She nodded solemnly. “You are a brave man. A brave fool. It will be sad to watch you die.”
A shiver of dread went through Aaron at that, but he forced it down. Co, he thought, what’s coming?
I don’t know, the Virtue said. There is no telling what shape they might take, for what you will face will be representations of Tianya’s fears, the despair and grief that have led her to this madness.
Wait a minute, Aaron thought, having difficulty wrapping his mind around the Virtue’s words. He turned to see the young girl staring off into the distance in the direction from which the cries were originating, a terrible fear twisting her child’s features. Do you mean to say that she, what, makes them? That she controls what they will be?
Yes, the Virtue answered. Though she knows it not. Tianya, like most of us, creates the demons that—borne of fear, grief, loss, anger—haunt her. This is her world. Though she feels powerless within it, she is the only one who has any true power here.
That wasn’t a comforting thought. “Will you not run while there is still time?” the girl asked. “They are closer now, and I will not be able to stop them from doing what they will. No one can. They are always hungry.”
“No, Tianya. I won’t run—I won’t leave you.”
The girl met his eyes, and there was a hint of what might have been gratitude in her gaze. “You are a brave knight, sir. I believe that you will fight well, never mind that it will make no difference. I would wish you luck but…”
“Right,” Aaron said, “it would make no difference.”
The creatures—whatever they were—were closer now. He could just make out faint movement in the darkness up ahead. It seemed to come from all around him, in every direction he looked, and when the unearthly roars began again, they were so loud as to drown out all sound, all thought, and he felt his teeth rattle in his mouth.
“Good luck, brave knight,” the girl said. “I will mourn you.”
Suddenly, Aaron felt something change, and he grunted in surprise as he realized there was a sword in his hand. It blazed a brilliant white that was painful to look upon. “What the fu—”
She sees you as her protector, Co said. And a knight, after all, is no knight without the trappings of his class.
Aaron looked down to see that he now wore white armor shining nearly as brightly as the sword itself. A gold cloak hung from his shoulders. A nickering sound drew his attention, and he turned to see a horse the color of marble staring at him as if in expectation. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said. “Gods, but I must look like a fool.”
Well, Co said, she is a child, after all. It is no surprise that she might envision her protector as one of those heroes from a child’s storybooks.
I don’t suppose there’s much hope of her imagining me an army, huh?
Unlikely.
Aaron sighed. “Well,” he said, walking toward the horse, “I suppose this is better than nothing, and at least I’ve got a sword.”
He threw himself into the horse’s saddle, expecting the weight of the unaccustomed armor to drag at him but was surprised—and more than a little relieved—to find that he seemed able to move as well wearing it as if he had nothing on at all. Something in the darkness caught his eye, some massive shadow shifting, and he followed its movement up for what felt like hundreds of feet until he lost the shape of it in the gloom. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said again. “What is that thing?”
I do not know, Co said, only that each creature you will face is a manifestation of Tianya’s fears. The greater the fear, the despair, the more strength it will have.
Great, Aaron thought. Now that he knew to look higher, he saw the vague outlines of many approaching figures, their forms only just visible in the darkness. It was as if mountains had begun to move toward him in attack, so great was the height and shape of them.
“Sir Knight,” the girl said, and he turned to see her studying him with a worried expression. “They’re—”
“Coming,” Aaron finished. “I know.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head rapidly in a sudden panic. “They’re not coming. They’re here.”
Another series of unearthly bellows shook the ground beneath his feet, and Aaron’s horse had to step lively to keep from falling. “Well,” he said, slamming down the visor of a helmet that had only just appeared on his head. “Let’s go out to meet them.” With that, he gave his horse a kick, and they charged forward, a brilliant white streak in the darkness.
I would be very careful, Aaron, the Virtue said.
Thanks for that, Firefly, he thought as he rushed forward, I tend to be when I’m in a fight for my life.
