Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  Fuck. This is a stupid way to die.

  They expect me to bluster or back off: that’s my edge.

  The guard is saying, “Step back or I’ll shoot,” even as I come up to him and slap his bow down and to the side with the palm of my left hand. The bow triggers at the motion, and the quarrel spannggs off stone as I quickstep to his left, to keep his armored body between me and the fumbler’s bow, and overhand the club to crunch down on the top of his head. I pivot on my left foot and kick his collapsing body toward the fumbler, but the fumbler skips back and keeps hold of his bow. I know with sickening certainty that it’s only a heartbeat until he shouts an alarm, and a heartbeat later that steel broadhead will leap from his bow and slam into my body. At this range it’ll go right through me, and I can’t get there before the shot.

  I throw the club at him to spoil his shot, but he ducks it; I spring up into a leaping side kick, hoping to take the quarrel in the meat of a leg and praying that he’ll miss my balls, but even as I’m going up something whickers by my head, brushing my hair, and the hilt of a dagger blossoms from the notch of his collarbone.

  His eyes go wide, and his brows draw together; he drops the bow, and my side kick nearly takes his head off before the bow hits the ground. The quarrel falls from its groove as the bow triggers harmlessly with a flat whack. The back of the guard’s skull makes a wet crunch on the stone floor.

  And I pause for a moment’s astonished wonder that I’m alive.

  I pull my knife from the guard’s throat and wipe it on his breeches as Talann runs lightly toward me. The lips of the wound bubble and shift ever so slightly in and out with his whistling breath, driving little rivulets of blood across the exposed cartilage. A little blood sprays up across my face and tickles as it drips into my beard. I turn him over on his face so most of the blood will drain onto the floor: he might not drown.

  I silently hand the knife back to Talann when she arrives—she’s a lot better with it than I’ll ever be. She grins at me. “Told you I can do impressive things.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I tell her truthfully. Never mind that it almost took my ear off. “That was a spectacular throw. You saved my life.”

  “We can call it even, then, shall we?”

  I take her hand in a comrade’s grip, and her eyes glow. “Yeah. We can.”

  She coughs and turns away, blushing a little, looking down at the guards. “Better cut their throats, huh?”

  I shake my head. “I think they’ll sleep till we’re out of here. With those cracked skulls they might never wake up, anyway, but let’s give them the chance. They’re not badguys, y’know, just soldiers doing their jobs.”

  She squints at me consideringly. “You’re a little different than I imagined you’d be.”

  “You’re not the first person to tell me that. Can you shoot as well as you throw?”

  She shrugs. “Probably.”

  “Grab those bows, then, and let’s get on with this.”

  While she gathers up the crossbows, cocks and loads them, I can’t help but appreciate the very interesting streamlined curves that fill the trusty’s robe I gave her. I remember how she looked through Pallas’ eyes, but Pallas doesn’t have the hormonal responses to make that memory as compelling as this experience—and, y’know, there are few attitudes as seductive as uncritical adoration.

  I turn away and pull the lamp down from its peg. “Ready?”

  “Always.” She holds a crossbow in each hand like twin pistols of a gunslinger, and her grin reminds me of mine.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Would you believe me if I said this is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream?”

  I hope the question’s rhetorical; silently I snuff the lamp and plunge the corridor into darkness. I set the lamp on the floor and ease the door open by feel, just a crack, and look down into the bowl-shaped Theater of Truth.

  Down in the center of the bowl, Lamorak lies strapped to a table on a platform surrounded by what look like limelights. A tall man in some kind of weird coverall and mask is slicing into Lamorak’s belly with a scalpel; there’s another wound on his right thigh, an ugly I-shaped thing stitched shut with coarse black thread, and his left thigh is swollen up like a fucking blimp.

  Ten men sit on benches down there, their backs to me, and hang on the masked guy’s—this must be Arkadeil—every word.

