by Ty Johnston
“I have no doubts. Do you?”
Adara was rocked back on her feet by the question. “Of course I have doubts,” she said. “Everyone does.”
“Not I,” Kron said, “at least not before I met you.”
Adara stared at the dirt floor beneath her heels.
“When we were in the Prisonlands and I dealt with Sawney Gean,” Kron said, “only afterward did I question my motives. I had never done that before. I had questioned my actions, but never my motives. You did that to me.”
A tear trickled down Adara’s left cheek.
“Since then I have questioned myself more and more,” Kron said. “Do you know what I did once I learned you were dead?”
Adara looked into his dark eyes, shaking her head.
“I won’t tell you,” Kron said, “but events since ... they have given me a new perspective.”
“Kron, I’m sorry.”
He turned away from her again. “There is no need for apologies. I have had to learn the difference between justice and vengeance, but the lesson has been a deadly one for those around me.”
She rested a hand on his back. “Do not blame yourself.”
“I do not,” Kron said. “I blame men like Verkain and Belgad. If not for them, there would be no lesson to be learned.”
The noise of marching men returned. They could hear the clankings of metal armor and weapons, the scuffing sounds of leather boots. Orders were yelled out in Kobalan and the marchers moved away once again.
“I am going with you,” Adara insisted.
Kron glanced at her. His look said he knew it was futile to try and stop her. “Then it is time we go. Belgad awaits us.”
***
The big sword sliced air.
Fortisquo dove beneath the heavy blade and darted across the room, jumping over a sofa to put distance and furniture between himself and Belgad.
The Dartague had not moved. He remained in place, in front of the apartment’s sole exit. A grin hung on his face while he gripped the sword in both hands.
“I have other business tonight,” Belgad said, “so please die quickly.”
Fortisquo glanced about the room from corner to corner, seeking his rapier. Or anything else that could be used as a weapon. He found nothing. Belgad had hidden his weapon well. Still, the unconscious guards in the hallway had swords. But Belgad showed no signs of moving away from the door.
The swordmaster’s eyes glinted as he suddenly remembered his main gauche. He reached behind his back and a smile came to his face as he felt the dagger still on his belt.
Belgad’s grin also remained. “Call me chivalrous,” he said. “I had to leave you something.”
Fortisquo brought the lengthy dirk around to point at his enemy. “I’ll remember your generosity as I ram this into your heart.”
The big barbarian laughed.
Fortisquo advanced around the sides of the couch, emboldened by his weapon. The main gauche was small compared to a sword, especially one the size of Belgad’s two-hander, but it was big for a dagger, and it was in the hands of a master.
***
Lord Verkain scowled as he made his way toward the castle, a contingent of ten soldiers keeping at his back. The demon had been sent ahead, but the king of the land would see for himself what mischief was playing out in his domain.
He halted outside a short heavy door of oak set in one side of the stronghold’s walls, a servants’ entrance, and turned to face the nearest officer.
“Leave two guards here,” Verkain ordered. “No one enters or exits until I return.”
A sergeant passed along the order, then he and seven others followed their master into the fortress of ebon stone.
Verkain made his way along a narrow corridor, then stopped again at a doorway open to a larger passage, his eight followers halting behind him.
Torches hanging from the walls revealed a score of figures, some soldiers and some servants, lying in various positions along the great hall. None of them were moving beyond the slow rising and falling of their chests. A few of the burly guards snored.
The mage king’s frown deepened.
***
“There has to be an easier way,” Adara whispered, hanging from a rope on the south side of the castle, twelve unknowing Kobalan soldiers guarding an entrance to the building fifty yards below her booted feet.
Above her, Kron heaved on the silk cord and pulled the woman a few precious inches nearer to him. “Not without fighting a few hundred men.”
Adara shifted her gaze up. Kron was perched on the rocky bannister of a balcony, the muscles showing through his torn black shirt as he pulled her weight.
She helped with the climb, keeping a tight grip and finding solid purchase for her boots whenever she could. But much of the time she was hanging in the air over the soldiers’ heads. One slip from Kron and she faced a long fall into the enemy and death.
The man in black grinned, a devilish grin, as if he could read her thoughts. Then he tugged again and she was almost within his reach.
One more pull and he jumped back onto the stone balcony. He leaned forward, extending a hand which Adara took.
A second later they were standing together, overlooking the city as Kron rolled up the grappling hook and rope.
Adara drew her rapier and stared through glass doors to a room beyond the balcony. She could make out little other than a floor covered in thick rugs revealed by a fireplace burning low with embers.
“Do you know the way to Belgad’s room?” she asked.
Kron crossed the balcony to one of the doors, tested its brass handle and found it locked. “You mean how I get to Belgad’s room.”
“Don’t give me that,” she said, coming up next to him. “We are in this together.”
Kron rammed a gloved fist through the thin glass, shattering a hole large enough to reach inside and undo a latch.
He opened the door and passed through to the warmth of the inner chamber. “Randall said Belgad was on this level.”
Adara followed, out of habit closing the door behind. “I heard him,” she said, “but he gave no directions.”
