by Ted Striker
Slowly the meaning of the Queen’s presence filtered into his mind; if Ayabis was with Shimshon, then the Imperial Captain must have encountered Bryan and taken her from the criminal. A spiteful smile of relief and triumph touched his lips; but it was short-lived, for just as he was congratulating himself that things would now return to normal, a mighty pandemonium rose from the crowd behind him. Above all the noise came a voice Porvir had come to hate in a few short months, a voice he had last heard it not so long ago in his dungeon: “Porvir! I am here to challenge you for the crown!”
Chapter 42
The crowd roared. There were a hundred or more people surrounding the square now and more were coming. Porvir glanced over to see what Shimshon was doing. The Imperial Captain was motionless, his face fixed in a sickly grimace, as though it wanted to smile and cry at the same time. Ayabis was horror-stricken. So that was how things were. Fury rose in the King together with his realization of the treachery. Porvir ran the half-dozen steps to the Imperial officer. “You!” roared the King. “This is your doing, isn’t it? Of course it is! Why else would you come personally, eh? Well, you will see what happens to your precious challenger!” He turned to glare at Bryan.
The challenger stood balanced easily on one of the barricade posts, his black boots gleaming, appearing every inch a prince. In his hands he held that damned black sword of his. Would to all the Gods that Porvir had taken the thing at their first ill-fated encounter! Even so, he grinned savagely. “So,” he taunted, “The beggar comes to challenge the King! First you must meet my Champion! Thorm!” he called.
“Bring him on,” said Bryan, dropping lightly to the cobbled square.
{Be careful, my son,} cautioned Perkunas. {This man is very confident for one who has already seen you fight.}
Bryan flashed back for an instant to that terrible moment when he had seen Phelan transform instantaneously and leap to deny him his sword. He felt the panic surge of adrenaline pump up his heart rate and open his lungs, both good things under the circumstances. What would be bad would be the mental panic, the brain jumping from one possible scenario to another and dithering around until the enemy killed you. He sternly admonished his brain to focus. At the Wolf Challenge he had been swordless, but now he was holding the sword. Definitely an advantage, right?
A moment later Thorm stomped into the square in response to Porvir’s summons. Bryan was suddenly glad he had the Soul Sword in his hand. Thorm was enormous, at least eight feet tall; Bryan guessed that he would weigh in at over seven hundred pounds. His body was carved with muscle, from the massive chest to the huge quadriceps and calves. He wore a dark helmet of iron, but his armor was simple boiled hide, much like that Bryan was wearing. Except, thought Bryan, that it had taken a whole herd’s worth of hides to make the giant’s armor. He carried a heavy sword with a curved tip that looked like a canoe seen from the side, perfect for the long body-cleaving swings a giant would likely make. Porvir waited until Thorm had stopped by his side, then pointed a long finger at Bryan and said, “Kill him.”
Instantly Bryan felt a palpable mass of malevolence focus on him. The helmeted head swiveled slightly like a tank turret, the dark eye holes hiding the giant’s eyes and reminiscent of nothing so much as cannon muzzles. Suddenly Thorm’s sword lashed up and down like a bolt of dark lightning, a blow that would have split Bryan like a fire log. He caught the blow at an oblique angle with the flat of the Soul Sword and flipped it away with a minimum of effort. The swords rang and the giant’s blade ricocheted away. Bryan riposted with a flat cut that sliced through the giant’s hide armor at the waist and should have opened the muscled belly to spill Thorm’s guts onto the cobbles.
Except it didn’t. The raking tip of the sword scored the belly, but instead of cutting through flesh and bone, it struck sparks as from a stone. Bryan was surprised enough that he almost didn’t see Thorm’s return stroke and had to throw himself down to avoid decapitation. The champion stomped down with a metal-shod foot, narrowly missing Bryan’s head as he frantically rolled out of the way. Bryan whipped his legs around as if doing a gymnastic circle in a leg sweep. When he hit Thorm’s tree-trunk legs, he thought he might break his own shinbones, but the move worked, and Porvir’s champion hit the ground with an earth-shaking crash.
Bryan rolled to his knees and got up slower than he would have liked, but still faster than Thorm. He half-limped back, rubbing his shins, as his opponent rolled over and got to his knees. He looked at Thorm’s bull neck and hefted the Soul Sword. “Now or never,” he muttered to himself, and leaped in, swinging his sword for the junction of neck and shoulder. “No!” he heard Jwilla scream from the sidelines.
