Call of the Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  Qualleron smiled, a toothy grin across his wide, golden face. “Excellent. Are you ready to recommence?”

  Alaric lifted his sword in a flourish he intended as a salute. “When you are, good sir.”

  Qualleron attacked without mercy, and Alaric blasted a leg from beneath him with a spell, sending the troll to one knee. Alaric moved in to strike, drawing blood from between the joints of Qualleron's lobstered gauntlet.

  “Excellent maneuver!” Qualleron bellowed, then struck at Alaric, rattling his joints again and again. He shifted his attack to the left, and Alaric moved clear of the swinging sword. The sheer speed and force Qualleron brought to bear with each strike was shocking.

  “We have the wall!” someone shouted from behind Alaric, and a lusty, ragged cheer rang out from around him. Alaric cast a glance as he spun out of the way of another mighty swing of Qualleron's blade. There were no Machine cloaks visible in the spectators; all were black and fallen upon the ground, downed in the battle, which had now ceased. All eyes were upon him and Qualleron, and not a soul dared interfere.

  “Your employer's forces appear to be flagging,” Alaric said, as Qualleron paused his attack. He took up defensive footing, but Alaric made no move to shift to the offensive.

  The rattle of an engine clicked to a stop, and Qualleron turned. Alaric followed his gaze; Curatio's truck had stopped just beyond the crowd that surrounded them. “I believe we've secured the dockyards, Guildmaster,” Curatio called, quite a bit louder than his usual pleasant intonations.

  “See to the walls separating us from the city,” Alaric called back. “And get some men on firefighting duty–”

  “Yes, yes,” Curatio called back. “May I point out that you have a troll the size of a dwelling in front of you, and that my gun here could easily dispense with him if you were to–”

  “No,” Alaric said firmly. “This is Qualleron, a man of honor, and I will not see him gunned down in the streets.”

  Qualleron saluted with his sword. “I shall not surrender; honor forbids it. I do, however, yield this field of battle to you. Will you grant me safe conduct beyond the captured walls, or am I required to fight my way free?”

  Alaric had a brief vision of the troll tearing his way through the dockyards, butchering ancestors knew how many men to get clear – or before he was brought down. “How can I do anything but grant safe conduct to such an honorable foe? You may pass freely, Qualleron, and I hope we shall meet again. You are, by far, a more decent and honorable combatant than any other I have met thus far in these days.” Here he thought of Coordinator Stiehle. “I will escort you out myself, so there will be no confusion.” He sheathed Aterum, hoping Qualleron would take his cue from the act.

  “Very well,” Qualleron said, sheathing his mighty blade.

  Something thumped and rattled behind him, and a black-coated corpse landed with a mighty thump. Alaric turned and found Birissa stalking out behind the flung body of a Machine thug, sword in hand and anger lighting her face. “Stupid skulking black coats,” she muttered, then turned to take in the scene of battle. “Think they can get away from me–” She looked up at Qualleron and her eyes lit up.

  “No,” Alaric said, stepping between them. “Hold, Birissa.” He put up his hands.

  She peered at him curiously. “What the hell are you doing holding your hands up like that? I heard you fine.” She glanced at Qualleron and then sheathed her sword. “You granting the big boy safe conduct? Seems fair enough. He's a hard fighter, that one. Not a low dog, neither.” She bowed her head to him. “Want me to walk him out?”

  “I will do it,” Alaric said, catching a glimpse of Vaste easing up behind Birissa, Shirri and Pamyra with him. “If you would – kindly see to the safety of the ships' crews herein?”

  Birissa gave him a nod, as did Vaste, and he knew that the task was in good hands.

  With a wave of his hand, Alaric gestured to the path to the main road through the dockyards, nodding at Qualleron. “If you'd care to...?”

  “I would be honored,” Qualleron said, and fell in beside Alaric as they made their way between the mighty airships toward the path out of the yards.

  Chapter 69

  Cyrus

  “Word from below, sir,” Willems said, leaping the final few steps to the top of the wall that surrounded Reikonos. His leather boots clapped lightly against the stones, not ringing out loudly as Cyrus's would. Willems's face almost glowed in the moon and torchlight. “We have the yards!”

