Exiles of Forlorn (15 page)

I grasped at Uller’s belt for a dagger. Of course he had none. Why would a wizard need a weapon? He wasn’t going to be much use now, with blood pouring from him like a fountain. He knew enough to put pressure on the wound. I turned to face our enemy, who was finally getting to his feet; albeit still disoriented. The only thing between us was the headless corpse on the beach. In his hand was his sword. Short, flat and thin, almost like a needle. I rolled forward and grabbed it, prying it out of his hand just as the Scumdog got his bearing. I stood and brought the blade up, point first, haft and hilt at an angle with my arms and legs bent. Just as I’d been taught in fencing instruction as a child . . . though, I was never very good at it. Something about practicing more, or at all, that kept me from realizing what my instructor referred to as my true potential. I prayed to the Daevas that whatever training remained was superior to his.

I felt a hand on my leg. I looked down and saw Uller muttering words I didn’t understand. When he was finished, a rush of energy coursed through my body. It didn’t feel unpleasant, but it was new, so it was disconcerting. He met my concerned eyes with weak ones and said, almost in a whisper, “I made you faster.”

He certainly had, though it didn’t seem so to me. Rather, everyone else seemed to be moving just a bit slower. The combination of my training and Uller’s spell proved formidable. I deflected blows and landed a few of my own. With a downward swipe, I knocked the sword from my opponent’s hand and brought the tip of my blade up, pressing it to his throat just hard enough to bring a trickle of blood. He swatted my blade away and spun round, drawing a hatchet from his belt. His arm came back, exposing his chest to me for what should have been the briefest of moments, too brief to be of any use to me under normal circumstances. These were not normal circumstances, however. In a flash, I drove the tip of my sword forward, piercing his chest. He screamed and went rigid. His insides moved like they were trying to escape my blade as it punched through. I was halfway up to the hilt when Uller’s spell expired.

There I stood, dumbstruck, holding a bloody sword with a dying man at the end. He looked at me as blood bubbled up to his lips. He stared, shaking his head like he could somehow convince me to take it back, withdraw the blade, and let him go about his business. I opened my mouth to speak, but found I had nothing to say. He looked down at the wound, then back up at me again. His eyes were big, wet and bloodshot. Only then did I realize how young he was. Barely my age, if not younger. He was just a boy. What was a boy doing out here, raiding for slaves? What had brought him here? To this place? To Forlorn? Was he an exile, like me? Or had he been raised in this life, knowing nothing but to plunder and kidnap for survival? Whatever the case, it was over for him now. He gave me one last look, with tears streaming from his eyes before falling back, taking the sword from my hand as he landed. On his back. Dead.

That was all of them on our end, except for Antioc’s portly adversary. As soon as he saw that all his friends were dead, he stepped back from their melee. His arms went up and his hands opened, dropping both weapons to the sand. I saw a few bruises on his body, and a couple of small cuts on Antioc, but neither had managed to overwhelm the other. I was impressed: I had finally met the man who could go toe-to-toe with Antioc for more than a few seconds and escape without a broken limb or crushed skull.

“I yield,” he said, lowering his head. “You’ve bested me, young sir—”

An arrow appeared in his neck. The fletching hung out one side, the bloody headed tip out the other. He gurgled painfully and fell, grasping at the wound until another one took him directly to the back of his skull. That was all it took to send his lifeless corpse to the sand, nerves causing trembles up and down his body as he colored the White Road with his blood. I looked up and saw Ferun step out of the darkness with his bow.

“He was yielding,” shouted Antioc as he pointed at the corpse.

“I didn’t know that,” replied Ferun with a shrug. Stree and Boran stepped out of the darkness behind him, flanking him. The former had a bloody dagger, the latter a pair of hatchets he’d no doubt looted from dead Scumdogs. “How could I have known?”

“He’d dropped his weapons and declared that he’d yielded,” shouted Antioc, stepping forward. Stree and Boran stepped between them. I looked behind me. Gargath was attending Uller’s wound. Reiwyn jumped down from the crest, putting her bow away and stepping between them.

“Everyone calm down,” she said, looking first at Ferun, then at Antioc. “I didn’t hear him yield, either—”

“You’re calling me a liar?” he asked, looking at her.

“No, no.” She shook her head and placed her hand on his bloodied chest. “I’m just saying, if I couldn’t hear him, neither could Ferun.”

