Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (102 page)

I am no coward.  I do not fear my enemies, nor do I
fear death.  If death must be offered my life in exchange for his, then I have
long accepted that price.  The time is arrived.  The day is come.  I am a
Guardian!  I am no coward!

He slowly rose.  His body obeyed him as it always had
before.  Colbey flexed his grip and tested his knees by squatting.  Whatever
temporary gutlessness had afflicted him no longer froze his limbs.

The implications unsettled him.  It had been a long
time since he last engaged in serious self-examination.  If this day ended with
him still alive, he would need to search his soul, to find any lingering
apprehensions and purge them.

Troubles for a future that would unlikely concern
him.  The final leg to his journey had begun.  He leapt from the forest to
confront his fate.

Colbey burst into the open snow fields intending to
rush the semi-vulnerable command force.  He stopped immediately.  During the
few minutes spent overthrowing his body’s rebellion, matters had changed.

Galemar’s forces had finally organized with effective
tactics.  Along the invaders’ frontline, black-armored fighters were being
pushed back.  The southern flanks were in danger of folding.

Rather than fight to the last with his men, the
cowardly murderer had started a retreat with his men shielding him.  His
personal guard force ran north with him in the center.  Soon enough his force’s
pitiful remains would be ground through the snow into bloody rags by the kingdom
fighters.

Colbey watched in disbelief until their diminishing
size drove home their flight.  They were
escaping
!  Escaping from him!

It could not be allowed!  He ran, giving chase. 
Nothing
mattered

:Against…:

except killing the one responsible!  The one
responsible
! 
Colbey would pay his life in forfeit if he needed to, but oh, he prayed,
prayed
that the gods would grant him the opportunity to stab under his fingernails, to
flay his skin, to cut

:Against…:

his living scalp from his head and to pierce his eyes
with a burning steel dagger until the fluid within boiled and his eyeballs
exploded!  Yes, how he prayed, but simply to kill him would be enough if he
accomplished nothing else.  He focused on the fleeing cravens, the dark fog
blocking out all else except his goal, helping him fly as an arrow to his
enemy’s heart.  Even if they never slowed again, he would never rest until he
closed the distance.  Slow them down, yes, and those miserable mercenaries
could not accomplish so much as
that
!  Especially that two-faced mage
who had seduced his trust, had wormed his way into Colbey’s confidence for his
own selfish desires.  That betrayer had only ever wanted what Colbey could
teach him, had never intended to pay his promised aid.  Probably he, too, was truly
after his village’s long protected power, just like every other mage in this
foul land.  Yes, if he survived after killing the murderous Dead Man, then he
would next kill that lying mage

:Against…:

who had dared to work his witch charms on him!  On a Guardian! 
A vile, filthy mage bent on stealing everything he could for his own ends! 
Well, the deceiver had not been killed by the soldiers he was meant to be
distracting.  Obviously the mage meant to take everything from him if he could,
including his vengeance.  No, it would not be.  He would cut that deceiver’s
throat

“Against…”

and throw his heart into a blazing fire after ripping
it from his chest.  Then the deceiver would finally learn the price of greed.

Colbey laughed as he ran across the snow, seeing
nothing except the black-armored men guiding his way.

*        *        *        *        *

“We actually might make it through this alive,”
drifted to Marik’s ears from Wyman, the observation floating from somewhere
among the huddled group.  At the same moment a sickening glow on the horizon
filled Marik’s stomach with acid.  He stopped dead, taking no notice of the
others while he leapt fully into the etheric plane.  The speed with which he
flew across the ground would have terrified him witless had he traveled at such
insane speeds in his physical, mortal body.

He returned before Dietrik could finish calling ahead
to the sergeants.  His friend read his expression with grim ease.  “Trouble
then, is it mate?”

“Yeah.”  Marik heard the dead tone his voice carried. 
Kineta trotted back to demand an explanation.  “There’s a new force coming
south straight at us.  Black soldiers.”

“How many?” Kineta growled.

“Too many.  I read it at nearly a thousand easy,
though it’s hard to tell through the magesight.”  He glanced around while Kineta
stared through him at nothing.  “Straight at us.  And we don’t have a single
damn place to hide.”

*        *        *        *        *

Too many men were crowding the field.  From the
etheric, the different aura masses collided in a churning chaos.  Marik only
stole instantaneous glances during the two or three second intervals he was
allowed to stop and catapult into the high plane.

His news never eased Kineta’s burden.  A detachment,
probably escaping enemy officers, quickly retreated north.  They should miss
them if the mercenaries clung to the mountain’s base.  The Galemaran forces had
broken the remaining southern line and pursued the enemy fragments in every
direction across the field.  If they had detected the new hostile army
approaching their flank, they evinced no sign of it.

Kineta had finally decided that playing it safe was
not an option any longer.  Any direction they moved would bring them into
contact with others, so she elected to return southeast and join the kingdom
fighters.  Sloan offered no objection.  The men all looked grim.

They ran, as they had days before.  Kineta ordered
Marik to run faster to reach the head, then pause only long enough to see if
any soldiers, friend or foe, had neared.  Once Cork and Chiksan at the rear
passed him, he needed to stop searching in order to run faster than the rest to
the head in and endless cycle.

Marik’s concerns centered on avoiding an assault from
their presumptive ‘allies’.  If they came running full-tilt at the Galemaran
soldiers, they might attack before the Kings could declare their identity.

“Over there!” he shouted.  Kineta and Sloan stopped
thirty feet ahead.  They followed Marik’s pointing finger to the east. 
“There’s a hundred or so men hunting down a black soldier group!”

