Stone Dragon (The First Realm) (20 page)

Heronimo leaned forward. “Surely you know the best dual-wielders in the land.”

“That I do. But first, why you are seeking a certain swordsman?”

Heronimo explained how he came to be on his quest. “… and so I seek justice for my murdered village.”

Dinendal leaned back, boots on the table. “How could I refuse? There’s no justice in the world.”

“Too right,” Heronimo said, and they brought their glasses together.

Dinendal sat up and drew closer to my human friend. “Can you remember anything else about this mass-murdering elf? What did his weapons look like?”

“They were curved swords, like yours…” Heronimo said, “… but the blades were like shark’s teeth.”

“Ah-
ha!
” Dinendal said. “That could only be Serrato Alva. The Pirate Perverse, as he is known, wears midriff-baring armor and fights like a dancing girl. An extremely dangerous man all the same.”

“And you know him?”

“Know him? He gave me this!” Dinendal raised his shirt to show a long scar under his right rib. “Something to remember him by. He can be found on the sea route between Drystone and Dragons Claw. If you like, I can help you find him.”

“Can you?” Heronimo said, almost leaping out of his chair.

“Certainly. I’m only on duty one weekend a month.”

Chapter 22

The Last Stand of Angrod Veneanar

I fell from the battlements and the enemy slithered over the walls. I drew sword and mace and swung them in lethal arcs but they kept on coming. Beside me, my doubles did no better.

There was the Fool, who cackled and thrashed. He looked like I did as a teenager and his weapon was a teddy bear. It was covered with spikes and impaled on a stick. There was the King, an older version of me. His hair was gray but he wore plate armor and wielded a longsword with ease. Next to him was the Queen—me as a woman—who jabbed at the enemy with her spear.

The enemies were already dead, but that didn’t stop them. They came over the walls, bloodless and decayed, their eyes unblinking. They staggered toward us and we cut them down. We slashed them and hammered them and still they took ground. Inch by jagged inch.

“Duck!”

We crouched and fire flew over our heads.

The Magus crackled with power, his red robes scorched and smoking. He triggered a glyph and swept the horde with focused hellfire. The Priestess supported him with arrows of light. The Hermit had thrown his beard over his shoulder and was calling down lightning with his liver-spotted arms.

They all wore my face. They all were me. And yet we were not enough. Veneanar Castle was nearly overrun. We’d blown the bridge but the enemy had filled the moat with bodies. The ramp? More bodies.

I stabbed upward and caught a zombie under the chin. I planted a boot in him and pushed him off, then slapped his hands aside with my mace. The flanged head swung back and knocked off the zombie’s jaw. I cut low and gutted him, then caved in his face. “Come on!
Come on!
”

“Don’t encourage them!”

I slipped on an intestine and a zombie lunged. I brought up my right arm and its teeth cracked on solid silver. I raised the arm and the Priestess shot it in the eye.

“Low on arrows!”

“Just use mana!”

“Low on that too!”

We’d been fighting for hours. The worst part was that the corpses were getting more familiar. I was sure I’d just clubbed my next-door neighbor.

Elrond lurched into view. “Master Angrod. Surprised to see me?”

I raised my weapons, but hesitated. That was enough for the zombies to grab me. Their stinking bodies bore me to the ground. I held my breath and called on the fire. My back grew red hot, then hotter still. The zombies caught fire.
Hotter
. I poured energy into the spell-glyph and the bodies were cremated in an instant.

I straightened, ashes pouring off my back.

“Way to go, me!” said the Magus. “We’ll make a wizard out of you yet!”

“Look out!”

I ducked, but the longsword trimmed my hair. I turned and saw Heronimo. His brains were leaking out his ears.

That didn’t hurt his swordsmanship one bit. He cut with no wasted effort—I frantically parried.

“I’ll handle this,” said the King. He advanced with his visor down and his guard up. Blade met blade and maneuvered for advantage. They fenced. Heronimo lunged, angling for a stab, but the King parried and slid his sword over Heronimo’s, the edge rising to meet the zombie’s throat. Heronimo turned his head but still lost his helmet to the upward stroke. The King went for a thrust but his opponent parried. He twisted his blade and lunged, the sword point slipping between the human’s ribs.

