by Eric Vall
“Last I checked,” I shot back, “Davit Balmier was the sovereign of Cedis.”
“Last I checked,” Dred parroted back, only now there was an edge of steel in his voice as he lifted his head and narrowed his black eyes at me, “Balmier wasn’t able to protect the people he claimed to lord over. If he had been, I wouldn’t be here right now. Thank the gods for that weak fool.” The bandit shook his head in mock pity. “Now, I know very intimately who Balmier is and who he isn’t, but I still don’t know who you are.”
I pursed my lips as I chewed on my words. I wanted nothing more than to put a bullet between this bastard’s smirking eyes, but I was still trying to come up with a plan that didn’t get everyone killed. I had to bide my time, make him talk before I made my move.
“Defender Mason Flynt,” I reluctantly replied at length. “I am a mage in Illaria’s Order of Elementa.”
Dred’s face split into another wide grin. “Well, nice to meet you, Defender Mason Flynt. I’ve heard tell that you’re a Terra Mage. So you can move some dirt around, huh?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and kept silent, but it seemed Dred didn’t need me to continue this conversation because his black eyes slid off me and landed on Aurora over my left shoulder.
“And your beautiful elven companion there is an Ignis Mage, am I right?” he asked as he leered at the blue-haired maiden. “That was quite a display just now, and you certainly had all my men hot and bothered the other night in Lindow, Miss…”
“Defender Aurora Solana,” she spat in reply, and I didn’t have to look at her to know how rage burned in her emerald eyes. “And I’d be happy to give your men an encore.” She lifted her hand and out of my peripherals I saw flames flicker between her knuckles.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Dred said as he lifted his own hand. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
At his signal, the bandit that held Davit’s noose tugged on the rope, and the king gasped as he raised up on his tiptoes to keep breathing.
“Alright,” I said as I raised my voice and locked eyes with Dred. “You’ve proven we’re outnumbered and outmatched. What do you want?”
The Bandit Boss rested one hand on the hilt of his sword, and then he brought the other up to rub contemplatively at his chin.
“Well,” he started as he dragged his eyes over me again, “at first, I just wanted you the hell out of my kingdom. Things were going fine until you showed up. In fact, when I heard that the pretty Princess Balmier actually slipped out of Cedis just to bring you back and mess up our plans, I was fit to be tied.” His black eyes skipped over to Cayla, and then a dark and lustful smile spread across his face. “I had such lovely plans for you, my dear. My men and I had planned to reward you for your harrowing journey.”
The other bandits started to laugh, and all their leering eyes locked in on the princess. I took a step to the side and blocked her from view before I bared my teeth at Dred.
“If you even think about touching a hair on her head…” I threatened.
Dred tipped back his head and laughed. “Relax, Mason Flynt. I’ve long since forgiven the princess for trying to get in my way. You’ll find I’m a forgiving man. I’ve even decided to forgive you for killing my lieutenant in Lindow the other night. We must let bygones be bygones, yes?”
“What a big heart you have,” I replied sarcastically. “You still haven’t told me what you want. You said at first you wanted me to leave Cedis. What do you want now?”
“Ah, a perceptive man,” Dred remarked as he tapped at the side of his nose with a sly smile. “I like that about you, Flynt. But yes, you’re right, my plans for you have changed.” The Bandit Boss grinned broadly as he stretched his arms out wide to either side of him. “Now, I want you to come work for me.”
“Excuse me?” I scoffed incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” Dred dropped his arms, but that shit-eating grin was still affixed to his mouth. “Personally, I never thought much of mages. Your lot just seems… weak to me. All your power comes from the magic in your veins, magic that was given to you by a random stroke of chance. Real power requires blood and sacrifice.”
“Not your own, of course,” I fired back with a scowl, “just the blood of innocents, right?”
Dred shrugged nonchalantly. “Only those who refused to recognize my power. But my point here, Defender Flynt, is that you seem… special. Something about the look in your eyes tells me you understand what I mean by sacrifice. Perhaps you and I are not so different.”
“I am nothing like you, Camus.” I spat his given name like it left a bad taste in my mouth, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of true emotion pass over Dred’s face. It was a flash of pure animal rage, and it was gone in a moment, but I saw it. And now I knew that his confident mask wasn’t affixed so tightly.
But just as quickly as it had fallen, Dred picked up the mask of smug, mocking arrogance and slid it back into place.
“Okay, perhaps you have a point, we do have our differences,” he said with an affable smile. “I, for one, cannot make whatever that thing is in front of you.” He nodded to Big Guy, and his eyes were curious and sharp. “And I certainly cannot make those weapons on your hip and in Princess Balmier’s hands that have killed so many of my men.” His eyes went hungrily to my revolver before they lifted to mine once again. “If I could make these things, Cedis and so much more would have been completely mine a long time ago. But I cannot change the past. I can only look to the future, and if you join me, our future can be as rich as we want it to be.”
He finished with a grand flourish, and then the crazy son of a bitch actually held his hand out to me, like I was going to be so moved by his words, I’d fall into his arms.
I struggled not to laugh in his face as the beginning of a plan began to take form in my mind. It was a gamble, and I would have to be fast and extremely accurate, but it could work. I simply needed to keep the Bandit Boss distracted.
