“So you’re the one who’s caused me so much trouble,” she said. Her voice, deep and resonant, easily sliced through the clamor of battle.
I shrugged, and even that hurt. “I’m just one man, trying help save this town you’ve decided to attack.”
“One man, yes. But a very special man. A Legacy.”
“A Legacy? What’s that?”
“Oh, please. We don’t need to play those sorts of games, you and I. We’re above that.”
“You know, you can make you and me into we all you want, but it’s not going to change the fact that you’re a vicious, murderous fucking slaver . . . not to mention a walking corpse who hasn’t gotten her own funeral invitation.” I took a pace toward her. “We might both be Legacies, but that’s where the similarities end.”
She smirked. “So I suppose the usual, please, join me, and together we’ll rule the whole world pitch would be a waste of time.”
“Zagros already tried that. He’s fucking dead now.”
Her smirk faltered. “You killed Zagros? Well, it seems I am suddenly without a right-hand, then. And you would be perfect for the job.”
“Would you ever trust me?”
“Not a fucking chance,” she said, and launched herself at me.
I’d been expecting it, easily fending off her knife strike with my extended hand, driving my own knife low, angling upward. Her blade drew a bright line of pain across the back of my hand, but I’d been expecting that, too. I pulled my hand down, away from her blade, so she didn’t slice too deeply and cut tendons. Instead of following up, though, she jumped back and resumed a defensive crouch.
I wasn’t going to give her a break. I braced myself to lunge—
—but the pain radiating from my cut hand didn’t diminish. It intensified instead, a wave rolling up my arm, leaving a rubbery weakness in its wake. The wave reached my shoulder and kept going, spreading across my back and chest.
Her smirk was back. “I always worried I might end up facing another Legacy. Figured I’d need some way of keeping an advantage when I did.” She held up the knife. “This is my advantage. It’s coated in what’s called a neurotoxin.” She shrugged. “I don’t pretend to know the details . . . all I know is it’s enough to basically shut down a Legacy.”
She lunged at me. I’d been expecting it—monologuing was a great way of getting someone to drop their guard—and even started to dodge, but everything moved too slowly. She caught me in the face with a fist and drove the knife at me again, slashing my already-numbed bicep. I was able to fend her off, but it was an awkward, sluggish response compared to my usual moves.
She backed off again. “You sure you don’t want to deal? I can make it entirely worth your while. All I want is to get the area around Le’kemeshaw stable, orderly . . . retrieve all the old Hightec, all the old books, artifacts, preserve them so they aren’t lost. Make it so it’s a place people want to settle down, knowing they’ll be safe.”
I tried to glare at her. “Safe? As your fucking slaves? For animals like Egnor to abuse?”
She shrugged. “Egnor was on borrowed time anyway. I didn’t have much more use for him. As for slaves, so many people just don’t have what it takes to take care of themselves. They’re born not able to live their lives without a firm hand. Do you know how many of what you call my slaves would be dead now if it hadn’t been for me?”
“Call it what you want,” I said, my words a little slurred. “Tell yourself whatever you fucking need to so you can sleep at night. It’s still slavery, and we’re going to stop it, here, today.”
She glanced around. “I don’t think so. Oh, you’ve made it a lot harder, but Watermanse is almost mine. My troops on the east are just breaking into town right now. Battle’s almost over, and you’ve fucking lost.”
“Not over yet,” I snapped, and flung myself at her. She simply backpedaled out of my reach, grinning.
“I’m still willing to deal, though,” she said. “How about this? You agree to join me, help me stop this fight so no one else gets hurt or killed, and I promise to let all these people, who obviously mean so much to you, just walk away. I just want the town, and the port, because I really have more important things to do—”
“You mean the Hightec that’s being made?”
That made her stop and scowl. “How do you know about that?”
“I know pretty much everything about you, Venari. You’re s typical fraud, albeit gifted. I’m sure you made lots of promises to Egnor and Zagros, too. Especially Zagros. He wanted you so badly, didn’t he? And you promised him that someday he’d get what he wanted . . . except that was a promise you had no intention of keeping.”
