by Ty Johnston
She gagged, then dropped the arrow and grabbed at her throat.
“No!” Kroff shouted.
Guthrie jumped back, thinking Kroff might attack, unsure if Zanbra was truly done.
The woman shimmied on her side for a moment, then she gasped, forcing blood to pour down her neck into her armor. She looked up at the sergeant, reaching a questing hand toward him. Gone was the hate and rage from her eyes, her look now one of longing, of confusion.
Kroff shuffled forward, pulling himself along the stony ground.
To no effect.
Zanbra’s eyes rolled back white again and she dropped, landing on her back, her plummet sending up a small cloud of dust beneath the remaining moonlight as dark blood splashed the ground.
Stepping further away, all Guthrie could do was watch as the remaining knight settled on his knees next to his dead companion. Kroff lifted her head into his lap, then he cried, tears streaming down his face.
Chapter 12
Too much had happened in such a little while. Guthrie was stunned. The destruction in the village, the warriors frozen, now Sword Zanbra’s death. All caused by Guthrie himself. It was enough to send a shiver down his spine, through his soul. Looking at the blooded sword in his hand, he tossed the weapon away.
Kroff sobbed, hugging the body of the woman close to him, the man muttering below his breath, the words indecipherable by the sergeant.
Still in shock, Guthrie turned away, giving the Spear some little solitude. The sergeant’s eyes lingered across the plain before him, drawn by the fire at the village. For a moment it occurred to Guthrie he should be concerned about another Dartague attack, but the sight below gave away such thoughts. There were bodies strewn throughout the small town, and those still alive were fleeing, some on animals, many on foot, running as fast as they could away from the decimation that had enclosed and smashed their world. They fled into the night, away from the mountains, away from the death that had come among them. At least there was no sign of magic, of any further wyrd women. The knights and the sergeant had accomplished their mission.
“I loved her, once,” Kroff said at Guthrie’s back, the older man’s voice hoarse.
The sergeant looked back to find the Spear still cradling the Sword.
Kroff chuckled weakly. “That was a long time ago. We were young. I think part of me was still in love, not with her, not with the hard woman she had become, but with the memory.”
Guthrie did not know what to say at such a moment. He had been the cause of Zanbra’s death, as accidental as it was. He could admit that to himself. He had not meant to kill her. He had swung the sword without thinking, only wanting to knock her aside.
Resting the woman’s head on the ground, Kroff wiped away his tears and looked up. “I don’t suppose there is anything you can do for her?”
It was a savage question, a hard question, one with implications Guthrie did not want to ponder. But he did. “I ... I don’t know. I think it’s too late, but I can try, if you want.”
Kroff glanced down at the pale, still face he had once loved. He stared for the longest time, until Guthrie thought an answer would not be forthcoming, but then the Spear whispered, “No. Let her have her peace. Perhaps now she will find it.”
It was answer enough. Guthrie was glad for this. He knew not the extent of his powers, if he could heal Zanbra’s body and return her soul, but he did not want to find out. It felt wrong to him to even think of attempting such, nearly monstrous. The dead should remain dead, no matter how much they were loved.
Sniffling, Kroff sat up straight, glancing about. “If you can bring me a horse, I will take her with us.”
“Do you want to bury her?” Guthrie asked.
“Not here,” the Spear said. “She deserves proper rites and entombment in Mas Ober. It is the least I can do for her.”
Guthrie nodded, then moved off to retrieve a pair of horses. Minutes later he returned with two of the animals, finding Kroff kneeling over Zanbra and using a belt to wrap her arms and legs to her body.
“I am truly sorry,” the sergeant said.
The Spear hesitated, his fingers pausing as he tightened a buckle across the chest of the corpse. Then he went back to work. “I understand, Guthrie. She ... brought this upon herself.”
“Perhaps,” Guthrie said, “but Kroff, I want you to know, I truly did not mean to kill her.”
The Spear paused again, then looked up, his eyes wet once more. “I find that difficult to believe.”
“It is true,” Guthrie said. “I only meant to knock her aside, to keep her from harming me. The sword ... it is not a weapon with which I am overly experienced. I did not expect its length. I ... I suppose I over swung.”
Kroff stared for a moment into the sergeant’s eyes, the older man’s own orbs hard and dark beneath the moonlight. Then he let out a heavy sigh and stood. “It is what it is, Guthrie. Even if you had killed her intentionally, it is like I said, she brought it upon herself.”
He reached out and took the reins of one of the riding beasts, then bent and lifted the woman’s body, with care placing it over a saddle. Putting a boot in a stirrup, he pulled himself up behind the body, shifting some to make room for himself and Zanbra.
“Where will you go now?” Guthrie asked.
“The front line,” Kroff answered. “I have to report to the duke, and your Captain Werner.”
