Sword and Sorcery Box Set 1
Page 21
The fight was yet to leave it, though, and without the extra weight of bloat it only increased in speed, frantic now, desperate to survive. It sprang on Ken, grabbed him with both hands, and, like he was a rag doll, slammed him into the ground. He hit the ground with such force he feared for his spine; the wind sprinted free from his caving lungs. The fiend dug its talons into the boiled leather cuirass that covered his chest and hauled him up, fetid breath fanning his face. Ken’s strength had left him with his air, and though he fought, he could not resist a second slam.
Theron came to his aid, and with an immense upward sweep he lopped the Upir’s right arm in two. It dropped Ken, took its mutilated limb in hand, and thumped Theron hard across the helm with it, dropping him to a knee. Ken watched from his hands and knees, breathless, unable to speak as Chayse wiped the blood from her eyes and sprang to save her brother.
Aldous shook the haze from his head and sat up. He took a breath. It hurt. He saw four figures, fuzzy, indistinct, moving apart, then together, then apart again. An inhuman shrieking filled the air, followed by a thud.
Where am I—
The mission. The ghouls. The Upir—
He blinked and his vision sharpened. Ken was down. Theron was down, and the devil beast was using its own mutilated arm to clobber him.
He glanced toward the distant trees. He could run. While the thing was busy killing his comrades, he could run. To the east. To the north. He could run and he could hide.
He never asked for any of this.
Get up. That is the man who saved you, the man who took you in, the man who has faith in you.
And he, a warrior of such renown, was on the ground before the monster.
What hope did Aldous have?
He should run. The Aldous in the basement of the church would run.
Aldous crawled up onto his hands and knees, the world spinning around him.
Chayse sprang and slashed, got in two good strikes, spraying the thing’s blood in wide arcs, drawing the Upir’s attention from her brother for the briefest moment. But still it would not fall.
The Upir dropped its arm and lashed with the claws of its remaining hand.
Aldous pushed to his feet, heart pounding, muscles tensing.
Chayse was not quick enough.
The razor talons bit into her mail.
The iron rings split.
Her flesh was exposed.
She hit the ground bleeding.
Chayse.
Theron.
Ken.
And Aldous knew he had never intended to run. He saw the staff of wolves and ravens in the grass. He dove to it, rolling as he took it in his hands. There was no specific intent. No decision. It simply was . The power of the staff entered him, became him, and he became it. He could feel its life, and it could drink from his .
The fiend battered Theron back to the ground as he started to rise, and then it turned on Chayse. She was hurt, struggling to rise.
It hurt Chayse and it will kill her.
The wolves howled in his mind and his heart; the ravens cawed in the marrow of his bones and the sinews of his muscle. The wooden staff began to glow. It was hot, burning his flesh, but he did not blister. His shirtsleeves caught flame.
Chayse. Chayse. Chayse. All he thought was her name. All he knew was the need to keep her safe. Keep them all safe.
The Upir turned, sensing danger.
Fire burst from the staff so quickly it was hard to say whether it did at all, or whether the energy of the flame transported from the staff directly into the Upir. The red-orange glow of the flames engulfed it from the inside out. Fire burst from its mouth as it opened on a silent scream. It flailed as it burned, stumbled aimlessly, stumbled to the blood on the ground that had spilt from its eviscerated gut, and, still burning, still screaming, it dropped to its hand and knees and tried to lap it up. The red puddle boiled beneath the writhing, living torch.
Melting to boiling plasma, boiling, burning to ash, it died the truest death.
Aldous heard his name, a distant whisper. Ken. Theron. Chayse. They were calling him, but he did not—could not—answer. He walked to the dying flames in the Upir’s remains and put his hand into the fire, the staff still clutched in his other hand. The pain was so fierce Aldous wished to scream and howl, to sever the burning limb. He did none of that, for the flaming hand did not blister, and the fire did not spread. He walked to the hill of ghouls and placed his hand upon it. The fire was hungry, and it climbed the mound of dry flesh with ravenous speed.
He felt the drain, the singular drain he had felt the night he set the chapel ablaze, the first night he had ever used his magic. The mountain of gray meat was burning before him and then it wasn’t. He was flying through black clouds, over rotten fields flooded with a sea of rats. She was among them, emerald green, everything so green. And then she turned and looked up and up to the sky. And he felt like she looked into his eyes, into his heart.
Aldous gasped and dropped the staff. The image faded.
“Fucking hell, now that was a good bit of wizardry,” Ken said.
Aldous turned to him, then looked back at the fire. Wizardry. He was a wizard. He was a wizard.
Ken coughed and got to his feet. Theron was up next and rushed to Chayse, reaching her a second before Aldous did. She was standing before they got to her, staring at the bonfire. The wound was not nearly as bad as Aldous had thought; the splintered chain mail had cut her more than the Upir’s claws. She was scraped but not gushing, and he thought she would be fine.
She looked in awe at their smoldering enemy and the pile of flaming ghouls.
“Aldous?” she said, the fire glinting in the reflection of her beautiful eyes.
“Aldous indeed,” said Theron, the pride abundant in his voice.
