FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Sara did hear Nissa stumbled directly behind her. The woman was doing as best as she was able, but it was pitch-dark and Sara could tell she’d never set foot in a forest without a retainer by her side before. They were going slowly, trying not to slip and fall, but it was blasted hard when she couldn’t even call upon a mage light to guide their way for fear of slowly tipping further into madness.

  Sara had never felt so vulnerable before in her life. If this was what it was like being a battle mage in war—living in fear of your own body and on edge to use your powers at all times—she doubted she would be able to stand another week of it. The stress alone would kill her.

  Father, how did you survive it? How did you thrive? Sara wondered in a silent prayer.

  She knew it would go unheard. She didn’t necessarily believe in the old gods like her father had, but she did hope his spirit was watching over her. She needed some guidance because she was doing a pretty bad job of solving his death on her own.

  Then a bright, white light was visible in the distance. Just ahead and behind a few more trees.

  “Sara?” said Ezekiel, seeing it at the same time she did. “What do you want to do?”

  She crouched low and pulled Ezekiel down with her. “Find out what it is.”

  “I doubt you want to do that,” Nissa said in a low hiss between their shoulders.

  “And why is that?” Sara said, looking over at her.

  The sun mage pressed her mouth into a thin line.

  Sara smiled. “I think I’ll go find out, because if it makes you unhappy it might be the solution to our problems.”

  Nissa gave her a scornful look. “Go then, battle mage. Go to your death. I don’t need you anymore.”

  Sara stared at her hard. Trying to read the calculation in Nissa’s eyes for what it meant. She didn’t know the woman, didn’t know her motives, and didn’t know how to react or tell if she was lying.

  Sara turned to Ezekiel and said, “What do you think?”

  Softy, he said without turning back, “I think I should go explore.”

  Nissa let out a soft sound of disgust.

  “Not happening,” said Sara.

  Ezekiel turned to her urgently. “Think about it, Sara. If you’re killed, we all die. If I go and report back we might have a vital clue and wouldn’t risk much in the process.”

  Sara stared at him in disbelief. “Wouldn’t risk much? You do happen mean something to me, you know.”

  Ezekiel chuckled. “Finally. I was dying to get you to admit your one true love. Now that I have it, I can die happy.”

  Sara was vastly tempted to swat him into the next world, but she couldn’t. Her left hand was occupied by her sword and her right held the rope binding Nissa.

  More seriously, Ezekiel said, “It’s only ten paces that way. I’ll be there and back before you know it. Besides, we don’t have much of a choice. What were you planning to do? Leave me alone with Nissa?”

  Sara thought about it. He was right. They were out of options. Hastily putting Nissa’s rope in his hand, she reached up over his shoulder and grabbed one of the three remaining arrows in the quiver. Then she grabbed his hand holding the weapon and put it into position.

  “Load it,” she ordered firmly.

  He did so with shaky hands.

  She smiled. “Now you’re ready.”

  “Let’s really hope I don’t have to use it.”

  She nodded solemnly and gripped the rope back. He stood and darted off into the woods.

  As she watched her friend disappear into the night, Sara had to wonder what her life had come to that she was sending an untrained mercenary on a scouting mission.

  “Wonder of wonders,” Sara muttered to herself in disgust.

  Five minutes passed. Then ten. No sound of Ezekiel was forthcoming.

  Sara tensed. Then she said, “Come on.”

  The sun mage planted her feet and wouldn’t budge.

  Sara whirled on her, sword in hand. “Let’s go, Nissa.”

  But she turned to see that Nissa wasn’t the only one behind her. Dark shadows of people emerged from the forest. Sara dropped the rope and moved into a fighting crouch.

  She couldn’t do anything before they were surrounded. Then Nissa laughed. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

  “The light?”

  “I haven’t the faintest clue what it means,” the sun mage said as she held out her bound hands to one of those surrounding them. He quickly cut the ropes from her. To Sara’s relief, he didn’t touch the shackles binding Nissa’s lower arms and containing her magic.

