Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As I had intended from the moment I switched my grip, I pivoted on my left foot and brought my right foot up and around. The ball of my foot caught Tashayul on the left temple. The blow twisted his head around and sent him reeling in retreat. He tried to steady himself, but dropped to one knee a half-dozen paces distant.

  A heavy blow to the small of my back sent me to the ground and all fours. I looked up and heard an arrow whiz past my ear. It thunked into something behind me that sighed and gurgled and thumped. Tashayul shook his head and stood, turning to face the Elves behind him. Finndali had already begun to dress Aarundel down, but the undaunted Elf nocked another arrow with cool dispatch.

  The fingers of my right hand closed on a flat piece of steel maybe two inches square. I dropped my index finger into a notch between a sharp burr and the old edge of my sword, holding the fragment as I might a flat skipping stone. I hauled it back, then whipped it forward, not caring if I hit Reithrese or Elf, but hoping for the best.

  My missile bit Tashayul over his spine. Small though it was, it might well as been the full blade, because the lower half of his body died as quick as dry wood in a hot fire. The Reithrese reached back toward the wound, unbalancing himself. He fell onto his spine, dropping Khiephnaft, and just lay there. His peaceful legs contrasted with the fury on his face and the angry thrashing of his fists.

  "Arrest yourselves, or I shall arrest your lives," Aarundel commanded the Reithrese at my back. Without waiting for orders from Finndali, I saw three more of the Elves likewise bring their bows to full draw.

  "Foul! Base treachery!" Tashayul shrieked from the ground. "He used sorcery on me! I demand you slay him."

  Still on my knees, I turned and freed a scimitar from the Reithrese body behind me. "I'm thinking that if there was treachery, it struck me full before it reached you, m'lord." I looked up at Finndali. "Mark you that it was my blade that blooded him. It was only a small piece of it, mind you, but my blade and his blood. The fight is ended."

  As much as Finndali might not have liked me, I could see he had no loyalty to the Reithrese general lying on the ground. Had I not deferred to Finndali, he might have ordered me slain, but because I appealed to him as the arbiter of the battle, he rose to the responsibility and the superior position it assigned him. I waited humbly for his judgment.

  "The veracity of the Man's statement is beyond inquiry." Finndali shook his head as he looked down at Tashayul. "In your generosity you gave him four years. He shall have them."

  I walked over to Tashayul and kicked Khiephnaft into his reach. "Take good care of the blade, m'lord, for I'll be coming for it after I kill you. Four years. When I reach my twentieth summer."

  I started off toward the convent's stables, but Finndali stopped me. "Roclawzi, how come you to be so bold, so young?"

  I frowned at the Elf as my stockpile of fear flowed into anger. "I'm thinking, m'lord, that is a question that can only be asked by a someone who has been watching life for a long time. I'm living my life, I am, and it's a life that needs bold living. At dawn I had four minutes to live it, and now I have four years, so I'm not seeing any reason to be rationing my boldness."

  The Elf laughed silently, clearly amused by something I had said. "Hrothdel, come and heal this youngling so more boldness does not leak out of him."

  An Elven magicker stepped from that company to help me, but I shook my head. "Thanks, but I'll be seeing if one of the nuns is a tailoress to take a stitch or two in my wounds."

  "But you will scar. There is no reason you should be marred."

  "Ah, but there is—without a scar, I might forget. I'm not thinking I suffer hurts so lightly that I'll be wanting to be unmindful of them." I tossed the Elven leader a salute. "Come fifty years from now, I'm thinking the price you will pay to get Cleaveheart from my hand is to listen to the recounting of how I got this scar and that."

  "If your life lasts that long, Neal, the recitation might be diverting." The Elven lord raised his right hand to shoulder height and waved one of his company forward. "Aarundel, you will travel with this Neal. Tashayul has given him four years, and I mean that he should have them."

  "I'll not be wanting an Elf dogging my steps." I pulled Aarundel's glove off and tossed it to him. "Many thanks, virsylvam, for the loan of your glove."