Kron glanced about the room, taking in the rich, carved furnishings befitting royalty and a pair of thick wooden doors, one straight ahead and the other in the left wall. He crossed to the door on the left, opened it and stared through to a suitably furnished bedroom, then shut the door again.
“I’m waiting for an answer,” Adara said.
Kron moved to the other door and placed an ear against it. “I have no clue as to Belgad’s room,” he said, “but if the castle’s inhabitants are asleep as Randall promised, it should not be too difficult to hear him.”
A crashing sound beyond the room caused Kron to slide back.
“Something like that,” he said to the woman, then unsheathed his sword.
***
The noise also came to Verkain’s ears. He stood with his soldiers at the bottom of curving marble steps, staring up but seeing nothing as the stairway arched around into darkness.
“Want us to look into it, my lord?” a soldier asked.
Verkain only stared, his eyes focused on the shadows of the stairwell. He was complete master of his domain, and through his powerful magics he should have known all the goings on of his castle. But that was not the case. Something or someone had worked their way around his magics. Someone of power.
The northern king nodded to his men. “I will lead the way.”
***
The demon had appeared from nowhere. No, Belgad corrected himself, the demon had appeared from the hallway. But the barbarian had not heard nor seen any sign of the beast before it sprang.
One moment Belgad was sharing a dark laugh with the advancing assassin. The next, black claws and a stench of death surrounded the Dartague warrior, grasping for him.
Luck saved the big man. He stumbled into the room, away from the black monster, knocking aside furniture as he went forward. All that saved him was the siz
e of the creature. The demon was too large to fit through the entrance.
Now the monster tore at the door’s frame, its claws tearing away chunks of stone and thick splinters of wood in an attempt to make the portal larger.
Fortisquo overturned the couch and dove behind it. Belgad would deal with him later. Now there was the demon.
Watching the hellspawn rip the heavy door from its iron hinges, the Dartague eased into a fighting position, his left foot forward and his big sword gripped in both hands in front of him, the heavy blade’s point aimed at the monster’s center. Belgad might die that night, but he would not go down easily for the beast.
The war demon hurled the cracked door behind itself, sending splinters of wood showering down the hallway. Glaring at the portal before it, the demon screamed its anger. The entrance was still not big enough.
It’s fury getting the best of it, the monster lunged into the opening, its strength and bulk almost pushing it through. Instead, the beast became stuck, pinned by its own mass and the giant bat’s wings on its back.
Belgad laughed.
The monster roared.
Then, during a brief silence, a voice came from the hall. “Get away from him, you filth from hell.”
The demon’s head spun on its wide, muscled neck to stare out the room. Belgad’s gaze followed over the beast’s hulking shoulders.
Kron stood over the unconscious men in the center of the hall, his bastard sword also gripped in two hands. Adara brought up his rear, a rapier hanging from her left hand.
“You heard me.” The man in the black cloak advanced seemingly without caution. “Get away from him.”
For the first time in his life, Belgad the Liar was glad to see Kron Darkbow.
Even Fortisquo stuck his head up from behind the couch. “He lives?”
There was no time for an answer. The demon howled again and pushed itself back into the hall, sending dust and chunks of masonry flying.
Kron bounded forward, slashing.
His blade bit deep, tearing through the demon’s left shoulder and embedding itself in the black plate found there.
The beast reared back, allowing the weapon to slide free of its armor and flesh.
Kron struck again, this time stabbing straight. Once more the blade went deep, ripping into armor and sinking to the hilt in the beast’s chest.
The demon’s mouth gaped as if to holler again, but no sound came out. It stood still, its powerful arms and wings splayed out at its sides as a string of smoking drool slid from its lower tusks. The creature’s red glowing eyes began to pulse, as if beating with its heart.
Kron leaned forward, his face nearly touching that of the monster. He spat in the thing’s maw, then yanked his sword free.
Dark blood splashed the walls as the demon dropped to the ground, its arms and wings folding around it as it curled up. Slowly, the black form began to drift away, as if it were made of ash and a breeze blowing upon it.
The demon was gone, vanquished.
Belgad stepped into the hall, still gripping his sword before him. A smirk played upon his lips. “That was entirely too easy,”
Kron backed out of the bigger man’s reach. “I had magical aid.”
“My son?” a new voice added.
Kron, Adara and Belgad turned to stare down an arm of the hall. Verkain stood a lengthy ways off at the top of a dark stairwell, eight Kobalan warriors around him. Dark robes flowed around the lord as his black, staring eyes poured over the three.
“Kill them,” Verkain said.
The soldiers charged.
Chapter Twenty Six
Pale moonlight spread like ghostly fingers between ebon marble columns and across the black floor of the royal hall. The gigantic wooden doors to the chamber hung open. The long purple rug, now black in the night, ended at the far side of the room at stone stairs leading up to Verkain’s throne.
The mighty chair of rock sat empty, its shadow stretched on the floor behind it and up the wall, revealing a hanging tapestry of maroon emblazoned with tiny gold shields.
