The Path of the Sword

by Remi Michaud

  Daved waited a while longer before carefully extracting himself from beneath the stinking, life-saving trash and, quietly making his way to the other end of the alley that had nearly become his tomb, he peered out and saw the district’s main market square. He conjured up a map of the city in his mind and knew that arriving at the market square meant that he had made it approximately a third of the way through the northern part of the city.

  He carefully examined the large square from the cover of the alley before deciding on any new action and for the first time since the disastrous charge a few hours prior, he felt something new, something that seemed intrusive, maybe even blasphemous. Could it have been relief?

  Although the market square had sustained damage in the pillaging, it did not appear nearly so ravaged as the rest of the city through which Daved had passed. It seemed to Daved that he had found the northern perimeter of the Dakariin advance. The eastern end of the square had survived mostly untouched, with only a few broken windows marring building fronts, and sparsely scattered debris littering the ground. The west end, the end from which Daved peeked furtively from the shadows of a dark alley, had suffered somewhat more. Several shops had been burned. One so badly, the stone façade had crumbled, leaving a pit of ashes and shadows and little else where once there had been a thriving seamstress’s shop. Even this damage paled in comparison to the southern parts of the city where entire blocks had been ravaged by cataclysmic conflagrations.

  Staying close to the wall of the alley, he inspected the grounds of the square more closely and was even more encouraged by the sparsity of bodies scattered about. His furtive scrutiny revealed just three corpses, a nearly incomprehensible decline after the horrors he had witnessed. He tried to see past the east end into the streets beyond, daring to hope that perhaps a large portion of the city had been spared the depredations of the Dakariin army but the narrow glimpses he was afforded were not clear enough.

  The relative normalcy of the market square had restored some of Daved’s composure; his heart stopped trying to hammer its way through his ribcage and his lungs no longer sucked quite so greedily for air, even though his throat still burned for need of water. The grief and terror still lurked, like a predator in the dark, just around the next bend, waiting, waiting... But Daved found it easier to control and he resolutely pushed it down in his mind, storing it away for another time.

  Daved, having decided it was safe to proceed, took no more than three steps into the square when off to his right, he heard the echo of more Dakariin voices emanate from a street across the way. Once again his heart lurched, jack-hammering in his chest, and the terror flooded back, washing away his fleeting, crystalline sense of calm in a roiling torrent. He spun about, glancing wildly at his surroundings and a familiar sign caught his eye. Just two doors away he spotted the Horse and Chariot, a tavern he had often frequented with his friends in better times.

  Yesterday, the thought skittered across the outskirts of the manic tumult that was his mind, I was here just yesterday!

  He hurried as quietly as he could manage for the door of the tavern, vaguely noting that a part of one wall had collapsed causing the roof to cant wildly. The Dakariin sounded closer and he knew that his options were severely limited: seek refuge in the tavern and hope that it would be enough, or be captured, tortured and killed. He could not go much further with such weariness weighing him down. Too much had happened, too much had been witnessed. The tavern seemed to beckon him, luring him with thoughts of safety and maybe even rest.

  He made his decision and with it, his resolve for stealth and care evaporated. With a last, desperate sprint, he crossed the threshold, raced past broken tables and overturned chairs, and vaulted over the bar that still stood, though it was battered and charred around the edges.

  Catching his foot on the edge of the counter, he fell awkwardly and the last thing he remembered for a time was the sight of an empty shelf rushing up to meet his head—where's my helmet? Aren't I supposed to be wearing a helmet?—followed by a flash of lightning behind his eyes.

  Followed by darkness.

  Chapter 3

  “Move it, you sluggards!” roared Colonel Ferril. He was normally an even-tempered man but he was having a very bad day. This morning, he and his family had arisen, eager to begin preparations for the Feast of Shadows that they should be having this evening—right about now actually, cooking, cleaning, dressing and drinking (and why not? It was the Feast of Shadows after all) and so he had been completely caught unawares when word of the Dakariin attack had reached him. He vowed to himself for the tenth time since the first alarm had sounded that the sentries and rangers who had been manning the outposts along the North Road would be drawn and quartered for not sending word of the impending invasion.

