still leapt into the sky from the explosion Kar’s magic had wrought. He cocked his head, hearing a noise that defied explanation. He moved into the bedroom and peered out the window. The palace was on high ground within Highpeak, high enough that Alto could see over the crenellations on the wall. The field outside the gate looked like an angry swarm of glowing ants. The armies of the Kingdom and Kelgryn were storming the gates.

  Tristam chuckled behind him. “Seems our friends succeeded. No doubt they’re already safer than we are.”

  Alto felt a weight lift off his shoulders. His friends were safe and the Kingdom was retaking Highpeak. That meant he, Tristam, and Karthor would be saved as well.

  Tristam chuckled at hearing Alto’s sigh. “There’s still work to be done, lad,” he said. “This swine holed up in the palace won’t expect mercy from the king’s men. Not to mention, it’s not going to loot itself.”

  Alto shook his head and followed after him
. He stopped to pick up his dented helm, and then stood guard while Tristam focused on searching the fallen.

  Chapter 22

  “Please, no more!” Alto cried out.

  Tristam pushed the mug of ale in front of him in spite of the young man’s protests. “You’ve earned this, son. We’ve all said it a few times, so one more time won’t hurt you.”

  Alto grabbed the tankard and stared at it. It wasn’t as strong and bitter as the Kelgryn ale but he knew he’d still regret all the celebrating in the morning. “As long as this is the last time,” he conceded.

  “Ha! Fair enough.” Tristam turned, raised his own mug and waited for the others to follow suit before he began. “To the youngest, most stubborn, and foolish member of the Blades of Leander! Your courage is matched only by your heart. We owe our victories and perhaps our lives to you.”

  With the exception of Alto, all of them, even the surly wizard, drank. They paused when they saw Alto’s cup was still raised in the air. “To our fallen friends,” he said in a more somber voice.

  The others repeated the praise and joined Alto in drinking. Kar finished his cup and pushed it away, and then reached for a goblet filled with water. He took a drink from it before rising. “Job well done, my friends. I’ve much to do and the longer I tarry, the less prepared I am.”

  “Much to do? We’ve done it all!” Tristam crowed. “Killed the evil general and defeated the army of monsters. We helped retake Highpeak and set things a-right between nations. What could be left, save the company of wine, women, and song?”

  Namitus pulled out his pipes and blew on them for effect. Tristam laughed in appreciation.

  “The plans and the memories of dragons are long. This is but a setback,” Kar prophesied. “The creature we learned of will not be pleased with our accomplishments. There will be more difficulties in our future. Much more.”

  “You sound like an old woman worrying about the weather,” Tristam said.