by BJ Hanlon
Arianne moved quietly and Edin could hear the rattling of the knob from just below.
“It’s locked,” a panicked female voice rang out.
“Blast it.” Berka said as he was retreating, still looking toward the prowling dematians.
Then to the west, he heard a loud chittering and glanced that way. Coming around a corner about a hundred yards away were more dematians.
“Berka, get in,” Edin called, still trying to keep his voice low but knowing it wasn’t working very well.
The big Por Fen recruit turned and looked up. A moment later, he sprinted toward the door. Voices and scraping wood came from below.
Edin cringed. It was loud and would give them away… if Edin hadn’t already. How’d he find them?
Then Edin glanced at the eastern sky. Still no sign of the sun.
Why did he think that? Did the dematians live mainly by the moon? The first time he’d encountered them it was deep into the night. Last night… and now, just before dawn when most normal humans would be fast asleep.
What if they were the opposite of all elves? Then again, Edin knew so little about elvish kind anyway.
A few moments later, Arianne was back in the room with Yechill.
“I cannot tell how many,” Edin said, “both sides.” He pointed out.
Yechill nodded, moved to the window and pushed Edin aside. After a moment the Foci warrior turned back. He held out both hands, his fingers splayed. Then he closed them and opened them again.
“Twenty?” Edin asked but Yechill said nothing. So he copied the gesture.
Yechill nodded.
Edin glanced outside. The dematians were swimming between the buildings; to the east, across the street were smaller shops and houses, on his side of the street, Edin remembered more two-story structures.
Berka appeared in the doorway, a large sword strapped to his back. “I found her,” he said.
“And armed yourself.”
“You try walking unarmed through a dead town with a gaggle of dematians around every corner.”
Something wet dripped from the end of his blade to the floor below.
“How many did you get?”
“Only three.” He shrugged grinning. “By myself.”
“Not bad, the first time I fought them I killed a dozen,” Edin said, though he wasn’t certain of the number.
“Now is not the time to compare how strong your blades are,” Arianne whispered.
“Mine’s longer,” Berka said grinning.
Behind Berka, across the hall and through the other open window, Edin saw the sky was a slightly lighter shade of blue. He turned back to his window and looked east. “The sun is rising,” Edin said.
“So?”
“I’ve only ever seen them at night… I think they’re nocturnal. Where are the others?”
“Shoring up the barricades,” Arianne said.
“And the new girl? Who’s she?”
“El.”
“Like the letter?”
“That’s what I asked,” Berka answered, “she said no.”
“Enough of this, we need a plan,” Arianne said.
“Let’s go,” Edin said and motioned for the door.
Yechill pointed at the window and motioned his hands like double doors that needed to be shut. Edin understood he meant to close the shutters. Edin shook his head. “They’ll probably see and know exactly where we are.”
Yechill looked at him with a blank gaze.
Edin pointed him toward the door and Yechill reluctantly went.
Back downstairs, it was completely dark except for a small light pouring out of the galley with the broken window.
“There are twenty dematians out there,” Edin said. “They are all on the road in front of the building.”
“Any behind it?”
Edin shook his head.
“The river is back there; we can make for the water. Maybe a boat or something. We don’t have to paddle,” Dorset said, “we can let the river take us to the ocean.”
“I’m pretty sure there is a dematian camp to the east,” Edin said. “We’d float right by them during the daylight.”
“I thought you said they were nocturnal,” Berka said.
“It is a guess.”
“Then, what do we do? We’re surrounded…” Dorset said.
Edin thought for a moment then spoke, “there’s a cellar below us, we can hole up there… we can hide in here or we can attack.”
“I like the last option,” Berka said.
Fokill was translating for Yechill. Yechill nodded and grabbed the haft of his axe.
“That’s a lot of them,” Edin said. “And they’re coming from both sides.”
“You saw what they did to these people,” Arianne said. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Slung across her back was her enchanted bow and a quiver of arrows.
Edin glanced at Henny and Dorset. “Guys?”
Henny grabbed a chair and kicked at its leg. The thing snapped off far too loudly and everyone cringed. “Sorry,” He said.
Edin got the meaning. He would fight.
“Dorset?”
The scholar tilted his head and looked like Master Horston whose mood Edin never could quite discern. “Well, might as well show them what we can do.” Dorset grinned, his face barely illuminated in the dark room.
“I’ll take the east group,” Edin said.
“By yourself?” Berka asked. “I know you’re an abo… magus but—”
“Arianne your quarterstaff.”
She nodded and tossed it to him.
“How’s that bow of yours?”
“It’ll sing.”
“Right, the rest of you, go out back and flank the west side.”
Edin thought about the dress upstairs, the couple with their wrists slit but still holding hands and he gritted his teeth. He strode toward the door and began dislodging tables and chairs that’d been wedged there.
Berka came and started helping him. “What did we always say… if we go to war, we do it together.”
“Figured that changed.”
“For now it hasn’t.”
Edin turned back and saw the young red-haired woman, she was curled up in the corner, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as if to keep herself warm. Her eyes were on them… or maybe on Berka.
