by Steve Vera
“We don’t have the luxury of indulging our desires, Tarsy,” Noah said. “If we kill him we’ll be so busy defending ourselves against every Wizard alive that the Drynn will sweep over everything. Failure is not an option.”
“And if we are attacked?” Cirena asked in High Common.
“You will not be attacked,” Markus said from their side. He and his troop had taken their place by Sir Taksony, Serjeant Arnaut and Archer Aluvien. “We are under the Sovereignty of Nu’rome.”
In Nu’rome that might mean something, but out here? We’ll soon see...
Centurion Balvados walked out of the barracks and down the four wooden stairs with his helmet on his head, the distinctive horizontal crest of red-dyed horsehair bouncing with each stride. He was accompanied by his Sorcerer of the Parthenon (just a three-ringer) and two fully armored Legionnaire bodyguards brandishing long spears behind him.
“I know this fiend, Sur Stavengre,” Dwensolt said from his left, one eye on Gavin the other on the approaching figure. “Let me meet him in your sted. I fear that should you discern his true nature you would have no choice but to strike him where he stands.” Dwensolt punctuated his point by chopping the air with his hand. “Honor would demand it of you.”
Gavin eyed the approacher. How can we win this war if I hate Vambrace more than I hate the Drynn? The man’s eyes were flat and dry—like a lizard’s—and seemed to move within his skull as if there were strings attached to the backs of his eyeballs. There was a soft crunch of grass with every stride.
He felt numb, disconnected, as if he were watching himself in a movie. He glanced at Donovan and dimly wished that he had listened and stayed inside with Amanda and Skip. His presence would only invoke the Collector’s curiosity, and knowing Donovan...
Gavin nodded. “Very well, Dwensolt. He’s all yours.”
“You are wise for one so young,” Dwensolt said, giving Gavin a reassuring pat on his arm. “There will be a time for a reckoning, just not this day.”
Gavin didn’t respond. Instead he watched Centurion Balvados make his approach.
“A hail to you, Wizard,” Balvados called. He’d taken a stand at the entrance of the raised portcullis—as if it could stop a Wizard, had it been closed—his Sorcerer by his side, the two Legionnaires bracketing.
The Collector said nothing. Just kept walking. Ten feet. Five feet...
“I ask you your business, Wizard. You have tread foot upon Nu’romian soil.”
Instead of answering, the Wizard’s body flickered and then burst apart into a million fragments of shadow-sand. They slid through, over and under the four Nu’romians positioned in front of him and then coalesced behind them. Once reformed, the Collector continued forward without missing a step.
“This affront is inexcusable, Wiz—”
“Silence,” the Collector said, and suddenly Centurion Balvados doubled over in a grunt, clutching his stomach. “I’ve come for the slayers of my kin. Impede me, and I will cook your entrails and feed them to your men.” He turned and met the protest of the Sorcerer with a single, scathing glare, daring him to say something.
The Sorcerer blanched and grabbed the shoulders of his commanding officer, muttering an incantation only he could hear.
Nope. Things look pretty much the same.
“I know who it is you seek,” Dwensolt said, making his way to the Collector in a slow, measured gait.
“What is this? The vanquished returns?” the Collector asked. His voice was as dry as coal dust. “Is that not an offense punishable by death, Dwensolt the Oathbreaker, by your Druidic order?” He spat out the last words as if they were rotten cherries.
“It is a fate I accept to save the world.”
The two men stood face to face, Dwensolt with his crazy hair and old, embroidered green robes, frayed at the ankles, the Wizard garbed in bright scarlet robes that, though dusty, were thick and luxuriant and woven with glyphs. Each held a staff—Dwensolt’s a white, elegantly crooked staff he’d liberated from Almitra with a huge emerald implanted at the top, the Wizard’s a long and straight black shaft with cruel talons gripping a bloody ruby at the top. Surrounding the two men was every man in the garrison. All were silent.
“And what tidings do you carry, Oathbreaker, that should cause you to violate your sworn word?” The Collector flicked a viper’s glance at them. If he recognized their emblem or style of armor, he didn’t let it show. Part of Gavin almost wanted him to.
