Mickey Reichert: Godslayer

Hamill's mouth wrenched open and his face puckered. Larson cringed from the inevitable scream, but Hamill stood silent, like a movie without sound. The gun slid from his hands and thumped to the ground. His dull brown eyes stared through Larson, and he staggered toward the huts as if drunk.

Larson turned to follow, but Fisher caught the back of his shirt. "Shit, Larson. Leave the poor FNG alone. You like some dude hoverin ' over you after your first kill?"

Larson paused as Hamill disappeared around a grass hut. "You don't have to be the guy's mother," Gavin added. "Everyone goes through it. You went through it; I went through it. He'll feel like shit with you watching him puke or cry or both. And you ain't going to feel too great either. When:"

A pistol shot sounded in the compound, from the general direction of Larson's hut. Ohmygod! Larson sprinted toward his quarters with a single coherent thought. Let it be a rat. Oh, shit, let it be a goddamn rat! Although trained to his peak physical condition, Larson was out of breath by the time he rounded the corner and burst through the door to his hut. His heart hammered, loud and consistent as machine gun fire. His gaze played over the familiar disarray and settled on the body in his own bunk. Hamill lay still as if in sleep. The. 45 automatic lay across his left thigh. His eyes remained open, as if staring at some horrifying sight. Blood spurted from his mangled chin.

"No!" Larson screamed to ears which could not hear. His first aid training surfaced with mechanical efficiency. For bleeding, apply direct pressure. Larson covered the ground between himself and Hamill in a single heroic bound. Need usurped thought. Larson locked his hands on the tatters of Hamill's face. Shards of bone and teeth gashed his palms, and his blood mingled freely with the scarlet spring ebbing from his patient.

"Al, stop! There's nothing you can do. He's dead:"

"There's nothing you can do. He's dead." The words were the same, but the voice was from another world. Larson focused on the blood which colored his fingers dull red. The chin cupped between his hands sported two days' growth of beard; the eyes were mercifully closed in death. Larson raised his gaze to the burning wagon. Before it, Gaelinar held the struggling boy. "Child, it's too late. Your uncle is dead."

Dazed, Larson recoiled from the corpse. He whirled to stare at the glowing blue sword, and its brilliance returned him to a reality found only in legend. Slowly, he reached for it. Another object caught his eye, a glass bottle with a hand-lettered label. He retrieved both, jammed the sword into its sheath, and examined the phial. A thick, honey-colored liquid sloshed behind the words: Crullian's Marvelous Cure.

Near the dying flames, the boy ceased his furious kicks and punches. He fell against Gaelinar's loose-fitting garb, sobbing. The swordmaster, who had just mercilessly killed three men, held the child in the folds of his robe, face drawn with genuine concern.

Silme strode from behind the wreckage, and her reprimand was singularly tactless. "You may be a sword saint, Kensei. But by Vidarr's shoe, someone's got to teach you to think."

Gaelinar returned her accusation with unbro -ken confidence. "I'm sorry we got in your way. We couldn't take a chance your spells might hit the boy. Besides," he smiled sheepishly. "I was mad."

The boy pulled away to face Silme. He was small; Larson guessed him to be about ten years old. Raven-hued hair covered his head in a tangle, and his skin was light olive. His quick, blue eyes seemed out of place, and they betrayed some Northern blood mixed with a darker, Eastern race. It was obvious he was some sort of half-breed. Larson followed the boy's gaze from a pair of severely burned legs protruding beneath the charred wagon to Silme. The child clamped hands to his face and announced shrilly, "You're Dragonrank!"

Silme nodded in reply.

The boy's words tumbled over one another, the murdered uncle momentarily forgotten in his excitement. "My great, great grandfather was Dragon-rank. And my uncle Crullian knew some magic, too. He's a healer:" He broke off suddenly, and his speech decreased in tempo and volume. " Was a healer."

Larson walked over to his companions and stood at Gaelinar's side as Silme quickly changed the subject. "What's your name, child?"

" Brendor," the child introduced himself. "And I'm a wizard, too. Watch!"

Silme made only a half-hearted attempt to stop him. Curious, Larson watched as the child pointed a finger at Gaelinar's face and screamed, "Shave!"

As if in direct defiance of Brendor's command, whiskers sprouted from the Kensei's chin. Gaelinar loosed a startled cry, and Silme hid an amused smile behind her hand. Brendor's face flushed scarlet, and he tried again. "Shave!"

Soft, black hair coated Gaelinar's right cheek. Despite the fact-Larson's tension had been heightened by the brutal slayings and flashbacks, he broke into uncontrollable laughter. Gaelinar's eyes narrowed in annoyance. Brendor seemed drained. Yet he drew a deep breath, stomped his sandaled foot in the dirt, and screamed his command in frustration. "SHAVE!"

Larson's face tingled strangely as hair grew in random patches. His chuckles died to an incoherent grumble, and he rubbed at the oddly-placed stubble. Winded and purple-faced, Brendor relinquished his spell and dropped -his arms. He glanced at his uncle's smoldering corpse beneath the wagon, and the sight wrenched a new volley of tears from his pale eyes.

Gaelinar made a subtle gesture. Silme nodded slightly, put an arm about the child's shoulders, and led him down the road toward the town of Forste -Mar. While Larson watched, woman and boy disappeared around a bend in the road among the wheat stalks. Once they passed beyond his view, Larson turned toward the wagon to find Gaelinar stoking the waning fire with twigs and branches. Without question, he joined in the effort, dragging debris from the forest to feed the flames that were devouring Crullian's body.

The fire flared to brilliance. Gaelinar knelt before it with bowed head and spoke the words of farewell. "Good-bye from Midgard to the healer Crullian. May he have died with dignity and the gods find him worthy of Valhalla or whatever haven in which he believed."

After Gaelinar's ruthless swordplay, Larson found the Kensei's compassionate prayer a surprise. Good and evil may be more well defined in this world, he mused. But they remain relative. Absorbed by this new abstraction, Larson failed to notice as Gaelinar hauled the three dead bandits within half a yard of the pyre. The smell of death, grain fields, and the roaring red flames against a background of forest formed a familiar knot in Larson's gut. Caught in the past, he stared until his eyes watered from pain.

Gaelinar's hand on his wrist rescued Larson from flashback. He started, acutely aware of every line on the Kensei's face, from the grim creases in his forehead to the sweep of his newly-grown beard. "If you're not going to help, at least hold this for the boy." Gaelinar tossed a tied linen pouch torn from a bandit's belt. The cloth muffled the clink of coins as Larson caught the offering.

"I'll also help." Larson smiled, pocketed the pouch, and added teasingly, "Since you're too weak to do it yourself." He hefted one of the bandits by the armpits. Gaelinar returned the grin and lifted the corpse by the ankles. In this manner, they tossed all the rapists' bodies on the pyre without benefit of epitaph.

The duty of disposing of the corpses dispatched, the two men started off along the road through the wheat. At a safe distance from the smoke, Gaelinar stopped so abruptly his odd, black-trimmed robes swayed about his hips. Larson whirled. Gaelinar bowed with a politeness his words did not match. "You look ridiculous with clumps of fuzz on your face, hero. Do you have something to take it off with before we rejoin Silme?"