The Price of Faith

by Rob J. Hayes

  Action through inaction was part of the Haarin training. Battles should be won with a single stroke of the blade and in that discipline stillness was as important as movement. Pern ran through a hundred moves in his head, then thought about a different stance and went through a hundred more. It was possible Kochin was doing the same, likely he was doing the same.

  Pern had never known his father. None of the Haarin did. They were taken as children, given names by the clan elders and raised by the entire clan to be the next generation of Haarin. He had never known his father but in his weak times, in his flights of fancy he had imagined he was sired by Kochin. The strong hands, the steady, even stance and that sky-blue aura the colour of the deepest control. Any Haarin would have been proud to be sired by Kochin and Pern was no different.

  Another scream in the distance, this one sounded almost like Henry, and Pern's eyes flicked away just for a moment.

  “It is time to fulfil your contract, Honin,” master Kochin's voice was rich and deep and accented by his many, many years out in the wilds. He had served no fewer than four contracts. Most Haarin only manage two at best. Pern had not completed his first, he had barely even started it before helping to kill the man he was sworn to protect.

  “Has the clan given a contract to Kessick?” Pern asked.

  Master Kochin slowly raised a gnarled hand and with the butt of his sword raised his hat an inch. Pern saw a deep green eye set in a wrinkled old face glaring at him from underneath the straw hat. “Kessick came to us. He requested no contract. He told us you were with the Black Thorn and that the Black Thorn would come to him.”

  “Then should you kill me,” Pern said slowly. “I would ask you to visit the same fate upon Kessick.”

  Silence. It stretched on for so long Pern almost began to think the old master Haarin would not answer. “It is not my place. I am Haarin.”

  Pern clenched his jaw. For the first time in his life he felt the inactivity grate upon him. His friends were fighting, maybe dying. The Black Thorn and Anders. Henry. His teeth ground against one another and he drew his sword, a slow motion, letting the blade fully clear the scabbard before taking the hilt in both hands, the point of the blade dropping to the ground and slightly to the right.

  Still master Kochin did not draw his sword.

  “If you will not kill Kessick then I will have to kill you,” Pern said through gritted teeth. A dirty red had begun to seep into his own aura. Had Kochin been able to see it he would have been disgusted. Haarin had no need for emotion, especially not anger.

  “There is only one way this can end, Honin. Should you best me, so long as even one Haarin from our clan draws breath they will hunt you.”

  Suzku frowned. “Then I see two ways this can end.”

  Master Kochin took his sword away from his hat and let it drop back down to obscure his face. “You would destroy your own clan over this?”

  “I have seen the type of people our clan protects. I myself was ordered to protect the most evil man I have ever known...”

  “It is not a Haarin's place to judge their client.”

  Pern straightened his back to its full height. “I am Honin. I can judge as I please.”

  Again that crushing silence. Even now, after a year of being Honin, master Kochin's disappointment cut Pern to the bone. He focused, attempting to bury his feelings the way Haarin were taught. It was no good, he couldn't rid himself of them, he couldn't find that sense of peace he had once had by knowing that he was doing right just by serving his clan.

  Ash and embers drifted across the street. Somewhere something was burning, likely a building, possible the whole town. Pern wasn't about to look to find out. Taking his eyes off an opponent as deadly as master Kochin was to invite death.

  Pern tilted his sword a little and drew his left foot back an inch, still trying to decide how best to attack. Master Kochin himself had once said: Sometimes the best way to win is not to do something the opponent does not to expect, but to do something they do, just do it better than they expect. Wiser words may rarely have been spoken but Pern still found himself lost amongst a sea of possibilities. Kochin was by far the most dangerous opponent he had ever faced and now Pern was Honin he would not hesitate to deal the killing blow to his former student.

  Pern edged his right foot forward. Kochin charged.