Heronimo looked at the sword. “I’m dead, remember?” He beat aside the King’s blade and landed a ringing blow on the King’s helmet.

They fought on. Both were masters of the longsword. Their blades whittled the air, the points dancing between them. They used their swords as levers and dealt measured cuts. One would take a hand off his sword to grab or punch. Pommels were thrust into faces and crossguards used as hammers. The King tried to sever nerves and tendons. Heronimo tried to crush armor or strike an unprotected spot. When a zombie got in their way they cut it down without a glance. The air filled with the rasp and the clash of steel.

Heronimo grasped his own blade in one hand and thrust it into the King’s visor, piercing an eyehole. The King’s sword clattered on the stones. Heronimo reversed his sword and battered the King’s helmet with the crossguard. Once, twice, and the King fell, blood streaming from his helmet.

Heronimo let his sword slip from his hands. The cuts on his palms and fingers were bloodless. The bone was showing and the dead flesh wasn’t healing at all. My former friend looked at his hands and cursed. “Well, fuck me.”

The Magus snapped his fingers. Air rushed into Heronimo’s ears and popped his skull open.

Cruix landed on the Magus, the Priestess, and the Hermit, pulping them. He lashed his tail and reared. “Mind if I drop in?” he rumbled.

“Oh gods you actually said that.”

He took a breath and I threw myself from the walls. He swept the Queen and the Fool with liquid fire.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was being passed from hand to hand. There was a gallows in the courtyard.

“Hello, my apprentice.”

Valandil was a charred and leathery ruin. He was more meat than man and I only recognized him by his voice. “Do you like my gallows?” he asked. “I used the trees from that corner. I thought we’d send you off in style.”

“You’re too kind,” I said. I considered the wooden frame. “Clean lines, classical proportions, looks like a wedding arch. You’ve outdone yourself.”

Hands lowered me to my feet and held my arms behind me. They manhandled me up the steps and placed a noose around my neck. I stood over a trapdoor, so I searched for the lever—and found Mina already manning it.

“You too?” I said.

She smiled. She looked almost alive, except for the yawning hole in her chest. “Yes, me too. I wouldn’t miss this for anything, Angrod. Not even death.”

“What’s it like?”

“You’ll find out.”

Cruix leaped from one of the towers, transforming as he landed. He stood before me as an elf, looking identical except for his hair. While mine was wavy and black his was white and straight. His armor was patterned after his scales.

“Today’s the day,” he said. “I win, you know. I’ve taken over your mind, layer by layer, level by level. I have usurped each of your body’s functions. Soon every cell will belong to me.”

“Just hang me already, you walking cancer.”

“Mina?” Cruix said. “Do the honors.”

She threw the lever back and the world fell out from under me. I tumbled into space—

* * *

—and onto the floor. Next to the bed. Goddamn it.

“You okay, Angrod?” Heronimo said.

“Did I sleep for a year or something? I feel weak.”

“Just four hours. Isn’t that enough?”

“An elf can go without sleep for a month,” I said, as he helped me to my feet. “It doesn’t do any favors for his sanity, though.”

Mina walked in. “Things are about to get seriously crazy. Take a look at who’s standing on the bridge.”

We rushed to the walls. There on the bridge was an elf in a steel fox mask.

“It’s
him!
” Heronimo said, drawing his sword. “My family’s murderer!”

“Was he standing like that when you saw him?” I asked Mina. “Shoot between his feet.”

She obliged. The crossbow bolt thunked into the planking.

The elf didn’t move.

“Shoot over his shoulder.”

The next bolt flew past his ear. Still no reaction. He could’ve been a statue except that his clothes moved with the wind.

There was no wind.

“Shoot him in the chest,” I said.

Her shot was true. It hit him center mass and buried itself in the bridge behind him.

“Wasn’t
that
powerful,” she said. “There’s no blood.”

“It’s a sending,” I said. “Just light and water.”

We raised the outer portcullis and approached. We glanced left and right for ambush, weapons in hand.

“Nothing in the water,” I said. “Nothing past the moat. It just wants to talk.”

