by Ty Johnston
Kron scuffed the soles of his boots as he skidded to a stop.
The hall was a dead end.
His eyes moved along the stone walls, but there was no sign of an exit. He glanced behind himself, back around the turn, but no doors were near. He was positive he had seen Verkain dart in this direction, and he would have sworn he had heard the man’s trodden steps this way.
A solitary torch flickered above head level at the end of the run.
Kron lifted an edge of his cloak to wipe away Kobalan blood congealing on the edges of his sword, giving himself time to think, to ponder. He sheathed the weapon.
This was delicate work.
He moved to the wall on the left and squatted, running gloved fingers along the trails of mortar between bricks and stone. He shuffled to the right and did the same. To anyone watching, he would have appeared a mad man trying to read invisible text in the walls.
He stood in the center of the narrow walkway, his eyes moving up and down, following every line and crack in the stones.
After several minutes, a smile appeared on his face.
He stepped forward and reached up, lifting the torch from its bracket.
With a metal creak and stoney rumble, a section of the wall in front of him shifted back several inches and slid to one side.
Kron’s grin grew wider as he stared beyond the secret door into darkness. The torch in his hand revealed the bottom of a stairwell that curved higher into the castle.
He returned the torch to its spot then launched himself into the ebon opening.
The stone door slid back into place, leaving no clue of its recent use.
***
The fight ended swiftly. Belgad slashed left, cutting across a soldier’s throat, then cleaved right, nearly decapitating another man.
Adara faced the last opponent standing. She whirled around him, seeking an opening in his plates and chains for insertion of her thin sword. The soldier’s inexperience with such an agile fighter proved his undoing. After several moments of her twisting and turning, he grew impatient and charged, hoping his weight and brute strength would smash her against a wall. Instead, Adara spun to one side and shoved the man. He lost his balance, stumbled near the sleeping Captain Lendo and slammed head-first into a stone wall. After that, he no longer moved.
“Verkain’s soldiers need training,” Adara said after catching her breath.
“Verkain!” Belgad glared down the hall Kron and the king had fled. “Randall is waiting for him!”
“Don’t worry,” Adara said. “Kron will catch up to him.”
“It might be best for us if Kron does not,” Belgad said.
“What?”
Belgad gave the woman a glance with a raised eyebrow, then stared down the hall again. “I must go after them.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Belgad looked to the open doorway. “Stay here and watch Fortisquo.”
Adara’s eyes narrowed in anger. “What? Why?”
“He is not trustworthy.”
Adara’s face screwed up into a look of confusion.
Belgad bound down the hall. “Just watch him!”
Then the big Dartague disappeared around a corner.
The woman sighed and stared down the hall as if she expected the barbarian to reappear. After several seconds, when Belgad did not return, she used an unconscious guard’s tunic to wipe her rapier free of blood.
“So, it’s just the two of us?” Fortisquo asked.
Adara looked over her shoulder to see the master assassin standing just inside the outer room of Belgad’s quarters. In his hands was a sword taken from one of the Kobalans.
***
Knowing his way, Verkain moved confidently up the stairs in complete darkness.
His plans were unraveling. Still, there was time. He only had to kill Darkbow and Belgad and the woman, and this time he would make sure they remained dead. He knew magics that would leave their mortal forms nothing but ash and dust. No soul could return to such.
Even if by some miracle his son Kerwin lived, the lad would not be able to stop the lord of Kobalos unleashing the might of his army at dawn. The healer would not be able to stop the thundering power of the East’s armies, nor the reaction of the West.
Verkain grinned in the darkness, then chided himself. He should have known better than to fear.
The steps came to an abrupt end and Verkain halted, stretching out a hand to feel a rough wall. He reached to his left, rubbing his hand along the stones he could not see until he felt a brick protruding. He pushed.
A creaking sound filled the lord’s ears and abruptly waves of moonlight splintered his eyes as an opening was revealed, a roughhewn door of stone sliding to one side.
Still smiling, assured of his victory, Verkain moved into the chamber beyond.
***
The tip of Fortisquo’s sword pointed at the woman. “We don’t have to do this.”
Adara eased a step further from her former teacher and made sure to keep her rapier aimed on him. “Belgad says you are with Verkain now.”
Fortisquo provided a smile that had charmed Adara once not so long ago. “One way or another, I am leaving,” he said. “You could come with me.”
“I don’t think so.”
Fortisquo’s grin widened, showing teeth. “That is a shame,” he said, waving with his sword’s blade for her to move aside, “but I’m still going to need you to move out of my way.”
Adara went into a defensive stance, blocking the doorway. "Not on your black, pathetic life.”
He chuckled. “Mad at me for trying to kill you?”
Adara kept her face stoic and her focus on her foe.
“This is silly, Adara,” he said. “Let the past be the past. We do not need to fight. Just allow me to be on my way and we never need see one another again.”
“You’re only stalling because you’re afraid.”
Fortisquo’s smile disappeared.
“I’ve trained under Kron these last months,” she said. “You’re afraid of what he’s taught me.”