  Aarundel deftly plucked it out of the air. "I will not be a hound to your hare, but if you desire it, I can teach you more of the Sylvan tongue and make the Reithrese remember the oath their leader made."

  More the smile on Aarundel's face than the look of disgust on Finndali's decided me to accept his company.

  Truth be told, and not often enough it is, nights on the road had been lonely, and having an Elf as a boon companion would be an adventure in and of itself. I also gathered, from the whispers and glances of the other Elves, that more of that company would have loathed the duty than have welcomed it.

  "And in return I can teach you how your blade and your arrows can learn, eh?" I smiled and offered him my hand. "Neal Roclawzi, honored to meet you."

  "And I am Aarundel."

  Much dust had settled on backtrails since that day, leading us from Esquihir to Ispar and Barkol and on to the Roclaws and all the way back to Jammaq in just a handful of years. Aarundel's presence had saved me more than once from danger, and I'd done the same for him. More important than that, though, was the friendship we built. If the foundation laid down over the first five years were any indication of durability of what would come after, all the gods themselves would have to combine to rip the two of us from the world, because no lesser power could do it.

  Rounding a ghoul-backed corner, we saw the tower. As mausoleums go, I had to admit it was an impressive structure, if a bit ghastly garish for my tastes. The Reithrese architects had indulged their passion for pillars and arches, though all of the former looked like bones, and the latter had skulls as keystones. The rest of the walls had been carved to give the impression that they had been thatched with ribs, with any gaps patched by boneknobs, odd shoulder blades, and eyeless skulls. Given the necroric design of the building, the horrified expressions on the faces of the gargoyles staring at it did not surprise me overmuch.

  Aarundel straightened up to his full height and pulled his scarf away from his mouth. "Seeing this mortuarium, I do not begrudge any Reithrese termination."

  "I'm thinking," I agreed as I tugged my scarf down, "it's not the sort of place I'd be wanting to lay about, even if for only a year."

  The Elf pointed to a tortuous script carved into the lintel above the massive doors. "Granting you dispute my translation of Tashayul's supposed inaugural remarks, but that indicates that only the dead or faithful may pass into this place at night."

  "It's a good thing we are dead, then, I'm thinking, because my madness has not extended far enough for me to be begging favors from the Cold Goddess." I slapped him on the shoulder and ran across the roadway to the tower. "Come on, it says we're welcome."

  "Living or dead, I think the Reithrese would find little to welcome about us."

  Aarundel had a point. After Tashayul's death in the Roclaws, the Reithrese focused their attention on completing the Imperial capital of Jarudin and did not expand the Empire at all. But instead of thanking us for the chance to consolidate their gains, they charged Tashayul's Skull-riders with the task of seeing to it that I was slain. For the purpose of maintaining cordial relations with the Elves, Aarundel's name was not on any death warrant, but the Skull-riders were not terribly inclined to using methods that would spare him while killing me.

  Realizing we would not be shed of them—worshipers of a death goddess being rather focused in their beliefs—on this side of life, we lured a whole pack of them into the Roclaws. With them in hot pursuit, in the midst of winter and with a blizzard howling around them, we set a trap for them. An avalanche—quite common in the Roclaws at that time of year—wiped the lot of them out.

  It was assumed the two of us had died as well. The Reithrese failed to realize that t
he people of the Roclaws had long before learned how to trigger avalanches and avoid being trapped in them. With the aid of Roclawzi nobles who hoped to use my status as a hero to their own ends, Aarundel and I escaped a frozen death and rode from the Roclaws free of hostile pursuit.

  Newly dead—and thereby freed of normal, sane concerns—we set out on our pilgrimage to the city of the dead.

  Taking a leg up from a shinbone carved into the stone, I peeked up into the death house through an arched window. Seeing no movement, I hooked a leg over the windowsill, jamming my heel behind a skull or two, then reached up and used a death's-head's open mouth for a handhold. Hauling myself into the tower and landing on solid stone on the inside, I helped Aarundel in.