Dwensolt lifted his chin ever so slightly and met the Wizard’s snake-like eyes with his own volatile embers. “Asmodeous the Pale has returned to Theia, Wizard.”
Finally, there was movement. The man’s eyes narrowed. He flicked another glance Gavin’s way but this time it lingered. It was like looking into a black hole. His gaze sucked in everything and allowed nothing to escape. Not even light. Then Tarsidion, then Cirena, then Noah, then Sir Taksony, though when he got to Sir Taksony his left eyebrow actually arched slightly, as if to say, “huh?”
And then he saw Donovan.
With the sharp, abruptness of a bird’s listening, the Collector homed in on their sunglasses-wearing associate. He left Dwensolt, marched over and stopped in front of Donovan, who as usual was as expressive as a block of ice.
The Collector regarded him coldly, studying the grips of the three pistols holstered to his hips and under his pits and then finally into the red-tinted lenses of Donovan Smith’s Ray Bans.
“What sort of perversion could offend me more than the stench of four Magi?” he asked with a sneer, his lizard eyes boring into a motionless Donovan.
“Take two steps backward, asshole,” Donovan said and for the first time, Gavin was actually rooting for Donovan, cheering for him. If Donovan was the one who killed him, and not the Shardyn, that might change things. Maybe. Probably not, actually.
“You will address me in the proper tongue, mongrel, or I will peel the skin from your body. Give me your name.”
“What’s he saying?” Donovan asked.
“He wants your name,” Gavin said.
“No. Before that.”
“It was nothing important,” Noah answered for him.
“I’m not going to ask you again, Gavin. What the fuck did this piece of shit just say?”
“Answer me or burn,” the Collector said.
Slowly, Donovan swiveled his head back to the Wizard, whose features were hidden beneath the folds of his hood, and leaned forward. “Go fuck yourself.”
The Collector snapped his arm toward Donovan. “Burn,” he said and grabbed Donovan’s shirt with a hand that combusted into red flames.
At least that was his intent. In a movement so fast it defied focus, Donovan’s arm shot out, batted the flaming hand away with the back of his knuckles and then hit the Wizard in the throat with the ‘L’ between his thumb and forefinger. The Collector staggered backward with a gasp, clutching his throat, and now there was life in those reptilian slits serving as eyes. Shock. And pain.
“Can’t chant if you can’t breathe, motherfucker,” Donovan said and then speared the edge of his boot dead center of the Wizard’s chest and blasted him eight feet back. The Collector’s body crashed into the grass in a messy pile of scarlet robes and splayed limbs. His staff went flying. Gavin could hear the man’s wheezing gurgle as he tried to draw in a breath.
“Don’t kill him, Donovan,” Gavin warned. “It’ll start a war.”
“Too late. I cracked his sternum and punctured his left lung.”
“Dammit, Donovan, you just started a war with Vambrace.” Gavin couldn’t muster the appropriate amount of anger.
“You’re an idiot if you think you can bargain with these fucks. He was going to kill us after he pumped us for information. He’s as easy to read as you are.” Donovan looked around at the assorted dropped jaws and seemed to grow
larger, reveling in the shocked admiration. He lifted his chin defiantly. “You’re already at war.”
The Wizard popped back up out of the grass, murder in his eyes. In his hand was a wickedly curved dagger, hook-like, made to disembowel, but before he started forward he pointed at his staff with his empty hand and with a slither against the grass it flew to his palm, bursting into crimson light the second it touched his skin. He stabbed it at Donovan and unleashed a ball of red flame the size of a watermelon.
But it never hit him. At two feet away, the ball of flame exploded around Donovan like an intercepted missile, scorching the ground and burning the air and while it did, Donovan’s silhouette stood calmly within.
The Collector staggered in shock, a pinkish froth bubbling out of his mouth. He tried to speak. Pointed.
“Yield, Wizard,” Gavin said, though part of him wanted nothing more than for Donovan to dismantle him with the infliction of maximum pain. “He is the slayer of Almitra, and he will kill you without compunction.”
