by Dante King
“Even so,” I muttered, “I don’t fancy their chances against the Arcanist’s soldiers. Even outnumbered ten to one I think those men could do some serious damage. What’s that they’re protecting in the center?”
In the middle of their square formation, their Captain stood tense next to the red-robed figure of the Arcanist. The Captain was gripping something—a man, I suddenly realized. A man doubled over with his arms wrenched up behind his back. A well-dressed, paunchy, bald-headed man, with a golden chain of office hanging askew from his neck.
The Governor.
“That’s him,” said Jacques, answering my question. “That’s Governor Arnold.”
The soldiers held formation and broke into a quick trot, moving away from the buildings toward the center of the town square. Then, at a word from the Captain, they stopped, broke formation, and reordered themselves into two rows behind the Arcanist, the Captain, and the prisoner.
The whole square was deathly quiet. Arcanist Maximillian swept the crowd with his steely gaze, and for the first time, he noticed me and my companions. His gaze snagged on us, and he frowned. Then, he raised up his hand and began to declaim in a loud voice which rang off the walls and stones of the town square.
“People of Brighwater! This man, Governor Arnold, has been found guilty of corruption, bribe-taking, and tax evasion. I have been dispatched to this town to seek him out, and to enact the King’s justice! The penalty for his crimes is death! By royal command, I shall carry out the sentence!”
Nearly the whole crowd immediately cried out in protest, but there was one group who conspicuously did not. This was the group I’d observed earlier, the group led by Mohawk and his cronies. They stood near the soldiers, perhaps twenty brawny miners armed with heavy clubs. One or two of them, I realized, were trollmen. Obviously not all trollmen went in for the slave trade. This bunch made it clear by where they stood whose side they were on.
I leaned back and spoke to Jacques through the rising roar of the crowd. “You see our friends from the other night over there by the soldiers? They seem to be backing the soldiers up.”
Jacques followed my eyes and then nodded. “That makes sense. The miners don’t like the Governor because he turns a blind eye to them being fleeced in the taverns and in the gambling houses. Nobody likes the miners, because everyone knows what sadistic bastards they are to the poor captives. The people of Brightwater survive on the trade of goods from the mines, but that doesn’t mean they like the way the captives in the mines are treated. That group over there, they helped some trollmen try to steal a Brightwater family of Sensitives for the mines a month or so back. The Governor stopped it. I suspect that’s what this is about, and why Mohawk and his group look so damn pleased with themselves.”
“Why would the Arcanist be prepared to kill the Governor over something so small as that?”
Veronica spoke. “Trouble has been brewing in Brightwater for months over the treatment and enslavement of Elemental Sensitives. For the Arcanists, maintaining the status quo is the main priority. I think that’s why Maximillian wants to make an example out of Arnold for interfering with the work of the slavers.”
At this talk of slavers, I felt my heart beat faster. So, Mohawk and this Arcanist were in league with the slavers, were they? I suddenly became sure that me and my companions would break a few heads before much more time had passed.
“We have to do something,” said Amelia, “look!”
The Captain had pushed the terrified Governor onto his knees and was drawing a sword. The Arcanist stood back, glaring around at the crowd as if daring anyone to challenge his authority. Mohawk’s group stood nudging each other and snickering. The Captain began to raise his sword to carry out the death sentence on the Governor.
“I’d say that’s my cue to get involved,” I said wryly.
I took a deep breath and bellowed at the top of my lungs. “Arnold! Run!”
My shout broke the silence like a rock through thin ice. The Captain’s sword wavered, and he looked around to see who had shouted. The Governor, who had been kneeling with his eyes down, suddenly threw himself forward with more speed and agility than I would have given him credit for. I supposed the fear of imminent death would do that to a man. Hands still bound behind his back, Arnold tore across the square. He was heading straight toward us.
“Well, I’ve done it now!” I called to my companions as a cheer went up from the townsfolk. “Let’s go!”