They removed the last of the tables trying not to let them scrape against the flooring. He glanced at Berka.
Berka asked, “what’s with the staff and the sword?”
Edin shrugged and flung the door open. The chattering of the dematians was close now. He could see one near the pile, it was bent over and sniffing like a hound dog. The sun hadn’t quite touched them yet, but it was rising quickly.
Edin stepped out onto the porch and down the single step into the middle of the muddy street. He held the quarterstaff in his left hand, the sword still sheathed.
“Did you know Grent was a terrin?” Edin asked.
“Yeah, my old man told me.”
Edin looked to the east then the west. The two groups of dematians were approaching.
“I still can’t believe… but I see them. They’re so ugly.”
“A bit like you, Berks.”
“Didn’t stop your ma from wanting it.”
Edin ignored it. “They’re fast but not disciplined, most will drop their weapons as you get near.”
“I know, made them rather easy to cleave.”
The dematians saw them and began chattering and chittering, their sound wild and grating. Then they started running. Their feet, not looking for stealth were digging into the mud and shooting it out behind them at others.
Somehow, the ground felt like it was beginning to rumble. Edin quickly glanced around looking for something larger. Something that could do that.
“What the…” Berka said.
Edin turned and saw rocks popping up from the ground before the western dematians. More than half tripped on the stones while others stumbled into
each other.
Multiple arrows flew from the window above, one took a hit to the head, another to the side. The one who took it in the side kept moving.
Edin turned back toward the eastern group. They were closer now, in full gallop, he took a deep breath and let the feeling of the energy in the world swirl through him like a focused tornado. He felt the tug in his gut and summoned and ethereal knife. He whipped it at the group. The blinding dagger soaring silently through the air. Then he sent a second and a third.
One struck true, the lead dematian nearly exploded as the strike passed through his gut. The second took off an arm, the third missed.
Edin felt the electrical static in the air, a charge that made him taste metal. He blasted out a hand and a bolt of lightning erupted. It struck a dematian that seized up and flew back into a friend. The bolt leapt hitting another beast and seizing that one.
Behind him, he heard Berka let loose a battle cry followed by the others attacking from the flank.
Edin drew his sword. There were six remaining with only eleven arms. He charged, crying out. Two of them came at him from an angle, they were weaponless and leapt like rampaging crillio cats.
Edin rolled forward as they were almost on him. He heard the clattering as they slammed into each other. As Edin came up, he was in the middle of the remaining four, the one with a single arm seemed woozy and confused.
Edin parried a strike from a sword, leapt a slash from the horsehead knife that wasn’t really a knife. He spun, slammed his quarterstaff into a knee to a echoing crunch. His blade continued like a whirlwind, cutting through a different beast’s stomach and into its spine. The blade stuck there.
It roared and tried to swipe its claws down on Edin. He let go of the sword and let the staff drop through his hands until he only had the edge. He circled it above his head.
Edin brought it around whipping past his face and struck the hilt of his sword. The blade popped free as the dematian fell back, its guts spilling to the moist earth.
Edin saw the sword falling and felt the world slow around him. He leapt and rolled toward it and caught the hilt in a reverse grip and turned toward the fight. The two that had crashed were standing. They came at Edin with claws swimming as if they were in a pool. He dodged a swipe with barely a twist, slamming the edge of the staff into the neck of the other. Edin spun left bringing the staff around in a circle at head height. They both saw it and slowly ducked.
But they didn’t see his other hand. He dragged the blade across their lowered necks, nice of them to be the same height, Edin thought. Both heads popped off like a pair of coins being flicked into the air.
Edin twisted completely and ended in a serpent stance facing the group. Three were still alive. The one-armed beast was on the ground trying to crawl away and a second was leaning against the body of a friend and wheezing.
Then an arrow took it in the throat.
In front of him, was the last one standing. It for some reason had stayed back. In its clawed hands were two long swords. It spun them around and then howled. Chills ran down his body as he stared into the yellow-red eyes. This one seemed different. Bigger.
Then, it leapt forward. It twisted, striking forward and back with incredible speed. Edin dodged, jumped and parried. He leapt back as the dervish came at him. The speed was quick and grew quicker. A dematian terrin?
Edin flipped the sword around in front of him and the dematian’s eyes flickered with the enchanted blade.
His chest pounded rapidly and this gave him a moment to catch his breath.
Then it was attacking again, even swifter.
Edin ducked as a blade cut through the air above his head. The other blade split his pant leg and gashed his shin.
Edin knocked away a downward slash and thrust at the beast’s heart, if it had one. The beast turned sideways and the blade only scratched beneath its ribcage.
Wind blew the ash around like a snowstorm as they fought over the mud and past the pile of body and bone. The sun continued its rise. He heard screams and saw an arrow shoot toward the beast’s back.
Somehow it knew of the attack. It spun, deflected the arrow into the ground and continued. Edin was on the defensive, watching the twists and turns, the hips and the shoulders.
The chattering grew more intense in his brain and he could see sweat pouring down the beast’s head. Edin himself was wet and he was losing his grip on his sword. The quarterstaff felt like it was being whittled away, the thick strong strikes slamming over and over into it.