He expected her to order everyone to run.  Instead the
sergeant called for every archer available to go forward.  With them forming a
miniscule frontline, the two units trotted behind at a slower pace.  The
archers held arrows at the nock, ready to loose them in a heartbeat.

After several minutes the remaining invaders came into
view.  Fortune favored the mercenaries.  These fleeing enemies had been running
mostly westerly.  This brought them straight to the Crimson Kings.

The kingdom forces had already destroyed the greater
share.  Nine soldiers had escaped and were running for their lives with
Galemaran fighters on their heels.  Both sergeants ordered the flight release.

Only four arrows and one quarrel flew.  Each found a
mark.  Churt’s crossbow flung his target off his feet while three other soldiers
tumbled with shafts in their bodies.  One fell screaming from an arrow through
his arm.

The archers readied their next shots quickly.  Churt
was only seconds behind them.  His crossbow’s stirrup allowed him faster
reloading than Marik would have guessed.

With half their number suddenly gone, the remaining
soldiers hesitated in confusion.  They started running before the archers could
fire clean shots at stationary targets.  Only one arrow found a target, then
Churt’s quarrel caught a second between the shoulder blades.  His target
windmilled forward to land face first, plowing drifts in the snow before
collapsing.

The two remaining thought to flee north.  Shortly they
discovered that their pursuers had maneuvered to block that avenue.  They
fought well.  Soon, they too cooled in the snow with their fellows.

Kineta walked to the larger kingdom force to find the
leader.  A rider quickly rode out to her and the two conferred.  Marik glanced
south.  No magesight was needed to see the remaining army soldiers heading
their way.  The Arm rode at their fore.  He had sheathed his namesake sword,
for which Marik gave him slight credit.  Only a fool caught up in his own glory
would continue to wave it around during a march.  Still, that silvered armor
made him hard to mistake for anyone else.

Marik briefly jumped into the etheric skies to look
down on their approaching allies.  He guessed they had lost roughly a quarter
of their men.  Most losses could be laid on the monstrous beasts.

Gestures from the conference between mercenary and
rider quickly brought Sloan to join their discussion.  Similar gestures brought
a pair of mounted men from the hunters.  One rider dismounted to give his horse
over to Kineta.  Even at that distance, Marik could see the man disliked doing
so, either because he felt vulnerable without his mount or because he needed to
sacrifice it to a mercenary, and a female hire-sword at that.  A little of
both, if Marik had learned anything about soldiers.

The second rider galloped with Kineta.  Both rode hard
for the approaching forces.  She must have explained the larger threat
imminent.  Hopefully she would make the Arm advance a few minutes faster.

Marik shifted his view and saw that the approaching
invaders were less than a mile distant.  Dietrik nudged him when he reentered
his body.  He pointed without speaking.  Movement shimmered over the rolling
ground, the snow seeming to roil.  If they continued without slowing, the day’s
second major battle would begin in fewer than ten minutes.

He drew his sword and shrugged off his pack.  It
heartened him to see the action matched by every other experienced mercenary he
knew.  The younger among the newer recruits watched for a moment before
understanding.  It was another mark of his advanced experience that he had
acted on instinct.

The men all threw their packs into a pile that grew
into a small hillock.  If they survived then they would return to reclaim their
possessions.  None were so valuable as to be worth the risk of their
encumbrance during the coming fight.  Only coins were of any true value, and
each man usually carried them in pouches or purses tied to their belts or
stashed under their tunics.

Marik gathered in energy.  With the physical shield
woven around his blade, his reserves would drain far quicker.  That would be no
problem if he ever figured out how to continually draw while utilizing his
strength working.  Of course by then, Sennet would have his new blade ready,
and it would no longer matter.  Today he would need to be cautious.

He would hold the frontline and destroy any black
bastards that dared to come near.  When his reserves ran low, then he could
duck back into the line long enough to refill from the mass diffusion. 
Or
,
he thought,
if I can cut a wide enough swatch, then I might be able to drop
the workings long enough to fully refill before they close ranks on me.

That might work as well.  He remembered the void that
had surrounded him at the Hollister Bridge when the Noliers came to realize he
was different from the other fighters.  If that happened, he might have to lead
the frontline in a charge against the enemy, forcing them to confront him.

But he could do it.  His fighting skills were top
level, unmatched by these slobs who thought being a soldier also meant being a
fighter!  He would show them what real skill was.

Yes, and he would show the ‘appointed’ Arm of Galemar
what made a true warrior.  Let him wallow in the knowledge that he only aped
his predecessors.  He could stew in his own shame that commoners were more
deserving of being acknowledged as the greatest warriors of the age.  Marik
hoped a tone-deaf minstrel would write another song that would endlessly warble
through the nobility’s halls and forever torment this grandiose kingdom
defender.

That might send the puffed-up nobles a clear slap to
the face.  He grinned at the thought before reentering the etheric.  This time
he sank through the insubstantial ground to search for any lines flowing near
the Rovasii.  The faint sensation of heat baking across his being quickly led
him to two.

Both lines were very thick and strong.  They flowed
south, into the forest, or under it, he supposed.  He hesitated to touch
either.  His experience with lines was limited.  These were far larger than the
fat lines flowing under Thoenar.

Tollaf had assured him such a difference would
not
make a difference, the old fart sounding less than credible as he listed
endless variations between lines, all while stating that none of them changed
their nature in any significant manner.  The flowing energy would answer to his
manipulations as long as he refrained from reckless actions.