This time it was tendrils of crimson lightning that shot out of the ruby at the top of the Collector’s staff, but these too broke against an invisible barrier like water jets against a windshield. When the crackle of lightning ceased, Donovan took a step forward.
I wish it was me, Gavin thought, his cloak bunched in his fist.
“Donovan, don’t kill him, we can imprison him, use him as leverage, show Vambrace that we come in peace—”
Donovan calmly pulled his Kbar from its sheath on his belt and ran his thumb over its edge. “When are you guys going to learn? You can’t change hatred.” He took a step forward. And then another. Nobody stopped him.
The gasping, dying Wizard tried to defend himself one last time with darts of flame that shot out of his fingers, only to fizzle as they neared Donovan. He snarled, narrowed his eyes as Donovan approached and then, in the same way he’d broken apart and reformed around Centurion Balvados, the Wizard exploded into shadow fragments and was whipped away by the wind.
The silence that followed thrummed. The Legionnaires assembled at first just looked at each other, their stares wide with disbelief and awe, and then at once a thunderous cheer ripped out of them—unadulterated and unrestrained. All eyes were on Donovan.
When the cheer finally subsided, Centurion Balvados was standing next to them, his eyes wide and disbelieving. A crow called.
“Decanus Arkeides,” he barked.
“Yes, Centurion.”
“You will escort Sur Stavengre and his—” Balvados paused and regarded Donovan before finishing his order, “—companions to the Counsel of Nu’rome with all haste. Know that the Red-cloths will return, seeking vengeance. Only in Nu’rome will you be safe.”
Decanus Arkeides saluted crisply by snapping his heels together, extending his arm parallel to the ground before bringing his fist to his heart. “I will defend them with my life.”
Balvados turned to Gavin. “There are horses in the stables. Take what you need and if what you say is truly coming...” He grasped Gavin’s right shoulder and looked him right in the eyes. “Godspeed.”
Chapter 34
At first, galloping down a slender cobblestone road threaded with streams and brooks in the middle of an enchanted fairytale was exhilarating, even if it was to flee evil, angry Wizards to a metropolis she’d never seen before in order to warn the world of their impending doom. Somehow, she could compartmentalize that reality and put it in a box in her mind under “heavy shit.”
It was the little things that were breaking her down. The longest Amanda had ever roughed it back home had been for three days. There, nestled on a nice, rustic mountain, was her favorite campground in the world, Malouf Mountain. A perfect blend of nature and amenities, Amanda could get her fix of nature and hiking and still utilize the fully functioning cabin at the base of the mountain with the super-clean, wood-enclosed toilets, classic rock wafting from concealed speakers and a vending machine that had great granola bars.
That was hardly the foundation necessary to survive on another world, where electricity hadn’t even been invented yet. They’d been roughing it here on Theia for who knew how long, she’d lost track of days, which was another thing that was driving her crazy. No calendars! No smart phone. No laptop or Starbucks or toothpaste or purple flip-flops...
No security. There was no 911 on Theia. In fact, Gavin was the 911 here.
All she could do was suck it up.
Sometimes the road was like a tossed rope, a loosely unraveled, sinuous passage that disappeared into patches of mist. Other times it was a tunnel, surrounded on all sides by stern-looking trees packed so tightly she could barely squeeze a hand through them, their branches stretching overhead to let in just enough sun or moon.
They were the only ones on the road and though the setting couldn’t be more opposite, Amanda was reminded of that drive to the Bastion, back on Earth, after their fight with Deos on the highway to the airport—like they were the only ones in the world alive.
Finally, after the sixth day, they got their first sniff of civilization in the form of a lamppost. It was a simple thing, a sturdy wooden S that ended in a lantern of soft purple light but to Amanda, the feeling of gripping desolation lifted. There were other people on this world besides crazy Druids, Nu’romian Legions and psychopathic Wizards.