A chill draft scampered throughout the room, bringing with it an ancient scent of history and blood.
Randall shivered in the center of the hall, his eyes roaming from window to window, staring upon the world outside. He watched chimneys leaking dull gray smoke and bleached clouds flowing on a wall of darkest blue beneath the moon. The stars were missing, gone before the sun would raise its bright face in mere hours.
The healer wrapped his arms around himself to ward off the cold. Or perhaps it was to ward off his memories. His had been a long journey, from Mogus Potere to Bond and back again. He had died, faced what lay beyond, then returned. He had learned much while his spirit had roamed the netherworlds, and he now understood his father in ways impossible before. They had a history, one that went beyond the twenty-one years since Randall’s birth.
There were questions to be asked, explanations to be sought, though the young man feared he knew most of the answers.
Regardless, he had to face his father, likely for a final time. At least in this life.
He shivered again. His father was near. Their meeting would be soon.
***
The first Kobalan to charge forward died on the point of Kron’s sword, impaled as he ran into his foe. The hall was wide, but it nullified the soldiers’ numbers, as did the unconscious Captain Lendo and the other guards strewn upon the floor. Still, the swarm of the armored warriors managed to form themselves into a crescent around the front of the doorway, enclosing Kron and Adara and Belgad.
The swordswoman flashed out with her rapier, but found the light blade nearly useless against her opponents’ heavy plating. Belgad shouldered her aside then swept out with his powerful two-handed weapon, keeping the Kobalans at bay.
Kron parried a blow with his sword and kicked out, snapping a boot against a shin. The kick did not kill, but it hurt enough to drop a soldier to his knees, keeping back a pair of his companions.
“We can’t keep this up forever!” Adara yelled, easing behind Kron and Belgad to stand in the doorway.
The big Dartague cracked out a fist, denting a helmet and sending its wearer sprawling. “Only long enough to kill them all!”
The remaining soldiers regrouped toward their master. Despite being of hardy stock, they were more familiar confronting weaponless slaves or weakened peasants. They faced experienced fighters and needed a moment to take stock.
“Need help?” a voice asked.
Adara glanced back to find Fortisquo in the bedroom, standing in the inner doorway across the room from her.
“You live!” the swordsman shouted.
“I keep hearing that,” Adara said.
“Don’t trust him!” Belgad shouted.
Verkain saw a moment to strike. “Finish them!”
The remaining Kobalans charged up the hallway, this time in pairs with the odd man bringing up the rear.
Two men swung heavy blades at Kron, who knocked aside one weapon and spun out of reach of the other.
Two more soldiers ran at Belgad, but the barbarian would not wait for their arrival. He jumped over unconscious men while wielding his big sword like a staff, jabbing one attacker in the stomach and smashing the other’s chin with his pommel. Adara darted in and finished off a downed foe with a thrust to his throat.
Kron spun, his cloak swinging around him to distract his two opponents, keeping them temporarily at bay. As he came around to face the men, he dropped to one knee, allowing his enemies’ blows to flash overhead, then slashed up, cutting into one man’s groin. The other fellow scooted back to avoid the spray of gore and paid for his temerity with a black dart to his throat. The darted fellow was not dead, but his blood spilled to join that of his companions. Kron launched himself off the floor and slashed out, finishing one of his immediate opponents, then launched another dart into an eye of the other man, dropping him with screams and howls.
Belgad grabbed a Kobalan by the throat and shov
ed the man back where he fell and tripped up two more soldiers.
Tired of watching his men die, Verkain raised a finger and pointed at his enemy in black. Words older than the race of man passed the wizard’s lips.
Oblivious to the magic worked against him, Kron kept fighting, kicking another Kobalan in the ribs.
When his spell seemed to have no effect, Verkain stared in disbelief, then he cast again.
Once more, nothing happened. Kron fought on.
The king roared his displeasure, turned and fled.
With his side of the hall clear, and Belgad and Adara holding their own against the last three Kobalans, Kron saw an opportunity.
He bound after Verkain.
***
The mage king fled, twisting and turning around and around the quiet stairwells and halls of his castle.
The one called Darkbow followed. There seemed no escaping the man, Verkain believed as he scaled another flight of stairs and rounded another corner.
The lord’s breathing became shallow and drops of sweat formed on his brow. Physically he was in prime condition, but his nerves were getting the best of him. Fear was not unknown to Verkain, but it was a sensation he had not known in hundreds of years.
He did not fear Kron Darkbow, nor did he fear the possibility of death at the man’s hands. Like most of humanity, Verkain feared the unknown. And this night he had come face to face with the unknown. Kron and Adara lived, and Verkain himself had witnessed Darkbow’s defeat of a war demon, a task impossible for a mortal being.
Questions nagged at the lord as he ran. Could Markwood be alive? Worse for his plans, could his son Kerwin be alive?
Verkain came to the end of a hall, a cul-de-sac. He grinned. There were no doors here and no windows, only a single torch hanging in a sconce.
The sounds of boots stomping the floor told him his foe was not far behind.
He reached for the torch.
***