“Thaaanks,” I drawled, “but I’m gonna have to pass.”
Dred’s calm mask flickered again, but this time he really struggled to maintain his composure.
“I do not think you understand what I am offering,” he said through gritted teeth. It was the first time his voice hadn’t flown like poison-laden honey. It seemed I had gotten under his skin.
Excellent.
“Mmmm… yeah, no, I kind of do,” I replied with an over exaggerated nod. “In exchange for King Davit’s life, you want me to join your little group of merry men and go pillaging across the continent, right? I build weapons for you, and we reap the spoils, and we build a rich and shiny future together. Perhaps as lovers? I’m not entirely sure. That last part with you holding your hand out was a little unclear.”
Dred’s jaw clenched so loud I could practically hear it from where I stood, and a vein began to throb at his temple. Around us, a few of the bandits shifted uneasily, and I thought I even heard one or two chuckle. I swore steam was about to erupt from Dred’s ears at any moment.
“You--” he started to snarl, but then I held a hand up and cut him off.
“One second, I’m not done,” I said with my own grin, and as I kept Dred focused on me, I let out a little tendril of magic into Big Guy. “Here’s my counteroffer: you release King Davit, you return him to us, and just maybe, I might let a few of your men live.”
This time all the bandits laughed, but now it was at me.
Bolstered by his men’s mocking laughter, Dred seemed to regain some of his facade. He unclenched his fists and tipped back his hat as that slimy smile returned.
“Flynt, you have balls, I’ll give you that,” he chuckled, “but perhaps I need to rescind my comment about you being smart and perceptive. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have you surrounded. And I have all the leverage.” He spread his arms out wide again and then turned in a circle. The bandits all cried out in unison as they stamped their feet and rattled their weapons, and the bandit clutching Davit’s noos
e tugged on it again with a feral grin.
I shoved down my rage and forced myself to glance around the room with a smile.
“Aw, how cute,” I cooed mockingly, “you’ve taught your dogs tricks. Do you train them with pieces of jerky or…?”
“Enough,” Dred snarled as his mask slipped again. “I’m tired of these games. You will join me, Flynt, or Princess Balmier will quickly become an orphan before I force her to become my wife.”
He tried to smile again to throw me off, but it looked more like a grimace. I noticed that sweat had begun to slip down the bridge of his nose, and that vein still throbbed at his temple. He was practically unraveling before my eyes. It really burned him to have me refuse his offer.
I let him stew in silence as I slowly extended the crossbow’s limbs that were hidden by Big Guy’s shield.
Dred must have taken my lack of response for contemplation because he tried the cajoling route one last time.
“Come on, Flynt,” he said softly. “You have to know this is a fight you can’t win. But don’t feel too bad. Time brings everything to ruin.” He reached out to run his hand over the golden arm of the throne behind him, and then he turned back to me.
“The time has come for the Balmier reign to end,” Dred continued. “It is my time now, and you would do right to join the winning side.”
“Pretty sure I’m already on the winning side,” I replied with a grin. “So I’m going to pass on your offer again, Camus. You’re not as charming as you like to think you are.”
Dred’s mask shattered, and absolute black rage and hatred descended over his face.
“Fine,” he snarled, “if you will not give me your weapons, I will just take them off your corpse and off the corpses of everyone in Eyton. Then I’ll make the old blacksmith tell me how to use them before I slit his throat, too!”
“No,” I said softly as I summoned the rest of my magic and it came rocketing toward the surface, “I don’t think you will.”
There was a brief instant where uncertainty flickered across Dred’s face, but I didn’t give him a chance to speak as I raised my hands and let my power explode out of them.
Big Guy snapped up his right arm and aimed over Dred’s head. I spared half a second to send Nemris up a prayer, and then I used my power to pull the crossbow’s trigger beneath the shield mounted on the animatron’s arm. An iron bolt flew through the air, and I used another burst of magic to make it sail true and sever the rope connected to Davit’s noose.
As the tension around the king’s throat released, he buckled to his knees on the scaffold, but that was the last I saw of him as I commanded stones to rip from the throne room walls and envelop Cayla’s father in a stone cage. Once Davit was protected, I turned my attention back to the men in front of me and braced myself for battle.
Dred snapped his head up, glanced at the scaffold and the isolated king, and when he looked back to me, murder shone brightly in his eyes.
“Attack!” he screeched to his men, and then the world devolved into chaos.
I reeled Big Guy back in front of us, and bullets and arrows alike pinged off his extended shield. I tried to will the animatron to do more, but it was near impossible when I was also keeping the king and our backs enclosed in stone.
“I can’t attack and be on the defensive!” I shouted to my companions behind me, and my voice cracked with the strain my body was under.
“We got this,” Aurora snarled in reply at my back, and then a wall of flames sprung to life in front of us. The heat was intense, but only for an instant before the Ignis Mage shoved the wall of fire toward the attacking bandits.
Dred’s men fell back several yards as they tried to escape the flames, but a handful of them were engulfed instantly. The rest tried to retreat toward the back of the throne room, but the Bandit Boss wasn’t having it.