That seemed to calm him, albeit only a little. “But you saw him drop his arms, yes?”

Reiwyn looked from Antioc to Ferun, then back at Antioc. Slowly, she nodded.

“Why do you even care?” asked Ferun, unstringing and shouldering his longbow. “He was a slaver. He took three of ours, including a child. You think he’d have let you live, had you yielded to him?”

“It doesn’t matter what he would have done,” he answered through clenched teeth. “He was a raider. I’m a soldier.”

“And soldiers kill,” Stree responded. “You’ve killed more men ‘an I kin count, I’ll wager . . .”

“Honorably,” growled Antioc. “A soldier has a code of honor and there is no honor in killing a yielding man.”

“Well, then your honor is preserved,” replied Ferun. “I killed him
for
you.” He laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not bound by your ridiculous ‘code’ because I’m not a soldier.”

“What are you, then?”

Ferun smiled and looked at him with his one good eye. “I’m a survivor.”

“We were supposed to take one back alive,” I said, hoping to break the tension while providing some measure of support for my friend. “I’m sure Antioc was only following orders; that’s what a soldier does.” I stepped next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. It was sticky with sweat and blood. He barely acknowledged me. “Did you take any prisoners?”

“Didn’t get the chance,” Ferun replied. “They fought to the death, nicked me . . .” He pointed to a cut on his arm. “Killed Jortin.”

“I guess they were afraid of what we’d do to them if we took them prisoner,” said Boran.

Ferun chuckled icily. “Maybe they were smarter than they looked.” He glanced past me at Uller and Gargath. “After your vulture man is done stitching us up, he should check on the women.”

Gargath finished dressing Uller’s wound and moved to Antioc. He shook him off. His wounds were bloody, but superficial. Ferun did the same. Gargath ran to one of the women and began unbinding their ropes. Blackfoot and Front-Strider emerged and aided him.

Antioc and Ferun stared each other down, with Reiwyn trapped as though balancing on a rope held taunt between them. I had to say it was somewhat satisfying to see her torn between her best friend and her lover, though only for a second or two. After that, I felt immediately concerned for her feelings, and the well being of Antioc. He was tough, yes. But I wasn’t sure he was tough enough to take Ferun alone, much less with two of his lackeys. With Uller hurt and Reiwyn torn, and who knows where Front-Strider’s allegiance would fall, this was a fight we couldn’t win. Best to defuse the situation before it got out of hand.

I walked to Antioc’s side and, facing him, put my hand on his shoulder. It felt like he had a boulder under there. “It’s fair, friend. It’s fair.” He looked at me, took a deep breath, and his muscles slackened like a cat going to sleep. He nodded and turned away. Ferun, satisfied there wouldn’t be a fight, set about examining the corpses.

Antioc walked to Uller’s side and offered him a hand. “You fought well,” he said, gently pulling Uller to his feet. “You all did.” He looked at me. Reiwyn and Blackfoot had joined us by the sandbank.

“Not as well as I would have liked,” replied Uller, holding a red stained cloth to his shoulder. Gargath had done much to slow the bleeding, but he’d need deeper care if he wanted to avoid the wound going sour. “Is this what it feels like to get hit? How do you stand it?”

Antioc’s grim demeanor softened. “There’s a lot more of me to cut through, friend.”

Uller smiled. “Indeed.”

“Your spells,” said Reiwyn, “they proved most effective.”

“I’ll say,” I added. “Especially that bit where you made me faster. Any way to make that one last longer?”

Uller shrugged, then grimaced in pain when his wound pulled. “I’ve never had much of an interest in being a war mage, but we all learn a little bit of combat magic at the University. It’s not my specialty, though.” He crinkled up his lips. “At least, it wasn’t. I suppose it is now, by necessity.”

“You want your dagger back?” Blackfoot asked Ferun. He was searching the corpse of the one I’d killed when he looked up at us.

“Keep it,” he said, yanking the sword I’d impaled the Scumdog with from his corpse. “You’ll be needing it, and you do quite well with it. And you . . .” He wiped blood from the blade with the body’s shirt, sheathed it, and tossed the whole thing to me. “You keep that.”

“What? Why?” I shook my head. “I don’t need a sword.”

“Yes, you do.” He stood and brushed sand off his jeans. “You killed him, you keep it. You can have anything else on him, if you want it. He’s got some nice earrings . . .”