Yes, the Virtue said, but remember, Aaron. This is Tianya’s world. It is she who breathes life into it, who gives it shape. And she expects you to lose.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Darrell’s body ached with each step, but he followed the man down the city street, his mouth set into a perpetual grimace of pain. This early in the day, the lanes were crowded with all kind of merchants out hawking their wares, many of which were of decidedly dubious quality, but this didn’t seem to stop the crowds of men and women that gathered to listen to the merchants’ pitches.
Darrell was forced to move around them, losing sight of his quarry for a moment only to pick him up again, in the distance. He’d only just managed to escape the guards the night before, but he felt the absence of the sword he’d lost in the process keenly, though, perhaps, not as keenly as he felt the bruises that covered his body—evidence of his tussle with Celd and his companions. He’d woken this morning in a little-used alleyway, his entire body aching and stiff as he’d known it would be. Age might grant a man wisdom and experience, but it also made his body slower to recover from fights like the one he’d been in last night. It was as if his body, disgusted with him, thought he should have learned to avoid such foolishness long since and decided to teach him a lesson.
It hadn’t been a pleasant night running from the guards, hurting and weaponless, but even worse he’d lost Grinner’s man, the one whose words had been responsible for the violence in the tavern. Still, despite the fact that he had to struggle to repress a groan of pain with each step he took, Darrell had risen from the alley and forced himself onward. He’d stopped at a tavern in Perennia’s poor quarter—more to rest his aching, abused body than to find any information—and had been shocked to see the same man from the night before sitting and chatting with several soldiers. Darrell didn’t venture close, afraid that he’d be recognized, and whatever lies the man told the soldiers these, at least, didn’t end with them turning on one another. Which was just as well—the swordmaster doubted his body couldn’t handle another night like the one just passed.
He’d been relieved, then, when Grinner’s man had risen from the table, excusing himself to its occupants and leaving the tavern. Darrell had followed, shuffling along in the man’s wake, careful to keep his distance. It was how he’d spent the last half hour, the man seemingly traveling the streets at random with no obvious destination in mind, and the swordmaster hoped he stopped soon, or else Darrell would have to pay a cart driver to push him after the man. Somehow, he suspected that would draw more attention than he wanted.
Up ahead, Grinner’s man turned down an alleyway, and Darrell hissed in frustration as he pushed his way through a particularly large crowd gathered to watch some sort of play. The swordmaster only gave the stage a quick glance as he passed, but it was enough to sow disquiet in his heart, for the puppets, though ill-done, were accurate enough for him to recognize Aaron, Adina, and one dark-skinned man that could only be the Parnen, Leomin. Currently, the one representing Aaron lay with his puppet’s head dangling over a chopping block while another figure—dressed in the dark colors and mask of an executioner—stood over him, his toy axe raised menacingly.
Darrell didn’t stay to see how the story ended—he thought he knew better than he would have liked. Instead, he continued
to force his way through the crowd, ignoring the shouts of anger from those he pushed out of his way. His sense of unease grew as he feared he was going to lose the man and that he would have spent the last half hour of agony for nothing, so the swordmaster broke into a shuffling run in the direction he’d seen the man go.
He slowed down as he neared the alley’s entrance and eased around it, wary in case the man should choose to look behind him. He needn’t have worried, for the man was a little over halfway down the alley and was far too busy accosting some poor woman to pay the swordmaster any attention. The woman was dressed plainly enough, in a peasant’s woolen dress, and though she was not particularly pretty, Grinner’s man seemed drawn to her just the same. She screamed as the man pawed at her, crying out in pain as he pushed her against the alley wall.
Darrell clenched his jaw, hesitating. The man’s intentions were clear enough as he tore at the sleeves of the woman’s dress, but the swordmaster knew that, should he make his presence known now by stopping the man, he would most likely lose any chance of tracing him back to his boss and learning who was responsible for the rumors being spread throughout the city. The woman screamed again as the man tore at her clothes and a piece of her dress ripped away exposing a bit of pale breast. “Help! Someone please!” she screamed.
