T Lain: City of Fire

Now the bastard’s here, Tahrain thought, intent on killing what’s left of my company.

Below the knight, a soldier from the rear guard struggled to draw her own weapon, but the knight’s arm came down. The black sword fell just as the Kalpeshian’s blade cleared its scabbard. The woman cried out as the black blade split her skull. Blood splattered the horse’s side as the soldier collapsed into the sand.

The knight spurred the horse forward. Soldiers dived out of the destrier’s path, or simply collapsed to the side. The knight ignored them. The full, black helmet fixed itself on Tahrain, as if the wearer suddenly knew who led the desperate company. The horse lunged.

Tahrain readied himself for the charge, but a hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him off-balance. He stumbled and fell. The knight swept over him, the horse’s hooves missing his head by inches. He heard the beast stumble on the suddenly rocky ground. As the captain looked back, he saw the knight struggle to stay astride the animal as it tried not to fall or break a leg.

Rolling away and up, Tahrain turned toward his rescuer to tell him to obey orders and keep running, but then he saw the man’s face. It wasn’t Krusk, whom he’d expected, but Polrus. The half-orc was nowhere to be seen.

Polrus grinned feebly as the knight fought to turn the horse.

“My turn, sir,” he said. “Get going.”

The lieutenant maneuvered so the knight would have to ride over him to keep Tahrain from escaping toward the canyon. He braced his shortspear for the charge.

The captain looked around. Krusk was gone. He’d obeyed orders, finally, and gotten away. Tahrain silently sent a quick prayer to Pelor to protect the half-orc then he drew his own weapon. It was a long-handled falchion and Tahrain gripped it in both hands. The howls of the gnolls grew closer.

“No, lieutenant. I’m staying with you. I’ve fulfilled my oath. Our mission goes on though we do not.”

Nodding without fully understanding, Polrus turned toward the knight.

“Someday,” he said wryly, “you’ll have to tell me what all this is about.”

Tahrain grinned.

The black knight stood over the bloody, arrow-filled corpses of Captain Tahrain and Lieutenant Polrus. Barks and howls sang out all around, and gnolls, some carrying bloodstained axes and others wielding crude bows, loped up to the armored figure.

“Any survivors?” asked the knight. The voice sounded almost musical, but also cold, even metallic.

The gnoll’s tongue lolled in its mouth as it ducked its head. It bore two weapons, a hand axe and what looked like an oversized scimitar with a cruel, hooked end. A white patch of especially long fur adorned its canine head. Its ears had many notches—marks of challengers to the gnoll’s dominance, all defeated.

It barked a reply in its own language.

“Good,” the knight replied. “We’ll question them, but we must hurry. I need to get back to the army before it disintegrates.”

The gnoll howled quietly. It was almost a whimper.

“Don’t worry; you’ll have your fun. Make them talk. Find out if any escaped. If you can’t get anything out of them—” The knight toed Tahrain’s corpse and the gnoll’s answering bark took on a cruel, snickering tone. The blood from the captain’s body had stopped flowing, but the sand all around it was mud-red. “Well, that’s why I brought the shamans. You’ll get answers. From them, or from him.”

The gnoll bobbed its head and stepped back. The knight crouched to look at the body. Gauntleted hands gracefully removed the black helmet. Long ebony hair spilled out and across armored shoulders and framed the narrow face of a severe, yet beautiful woman. Her blue eyes traveled up and down Tahrain’s fallen form and her fingers felt along the blood-soaked raiment. For a moment, she gazed into the captain’s dead, staring eyes, then she stood and walked away.

Krusk watched the slaughter from the relative safety of the canyon’s rocky edge. He felt his rage grow until he could barely control it. He hugged the rock to stop himself from bursting forward when the captain dueled the black knight, and he pressed Tahrain’s packet to his face when the man was struck down. Never had the half-orc done something so difficult, or that felt so shameful, as hiding while his only friend fought and died. Krusk knew that he couldn’t have saved the captain, he couldn’t even have saved himself if he’d been with the others. He would be dead, and the woman in the black armor would have Tahrain’s papers and the golden disk. If not for his promise, that’s how Krusk would have wanted it.

From the rocks, Krusk marked the dark warrior and the gnolls, memorizing their faces and voices. He would take the packet to the place Tahrain described, with or without help, and he would keep his promise. Then, with his oath fulfilled, Krusk would see the knight and the gnolls again.

He would see them again.

The rain slackened as the hunters made their way through the forest, but the light continued to dim. Early tripped over two logs and what Naull thought may have been a hedgehog, but neither Ian nor Regdar would agree to light torches.

“Ian can see the tracks just fine,” Regdar said shortly when the wizard brought the subject up for the third time, “and I can see him. The rest of you follow me and we’ll make it.”

Naull silently cursed her partner’s stubbornness, but privately agreed it was the wise choice. Orcs, she knew, could see well in the dark—but only over short distances. If the party lit a torch, anybody within a hundred yards would see them coming.

“He’s slowing down,” Ian said suddenly, stopping short. Regdar nearly stumbled over the half-elf and Naull bumped into him, her small body banging against the hard metal of his armor. Trebba put a hand out and Early—now well in the back of the party—managed to hold up. “He’s stopped fleeing. He’s going more carefully.”

Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Naull thought.

She brushed her black, wet hair back from her eyes and looked around. Trees, nothing but trees. She didn’t like the seeming openness. A human through-and-through, she still preferred “adventuring” in caves. The woods looked open and boundless, but all those trees could be hiding eyes, and bows, and arrows.

“Spread out a little,” Regdar ordered.

Everyone, except Ian, who still searched for the fugitive orc leader’s tracks, obeyed automatically. Naull couldn’t help but smile a little. She’d known Regdar for quite some time, but the others had been with them for only four days. She hardly knew anything about them, and they knew a little about her and her partner, yet they followed his direction almost without question. She’d trusted Regdar for a long time, but why did they? Naull looked over each of her companions in turn as they searched the darkness for signs of their foe.

Trebba, a self-professed thief, picked her way up the slick angle of a fallen tree, probably in hopes of getting a look around in the dim light. She moved gracefully, even over the damp, moss-covered bark. Soon she was nothing but a shadow against the broken trunk.

Off to the other side, a branch snapped and a soft, pained curse followed—Early. The tall man had joined up with them at the village, and Naull knew for certain that he was a local. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. He had no beard and chubby cheeks, but he was very, very strong. The “boy” had submitted to a few tests before being accepted as part of the group. Lightly armored and wielding nothing but a wooden shield and an old, plain long sword, he’d nearly broken through Regdar’s well-trained guard with nothing but strength and enthusiasm. Naull watched him pick his way around a broken tree limb, trying not to make any more noise. He started looking around, squinting into the darkness, as if foes might leap out from behind any tree.