Most nights the Road was tranquil but there had been a couple of nights, when they were traveling through a real rough area, wild area, where they could hear all kinds of noises and growls and coos and sounds she’d never even imagined before, just off it. Those were the nights she was happy to have so many men in armor and swords around her. With access to so many rings back in the Pass of Almitra, Dwensolt had studiously enchanted a whole set of language rings—one a night—and then had passed them out. The effect was immediate and bestowed on them all a camaraderie born of questions, debate and tales of past deeds.
Skip was the biggest hit. Every night, once they’d broken camp and either were sitting around a bonfire or inside the main hearth of some quaint hostel or parked out on the road itself, he was asked a hundred questions about Earth, which he’d answer in typical, disarming Skip manner. His answers, of course, tended to lead to a million other questions—like helicopters or satellites navigational systems or emergency rooms—and night by night they’d get a steady dose of Earth. She liked that, hearing about her home, about Skip’s home, about anybody’s home as long as it involved Earth. Skip shared his adventure stories freely and a few tidbits of the tragedies that had shaped the course of his life. She learned that Skip had an older brother he didn’t get along with, that he’d gone to boarding school in New York State—that was a surprise—that he’d been in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan as a Pararescueman, and had completed fifty-three missions on five continents. Of course, that was all the Cavaliers wanted to hear about and to Cirena’s chagrin he went into detail about gunships, assault rifles, body armor, jet fighters...they could listen to him forever, like kids around Papa-Skippie at bedtime. Amanda thought Cirena was going to chop his arms off when he offered to show them his fifty cal, which she’d made him keep hidden in the dumpling she carried.
They weren’t nearly as interested in her as Skip. When it wasn’t Skip or Gavin and his Shardyn, they were only too happy to share of their own adventures. Dwensolt and Amanda were usually the spectators. Uninteresting. They didn’t even try and approach Donovan.
“One more day, Amanda Kasey,” Serjeant Arnaut said, taking a seat across from her beside the fire. She liked Arnaut; he was cut from the same thread as Tarsidion—strong and reticent, though slightly more chatty. At least with her.
“Do you think they’ll listen?” she asked.
“You’re asking a man who’s been dead for the past five hundred years. I fear my knowledge on such a matter would be of no benefit.”
“I know.” A
manda hugged herself.
“But if I were to wager coin,” he continued with a glint in his eye, “I would wager that Sur Stavengre will win the day. It is an honor to meet a man of such quality.”
Amanda liked hearing that; it made her feel good, proud of her man. “He’s awesome,” she said with a smile.
“Indeed,” he said and looked around at the night surrounding them. “You are a treasure indeed if you are able to say that in such times.” He clapped her shoulder, which kinda hurt, and she watched the smile fade from his face. “May I impart a bit of counsel to you, Amanda Kasey of Earth?”
“Of course,” she said, lowering her head just slightly before jamming her thumbnail between her teeth.
He followed her lowered gaze and maintained eye contact. “There are two types of people in this world, Amanda Kasey—those who protect, and those who are protected.” He made a fist and tapped her knee twice. “Be one who protects. Do you understand what this means?”
She looked down at her feet. At least she’d gotten rid of those useless, beaded flats and was now wearing straight-up, bona fide Nu’romian Legion boots. Not too sexy but for the first time her big feet had come in handy. “Yes,” she murmured back.
He reached over and took her chin in his fingers and guided her attention back at him. “I am unconvinced.”
“It’s just...” She felt a prick behind her eyes. Dammit, Amanda, don’t you cry. In front of him? She hardly even knew him.
“It’s just what?”
“How?” Her voice had dipped to a whisper. “How do I become a protector when all I ever feel is afraid?” The tears fell. She couldn’t help it. I’m pathetic. “Where I come from there’s no need to strap on a sword before you take a walk at night—there are no monsters waiting in trees, no Drynn or Wizards of Vambrace waiting to eat you or skin you alive.”
“Are there no villains on Earth?”
“Yes, but it’s different there—”
“Then say no more. When the sun sets and the hungry prowl, all villains are the same. They seek prey and are thwarted only by strength. One who protects is by nature strong.” He tapped her forehead with his finger. “It begins here.”