“Fucking Aldous indeed!” shouted Ken, as he ran up and shook him by the shoulders. Aldous had never seen the large man so enthusiastic.
They were all looking at him, not the way they looked at a boy. The way they looked at a colleague, a comrade in arms.
He was well and truly one of them.
“You saved us all,” Theron said, bowing his head and dragging off his helm. His golden hair was sweat-plastered to his skull. Blood splatter freckled his face in the places the helm had not covered. “Never have I fought an Upir such as that. I truly hope we never cross its creator.”
“You would have figured it out without me,” Aldous said, truly believing it.
“I really doubt that.” Ken laughed, the sound like nails in a bucket. Aldous had rarely heard Ken laugh. He swept Aldous into his massive arms and squeezed. If he hadn’t laughed first, and were Theron not ruffling Aldous’ hair as if he were a puppy, Aldous might have thought Ken meant to crush the life from him. But it was a hug, and Aldous forgave him in an instant for his earlier hardness. This was the way of the pack.
“What stirred it in you? What gave you the key?” Chayse asked, looking at him in a way he had never seen her look at him before. It made him feel a little uneasy.
“You,” Aldous said. “When I saw you fall, when I saw you were wounded… I don’t know… I just knew what I had to do, and Theron and Ken, seeing you like that… I could not remain idle.”
“Aldous, you truly did save us. I know that you have thought all along that you owe me something for that night in Norburg, but you owe me nothing. You owe none of us anything. Except, of course, an excellent written recounting of my exploits.” Theron grinned.
“Perhaps Ken would like to try his hand at writing of our exploits,” Aldous said.
“I could try, lad, but I think the task is better suited to you, wizard or no,” said Ken.
“I have yet to document a single one of our adventures,” Aldous said, looking at the ground.
“It’s in your blood,” Theron replied, poking him in the chest.
Aldous opened his mouth, closed it, and then he turned to the burning bodies. He even took in a deep breath through his nose, for he wanted to sme
ll it now. He wanted to be sure. Then he thought of Wardbrook, and laughing and eating with his new family. He thought of the chapel, of Father Riker. He thought of his own father, not a sorcerer, just a man. He thought of him burning on that stake, screaming and begging as the fire climbed up his legs. He had stopped when his face began to blister and boil.
Then Aldous thought of the man he needed to become, for never again would he be a victim. Never again would he allow those he cared about to be victims.
It doesn’t matter how many thousands of troops are on the field; it doesn’t matter what they’re armed with or what type of mail they’re wearing. The side that wins is the side with a few good men. That is all it takes: a few good men can rally a thousand that are of the lesser making, the typical making.
Fighting is won by killers, by good, savage killers, the type of fellows who bend but never break. The type of blokes who walk into the thresher, and before they’re out, they become it. If you can’t kill with your bare hands, don’t ever pick up a sword. Turn around now and become a baker, or a milkmaid.
A speech given by Marshall Theodore Rosehammer to new recruits the day Kendrick the Cold joined the king’s army, in the second Norburg battalion, as documented by a scribe of the Honorable Count Salvenius.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ken’s Specialty
T hey were back at Dentin just before dawn. The duke had acted on Theron’s warning, at least somewhat, for though they were not as ready as Theron would have liked, some preparations were in the making. Although the sun was yet to rise, the villagers were bustling their way toward the keep. Soldiers holding shields bearing the sigil of Dentin—a red fox on a black field—conducted and ordered the villagers to take only the bare necessities of food and water. A column of peasants, some carrying their goods, others dragging foodstuffs and small children in carts, wended along the road. Theron was impressed with how composed the soldiers were; he hoped they kept that composure when they set eyes upon the swarm. Aldous had seen them, a sea of rats, and Theron believed it.
The party spurred their steeds and galloped to the house of Duke Duncan.
The guards recognized them this time, and at a distance.
“Hunters, you have returned. What of the Upir?” asked the one named Sam.
“Dead,” said Chayse. “The Upir and the mob of ghouls are but smoke and ashes.” They trotted through the already open gate alongside the column of peasants, and this close, Theron could read terror and panic in their faces.
The order to move to safer ground within the keep’s walls had fed their terror.
“Huzzah! The hunters have killed the devil,” yelled Sam, fist in the air, but the tired and confused peasants did not take up the cheer. They eyed the group of hunters warily and rushed through the gate.
The duke was right where they had left him, sitting in his chair in the study covered in his blankets, looking more haggard than he had the previous night.
“Mother died last night.” His tone was hollow and distant, his expression vacant, for he was lost in his grief.
They sat around him and gave a moment of silence to show their respect.
“The Upir is dead,” said Theron. “I do not intend to sound cold, but you must rise, Your Grace, you must rise and address your people. You must tell them what they are soon to face.”
“What if you’re wrong, Theron?” the duke asked. “I do not doubt your knowledge, but for the sake of joy and happiness, could you be wrong? Must I build fear in my people without proven cause? The rats were a plague that has passed. I see no rats now. Perhaps they will not come.”
“They will come,” Ken said with a long look at Aldous.