“And then?”
“Likely back to the south, back home. I have to see to Zanbra’s remains, and then I will have a report to give there, as well. It is not every day a Sword of the Holy Order of the Gauntlet is slain. Once the ceremonies for Zanbra are completed, there will be a period of mourning, then a new Sword must be decided upon.”
“I should be you,” Guthrie said.
“Perhaps,” Kroff said, “but not likely. Those of the Order, there are far more like Zanbra than myself. We are a hard bunch.”
“But you accomplish that which the papacy needs,” Guthrie said, glancing to the corpse resting across the lap of the Spear, “sometimes to your own sacrifice.”
Kroff nodded. “If it be Ashal’s will.”
The Spear twisted his horse’s leathers and turned his animal away. He trotted but a few feet, then reined in his animal and glanced over a shoulder. “What of you, Guthrie Hackett? Where will you go?”
Such a question had not occurred to the sergeant since Zanbra’s death, but now it hit him once more that he did not have a homeland. “I guess I will still head out for Jorsica. It is my only hope.”
Kroff turned away then, as if he were to leave Guthrie to his fate, but the Spear paused once more. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“I think that would lead to a quick death,” Guthrie said.
“No ... not if we keep your secret a secret,” Kroff said. “No one has to know but you and I about your powers.”
How far did Guthrie trust the knight? He had to admit, quite a lot, even with Zanbra’s death between them. Kroff could have attacked when the woman had fallen, he could have turned on Guthrie at any point since learning the sergeant had magical talents. But Kroff had not. He had remained true throughout, by his own word having even tried to sway Zanbra herself.
But Guthrie shook his head. “It would be nice to see Ursia again, but I think not. I have nothing for me there. No family, no future.”
Kroff twisted in his saddle, staring directly at the other man. He waved into the frontier, beyond the mountains and the plain and the forests beyond. “There is no future out there, either, Guthrie. At best, you will become a mercenary, or with luck perhaps a sheriff for some little town somewhere beyond the wildness of Dartague. Come with me. My offer still stands.”
“Offer?”
“Of vouching for you as a knight.”
The words stunned the sergeant nearly as much as had the death of Zanbra and the destruction in the village. “What ... what do you mean?”
“Come with me,” Kroff repeated. “I will put in a word for
you, likely the duke will knight you himself in camp for aiding me and the Sword. The war is over, and you know it. We all know it. It was over almost before it began. Leave the retribution to the recruits. You and I, we have seen our war, and not on the front line, but here in these mountains. Return with me to Mas Ober and join the Gauntlet.”
Such an option was nearly enough to make Guthrie laugh. A thin, dark smile crossed his lips. “The Gauntlet? You want a natural mage to join the Gauntlet?”
“The secret is ours,” Kroff said. “It will be a struggle, but we can keep your talents to ourselves. Think how much good you can accomplish, how much help you can bring to the struggle against magic.”
The words were dangerous. If Guthrie followed through, he would be entering a world which he could never leave, a private, personal world in which he would potentially be at danger at every moment. If his special abilities were ever discovered, it would be death for him.
But that would be the case anywhere in Ursia. And did he truly want to head off into lands he had never visited, across the wilds of Dartague, the dangers of Kobalos, only to land in a nation of peoples little more than barbarians themselves, the sea-faring Jorsicans, all pirates at heart? Guthrie truly did not know, could not answer his own questions. It seemed all routes before him were filled with peril.
At least in Mas Ober he would have one friend, the man before him now.
Guthrie nodded and climbed aboard his own horse, turning the animal back into the mountains. He rode up next to the Spear and glanced across at the man.
“Thank you,” Kroff said.
Then they rode forward into the mountains and on to Ursia.
The Ursian Chronicles
(in order of publication)
City of Rogues: Book I of The Kobalos Trilogy
Road to Wrath: Book II of The Kobalos Trilogy
Dark King of the North: Book III of The Kobalos Trilogy
The Kobalos Trilogy OMNIBUS edition
Blade and Flame: short story sequel to The Kobalos Trilogy
Bayne’s Climb: Part I of The Sword of Bayne
A Thousand Wounds: Part II of The Sword of Bayne
Under the Mountain: Part III of The Sword of Bayne
The Sword of Bayne OMNIBUS edition
Ghosts of the Asylum
Demon Chains
The Castle of Endless Woe (novelette)
Six Swords, One Skeleton and a Sewer (short story)
Road of the Sword (short story)
Five Tales from The Rusty Scabbard
Mage Hunter: Episode I: Blooded Snow
Mage Hunter: Episode II: Sundered Shields
Mage Hunter: Episode III: Bared Blades
Mage Hunter: Episode IV: Hammered Iron
Mage Hunter: Episode V: Changeless Fate