An Army of Heroes

by Scott J Robinson

  He kept backing away until he was at the top of the stairs. He listened as his friends descended to the floor below.

  He heard Grint say, “More trouble, Rawk.” He doubted the guards could hear.

  “Are you coming or not?” Rawk asked them.

  They stopped and Rawk turned and ran. He nearly tripped on the stairs. He crashed into the wall at the landing and barely stayed upright. On the floor below, Celeste was standing at the top of the next flight of stairs, listening.

  “There are more guards,” she said softly.

  “Do you know how many?” Rawk put a hand on her shoulder for a moment. She was shaking, sweating.

  “I don’t know for sure.” She shrugged. Rawk felt the slight rise and fall of her shoulder. “A few, though.”

  “Right.”

  “Grint is looking...”

  And just then her brother came back out through a door. “If we go through that last apartment we can get down to ground level easy enough.” He glanced at Biki and her daughter.

  Rawk squeezed Celeste’s shoulder. He smiled at her. “Let’s go then.”

  “There’s someone there,” Celeste said.

  A guard came around the corner and up the stairs. Rawk pulled Celeste out of the way and was distracted enough to almost lose a leg. He stepped clear at the last moment, more through luck than anything else, and countered quickly, trying to keep the guard on the stairs. He could feel Celeste watching him, though he was sure everyone else had disappeared after Grint.

  “Go, Celeste. We don’t have time.”

  “No. I...”

  But he heard her turn and leave as he batted aside an attack that would have sliced through his ankle and pushed forward some more. His opponent couldn’t do much at all, but Rawk couldn’t reach properly either. After a couple of more ineffectual exchanges, Rawk snatched a torch down from the wall and threw it. The solid piece of timber and iron got past the man’s defenses and struck him a solid blow on the face. He gave a cry of pain and tumbled down the stairs.

  Rawk grunted in surprise and raced into the apartment behind his companions, slamming the door behind him. He dropped the old style timber latch down to lock it, though he wasn’t sure it would do much good against someone who was really determined. He didn’t intend to hang around to find out. Sheathing Kaj, he made his way to the room’s only window and watched as Celeste climbed carefully down the wall, holding a horizontal piece of the exposed frame as she walked down a diagonal. He wanted to shout some encouragement, but was loath to distract her at all. She looked so serious, concentrating fiercely as if to keep her mind away from the fall. Rawk decided he was worrying enough for the both of them. He gripped the edge of the windowsill as if his hands were the ones keeping her safe.

  When she was almost down and no pursuit had materialized, Rawk climbed out the window as well and followed her down. Once on the ground he wrapped his arm around her. “Well done. Where are the others?” He tried to let go, but she clung to him for a second. He could feel her shaking.

  Eventually, Celeste stepped back and wiped tears from her face. She motioned down the alley. Biki, Grint and Suki were huddling behind a pile of wooden crates not far away.

  “Come on then.” Rawk checked the window but there was still nobody there. He pushed Grint aside when he started to pick up Suki and swung the little girl around onto his back. “You have to hold on,” he said. She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “What if you need your sword?” Grint asked.

  “Let’s just hope I don’t.”

  They moved quickly down the alley, pausing at the end before hurrying out onto the main street, trying to look as if they weren’t a group of fugitives. Rawk tried to get his bearings. “Where are we?”

  “I know,” Biki said. “But where are we going?”

  “We’re going over the river, as quickly as possible.”

  “This way, then.”

  Rawk followed, trying to keep an eye on their surroundings as he talked to Suki and avoided running into people and kept up with Biki and...

  It was a few streets before he worked out where he was. And it was only a few minutes after that when they caught a glimpse of the river. Rawk started to think they might make it. Even when he saw a pair of guards loitering on a corner he just kept moving, not bothering to say anything to the others. The city went right down to the river at Coover Bridge with buildings dabbling their toes in the water. The fact that they didn’t have any open space to cross might have been good, if they’d been able to get a good look at who might be waiting for them. As it was, they stood in the mouth of an alley for a couple of minutes, trying to look for trouble. That was what Rawk was doing, anyway. He didn’t know what they others were doing.

