J. Robb - Fantasy in Death

Roarke wore a brown tunic, rough trousers, knee boots. His sword was sheathed at his side, and on his back was a quiver of silver-tipped arrows and a golden bow.

She couldn’t have said why the costume suited him, but understood he looked both heroic and dangerous.

Out of the shadows and into the gilded stream of light came a white buck. “What’s the play?” she asked him. “This world is under the enchantment of a wicked sorceress who’s imprisoned the king and his beautiful and tempestuous daughter.” As he spoke, he sidestepped into the cover of trees, but didn’t approach the buck.

“I’m the apprentice of the wizard she killed to cast her evil spell. Before he died, he told me I must complete seven tasks of valor, collect seven treasures. Only then would I be ready to face the sorceress and free the king and his daughter.”

He glanced back where she stood in the observation circle. “The white hind is classic quest symbolism, and in this case how my master, the wizard is able to guide me.”

“Okay then.” The hind leaped, began to race through the trees. Roarke followed. She watched, and the sunlight died into dark and storm. The rain that pelted down was red as fire, and sizzled like flames on the ground.

And watched as the yellow eyes that peered out of the torrent became skulking black forms, and as the forms became a pack of huge wolves that circled him.

The sword hissed as he pulled it from its sheath, and whistled as he swung and struck. He battled fang and claw, spilled blood and shed it. And to her surprise, shot flames from his hand. “Fairly frosty,” she murmured, when the wolves lay smoking on the ground. “Every level you win awards you with a bit more magic,” he explained. An arrow whistled by his head. He said, “Bugger it,” and dove for cover. At the end of forty minutes, he’d completed the level and was well into the next where he was currently tasked with crossing a chasm to a cave guarded by a dragon.

“Okay, that’s time.”

“I’m just getting started.”

“You can slay the dragon next time. You’re past Bart’s game time.”

He gave the cave a glance of regret before ordering game end.

“No sword fights,” she commented.

“What do you call that bit with the wolves?”

“Man against dog. The fireballs were interesting. Fire burns. He had burns, but… I’ll take the second one. Usurper, right? What’s the story?”

“You’re the right-wise king-make that queen in your case-of Juno. When you were only a child your family was slaughtered by the machinations of your uncle, who desired the throne, and by the hand of his henchman, Lord Manx. Only you survived, and were secreted away by loyalists. You’ve been at war all your life, trained in that art. You fight to avenge your family, to regain your throne from the man who ordered their deaths and has for two decades raped the land, oppressed your people. At this level, you’ve taken back the castle, but the uncle, being a coward, of course, escaped. The castle is now under siege, and the man you love is defending it. To get to him, and bring your reinforcements, you must fight your way through, and at last meet Manx in battle.”

“I bet we’re outnumbered.”

“Naturally, you’d have already given your St. Crispin’s Day speech.”

“My what?”

“We’ll discuss Henry V later. You’d like it. Ready?”

“You bet.”

She wore light battle armor and sturdy boots. And God help her, she was on a horse.

“Shouldn’t I know how to ride this thing before I… ride this thing?”

Roarke grinned at her from the observation circle. “It’ll come to you.”

“Easy for you to say. Jesus, it’s big. Okay, avenging warrior queen.”

There were hills and valleys, forests and streams. She tried to see them as Bart would have. He’d think in character, she imagined, and noted the men she led were battle scarred and weary. Some carried fresh wounds. But she was the hero, the leader.

He liked playing the hero, liked being the leader. The good guy, always the good guy, fighting for a cause, searching for the answers.

The going was rough and rocky. She heard the creak of the saddle under her, the ring of the horse’s hooves on the hard ground. She saw storm clouds gathering in the west.

And heard the sounds of battle.

The castle bore scars of its own, and people stood on its parapets shooting arrows that flashed and flamed. Others fought viciously with sword and axe on the burned and barren ground around it.

He would probably think of home, and about his lover, Eve decided. About vengeance.

She thought: Shit, shit, I hope I don’t fall off this thing. And charged.

She drew the sword, instinctively squeezing her knees and thighs to keep her seat. Wind rushed through her hair, over her face, and the speed, the sheer power of motion lit a fire of excitement in her.

Then she stopped thinking, and fought.

Bloody and bitter, the battle raged. She felt her sword slice through flesh, hit bone. She smelled blood and smoke, felt the mild jolt from a glancing blow as the horse danced and pivoted under her.

She saw him, his armor black and stained with blood, sitting on a huge black horse with the castle-her castle-at his back. The sounds of the battle receded as she rode forward to face him.

“So, we meet at last. A pity for you, our acquaintance will be short.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she responded. “Let’s go.”

“This day my sword will wear your blood, and the blood of your lover.”

“Yawn.”

“You rush death? Then come meet it.”

The programmers, she noted and quickly, had made Manx very big and very strong. Blocking his blows sent shocking aches up her arm, into her shoulder.

Wrenched shoulder.

Sweat ran down her back, down her face, into her eyes to sting. She’d never beat him on these terms, she realized. She had neither the skill nor the strength.

And when he slid past her guard, she felt the jolt as his sword drew blood.

Arm wound.

He lifted his sword, the dark light of death in his eyes; she ducked and plunged her sword into his horse.

It screamed. She had a moment to think the sound was eerily human before it stumbled. As it fell, she swung out, caught her opponent in the side. Not a death blow, she decided. Time to finish it off.

“Pause game. Save, and stop.”

Breathing hard, she turned, looked at Roarke across the empty holoroom. “I don’t get to kill the bad guy?”

“You’re past Bart’s time, by a minute or so. Interesting strategy, killing the horse.”

“It worked. They built that bastard strong. He was going for the…” She swiped her finger across her throat.

“He certainly was. And if he’d landed the blow, game over. You’d have to repeat the level until you defeated him to move on to the next.”

“This is the game he was playing when he died. It all fits. Bruises from fighting, the shoulder, the arm wound, and the loss with the decapitation. K2BK. King To Black Knight.”

“Yes, I got that when he came into play.”

“Obviously there weren’t real horses and a bunch of dead guys littering the ground, but the killer reconstructed the game, using a real weapon. If he got in, programmed himself as the Black Knight, and used a real weapon. The right steps, the right angle.”

“I’d agree, but it doesn’t explain how he got in, and how he managed to delete a two-man competition from the unit without leaving a single shadow or echo anywhere in the system.”

Screw logic, she thought. Sometimes facts weren’t logical. “He figured it out because the Black Knight killed the king. Bart played that exact scenario before, that’s why it’s on this disc. But he didn’t stab the horse, and he lost. He’d have been more prepared this time, may have avoided the loss, or that exact loss, but-”