  The inside of the tower stood in marked contrast to the outside in terms of decoration—in a manner of speaking, anyway. A fair not of columns and vaulted ceilings made the place a forest of stone. We had come in on a walkway that ran around three sides of the chamber. Steps came down from the center of the wall opposite us to the sunken floor of the chamber, and heading back up them would doubtless take us to the tower's main corridor. In the east wall I saw another narrower door that had a ramp leading up to it. It stood open and led back into the center of the complex. Enough light from the furnaces came through that opening to provide us with flickering illumination within the death chamber. Voices came to us through the doorway, but I understood nothing, and Aarundel apparently decided none of it warranted translation.

  The chamber we were in had a frieze with selected scenes from the history of the Reithrese race. It started with their creation by the gods, then showed how they had proved victorious over the forces of the ancient gods in the long war that supplanted the parents with their children. It continued with a number of other events that had significance for the Reilhrese, then ended with a newly carved piece nearly a full rod in length. "Look at the frieze."

  The Elf frowned. "Vulgar blasphemy. Look at how the . . . artist has placed the Reithrese above Elves in creation."

  "Not that, my friend, the last piece." I pointed to the newly added section. "The banner there, lying under the bulky figure's feet. That's the Green Viper banner of Duke Harsian of Irtysh."

  The Elf smiled. "Tashayul's last victory. That piece looks movable, too."

  "They just rent this space, not own it." I moved to the right and threaded my way through the pillars. In the center of the room, with its back to us, a huge stone throne faced the newest piece of the frieze. "I'm thinking that either we've stumbled onto the right place . . ."

  ". . . Or another of the generals who perished in the Roclaws is here." Aarundel followed in my footsteps, though being an Elf, he moved more quietly and had less trouble picking out the path through the half light.

  I came around the corner of the throne. "No, this is Tashayul,"

  I shivered as the light from outside flared and I got a good look at what my old enemy had become. Seated in the stone chair, a skeleton stared at us with empty eye sockets. Wisps of his black hair decorated his bare shoulders and rib cage, yet barely a scrap of flesh and no trace of muscle remained on him. Only his jaw had dropped away from the skeleton—it had landed on his lap. A few lost emerald teeth decorated the bare stone seat between his femurs.

  I glanced at Aarundel. "This explains it, then."

  "Remarkable."

  Outlining his skeleton in bronze, a metal framework of long and short, straight and curved pieces had been created for him by Reithrese artisans. Metal posts ran from each and every piece and attached themselves to his bones at the points where metal bands had been fitted. His femurs each had four attachment points, the shins and arm bones three, and each vertebra had one. A series of articulated joints connected the metal bones and allowed them to ape normal movements. It all ended at the back of his neck and, as nearly as I could tell, the last five vertebrae had been entirely replaced by metal substitutes.

  "The metal lay close to his flesh except where it pierced it." Aarundel pointed at Tashayul's skeletal forearm. "I cannot imagine that did not hurt."

  I nodded. "Constantly, I'd wager."

  "Constantly, I would hope."

  "Indeed." I smiled. "This explains a great deal."

  "So it does."

  After my escape from the monastery, the Reithrese conquests had slowed for a season. Aarundel and I both thought having his spine cut had taken the fight out of Tashayul, but then he was back. It was rumored that he was bigger and stronger. The two of us even scouted his forces during a battle in Barkol, nearly two years before he reached the mountains, and again in Irtysh. In both places he did seem much more massive than before. The two of us knew his being up and able to fight could not be possible, but the Reithrese were masters of vile magicks that might bring dead limbs new life, so we could not really even guess at what had healed him.

  Aarundel dropped to his haunches and peered up through the rib cage. "You will be unable to see it, Neal, but a piece of your blade is still lodged in his spine. A blow struck four years before caused his expiration when you saw a score summers."

  "Better it be believed I killed him in a duel than the real story come out."

  The Elf shook his head. "Roclawzi vanity. You killed him."

  "I did, but expediently, not heroically."

