James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

Loro flew out of the fire-gilded night, smashing aside all obstacles, a woodsman’s maul raised above his head. At the last instant, Sanouk flung himself away from Rathe. The head of the iron maul crashed down, shattering the flagstones upon which the lord had stood. Off balance from his failed attack, Loro tripped and crashed headlong into a collection of empty crates and barrels.

Rathe plucked the dagger free of his flesh and hurled it at Sanouk’s face. The lord’s sword flashed, slapping the twirling blade aside. Still seeing Nesaea’s eyes in his mind, imagining the pain and horror Sanouk had wrought upon her and the others, Rathe charged.

Their swords clashed, and Rathe drove Sanouk back. With his free hand, he struck the lord’s chin a thudding blow. Eyes rolling and glazed, Sanouk fell. Rathe knocked aside the lord’s clumsy block and rammed his sword deep into the man’s groin. Sanouk shrieked like a woman, but with strength lent him by agony, he kicked Rathe away. Rathe reeled back, caught his balance, and again fell on Sanouk, his spirit burning with the need to dispatch this beast before him.

The lord came up before Rathe reached him, sword at the ready, but all his previous confidence had fled. Fear lit his eyes, and his lips trembled. He fought defensively now, with Rathe the aggressor. Rathe shouted his rage, and his blows crashed against Sanouk’s blade, again and again. Sanouk stumbled once more, and threw up his free hand in a warding gesture. Rathe’s sword flashed, and a pair of fingers flew. The lord staggered away.

“Your god awaits,” Rathe growled, and lunged. The tip of his sword skipped over the bridge of Sanouk’s nose and pierced one eye. Sanouk retreated, wailing. Rathe followed, each step deliberate, poised to take the lord’s head with his next blow-

A spear flew out of the night. Rathe twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding having his bowels skewered. With a vile curse, he spun back, but Sanouk had vanished. He cast about and found the lord racing toward the open gate. Rathe gave chase, but his rage gave him less strength than a man running for his life. For every step he took, Sanouk managed two.

“Stop him!” Rathe shouted. “Close the gate!”

Heads turned at the force of his command, but with the heat of battle still high, no one moved to obey. Unhindered, Sanouk leaped over the abandoned ram and sprinted free.

Rathe followed doggedly, but stumbled to a halt at the far end of the drawbridge, all his pains and weariness falling on him at once. He pressed a palm against the wound in his side, gulping breaths, and slowly sank to his knees.

Get up!

He tried, but could not. There was no strength left in him.

The night loomed all around, a motionless black curtain. He could make out the dim shapes of abandoned siege engines dotting the open field beyond the curtain wall, but nothing stirred.

“This is not finished between us!” Rathe bellowed.

“No, you shite eating cur, it is not.”

Rathe jerked around at that soft, hateful voice, and saw a smirking, blood-covered face floating in the gloom. He clambered to his feet. Before he managed a single step, an arrow cleaved the night and buried itself in his shoulder, scant inches from his throat. He staggered back, tugging at the offending shaft.

Missing fingers or not, Sanouk managed to nock another arrow. “You will fall by my hand,” the lord snarled. He raised the bow and drew back the string, making the weapon’s limbs creak.

Despite the darkness, Rathe saw his death in the man’s one-eyed stare. “I may fall,” he growled, “but I will watch you die before drawing my last breath.”

One arm dangling uselessly, Rathe gritted his teeth and ripped the arrowhead from his shoulder. He saw the hot wash of blood soak the sleeve and drip off his fingertips, but his wrath had grown beyond feeling such a trifling scratch.

Sanouk’s expression shifted from morbid glee to open-mouthed shock. And all the more so when Rathe rushed for him at a dead sprint. Rathe heard the snap of the bowstring, felt the shaft score his temple, but he did not slow, did not so much as flinch.

Out of arrows, Sanouk lifted the bow like a club and delivered a cracking blow across Rathe’s face. Stunned though he was, Rathe ducked the next swing, and rammed a hand’s span of the arrow’s length under Sanouk’s ribs. The breath blasted wetly from the lord’s mouth. Rathe ripped the arrow free, then jammed the crimson slathered broadhead into Sanouk’s throat. Before Sanouk could draw back, Rathe gave the slippery shaft a wicked twist, and then jerked the arrowhead free.

Sanouk stumbled back. Blood poured from his neck, and more bubbled over his lips. He tried to speak, but could only manage a gurgling hiss. Rathe struck once more, driving the arrowhead into Sanouk’s remaining eye, and deeper, piercing his brain. Jittering violently, Sanouk fell at Rathe’s feet, and abruptly went still.

“May you dance for Gathul,” he said, thinking on that other place he had seen behind the god’s teeth.

After a time, Rathe turned back to rejoin the battle, doubting he would achieve anything beyond getting himself killed. A triumphant shout gave him pause.

Loro burst through the gate, trailing a tangle of rope from one foot, and holding a broken barrel stave in each huge fist. He halted and caught Rathe in a rib-cracking bear hug. “You have done it!” he declared, settling an unsteady Rathe back to his feet.

“Done what?” Rathe asked, blinking in confusion. Only then did he recognize that the din of battle had ceased.

“When Sanouk fled,” Loro answered, “most of the men who sided with him dropped their swords and surrendered.”

“And those who did not yield?”

Loro’s face wrinkled sourly. “Those who the Maidens did not shoot full of arrows while scampering along the battlements, escaped over the wall.”

Rathe clapped Loro on the shoulder, and ended up leaning on the man. “If not for you, brother, that bastard might have gutted me. From now on, I should call you the Scorpion.”

Loro bellowed laughter. “I am a boar, not a creeping bug. Always was, always will be.” He grew serious. “You don’t suppose one of those fine wenches would let me nuzzle her-”

“I cannot help you with that,” Rathe interrupted, grinning wearily.

At that moment, Loro’s gaze fell on Sanouk’s corpse. “Gods and demons, you caught him? I thought he had escaped with the others.”

Rathe considered how the lord had waited for him in ambush-the man’s last and greatest gamble-but instead of trying to explain the encounter, he shrugged. Loro nodded, though questions burned in his eyes.

“Ask me on the morrow,” Rathe said, and Loro nodded again.

They walked back through the gates, Loro half-carrying Rathe. All the while, the fat man turned from victory to prattling about plans for seducing any number of the Maidens of the Lyre.

Rathe laughed at all the right places, but all he wanted was to get Nesaea out of the catacombs, and find somewhere to sleep.

A steady rain fell from a leaden sky hung low over Valdar. Save that no watchmen stood in the turrets, the village looked much the same as the first time Rathe had gazed on its weathered wooden palisade.

“You think any of Sanouk’s men are in there?” Loro asked.

Rathe shrugged. “If so, then Erryn must have captured them, and is now sharpening an axe for their necks.”

Half a turn of the glass gone, the young woman, accompanied by a handful of Hilan men and the wagon driver Breyon-who turned out to be her distant cousin-had passed unmolested through the rickety gates. The sound of clucking chickens and a shutter banging against a windowsill were the only sounds from within Valdar. All had remained too quiet to think anyone with ill-intent waited behind the palisade.