  A mighty cheer rang out from the garrison forces here on the wall. Cyrus smiled, allowed them their moment.

  But a moment was all he allowed.

  “McCoie,” Cyrus said, turning to his new lieutenant. “Take men and go back to where we entered the wall, before the gates of the dockyards. You must take crates, barrels, whatever, and barricade it against attack. Place men with muskets behind them, ready to fire at all who approach. Access to the wall is an immediate path to retaking the dockyards, and I don't mean to cede that high ground without a hell of a fight.” He clapped McCoie on the shoulder, causing the smaller man to blanch, even though he restrained himself. “Appoint another to carry out the same action behind us here.”

  “Aye, my Lord Davidon,” McCoie said, and snapped to it. He issued his orders quickly and cleanly, and then was off, two parties of Watchmen moving to their respective tasks.

  When they had gone, Cyrus was left with no more than a handful of men. “You and you,” he said, pointing to two others. “Have you any experience with the cannons?”

  One nodded immediately, the other said, “Some.”

  “Prepare the cannons along the wall and ready yourselves in case you are needed,” Cyrus said. “I doubt we'll see trouble from beyond the city, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Lord Protector tried to pull some trickery. Be ready for that, or in case they come over the wall path, as we did, prepare yourselves to move the cannons to fire upon them.”

  Nods and swift acceptance greeted his orders. Once more, the ranks around him thinned, as did the quiet and worshipful looks. Soon enough he was left with but Willems and a few others, the former of which looked troubled.

  “What?” Cyrus asked, jarring Willems, who seemed surprised that Cyrus had deigned to take notice of his pensiveness.

  “I am merely surprised we won,” Willems said, answering so swiftly that Cyrus realized he fell into honesty without aforethought. “Ah...sorry, my–”

  “Don't apologize,” Cyrus said. “Battle is never certain, regardless of who you have on your side. That includes me. I've lost battles before. As few as I could, but I have lost.” He stared out into the burning torches and lone, flaming ship that colored the dockyards. Somehow water was being sprayed upon it, though Cyrus could not see how, only the hiss of smoke as it rained down in a steady arc from behind the flames. “This was a bold gambit, and fortunately for us, it paid off. But it just easily might not have.”

  “You're a god to these men,” Willems muttered, casting a sidelong look at the few still scattered around, trying not to appear they were eavesdropping but mostly failing at it.

  “Well, I was a man to the men of my own day,” Cyrus said. “I fought gods. This apotheosis that occurred after I left is the most curious thing. Statues that look nothing like me. Men holding up all my virtues as example and erasing all my vices. I assure you that they're there, and that if you remain close to me long enough, they'll madden you as certainly as they do my wife and friends.” A sharp pain hit him in the heart just then, remembering, again, Vara. He stared out over the yard, focusing on the flames dancing above them, casting the ships around it in light. The fire was half the size it had been moments before. It was going out. Maybe soon she'll return to me – now that we've won this fight.

  Willems must not have known what to say to that, for he took a different tack. “They think you're going to deliver them from all their afflictions.”

  “I'll certainly do that for as many as I'm capable of,” Cyrus said. �
��Though I have my doubts I'll be able to deliver them from the ones that are self-inflicted but seem outwardly directed.”

  “Can you do that, though?” Willems asked, urgent honesty again getting in the way of tact. He always seemed to remember himself after the question spilled forth. “Apologies, my lord, for my forthrightness.”

  “You should be forthright,” Cyrus said. “This is your life, man. Your city. You've lived here longer and more recently than I have. Furthermore, we wouldn't be in this mess if the man who sits atop this place now had been mildly responsive to questions like yours. To answer your inquiry – yes, I think so.” He nodded slowly. “We've certainly done more than topple a single ruler in the past, though this place, this time, it poses some unique challenges. Still and all, we seem to be doing all right...so far.” He turned on Willems. If left unchallenged, he'd ask questions all day and doubt himself all the way to hell and gone. “I need you to take charge of securing the wall around the dockyards, the one that separates us from the city. The gates will need to be manned, we'll need patrols walking the perimeter, others watching them in case archers – I mean riflemen – or either, actually, given the loudness of these rifles – decide to come in over them as we did.”