That decided Darrell, and he rushed down the alleyway as fast as his battered body would carry him, each step a small agony all its own. “Unhand her!” he yelled, feeling like some knight out of a melodrama. Except this knight was old and tired, full of aches and pains—all of which he couldn’t blame on the fight of the night before no matter how much he might wish to—and should have long since retired, spending his time bouncing his grandchildren on his knee and leaving the fighting to younger, dumber men.
Grinner’s man turned at the sound of his voice, and as Darrell drew closer he saw an angry sneer on the criminal’s face. “Get the fuck out of here, old man, before I teach you a lesson,” he said, drawing a knife from his tunic and brandishing it in Darrell’s direction in an unnecessary demonstration of what sort of lesson it would be.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, lad,” Darrell said, moving closer, his hands up to show he meant no harm. “Now, why don’t you just leave the woman alone and go on about your day? There are plenty enough places in the city where women would be all too happy to be pawed in such a way, provided you have the means of paying for the privilege.”
“And what if I say no?” the man demanded.
Darrell sighed. “Then I suspect both of our days are going to get a whole lot worse. Look, I don’t want any trouble, and I think there are things we’d both rather be doing just now than spilling blood—or having our own spilled—in some abandoned alleyway.”
A reasonable argument, he thought, but the man disagreed, and he made that disagreement clear enough when he gave a shout of anger and charged Darrell, the knife leading. Tired, battered, and old he might be, but the swordmaster had spent his long years training in combat, so it was no great trouble to side-step the man’s awkward stab. Before he could try again, Darrell struck with the ridge of his hand at the man’s wrist, and the knife clattered to the alley floor even as its wielder gave a shout of surprise and pain.
“You son of a bi—” he began, but cut off as the ridge of Darrell’s other hand caught him in the throat. The man wheezed in surprise, his throat emitting a breathless, pained rattle, as he stumbled backward, his hands at his neck. The wind pipe wasn’t crushed—Darrell had made sure of that, for the last thing he needed was having the guards called down on him again—but he knew well how much pain such a strike caused, so he wasn’t surprised when the man fell to the ground, pawing at his throat as if it had caught fire and he was trying his best to put it out.
Darrell barely managed to keep his feet, as the woman barreled into him, her arms wrapping him in a tight embrace. “Thank you so much, sir!”
“Ma’am,” he managed, wincing, “there’s really no need to—”
“Oh, but there is,” she said. “You saved me from that…that…” She trailed off, burying her head in his shoulder, and Darrell was forced to stand there awkwardly, patting her softly on the back as she cried.
“It’s okay,” he said, “you’re safe now, but you should really—” The words froze in his mouth, his body going rigid with shock, as the blade went in. He stumbled backward as the woman let him loose, and he stared down at the knife sticking out of his side in shocked confusion. “What…I don’t…”
“Did you really think we were just going to let you meddle in our master’s affairs without any consequences?”
Darrell’s vision had gone blurry, and he looked up, blinking. The woman stared back at him, a cruel, amused grin on her face. “But…I thought…”
“Of course you did,” she said, and though his vision was slowly fading, Darrell didn’t miss her roll her eyes. “Men. I swear, the gods never made bigger fools. Worried that he was going to steal my virtue, was that it?” She laughed. “Whatever virtue I had has been gone for a long time now, you silly old man.”
There was a grunt of pain and anger, and they both turned to see the other man climbing to his feet. “Son of a bitch,” he croaked. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Oh, let me do it, Shen,” the woman pleaded, pouting like a child begging for a treat.
“Shut up,” the man said. “The gray-haired bastard damn near broke my throat, and I aim to make him beg before it’s done.”
The woman folded her arms across her chest, frowning and looking like nothing so much as a young, spoiled girl, sullen and angry because she didn’t get her way.
Darrell backed away from the two slowly, his legs as sluggish and unwieldy as his thoughts. “Where you going, fella?” The man sneered. “What, you thought I didn’t see your ass followin’ me, like I didn’t notice you were the same son of a bitch that stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong last night at the tavern?”
