The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron

by Bolme, Edward

  The crowd groaned and cheered at his escape.

  He wiped one hand across his upper lip, locked eyes with the bugbear, and said, “Well, at least we’re making a good show of it. I doubt anyone expected you to last this long.”

  “It is now time for you to die!” yelled the bugbear.

  “Think so?” panted Cimozjen. “Last I checked, I had a say in that decision.” He staggered momentarily, then lunged to the attack. He jabbed his staff at the bugbear’s eyes to distract him, and swung his sword in a low, rising forehand slash, aiming for the hip. He connected right below the crest of the hip. His arm jarred with the impact, but the bugbear showed no sign that he even recognized that he had been struck.

  The bugbear swatted Cimozjen’s staff from his sweaty hand. It fell to the clay at Cimozjen’s feet.

  Cimozjen stumbled forward with his momentum, but the bugbear backpedaled and used the butt end of his two-handed axe to get underneath Cimozjen’s forearm. With a strong flip of his muscular arms, he pushed Cimozjen’s sword arm into the air, and then he swung crossways with his axe, striking the blade at the pommel and stripping it from Cimozjen’s hand. The sword twirled through the air for about ten yards. It landed point first into the clay, digging a divot before flipping over and landing.

  Cimozjen looked at his numb hand. “Blessed Host, that hurt,” he said.

  He feinted for his sword. The bugbear swung at his back to fell him as he ran, but he ducked under the whistling blade and doubled back for his staff.

  He snatched it up and ran to the center of the arena. The bugbear cagily stayed between him and his sword. Cimozjen shifted his staff to his left hand and drew his dagger from the small of his back. “Here we go,” he muttered.

  The bugbear closed, his large hands twisting on the haft of his weapon.

  With an efficient little flip of the wrist, Cimozjen reversed his grip in the dagger, holding it point-down for a quick slash-and plunge. He lashed out, aiming to slash across the front of the bugbear’s throat, then reverse direction and stick the blade in behind the beast’s jugular, but in that split second the bugbear’s powerful hand let go of his axe and seized Cimozjen’s wrist in a grip like iron.

  Cimozjen’s eyes went wide. With his left hand, he struck the bugbear about the head and shoulders, but the angle was all wrong, and the blows, while loud, availed him not.

  The bugbear twisted Cimozjen’s wrist over, then he dropped his axe and pried the blade from the Karrn’s hand. He turned his shoulder and used his weight to drive Cimozjen to the ground.

  With his staff, Cimozjen tried to strike the bugbear the harder, but lying on his back robbed his blows of power. The bugbear shifted his grip and grabbed Cimozjen by the throat, using his knees and elbows to keep him pinned. Cimozjen drew up his right hand and clenched it over his heart. “No! Please!” he screamed. His terrified voice sounded alien to his ears.

  “It is time for you to pray to the Host,” said the bugbear. The creature glanced down and saw the small hole in Cimozjen’s chain shirt where Jolieni’s blade had nearly skewered him. He maneuvered Cimozjen’s dagger into position. Cimozjen struck the bugbear again and again with the staff in his left hand, but despite his fear, he knew he could not do enough damage to stop the blade.

  Murmuring a frantic prayer for salvation, Cimozjen felt his own blade pierce his skin, then slide into his chest.

  “Ooohhhhh,” said Rophis with mock pity as the bugbear drove the dagger into Cimozjen’s chest up to the hilt. He poured out the rest of his wine on the floor, spattering the stone with red. “I guess that’s that.”

  Twenty-two years earlier:

  Cimozjen fought the return of consciousness. He fought against the rising awareness of pain, the disorientation that muddled his brain, the stench that assailed his nose, but he had to yield before the persistent awakening.

  He opened his eyes, and found himself face to face with a dead man, open blank eyes staring through him into eternity. Is that me? he thought. Then he saw the small dragonhawk emblem on the front of the man’s helmet, and he remembered him. He remembered seeing that look on the man’s face as Cimozjen’s dagger slipped between the plates of his mail and into his heart, the look of surprise, dismay, betrayal, defeat. His mind began to piece things back together, unfolding the memories of the last stand of the Iron Band.