  They couldn’t all have missed a force this size passing through, he thought darkly, which brought a horrible notion to mind. Maybe they had not missed the invaders. Maybe the invaders had simply taken steps to ensure that word would not reach him, allowing this battle to rage on this day of shadows. He shook his head while his men ran about him, and for a moment he relived a horrible event.

  No more than two hours ago, he had watched in horror as six hundred of his men, his finely trained cavalry, were cut down in front of his disbelieving eyes. He had sent out his sally force hoping to stall the Dakariin attack on the front gate but the Dakariin had seemed to have been waiting for just such a force. They had reacted, he admitted with a grudging respect, admirably. He had not even been able to provide back-up; even his archers would have been useless. The Dakariin had engaged his cavalry so quickly and completely that any arrow launched from the battlements would have had as much chance of finding one of his own men as it would have a Dakariin. Not that it would have made much difference in the end. So he had watched the slaughter unfold as stunned and sickened as every other soldier manning the wall. Of course, he had expected losses. He was a seasoned soldier, and a good one, he thought. But what he saw, what he watched...

  After being forced to endure the sight of their city slowly dying at the hands of savage pillagers, the rout had nearly broken the spirits of the men frantically defending the keep. For the past hour, Colonel Ferril had been angrily pressing his men to redouble their efforts to save what was left.

  The rout had the opposite effect on the Dakariin. The attack came with a renewed fervency that dismayed the Killhernans even more. The defenses were breached at several points along the wall and Ferril’s swordsmen set aside the pots of burning pitch they had been spilling over the walls in favor of their preferred weapons, the swords they had trained with since their adolescent years, engaging their seemingly rabid enemy all along the battlement. For a time, the discordant peal of sword on sword dominated the afternoon as men battled desperately, bitterly, for their honor. Honor? No. That was a rich joke. No, their lives.

  Not ten feet away from Ferril, a Dakariin leaped onto the wall, followed immediately by a second. Ferril lunged, a dagger appearing as if by magic in his left hand. With a flick of his wrist, the same dagger suddenly sprouted from the throat of the first Dakariin, along with a red bloom of draining life. At the same instant, his sword seemed to jump into his right hand and within a heartbeat, it found its mark as well, and he buried it deeply between the second man’s ribs. He spun, dragging his sword free of the dying man’s chest, and slashed at the head of the third Dakariin who was just cresting the crenellations. He felt a crunching impact as his sword bit deep and the third Dakariin convulsed, his grip slackening.

  A pike appeared, reaching out from behind him, catching the ladder his enemy had been climbing, and with a grunt of effort, the soldier behind him pushed the ladder away from the wall. It teetered, hanging inanely in space for a moment as though it would defy logic, defy convention and just stay there so it could become some sight-seeing attraction for future tourists—“Can I climb it daddy? Can I?”— then toppled backward, dumping its cargo of wide-eyed, slack-jawed Dakariin howling onto the hea
ds of their comrades and the bloody ground below. More soldiers rushed up to fill the gap in their line and Colonel Ferril spun around, murder mottling his features.

  “The next one of you cow’s asses who lets any of those scum set so much as a toe on these walls is going to hang by his ankles while I personally tar and feather you!” Even amidst the clamor of battle, no one had difficulty hearing their commander’s enraged voice.

  As he searched along the stained and sooty walls however, he noticed that there were no more ladders reaching up from the remaining horde below. The Dakariin advance was halted at the walls and the soldiers crowding the battlements started to notice. A weak cheer rose up in the ranks; arrow after arrow peppered the beleaguered ranks below as his archers renewed their attack.