The man stalked closer, keeping pace with Darrell as he backed up, and the woman laughed. “Careful, Shen. This one’s a swordmaster, they say.”
“Swordmaster,” the man hissed, hocking and spitting. “Well, I reckon it’s good for me he ain’t got no sword then, ain’t that right, old man?”
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a small enough thing to deal with the man and woman too, but Darrell could feel what little strength the previous night had left him draining from his body as blood escaped the wound at his side. It galled him, but he decided the only option was flight, so he turned, shuffling toward the alleyway, not particularly surprised to see two more men blocking his escape. They were both grinning, but it was the knives in their hands that caught the swordmaster’s attention. No way out then, at least not that way. He looked back and, sure enough, two others were making their way toward him from the woman’s end of the alleyway.
“You’re a slippery little fucker,” the man said, lunging forward as if to attack. Darrell grunted, stumbling backward, but the man came up short, laughing at the swordmaster’s reaction to the feint. “We been lookin’ for you for some time now, old man. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw you at the tavern last night, watched you keep that traitor from getting what was coming to ‘em.”
“He was…no traitor,” Darrell managed.
The man shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. It don’t matter much either way, does it? Those folks in that tavern believed it readily enough, and that’s what matters.”
“But why?” Darrell demanded, not liking the whistling wheeze that accompanied his words. “Surely, your…master…must know that he dooms himself as well. When Kevlane—”
“Gods, but if I hear another word about this fucking magician or whatever he is,” Shen said, shaking his head. “Look, old man, even if there is such a man as that out there, capable of all the bullshit I been hearin’—something I doubt—then the boss’ll either kill him or bring him on side. He won’t be the first legend I’ve seen bleed.”
Darrell
shook his head and suddenly a fresh wave of dizziness swept over him. The world tilted strangely, and the next thing he knew he was lying on his side on the alley floor. “Tired out, is that it?” the man was saying. “Well, I guess I ain’t surprised—a man of your age, why, you ought to be at home in bed, gettin’ some rest. Ain’t no help for it, I suppose, but you can take comfort in the fact that you’ll be gettin’ rest aplenty when I’m done with you.”
He crouched down beside the swordmaster, and Darrell reached out a weak hand, going for the man’s throat. The younger man sighed, slapping his arm away then bringing the knife up into Darrell’s face. “I want you to apologize for hittin’ me, old man. Only, my ma, she always told me that actions speak louder than words. So, the way I figure it, it wouldn’t mean a whole lot, you sayin’ you were sorry.” He grinned. “Instead, I think I’ll carve my apology out of ya.”
Darrell blinked, his vision so blurry that it seemed as if there were two of the man, both crouched down in front of him, both of them holding the blade out with deadly promise. “So stop talking and…get it done.” Forgive me, Aaron, he thought. Adina. I tried. The gods know I tried.
“With pleasure,” the man said, raising the knife, but before he brought it home there was a shout of surprise from somewhere down the alley. Shen turned, as if to see what had caused the scream, and an instant later his body gave a twitching jerk. He wavered drunkenly for a second then collapsed on top of the swordmaster, and Darrell let out a grunt of surprise as the unexpected weight fell upon him. Warm liquid seeped onto him, and blinking his blurry eyes, he saw a long, thin wooden shaft sticking out of the man’s back. He frowned at it for several moments, struggling to get his confused thoughts in order. One moment, he thought he faced certain death, and the next his would-be killer was laying on top of him with a wooden arrow—that’s what it was—protruding from his back.
Now that his slow thoughts had begun moving once more, Darrell realized he could hear the muffled sounds of fighting around him. Perhaps Grinner’s men—and woman, don’t forget that, for it was she who’d nearly killed him—had turned on each other. Perhaps, the city guard had shown up, drawn by the sounds of violence or by some unseen witness. Either way, Darrell had to get away as quickly as possible, for what the city guard had in store for him—if that was in fact who had come upon the scene—would be little better than the death he’d faced at the hands of the criminals. The only difference was that it would take longer.
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