  He says, “Now that we have exposed the abdominal wall, we again face several choices. Insect eggs are appropriate here, and are recommended, in fact, unless one has had substantial surgical experience. Opening the wall here is extremely tricky—a slight nick in the small intestine can release digestive acids into the abdominal cavity. While death of this sort is satisfyingly painful, it can come too swiftly for effective interrogation, and we are again faced with the specter of our greatest enemy: shock. On the other hand, if you do feel competent to open the abdominal wall, there is a variety of wasp whose larvae are particularly suited to this area. You will find details on collecting these in your notes. Please review them while I open the muscle.”

  I grind my teeth together against the rising bile that scorches the back of my throat. “It’s a class. It’s a fucking torture seminar.”

  “Lamorak’s in there?” Talann whispers at my shoulder. “How does he look?”

  “Bad. That left thigh looks like trouble. Is there another door?”

  “I didn’t see one—I don’t think so.”

  “All right. I’m going in. You drag the guards inside and hold the door. Anyone comes up the corridor, shoot him.”

  “With pleasure. What are you going to do?”

  I take a deep breath, let it out slowly.

  “Improvise.”

  I slip through the door and stroll down the broad flight of steps carved into the limestone, past curving rows of benches, thumbs hooked behind my belt, ambling along as though I’ve got all the time in the world. The students down there seem to be wearing only fabric, no armor or even leather in evidence, and no weapons, by Tyshalle’s grace. Lamorak must have glimpsed my movement—with a gasp, he tears his eyes free of their hypnotic fixation on the glittering scalpel and meets mine, staring in blank wonder.

  Arkadeil turns and follows his gaze, his face invisible behind the shimmer of silver mesh.

  “May I help you?” he asks politely.

  “Sure,” I say in a friendly tone. The students jump at the sound of my voice. “One second, all right?”

  I stroll down the last couple of steps, down past the students, who still sit and wait obediently and expectantly for their master to explain this interruption.

  It’d be swell if I could stroll right up to Lamorak’s side, but Arkadeil is smart and wary, and Lamorak himself blows the game: a tear leaks down his face and he croaks, “Caine—my god, Caine . . .”

  Idiot. I should let him die.

  Arkadeil puts the edge of the scalpel against the twitching flesh above Lamorak’s carotid artery. “Mmm. Caine, is it? An honor. I presume you’re here about this one?”

  I stop and spread my empty hands. “We can negotiate, Arkadeil. I’ve heard you’re a reasonable man. A simple swap: your life for his.”

  “I think not.” He waves a gloved hand at his students. “Restrain him.”

  Fabric rustles behind me, and I turn to face the students at my back. They shift restlessly, looking at the floor, the walls, each other, anything but me, and you can read the strength of my legend in their downcast eyes.

  Several of them have more guts than brains, and they force themselves to unsteady feet, tentatively, each trying to time his rush so that he won’t be the first one to reach me.

  “Courage is admirable,” I tell them, smiling through the guard’s blood that still trickles down my face, “but it is not a survival trait.”

  “Come on,” one of them says urgently, though he’s holding himself entirely still. “He can’t take us all at once . . .”

  And he’s right, o
f course. A couple more stand up uncertainly.

  I show them as many teeth as will fit in my widest wolf grin, my best Fuck with me, I dare you expression. “That’s what the boys outside thought,” I remind them. “They were in armor. With crossbows, and clubs. They were professional soldiers.”

  I give them a moment to think this over.

  The students’ eyes fix on me like jacklighted deer.

  I open my arms as though I’m offering them a group hug.

  “Where’s your armor, kids?”

  Nobody answers.

  “Now sit down.”

  They sink back onto the benches like sandbagged sailors. I turn back to Arkadeil, fold my arms, and wait.

  “All right, then.” Arkadeil’s words are calm, but his voice is tight with tension. He stands on the far side of the table, and now a thin line of blood trickles down Lamorak’s neck from the scalpel’s pressure. “I don’t imagine that you can be persuaded to give yourself up, but if you do not leave immediately, you will be rescuing a corpse.”

  “Caine . . .” Lamorak says hoarsely, his eyes rolling white, “make him kill me. For god’s sake make him kill me!”

  “Oh, relax, you big baby. I’m the only one around here allowed to kill people.”