I leaped into action, running forward to meet the Governor, followed by Amelia, Veronica, and Jacques. The assembled crowd surged forward after us. The Arcanist looked annoyed, but not concerned. He raised one gloved hand and pointed it at the Governor, just as Arnold was about to reach the safety of the crowd.
“Watch out!” shouted a voice I recognized. “He’s about to cast a spell!” I looked up to see Mistress Blossom sprinting through the crowd toward us.
A wave of green energy blasted from the Arcanist’s hand, turning into a wooden spear which hurtled forward, seeking out the Governor.
“Two can play at that game!” I shouted.
Instinct guided me. I pulled Mana from my pool and into my Ice rune. I flung out my hand and used my snowflake rune to freeze the ice molecules in the air. A sheet of ice leaped from my palm into the path of the speeding spear.
As the two spells collided in a spray of ice and wood, the Governor was pulled into the safety of the crowd of townsfolk. He vanished into their midst as all the townspeople formed up in a ragged group behind me and my companions.
“Enough of this!” I yelled to the Arcanist as I strode forward. “Arcanist Maximillian, stand down! This is no way to conduct justice!” Even I, with my simple farmer’s background, knew that this was not how death sentences were carried out in the Kingdom. Behind me, the crowd of townsfolk cheered again.
The Arcanist looked shocked for a moment, then he turned not to the Captain of the soldiers, but to Mohawk and his band. It was now clear that they not only supported him, they were actually ready to take orders from him. The Arcanist’s voice was chillingly emotionless, and as I heard his tone, I knew that there would be no reasoning with this man.
“Kill them all,” he said, and Mohawk grinned.
The Captain went pale, but Mohawk did not. As Mohawk and his gang of thugs raised their clubs and began to charge across the courtyard toward us with a roar, I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of the homely, pale face of Governor Arnold. Someone had freed his hands, and Mistress Blossom was leading him toward the tavern, accompanied by a few other women and the lad she had sent to find me. That was good. She would heal his hurts, and he would be safe in the tavern, unless this Arcanist and his thugs annihilated me and all my companions.
And that was certainly not going to happen.
“Hold off on using magic just yet,” I said to my women. “Only use it if you absolutely need it. We’ll need our Mana pools full if we have to fight Maximillian and his thugs.”
My women nodded their agreement, and the battle began in earnest.
I met Mohawk head on in the middle of the square, and Jacques, Amelia, Veronica, and many of the braver townsfolk charged, yelling behind me. My friends had drawn their swords, but I felt like treating myself to a bit of physical exercise, and most of these guys were only armed with clubs. Mohawk had his cudgel raised for a blow. He braced, expecting me to reach for my weapon. Instead, I closed the distance between us, got right in his face, and smashed my forehead into the bridge of his nose as hard as I could.
There was a satisfying crunch. Blood squirted from the mess where his nose had been, and his cudgel clattered to the ground. Beside me, Veronica ran a goon through with her vector sword while Amelia stepped in close and brought her knee up to crush another man’s balls with a powerful blow.
Mohawk’s eyes had rolled back up into his head, and he fumbled at his smashed face as he tried to crumple to the ground, but I wasn’t done with him yet. I caught him by the shirt front and
spun him round as two more goons came straight at me. It was Eyepatch and Red Nose, both of whom we’d seen off the other night.
“Not had enough yet, boys?” I taunted them, and shoved Mohawk’s dead weight at them. All three went down in a heap, cursing.
I stepped in, grabbed Eyepatch’s cudgel, and tried to pull it out of his grip. Like a fool, he hung onto it, drawing his arm out tight. I pulled the cudgel harder and stamped on the arm, breaking it at the elbow as if I’d been breaking up firewood. The man howled and rolled away, clutching his shattered limb to his chest and leaving his weapon, a big, heavy bit of hardwood with a lead-filled head, in my hands.