  For a man of considerable years the old master Haarin moved like lightning. He covered the distance between them in moments and still Pern was frozen by indecision. He heard Kochin's sword slide from its sheath and saw the tilt of the man's left foot and he acted.

  Pern stepped to his left, went down to one knee and struck. His sword moved upwards and outwards from his right hand in a deadly arc. He felt Kochin's sword prick his chest, a white hot lance of pain for an instant and then it was gone.

  Pern stood on shaky legs and took a deep, ragged breath. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out a dirty yellow cloth. With exaggerated care he wiped the blood from his blade, making certain the sword was spotless. He pocketed the cloth and slowly re-sheathed his sword. Pern sighed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and collapsed next to the body of his of old master, their blood mixing in the dust.

  Jacob

  For so long the world had been silent. Jacob had heard no music since that day in Chade, since waking up without a tongue. Now was different. Now the whole band was in attendance and they were making such a din Jacob could hear nothing else. Drums, pipes, lutes, whistles, fiddles, flutes and even a harp and a raucous tune they played. Some might consider the mess of notes and sounds to be nothing but noise but Jacob could hear past the chaos to the order within. It dragged him along like a leaf in a current and he was happy and more than happy to go with the flow. He let it pull him, push him, twist him and move him, and his partners, so many partners, were brutally introduced to the joy and terror of his dance.

  A young woman, barely old enough to bleed, reached for him eager to join his jig. Jacob caught her wrist, spun her around and snapped her arm with a punch then threw her into the merry onlookers. Her screams only added to the rhythm of the dance.

  Another woman, this one older with flesh that spoke of recent child birth and hips that suggested it was the latest of many. She joined in the dance and brought cold steel with her. A man as well, old and pox-scarred and with teeth like knives. Jacob was not opposed to multiple partners. The music was loud and the night was alive and the more the merrier. He spun around the man's axe and under the woman's sword and gave her a fist like thunder to her gut. He counted four broken ribs. As she collapsed Jacob plucked the steel from her hand, planted in the man's face and danced away from the resulting blood. Behind the woman he took hold of her chin and wrenched backwards both hearing and feeling the snap of her neck.

  More partners and more entered the floor and Jacob danced with them all. Demons they may be and both stronger and faster than they looked but he was beyond them. Their bones broke like sticks and they bled red the same as any other. His blessings burned with power and with each new partner Jacob felt himself grow stronger.

  He turned aside a sword with the flat of his palm and directed the strike into the path of another. He shattered a man's jaw like glass with an elbow. He picked up the body of a child, soulless and dead with the demon inside, and threw it to the crowd. He dropped, rolled in the dust and came up in a torrent of blows, each to the beat of a drum, and scattered bodies. Yet they kept coming, drawn to his power like a moths drawn towards a flame and he would burn them.

  Faster and faster the tempo spun and faster and faster Jacob danced. He was a blur. A flash. Lightning that struck again and again and again. He caught a stray leg, a demon wearing the face of a man as big as a bear, and twisted. The bones shattered and the demon went down face first but Jacob did not let go, he jumped on the demon's back and pulled. Flesh tore and the leg came free in a torrent of blood and screaming. Jacob span away using the leg as a mace.

  A man found purchase on his
arm, two long claws attempting to tear into skin. Jacob stepped close, butting the man in the head three times until both their faces were bloody. He stepped back and then forward and then to the side in a strange waltz, the man's body hanging limp in his arms. The music changed again, all instruments but the fiddle fading to silence. Jacob shoved his hand in the man's mouth, grabbed hold of his bottom jaw and tore it free, burying the shard of bone in his next partner's eye.

  His next partner was a surprise, so eager to join in they hit him from behind. Metal punctured skin and Jacob gasped in pain. They both went down, rolling in the dust and blood and bodies but Jacob was up first. He grabbed hold of his partners arm, a woman with eyes of the deepest blue, and heaved. The shell took flight, a rag doll spinning in the air for a moment then two and then another before crashing to the ground in a heap. Jacob pulled the dagger from his side and the drums took up the beat once again, each clash a stab and each lull a death.