  The nearby buildings were grimy and as rickety as the bridge itself and Rawk thought that the people living to the south of the river might get a bit of sympathy from those in this area, but he wasn’t willing to bet his life on it.

  “We can’t stand here all day,” he said eventually.

  Grint grunted, as if he was willing to give it a go. He sucked on his teeth for a moment then called Suki over. “You walk with me, darling. You’re being very brave.” Biki took her other hand.

  Rawk took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” They made their way quickly towards the bridge.

  Someone called out to Rawk and he almost stopped. The person called again and he realized it was just a woman, probably wanting to get him into bed. The timing wasn’t great. He supposed the timing was never really great, but he hadn’t let that stop him in the past. He kept going, not even looking back.

  As they approached the bridge, Rawk saw two men trying to keep an eye on things from a low porch in front of a haberdashery store. Neither was in uniform, but Rawk knew John Conter and doubted he’d ever bought a nice piece of clothing in his life.

  “Trouble,” Rawk muttered dropping back a couple of steps. “Just keep walking. Don’t stop, no matter what. And try not to run; Weaver may have them looking out for you, but they may be distracted by me.” If they stopped they wouldn’t get moving again.

  Rawk and his companions joined the crowds and moved between the last of the buildings that held hands with the bridge posts at the edge of the river. Ten more yards and they would be onto the warped, ageing planks but the guards finally spotted them. They called out, and moved to intercept.

  “Keep going,” Rawk said. He stopped and took a couple of steps back, trying to gage if the guards were concentrating on him or the entire group. The others kept going. Only Celeste even looked back. Rawk willed her on, feet twitching as if his were the feet that were going to get her over the bridge. He drew Kaj and turned back, advancing on the men.

  He smiled. The men hesitated. They looked at each other, and advanced some more.

  “You two really think you are going to be enough?” He tested his footing, but the cobbles were about a hundred years old and were as smooth as the top of a table.

  They hesitated some more, then Conter called out and there was an answering call from the other side of the river. “Maybe not,” he said. He had a smile of his own.

  Rawk risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a group of five City Guard topping the crest of the bridge like a roll of thunder on the ancient planks. They ran straight past Celeste and the rest of the group, so it wasn’t all bad.

  “Come on then.”

  Rawk charged at the two men. He knew Conter would worry him about as much as a prickle in his sock, so he attacked the other man first. A low attack, dance around the reply, lunged into a gap. Then he spun away as blood started to flow from a not-really-serious cut across his opponent’s chest and swung wildly at Conter. He was in the clear, so he turned and ran along the street, parallel to the river, shouting and waving his sword to clear a path. The soldiers followed, pounding along behind.

  Between the buildings on his left he could see momentary flashes of mast and boats and beyond them the buildings on the far
side of the river. They seemed to be miles away. After a hundred yards of dodging crowds, leaving a trail of outrage, he realized how out of shape he was. Once upon a time, not that long ago, he’d exercised every day, working out in the gymna and just doing things. Now...

  But thankfully, the City Guard were no better. Most of the time they stood in doorways or sat in the barracks. Katamood was normally such a peaceful place that they didn’t even take their sword-work all that seriously. They were probably going to get a rude surprise in the next few days.

  After two hundred yards, Rawk was really struggling. He looked back over his shoulder and discovered that there were only two men still following. And they were gaining on him. He turned away from the river, taking a couple of random turns, tying to confuse anyone who was still doggedly bringing up the rear, if not the closer two. In a dim alley, amidst a snowdrift of trash, he turned to fight. While he waited for the men to reach him, he leaned on Kaj and drew in great, heaving breaths.

  He knew both of them. Petu and Darvid. Darvid was a sneaky, conniving individual who would probably hang back and see how things went. Petu, on the other hand, was an arrogant bastard who had every reason to be arrogant.