  “I do not bluff, Caine,” Arkadeil says.

  I shrug. “Cut his throat and there’s nothing to stop me from tearing your head off.”

  “Then we are at an impasse. Time, however, is on my side.”

  “You’re not the only one with an ally. Talann: in the shoulder.”

  Whack! without hesitation; she must have been aiming already, clever girl. The students all jump and cry out as the quarrel pounds into Arkadeil’s shoulder joint and flattens him like a hammer blow. The scalpel chimes prettily as it skitters across the stone. Arkadeil writhes on the floor, clutching at the quarrel’s steel vanes and keening a high, disbelieving whine.

  “I could,” I say generally toward the shadows above, “really get used to having you around.”

  “Hey, likewise,” she replies softly, then shouts, “Move and you get the next one through the skull!”

  Arkadeil slumps, surrendering. I step up to the operating table and start to unbuckle the restraining straps. As soon as he gets an arm free, Lamorak clutches at my hand with desperate strength, and his eyes overflow with tears.

  “Caine, I can’t believe it . . .” he whispers. “They sent you for me, right? They found out I was down here and they sent you to get me out?”

  He can’t say who they is, cannot speak the name, and neither can I; but I can still tell him the brutal truth. “No.”

  “No? What do you mean, no?”

  “I was ordered to let you die. The only reason I’m down here is I need you to get me to Pallas Ril. Think about that the next time you put on that armor and sling your sword. Speaking of your sword, Berne has it, did you know that?”

  He doesn’t seem to hear me; he’s still lost in the cold concept of our mutual employer having so little regard for him that they wanted him tortured to death.

  “My god, my god, I’ve gotta get out of here . . .”

  I free the last strap. “Let’s go, then.”

  He looks at me blankly. “My leg—I can’t walk. My leg’s broken.”

  “Broken?” I repeat stupidly. Lamorak is a big man, and I’m a small one—he outweighs me by maybe twenty-five kilos, and Talann’s smaller than I am.

  How in the name of every bleeding god am I going to get him out of here?

  10

  KOLLBERG GNAWED ON a knuckle. He couldn’t believe Caine would be so stupid, couldn’t believe he would risk his precious, extraordinarily lucrative life for Lamorak, and especially couldn’t believe that Caine leaked out in dialogue what should have been a privileged backstage communication.

  He was beginning to believe that the Board of Governors might have been right about Caine all along: the man might be actively dangerous. He was certainly behaving very strangely, taking unaccustomed risks, foolish chances, being uncharacteristically reluctant to exercise his primary talent—killing people—and now, leaking backstage orders to the public!

  Kollberg’s fist had come very close to stroking the recall there, very close indeed; the last thing he wanted half a million first-handers to take away from this Adventure was some knowledge of how little an Actor’s life was actually worth.

  Well, he decided, let it play out. Lamorak was crippled, and Caine was too pragmatic to give his own life for another’s; Lamorak would almost certainly die here, and the death of an Actor is a sure boost in the secondhand market.

  And Caine’s references to him, personally, he merely noted with what he thought was admirable dispassion: Kollberg thought of himself as too professional to allow being called a flabby grey-fleshed maggot to affect his judgment. The amphetamines had something to do with this, perhaps; he was not unaware of the chemical elevation of his mood. This latest insult he simply, almost lovingly, filed on his growing mental tally sheet, every entry of which chewed away at the nether regions of his pride. Sometime soon, perhaps very shortly indeed, he and Caine would settle up.

  11

  HABRAK STARED IN grim dismay and gathering anger at the tangled, soot-blackened rope tied to the notched steel bar. The sentry who’d brought this to him and laid it on his desk stood stiffly and spoke of how they’d found their comrade bound and gagged on the roof alongside the guardwalk. “They were untying him when I left. I don’t think he saw anything, and I thought it was more important to get this to you immediately.”

  “You did it right, pikeman.”

  If he really had a bit of brain, Habrak thought, he’d have left the rope in place and taken each man as he climbed out of the chimney.

