Rythe Falls (31 page)

A giant Drayman, a foot above a normal man, bore down heavily on the king
in waiting. The nameless warrior saw that his war leader was unaware of the threat. Slashing wildly where he had room (the spaces between defenders were gradually widening as men fell), butting and elbowing when he didn’t, he wove his way toward his leader.

There was no time for fancy. The nameless warrior charged forward, sword finding a path through one man’s face, through a woman warrior’s unarmoured arm, and into the thigh of the giant. The giant screamed in rage as the blade sank.

The giant turned and thundered a powerful left cross into the warrior. He followed through with a slash from a wood axe, a single headed weapon ill-suited for war, but the nameless warrior had already fallen.

Turning back to Reni
r, the giant hacked a Sturman’s head clean from his shoulders and advanced.

The Draymen found new vigour.

In the melee, the nameless warrior rose and found his sword lying on the ground. As he bent to pick it up, a blade rebounded from his breastplate but found its way into his arm, drawing a line of blood. He backfisted the offending blade clear and slashed his dagger across a throat.

He laughed, his pain granting him brief clarity. Renir was all that mattered.

Renir stood alone. The remaining men could not reach him. The giant was closing all the time.

There was nothing for it but foolishness. There was always a time for stupidity in battle. The warrior thought this was it.

He ran, shouldering one man out of the way, and in some hazy sense realised he must have dislocated his shoulder as his sword fell from his useless hand. He saw a bent knee before him and planted one foot on it, leaping forward with the other. He tumbled on the air rather than dived, but reached his target. He stabbed down into the giant’s neck and was rewarded with a crunch as blade met bone, and he fell onto the floor.

The giant crashed on top of him, and someone, seeing their chance, thrust a sword tip into the nameless warrior’s eye.

The world exploded into fiery sheets of bright brain-searing light. His face felt warm and sticky. For a moment he could move neither hand, just lay there with hot blood burning his face. The brightness was startling and he closed his one good eye but it did not go away.

Sharp agony leapt from his lips and he roared his pain as he pushed the giant’s carcass from his legs. He picked up a fallen sword with his good hand and swung wildly. He could see nothing but the burning light, but there were so few defenders left it was almost assured he would hit a Drayman.

He hit nothing but air. Gradually, each swing weaker than the last, his good hand fell to his side and the sword dropped with a dull twang to the ground.

The light faded and he could once again see only the otherworldly glow of the aftermath of a battle in the moonlight. With his one good eye he lo
oked around, and saw Renir Esyn.

No man should wear that smile, thought the warrior. No one should wear a smile full of such sadness.

Esyn was blooded, deeply wounded across the jaw, but the smile was unmistakeable.

Confusion got the better of the nameless warrior. He roared again and turned all about, but there were only corpses. They smouldered, and the stench suddenly assailed him. He collapsed to his knees.

Magic.

Turning, his head protesting against the movement, but fighting the pain all the time (as he always had, he knew) he saw two men standing at the foot of the stairs that led to the keep. They wore long, cowled robes, one of green, one of sunset orange.

Preternatural light bled from their eyes.

Wizards, surely. No other creature could wreak such destruction, reave so much life in an instant.

Such a perfect victory, such a beautiful night, sullied by the return of magic to Sturman shores.

But Renir Esyn was smiling
. The smile of a king, one learning how to be a king, perhaps, but it was regal, that smile. Weighed down by the fate of nations.

The nameless warrior could not smile. His jaw would not unclench.

He wanted to roar. Victory, for his king. His king.

P
erhaps that was why he hated wizards so – there could be no room for a warrior with a pure heart when beings of such power roamed the earth.

But what did it matter to him? It was no longer his battle.

Weakened, he put his good hand out to catch the floor, bending from the waist, but crumpled onto his knees as his strength gave out. Blood dripped down his side, from his armpit. The arm was useless and wouldn’t move. His breath hitched in his throat and he thought he understood. Perhaps he would be making a trip to the physician after all.

He coughed blood. Renir knelt down before him and took him under the arms to drag him up.

“Drun!” The king’s shout was deafening in the aftermath of battle.

“No! No
doctor.”

“But you’ll die! I’ll see no more death here today.”

“At least I’ll know where I am. I don’t want to wake up and forget this. I want to remember it all. And now I can.”

The unknown warrior
smiled through cracked lips at the war leader. Esyn wouldn’t understand. But it didn’t matter. He understood enough for two men. Most men lived their lives with the knowledge of the past and thoughts of the future.

But he
had been granted a gift. The present. And he aimed to keep it.

He would live for the now. The perfect moment.

As he faded, Renir closed the strange warrior’s staring eye. He was surprise to see a smile on the man’s battered face.

It was a beautiful smile, full of childlike joy.

He could only hope that when he died, he would remember that smile, and that he too would die at peace.

Leaning down weakly he retrieved a fallen sword and laid it on the man’s chest, then took both of the dead warrior’s hand and placed them across the sword.

“See that this man’s grave is marked.”

“What was his name?” replied the soldier who stood watching.

Renir thought for a moment. “I don’t know, but he did.” He nodded to himself slowly. “I think he knew himself better than many men. Perhaps that will have to be enough.”

The End