  He moaned softly, an indulgence he granted himself, an admission of the aches that held his body and by no means a plea for help. How he’d managed to remain alive, he had no idea. Perhaps he had been struck across the helmet, or perhaps a horse had knocked both him and his final victim down. It mattered little. He was alive.

  Slowly he raised his head. Viewed from the ground, the battlefield was an endless badlands of broken armor and broken bodies, the only vegetation the blades and spears that rose from the carnage where they had been planted. Overhead, the sky grew gradually darker as the sun sank toward the horizon.

  “Mozji …” said a voice, so weakly it was almost a whimper.

  Cimozjen turned his head to see Kraavel lying some five feet away, clutching a wad of bloody cloths to his abdomen just below the ribs, pressing it tight with both hands. His face was ashen and drawn.

  “Mozji,” he gasped, “it won’t stop bleeding. Heal me.”

  Cimozjen turned his head to scan the area. A few Aundairian litter crews worked the battlefield, looking for the injured. Nearby, a pair of desultory spearman stalked about, searching the field. As Cimozjen watched, they stopped. One of them nudged something with his boot, then the other plunged his spear downward. A hand briefly shot up from the ground, then fell limp. The Aundairians continued their hunt, drawing closer to where the two Karrns lay. Dread seized Cimozjen’s heart.

  He looked back to Kraavel. “Lie still!” he whispered. “Play dead!” Cimozjen clutched his holy symbol, concealed beneath his body, with his right hand.

  “But Mozji,” pleaded Kraavel, “the bleeding, it—”

  “Let them pass by, and then I’ll heal you! Just hold on for a few moments!” He didn’t mention—couldn’t admit, not aloud—that he feared the Aundairians might stab him as he lay there, and he wanted to save his healing for himself, just in case. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like that, not stabbed to death while feigning to be a corpse. He felt the fear, he felt the dishonor, and he was ashamed.

  “Mozji, I’m so cold …”

  “Hsst!”

  Cimozjen lay still, one eye peering through the crook of his dead foe’s arm to watch the progress of the Aundairian spearmen. He steeled his mind, bracing himself to feel a stab wound, willing himself not to react to the pain, preparing his soul to pray for his healing even as the cruel blade was withdrawn from his torso. Concealed beneath his prone body, the telltale glow of his holy symbol would not be noticed, and he might survive the encounter.

  The Aundairians moved past, never closer than thirty paces to one side. Cimozjen heard them talking quietly, their accented words a strange murmur in the settling evening.

  After they passed, after the tension eased from his joints and limbs, Cimozjen began to move, carefully, quietly. He found his dirk still embedded in the chest of his foe and gripped it, then crawled stealthily over to where Kraavel lay.

  “Hsst! Kraavel!” he whispered. “They’re gone!” He pushed Kraavel over to get a better look at the wound, but his friend lay limp. His undamaged eye was dilated, staring nowhere. His half-open lips looked faintly blue.

  As the sun set over the last battlefield of the Iron Band, Cimozjen stared into the face of his friend, abandoned by an act of cowardice to die a cold and lonely death.

  “I am so sorry, my friend,” he whispered. “Please forgive me.” He began to weep, silently. “And I swear, never, ever again.”

  Chapter

  TWENTY-SIX

  A Crash of Iron

  Wir, the 4th day of Aryth, 998

  Pomindras rose. “Lord, I should be going. I’m due on the clay shortly.”

  “Yo
u enjoy that, don’t you?” asked Rophis, slurping away the last of his wine. “Who is it this time?”

  “Some stiff-necked youngster who wants my shield,” he said as he carefully hefted his prize possession by the straps and slung it over his back. The gold rim shone beautifully, while the black boss remained as black as midnight. “He challenged me, can you believe it? Bah. Odds are as long as I’ve seen them, but I’ll still chain myself up, just in case the lad gets a lucky strike in.”

  “Pomindras, while you’re down there, sign that bugbear up with the family. I liked his style.”

  “If you insist, lord,” he said. He picked up his sword by the scabbard and trotted to the stairwell that led to the arena.

  The bugbear looked around. A sea of faces—yelling, cheering, clapping—surrounded him. It was a new experience. He looked down at the thin blade in his hand. It was so small compared to his great axe, but in the right hands, just as deadly. Perhaps even deadlier. It was all so confusing, the noise, the dealings, everything but the arena. For a moment, he wished he were home.