“Well, what do you want?” Heronimo yelled. “Face me in the flesh, coward!”

The elf chuckled. “Soon. Hey, Angrod, I’ve been on your trail for months. It’s time you saw my face.”

He took off his mask and it was Dinendal.

“I—what—Dinny—”

“
Don’t you call me that
. We haven’t been friends for a long time.”

“I wrote, man. I sent packages. We grew up together!”

Dinendal sneered. “I assure you, we had different childhoods. I the pauper and you the prince—we were always meant to come to blows.”

In my mind I flashed back to the boy who always smelled of horses and never put on weight, no matter how Auntie Marilla fed him. A wild, lonely boy who went anywhere he wanted. I used to envy him. But on the bridge, I realized he had been able to do anything he wanted because
nobody cared
.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I made my own way,” he said. “I practiced the sword until someone noticed. Have some of you heard of the Elendil Order?”

Mina gasped. “The King’s Assassins! My da, he knew of you!”

“
King’s Assassins
. Heh. More like the King’s Enemies. My dear, the Elendil Order exists to tear down the aristocracy, even if it occasionally involves working for them. For some time I had been looking forward to liquidating Angrod and his master.”

“
You
slaughtered my people?” Heronimo asked.

“Yes,
I
was the monster. Did you recognize my style back at the boy’s village? I don’t think of it as making enemies, I think of it as giving me an exciting old age!” And he laughed.

Heronimo roared and struck, but sliced only water.

Dinendal smirked. “Turns out I could’ve been a mage, had I the opportunity. Watch this.”

The moat erupted. Pillars of water fountained upward and hung over us like a cathedral ceiling.

Then the water fell and caught the light.

I blinked. It was Corinthe Citadel. The city guard was drilling in the courtyard. Three dozen spears and halberds were in ragged formation. No two weapons were alike. Their owners were too tall, too short, too fat, or too skinny. None of them was recruitment poster material. None had armor that fit. Most were only good for killing Saturday mornings and pints at the local tavern.

The fat old sergeant bellowed soundlessly. A youth dropped his halberd, bent to pick it up, and lost his helmet. Veryan scowled from the sidelines. He tried to slouch against a fence but his back brace got in the way.

They never had a chance.

The sergeant was a former royal guardsman. He was the most dangerous. Arrows hit him from all sides and a fireball blew his head off. More arrows fell upon the militia. They scattered in all directions.

Unfortunately, they were surrounded. Fox-faced killers dropped their cloaks and drew their weapons.

“This has already happened,” Dinendal told us. “There’s nothing you can do.”

Another Dinendal strolled through the courtyard, pausing now and then to disarm a soldier or cripple him. Veryan put up a fight but was sliced into three pieces. A spearman lunged. Dinendal slashed and the spear became a stick. A halberdier brought his weapon down like an axe and the assassin parried. The spearman—now holding just a staff—attacked again. Dinendal sidestepped and let the man take the halberd in the belly. Then he cut off the halberdier’s arms.

Dinendal continued his walk. More assassins followed, finishing the wounded with captured spears.

“I took control of the Citadel half an hour ago,” said the Dinendal on the bridge. “Unless you surrender, we will turn its catapults upon the city. Their stones could easily be enchanted to explode.”

I laughed. “Why bother? I’m dying already. I’ll be gone in a day or so.”

Dinendal shook his head. “We want the dragon too. The prophecy will hang over our heads for as long as it lives.” He smiled. “And if the thought of your city burning isn’t enough, I have your girlfriend.”

They’d thrown open the citadel gates to admit her. Meerwen was covered in bruises and chains. Half a dozen assassins dragged her along. Their boots were caked with muddy snow—so were her knees. She fell and nearly pulled them to the ground. Earth magic. Even thoroughly beaten, she was determined to make things difficult.

An Elendil assassin struck her head with the end of a spear. He hit her again, again, and only then did she go limp.

The scene collapsed. Water pattered into the moat and the surface grew still. I shook myself, but we were perfectly dry.

The sending of Dinendal remained. “You have one hour to show yourself. Come alone. If you don’t I will cut off her limbs and nail her to the gates—and I guarantee she’ll live long enough to feel it. Do you understand?”