The black blade of the Soul Sword sliced at Thorm’s neck with all the momentum and force Bryan could bring to bear. Just at the last, he felt the sword suddenly resist his swing, softening the blow. Why? The thing should have been eager to drink the life-force of this huge warrior. Then it struck, and the black blade shattered like obsidian, shards exploding away from the point of impact like shrapnel, stinging Bryan’s face and arms. He heard screams as people in the crowd were struck. He stared at the broken half-blade of what had been a divine weapon, stunned.
His body somehow threw itself out of the way of Thorm’s striking sword. Shit! In his shock, he hadn’t even noticed the giant getting to his feet, much less the sword blow. Thorm half-connected with an open-handed slap that followed the sword swing. Even with the jerky evasion that dampened some of the force of the blow, Bryan’s head was ringing as he landed almost at Jwilla’s feet. “You fool!” she yelled in his face. “It’s a golem! Swords won’t work against him!”
“I noticed,” he said weakly, getting up. He looked at what was left of the Soul Sword once more, and for lack of anything better to do with it, stuck it back into its sheath. Was it his imagination, or was the sword keening in pain? “I’m sorry,” he murmured to the thing.
{Pay attention!} snapped Perkunas inside his head. {Mebd and I saved you this last time, but we aren’t really able to control your body, and it took both of us to move you.}
Bryan paid attention. He needed to focus, that was sure. Now that Thorm was on his feet, he – it? was fast. But maybe not smart, he thought, remembering Jwilla’s golems. It had its back to him as it lifted up that ginormous sword. Bryan took a running start and dropkicked the golem in the ass, sending it stumbling to its knees. The golem’s sword flew to the side, clattering on the hard ground. Bryan picked it. Damn, the thing was heavy, too heavy to wield skillfully, and the balance was so far forward even the golem must have found it awkward. It was like swinging a fifty-pound sledge. With a grunt of effort, Bryan brought it up and over in the same move Thorm had tried at first. It came down on the back of the kneeling monster’s head with an annoying metallic thrum! like a huge tuning fork. Thorm fell face down to the square, his iron helmet split down the middle. The backfeed vibrations almost shook the sword from Bryan’s hand, and his whole arm ached. A glance showed him that the blow had bent the soft iron of the sword so that the tip was now an ‘S’ shape instead of a canoe prow. The golem’s split helmet was twisted on its head so that its eyes were blocked. “It’s like a Three Stooges nightmare,” Bryan muttered to himself.
Laboriously, the automaton did a push-up, then got to its knees. Bryan wondered that it didn’t defend itself at all.
{This thing was made by a person,} said Mebd. {That person gave it a purpose. All a golem does is fulfill the purpose of its creation. It does not think for itself.}
{Nice to know,} thought Bryan, {but what would be really helpful is if you told me how to defeat the thing. I’ve broken the Soul Sword on it and even clobbered it with its own weapon, and it keeps on coming, like a Terminator Energizer Bunny.}
The Golem was on one knee now. It reached up and pulled the ruined helmet off. Bryan took another run and launched himself into another sword swing at the side of the thick clay neck. The thing had to have a breaking point. Just as he did, Thorm turned his head and glared at Bryan
with evil emerald green eyes. Its left hand shot up and grabbed the sword blade with such force that it twisted into a completely new shape. With a jerk, the golem sent Bryan flying to the other side of the square.
Bryan curved his body as he touched down, rolling to his feet like a judoka on the mat. He ran to the edge of the crowd where Imperial guardsmen menaced him with their spears, thinking he was trying to escape. Doubtless most of those who had survived the first part of a battle with Thorm wanted nothing more than to flee. Bryan knew he wanted to. But that wasn’t the mission, was it? Bryan’s job was to destroy this thing. All he had to do was figure out how. He jogged left suddenly, half on principle: In combat, you never wanted to stay in the same place too long. Half was that instinctual warning, the prickling of his neck hairs that told him someone had just pulled the trigger on him.
