R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

The talon, blood pouring over its face, was up in a crouch, bringing its spiked club to a ready, defensive position.

Bryan thrust high, thrust low, then launched his sword into a series of graceful, tantalizing sweeps, left to right, right to left, and back again, and again. Once or twice, the club got in the way to parry, but only a slight deflection that hardly disrupted the graceful dance of Bryan of Corning. He came ahead suddenly, breaking his momentum and altering the angle in midswing, stabbing wickedly, but the talon, no novice to battle, turned and blocked with the club. On came Bryan, and away backed the talon, matching him stride for stride.

“Yous will find no holes, human,” the wretch taunted, as an evil yellow smile, one of pointed, broken teeth, widened on its face. “Garink’s friends wake.”

Bryan leaped forward, then stopped, then came on again, sword jabbing hard. That talon, Garink, was too far from Bryan for the thrust to score a hit, but Bryan understood that well, and understood, too-though the talon apparently did not-that the backing creature had retreated just a bit too far. The talon countered the first thrust by skipping back, smile widening, even offering a taunting laugh.

“Garink’s friends wake,” it said again, laughing louder and then skipping back again, Bryan’s second thrust falling harmlessly short.

Or not. For the talon’s continuing laugh shifted suddenly to a scream of the sheerest horror as the creature slipped off the edge of the outcropping and plummeted and tumbled away into the darkness.

Bryan rushed back to the fire to meet the fourth of the group as it groggily staggered to its feet.

“Duh?” it asked when it wiped the sleep from its eyes and noted that this was no talon but a human standing before it.

Bryan grabbed the creature by its scraggly hair, yanked its head back, lifting the chin, presenting a target that his sword tip was fast to find. He retracted the blade quickly, its work complete, then quick-stepped across the flat stone, dying talon in tow, and with a powerful twist of his slender frame-a movement strengthened by the recollection of Rhiannon’s slumping shoulders-heaved it from the ledge.

That left only one, and Bryan shook his head as he regarded it, sleeping soundly, undisturbed though its four companions were all dead about it. He killed it with a single stroke, then rolled it, and the remaining two, from the ledge. Then he sat down at the fire to chase the nighttime chill from his bones. As he rocked quietly, basking in the heat, letting it sink into cold skin and chilled bones, the thought occurred to him that he shouldn’t have so quickly disposed of the bodies, that he should have taken something, their ears perhaps, to prove to Rhiannon that the task had been completed.

“Rhiannon,” the young man whispered into the dancing flames, picturing her asleep where he had left her, so soft and so beautiful.

He fell asleep with that not-unpleasant image in his mind.

“Bryan.”

The word came from far away, from the depths of his dream, he believed. The whisper of his lover-not a call to him, but rather, just the reciting of his name, the acknowledgment of him as the other half of a love that completed them both.

“Bryan,” Rhiannon said again, more insistently, giving the grinning half-elf a nudge.

Bryan opened a sleepy eye. His blurry vision gradually sharpened, focusing at first on the image of the blackened logs, patches of orange, smoldering glow evident here and there. His smile slowly faded as he came to realize where he was, the talon camp, and that the morning had found him there, and that Rhiannon, standing before him, had found him there, and that they had not spent the night in each other’s arms. That was just a dream, just a dream.

Just a dream.

“Bryan?”

“I am here,” he replied groggily, rolling to the side a bit to shift his weight, and stretching his sore back.

“Are ye hurt then?” the witch asked.

He spent a moment considering that possibility, replayed the events of the previous night-the actual events and not his fantasies-and shook his head. “No. Not hurt. I haven’t a scratch.”

Her reaction caught him off guard, for she moved beside him, crouched low, and punched him hard in the gut. “Ye fool,” she scolded, and her anger was not feigned. “How dare ye take me vision from me and put it to yer own stupid use?”

“I did… What do you mean?” Bryan stammered, balling up defensively as Rhiannon punched at him again.

“Who’s telling ye to go off alone then?” the fiery young witch went on. “Who said to ye that this was yer own fight? Yer own fight alone?”

“You were worried about me,” Bryan responded, that boyish smile flashing bright, its undeniable charm stealing some of Rhiannon’s ire.

“Of course I…” the witch began, but she stopped, caught by surprise as to where this conversation might be leading.

“Ha!” Bryan laughed into the morning light, clapping his hands together and leaping nimbly to his feet. “And so you care, daughter of Brielle,” he accused poking a finger at her. “You care, and there will be no denying it!”

“Ye’re me friend,” the witch replied seriously, calmly. “I’d not deny that.”

Bryan’s eyes focused on her intently. “Just a friend?” he asked with a snicker.

Rhiannon’s cold look stole the mirth from the young man, and told him without a doubt that he had pushed her too far too quickly.

“Ye’re me friend,” she said again. “And we been fighting together, a powerful team, and for ye to go off without a word o’ explaining, for ye to take such a chance without even giving me the option o’ telling ye ye’re right or ye’re wrong…” Her voice trailed off and she looked away, chewing her bottom lip, her blue eyes growing suddenly misty.

“I did not mean it like that,” Bryan began, rushing over and dropping to a crouch beside her. He draped an arm across her shoulders. “This fight was not for you,” he tried to explain.

“That choice is me own to make,” the witch said firmly, avoiding his gaze.

“No,” Bryan disagreed, and the bluntness of his tone did draw her gaze, a look of both curiosity and budding anger. “You have no choice. You would have joined me in this fight, however weak, however weary you might have been. You would have joined me because you see that as your duty. You would have aided me with your magic, despite the obvious price, because you feel you have to, though this fight was not so difficult a task for my sword alone.”

The young witch started to look away again, but Bryan caught her chin in hand and turned with her, forcing her to look at him.

“You would have sought to protect me, as I would protect you, but that exertion, that call to magic, would have wounded you more than these pitiful talons could ever wound me.” He let go and brushed his fingers gently across her cheek, and Rhiannon made no further move to turn away.

“Do you not understand, my Rhiannon,” he said quietly past the lump welling in his throat. “By preventing you from protecting me, I protected you.”

She stared at him hard.

“Would you not have done the same?” he asked gently.

“This is not about me, Bryan of Corning,” the witch said suddenly, fiercely. “And not about yerself. We fight because all the world needs us to fight. Suren it’s a bigger thing than me or yerself, or anything ye think we two might have between us.” She pulled away then and rose, stepping quickly out of arms’ reach.

“Then think of all the world,” Bryan snapped after her, and he too straightened. “Then think of how little good a bone-weary Rhiannon can do for the world compared to what rested Rhiannon did only a few short months ago. How many did you heal then, at the great battle? And how many talons did you slay with your magics? And all of that before you battled the Black Warlock! Before you, Rhiannon of Avalon, flattened the Black Warlock to the ground and sent him slithering back to his dark hole!”