  “Worn out, old man?” Petu asked as he approached. He took off his jacket and untied the lace on the collar of his shirt. He was young and lean and if Rawk had known who it was, he probably would have kept running and risked the heart attack.

  “I’ll be fine in a moment, Petu. Thank you for your concern.”

  Petu sneered as he drew his sword.

  Rawk stood up straight and twirled his own blade around, trying some fancy tricks that didn’t really prove anything at all but normally impressed the crowds. There was no crowd and Petu wasn’t impressed. Darvid didn’t really seem to be paying attention.

  “Come on then, old man,” Petu said. “Let’s get this done.”

  Raising his sword, Rawk crouched and winced as his knee gave a twinge of pain. It hadn’t liked all the running and was probably going to like this even less. “Yes, let’s. I have places to go.”

  “Weaver isn’t going to let—”

  There was no finesse to Rawk’s attack. He just swung hard and fast and pushed Petu back, though both of them knew he wasn’t really in any danger. But that wasn’t really the point. All the action had brought Rawk close to Darvid who, apparently, still wasn’t keen to get involved. But he didn’t seem to think he was in any danger and stayed where he was.

  Petu took one more step back and Rawk spun aside, slashing Darvid across the throat. He didn’t pause to watch the man fall to the ground, turning his attention back to Petu. The man seemed shocked. He was standing, mouth open, looking at his companion. His mouth flapped a few times, but nothing came out.

  “Welcome to the grown-ups’ game, Petu. Have you ever actually fought anyone outside the training arena? It’s a bit different out here, isn’t it?”

  He seemed to gather himself. “It’s all the same in the end,” he said. “It’s just sword against sword.” But he glanced at Darvid again before he attacked.

  Rawk danced Kaj in the shadows of the alley, clattering it against the other blade. He moved smoothly through the rubbish, ignoring the pain in his knee. He smiled. He tried to look calm. He thought he was succeeding, but he didn’t know how much longer he would last. He was always half a moment behind. He was always racing to catch up to the next attack. He wasn’t sure if Petu had noticed, or if the lad was still thinking about Darvid.

  It was obvious when Petu finally started to get his head into the fight. Rawk was pushed back constantly— there was no longer any back and forth— and he spent so much time defending that he hardly had the chance to make a counter attack of his own. He was sweating. Kaj suddenly seemed to weigh twice as much as it did a minute ago.

  When his knee gave out, Rawk was almost relieved. Almost. He glanced around, hoping for a miracle, and almost missed the woman stepping out of a darkened doorway with a cudgel in hand. Petu didn’t see until the last moment either, and by then it was too late because the woman knew what she was doing. She hit the guard a solid blow across the chin and then a backhander across the back of the neck. He fell like a sack of wet wheat.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Rawk used Kaj to lever himself to his feet. “Thank you,” he said.

  The woman nodded and spat onto the cobbles. She was older than she looked. “Don’t like them guards, Rawk. Trouble makers, the lot of them.”

  Rawk almost said, “Not all of them are like that,” but restrained himself. The good men didn’t need his defense against this old woman and she didn’t want to hear it anyway. “And they’re worse every day,” he said instead.

  She nodded.

  “What’s the quickest way to a bridge?”

  The woman spat again. “Don’t be stupid. No way they going to let you across a bridge now.”

  “So...”

  “So take a boat. Them guards ain’t got the brains to think of that.”

  “What about Weaver?”

  She laughed. “He ain’t even got the brains to work out them dwarves is playing him like a fiddle.”

  “Pardon.”

  “He thinks he got all these great ideas but he’s just doing what they tell him to do.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Of course. Everyone knows if you ain’t got two coppers to rub together you go to the dwarves for help. And once you friends with ‘em they tell you everything.”

  “They don’t tell everyone. They aren’t stupid.”

  “That’s what I was just saying.” The woman sniffed. “Anyway, like I was saying, go hire yourself a boat. You’ll be across the river in no time.”