  “I just needed a diversion to get you away from here,” Nissa said with humor. “I was certain you’d take the bait and investigate yourself with a little judicious prodding. I never suspected you’d send that bumbling fool in your place.”

  “That bumbling fool is my friend, and if you’ve done anything to harm him I will have your head on a pike,” snarled Sara.

  Nissa wiggled her finger as she moved back into the safety of the fold and the men poured in front of her. Sara counted three, six, and another four made ten. Ten dark guards for the great sun mage.

  “I wouldn’t make threats if I were you, battle mage.”

  “Why?” Sara said mockingly. “You going to take me prisoner?”

  “Never,” said Nissa. She looked at one man clothed all in black who differed from the rest. He had a red armband on his bicep.

  “Kill her,” Nissa said simply.

  He twitched his fingers and the tense group around her erupted in a flurry of attacks.

  Sara dodged backward as assassin after assassin came to claim her head. They were all highly trained, but they had never run up against a battle mage fighting for their life like she was either.

  She quickly scoped out her options. There were plenty of trees that she could use to her advantage. So she did. Sara swung her long sword in the air. Using her strength and deadly accuracy to take off the side of one unfortunate man’s face as she raced to the tree. Jumping, she used her momentum to run up the trunk vertically and crouch partially hidden in the boughs. She wasn’t trying to hide, however. Just get more distance between her and the nine opponents trying to reach her.

  When one came up the trunk after her, she put a knife into the center of his face. The second made it up onto the thick limb and she turned to face him. Swords flashing in the night, they met with a swift exchange of kicks and ducking. Fortunately for her, Sara had practiced her tree sword-fighting as a child. He didn’t stand a chance as she ducked low and saw an opening. She disemboweled him.

  She back flipped off the branch into the center of the clearing and immediately caught another opponent’s double-headed axe coming down on her blade. With a grunt, Sara was forced to crouch down while the massive bald man loomed over her and forced her to yield with all his might. But he wasn’t strong enough. Sara ducked to the side just as another blade came whistling down to take off her head.

  What it ended up doing was sawing the staff of the giant’s axe in half. The momentum he’d already attained caused him to fall forward directly on his weapon’s head, which had flown back after being separated from its base.

  Sara turned and said, “Thank you,” as she slipped her sword’s blade between her opponent’s ribs. Then she took stock of the situation.

  A smile breezed across her face as she said, “Five down. Who’s next?”

  Nissa’s infuriated screech met her ears. “You idiots, kill her!”

  Her voice abruptly cut off as her eyes watched in horror as a weapon came straight for her. Not a sword or a knife but an arrow. It streaked through the center of the clearing and only the last minute selflessness of a brave assassin saved the sun mage from her death. A cloaked assassin leapt in front of his mistress. Taking the full force of the arrow in his chest.

  It didn’t stop it from blasting through him and heading for Nissa ten feet away, but it did slow the arrow down. The arrow, covered in blood, flew until it planted itself in the s
un mage’s shoulder and into the tree directly behind her. She was pinned. Sara watched the woman jerk to get away, but it was clear from her pain-filled yells that it was impossible.

  “Help me!” Nissa shrieked to her remaining men.

  “I don’t think so,” Sara said to the four surrounding her.

  They had half-turned anyway, and that was all she needed.

  Leaping into action, Sara dived for the feet of two. She cleanly sliced through the tendons of one, making him incapable of fighting anymore as he fell to the ground with shocked cries. Sara stood to face the remaining two with a feral grin on her face.

  “Well, boys,” she said, “ready to meet your death?”

  The two looked at each other and back at her. For a minute she thought they would flee, but they didn’t.

  They rushed her in unison.

