Robert Vardeman - Pillar of Night

“How many?” asked Inyx.

“Who can say?” answered Nowless. “Even fair Julinne has trouble now and then with the seeing. She tells me of as many as a thousand within those walls.” Nowless cocked his head and gave a lopsided grin. “That’s about the right odds for doughty fighters such as we, don’t you think?”

“We’d better get started,” said Ducasien, “if we want to finish tonight. It’s been weeks and weeks since I had to kill more than twenty or thirty grey-clads in a single evening.”

Nowless let out a bellow of pure delight. “I knew there was a mite of humor lurking within you.” Nowless pointed out the salient features of the fortress. “We can’t expect to take on many of the troops. Rested they are and many too many for us. But there, that small shed. That’s the target for this night’s devilment.”

Inyx surveyed the layout of the fort and the shed Nowless indicated. “Animals of some sort there?” she asked.

“Enough horses to let us ride with the very wind,” said Nowless. “But while some of us try for the mounts, the rest of us will be doing what we can a’yonder.”

“The mess hall?”

“What better place to spend a fine spring evening?”

Julinne glided up and handed Nowless a small vial of colorless liquid. He tapped the sides of the glass. Bubbles formed and rose to the top of the stoppered tube.

“You’re going to poison them?” asked Ducasien, offended. “That’s no way to fight a battle!”

“Aye, then, go and kill your twenty. No, make it forty since I have other things to be doing. While you’re at it, lad, go on and slay all thousand of them because we’re not able to.”

“But the honor!” Ducasien protested. “This isn’t an honorable form of battle. You kill your enemy with sword or dagger, not poison him like some foul cur.”

“They’re nothing more than animals to us. For all they’ve done to my people, I’d see them all tortured to death. This is as close as I can come,” said Nowless. The man’s tone had dropped from bantering to monotone. Inyx sensed how close he came to driving a dirk into Ducasien’s ribs.

“Ducasien,” she said urgently, “there are many ways of fighting. My experience along the Road has shown me that. There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“You forget yourself, Inyx,” Ducasien said stiffly.

“These people fight for their very existence. The greys outnumber them because the grey-clads have been slaughtering them,” she said, guessing accurately. “Haven’t we seen the burned towns, the destroyed fields? What Claybore brings to this world is nothing less than genocide.”

“It’s not honorable,” Ducasien said.

“Then don’t fight,” she said hotly. “But I will. Nowless needs all the help he can get. And I pledge my sword!”

“Well said, well said!” applauded Nowless. Ducasien eyed them in disgust, then reluctantly nodded that he, too, would join the disgraceful battle.

“But I will not use the poison,” he added.

“Wouldn’t think of it. That’s my privilege.” The sudden bitterness told Inyx that Nowless had lost much to Claybore’s soldiers. He would gladly have used a knife on every one of the greys, had that been possible. This gave the best way of striking back.

“Let’s be off.” Nowless turned to Julinne and spoke quietly to the woman for several minutes, kissed her and went on down the hill. His bare feet made no sound on the ground as he walked. Inyx felt clumsy next to him.

At the gate Nowless signaled for them to wait. Two sentries marched slowly to and fro at their post. Before Inyx could decide how best to take out the one closest to her, the whistle of cast stones filled the air. Both guards crumpled to the ground like discarded foolscap. Almost without missing a step, two of Nowless’s men picked up the sentry duties. In the dark their lack of uniforms wasn’t obvious.

Inyx, Ducasien, Nowless, and three others slipped quietly into the compound.

“No disturbance to warn them, now,” cautioned Nowless. They made their way directly for the mess hall. Nowless went inside while the others stood watch.

“I don’t like this,” mumbled Ducasien.

“It’s all right,” soothed Inyx. “Different worlds, different ways of waging war.”

“I still prefer an honest sword fight.”

“You,” came the harsh voice. “Why are you loitering there? Don’t you have other duties?”

“Please,” spoke up Inyx. “We… well, we were just looking for a secluded spot.”

The officer strode over. The instant he was within range, Inyx spun, drew her sword, and lunged. The tip of her blade caught the man directly in the groin. He grabbed his wounded crotch and let out a bleat like a kicked sheep. No other sound emerged from his mouth. Ducasien’s strong hand clamped over his mouth. The other hand went to the back of the officer’s head. One quick jerk broke the man’s neck.

“Well met,” complimented Nowless, emerging from the kitchens. “Dump him inside and let’s be on our way.”

“Wait!” Inyx shook her head. “If they find him inside they might do some checking. We can carry him with us. For a ways.”

Nowless indicated that two of the men were to carry the slain officer. Inyx liked Nowless more and more. He was a brave man and a good leader not afraid to change plans when a better suggestion came up. She had seen men too stiff-necked to ever change their minds.

Like Lan Martak.

The thought of the brown-haired man, his gentle ways of loving, the times they had spent together before the magics so overwhelmed him brought a glistening to Inyx’s blue eyes. She fought back the tears. How she wished he were here with her. But, like her long-dead husband, Lan was forever lost to her.

“Damn Claybore,” she said viciously.

“Agreed,” whispered Nowless, “but the thrice-damned mage has not been on this planet in long years. All we can do is remove the trash he left us.”

The officer was unceremoniously dropped outside the gates to the fort. A signal brought the thunder of hooves as the rest of Nowless’s band drove off the horses they weren’t stealing.

Whether the sound alerted another guard or some other indiscretion had, alarm gongs sounded throughout the fort.

“We have a bit of a fight on our hands now,” said Nowless. “We’d best let them get a ways down the road, don’t you think?” He indicated those of his men escaping up the slopes.

“We can hold them long enough,” said Inyx. “Ducasien has been longing for this, haven’t you?”

“At last,” the man cried, “an honorable way of fighting!”

Ten of Nowless’s men rode up and held horses for them to mount, but by the time they’d settled into stirrup and saddle, the first wave of greys rushed from the fort.

Inyx’s blade rose and dropped, severing an ear. She kicked another in the face and reined her mount around to face still another enemy. The woman’s blade sang its restless song of death, and she was finally able to forget about Lan Martak in the heat of the battle.

Only when they galloped off into the night, the cries of the grey-clad soldiers following them, did she again think of Lan.

There would have to be more slaughter-much more-for his memory to be erased totally.

Krek lurched forward and settled into the crypt, long legs fitted tightly beneath his body. Leaving his friend Inyx troubled him, but staying with her troubled him even more. She would continually remind him of the good times they had spent with Lan Martak. Such a prod to the memory only produced morbid thoughts, Krek knew.

It was better to make a clean split, find a new world, walk new paths.

“I still will think of you, though,” Krek said softly. He craned his mobile head around and peered out of the crypt to where Inyx and Ducasien stood side by side. The spider had no good feelings about Ducasien, but there were no bad ones, either. The man had come into Inyx’s life at a time opportune for her. He would take care of her sorrows and comfort her, even if Krek were unable to find or give such solace.