by Paul Kidd
Polk thought about it, but the Justicar’s words had offendedhis heroic soul. He let the man stalk in sinister silence off into the brambles and then jumped up and followed him.
“Not hit back? Not hit back?” The teamster gulped,trying to encompass the enormity of his outrage. “No fights? Steel to steel, managainst man? Well, that’s not hero talk!” The teamster walked pace bypace with the fuming Justicar and energetically waved his hands. “The thing youhave to understand is heroes. Knowing how to be a hero is… well,it’s the difference between being an average man and a great man. Onceyou understand how to be a hero, then the world’s at your feet! You can’t be ahero if you don’t square off and face ’em man to man!”
Polk lifted his chin, setting himself square against unseen enemies. He speared a lofty glance toward the Justicar.
The black pelt seemed to fade and shimmer against the brambles. Big canine fangs grinned with malevolence as the Justicar turned slowly around.
“Shut up. Go back to the wagons.”
“And leave you in the woods all alone?” The teamster gave afirm, competent shake of his head. “You’re addled, son. It’s clear to me thatyou need advice. I’m just going to have to look after you and stick to you likeglue.”
“Fine.”
The Justicar planted a brotherly hand upon the teamster’sshoulder, smiled, then felled him with a massive left cross. Polk crashed through the brambles and lay amidst a maze of stars. Astonished, the man stared about himself at woods that suddenly seemed devoid of life.
A steady rustling and crackling in the blackberries sounded like footfalls. The teamster lurched to his feet, cradled his jaw, then staggered toward the nearby stream. Though the clinging brambles and trees masked most of the light from the caravan’s fires, he could see a tall figurewalking steadily toward him. The teamster made to call out and then balked as he saw the glitter of chain mail and the gleam of a huge two-handed sword.
Towering above the brambles, much too tall for a man, the creature stepped into the uncertain firelight, spreading a vast, dark shadow against the woods. The monstrous figure turned, saw Polk, and pelted straight toward him with his sword raised high. The teamster froze in terror, half raised his hands, and then blinked as nearby leaf litter erupted from the ground.
A feral figure exploded from the underbrush.
A black sword whipped upward as the Justicar rose, cutting his target across the jaw. A second swipe followed, hacking through the enemy’smidriff and driving out the creature’s breath in a savage mist of blood. Thefigure folded in two, its head thudding from its shoulders as the black sword scythed down in a single fluid blur.
The monster’s huge body thumped to the earth. Fully nine feettall, the ogre’s corpse still twitched as it sprawled at Polk’s feet. It had allhappened in a split second of near silence. The Justicar crouched over his victim, his wolf skin snarling with bright, silent fangs. His black-bladed sword dripped blood-and then quite suddenly the man was gone.
“Holy Fharlanghn!”
The teamster sat down, staring at the severed head that lay an arm’s length from his side. The bestial head had jutting fangs and wassmothered in warts and horns. As he stared at the thing in fright, Polk suddenly heard the whole forest rustling with the stamp of armored feet. He shrank back against a tree and stared in panic at a night that suddenly boiled with enemies.
A second ogre parted the bushes with its spear, saw Polk, and gave a predatory snarl. It yelled in triumph and lunged toward the teamster.
An instant later, the creature was struck from behind. The Justicar’s black sword hammered down in a two-handed blow, making a sound likean axe thumbing into waterlogged wood as it split the creature’s shoulder andsheared through its spine. As his target fell, the Justicar planted a foot on the corpse’s neck and wrenched his blade free.
From the woods nearby came a shout. Someone had finally heard the sounds of combat. Wiping his blade, the Justicar turned and fixed the stunned Polk with a glare.
“Stay here.”
The man turned, the wolf pelt shimmered, and he was gone. Sandwiched between two corpses, Polk the teamster slowly scrubbed his hands through the leaf litter and nodded to himself in a daze.
“Yes, sir. Never interfere in another man’s work….”