“I don’t want his earrings.”

“I’ll take ‘em!” Stree lunged forward and started yanking them out of the dead man’s ears.

“And I don’t want his sword.”

Ferun stepped up to me and clapped my shoulder; a little harder than I would have preferred. “But you do
need
one, whether you want it or not. Besides, it’s not much of a sword. More of a long knife.” With that, he stepped away, leaving me to examine my spoils. “Loot the bodies quickly. We leave in five minutes.”

“We’re not going to send them to the ashes?” asked Gargath, stepping out of the darkness with the girl child Ezfette in his arms. She was smiling, and played with one of the black vulture feathers on his robe.

“Why would we?” asked Stree. “They’re Scumdogs.” He spat on one of the corpses, which got a dirty look from the vulture man.

“We can’t just leave bodies here to rot,” said Front-Strider, holding a crossbow he’d looted from one of the corpses. “It’s an affront to the Daevas.”

“They won’t rot,” answered Ferun. He nodded to the jungle. “The gluttons will pick up the stench before long.”

That clearly didn’t sit well with Gargath. He bit his tongue, though, like we all had. Apparently, of all the things the Volteri did with corpses, letting them be eaten by giants was over the line.

“What about Jortin?” I asked. Ferun looked at me. “Surely we’ll not leave him for the gluttons?”

Ferun opened his mouth with a look that said that was exactly what he intended to do. Gargath interrupted him “You can’t be serious! We’re not going to leave one of our own dead on the beach . . . ?”

“Lower your voice,” he hissed. “Every glutton on his island heard the screaming from that battle! We’ll be lucky to make it back to the colony without ambush, and you’re going to let them all know we’re still standing out here like a buffet.”

“He’s right,” said Front-Strider. “Jortin was one of us. We must attend to him.”

“Agreed,” said Antioc. His grip tightened on his club as he stared at Ferun. Ferun stared back. “We’re taking him.”

I sighed. It was back on. Again.

“Fine.” Ferun pointed at Antioc. “You get to carry him, big boy.” He turned to Gargath and the others. “Time’s up. Let’s move.”

12.

T
hat night, I slept with my new sword. Or, I tried to. Mostly I just lay there, in my itchy straw bunk, staring at the honed piece of metal sheathed in cracked leather in my hands. I’d polished every drop of blood off of it, even dipped it in the lagoon to get the dried bits off. I could still see it, though. It was red. No matter how clean I got it, the sword would always be red.

“What are you going to name it?” Antioc asked on the way back.

I gave him a furrowed brow. “Name it? Why the Daevas would I name it? It’s a sword.”

“It’s more than that. You won that in battle. You killed a man with it and saved your life, and the lives of your fellow warriors. That’s a lucky blade. It wouldn’t do to not give it a name.”

I crooked my eyebrow. “Did you name your club?”

“Of course.” He didn’t seem the slightest bit encumbered carrying Jortin’s corpse on his back. “Skullcrusher!”

“That’s extremely creative,” I said with a nod. “I’m sure no one has ever named a club that ever, in the history of clubbery.”

“It’s not a club,” he explained. “It’s a maul.”

“Very well.”

We didn’t speak much the rest of the way. The only one who really seemed to be in a good mood was Blackfoot, who danced around Reiwyn like a little grasshopper. It was nice to see someone was in high spirits after our victory. By all accounts, I should have been happy, too. We’d won. We’d rescued three colonists, including a child, from a brutal fate. We’d incurred minimal casualties, and obtained several swords, two crossbows, and a dozen daggers and hatchets: all of which would be invaluable resources for the community. Soon, we’d step through the gates just as the morning sun crested the sky and be greeted as heroes.

And yet . . . 

The triumphant entry came and went. A tearful reunion ensued as our liberated prisoners ran to their friends and family, embracing and kissing and all that nonsense. Of course, we were met with applause, cheers, and even a few songs. Hot cups of
un-uo
were handed to the returning champions. A prayer was said over Jortin’s body before he was placed on a pile of kindling and sent to the ashes in a spiraling pyre. Gargath took Uller to the healer’s tent to tend closer to his wounds. Antioc and the others who’d been wounded joined them, leaving me alone with Reiwyn and Blackfoot. Not quite where I wanted to be, considering neither of them had spoken to me much in the last few days.