Fortisquo’s lone eye turned cold, nearly as black as the patch shielding where the other orb had once been at home. “Move away from the exit.”
“No.”
The swordsman came forward, just out of striking distance of the woman. His grin returned. “This will be fun.”
“I promise you won’t enjoy it,” she said.
Fortisquo plunged with his blade.
Her instincts were all that saved Adara as her rapier knocked away the tip of the man’s heavier sword. She had almost forgotten how fast he could be.
The assassin’s sword flashed in again, this time faster than before. Adara blocked the blow but was forced back a step.
Trying to turn the fight, she lunged, aiming directly for his center, but the quillons of his sword caught her blade and pinned it briefly.
With a twist of his wrist, Fortisquo’s weapon dove in for attack.
Adara dropped to one knee, allowing his steel to hit the empty space her face had occupied a moment before. She shot up off her crouched leg and kicked out with the other foot.
Fortisquo spun out of range of the kick, all the while holding his blade over his head and keeping its point aimed at his enemy.
Adara caught her breath. She knew this would be a tough fight, perhaps the toughest of her life. Fortisquo was stronger and taller with a reach almost a foot longer than her own. He was also older and more experienced.
He towered over her as his sword flashed right. With his long reach, it was safer for Adara to roll with her steps to the left than to attempt a block of his blow.
Again, the sword master struck to Adara’s right. Again she skipped left.
Upon the third strike to her right, Adara realized what he was doing. Instead of forcing her back into the wall, he was working her to his left, away from the doorway she blocked.
Adara screamed and lunged. With a flash, Fortisquo’s sword caught her rapier in the space between th
em. Again with a flick of his wrist and his sword darted for her face.
Adara raised a gloved hand as a shield.
She was almost too late. Her hand gripping the blade of his sword, the tip of his weapon pressed the cheek beneath her right eye.
“Ooooo, close,” Fortisquo said.
“Not close enough!”
She brought up her rapier for a stab, but he was too fast, launching himself back out of her reach. His sword slid out of her hand, splitting cowhide but not flesh.
Adara jumped away and raised the back of her sword hand to rub her face beneath the right eye. Her leather-clad knuckles came away wet.
“First blood is mine.” Fortisquo’s smile emoted as much acid as his words.
“So it is.”
““This is almost like old times,” the swordmaster said as they circled around one another, “you and I alone together.”
Adara lowered her weapon slightly and tilted her head to one side. “You know,” she said, “you were a lousy lover.”
For the first time real anger entered the assassin’s eyes. “Damn you, woman!” He thrust his weapon again.
Adara’s blade jerked up to thwart the strike.
A dagger appeared in Fortisquo's other hand and he stabbed.
The short blade pierced shirt and skin beneath Adara’s left breast and came away layered with an inch of blood.
The woman stumbled away, managing to keep on her feet by will alone.
Fortisquo stood back grinning.
Adara leaned against the cool stone wall behind her.
“And second blood goes to me,” the swordsman said.
Adara brought up her left hand to press on the chest wound. She winced from the pain but realized the harm done was not life threatening. The wound was not deep enough to cause her to bleed to death and the blade had not touched vital innards. Still, the blood would flow for some while.
Think! her mind screamed. Now that she was wounded, she was nearly outmatched. Her mind scrambled over a thousand different moves and attacks, but none seemed good enough to break Fortisquo’s defenses. She was physically weaker than the man. She was also shorter. To hit him a death-delivering wound meant she would have to enter well within his deadly reach.
Her brain continued to race, focusing on Kron’s lessons of improvisation, of using the environment and of paying attention to the particular strengths and weaknesses of one’s foe.
How could she seriously harm Fortisquo if her reach was so much less than his? The only part of his body she could possibly hit where he would have a hard time defending would be his legs, especially since he was blind in one eye and would have a difficult time seeing to one side.
Adara’s eyes focused on Fortisquo’s leather boots, which did not rise above his knees. Then she remembered one of the most important lessons taught her by Kron Darkbow. Distance.
She plunged forward, her rapier stabbing at the man’s stomach.
Fortisquo knocked aside the blow with his main gauche. He brought his own sword to front, but it too was blocked by Adara’s steel.
Adara swung her rapier out and to her foe’s left. Fortisquo’s long dagger shot out to block the weak slash, but he hit nothing but air as the woman spun away from him. When she rounded to face the swordsman once more, she unleashed the leather straps that had been curled upon her belt.
With a snap, the whip came around from one side of Fortisquo and bit into the skin and muscle behind the man’s left knee.
He screamed and limped back on his good leg.
Adara eased away, keeping her sword forward and her leather scourge out to one side.
“I didn’t teach you that,” Fortisquo said with gritted teeth.
“You weren’t the only lover I had,” Adara said, now her turn to smile.
With that she darted forward seemingly wild, stabbing and jabbing upward with her rapier while slashing the whip out and around the man.