  "Heroism is the judgment of ages."

  "Then remember me kindly, my friend."

  Aarundel nodded, then froze with his head cocked toward the doorway. "If I have not misheard, your entrance will have the desired effect right about now."

  Together, our faces bared, we mounted the ramp and entered the larger chamber without attracting any notice. Referring to the space as a chamber is only half-correct, because it made up the central courtyard for the tower complex. While at the center it was open to the sky, extending up for five levels from the ground. Concentric disks, each smaller than the one above it, formed terraces overlooking the courtyard.

  At the courtyard's center, a huge stone ring surrounded what I can only describe as a firewell. Incandescent gases burned there in pulsed jets that filled the area with the heat of a forge. The ghoulish architecture had been used in this area with the terraces being bone-thatch, and the blocks making up the ring looking like compacted skeletons, where skull rested on knees with arms holding leg bones tight to the chest.

  Opposite us, across an audience of fifty Reithrese individuals, a High Priest of the Dark Goddess stood resplendent in a cloth of gold robe hemmed to look as if his garment were made from flame. The fiery glow behind him softened his thick outline and, no doubt, revealed us to him, but either he did not notice us or took no concern over our presence.

  In his two hands he held aloft a scabbarded sword. I did not understand his words, but I recognized the motions of an auctioneer offering something for inspection and bids. To me, after five years and twenty yards distant, the sword looked different, but I knew the blade he presented was Cleaveheart and that it would be mine before the night was out.

  Aarundel leaned toward me and kept his voice low. "He says this is Khiephnaft and offers it for bid."

  In the center of the crowd a Reithrese stood up. He turned this way and that to nod at the others present, and gave me a good look at his profile. Though more slender than his brother, he had the same hungry look in his eyes. His smile, from where I stood, appeared a sparkling black gash on the lower end of his face, but that was because, as a magicker, his teeth were diamonds. He pointed to the sword and began to speak.

  I stepped forward before Aarundel could grab me and drop a hand over my mouth. "Begging your pardon, Takrakor, but would you mind speaking in Mantongue? My Reithrese is not that good, and I'll be bidding against you."

  Only the fire's roar answered my request. The Reithrese and Reithressas present all turned to look at me, with their jeweled teeth not nearly as pretty displayed in shock as they were when flashed in a smile. Then, all of a sudden, everyone spoke at once in a riot of angry, angular words.

  Aarundel s
tepped up beside me and shouted in guttural tones to the high priest. The priest considered the words, while Reithrese gesticulated at me furiously. He then looked down at the crowd and shouted one word that brought silence. When his head came up, the priest looked directly at me.

  "The Elf has said you wish to invoke wirt kalma."

  I nodded. "I understood that the determination of inheritance brought with it a truce, else I'd not have been mad enough to come here."

  "It does, but only for those who are meant to be here."

  The priest stared sternly at someone who grumbled from the front row. "If your suit for possession of the sword is successful, then we will know you were meant to be here and you will be granted wirt kalma."

  The murderous stares of the others in the room told me what would happen if I was not given possession of the blade. "I understand."

  "Very well. Takrakor, you were stating the reasons why Khiephnaft should pass to you."

  The Reithrese sorcerer nodded slowly. "My brother was not alone in his desire to reestablish our empire. This was a dream we had together, and together we realized it. In the time it took me to devise and implement the plan that put my brother back into the field, our efforts became welded together as had our dreams. He meant the blade, which is the catalyst for realizing our dream, to fall to me. It is upon this that I base my suit."

  The priest looked up at me. "You, Manchild, state your case."

  I smiled easily to hide the snake crawling around in my belly. "I found the blade for Tashayul because without my efforts, he never would have located it. I fought against the blade, and it drank my blood. And I cut Tashayul down and when Cleaveheart fell from his grasp, I returned it to him. A year ago I killed Tashayul and would have taken the blade then, as befitting the spoils of war, but his Skull-riders—may their frozen bodies one day molder here—brought him and my sword to Jammaq."