“Don’t just stand there!” he roared as he unsheathed his sword and darted behind the throne. “Shoot them! Loose arrows! Use the metal thunder weapons!”
The men scrambled to nock their bows and figure out how to cock their guns, but Cayla beat them to it. Her rifle barked in quick succession over my shoulder, and within a span of seconds, three bandits fell dead to the floor.
But there were still more than a dozen men left, and my vision was quickly going black around the edges.
This battle needed to come to an end now, or I was going to fall on my face, and all our defenses would crumble with me.
So, using the very last of my reserves, I sent out a blast of magic behind us, and our rear stone shield shot backward to seal the hole we had blown through the throne room’s doors. With a wall now essentially at our backs and our sixes protected, I focused all my attention forward.
It was too hard now to keep the king surrounded in stone and use Big Guy at the same time, so I fell back on my Terra magic alone. The animatron froze before us with his shield still extended, and as I siphoned the power out of the machine, I sent it exploding out over the ground between the remaining bandits and us.
The floor buckled and undulated beneath their feet, and more than a few fell on their asses. It was their last mistake because the instant they slammed into the stone floor, I turned it into quicksand. Some of them sunk completely into the fluid rock, some only partially, but even if they weren’t killed by crushed limbs, Cayla picked them off one by one with her rifle and Aurora burned the bodies to a crisp.
The screams got a whole lot louder after that.
I scanned through the smoke and carnage in search of Dred as my magic rapidly dwindled. It was hard to see anything as my vision began to flicker more steadily, but then I caught sight of the Bandit Boss crouched beside the throne. It looked like he hadn’t even moved since we made our move, and his face was white as a sheet as he took in the surrounding chaos.
“Gotcha,” I muttered, and before anyone could stop me, I lurched forward with an energy I didn’t know I had and darted across the battle-ravaged throne room.
“Mason!” I heard Cayla and Aurora scream in unison, but I was already stumbling toward the Bandit Boss with my teeth bared and my revolver half drawn.
Dred saw me coming, but as he tried to jump to his feet, a bullet flew right over his head, and I heard Cayla cock her rifle again. Dred dropped down again and looked around him in panic, but we had him pinned.
I slowed to a walk as I aimed my gun at the bandit’s head.
Dred crouched several feet away from me, and if looks could kill, I’d be a smoldering heap of ash.
“Tell your men to surrender,” I panted as I lifted my top break revolver and centered it right between his eyes. My vision was going dim, and my arm shook, but I didn’t relent.
Camus Dred screwed up his face and spat on my boot.
“I don’t take orders,” he snarled, but I could see the fear deep in his eyes as he stared down the barrel of my gun.
“You’ll take mine,” I growled.
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” he mocked. “Like a spineless mage like you would have the balls.”
“Spineless, victorious mage works for me,” I snarled, and then I shifted the revolver to the side and fired a bullet into Dred’s shoulder. As he fell back with a cry of agony, I put two more above each of his knees so he wouldn’t get any ideas about running.
“You stay right there,” I growled, and he groaned pathetically in response. “Someone else deserves to kill you.”
Never let it be said I’m without mercy.
I turned around to check how the rest of the battle was going, but I didn’t have to. All of Dred’s men lay either dead or dying, and Aurora and Cayla were sprinting across the floor to my side.
“Mason, are you okay?” the princess asked the instant she was within earshot.
“Do not do that again,” Aurora scowled as she reached me, too. “You didn’t say a word before you dove headfirst into the battlefield.”
“I saw an opening, and… I took it,” I gasped as I swayed on my feet. Aurora immedi
ately reached out to steady me, and I flashed her a thankful smile. “I’m… sorry you were worried about me, but look what I caught.”
I turned and gestured over my shoulder to the injured and incapacitated Bandit Boss. He had managed to drag himself several feet away from the throne, but his face was blanched white from pain, and he had left a decent blood trail in his wake.
I used a bare tendril of magic to bind his hands to the floor with stone just in case he got any stupid ideas.
“Did anyone… see where the executioner went?” I asked as I looked around, my body still on high alert.
Cayla nodded and pointed to a body on our left. His head was twisted toward us, and there was a crater in the center of his face.
“I picked him off first,” the princess snarled, but then she blinked and snapped her head up to look at the scaffold above our heads. “Gods! Father!”
Before any of us could stop her, she sprinted behind the throne and scaled up the scaffolding.
“Father!” she called as she pulled herself onto the landing. “Father, can you hear me?”
When she slid to her feet and approached the stone egg I had encased the king in, I finally released the last of my magic, and the stone casing cracked in half loudly before it crumbled into sand. As the final vestiges of power faded from my veins, I tittered to the side and collapsed onto the king’s throne. I spared half a thought to moving, but then I told myself Davit probably wouldn’t mind.
Suddenly, a sharp cry rose up above our heads, and my heart dropped into my stomach as it was followed by loud sobs.
“Cayla?” I called as I tried to push myself upright.
Aurora stepped forward and pressed her hand into my shoulder to keep me seated.
“It’s alright,” she said. “It is a cry of relief. They are both fine. Give them a moment to come down.”