Fortisquo blocked each stroke of steel with his own weapons, but slowly Adara worked her blade lower and lower. Fortisquo found himself forced back to keep from being stabbed or slashed in the leg again.
The woman did not let up. Her relentless jabs pushed the man back another step and he nearly fell as pain shot through his injured leg.
He winced and his good eye closed for a brief second.
It was enough.
Adara flung out the end of her whip to rip around to the side and, from behind, slice into the back of Fortisquo’s other knee.
The sword master plummeted to the floor.
Adara took a step back and lowered her weapons.
“You bitch,” Fortisquo said from the ground as blood flowed from his legs. “I can’t stand.”
“You didn’t teach me the whip, but you did teach me to win.” Adara slid forward, her rapier directed at her fallen opponent.
“What now?” Fortisquo asked. “Will you slay me, a downed man? Where’s the honor in that?”
The tip of Adara’s sword hesitated, then came to rest at his throat.
“I won’t kill you,” she said. “I have no need. You have been beaten, and for as long as we both live, you’ll know I was the one who bested you.”
Fortisquo screamed in rage and brought his sword around for a slash.
Adara’s blade stabbed. The assassin tried to block with his main gauche, but the loss of blood had weakened his reflexes and he was in an awkward position on the floor.
The woman’s rapier slid into his throat until it rapped the stone floor beneath.
Fortisquo’s hands fell away limp and his weapons clattered to his side.
“My pardon, my love,” Adara said with glassy eyes.
She stared at the still form of her once lover and moved back to the cold wall, leaning against it for support. The rush of the combat was quickly dropping from her and she was feeling her wounds. She was not harmed badly, but her strength was draining with each drop of blood.
She slid to the floor near Captain Lendo.
***
Belgad stepped over a sleeping slave in tattered rags at a crossroad of four hallways. He glanced back the way he had come, saw nothing in the steady light of ensconced torches, then looked along the other paths open to him.
He was not lost, but had lost those he had been following. There was no way to know what direction Verkain and Kron had taken.
He leaned over and wiped his sword of gore on the slave’s mud-colored tunic. Then he stood and sheathed the weapon, his eyes shifting from one door to another.
Still seeing nothing, he held his breath to better listen. No sounds came to him.
The big man scowled. He had to get to Verkain. He had to ensure Randall’s safety. There was too much at stake.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Verkain found himself behind his massive chair of black rock in the throne room. As the secret door behind him eased shut, he allowed a red tapestry to fall and conceal it once more. Moonlight from tall windows displayed the dark king, stretching his shadow along the tapestry and outlining his face with a pale glow.
The Kobalan lord made his way around the throne then halted. His black eyes came up to stare about the room. He saw no one in the rows of shadow and moonlight, but the air felt disturbed, moving as if someone had passed near him.
“Who is there?”
At first there was nothing, then in the center of the room a wan light revealed a figure cloaked in white.
“Why?” Randall asked.
Verkain’s head came up further, raising his chin high. He stared for a moment, words unable to come from his lips. Then, finally, “It is true. You live.”
“Yes,” Randall said, moving forward slowly, crossing streams of light and dark, light and dark, until he stopped at the bottom of the steps leading up to his father. The moonlight hovered around his face, giving him a golden aura.
Verkain growled, then lowered himself onto his royal seat.
***
All the climbing, fighting and running
had caught up with Kron. His breathing was shallow as he trudged up the stone steps in complete darkness, a hand on the left wall guiding his way.
After what felt like an hour he reached the top of the stairwell, revealed only because his toes could find no other purchase in front of him. He stretched out his arms to tap the walls on either side and found there were no side junctures. He reached ahead and found a flat wall.
His climb had ended. He was positive Verkain had come this way. There had to be a hidden lever or a pulley bar or something that would open another secret door.
Then he heard voices.
Kron leaned forward and put an ear against cold stone.
On the other side of the wall, Verkain was speaking. Then Randall’s voice reverberated through the stone. The man in black could not understand the words spoken, but he recognized enough of the tones to know the speakers.
His search for a secret lever intensified. He had to get to Verkain. There was no telling what the madman would do to Randall.
***
Randall stared up at his father seated in the royal chair of Kobalos, a grimace on the king’s face. “You did not answer my question,” the healer said.
“You asked nonsense,” Verkain said.
“I asked ‘why?’” Randall said. “I believe that is a fair question.”
Verkain’s unblinking eyes shifted from his son to the windows lining one side of the hall. He watched the night, the slow fall of the moon, the winking of the stars.
“Do I deserve no answers?” Randall asked.
The king’s eyes slid to his son’s left hand. “I see you still wear the family ring.”
Randall raised the hand and glanced at the wide gold band on his finger. “I see no reason to remove it. I am still a part of this family.”
Verkain chuckled. “Very much so.”
Randall lowered his hand. “You are avoiding my questions.”
“I don’t know what you want to hear!” Verkain shouted.
That silenced the young man for a moment. He shifted on his feet. There were so many things unspoken between these two, father and son. He had learned much, but there was much he still did not understand.