  But, as it was, these intruders, these lawless scum—whoever they might be—who had crept into the Donjon, his Donjon, they were trapped. They were trapped, and he could take them.

  “Assemble the guards without alarum,” he growled. “We’ll file down and search every inch. Our friends down there might not yet know we’re on to them. Tell the boys not to worry about saving them for questioning. Anyone who’s not a guard and not in a cell or the Pit, I want him dead. Shoot him down. No mercy.”

  He rose and reached for his weapons. “I want a whole pile of bodies, you understand? A whole pile.”

  12

  “IT MIGHT BE different, had you not shot me,” Arkadeil pants with pain-thinned blandness, “but with this wound, no one will believe you are in my custody, and I daresay I haven’t enough value as a hostage that a guard will let you pass to spare my life.”

  “I’m not planning to spare your life,” I tell him. “Shut up.”

  “Caine,” Lamorak breathes thinly, as he ties what’s left of his blouse around the smile of the skin-deep slice across his belly, “make him take off his hood.”

  “Don’t bother me right now.”

  Ten very nervous students sit on the lowest bench, trembling and licking their sweaty upper lips. I point at the biggest, strongest-looking one. “You. Come over here.”

  “Me?” He presses a palm to his chest, looking around and halfheartedly pretending that I’m pointing at the guy next to him.

  “Come on, move it.”

  “Hey, why are you picking on me? I didn’t do any—”

  “Talann,” I say sharply, “shoot this dumb son of a whore.”

  He springs to his feet like an overwound jack-in-the-box and flutters his hands in the air. “Don’t! Don’t! All right!” He scurries over to me, wearing a smile of eager helpfulness frozen into a twisted rictus of fear.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ru-Rushall, if it please your—”

  “Shut up. Lamorak—” I turn and offer him my arm. “—I give you Rushall to be your trusty steed. Come on—I’ll help you mount up.”

  Lamorak squints at him, then shrugs and summons a sickly smile. “Beats walking, I guess.”

  “P-please . . .” Rushall stammers.
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  “I said shut up,” I remind him. “Horses don’t talk. Turn around.”

  Rushall continues to whimper wordlessly under his breath, but he accepts Lamorak’s weight obediently enough. They both grunt—Rushall in effort, Lamorak in pain.

  “Make Arkadeil take off that hood, Caine,” Lamorak repeats with effort. “Then maybe I can help . . . otherwise, deadweight . . .”

  His color is bad, corpse-pale and slightly green, and he looks like it’s an effort to hang on to consciousness. He’s fighting shock with long, slow breaths—the son of a bitch must be tougher than I thought. Even so he looks like he can’t spare the effort to explain, so I don’t ask. I go over to where Arkadeil huddles on the floor.

  “All right, you heard him. Take it off.”

  He flinches away from me and wraps his good arm around his head to hold the hood where it is. Rather than argue with him, I give a sharp, spiral twist to the vanes of the quarrel that sticks out of his shoulder; the steel vibrates in my hand as it grinds bone inside his shoulder joint. He howls and lets go of the hood to grab at my arm; I pull the hood off his head with my other hand.

  He has the craggy, high-cheekboned face of a Lipkan noble and stringy hair now matted with sweat, as grey as his pain-blanched cheeks. He pants through clenched teeth that seal the whimpers inside his chest: he’s holding on to Lipkan honor as best he can.

  Lamorak says, “Stand up.”

  Now, it’s damned clear to me that Arkadeil has no intention of cooperating in any—but son of a bitch, stand up he does, slowly uncoiling spidery limbs until he comes to his feet. I glance over my shoulder at Lamorak and now I understand. His surfer-perfect face wears a familiar expression: the transcendent concentration of mindview.

  “The source for your suit,” Lamorak murmurs. “Give it to me.”

  Arkadeil’s good hand slips robotically down through the neckline of his beekeeper’s suit. Glassy eyed, he speaks without any seeming awareness of his hand’s action. “You cannot imagine that you will escape . . .”

  He goes on in this vein while his hand brings out a tiny, glossy black stone about the size of a pea. I’ve seen ones like it before: it’s a griffinstone.