Roland Green - Knights of the Crown

This gave Pirvan a higher opinion of the mage’s powers, which was not a pleasant thought. It also solved no part of the fight at hand.

Haimya was near the top of the stairs. She faced the creature, with that bent-knee stance that said she was ready to jump. Her sickness seemed to have taken little of her speed. He hoped her agility had likewise survived. She would be coming down on rough ground, from far too high to have a good chance of landing unhurt. Nor would it take a grave injury to make her easy prey for either the creature or the human guards who would soon be rallying to the tower.

It occurred to Pirvan that, in trying to do perhaps too many things at once, he and Haimya had contrived to finally lose the advantage of surprise, about all that would let two people confront a small army and live. Had they marched in with trumpets and drums, they might have learned nothing about Fustiar, but they might have had more success in encountering Gerik Ginfrayson and speaking with him.

The good will of the lords of Istar toward the brothers and sisters of the night work was not worth Haimya’s life-and Pirvan had more than a few doubts that the blood would end with her (or even with him).

The creature lurched two steps upward. It seemed unsteady on its massive legs, and Pirvan saw that the stairs behind it were red and glistening. At least it shed something that looked like blood, rather than some vitalizing fluid conjured out of Fustiar’s evil learning.

Then it seemed that everything happened at once. The creature took another step, then swung the axe. Haimya leaped to one side, thrusting upward with her sword. The axe smashed into the door, tearing through the ironbound portal as if it were silk. Pirvan did not see where the sword went.

He did see Haimya hanging by one arm from the stairs. He saw the creature whirl, heard it let out a terrible, half-choked, bubbling scream, and saw that it no longer wielded the Frostreaver. One empty hand lashed out for Haimya, she slashed at it, and the fingers closed on the sword blade. A jerk, and the creature held Haimya’s sword in a bloody hand.

Then it hissed like a caveful of serpents, threw up its hands, and toppled backward, so swiftly that Pirvan could not clear the way in time. He was lucky enough not to be caught, borne down to the ground, and crushed to pulp under the creature’s massive weight. But it flailed about as it fell, and one of those flailing hands crashed into Pirvan’s left arm. He felt the bone snap; he thought he would have heard it go if the creature hadn’t screamed again.

Then the creature struck the ground with a thud that jarred the stairs and sent pain shooting up Pirvan’s broken arm. He ignored it, covering the last few steps to Haimya at a run. One arm was enough to grip her free hand and help her swing up to the temporary safety of the stairs.

Much too temporary for comfort. She’d lost her sword, he’d lost the use of one arm, and they had between them four arrows, three arms, two daggers, and one bow.

They also had the Frostreaver, at least in the sense that no one else could wield it against them. Whether its possession made any other difference remained to be seen, but to Pirvan seemed unlikely.

“Good company to die in” was an old adage, and it was true here. Truer still, to Pirvan, was his opinion that Haimya would be good company to live in.

He had to drag the Frostreaver with his good arm, but it went inside with them as they staggered through the ruins of the door into the lowest accessible chamber of Fustiar’s tower. It scraped and squealed on the floor, and Pirvan had a nightmare conceit that it was alive and protesting the change of ownership.

Which, given Fustiar’s evident powers, was not altogether impossible.

* * * * *

Gerik led the six guards rallying to the tower. They didn’t really have enough intact humans to guard the place if neither Fustiar nor the black dragon were battle-worthy. Even taking six such to the tower would leave the gate and the ruins close to the dragon’s lair scantily protected, and that by mutes.

Gerik quickly saw that six at the tower might be too few. The guard creature lay sprawled on the ground, its sightless eyes fixed on the clouds, two ghastly wounds in its neck besides the injuries it had taken in falling. Also, the Frostreaver was nowhere in sight.

What was in sight was the door at the top of the stairs, splintered as if by a giant fist-or perhaps a Frostreaver. Gerik turned to the nearest man with a torch.

“Give me your torch. I’m going up alone.”

The man gaped. So did most of his comrades, particularly the man who’d fought the tree spirit up in the hills.

“Ah-one’s not enough-”

“If Fustiar is awake, he can deal with them. If he sleeps as usual, one is enough to keep any human foes busy until he does wake. If the foes aren’t human, one is enough to die learning that. If I don’t come out, no heroic rescues. Do you swear that?”

The men straightened. “No, we won’t. We’ll at least try to learn what befell you, then take word to Synsaga.”

Gerik threw up his hands. “Kiri-Jolith watch over you all.” They might be pirates, but there was some good and more than a little honor in anyone who would face unknown menaces for an almost equally unknown leader.

The gods have a most peculiar sense of humor, to make me a respected leader of righting men under these circumstances, he thought.

Gerik strode forward, sword in hand, passing the dead creature and slowing as he reached the slippery stairs. He would have thought better of his courage had he not gained a detailed description of the “tree spirit” from her victim. It could be a description of many women, but few of these were accomplished fighters, and only one accomplished female fighter was likely to be roaming the Crater Gulf shore at this time.

A reunion with Haimya under these circumstances suggested that the gods’ sense of humor was worse than peculiar. One might say bizarre or even cruel, not without impiety but also not without truth.

* * * * *

For the first time since she’d been aware of her sickness, Haimya wanted to curl up in a corner and lie there until death or healing came. She had poured her remaining strength into that fight on the stairs, and though the creature was dead, she wondered how long she and Pirvan would outlive it.

Pirvan let the Frostreaver fall with a final clatter and looked about the chamber. It had clearly been a hall of some sort, in the castle’s youth. Then it had been cut up into cells or small chambers by wooden partitions, but even the inhabitants of those chambers were long dead and the wood long rotted. The hall was ankle deep in dust and rotten fragments, which would make for treacherous footing when it came to the final fight.

Haimya did not seek a corner, but she did sit cross-legged in the debris and put her head down, until she felt her wits and breath return. Pirvan had unslung his pack and was rummaging bandages, salves, and healing potion out of it.

Or rather, he rummaged out the flask that had held healing potion. A large crack across its base told them where the contents had gone.

“Have you any?” he asked.

“Less we need for both of us. I have taken some, or I might not be here.” She wished she had taken either more or less.

“I wish you weren’t, Haimya. I wish you were in a warm bed a long way from here, with a jug of wine and a plate of cakes on the table beside the bed. I wish you wore a silk bedrobe and perfume. I wish-”

His voice sounded ready to break, and she felt her face going red. Then footsteps sounded on the stairs, a shadow loomed in the doorway, and another voice spoke. She knew it well, knew but did not care for the gentle mockery it held, and felt herself going even redder.