Theron could see in the duke’s eyes that they were losing him, that terror and heartbreak would soon render his decisions incomprehensible.
“I could be wrong,” Theron said without much conviction. “And for the sake of joy and happiness, I hope I am wrong.” Theron shook his head and paused. “But I doubt it. The Emerald Witch wanted you to believe she would save your mother. It was her way into your confidence. Then she would steal your mind, your power, your dukedom. Dentin is a vast and profitable place, perfectly located to reach her tendrils into all of Brynth. Her plan was to do to Dentin what she did to Norburg, to bring your lands to ruin, to establish a firm foothold in Brynth. The Emerald Witch herself is plague. She desires to destroy this nation from the inside.”
“But how do you know that as truth?” the duke asked. “It is pure conjecture.”
“Logical conjecture,” Theron shot back.
There was an overlong silence and the duke looked highly doubtful.
“She will take your women for demonic rites most foul,” Aldous blurted.
This statement roused the duke as Theron’s had not. “Foreigners taking our women?” he asked. “Why?”
Chayse rolled her eyes, and Theron frowned at her. This was the most life the duke had shown since their arrival. If talk of women was what it took, then talk of women it would be.
“The young ones,” said Ken. “That is what she did in Norburg. Took the young ones, but we know not why.”
“Yes,” Theron said, his tone grim. “I don’t as of yet know the method in the devil woman’s madness, but she took the young women, and I can only fear for what. Something terrible is being designed in our realm of Brynth, Your Grace, and I am near to certain that your land and its people are set to be destroyed for it.”
Tears welled in the duke’s eyes at this. “How can we face such monsters? How can we win such a fight? I have but eight knights in my court, forty men-at-arms, and thirty-six archers under my command. If we gather men capable of fighting from the peasantry, we will stand with two hundred, perhaps a few more. How many of the rats do you think shall descend upon us?”
“We saw a sea of rats in Norburg,” Theron said.
“A thousand,” Ken said grimly.
Neither mentioned Aldous’ vision, as if by silent agreement they avoided talk of magic and sorcery.
“Impossible odds.” Duncan shook his head. “Impossible odds.” He looked to Ken, perhaps sensing the soldier in their midst. “So we are doomed.”
“The odds are good enough to fight,” Ken said, and stood from his chair, chest out, jaw tight. “You hear me? The odds are bloody good enough. Now stop sniveling, Your Grace—stand up and come outside with us to address your people. Tell them a fight is coming and they don’t have a damned choice about it, because it is fight or die.”
Fabius, the duke’s mustached servant, had remained silent until then, but at the verbal manhandling Kendrick had bestowed upon his lord, he stood and walked toward Ken. Theron watched and let it play out. Chayse was about to speak, but Theron raised a hand for her to stay silent and let Ken be a military man.
“Do you know who you are speaking to, you… you ape, you barbarian?” spewed the fuming Fabius.
The duke said nothing as Ken pressed his chest against Fabius and drove him back a few steps. The fancy opened his mouth to call for the guards, but Ken grabbed his cheeks with one powerful hand and squeezed the man’s jaws shut in his grip. The duke looked on, his expression contemplative, as though he was in the midst of making a grave decision.
“What about you? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” Ken did not yell. He spoke in a hush so all in the room had to strain to listen. “When the king’s army smashed into Kallibar, I led my men through the breach, ten to one. Their favor. Didn’t matter—me and the lads, we killed them all. The easterners had these magnificent crossbows. They shot a bolt every second for six seconds until the bloody thing needed a reload. Do you know what happened then?” Ken waited for a response. None came. “Do you?” He raised his voice a little.
“No… no, I don’t,” said Fabius, his voice trembling.
“We just kept marching, heavy armor against a storm of bolts. I looked like a porcupine by the time we got through, but we got through, and their royal streets ran with blood.
Theron shuddered as he watched the monologue come to an end. He had known Ken for a year. They had lived, trained, and eaten together, and not once did Theron hear the man speak so much, and with such purpose.
“I know who you are,” whispered the duke, as if he were addressing a ghost. “I know who you are.”
“I bet you do, Your Grace. I bet you do. Lucky for you, I’m on your side. Not so lucky for the rats and the witch. Now get out of that chair and your snuggly sheets and tell your people it’s almost time for a fight.”
Ken almost had the urge to smile, pleased with his persuasive power over the duke, pleased that he had swayed him to do what he must. They stood, the five of them, on the large balcony on the second floor of the keep that looked out into the outer courtyard. The entire population of Dentin all gathered there shoulder to shoulder.
The duke called for silence, and a trumpeter sounded his horn. The rabble grew quiet and they gazed up at the duke.
“Good people of Dentin,” he began. “We have all heard what happened in Norburg. We have all heard of the swarm of rats that brought the capital of Southern Brynth to ruin. The hunters that stand beside me now fought in Norburg and escaped alive. They have just rid us of our Obour turned Upir, and the pack of ghouls that followed it.” He held up both hands to attempt to maintain the silence as his audience reacted to the news. Then he continued, “But with this good news comes knowledge most dire.”