The Infiltrators (22 page)

He put his two swords over his head in
an X shape, as he sensed an attack from behind, and when a club
lodged there, he appreciated having followed his hunch. He stood
and jabbed his right sword through a man’s heart before spinning
around and beheading the man holding the club.

He brought his left sword up to block
an incoming club attack, but the combination of the weight of the
club and his inadequate time to properly position his feet caused
the club to knock the sword out of his hand.

He leaned back, however, just in time
to cause the club to sweep through air rather than crash against
the side of his head. He immediately stepped forward and sliced
through both the man’s right arm and torso, cleaving him completely
in half.

A club smacked hard against his right
thigh. Upon contact he immediately lifted it and side-kicked the
man right in the throat and then brought his sword down in a
massive overhead swing that cut the man from skull to groin, a feat
many a warrior bragged about around a late-night fire, but that was
thought to be purely legend.

A club smashed against Pitkins’ back,
and he immediately went with the direction of the blow,
somersaulting across the ground and then delivering a straight
thrust into the belly of a man so fat Pitkins wondered momentarily
if he would ever extricate it.

He pulled it out just in time to use an
upward slash against the chest of a man who was coming at him with
an overhead club attack. He didn’t have time to position his feet
for proper torque, but the slash still cut several inches deep in a
long, two-foot gash that left the man hollering like a
banshee.

When his opponents made the mistake of
crowding in too closely but without executing any well-planned
attacks, he unleashed a series of vicious spinning attacks, and
within less than a minute, bodies were strewn about.

A club hit Pitkins on the back of his
head, and though he immediately moved his head with the blow, he
knew it had been a nasty one.

He thanked the deliverer of that
message by whirling around and hacking both of his legs off in a
single chop.

Yet, as soon as he did so, another club
struck Pitkins in the back of his head.

He felt no pain, yet could properly
sense the seriousness of the last two blows due to the blood
trickling down his scalp and neck.

He whirled around, cutting the man in
two and hacking a large chunk out of the man next to him. He
properly sensed another blow coming towards his head, and he
ducked, spun around and hacked the right leg off a man and then
immediately turned around and jabbed his sword through another
man’s stomach.

“He’s crazy!” a man yelled. Pitkins
noticed his opponents were beginning to keep their distance. They
surrounded him, and he quickly spun, appraising his adversaries. It
seemed they were down to a dozen or so. Bodies lay everywhere, but
he suspected some must have skedaddled, as he didn’t think he had
killed the full difference between the original army standing ten
minutes ago and the paltry dozen men left.

“
HEY PITKINS!”

Like a wild lion stopping its feeding
frenzy to identify the source of a minor interruption, he glanced
up towards the noise, and in a moment felt his strength
evaporate.

There Rucifus stood on the balcony with
a large knife to a crying, bruised Donive’s throat.

“DONIVE!!” Pitkins shouted. He saw her
chest heave with a sob, but she didn’t dare speak, as the knife was
pressed too closely to her throat.

Pitkins saw a small adjustment in
Rucifus’s line of sight. His muscles urged him to respond
immediately to the threat, which he could tell was to his right and
slightly behind. But his heart took over his warlike spirit, and
after feeling a large crash against his skull, everything went
black.

Chapter 30

Righty took his time on the way back to
his new ranch. He figured it might be at least a day or two before
Harold came back with pholungs, and so he might as well enjoy a
little time in the country.

He had expected to be bored as heck on
the way back from Pitkins’ dojo. After all, traveling through the
mountains on horseback to his main ranch wasn’t something he was
about to try, nor was riding through bandit country to the
east.

He figured a slow stroll back to his
new ranch, maybe camping underneath the brilliant night stars a
couple times, would be a personal vacation for him and an
opportunity for a little soul-searching.

He rode back to his old shack that he
used to call a house but that was smaller than Janie’s walk-in
closet at his new place. He tied up Susanna and took a stroll
through the place he had planted his first crop.

“It all started here,” he told himself
aloud.

He walked by the place some young punk
at Eddie’s school had hanged himself after a friend had fallen
fatally from a large horizontal branch. For reasons he couldn’t
have explained unless perhaps deep under hypnosis, he found himself
climbing up the tree, and then, with his heart lurching in his
stomach, he crossed the long, horizontal branch that had been the
cause of one of those young boys’ downfall—quite
literally.

His mind briefly wandered to Eddie. Had
he been too young to go abroad for boarding school? No, he couldn’t
have been, because there was no being too young to get ahead in
life. He had learned that the hard way, but Eddie would get some
safe, cozy business job, and by then, maybe, just maybe, he would
too.

He climbed up the tree on the other
side and found the small fort Eddie had built. “Little guy was
obsessed with wizards, that’s for sure,” he said aloud, admiring
the artwork.

He wanted to take a stroll through
town, maybe past the lumberyard, see what his old buds were up to,
but he knew a trip down memory lane with them would end with ten
empty beer jugs, a mean hangover, a resumption of his old habit,
and probably a lot of tongue-wagging that would reveal quite a few
things best left unsaid.