* * *
Trigol City’s law officers moved with exaggerated distaste asthey tiptoed through the alleyway. A foul strew of blood had painted the walls like a bizarre piece of art. Scattered parts of bodies lay all over the street, and flies buzzed thick and fast across the offal. Most of the victims seemed to have been slaughtered from behind.
Three officers advanced slowly forward, keeping their faces covered from the stench with their cloaks. The nearest corpse stared back at them with an expression of sheer terror etched onto its face.
The victims lay as they had fallen. Some had been slashed. Others had been hurled forcibly into the alley walls. Each and every one of them had taken a deathblow from a heavy sword. The corpses lay twisted in a frenzy of terror, as though more than their lives had been ripped from them.
“Sweet Pelor!” One officer stood and carefully examined anoutstretched hand that held a dagger. The hand lay at least three feet away from its original body. “What in the name of the Abyss did this?”
Hovering at the alley entrance, a small boy stared in horrified fright. The boy’s father pushed the lad quickly back out of view andkept himself well away from the blood-spattered cobblestones.
“We heards them fighting, the lad and me, heards themfighting a while after sunset.” The man bobbed his head as he spoke, lookingleft and right like a terror-stricken bird. “Screaming like fear itself, theywere. Kept screaming for nigh ten minutes till it was done.”
At least a dozen men lay slaughtered in the alleyway. Dark clothing, hoods, cloaks and sheathed weapons had been scattered like chaff. One law officer rolled over the torso of a corpse, dislodging a storm of flies. The dead man had a pocket in his cloak lining that contained several thin strips of birchwood.
“Sir? Birch.”
Flat birchwood strips could be wormed through cracks in doors and window shutters to lift latches free. A cursory search of the bodies turned up climbing hooks and ropes, lockpicks, and chisels.
The senior officer pondered. This had been a very large party of burglars. Trigol was blessed with three different thieves’guilds-organizations that robbed rich and poor alike while running protectionrackets across the city. There was no way of telling one guild from another.
Waving the stink away with his cloak, the senior officer backed fastidiously away from the corpses. “Why were they here?”
The peasant at the end of the street edged nervously forward, watching the shadows and the skies. “They drink there sometimes, sir, in thecellar tavern down at the end of the street. We sees them, but we doesn’t go in.But you didn’t hear it from me, sir! Common knowledge, sir. Common as muck!”
It was all news to the three law officers. Law enforcement in Trigol consisted of armed patrols to keep the streets safe. The doings of the thieves’ guilds remained an absolute mystery. With refugees from fallen kingdomsflooding into the city and bringing their cults and feuds, there was already more trouble than the law could handle. The new temples with their private armies and their mutual hate were a far more present source of danger.
There was nothing to be gained from standing in an alleyway filled with carrion. The law officers retreated, waving the town guard forward to do their job. A heavy cart was backed into the alleyway, and long firepoles prodded a gelatinous cube into the lane. The giant jelly moved slowly over the corpses, absorbing them into its ever-hungry mass one by one. As the creature slurped and slobbered, one officer, more conscientious than most, stalked over to the nervous peasant and tried talking to the man.
“Did you see what happened, Citizen?”
“No, sir!” The peasant kept his eyes searching the roof linesoverhead. “We heards them, though, heards them s
tart and heards them finish!Stayed indoors with the doors bolted until the other gentlemen arrived an hour later.”
“Other gentlemen?”
“Big fellows, sir-swords and cloaks.” The man kept up hisvigil, looking the rooftops up and down. “Not from your side of the law, if youcatch my drift, sir. But we didn’t want no trouble. We told them what we heardjust like we done with you.”
The man pushed his son out of sight behind him and backed hastily away, leaving the three lawmen standing in the street alone. The men faced each other, unwilling to confess that they had pieced together no real clues.
One officer tapped slowly and thoughtfully at his chin. “Twothieves’ guilds? Two groups attacking one another?”
“Then why aren’t any of the dead locked in combat?” Hiscomrade motioned to the corpses. “These men look like they were slaughtered asthey tried to flee.”
Two of the officers shrugged and went their separate ways. Their comrade stood gazing in anxiety down the alleyway, his brow furrowed as he tried to picture just what horror might have come to roost in Trigol.