He heard the wicked whiffling sound as he moved, and the contorted sword swept by his neck with a good six inches to spare. It scythed into the troopers, cutting a dozen of them into bloody pieces before its momentum died. Thorm stomped stolidly toward Bryan, following him around the square. The Golem obviously couldn’t be hurried. On the other hand, Bryan couldn’t escape. He conserved his energy, moving just enough to stay out of reach of those long hard clay arms and grasping fingers. {Any suggestions?} he asked his inner Gods. {I can’t close with the thing, it would just crush me like an empty beer can. It has no weapons, but neither do I. It’s just going to plod after me until I get too tired to move correctly, and then it’s going to kill me.}
{No new ideas here,} sighed Perkunas. {Wait a minute! Gather your life force! Do Tai Chi!}
“Right!” exclaimed Bryan out loud. “Perkunas – Father – you’ve done it!” Instantly, he got control of his breathing. He was used to instinctively breathing from his diaphragm all the time, pulling air to the bottom of his lungs and allowing them to process it fully before he exhaled, but now he did it deliberately and timed his retreat to it. He began to sweet his feet gracefully around and back, his arms beginning the strong, sure circular motions of Tai Chi. As before, he felt the surrounding energy build quickly into a shimmering reservoir of power inside him.
This time, though, Bryan wasn’t trying to build force quickly just to release it. He wanted to pull in as much life force as possible, and keep it. He was going to need it all.
Reverse step, Grasp The Sparrow’s Tail.
The cobbles beneath his feet, the air around him, the rays of the sun striking his body, all of these gave up their energy, channeled it into his body as he moved into alignment with the universe. He felt the chi blossom and grow, a beautiful bloom of power filling him from his focus point to the top of his head.
White Crane Spreads its Wings. Bryan could almost see the energy, a bluish purple glow behind his eyes. He breathed and moved in graceful retreat, always followed by the emotionless golem.
Needle At Sea Bottom.
Fan Through The Back. The air around him felt thick with energy build-up. He had experimented with Tai Chi after the incident at Balstow and the fight in the tunnel, but he had never tried to accumulate so much energy as he did now. He could feel it leaking out, and he pulled it back to him with curved arms, breathing it in.
Cloud Hands. The circles he was describing narrowed. He didn’t want the same kind of general blast that had leveled the fence in Balstow; he wanted a focused strike, he wanted the Dim Mak, the death blow. His hands wove faster and faster in tighter and tighter circles, taking the power of a bundle of dynamite and tightening it down into a golf-ball sized sphere.
Strike Tiger, Right Side.
Time to stop retreating.
Bryan narrowed his concentration even further; he wanted to send the force of his blow to the center of Thorm’s body, not have it wasted on the clay surface.
Strike Tiger, Left Side.
Thorm stomped closer, his huge clay hands reaching for his target.
Kick with Right Sole.
Bryan placed his foot carefully and selected his own target, a spot in the center of the clay chest.
The golem’s fingers flexed wide, ready to grasp the puny human and crush him into goo. Somewhere far away, Bryan heard Jwilla scream, “Run, you idiot!”
The rest of the crowd went silent, holding its collective breath.
Strike Opponent’s Ears with Fists.
Bryan inhaled slowly, deeply. The chi force was so powerful that he felt like a balloon inflated to the point of bursting. He had to let it out. He had to release it now.
He felt Thorm’s clay fingers start to close on him. No matter. Focus!
Kick with left Sole.
Bryan smelled the dusty clay scent of the golem just in front of him, like a sidewalk at the beginning of a rain. He heard Porvir’s yell of triumph.
Step.
Bryan was moving with incredible swiftness now. He was past the monster’s hands, his own hands twisting in flashing little circles, molding the tiny sphere of energy, holding it together. Thorm adjusted to his opponent’s shift in position and encircled him with massive clay arms, their constricting grip tightening around him.
Punch!
The blow originated from just an inch away from the golem’s chest just as the deadly hug pulled Bryan into its crushing embrace.
The Dim Mak did its work.
Thorm’s killer hug hesitated and the clay body shuddered. This close, Bryan could see that the emerald green eyes really were emeralds. They couldn’t widen, but Bryan thought that if they could, they would have. Suddenly the piercing green light of malevolent pseudo-life went out, and a blast like an antitank rocket tore the back out of the golem’s leather armor, revealing a basket-sized hole that narrowed in a cone down to the fist-sized hole Bryan had made under the leather chest plate in the front. Thorm threw out his arms and rose up onto his steel-clad clay toes, then keeled over backwards, spread-eagle in golem death. Bryan stood above the enormous body, suddenly very, very tired. With a deafening crack! like a calving glacier, the clay corpse crumbled into a pile of gravel and a huge pall of dust.