  Sara barely had time to react before Ezekiel came out of nowhere with a scream. He held a piece of log, which he beat one of the men on the head with. She quickly cut the throat of the one he’d dazed. Sara had time enough to wonder what had happened to the crossbow. Yes, she had easily recognized the might of that arrow as one shot from the ancient crossbow in Ezekiel’s hands. She wasn’t stupid; no normal bow could do the work of flying through two opponents and still lodge into the hard wood of a tree with deadly accuracy. It would have been a lot safer for Ezekiel if he’d just shot the man from a distance. But she watched as Ezekiel took a swing at one opponent with a branch he’d grabbed from somewhere. The assassin dodged the curator’s awkward blow with a contemptuous look. Unfortunately for the assassin, that made him momentarily vulnerable to Sara and she finished him off by taking off the last opponent’s head.

  Breathing heavily, she said, “What took you so long?”

  “I got lost,” he said sheepishly.

  “Lost where?” said Sara.

  He pointed back that way. “I found our missing captain, though…you know, before I managed to mistakenly leave the search party behind.”

  Sara shook the sweat out of her eyes with a wry grin. “So they’re coming?”

  He nodded while leaning over on his knees and panting heavily. “Man, killing people is exhausting.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t bother mentioning he hadn’t actually killed anyone.

  “Good work with those men and with our traitorous sun mage over there,” said Sara. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  He flushed with praise and she turned to march over to a pinned Nissa with a smile.

  The woman was stuck to the tree with an arrow through her shoulder, but she didn’t flinch or beg for mercy. In fact, she lifted her chin proudly and met her captor head-on.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Sara said mockingly.

  Nissa looked at her with fury in her eyes.

  Sara grabbed the arrow’s shaft with a smile. Nissa flinched, but bit back anything she might have said.

  Sara eyed her, waiting for the scream as she snapped the shaft of the arrow so that a sharp edge emerged from the sun mage’s shoulder.

  Nissa whimpered. Sara thought about prolonging this. The woman had tried to kill her, after all. But she didn’t.

  She grabbed both of Nissa’s shoulders in a fierce grip and jerked the woman off the tree. Nissa fell to her knees as Sara let her go the moment she was free of the arrow. But she hadn’t screamed. Instead her shoulders shuddered in pain as she knelt on the ground.

  Sara looked down on her in disgust. When the woman looked up, blood met Sara’s eyes.

  Nissa Sardonien had bitten through her bottom lip.

  Chapter XXV

  SARA FELT SOME SLIGHT ENVY at Nissa’s ability to project a stony expression in the face of pain, but no pity. Nissa had tried to deceive them and would have murdered Ezekiel in cold blood. She didn’t deserve her sympathy.

  Sara took a step back and said, “Stand up.”

  Nissa didn’t move.

  “I won’t ask you again,” Sara said coldly while lifting her blade to just under Nissa’s chin. She was heartily tired of playing babysitter, especially to a conniving, backstabbing woman like the sun mage.

  Nissa stood up while holding her shoulder in pain.

  Ezekiel came up and winced. “We should get that looked at.”

  “She can die of sepsis for all I care,” Sara said.

  “I thought you said she was a prisoner of war?”

  “Your empress needs me,” Nissa hissed at the same time.

  “But that’s just it,” said Sara, turning around with a pragmatic look. “I don’t need you. You’ve done nothing but slow me down or outright try to get in my way. I’d be better off letting your wound fester. You want to know why?”

  Nissa said nothing.

  “Because it would slow your conniving mind down while the infection spreads to your head, leaving a fever and delusions in its wake,” Sara said. “By the time we locate a good healer, you’ll be too far gone to save but still ambulatory enough to tell Simon what he needs to hear. A win-win situation for us, I’d say.”

  Ezekiel looked at his friend with something akin to horror on his face.

  Nissa’s faced was etched with flat-out hatred.

  Sara gave Ezekiel a defensive look. “She tried to kill me with nearly half a dozen assassins. She’s not worth being upset over.”