The very thought of such foolishness
made him realize it was time to get going. This town had little in
the way of sweet memories to offer him. He had seen it as a pit
stop on the way to greatness during early high school when he was
just starting to dare to dream big, and by the time he was a senior
he figured he would be living in an enviable mansion in an upscale
portion of Sivingdel, married to Janie, and spending his days at
the gym working on building the most legendary boxing career
Selegania had ever seen.

But instead Ringsetter had become his
prison and—

He began scurrying down the tree. The
memories seemed to be increasing in intensity. This was a small
town where small things happened to small-thinking people. He had
way too much on his plate to start letting the virus that infested
this place get into his system at a time like this when things were
on a nice, upward trajectory but with storm clouds on the horizon.
The men attacking his organization didn’t sound like cops or rival
thugs. They were trained killers and probably connected to the
mysterious guest at his ranch.

Just what has he been up to
lately anyway? Probably has half the men calling him “sir” by
now.

As he trotted across the horizontal
branch, the thought upset him so much he slipped.

He caught himself first with his left
hand and then with his right, and unlike the skinny little runt who
had taken the plunge from here, Righty was in tip-top shape, quite
capable of squeezing out thirty pull-ups in a minute.

He yanked himself up and then stood and
walked cautiously to the other side of the tree, descended it in a
manner suggesting his parents were orangutans, and then went
sprinting towards Susanna.

She was munching lazily on some grass
and found nothing about the small town so objectionable.

Righty untied her, leapt on top, and
went off at a brisk trot, avoiding a full gallop only because of
fear of being spotted by someone who might recognize
him.

As soon as he reached the countryside,
he pushed Susanna almost to her limit, but then eased up on her
when he twisted around and saw the town was way back in the
distance.

Chapter 31

Righty camped that night but reached
his mansion early the next afternoon. He was getting ready to enter
the house when he saw something moving off to his right. He glanced
and saw Harold flying just barely above the trees. He was clearly
trying to get his attention. Otherwise, he wouldn’t do something so
foolish.

He almost turned and went to Harold
first, but he knew Janie was going to be itching to see him, and if
she saw him suddenly go sprinting out to the woods after a few days
away it would raise more questions than Righty cared to
answer.

As he entered the house, a servant told
him she would go notify Janie immediately. Righty had almost
forgotten he had a servant. She kept to herself mostly, and he had
only hired her because she had worked there for the prior owner,
and he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Her admirable work
ethic seemed to make clear she didn’t take her ongoing employment
for granted.

Janie greeted him warmly, and Righty
was most appreciative of the lack of nosy questions. He volunteered
that the new store in Sivingdel was taking off admirably and that
he expected to add a new store soon.

She looked deeply into his eyes and
smiled.

“I’m proud of you. You make it happen,”
she added with a playful poke to his chest.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and minutes
later they were making love happen.

Righty was beyond relieved when Janie
said, “I didn’t meet you yesterday, Rich. I can read you like a
book. You’re itchin’ to get back to town. Well, go on, but say hi
to our little angel first.”

Righty went over to the next room and
picked up Heather. She smiled as he picked her up, and he sat there
for at least a half hour just rocking her in his arms.

He was now genuinely wanting to stay,
but the allure of Harold’s pending message was just too
much.

“I should be back soon,” Righty said,
planting a kiss on Janie’s lips.

She went back to a book she was
reading, and Righty was glad not to detect any
resentment.

Wondering if Janie might be watching
from a window, he resisted the urge to bring Susanna to a gallop,
but she trotted briskly to the woods.

Ten minutes into the forest, Righty was
beginning to wonder if Harold had flown away, bitter at having been
made to wait a couple hours, but then Righty felt the familiar gust
of air that foretold Harold’s landings.

He had never been gladder to see
Harold. Being land-bound even just for these last couple days felt
like a couple years.

“Harold!” he exclaimed jubilantly, and
hopped off Susanna to go give Harold a big hug.

Harold seemed to tolerate rather than
appreciate the hug, but Righty didn’t care.

“How have you been?”

“We found six,” Harold said, cutting
straight to the point.

“Six?”

“Six pholung chicks. That’s what you
sent me for.”

“Sent us for,” said a konulan, flying
by his head, laughing.

Harold shot him an annoyed
glance.

“Hop on; I’ll take you to
them.”

Righty leaped onto his back, and then
Harold flew about fifty yards to the top of a large tree where
around fifty konulans were racing back and forth, giggling with
glee, dropping off worms for the new addition to the
clan.

Harold approached cautiously and then
did his best to hover still so that Righty could get a good
look.

Six mean sets of eyes stared at him
from behind long, sharp beaks that looked like weapons even at this
young age. Worms were inhaled, rather than eaten, into the
seemingly bottomless pits of these young savages.

Righty reached his hand forward to pet
one of them and just barely avoided a vicious snap.

“Always so friendly?” he asked
Harold.

“So far, yes. I took a few vicious nips
putting them into a large bag I brought, and I’ve kept my distance
ever since. They seem to be warming up to the konulans better than
me.”