  For a moment the music slowed. The harp played a sad note and across the street Jacob saw her. The woman who had started the fight, the woman Thanquil knew. Even if he had still had his tongue Jacob would have been struck dumb by the sight of her. She danced to a beat all of her own. Her moves were water and her sword strokes were fire. She was an artist painting in shades of death and all of life was her canvass. For that moment Jacob stood still, awed by her grace and he wanted nothing more than to dance with her. But she was not his partner, she would never be. Jacob was blessed, it was beyond his fate to die and he knew that she was a fight he could not win.

  A soldier wielding a pair of knives stepped into Jacob's view and the music was back, rushing in like a tsunami and Jacob crashed down upon the man. He was a whirlwind of blows each one smashing bone and pulverising flesh. He tossed the soldiers head to the ground and for just a moment the other demons gave pause. Just for a moment.

  The Black Thorn

  Weren't much got the blood pumping like a good fight, except maybe a good fuck but it didn't look like that was in the offing so Betrim was more than happy to take the fight. Truth was it had been a long time since he'd been in a proper scrape like this and no mistake. He was beaten and bloody and his chances looked slim but he'd given better than he'd got and if the bastards really wanted to take him down he'd damned sure take a few more of them with him.

  A fat drop of blood ran down from the gash on his forehead, pooled at the end of his scarred nose and dropped to dust. The demons were coming for him before the next drop had chance to form. Four of them and each one armed with a sword. Thee men and a woman and all looked like they had once been soldiers or guards or maybe even bounty hunters like him. He flicked out his left hand and another dagger flew into the throat of the woman. Truth was he was fast running short of pointy objects to throw and they weren't really having much of an effect, save the obvious distraction of the victim having to remove a length of metal from their body.

  He stepped into the first attack, his axe deflecting the sword and then stepped back into the next, giving it similar treatment then ducked around the third of his enemies and took out a chunk of leg with the business end of his axe. When he had first chopped the rune in two he had half expected his weapon to burst into flames but it didn't, just glowed a little, almost like lantern light on gold only the glow seemed to come from within the blade.

  He danced back a few steps, almost tripping over the body of one of his previous opponents. Damned woman stank like a brothel, stale sweat and stale sex and stale blood. Not the most enticing of aromas and no mistake. Truth was there was a time the Black Thorn might have found it appealing. Truth was such times were long past.

  The woman was there, leaping at him, short sword glinting in the fire light. Seemed one of the nearby buildings was well and truly ablaze, no doubt Betrim would find himself blamed for that. The Black Thorn laughed as he stepped aside from the blow and planted his axe in the woman's throat right next to the dagger. Damned near took her head clean off what with the momentum and all. He plucked the sword from her hand as her corpse fell to the ground and readied himself for the next three demons. He didn't much like playing with swords but sometimes needs must and right now his musts were starting to get real needy.

  The three demon-men closed slowly, taking their sweet time. They took so long Betrim almost started to wonder whether their plan was to let him bleed to death. He had a fair few cuts though none of them felt much like threatening his life.

  “Don't tell me I've gone an' got ya all scared,” he rasped out. “Thought it'd take more than the likes of me ta scare a demon.”

  One of the men, the one with the big nose, turned his head and then trotted off. The others kept on closing. Betrim tried to keep an eye on them all, hard work given he only had the one of them.

  Both remaining demons charged him. He gave a quick thought to the possible outcomes of his first instinct then ignored the advice his brain offered and charged them both right back. He blocked the attack from the right demon with his new sword, then parried the attack from the left demon with his axe. Then he shoved his new sword into the left demon's face and planted his axe between the eyes of the right demon.