Red Nose, to his credit, came up fighting. He had dropped his club and pulled a short, ugly knife. He dropped into a fighter’s crouch and tried to close the distance with me so he could stab me, but I stepped nimbly to his right. As his own momentum carried him past me, I dealt him two solid blows in the kidneys with the heavy club I’d taken from the other man. Red Nose staggered forward an unsteady step or two. I stepped behind him, shifted the hard, knobby cudgel into a two-handed grip, raised it, then brought it down on the crown of his head with every ounce of strength I could muster. His head cracked like an egg under a horse’s hoof, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
I turned and surveyed the battlefield. All around me, Mohawk’s team were taking a beating. Mohawk himself was feebly trying to crawl away from the action, blood still pouring from the place where his nose had been.
Veronica and Amelia were working together. Veronica was mostly leading the way, but Amelia, for all her scholarly nature, was holding her own. Even as I watched, Amelia ducked in under a big trollman armed with a broadsword who seemed intent on using his superior size and reach to beat down Veronica’s guard. Amelia came in low on the trollman’s left side and felled him with a sturdy thrust of her shortsword through his abdomen.
All around, townsfolk who had obviously been used to these bullying thugs for years were getting the chance for revenge. I saw a man who looked like a blacksmith wielding a hammer with skill, two men in bright merchants’ clothes fighting side-by-side with elaborate basket-hilted swords, and a group of ten young barmaids with brooms who had obviously ventured out of the tavern to give one particular man a sound beating with broom handles.
When I raised my eyes from this group and looked at the tavern itself, I saw the buxom figure of Mistress Blossom leaning in the doorway, watching the proceedings with interest. She saw me looking at her and raised one shapely hand in greeting.
A loud voice intruded itself on that pleasant sight. “Take that, you filthy drainpipe fucker! Corpse breath! Cockroach cock! Rain barrel sniffer!” The voice—and the bizarre insults—could only be coming from Jacques.
I looked in the direction of the shouts and found my old friend in the crowd, holding off the last two thugs with his razor sharp, whip-thin Sunlands sword. The blade and the fighting style that went with it were like nothing anybody else in the Kingdom used. It had baffled many an opponent during our hell-raising days back in Aranor, and he was even better at it now. For all his buffoonery, the man was still serious about his swordplay and had kept in practice.
He pirouetted like a dancer, whipping the thin sword in and out under both men’s guards quicker than either of them could blink. The Sunland swordplay relied on speed and was designed more for non-lethal dueling than this kind of brawling fight. As a result, neither of Jacques’ opponents had fallen, but both were bleeding from multiple cuts to their hands, arms, and legs.
I began to stride toward them, across a town square that was now littered with wounded or dead thugs. As I did so, Jacques dived into an opening and finished one of his men with a lightning-fast thrust through the throat.
“Die, maggot brains!” I heard Jacques shout as he felled the man. The last thug turned and fled as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.
Jacques let out a yell of triumph, but I heard a sudden harsh shout from the other side of the square. I’d almost forgotten the soldiers.
They’d formed up into a staggered line, every second man two steps behind the first and to his left, and each of them perhaps a yard apart. In this formation, they could cover a lot of ground each. They came forward in lockstep, shouting with each tramp of their heavily booted feet. Long, viciously pointed pikes were in their hands and swords were at their belts. They were well-armored, with ringmail down to their knees, steel shin guards, tight-fitting breastplates and tall helmets which protected most of their faces.
Maximilian had not moved from his position. He stood with a satisfied smile on his face and his red-robed arms crossed, his bald head shining in the sun. In his eyes, there was a flash of madness.
These soldiers were not rabble like Mohawk and his thugs. Even though there were only ten of the soldiers, the crowd of townsfolk were withdrawing toward the tavern, and their angry shouts had changed to a concerned muttering. I glanced around, locating Amelia and Veronica standing side by side a little way to my right, and Jacques off to my left.
Jacques looked as if he was ready to take on all ten of the soldiers single-handed. His sword was raised, and battle-fury radiated from every line of his stance. In this mood, he might well do something foolish.
I needed to take control of the situation.
As one, the soldiers lowered their pikes to form a wall of steel death. At a shout from the Captain, they quickened their pace and began to close the distance.
