Ted Dekker: Mortal

He could feel the weight of the throwing knives beneath his coat, strapped two to a side to his belt, as he stopped at the cantina and slid from the saddle. He wound the reins around the rail with a secure tug and glanced at the other horses.

Straight-edged swords hung sheathed from the saddles. They were short, each blade perhaps only two feet in length, a weapon for cutting and thrusting-not slashing from horseback. He had not seen weapons like this before, and yet the hilts were worn and obviously used. At least the fact that they were here meant that the Corpses within weren’t expecting any trouble.

Roland turned his eyes to the door, inhaled.

Someone was talking inside. A chuckle. Another voice. Drink flowing into a cup. Wine. Beer. Bread. Salt. Sweat. The faint, acidic scent of fear. Too faint. Far less than the fear that stank upon most Corpses, spawned by the sole remaining emotion that deceived them into thinking they were human.

He’d just set his boot on the first step when another scent assailed his lungs, seeping into his consciousness. A new one he’d never smelled before. Tangy. Sharp, but not offensive. On the contrary, quite agreeable.

Something other than death or fear.

His heart surged and he willed it to calm. Mortals couldn’t smell the emotions of other living Mortals the way they could the fear of Corpses. If he couldn’t smell Mortals, then the scent wasn’t Maro’s. And yet it stirred something new in him, so that his heart started again, like a breakaway colt.

He briefly considered retreating to consider the situation, but this was a matter that would be learned only from experience.

Roland mounted the steps, stopped on the landing. He shoved his jacket behind his blades, hitching the side of it into his belt, clearing the path for his knives. He flipped out two, one in each hand. Held them firm by his waist. Tipped his head down, eyes on the dark seam at the bottom of the door, and collected himself. Not merely his thoughts or his courage-these any man or woman do before engaging an enemy. Now there was far more to gather.

Mortals called it seeing and technically it was. But by seeing they meant fully understanding every component of that vision so that the world seemed to slow, filling each instant, breath, heartbeat, with information. A superior advantage, a great gift of the extraordinary blood flowing through their veins.

The wind rifled through his braids, swept across his nape. He felt that, and far more. His heart beat like the hide-covered drums of the Nomads. Beyond the odor swilling in his nostrils there was more… than the textures and scent and sound of the world immediately before him.

Time seemed to slow around him. There was the door lever, scratched and prematurely weathered. Latched, through the thickness of the wooden door itself. There was the distance between him and that door, the wind, funneling between them, the particles of dust gusting by.

He held that posture, that vision, the scent in his nostrils, for an elongated second until, like a man stepping into another world, he became a part of it.

And then he moved, fully committed, knowing he held a supreme advantage to whatever waited inside.

His shoulder slammed into the door, splintering the wood around its latch. It flew wide with a crash and the details of the room snapped into place all at once.

Bar: across the back of the room, topped with an array of bottles. Three were open, one of them reeking of hundred-proof alcohol. Twelve mugs. Three were dirty. Stools: nine, aligned in front of the bar, no backrests. To the right and left: seven tables. Round. Dark wood, treated with creosote. Side wall: closed door. A back room, then.

Four large warriors dressed in strange, paneled leather armor, large knives on their belts, leaning on the bar. Two with mugs of beer in their fists. They were larger and stronger than any Corpse he’d seen-muscled necks and quick black eyes, already jerking toward his disturbance.

One common Corpse in a smock behind the bar. No sign of Maro.

Roland saw all of this at once before his boot landed on the floorboards.

The room seemed to stall, the scent of freshly poured beer in his nostrils. One heartbeat. Half of another-theirs. Not his.

And then his hands flashed with the speed of vipers. He flung the knives underhanded with enough force to send them straight and true for thirty paces.

The blades flashed toward their targets, one at each end of the bar. End over killing end, through the air. Turning heads, too slow, eyes bleary with drink. Facial muscles flinching, too late.

His blades took one in the right eye and the other in his forehead, slamming home to their hilts in rapid succession.

The scent hit him then, like a wall. An odor of emotions he’d never encountered before in any Corpse. The realization sliced into his mind like a spear.

But it wasn’t life. Not possible.

His hands were already on the second set of knives, committed to the certainty that these men were not alive. That they were enemies who would kill him without a second thought. He spun to his right, gaining momentum for a second salvo.

When he rounded again he saw how quickly the other two had turned. As fast as any fighter he’d seen. Perhaps faster.

One had his knife drawn and was halfway through the throw. The other was shoving away his slumping neighbor.

Roland took the one who had launched the knife first-in the face, not certain if his own blade would penetrate the heavy leather armor over their hearts. Without waiting to watch his blade find its target, he plunged forward and catapulted his full weight toward the last man.

Head lowered, three sprinting strides, up under the man’s jaw like a battering ram.

It was customary for Nomads to sew leather into the crowns of their hoods for such a purpose. There were few parts of the body that could not be used in combat if properly protected, the head chief among them. No wasted movement, no wasted weapon, no wasted moment.

He felt the crown of his head crash into the man’s jaw. He heard the shattering of teeth and the crack of jawbone. The man arched wildly over the bar, instantly oblivious, limp.

Even as the body collapsed on the bar Roland saw that his third knife had found its mark, leaving only the server behind the bar, wild-eyed and scrambling for a sword propped against the wall behind him.

Patience spent, Roland sent his last knife into the back of the man’s neck. The Corpse dropped like a bag of feed.

Roland stepped back and ripped off his hood. The air was still, filled with rot. Four were very dead and would never feel again. The fifth was unconscious, unable to feel anything for the moment.

He would soon learn everything that one knew.

But first-Roland strode to the door leading into the back room and pulled it wide. Inside a small storeroom lay the hogtied body of his cousin, Maro, mouth covered by a thick gag, eyes wide.

Roland took one long look at him and slammed the door shut again. A muffled cry sounded from within.

“Michael!”

She was already at the door, studying his handiwork as one reads the page of a book. Her eyes flicked up at him.

“Maro?”

“In the storeroom.”

“Alive?”

“Until I get to him.”

Her eyes settled on the form slumped backward over the bar. She flipped out a knife and started forward to finish him.

“He stays alive,” Roland said.

She halted in midstride, shot him a glance.

“Untie Maro. Use the rope to secure this man to his horse. We take him with us.”

He strode for the door.

“And the others?” she asked.

“The rest remain in their funeral pyre,” he said without looking back. “We burn this box to the ground and piss on the ashes.”