A flicker of motion amongst the trash suddenly caught his eye. The man walked a little way into the alley and stooped to examine a huge white feather that had been trapped underneath a corpse. The feather was long and stiff. It looked like a feather from an eagle or perhaps a swan. The officer made to touch the thing but hesitated as a sudden sensation of revulsion set his flesh creeping. The man jerked his hand away and suddenly looked up to scan the rooftops.
With a nervous stir of motion, a thin face peeked about the alley corner. The peasant’s son saw the law officer and crept a little closerwith awe shining in his eyes. He spared another glance at the rooftops, then nervously came forward.
“Is the lady going to punish all the thieves, sir?”
The law officer stared from the boy to the feather and slowly rose. “What lady, son?”
“The white lady. The one who said she was going to eat up alltheir souls.” The boy watched the shadows, his big eyes gleaming with terror.“She came here with a man, and the man had the star-sword. Are they comingback?”
The officer backed out of the alleyway, shepherding the boy back out into the light.
“I don’t know, son.” The officer slowly wiped clean hishands. “Get inside. And tell your family not to go out when it gets dark.”
2
Crouching as he ran, the Justicar sped through the shadows,making enough noise to wake the dead. Dried blackberry brambles cracked as he crashed through the dark underbrush. For the moment, speed came first and foremost.
His enemies would be unable to hear anything above their own clumsy progress through the brush. By the time they thought to stand still and listen, the Justicar had found a hollow covered over with bracken fronds and had gone to ground. Utterly invisible, he lay with his sword gripped in his left gauntlet, his sharp senses feeling every stir and movement in the night.
A second set of senses worked alongside his own. The Justicar lifted his head and slowly scanned the darkness. “Cinders? Talk to me.”
Sentience rippled through the black pelt hanging across the Justicar’s shoulders. Tall canine ears twitched, and the black fur seemed totingle as the creature scented approaching prey.
A whisper sounded in the Justicar’s mind. Left.
“Human?”
Ogre and one man.
That would be the caravan’s “scout” with more of his ogreambush party. The Justicar’s hard gaze glared at the brambles, distastewrinkling his face as he planned punishment for the unworthy souls.
There would be another human, a man riding a horse with a golden tail-most probably the leader of the bandits. The Justicar tried topicture just where the man might be even as he heard the ogres crash toward him through the dry ferns on their way to the caravan.
Close!
The Justicar lay flat, his own senses tingling as the pelt’scanine ears swiveled to track the enemy that came blundering through the brush. They passed by the Justicar’s hiding place. He let them move past him, rose tothe ragged rhythm of their movements, then drove his sword through an ogre’sspine.
The dying creature screeched in agony, its death screams causing other ogres to stop and search wildly through the brush. The Justicar twisted his blade and ripped it free, whipping about to face a maddened charge.
Three ogres roared in blood-curdling fury as they lumbered through the ferns. One leaped high to clear a stand of blackberries, and the black sword met it in mid-flight with a heavy, deadly sound. The force of the blow doubled the massive creature in two. The Justicar ripped his blade free before the creature even hit the ground, leaving the huge corpse to crash beside him in a thunder of blood and broken steel.
The other two ogres lunged toward him with heavy clubs, attacking in a berserk, snarling rage. The Justicar sliced beneath a maddened swing and whipped his blade about, cracking his target’s shoulder blade beneaththe coat of scales. Roaring, he hammered his sword pommel hard against the fractured bone, but the ogre staggered free and let its cousin smash its club down at the Justicar’s skull.
This ogre moved far faster than the last. The Justicar parried and made a two-handed cut only to have the blow blocked. The ogre’s clubcracked against his armored ribs with a sharp, biting pain. He trapped the club with his elbow and punched the ogre in the face, only to curse as the creature ducked to take the blow atop its steel helm. The Justicar almost broke his knuckles, and the ogre roared in triumph as it dragged its weapon free.