“Amelia! Veronica!” I shouted. “Back to the townsfolk!”
The women immediately obeyed, running past me to take up positions in front of the townsfolk. The brave people of Brightwater had changed quickly from an angry mob to a worried huddle in the face of the drilled and professional soldiers.
“Come on, you bunch of piss streaks!” shouted Jacques. “Privy peekers! I’ll have you all! Come on!” He danced about in front of them, waving his sword wildly.
I sprinted toward him, intending to grab him by the collar and haul him back, but at that moment, he leaped away from the soldiers and ran back toward the townsfolk.
“What was all that about, you idiot!?” I shouted to him as I fell in beside him, running back to where the townspeople huddled.
“Just buying you a bit of time, old boy,” he said with a rakish wink. Despite the peril of the situation, I had to laugh as we pulled up in front of the townsfolk and turned to put ourselves between them and the soldiers.
The armored soldiers stopped, pikes lowered, about twenty yards from us. I felt Jacques drawing breath to shout some new weird insult at them, but I nudged him hard.
“Shut it, Jacques,” I hissed at him, and thankfully he did.
The Captain spoke clearly into the expectant silence. “Give up, Governor Arnold, and we’ll let you live! Resist, and you’ll all die by the order of the Arcanists!”
“Down with the Arcanists!” shouted a voice from the crowd.
“Death to the tax collectors!” shouted another.
“Fuck off back to Astros, you tyrant!” shouted yet another. That gained a loud cheer. The crowd seemed to have gained confidence from our presence.
I glanced at Amelia, who was now standing to my left. She looked calm, but there was a fierce glint in her eye which had not been there before. Veronica was on my right, and her beautiful face was set in cold determination. I noticed that she had loosened her tunic so that she could free her Lightning tattoo at a moment’s notice.
“These townspeople aren’t ready to give up without a fight,” I said to the women, “but if they go up against these soldiers it’s bound to get ugly. Even if the townspeople came out on top in the end, they’d take heavy losses.”
“I’m not prepared to see that happen,” said Amelia.
“Nor I,” agreed Veronica.
I nodded my head slowly. “I didn’t think you would be. Are you ready to take this to the next level?”
Veronica reached up and undid the knot that held her tunic up, and the garment fell to
the ground. There was a gasp from the crowd behind us as she wore only the red leather garment to hold up her breasts, revealing her magnificent Lightning tattoo in all its purple-inked splendor.
I checked my Elemental dagger where it sat at my belt, then took a breath. My Mana pool was full, and my tattoos tingled, ready for action.
“Let’s show this Arcanist and his soldiers what we can do. They’ve not seen anything yet.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As the soldiers broke into a run to cross the short distance between us, I drew my Elemental dagger and focused on channeling Lightning. Though I had no Lightning tattoo, I knew I had acquired its corresponding affinity by sleeping with Veronica. It lurked in the back of my mind, and I found it after thinking of the great goddess in her storm-wreathed land.
Suddenly, my knife grew to become a great battle-axe. I swung the new weapon in two hands, and its razor-edge connected with the stomach of the leading soldier. He was cleaved in two as lightning rippled along his severed halves.
The rest of the soldiers paused in their advance, and I heard the distinctive crackling sound of ice magic forming. I glanced to my left in time to see a long, vicious-looking ice spear taking shape in Amelia’s right hand. She raised her hand, her tattoo glowing a fierce blue, and the projectile hurtled forward, straight through the chest of one of the mail-clad soldiers.
He stumbled backward, clutching at the long shaft of the ice spear sticking up out of his chest, and Amelia stepped forward, an ice blade appearing in her hand. She closed the distance and jammed the frozen blade through the man’s eye. He collapsed to the ground, and as he died, the elemental blades melted suddenly into pools of water which spread out across the ground around him. The remaining soldiers closed ranks and continued their advance, and the crowd of folk behind us retreated away from the approaching points of the spears.
Amelia fell back, looking pale, her face drawn. I could see that her Mana must be depleted. She would need a moment to regenerate. I would buy her time.