  One of the doors to the arena opened and a trio of workers stepped out, unarmed and dressed in simple peasants’ attire. They walked over to Cimozjen’s body. One hand was still clenched over his heart, and the other still tightly held to his staff. Blood trickled down the links of chain mail to form a small pool on the clay.

  One of the workers continued to walk across the plaza to pick up Cimozjen’s sword. The other two moved to recover his body. They each grabbed one heel and started pulling, and as they dragged him across the field, friction slowly drove his arms over his head. It almost looked like he was cheering another victory.

  “Hey,” said the trailing worker, the sword slung easily over his shoulder. “He ain’t lettin’ go of his stick!” He chuckled a little at the oddity.

  One of the other workers called back to him over his shoulder, saying, “That’s why it’s called a ‘death grip.’ He’ll drop it soon enough.”

  They dragged Cimozjen’s body out of the arena. The third worker trailed close behind with the sword, and as he grabbed the latch to close the door behind him, he noticed that the bugbear had followed them. “Hey,” he said. “You’re supposed to go out that other door.” He pointed across the arena with his empty hand, then started to close the door.

  The bugbear reached out and grabbed the edge of the door.

  “Hey!” yelled the worker. He raised his voice and spoke more slowly. “Go to that door. Understand? Not here. There.” He pointed again. “That door. Go. This door, no!” He took a moment to turn to his companions. “Hey. Did you hear that? I rhymed!”

  The bugbear yanked the door open and stepped in.

  “Hey!” yelled the worker. “I said the other door!”

  The bugbear closed the door behind him.

  “Now look, you nit-brained—”

  The bugbear kneed the man as hard as he could in the gut. The worker gagged with the impact, nigh to vomiting, and doubled over, whereupon the bugbear slammed one heavy fist onto his back just between his shoulders.

  Cimozjen jerked into motion. Still clutching the staff tightly in his hand, he lanced it like a spear at one of the people dragging him and smacked him at the base of the skull. Stunned, the man let go of Cimozjen’s leg. The other turned. Surprised to see the corpse moving in such an animated way, he also dropped Cimozjen’s foot in surprise.

  Cimozjen, in an awkward position at best, nonetheless swung his staff to strike the worker on the knee, temporarily hobbling him.

  The bugbear leaped over Cimozjen and grabbed the two startled workers. They clearly had no fighting experience, and in a few swift breaths the bugbear had them both pinned beneath his burly arms. He squeezed the air from them until they both went limp, then banged their heads together a few times for good measure.

  The bugbear turned to see Cimozjen had regained his feet. “That was easy,” he said.

  Cimozjen laughed darkly. “For you, maybe, but I was the one that got stabbed.”

  “I have been damaged many times.”

  “That’s true,” said Cimozjen, “but I think it feels different to creatures like us, Four.” He picked up his sword. “Got my knife?”

  Four handed Cimozjen his blade, then looked at his extended arm. “How do I get rid of this fur?” he said. “I do not like it. It is not me.”

  “It’s just a visual illusion, Four. Your body still feels the same beneath it. It’ll wear off sooner or later. I hope.” Cimozjen sniffed and looked around. “So how do we get out of here?”

  “We do not,” answered Four.

  “What is going on?” said Rophis. “If they need to fight, put them in the pit!”

  He stood and turned to find the source of the ruckus that had seized an entire section of seats somewhere off to his right.

  There, near the entrance, it seemed a number of the audience had broken into a brawl. He strode toward the disturbance, waving several house guards to follow. Curiously, the crowd seemed to be evading the mischief, instead of feeding it.

  But then he saw two unexpected things that put everything into perspective.

  He saw the hobgoblin that Cimozjen had bested three days previous, and beside him the lad who owed them a few years in the arena after his evisceration. And he saw the rich blue tabards of the Aundairian soldiery.

  They were forcing their way in to the arena, arresting as many people as they could and driving the rest before them like cattle. The two turncoat pit fighters were gesturing in Rophis’s direction, searching the crowd for familiar faces.

  Then the hobgoblin locked eyes with him.

  Damn my height! thought Rophis. He turned, shielded his face as best he could, and grabbed one of the guards nearest him. “Destroy the evidence!” he ordered. “Now!”

