James Wyatt - In the Claws of the Tiger

“Yes. She’s about a finger’s breadth away from one of those soldiers you read about in the chronicles, who endured so much in the war that they lose their grip on reality. Come to think of it, maybe less than a finger’s breadth, now that she’s following the Silver Flame.”

“I don’t know. She seems quite sane to me.”

“I’m not sure I can call it sane when she jumps on the back of a chuul, brandishing only a dagger.”

“I call it heroic.”

“I suppose. But that doesn’t make it any less crazy.”

“You didn’t fight in the war?”

“Not in the regular army, and not on the big battlefields. But the King’s Dark Lanterns, like the Order of the Emerald Claw and the Royal Eyes of Aundair, are an army in their own right. The battles I fought might have been much smaller, but sometimes I’ve thought that the armies clashing on the battlefield are just a distraction from the spies and guerillas who are fighting the real war.”

“An interesting theory,” Auftane said, nodding.

“What about you, Auftane? What did you do during the war?”

“Mostly I avoided it, I’m embarrassed to say.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Janik said. “It’s what any really sane person would do.”

“Dania volunteered, didn’t she? She said that her father could have kept her out of the army.”

“Yes. Proof, I suppose, that she wasn’t quite sane even before the war.” Janik pointed to marks in the sand where a small launch had obviously been pulled out of the water. “Look, here’s where they came ashore,” he said. “Let’s find that boat.”

They followed the trench in the sand to where it curved between two dunes. Janik held up his hand to stop Auftane and looked around, scanning the tops of the dunes. Sure enough, he saw the top of a helmet glinting in the sun. Just as he silently pointed it out to Auftane, a shout came from the crest of the dune. “Now!”

Two crossbow bolts sprayed sand right where Janik had been standing, and a third one glanced off Auftane’s armor as he tried to see what Janik was pointing at. Janik was already running up the dune, hoping to close with the crossbowmen before they could reload. Auftane hurried after him, sinking into the sand with each step.

Janik crested the dune and found himself toe to toe with three soldiers wearing the bright green symbol of the Emerald Claw on their tabards. Two were pointing crossbows at him, while the third was already swinging a flail toward his head. He knocked one crossbow aside just as the bolt flew free, sending the shot wild. The other bolt bit into his upper arm, but fell out as Janik drove his sword hard into the belly of the soldier swinging the flail. The flail’s momentum carried it into Janik’s shoulder, but the strength behind it had failed. Clutching his stomach, the man with the flail sank to the ground.

Janik stepped back, trying to keep the other two soldiers in front of him as they dropped their crossbows in the sand and drew their flails. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another soldier on the next dune, pointing a crossbow behind Janik-at Auftane, he assumed.

All right, he thought, three more, one down. That’s not too bad.

He smiled as he saw the soldier on the next dune fall to the ground, one of Auftane’s crossbow bolts sticking out of his throat. Two and two, he thought.

“What did you do to make Krael hate you so much?” he said, seeing a nervous glance pass between the two who faced him. “Or did you figure that staying behind and watching the boat for four months would be the easy job?”

The soldiers-a man and a woman-didn’t respond. Swinging their flails menacingly, they tried to maneuver to flank Janik, but he kept moving to keep them in front of him. The longer he could keep them occupied, he figured, the more likely Auftane would even the odds.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, Auftane crested the dune, running at the nearest soldier with his mace drawn back over his shoulder. Janik waited, then just as Auftane caught the soldier’s attention, he leaped at her. His weapon and Auftane’s connected at the same time, and the woman sprawled in a hollow of wet, red sand.

The other soldier howled in anger and ran at Janik. Janik dodged-and managed to put his back between the flail and his head. The blow knocked the wind out of him and knocked him to the ground, but Auftane jumped over him and beat the soldier back. The man was in a fury, swinging his flail so fast Janik could barely tell where the head of the weapon was. Janik scrambled to his feet again, fighting to catch his breath. The soldier regained the offensive and was pushing Auftane back.

“Watch your step, Auftane!” Janik called out, but too late-the dwarf stepped backward and tripped on the fallen soldier. He landed hard on his back, his legs draped over the dead woman, her eyes staring accusingly at him. Janik sprang at the last soldier and slid the point of his sword between the back of his helmet and the shoulder plates of his armor, killing him instantly. The man landed on top of Auftane.

Auftane extricated himself from the dead soldiers, leaving the two of them in a grisly heap. Janik found himself wondering if the two had been lovers, and he was briefly tempted to leave them together like that, intimately entwined in death as he supposed they had been in life. But as he looked around and his eyes fell on the boat nestled between the dunes, he thought of a more fitting end for them.

“We’ll load the four of them on the boat,” he said to Auftane.

The dwarf was still catching his breath, but he shot a quizzical look at Janik.

“Then we’ll set the boat on fire and push it out to sea,” Janik continued. “And with any luck, it’ll hit their ship and set it on fire as well. But really, we’re just giving these four a fitting funeral.”

“We’ll keep them from continuing to serve Karrnath as zombies, too,” Auftane said.

“Exactly.” Janik grabbed the arm of the dead man and started to drag him down the dune toward the boat.

Janik and Auftane stood at the crest of a dune, watching the blazing boat drift out to sea. It missed the anchored ship, to Janik’s dismay, but served its other purposes. Janik knew that Dania wouldn’t approve of simply hacking a hole in the boat’s hull, so this let them get rid of the boat without resorting to simple sabotage. It also provided the dead soldiers with a dignified end, rather than leaving them to rot on the beach and be picked apart by crabs.

“Now to find Krael and the rest of his soldiers,” Janik said as the blazing boat floated out past the ship.

“We’re not going to follow them all the way to their camp and fight them alone, are we?”

“No. All I need is to see some clear tracks, and I should be able to get a sense of how long they’ve been gone. With any sense of the land, I can figure out what course they’re taking. Once we get that, we can meet up with the others and plan our own course.” He started back down the dune to the place where the boat had been stowed.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you and Dania have an … interesting relationship.”

Janik grunted.

“You care a lot about each other.”

“You are the most inquisitive dwarf I’ve ever known. Aren’t your people supposed to be more, I don’t know, taciturn?”

“I suppose I’ve never been an exemplar of my race,” Auftane said, looking away. “I’m sorry if I’ve pried.”

“No, it’s all right, Auftane. Everyone else on this trip knows all about it, and you’ve been with us all these months and held your tongue this long. You’ve got a right to understand. Especially since she and I seem to have such a tendency to blow up at each other.”