Douglas Niles: Lord of the Rose

“One steel might be all right,” said the warrior, his voice still calm and quiet, “but we also need a little information from you, just a few words.”

“Eh? What words would these be?”

The man stepped forward, pulling a flat object from beneath his cape, and, not incidentally, revealing one of the small crossbows, cocked and ready, that he wore at his waist. At the gesture, more draconians stepped forward from the shadows to either side, but Cornellus held up his hand and the guards halted. The half-ogre squinted his tiny eyes as the man unwrapped a piece of white stone about the size of a small dinner plate.

“This is a piece of marble, part of a tablet we found at a place near here. It bears a name.” The man extended the shard upward for the bandit lord to take it with his sausage-sized fingers. The bandit lord looked at it, blinked once, and shook his head.

“I have never seen this name before. ‘Brilliss.’ What does that mean? It is nothing but a name!”

“Think. Hard. I have reason to believe that it was an important name known to some in the Garnet Range. Everyone knows that Cornellus is the best informed lord in all these hills and valleys.”

“I tell you, I do not know this name. Where did you find this? Exactly where, tell me!” His beady eyes glittered, and the tip of his fat tongue showed between the grotesque flaps of his lips.

The man took the fragment back. “I may tell you if you tell me what I want to know first.”

“I tell you, I know nothing of this gnome! Now, go!”

For several seconds the warrior’s gaze held the bandit’s broad face. Cornellus licked his lips, making a visible and ultimately unsuccessful effort not to glance down at the shard of tablet held so casually in the human’s hand.

“I said nothing about a gnome,” the stranger noted.

“That is obviously what it is. A foolish gnome’s name.”

“So he is a foolish gnome now,” said the human warrior. With the wrist of his left arm he held his cape back, allowing easy access to the small crossbow.

“You dare to challenge me?” The half-ogre’s eyes bulged from his meaty face, as more sweat beaded on his forehead. “You dare?”

In response the human snatched up the crossbow, spun, and fired the bolt straight into the chest of the nearest draconian-a baaz. That reptilian guard uttered a strangled growl and fell dead, already rigid.

The curved cutlass was in the warrior’s hand even before the draconian died. The two slave women screamed and ran for the rear of the chamber as the man lunged at the throne, chopping a bloody gouge into the bandit lord’s knee, drawing an ear-shattering bellow of pain.

The axe was whirling in the dwarf’s hands as he rushed to the side, driving back the pair of draconians that had tried to close in from the right. With slashing swipes of that heavy blade he held them at bay, while the warrior pulled his sword from the bloody cut, raising it toward the bandit lord’s face. Cornellus, his eyes wide, blubbered unintelligibly.

“Left side!” called Dram urgently.

“Durafus-bizzeerr-kar — ” The gold-ornamented bozak had both hands raised, snaky eyes flashing as he started to spit out the words to a spell.

Without lowering his sword, the man whipped his second crossbow up with his left hand and shot the bolt. It took the bozak right in the gut, and the end of the spell became a bloody gurgle. With a bubbling cry the big draconian doubled forward and dropped to the floor.

“Kill them! Stop them!” shrieked Cornellus, using the momentary distraction to shift his massive bulk in his tall throne, tumbling the chair backward onto the floor. His great foot kicked out, knocking the cutlass away.

The bozak continued to thrash, screams growing weaker as it convulsed in its death throes. Knowing what was coming, the warrior and the dwarf were already moving, darting to the sides and ducking low.

The bandit lord cowered behind his overturned throne, eyes flashing from the two attackers to the dying bozak. The draconian expired and, in the next instant, exploded. The blast rocked the chamber, knocking dust from the massive beams below the ceiling and slamming the dwarf against the far wall. The man tumbled through a roll and bounced into a crouch, cutlass at the ready. The bandit lord, his face blackened by the effects of the blast, lumbered to his feet, turning his great head this way and that.

Baaz draconians, hissing with lust for blood, sprang forward from various alcoves. Spears raised, they spread out, a trio of them converging on the man, while another joined the pair of guards challenging the dwarf. Even as they attacked, Cornellus shoved past his bodyguards, ducked through an archway, and vanished into the shadows at the rear of the room.

The dwarf’s battle-axe whirled, snapping off the tip of one draconian’s spear and holding the other two at bay. Throwing down the nub of the spear, the first baaz sprang at Dram, pulsing its leathery wings, adding weight to the attack. Both hands, studded with wicked claws, slashed toward the dwarf’s bearded face-then those hands, with forearms attached, tumbled to the floor, severed by a lightning slash of the dwarf’s axe blade.

The baaz howled and staggered away, mangled arms clutched to its chest. The others stabbed and stabbed, but neither spear could get past the dwarf’s dazzling, dancing axe. A cold grin split the thicket of beard, and Dram Feldspar began to advance, challenging first one, then the other draconian. He spun through an abrupt circle, bringing the axe into the flank of one baaz, tearing open its sinewy gut. The creature groaned a plaintive death cry, slumping, falling forward into a spreading pool of gore. The other bobbed and weaved, cautiously retreating as its comrade stiffened in the final posture of death.

Across the room, the warrior had retreated into a corner where he was using his cape like a shield, sweeping it past his chest and out again to hold spears at bay. He wielded his curve-bladed cutlass in his right hand, the weapon weaving like a living organism. A thrust here, then a parry, and with a lunge he stabbed one of the baaz right through the throat, at the same time knocking away another’s spear tip with his deceptively sturdy cloak.

Gagging, the throat-pierced baaz fell back, as stiff and rigid as a statue by the time it struck the floor, breaking off one wing before it finally came to rest. The other two draconians pressed in, hissing, snapping fanged, jutting jaws. The warrior stabbed hard at one of them, hitting the lizard-like attacker in the open mouth. The blade penetrated the draconian’s palate and sliced through its brain-and in that instant the creature turned to stone, pinning the weapon in its petrified flesh.

With a curse the man let go of his sword and spun away from his last attacker. The baaz’s speartip thrust again and again, deflected each time by the warrior’s sweeping cape as the pair bobbed across the stone floor. Abruptly, the last draconian gasped and toppled forward. Dram pulled his axe from the back of the creature’s neck a split second before it solidified.

“Where did Cornellus go?” the dwarf asked.

“In here somewhere,” the warrior replied, starting toward the dark alcove. He stopped, looked back at his trapped cutlass, and grimaced. Shaking his head, he reached both hands over his shoulder to pull out the heavy sword he wore strapped to his back. Holding the great pommel in both hands, he held the blade angled slightly upward and squinted into the shadows. “I’m ready now.”

Nodding grimly, the dwarf held his axe ready and advanced at his companion’s side. They paused at the archway. No look, no sound, no signal was needed-each knew what the other would do. Together they burst through the opening and spun around, back to back. They stabbed deep into the shadows-and the dwarf struck scaly flesh, his axe carving into the chest of a big, black draconian. The creature, a kapak, had been lurking in ambush with a large cudgel. Now it flung away the weapon and started to stumble off. It didn’t get very far, before the sinewy draconian collapsed to the floor, thrashing and gurgling as its black body dissolved into a bubbling, steaming, toxic puddle. The dwarf skipped back an instant before the liquid spread to his boots.