  Willems looked like he bore the fire of a thousand more questions in his eyes, but doused it in the name of duty as Cyrus watched. “Aye, my lord,” Willems said, and nodded sharply, once. That was good, a sign of discipline and restraint.

  “You men,” Cyrus said, pointing at a couple of the remainder. “Set up patrol for this area. The perimeter still needs to be guarded.” With an uneasy glance, he looked beyond the walls of Reikonos once more. With all the commotion in the dockyards he couldn't hear the scourge scrapping beyond the stone and the moat water. But he knew they were out there, nonetheless, and it left him an uneasy feeling. “Keep watch on those damned things. We don't need the enemy without catching us by surprise while we're trying to deal with the enemy within.” And he descended the stairs, trying to put that uneasy feeling behind by leaving the wall.

  It followed him, regardless.

  Chapter 70

  Alaric

  “I thank you for conducting me safely through your lines,” Qualleron said, walking easily beside Alaric, matching his pace to that of the old knight. Alaric tried to speed his own so as not to make the troll wait eternally. Qualleron's long strides could surely have chewed up the walk in moments, far swifter than Alaric could have covered the same ground unless he ran. “It speaks to your own philosophy of battle, and is a rare thing in this part of the world.” The troll's face darkened. “In any part of the world, anymore.”

  “What part of this world do you hail from, friend?” Alaric asked. His own joints were aching from the battering he'd taken in the battle. Even through sword and armor, the rattling blows of the mighty troll were much for his body to handle easily.

  Qualleron's wide lips split in a smile of remembrance. “I come from the nation of Baftshan. We hail from a proud tradition, a remnant piece of the once-mighty Prenasian Empire.” He looked down at Alaric. “You have heard of it, of course.”

  “I'm afraid I have not had that pleasure,” Alaric said.

  Qualleron's brow jutted up in surprise. “The Prenasian Empire was the greatest power in the world – thrice. Once in days of antiquity. Again, some thousand years ago. And finally, in the revival times half a millennia hence.” His chest swelled with pride and he looked at the heavens as if for inspiration. “The last defeat, that was the hardest to bear. Amatgarosa – our most hated foe, they broke us. Shattered our empire into a hundred small fiefdoms like Baftshan. Scattered the people out of some of our largest cities. Split us along the lines of our races – trolls like myself, as you call them, were herded into the desert lands of Baftshan. The goblins of Dulenan were sent into the mountainous realms of Aqhriz.” His eyes moved back and forth in calculation. “And as to the bulk of us, the shadowed men of Shirathar, they – well, they were split among the many cities of Badanhan.” His voice quieted. “And we shall not be allowed to combine and rise again.”

  “It sounds like a bitter and regrettable loss,” Alaric said, intrigued by this bit of history, pertaining to a part of the world he'd never even considered. Lands beyond the shores of Arkaria and Luukessia? He knew they were there, but there was so much else to focus on here that he'd never allowed himself much contemplation of those possibilities.

  “My people still feel it keenly,” Qualleron said. “But it was deserved, I must say. We had moved away from the paths of honor. Our gods disfavored us, and our arrogance led to the fall and the sundering. Every time we would rise, become mighty, we would lose sight of the tenets that brought us ascendancy. The fall would always follow.”

  Alaric was left to think of the gods of Arkaria, in their arrogance. He'd stood before their councils, heard their judgments pronounced and thrown down, meted to those they regarded as the low creatures in their keeping – and these were the powers and principalities of the time. They'd treated dwarf and man, elf and goblin as though they were dogs or slaves. “Heed us or be destroyed,” that had been the message, and Cyrus had heard it clearly enough, at least once it had become obvious. “Pride does tend to elevate one to a mighty height, allowing for an even more damaging fall,” Alaric said at last.