  He turned and began pushing his way through the audience, hoping that he could effect his escape before panic seized the crowd—or at least before the Aundairians captured him.

  Pomindras moved swiftly through the passageways beneath the audience’s seating, heading around the curve of the arena for the fighters’ exit. He muttered to himself, wondering why Rophis would want to contract a bugbear when they were as unreliable as a goblin and as smelly as a Karrnathi zombie.

  Thus preoccupied, he did not notice that someone was waiting for him as he entered one of the open areas that dotted the outside of the arena.

  Four, still clad in the last fading vestiges of the illusory bugbear trappings, stepped out and swung his battle-axe at Pomindras, aiming squarely at the ebon shield that covered his back, intending to cleave it in two—and, with the same powerful blow, Pomindras’ spine.

  Somehow the impact was dramatically off; The blow rocked Pomindras’s shield and sent him tumbling, yet at the same time it cracked the haft of Four’s weapon, and the shield remained unmarred.

  Pomindras turned his fall into a roll and came up quickly. He grabbed the hilt of his sword and slung the scabbard to the side, baring the blade. Alarm and confusion held his face for just a moment, until he saw Four and Cimozjen. “You,” he said, looking at Cimozjen. “Alive? How?”

  He turned his gaze to Four and narrowed his eyes. “A glamer? You infiltrated us!” He backed up toward the hallway behind him, looking to narrow the area he had to defend. “That whole fight was mocked? That was a piece of work. I thought he really stabbed you to death.”

  “In truth, he almost did,” said Cimozjen. “I prayed for healing as he withdrew the blade. That’s why he had to kill me with my knife instead of his axe. We needed his body to block your view of it. I used the same trick to spare Tholog a few days ago.”

  Pomindras shucked his shield around and gripped it. It wasn’t as maneuverable as it would have been if he’d had it properly strapped, but it was more serviceable than nothing. “Too clever by half,” he said, “but you’re still not getting out of here alive.” He started backing quickly down the hallway.

  Cimozjen chased after him. Four remained where h
e was, inspecting the odd angle at which his weapon had cracked.

  Pomindras backpedaled, then turned to run.

  “Coward,” said Cimozjen. “I’ll gladly see you dead with your sole wound to the back.”

  Pomindras sneered. “Bravely spoken for someone with armor,” he said.

  “I have naught but a staff for a shield,” said Cimozjen. “You’re well rested and perhaps ten years younger than I, yet you show the courage of a pock-marked adolescent and the honor of a febrile kobold. You attacked me in the streets with five others, yet fled the field ere your sword tasted the air. Go. Run. Get help. We’ll see whether the dawn still bears tales of honor for the ring fighter called the Black Shield. That is you, correct? Or are you just his shield boy?”

  “I had to flee earlier, because you had me outnumbered. Damn cowardly thugs.” Pomindras gave a lopsided smile. “But in this hallway, there’s just room enough for you and me. Unless you’re going to make your pet warforged to do your work for you.”

  Cimozjen called back, saying “Four, Pomindras is mine. Cover my back.”

  “There is something you should know,” said Four. “My axe cracked the wrong way. I have no explanation for it.”

  “It’ll have to wait until later, Four,” said Cimozjen. “I have someone here who wants to kill me, and I’d rather not indulge him.”

  Pomindras worked his arm into his shield straps. “I thought I’d missed the pleasure of killing you, but you’ve just made it all the sweeter.” He dropped into a combat stance.

  Cimozjen gave the Rekkenmark salute then readied himself, metal-shod staff angled backward and sword leveled for a thrust.

  Pomindras took a low, wide stance and closed on Cimozjen crabwise. Seeing this, Cimozjen considered trying to wear the man down. A series of powerful overhand strikes on the shield would stress the knee, slowing him and forcing him to change his stance. Unfortunately, it would also take time and make a lot of noise, both of which would increase the chance of reinforcements coming. Instead, Cimozjen thought to go straight for the kill. With a low feint at the leg combined with a sweeping upward follow-through, Cimozjen could draw his attention low, and possibly also draw his shield down. A surprise cut to the head with the inside edge could be telling, especially since Pomindras wore no helmet.