  “Thank you. I think I will. So, what’s the quickest way to a boat?” Rawk listened to her directions, such as they were. “Thank you. Stay safe; it’s going to get bloody very soon.” And he slipped the woman ten ithel as limped away.

  This time, there was a street running right along the edge of the river. It wasn’t the best location in terms of being discovered, because there were trendy cafes looking across the street and the river, but there were plenty of little boats ferrying supplies from across the other side. Boutique ciders and ales, produce, pastries from the huge dwarf bakeries that churned out such things all day long.

  But there were none of the City Guard in evidence and he could spend all day wondering if someone else might give him away, so Rawk stood up straight, tidied his shirt, and marched across the street like had nothing to fear. Except he had his hand on the hilt of his sword. And he kept looking around.

  At the edge of the river he looked both ways. The tide was out and there was a two-yard drop down to the water. There were a dozen small boats tied up between two flanking ships, but only three of them had any occupants. Rawk would borrow a boat if required but he’d always considered things like rowing to be below him, so it could turn into a long, slow journey. So he headed towards the closest. An old woman was sitting at the oars.

  “How much to take me across the river?”

  She looked up at him. “What’s wrong with the bridge?” She pointed. There was a bridge just fifty yards away. Rawk couldn’t see any guards there, but he was sure there would be.

  Rawk shrugged. “I just feel like a boat trip today.”

  The woman shook her head. “I ain’t an idiot, Rawk. On your way. Go visit your dwarf friends.”

  Rawk muttered but didn’t say anything to her. A moment later, she called out for the Guard, and he wished he had. He looked back towards the bridge and saw a commotion. “Damn you, woman.”

  He hurried to the next boat. “Twenty ithel if you take me across the river.” The normal rate would be about five. Maybe less. The owner of the boat was a young man with long hair and a missing ear.

  He looked towards the bridge as well and Rawk moved on before the ‘No’ got out of his mouth. He should have gone to the last boat in the first place. The dwarf was beckoning him forward and untying the rope that he
ld his small skiff to the stone wall. Rawk moved quickly, but when he looked up, he saw half a dozen guards coming from the other direction. They would beat him there.

  Rawk swore and drew his sword. But there were six of them and that was too many, no matter who they were. He slammed Kaj back into the sheath and went over the side of the wall right where he was, quickly scaling down a ladder into a sorry looking boat at the bottom. For a moment the dwarf looked at him as if he was crazy, but then heard the men approaching. He pushed his boat out into the river while Rawk worked at the knot holding his own craft. His fingers fumbled with the rope and after an agonizing moment he gave up and drew his dagger. He sawed through the rope and pushed out as well, just as the first of the city guard stuck his head out to see what was going on.

  Rawk took up the oars and tried to get himself organized. He almost succeeded in capsizing the boat but survived with just some wet feet as water sloshed over the side. Guards were climbing down to other boats, shouting to each other, sending out waves as the little craft rocked and danced. The movement didn’t help Rawk as he fumbled about with the oars and didn’t really do much at all. A boat bumped along side of his and Rawk spun about, brandishing his oar, sending out a long arc of glistening water droplets. The dwarf smiled when Rawk almost brained him.

  “I can go somewhere else if you like.”

  “Sorry.”

  The dwarf had a hold of his boat and was keeping it steady. “You may want to come over here. I can’t row both of them.”

  “I can’t even row one of them.” Rawk threw down his oars with relief, then undertook the nasty task of getting out of his boat and into the other. He imagined it looked comical to those watching, but he was very aware of his pursuers and what they were up to. One was working at the knot in a rope. He had forgotten his sword for the moment and was working with clumsy fingers as Rawk had done.

  In the end, Rawk gave up on his dignity and simply rolled over the wale and into the other boat. He was a sorry mess, covered in squashed mangoes and peaches, as the dwarf started to row. When he got his head above the painted timber he noticed they were heading upstream. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to go that way?” He pointed directly across the river then sucked some mango from under his fingernail.