His scarred jaw snarling, the Justicar turned and let the club whip past him, his sword blade shearing a bright curl of wood shavings from the haft. He hacked hard at the ogre’s forearm, throwing his weight into everyblow.
The black sword suddenly bit into a wrist thick as a young tree, and sparks showered from an immense steel bracelet on the ogre’s wrist.The monster wrenched its hand back, blood pouring down its arm. With one arm ablaze in agony, the brute attacked one-handed with a vicious sideways swing. It bellowed, obviously intending to smash its enemy’s head.
An instant later, its target disappeared. The Justicar dropped to one knee, let the club whip past his head, then hacked into the hamstrings of the ogre’s knee. The monster fell with its right leg severed justas the other ogre launched itself at the Justicar.
The man threw himself forward to crash into the huge creatures waist. He lifted with a huge explosion of strength. Flesh crashed into flesh with a noise like thunder. Screaming, the ogre spun head over heels and smashed into the ground. The Justicar turned and kicked the monster in its broken shoulder, making it tumble howling through the ferns. He reversed his blade and stabbed two-handed down into the creature’s open mouth. Black bloodflew up to spatter all across the blackberry grove.
An arrow flashed from the underbrush a dozen feet away, piercing the Justicar’s armor and ripping a vicious line of pain across hisflank. He whipped his head about to glare at the archer.
Above the Justicar’s face, the wolf’s red eyes gleamed. Hello.
The woods sheeted with light as a huge tongue of flame thundered from the pelt’s jaws. Fire engulfed the screaming archer, blinding himas his clothing ignited. The archer dropped his bow and clapped hands across his eyes as he staggered, shrieking through the brush.
The Justicar rose to his feet, hissing in pain as he touched the arrowhead jutting out from his cuirass. “Thanks, Cinders.”
No problem.
Cinders’ red eyes gleamed, and the hell hound pelt seemed toglow with canine satisfaction. The Justicar felt the line of the arrow that had cut across his ribs and ripped the shaft painfully free. He planted an open hand against the bleeding wound, let the magic flash, and healed the injury.
In the bushes nearby, the archer still screamed as he burned. Chain mail and riding boots identified him as the caravan’s scout. The Justicarwiped his sword clean of blood while above him, Cinders sniffed the scent of scorching meat upon the wind.
Burns nice
! The hell hound sniffed hungrily for blood.Kill with sword?
“No. Let the bastard burn.”
The scout had been an inside man for this merry little bandit gang. He must have led caravan after caravan into pre-planned ambush sites, setting the victims up for the kill and then guiding the ogres into the attack.
Let the traitor die hard.
Red hell hound eyes gleamed above the Justicar’s helm as theman gazed across the corpses. The man’s face rippled with the reflected light ofthe fire as he turned his heavy frame and stalked back toward the camp.
The wagoners and merchants had heard the sounds of violence in the brush. Six crossbowmen stood with the fire at their backs, making fine targets as they stared into the deepening dark. The Justicar halted in the brambles, sinking to his knees as he probed the shadows with his gaze.
Evening had dimmed the sky beneath oceans of purple-rose. Little light now filtered through the dark trees, and the woods were growing black. The Justicar tried to see into the brush up ahead, but the light of the wagoners’ campfire had turned the place into a maze of dancing shadows.
Hidden in the underbrush, the Justicar and Cinders carefully tested the breeze.
“He’s in there.”
One creature. Evil. Not human. The hell hound’s ears layflat as he scented prey. Smell magic.
Some of the teamsters had dogs. The attackers had deliberately approached the camp from downwind to keep the animals from scenting them. This placed the last attacker upwind of Cinders and the Justicar. The big ranger rose and hefted his sword, feeling a light breeze winding through the brambles and into his face.
“Polk!”
“Is that you, son? Is that you?” The talkative teamster helda cudgel in his hand and sheltered behind the six crossbowmen. “I told them itwould be you! ‘Now that’s the sound of a man at work,’ I said!”
“Quiet!” The Justicar felt like a target standing on acarnival shooting range. “There’s one of them in front of you. Throw firebrandsinto the brambles and burn him out!”