  He opened his mouth to speak when Sara heard the rustle of leaves as strangers snuck up on them.

  She turned with a wary eye to look around. “Someone’s coming.”

  Then a voice said, “They’re over here! I’ve found them.”

  Suddenly they were surrounded by a group of men and women who were wearing the elite uniforms of the scout team for the first division of the Corcoran guard. Sara relaxed in relief for the first time that day. She had had heard that the first division had been deployed out on a scouting mission a few hours earlier. She guessed the rumors were true. These mercenaries had had one very lucky break. Not a single one of them had a scratch on them.

  Out of the midst of his mercenaries strode Commander Amadeus, leader of the first division.

  “I see you survived,” said Sara dryly.

  “I see you haven’t lost your irreverence, Mercenary Fairchild,” replied Amadeus while hooking his thumbs in his belt while he looked over the three broken, bloody, and tired people surrounded by dead bodies.

  Sara shrugged, ready to keel over from exhaustion. “It’s a gift.”

  He gave her an irate look. “I can tell.”

  Sara was half-amused, half-irritated. She didn’t give a rat’s bottom what they thought of her now. They had hidden in the tree line while scores of their comrades died. She had no respect for cowards.

  Nodding at Sara, Amadeus commanded his men. “Take the sun mage.”

  Sara shifted uneasily and Amadeus noted it. He held up a closed fist, signaling his men to stop silently.

  Looking at her, the first division commander said, “Is there a problem, Fairchild?”

  Sara looked at him. “I’m not concerned about her well-being. Truly I couldn’t give a damn if you threw her in the nearest river and drowned her. But I found her, I freed her, and I deserve to deliver her to the captain.”

  Amadeus let out a slow smile. “Your captive, your reward, eh?”

  Sara stiffened, but she didn’t deny it. “Yes.”

  He let out a chuckle. “Now you’re thinking like a mercenary.”

  She waited for him to make his move. He could say anything he liked; it was his actions that would count. The leader of the first division stroked his beard and then he stepped aside with a wave of his hand.

  “Men, let’s escort Mercenary Fairchild and her captive to the captain of our illustrious company, shall we?”

  The forest roared with the sound of mercenary approval.

  Ezekiel stepped closer and whispered in Sara’s ear, “This is a good thing. A very good thing. They’re not mocking you. They’re praising you.”

  Sara cracked a smile, because fo
r once she had understood the importance of the commander’s acquiescence before Ezekiel had.

  With a firm hand on Nissa Sardonien’s shoulder, she forced the mage to walk ahead of her and they strode off into the woods surrounded by mercenary compatriots that, for once, would fight to the death before Sara had a chance to. It was nice to be surrounded by a group of elite fighters that didn’t expect her to win every skirmish tonight.

  They marched through the silent forest in rows of four. Four guards at the head. In the second row came Sara, with Nissa in the middle. Amadeus flanked her left and another guard flanked Nissa’s right. Sara knew Ezekiel was right behind her, as he would occasionally stumble and step on her feet. There were three guards in his row to protect him from harm and keep him from killing himself. Behind them flowed the other guards with some deploying farther out as an early warning system.

  They marched for what felt like fifteen minutes when Sara began to grow uneasy.

  The light hadn’t been that far out, and she knew Ezekiel had found the captain when he headed that way.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked the commander of the first division.

  “To our leader,” he said.

  “Is Captain Simon where the light is?” Sara stressed.

  “He was when I saw him last,” Amadeus said.

  She didn’t get much more from him than that. Then they emerged from the tree line to see a very strange structure up ahead. She halted in her tracks, making Nissa stop with her.

  “What is that?” Sara said.

  “That,” said Commander Amadeus, “is a transportation portal designed to take us from this dreadful forest to where the real action is.”

  At that moment, a guard in the distance turned around and Sara recognized Barthis Simon.

  He walked up with relief on his face as he said, “Good, you got her.”