Her scowl became a furious glare. I was right, of course. Venari might be a powerful and charismatic Legacy, and might even mean what she said about making things orderly and safe, and preserving ancient tech and knowledge. But it was only to the extent it was done her way, and benefited her. I’d met Venari before, in every shady trader, in every friendly traveler that was really just the frontman for a bandit gang, in every brutal village headman who claimed all the shitty things they did were for a greater good.
She opened her mouth, but I knew she wasn’t going to say anything. All that would come next was an attack, nothing more. I’d ripped away her veil of lies. And nothing infuriated a petty tyrant more than being reminded what a petty tyrant they really were.
I was able to meet her attack, deflect it, and even strike back. But her damned neurotoxin didn’t just slow me down, it made me weak. My blows were barely enough to take down an unaugmented man, much less a Legacy. A feral smile lit her face and she struck back, her fists like hammers, her feet battering rams, slamming through my defenses, submerging me in pain. When she backed off again, my head rang and grey-green explosions burst behind my eyes. The racket of battle faded, swelled, and faded again. I was badly hurt. I needed to disengage, break off, recover . . .
But it was too late for that. The battle of Watermanse had reached its moment of crisis. Gasping, drooling blood, I braced myself to attack Venari again.
She laughed.
“Really? Okay, then . . . let’s finish this sordid fucking business. I’ve got a battle to finish winning.”
She raised her knife, tensed—
—then cried out and staggered as a sleek, dark shape slammed into her. Flint landed in the trench behind her and spun as fast as her wounded leg allowed, but Venari was faster, turning and slashing Flint with that damned knife.
Flint yelped. It was high-pitched, piercing, and plaintive.
“Oh, fuck you twice,” I growled.
Venari started to turn back, but I threw everything I had left into a lunge that got my hands around her head. A brilliant blast of pain erupted in my side as she plunged the knife into me, hilt-deep, but I let my momentum carry both of us back and down. Venari landed on Flint and me on her.
Flint’s jaws slammed like vise on Venari’s shoulder, the bones crunching in wet snaps. My eyes met Flint’s and we had a perfect instant of understanding, clearer than words could ever be. Flint yanked her head one way; I wrenched Venari’s head the other. The opposing forces managed what neither of us had the remaining strength to do alone—breaking Venari’s neck with a savage crack.
Venari died with a surprised look on her face.
I dragged myself to my hands and knees, pulling at Venari, trying to get her off Flint. I could barely lift my arms, though, and just toppled back on top of both of them. Then something grabbed and lifted me, heaving me into the air.
I couldn’t have fought back if I’d wanted to. Helpless as an infant, I was hoisted out of the trench by something huge.
I looked into a misshapen face. An ogre. It gave me a stupid, gap-toothed grin.
“Easy with him!” someone said. I recognized Lanni’s voice . . . then a second one, Gurdon’s.
“Let’s get him and Flint both back to town, boys . . . and be gentle now!”
My last memory, though, w
asn’t about Lanni, Gurdon, or even the ogre. It was seeing the remaining Blackwings, their weapons down, kneeling.
Kneeling to me.
Then that sight, the crash of battle, the rasp of the ogre’s coarse hide . . . all of it just faded away.
Epilogue
I missed the end of the Battle of Watermanse, as it turned out, but I didn’t miss much. Once Venari was dead and the Blackwings had surrendered, the fight drained from the Osterway force pretty fast. Most of the surviving Huntsmen and regular soldiers fled, if they could. Those that couldn’t just gave up. As for the slaves, some fled, but we ended up with a lot of them seeking refuge in Watermanse. Not a single one of their overseers survived the battle.
I spent the next couple of days passed out, and the next three after that resting and doing a lot of sleeping in a room in The Drowned Man. Flint stayed with me the whole time, only leaving to stretch her legs, eat, and cast baleful glares at anyone in my general vicinity. Her wounds were serious, but nothing she wouldn’t heal from. Fortunately, it seemed the neurotoxin on Venari’s knife either didn’t affect non-Legacies, or it didn’t affect something that wasn’t human, anyway, so Flint was up and moving before I was.
I was finally able to rise from my bed and start hobbling around Watermanse on the sixth day after the battle. The weather was turning cold at night; glory season was almost done. Still, by the time I was on my feet, much of the damage to the town was either fixed, or soon would be. An air of hope permeated the changing season. It felt good to breath air not curdled with fear.