Bryan managed to take a single step away from the burgeoning cloud and collapsed, all the strength gone from his body.
Chapter 43
Shimshon watched the uneven match between the man and the automaton with relish. “Too bad, really.” He threw the comment out to see if he could get a rise from Ayabis. “Ironic, though. Your creation is about to destroy the one person who might have had a chance to save you. How do you feel about that?”
Ayabis, realizing the full import of his words, said, “You knew?”
Shimshon laughed. “I always knew that the mighty, taciturn Thorm was a golem, of course. I was told when your husband’s servants brought the clay from the river. When he made you form it, bake those combat texts into its clay heart, and put his mother’s emeralds into its eyes to bind Thorm to him, I knew. It is my business to know these things.”
Shimshon blinked when Bryan swung his mighty blow with that black sword of his and accomplished nothing more than to shower the crowd with shards. He grunted when the Wolf-lover almost managed to get out of the way of Thorm’s swat. An awkward move on Bryan’s part, as if he were a marionette. His respect for the challenger grew as the fight went on, however. In spite of that strangely clumsy evasion, the boy had courage and muscle and he could move. “This grows interesting,” he said after Bryan had bent the golem’s own sword over the clay head. “I doubt if any other opponent has lasted so long against Porvir’s automaton.”
“Those condemned to fight Thorm usually die in the first moments. Most never even attempt to resist,” said Ayabis absently, intent on the combat. Then, “What is he doing?”
Next to them, an Elf screamed, “Run, you idiot!”
“Ah! The hero is about to join the ranks of those others,” said Shimshon, peering to the far side of the square. “See, Thorm is about to give him a last hug goodbye. And, defiant to the end, the never-king gives his last futile blow – Immortal Gods! What just hap
pened?”
Thorm’s arms, on the verge of crushing the life from Bryan, suddenly flew wide, and the giant golem’s back exploded. He fell like a slaughtered ox. A cloud of dust billowed out of the ruined automaton and it crumbled into little pieces. Finally, the victor fell, first to his knees, then sprawled to the ground beside the rock pile that had been his opponent. The crowd loosed a collective sigh.
Porvir, his exultant yell still echoing in his ears, gaped at the scene. Thorm defeated! “Impossible!” he cried out.
The dust cloud cleared and Bryan’s inert form could be seen. Then, slowly, the challenger began to push himself up. With an angry oath Porvir ripped his dagger from its sheath. It was merely a decorated ceremonial affair, with jewels adorning the golden hilt and a bright polish to the leaf blade, but still sharp enough to strike down an injured man. He ran to Bryan, who had just staggered upright, and hit him with his gauntleted left fist, hurling him violently to the cobbles, then leaped upon his breast as he fell.
Porvir's steel-gloved fingers gripped the challenger's throat. He grinned a horrible, triumphant grin down into the face of his victim and showed him the dagger. "You ruined me," he mumbled. "You and your interfering band of Wolf-lovers. This will repay you. I will hang your body upon the castle walls, and I will hunt down every Wyrg within a hundred miles and put their bodies together with your rotting corpse. After I give them the appropriate attentions, of course.” His fingers tightened upon the stunned Bryan's throat. “I especially want to revisit my time with that one female, the black-haired one.” He raised the dagger to drive the long blade home.
The Wolf-lover’s lips moved. The King strained to hear the whisper: “That one?”
Behind Porvir, the growling of a maddened beast gave him pause. At the sound he looked up. His face went white with terror—it was the black she-Wolf.
With a single bound the creature was upon him. The man shrieked. The Wyrg wrenched him from the body of his would-be victim and threw him to the cobblestones. The dagger flew from his fingers and skidded away. The Wolf stood above him, half-crushing his chest beneath huge forepaws. Gleaming fangs gaped close to his throat--he struggled futilely, frantically, his hands trying to beat off the skin-changer he had abused only months ago. He struck a frantic blow at the Wyrg's face. All that earned him was a low and savage snarl. It was the last thing that the captain-turned-king ever heard in this life. Powerful teeth fastened themselves in his jugular, his head whirled and his eyes bulged in horror at the realization of the end of his kingship and his life. The Wolf jaws closed with a snap! and the soul of king Porvir of North Keep passed into the keeping of those demon-gods whose religion he had served, if not worshipped.