  The left demon stumbled away screaming and clawing at the shard of steel sticking out of his its mouth. The right demon toppled, dead and looking every part of it. Betrim bent down, pulled his axe from between the demon's eyes with a grunt and then launched it at the wounded demon. The blade buried itself in the creatures chest and it went down with a groan and thud. Betrim grinned at his job well done, well aware just how gruesome that made him look and not caring a drop.

  Something sharp and painful and more than a little unwelcome found a new home in the meat of his left thigh. Thorn spun around to find a little girl, couldn't be no more than six years, growling at him. He looked down at his leg.

  “A spear? A fuckin' spear?” he roared. Truth was it would likely have planted itself up his arse but it seemed to be twisted up with his coat. Never before had he been so glad of the over-priced duster. Not that he'd paid for it. Just so happened it was a gift from Rose and he wasn't overly pleased with the damage.

  He took hold of the spear and snapped it with his other hand, wrenched the head out of his leg, an act that required no small amount of not passing out, and pulled the girl close before planting the metallic end of the spear in the top of her skull.

  Now Betrim was no stranger to dealing with the dead and he knew that sometimes the usual act of killing a person left them a little more alive than he liked. It was because of this that he wasn't entirely surprised when the girl dropped to the floor and thrashed around like a fish on land instead of doing the natural thing and expiring. He also knew that his axe would finish off the girl for good and all but it was over there and he was over here and he had a different idea. He stepped on the girl's thrashing back, raised up a big, metal-shod boot and stamped on her head. It crunched and burst much like a melon might given the same treatment. The girl stopped moving for good and all.

  Betrim lifted up his boot, now sticky with red and pink and grey, and took a stumbling step backwards. He'd seen many things in his life and done many more and some of them far worse that that. Still, for some reason he found it a right struggle to keep down his last meal but he managed it. Just.

  He looked around for his axe and found it just where he had left it. He wandered over with a speed much like a stroll and pulled it free. “Reckon I might stick ta you in the future,” he said to it with a grin.

  It was a strange time to realise but he noticed there was no one else trying to kill him. Nearby he could see a right fight taking place; more demons than he could count were pouring in to take down the Arbiter with the tattoos. Seemed the demon who had cut and run from the Black Thorn was over there too. Something about that felt a little disgruntling. Almost like Betrim Thorn wasn't scary enough so the demon had to seek death elsewhere. A body flew out from the circle and crunched to the ground and two more demons rushed in to take its place.

>   He glimpsed the Arbiter then. Jacob was spinning and striking and dodging and blocking and even as Betrim watched he saw two demons jump onto the man's back and drag him down to the ground. More piled on and more and they all became a writhing mess of flesh and wild, savage attacks.

  It didn't look good for the poor bastard. So many demons and the Arbiter was down and he had no one else to help him. The Black Thorn was perhaps the only one near enough to help. Betrim shrugged and kept scanning the street.

  Backed up against a building and keeping each other covered he spotted Henry and Anders. Neither of the two looked to be in a particularly good state and Henry the Red was earning every bit of her name. A whole group of demon-people, looked to be at least seven of them, were prowling nearby, readying to go in for the kill and making something of a game of it. That didn't hold too well with the Black Thorn.

  Kessick was over the other side of the street, directing his minions with frantic gestures and frantic orders. Thorn reckoned he could get a good run at the bastard, he had a few guards, probably the best of his lot, but the Black Thorn didn't fear a good fight. The decision was made before he had chance to think it through and he wasn't sure whether he'd pick any different given an age of procrastinating. He readied his axe, set a wild grin to his face, roared out something wordless and full of what most folk would consider anger, and charged to the aid of his crew.

  Jezzet

  Jez had never lived an easy life. For as long as she could remember she had fought, scrapped, clawed and fucked for every minute of her often painful existence and now was no exception. She blocked, slashed, parried, growled, locked, punched, stabbed, dodged, kicked and screamed for every moment and every moment she became more and more the woman Yuri Vel'urn had told her she would be.