Edin stepped onto something he hadn’t noticed. It shocked him and he saw the blades coming at him like a scissors. Edin leaned back as the blades chopped the staff in two.
A foot-long section floated off somewhere above him.
Edin leapt right. He dove over one blade and beneath a second that was coming back across. Suddenly, the sun was at his back.
The dematian turned and then recoiled. It took only that moment for Edin to attack. The dematian tried a blind cut in front of him, but he was off by a few inches. Edin slashed at the hand, taking it off at the wrist then he flicked the sword up and cut across its chest. The other sword came at him and Edin ducked it but left his blade up. It severed the other arm at the elbow as the dematian fell.
It stumbled and turned. A moment later it tried to drop to its hands and knees but its hands were gone. The beast yelped as it face-planted in the mud. Edin strolled over and put a foot on the beast’s back and pushed it deeper into the wet earth.
The thing turned its head, the glowing eyes evil and angry. Edin brought the sword around and down. The demon’s head fell off as dark blood pooled in a mud bowl.
Edin looked toward the other group. They weren’t too far away, all of them. Behind, he saw the group they had dispatched. Dark blood splattered their cloaks and furs and Henny was holding his arm while Berka was leaning heavily on his sword and his right leg.
“What type of dematian was that?” Henny asked.
“He fought like a terrin,” Edin said as he finally caught his breath.
“As did you,” Berka said shaking his head. “Why didn’t you end it with the talent?”
“Too much can—”
“Make you destroy all beings around you,” Dorset interrupted. “Magi can explode.”
For a moment Edin wasn’t sure what he was doing, then he understood. Edin nodded. “Or I can go wild.”
“Really?” Berka asked. “Then what’d happen?”
“You hear the stories of the mad magi,” Dorset said.
Berka nodded solemnly. “Whole villages… slaughtered hundreds, thousands of innocents. A lot like these things.” Berka kicked at the terrin dematian’s leg. It barely moved.
“I think we better leave before anymore show up,” Fokill said. “As fun as that was, I’d rather not do that again for a while. A nice night in the open beneath an oak would do me just fine.”
At the entrance to the inn, they met El and Arianne.
“What do we do with her?” Dorset asked.
Edin had no idea. She was pretty, a slight girl maybe five feet tall with reddish brown hair and dark brown eyes that looked sad. She reminded him of a fawn he’d once seen in the forest.
El said nothing but looked up at Berka.
“Has she said anything? Who she is, where she’s from?”
“She only told me her name,” Berka said. “Nothing else. My guess is she’s from here. But we can’t leave her.”
“We’re going west, into danger not away from it,” Edin said.
“What would you do then?” Arianne said as she stared at Edin and wrapping a hand around the girl she pulled her close. “If she wants to come, we let her.”
“And if not?”
No one answered. They all looked at El. Edin wondered if it was short for something, probably. Maybe she could only speak a letter and not a word.
“We cannot wait all day,” Edin said. “I’d like to get as far from this place as possible before nightfall.”
“We will look for boats to carry us upriver,” Fokill said.
Edin said “not a bad idea. Fokill and I will look for boats, the rest of you search for food or other supplies. Be quick and quiet.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Arianne offered.
Edin kept low as they ran to the river behind the inn. Being in a city and hearing only the sound of the river’s gurgle and their footsteps was eerie. The current wasn’t too fast, not like the Crystalline, but it was probably just as cold.
Edin glanced back and saw the black open window he’d fell into and remembered the old couple.
“There are barges that sail from this place out to the sea in summer,” Fokill said.
“I thought your people never came here?”
“I have with my father. We are not the same as the Foci.”
“Really?” Edin said sarcastically.
“Yes, I’ve told you.” Fokill pointed toward a large square building only twenty feet from the river’s edge. “There.”
They ran across the bank toward the shack. The wood was dark brown and weather-beaten. A pair of large double doors opened and they found shelves of row boats. They were heavy and Edin was sweating when they got two down to the river.
The cold air lapped his face, but he was warm beneath his cloak.
“You and Arianne… you are lovers?” Fokill said as they went back toward the inn.
Edin nodded.
“She is very beautiful.”
“Yes,” Edin replied. They rounded the corner heading back toward the inn when Edin noticed smoke rising to the southeast though it was hard to see in the sunrays. “Smoke…”
“I see it.”
They picked up their pace. Inside, Arianne and El were filling the packs. Dorset and Yechill appeared with jars and dried meat a few minutes later but Henny and Berka were still gone.
Fokill said “something is burning. We should leave soon.”
“Almost ready,” Arianne said then tossed him a waterskin.
Edin popped the top and took a drink. Ale. “You’re amazing.” She smiled and shrugged.
They waited for nearly twenty minutes but there was still no sign of the other two.
“If your friend did something to Henny…” Dorset said enunciating the word.
Edin stood in the shadows of the front door and looked up and down the bloody street. No sign of them. He sighed. “I will look for them. Have the boats loaded when I return.”