Now, I stood in the town square, Flint beside me. Reyna, Kai, Aldebar, and Nicolet gathered nearby in one direction, Lanni and Gurdon in the other. Lorna finished an argument with a group of elders and a couple of former slaves who’d been appointed temporary spokespeople for the ex-captives, then stalked toward me, shaking her head.
“All these new people, and a slew of new problems to match,” she snapped. “They actually want to—”
I held up my hand. “Whatever it is, Lorna, I’m sure you’ll sort it out.”
She smiled. “Of course I will. It’s what I do.” She hooked her thumbs in her belt. “Mind you, I’ll only get the chance because of what you do, Cus. How can we ever thank you”—she looked at Aldebar and the others— “thank all of you, for what you did?”
“You’ve already thanked us,” I said. “Over and over again. Publicly, and in private.”
“Still doesn’t seem like enough.” She narrowed her eyes then snapped her fingers. “Oh, by the way . . . the council talked. All of you can pick pretty much whatever land you want to settle here. We’ll give you labor, building materials, whatever you need—”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, then gestured around at the others. “We’ve been talking and, well, we’re not going to settle here.”
Lorna’s smile vanished. “Really? We figured . . . well, after the battle, that you’d—”
“We almost did decide to stay here,” I said, “but we’re going to head south. Lanni and Gurdon say the winters are easier down there, and I know I could use a break.”
Lorna gave me a hard look, then nodded. “You’re worried about that Hightec that Osterway was after, aren’t you?”
“Watermanse might have broken Osterway, but this was never Venari’s real goal, remember. Somewhere out there, someone is making Hightec. Like we said, that could change everything. If it’s going to . . . well, I’d like to see it change things for the better.”
“There are more Venari’s out there,” Aldebar put in.
Lorna puffed out a sigh. “I get it. When are you leaving?”
“Few days. We’re going to take the ogres that way . . . if they want to come, of course.” I gave Lanni and Gurdon a look, and they nodded back. “Also offering to take Venari’s former Blackwings with us, too. I don’t think they’d be a good fit around here.”
“No,” Lorna said, “probably not. They surrendered to you, Cus, not to us.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back from time to time. You haven’t heard the last of us.”
“Well, that’s some good news, anyway. You’re welcome here anytime, of course.” She looked around the group. “All of you.”
She headed off and I turned back to Aldebar and the others—especially Reyna, Kai, and Nicolet.
“So have you had a chance to get adequately acquainted?”
Reyna exchanged a look with Kai and Nicolet. I expected it to be wary at best, resentful at worst. What I hadn’t expected was their shared look to be sly, even conspiratorial.
“Oh, yeah,” Kai said. “We’re good friends.”
“Fine people they are,” Reyna added.
Nicolet just smiled.
I was the one with the wary look as the three women departed, chattering and shooting grins back my way.
Aldebar chuckled. “Those three . . . eh, let’s just say you might find Venari wasn’t the toughest woman you had to face after all, Cus.”
I smiled and shook my head at the three as they wandered across the square. “Venari had nothing on these four, Aldebar, and that’s the truth.”
“Four?”
I ruffled Flint’s fur. “Can’t forget about the true love of my life here.”
Aldebar laughed and stroked her head. “’Course not. Nicolet brought her back here without you, but she wasn’t going to stay . . . not while you were out there.”
“That’s because we’re a team.”
A moment passed, both of us watching the three women, then Lanni and Gurdon as they rounded up the ogres to explain how they could, if they wished, come south with us. “Future’s gonna be interesting, I think,” he said, “and not just south, but wherever we end up.”
My hand still on Flint’s scruff, I nodded. “I think you’re right.”
All around us, Watermanse bustled. But I barely noticed it, because my thoughts had already started heading south. I was looking forward to the journey, because . . .
Free people don’t just make good allies . . . they make good friends.
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About the Author
Daniel Pierce lives in Wyoming with his wife Marissa and their two dogs. After fourteen years as an engineer, Daniel decided it was finally time to write and release his first novel.
As a lifelong fan of scifi and fantasy, he wants nothing more than to share his passion.
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