  He performed a quick count of the remaining enemy and felt relief wash over him at his result. By his estimation, the enemy force, about eight thousand strong at the beginning of that hellish day, had dwindled to perhaps a little less than fifteen hundred. It was time to finish this. Spinning on his heel, he quickly searched his own ranks, searched for his second in command, Major Tomis. Who was nowhere to be found. Odd.

  He left the battlement, descending a set of stone stairs to the courtyard below where he spied one of his junior lieutenants deep in discussion with his own subordinates. He called out to the young officer who glanced up. The lieutenant's annoyed expression melted when he saw the owner of the voice that interrupted him.

  Cracking off last minute orders to his sergeants, who immediately saluted and rushed away to see to their superior’s orders, he scurried over to his commander with a salute of his own.

  “Where’s Tomis?” Ferril snapped.

  “Major Tomis was injured sir. Took a blade in the thigh. He should be at the infirmary now,” the lieutenant’s voice was brisk, business-like and, even amidst the chaos, even as a thorn of unease pricked him, Ferril found himself approving the young officer’s efficiency.

  “Is it serious?”

  “By all reports, no sir. Looks nastier than it is. The wound took him out of commission for the duration of the battle but he should be up and about in a day or two, I’m told,” the lieutenant reported, standing at attention. Ferril noted that as professional as he seemed, he could not hide the fire of pride burning in his eyes. Like Ferril himself, the men thought highly of Tomis and would not like to hear of anything serious happening to him.

  “Good,” Ferril grunted. He was far better at schooling his emotions. His subordinate did not see the relief he felt at that news. “Has the second company of cavalry been prepared?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “They have their orders. Send them.”

  “Yes sir.” Another quick salute and his junior officer ran off.

  Wanting to see the outcome, and praying to God that this time, things would go according to plan, he retraced his steps to the battlements above, to almost the exact same position he had stood in for most of the day.

  As he ascended, his thoughts were dark. The duke would have someone’s head on a platter for this debacle. Ferril had a pretty good idea whose head it would be.

  At least, he thought ruefully, climbing the final steps, Tomis is alive. He will make a fine garrison commander after I’ve been removed.

  Chapter 4

  Daved opened his eyes and for a moment he thought they were still closed before he realized that he lay in impenetrable darkness. He lay unmoving trying to recall where he was, how he had gotten there. It was the sickly sweet odor of stale liquor backdropped by the bitterness of ashes that reminded him.

  He raised his head and the muscles in his neck went limp when an agony of fire erupted between his ears, behind his eyes. A wave of nausea threatened to empty his belly though there was not much in there. He lay still, closing his eyes—that helped not at all—head lowered again, and concentrated on settling the acidic churning.

  After a time, he tried again. Gingerly, slowly, he undertook the monumental task of standing. He might have been trying to scale sheer cliffs with rocks tied to his feet, or swim across the ocean and he thought it would have been no harder to do. He reached his knees before vertigo took him, caused the room to tilt and whirl like a bucking stallion. Panting, his gorge threatening to reverse itself, he hung his head between his arms, and thanked his luck that he was in total blackness—at least he did not have to see the room dance a merry jig around him.

  He hoisted his battered frame off the ground with a quiet grunt, clutching the bar that had been both his savior and his undoing, and he rose to his feet, inordinately proud of himself for accomplishing such an easy task, such an impossible feat.

  Opening his eyes, he peered through the gloom. Through the broken roof and the shattered door, he saw night had fallen; the only light in the tavern was a pale hint of moonlight that teased across the floor, so dim that perhaps he imagined it. He tried to suppress a shiver, failed. It had grown cold and the sweat, blood and garbage covering him, that made him stink worse than any smoke or stale liquor ever could, felt like it was all freezing to him. At least the air was bracing; it had the effect of rousing him somewhat, of waking him.

  But still he felt he was in a nightmare.

