Richard Byers: The Reaver

His striped purple sash, gold-trimmed crimson shirt, and the rest of his gaudy pirate finery now black with mud, Anton scrambled back to his feet. “Onward!” he screamed, charging once again, and as before, the survivors of the fiery attack raced after him, even though, as best he could judge, they only numbered half a dozen.

Anton watched for another spark, but none was forthcoming. Instead, thunder banged and a dazzling twist of lightning stabbed off to the left. Evidently satisfied with the harm he’d done to the pirates charging up the middle, the enemy mage turned his attention to Naraxes’s squad.

Anton grinned and thought, Wizard, you should have finished with me first.

At last a line of armed rustics appeared amid the pelting rain and the gloom. Anton’s respect for them increased a hair when he saw that they stood behind a low line of plows, horse troughs, and barrows. As barricades went, it wasn’t much, but it showed somebody was thinking.

Two men pulled crossbows out of the sacks that had thus far protected them from the wet. The weapons clacked, Anton sprang to the side, and neither of the quarrels found him. He couldn’t tell if all the freebooters behind him had been as lucky. Nobody screamed, so it was possible.

When he came within range, a boar spear jabbed at him. He knocked it out of line with the saber and leaped high enough to clear the makeshift barrier, slashing while in the air.

The saber sliced a farmer’s face from his right eye to the left corner of his mouth and sent him stumbling backward, but not quite far enough to open a gap. As Anton landed, he slammed into the peasant, and the impact staggered him as well.

The foes to either side pivoted toward him. He bulled forward, shoving the stunned peasant with the gashed face ahead of him, and his assailants’ initial blows, a swing with a mallet and a chop with a hoe, missed.

Anton heaved the man with the ruined features away from him and down into the mud. In so doing, he recovered his balance and cleared sufficient space to use both swords to good effect. He whirled and cut, and the saber slashed open the belly of the farmer with the hoe.

The man with the mallet screamed and rushed in with his weapon raised for a bone-crushing strike to the head. Anton stepped in, twisted, and the blow fell harmlessly behind him. He slid the point of the cutlass between the peasant’s ribs.

As that man dropped, another villager rounded on Anton with a pitchfork. When the thrust came, Anton rammed the cutlass between the tines, jerked the fork to the side, and lunged. The saber tore open the peasant’s throat, and blood spurted.

By now, the other pirates had reached the barricade, and, howling and hacking, swarmed over and pushed the defenders back. Satisfied, Anton turned to locate the wizard and spotted him-or rather her-too. But another of the boy prophet’s actual bodyguards was in the way.

The barrel-chested warrior had proper martial gear, a broadsword, targe, brigandine, and a conical helm with a nose guard sticking down between brown eyes. Judging from his stance-feet at right angles, blade high and slanting-he knew his trade and might well have learned it in Cormyr.

As he closed with the guard, Anton shifted to the left, then instantly back to the right. He feinted to the head, then whirled the saber low to slash beneath his opponent’s shield.

Unfortunately, neither Anton’s footwork nor his blade work deceived the warrior. The Cormyrean lowered the targe to deflect the true attack and cut over the top of it. Anton jerked sideways barely in time to keep the broadsword from cleaving his skull.

He grinned and tried a head cut of his own, but the targe jerked up and blocked it. Then he and his adversary traded attacks for the next few breaths. Neither scored, but the exchanges gave him the chance to take the Cormyrean’s measure.

His initial impression was correct: The bodyguard was good. But like most swordsmen, he had a few favorite moves and an accustomed rhythm, and once Anton determined what they were, he likewise understood how to exploit them.

He waited for the Cormyrean to cut to the knee. When the attack came, he sidestepped and slashed at the other man’s forearm.

But as he did, a stabbing pain in his gut turned the whirling extension of his arm into spastic flailing. The saber still reached the target but not squarely and not with the maiming force he’d intended.

A few paces behind the Cormyrean, the mage, a pale, slender moon elf whose blue cloak matched her tangled, rain-sodden hair, glared at Anton while holding a talisman over her head. He realized she’d cast a spell to cause the ongoing agony in his belly, and then the Cormyrean lunged and smashed the shield into him.

Anton reeled backward. The guard rushed him and bashed him again, this time knocking him down on his back in a puddle. His bloody right hand empty-Anton had evidently at least cut him badly enough to make him fumble the broadsword-the Cormyrean dropped to his knees beside his foe and raised the targe to smash the edge down on his head.

The preparatory action opened him up, and the need to strike now , now or never, spurred Anton into motion despite the ripping pain in his stomach. He stabbed the cutlass up underneath the bodyguard’s ribs, and his foe flopped down on top of him.

To Anton’s relief, his spell-induced torment subsided a moment later. Otherwise, he might not have found the strength to flounder out from under the Cormyrean’s corpse. He scrambled up and looked in the elf’s direction.

Another man-at-arms fought hard to protect her, but two pirates kept him busy. Anton had a clear path to the wizard, and he charged her.

Magic filled her hand with a short sword made of blue and yellow fire. Raindrops puffed into steam when they struck the blade. But unfortunately for her, whatever the supernatural virtues of the conjured weapon, her technique with it was rudimentary, and it only took an instant to cut past her guard and into her torso.

As she fell, Anton noticed the brooch pinned to her mantle, a rolled-up silvery scroll sealed with a round white moon and a circle of blue stars. It looked like a coat of arms, perhaps the symbol of some sect or knightly order, but he didn’t recognize it.

Nor did he have time to wonder about it. He cast about and observed that although there was still a little killing going on, he and his fellow pirates were victorious. Naraxes’s and Yuicoerr’s squads had assailed the enemy’s flanks to murderous effect, and it looked like all the boy’s actual bodyguards were dead. The only folk still resisting the raiders were a handful of peasants too stupid to quit.

The pirates disposed of the dolts in a few more heartbeats, and then, panting, Naraxes hurried in Anton’s direction. “We won,” the first mate said.

“Yes,” Anton said, “we defeated a rabble of pig keepers. It’s a glorious moment.”

Naraxes scowled. “The crew fought like demons to give you what you wanted.”

“I want the boy. I don’t see him.”

“We just now finished fighting.”

“Then start searching. Every hovel, dunghill, and woodpile. And while you’re at it, round up all the peasants who are still alive.”

Anton led one of the search parties himself. It would make the task go that much faster, and he wanted something to occupy his mind.

He relished combat even at those moments when he took some hurt or feared for his life. It whetted existence into something sharp and simple. But in the aftermath, he sometimes suffered a bleak despondency, and when he felt such feelings rising, activity helped to quell them.

He didn’t find anyone who matched the description of the boy prophet or even any loot worth pocketing, just the cowering folk-children, mothers, the elderly and infirm-he flushed out of hiding. But when he marched them to join their fellow captives in the center of the village, he saw that some of the other searchers had been luckier.