  “Do you think it is the course of all peoples to forget what made them great?” Qualleron asked. “Are we fated always to ascend, to climb, and then forget the principles of our hold? And thus to drop into the chasm?”

  “I don't know,” Alaric said, truly intrigued by this thought. “It certainly seems so, at times. I have watched my people for a considerable time. My people, elves, dark elves, they certainly seem to rise and fall with regularity, almost cyclical. Whether that's down to them forgetting themselves, forgetting the things that brought them whatever greatness they could be ascribed – well, that I couldn't say.”

  “It is a theory I have,” Qualleron said. “I hope never to see my people rise and fall again. It is too painful to contemplate, even at our low place where we now sit – mercenaries for hire, war dogs feasting off the scraps of our once-powerful reputation. To see us climb, then collapse?” He shook his head. “I would rather us stay low, never have, than to see us lose it all. To have it happen again...” He drifted into silence as they approached the gate ahead. “They would not allow us to live afterward. Not again.”

  “Truly, I am sorry,” Alaric said.

  “These troubles are not yours, of course. You have your own difficulties.” Qualleron let out a loud, barking laugh. “Here I talk to you of my peoples' difficulties, of our rises and falls, when you sit in the most backward city in the world, choked out by those things beyond your walls, and even by the dictates of the man who rules you. I apologize for my self pity; I was too struck by being in the presence of a kindred spirit.”

  “I was held rapt by your story,” Alaric said, slowing as they came upon the gate. Already, the City Watch was here, watching them warily in their approach. “I suppose I am backward, for I have only been to two lands in my life, this and one across the small sea to the east, now fallen into the ruin of the scourge. To hear your tales, even as filled with sadness as they may be...it is enrapturing, a painting of the world beyond the bounds I've explored. I thank you for sharing it.”

  “It is good to speak with a man of honor,” Qualleron said, peering down at him. “There are so few of us anywhere in this scrabbling, stinking, treacherous world. We are kindred wherever we encounter one another.”

  “Agreed,” Alaric said, extending a hand up to Qualleron.

  “We will meet again in battle, Alaric Garaunt,” Qualleron said, enshrouding Alaric's arm up to the elbow in his own grasp. He was gentle, but firm. “For I cannot walk away with this undone, and the possibility of meeting you again in combat would be too tantalizing to pass up, even if my loyalties were not sworn.”

  “It is a shame that we must fight against one another,” Alaric said, smilin
g slightly. “I wish it were otherwise.”

  “I do not,” Qualleron said as the gates creaked open to reveal a quiet, empty avenue leading away from the dockyards. “For if I did not battle you, it would be an endless swarm of honorless crickets I would be facing, and I have already killed enough of them to fill my belly of this thing for a lifetime.” He nodded, sharply, once. “If I could find my end in battle with you, I would consider my life fulfilled.”

  Alaric blinked, unsure how to take this. “I hope that you could find more reason to go on than a final battle between us.”

  “Honorable battle is its own reward,” Qualleron said, almost sadly, as he walked between the mighty, open gates of the dockyards. “And I find so little reward in life these days. Til we meet, Alaric Garaunt. A noble man, you are.”

  “They call me a knight,” Alaric said. “Or at least they did.”

  “I have heard this word of yours. I like it,” Qualleron said with a smile. “Until we meet again, Sir Knight – be well.” And the troll walked off, shoulders square, head held high, into the dark and brooding streets of Reikonos.

  Chapter 71

  Guy

  “You're on corpse detail,” Birissa said, slinging a carcass over one shoulder as she gave Guy a probing look.

  “Come again?” Guy asked. The smell around these smaller battle sites of the dockyards was just terrible, far worse already than that alleyway where he and the Davidon impersonator had come to blows with the thugs. The whole place now had a right reek to it that even the burning ship – nearly put out, now – couldn't paper over. Fish wrappings were nothing compared to this, couldn't hold an oil lamp to the stench. Guy had his sleeve just about crammed into both nostrils and still the stink of death and bowels permeated his entire skull cavity. Felt like it was tickling his brain in the worst way.