  He rifled behind the bar, searching, clay clattering and glass shattering as it tumbled to the floor, until he wrapped a hand around the neck of a bottle that felt comfortingly heavy. He uncorked it, raised it gratefully to his lips and drank. His parched throat screamed when bitter wine touched it—not Gram's best stuff, not by far; probably the stuff he served peasants for a copper a glass—but he drank until the bottle was nearly empty. Thirst quenched, he rummaged around on the floor, and with a hiss, he found his sword. Blade first, of course.

  Sheathing his weapon, vaguely surprised he still had his sheath, he stepped around the edge of the bar, and stumbled. The floor was littered with dented goblets and shattered bowls, overturned tables and smashed benches. It was an obstacle course through which he carefully wended, his feet rustling the filthy, sooty rushes that covered the floors in uneven lumps.

  In the depths of the murk, he spied a darker dark, a shadow in a shadow. It was a familiar shape, like something he had seen often, like something...like someone...

  “Oh Gram,” Daved sighed quietly.

  The owner of the tavern lay cold near a hearth that was even colder. He thought he should search for Gram's wife, he thought he should search for their son (bright eyes gazing at the spinning top Daved had brought with him, staring with the innocent wonder that only the very young can have, little hands clapping merrily. A squeal of pure delight...no. Not now). They were like family to him, their door always open for him and he felt he owed them that much. But he could not bear to see them. Not like this.

  (Not now)

  Time for that later. Time to mourn the dead only if one did not become a member of that exclusive club. There were other things to attend to.

  Shivering again, the cold leeching into his very bones, he crossed the rest of the room to the front door and peeked out, surveying the square. It was exactly as it had been when he had arrived earlier, when he had found safety and solace from roaming hunters, but the moonlight added an even eerier quality to the macabre scene. Now everything was painted bone pale, the shadows like blood. Something nagged at him, nipped at the edges of his consciousness like gnats. The elusive thought would not go away no matter how he swatted at it, but neither did it make itself easily known like a word that lurks at the tip of one's tongue.

  He stepped out into the silent street, kept his eyes peeled, darting, watching for anything, everything. His ears strained, as alert as his eyes, and as he listened, he was comforted with the knowledge that he should be able to hear a bird fart from the next street over in the...

  Silence. That was the nagging thought. As distant as the sounds of battle had been, they had been there. They had accompanied him on his mad dash through the city, nipping at his heels like a pack of coyotes, and before that the vibrant sounds of a thri
ving city. Now, there was naught but deafening silence. Like a graveyard filled with crumbling mausoleums.

  The battle was over. He was suddenly certain of it. But who won? He scanned the skyline to the south, and another emptiness greeted him. Through the wisps of smoke that streaked the air like ghosts he saw no telltale glow. No fire then. Above, the stars ducked in and out of hiding behind ephemeral scarves, winking and twinkling as if they laughed at some joke that was too great, too profound for him to understand. If the Dakariin had won, surely the entire city would be a bonfire. Those savages lived to pillage, to burn. To kill.

  He made a decision at that moment, a collapse of thought, of mind that anyone who knew him would have gasped a startled breath to see. Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps it was the wine starting to work its magic, but either way, he threw caution to the wind. He trudged south down the middle of the road, not caring if some Dakariin were left, not caring if he suddenly felt the searing pain of sword or arrow, toward the keep and his garrison and his bed in the barracks. If he made it, great. If not, well, that would be fine too. He had his fill of blood and death, of terror and sorrow. He was done.

  As he walked, he wondered what he would do after he filed for his discharge. Perhaps he could sign on with a merchant, but what would he do? Be a guard? Too close to his current career path. Or maybe he would see about working in a mill. That was more like it. No. A farm. Yes that's the ticket. He would find a farm out in the middle of nowhere where he could spend the rest of his days encouraging things to grow and to live. But he would worry about it later (not now). Tonight, he wanted his bed and nothing more. He fixed his eyes on the skyline, no longer able to stomach the horrors that littered the streets of the city he had spent the last five years defending, afraid he would not be able to contain the tears which threatened to wash away his sanity.