Seven Swords, Michael E. Shea [readict TXT] 📗

“What did Jon expect? He fled and I’m not surprised he did,” said Ca’daan.

“Jon expected that as well, though he hoped for something else. It takes tremendous strength to throw aside a mask you wore most of your life and ask to get better. Jon had hoped for that strength,” said the Kal. “He was wrong and likely saved Adrin’s life.”

“Was it worth the loss?’ asked Ca’daan.

“Would you want Adrin defending your wife and children and then panic at the first sign of an enemy’s sword?”

Ca’daan felt his fingers go numb. How did this man know?

“My wife is dead,” said Ca’daan. The Kal looked at him for a moment.

“I am sorry,” said the man. “You’d think with my jaw of iron I’d talk less.”

The Kal didn’t know. Ca’daan bowed to the man. He turned and saw Jon sleeping in his half-tent. His arm was around Susan. The girl was looking at Ca’daan, her green eyes pale in the shadows under her hood. He smiled at her but she did not smile back.

Ca’daan spent most of the afternoon thinking about what the Kal had said. As he gathered the warriors, Ca’daan felt like he had some measure of control over them. Watching the situation yesterday spin so fast out of control scared him. He trusted Jon but had no idea what happened in the man’s mind. He had trusted Jon to defend Fena Dim with no idea how he would do it. Seeing Jon take control of the group, to the point of banishing Adrin, scared Ca’daan badly. What if he was wrong? What if he was bringing danger to his town instead of salvation?

Later that night when he awoke, he felt the panic within his stomach when Jon’s cold blue eyes beheld him as he awoke. He worried more during his watch while the others slept. So deep did he think that he neither saw, nor heard, nor felt anything until the tip of the blade touched the side of his neck.

Chapter Twelve: The Slavers and the Desert Ghost

A gloved hand covered his mouth and a husky voice spoke in a strange dialect Ca’daan could not understand except for two words; “speak” and “die”. Ca’daan understood.

The man didn’t move for a long time. Ca’daan saw the man’s shadow in the red moonlight surveying the other sleeping members of the camp.

The man’s other arm crossed Ca’daan’s throat and the blade left. The man’s other arm crossed the first and his hand cupped the back of Ca’daan’s skull. Before he could cry out, the man squeezed. Ca’daan gasped but it was little more than wind on the air. His vision narrowed as the pressure increased. Little white flashes lit up the black edges of his vision. He was dying, he thought as blackness overtook him.

He awoke immediately, though in a completely different place. He gasped for air and his head throbbed. It was still night. Ca’daan appeared to be upside down, slung over the back of a horse. He coughed and spit up bile that burned the back of his throat.

Ca’daan looked up and saw a large camp. Dozens of men and women, each chained by one ankle, surrounded each one of seven fires. Huge men wearing boiled leather and armed with whips and short blades walked among them. Two brill honked near a covered tent guarded by two large men in bronze armor, black leather masks, and bladed polearms.

A discussion took place to his right. Ca’daan painfully turned and saw a tan skinned man with a thick mustache and braided beard talking to a man in fine cloth and thick boots. They appeared to be in an argument. Near them were five other horses mounted by four men and one woman. The woman was dark skinned and carried a short spear. Each of the men wore leather armor and dressed in the style of heavy riders. Bandits and bounty hunters, thought Ca’daan.

The bearded man pointed up the hill and shouted at the noble. The noble shook his head. He turned to the riders.

“He won’t pay for the location of the others,” said the bearded man in a thick slurred accent. “He wants us to bring them all here.”

“They’re armed. Runaways or not, they will put up a fight. Two of them looked like pit fighters. We’ll need some of his whipmasters if he wants us to take them.” said one of the other men, this one with short hair and a bow strung across his back.

“They’re not going to give us any more men. We either go get them or we only get paid for the skinny one Telek got.” Ca’daan saw one of the riders, long-haired and young, nod. Ca’daan recognized his gloves.

The noble began talking again in his strange tongue and the bearded man returned in the same dialect. They went back and forth for some time.

The bearded man’s head exploded.

Two of the horses reared up and the noble was showered in bone and blood. A loud crack echoed over the dunes. The man with the bow cried out, blood gushing from his thigh. Another crack echoed soon after. The remaining riders rode off in different directions. Men cried out in the camp as the whipmasters ran toward the confusion.

The body of the bearded man fell quivering and convulsing to the ground. The bowman fell off his horse and put his hand over the wound in his leg.

Ca’daan heard hoof beats approaching. A horse rode past fast, a huge red stallion. Ca’daan saw Thorn on its back holding his massive sword high. He passed Ca’daan and his sword swing through the man in noble’s garb. The man cried out and his arm fell off at the shoulder. He collapsed screaming.

Thorn was gone into the night. A spear flew past in his direction but hit nothing.

Something grabbed Ca’daan by the back of his belt and tunic. He was hoisted up onto the back of another horse.

“Hello, friend,” Ca’daan felt relief at the sound of the Kal’s voice. They were moving fast now, the gallop shaking Ca’daan until he thought his head might fall apart.

The horse underneath them shrieked and Ca’daan felt himself falling. With his hands and feet bound, there was no way to land softly. The impact took his breath away. Through dazed eyes he saw a black masked man rush towards him, a long curved sword in his hand. The Kal’s powerful legs stepped in front of Ca’daan’s view and, looking up, he saw the Kal dodge a sword swing and smashed his club into the man’s side. Bone cracked in the man’s chest but before he could react, the Kal crushed the side of his head, twisting the mask and headdress.

Something fast and sharp flew past the Kal’s body and buried itself in the ground. The Kal sat back and covered himself behind his fallen horse.

“That spearwoman is good,” he said to Ca’daan. “Not many people could hit a horse on the run like that.” The iron jawed man breathed heavy. “We’re in a bad spot if she comes around us.”

Two of the whipmasters saw Ca’daan and the Kal lying along the dying horse. Seeing the advantage, they rushed in. The first charged, his curved blade high. The Kal turned and struck with his club. The man’s ankle folded over around the knob of the club. He screamed and fell, his face ashen in shock.

The other, more careful than his foolish companion, grinned and closed slowly. Ca’daan could see twisted decaying teeth under the man’s leather half-helm. The whipmaster shifted and reared back to stab Ca’daan. Ca’daan, still tied and twisted under the horse, could no nothing. The man dropped his sword and twisted as he fell. Ca’daan could see a wound as wide as his hand opening up the man’s back from his left shoulder to his right hip.

Vrenna stood behind him, blood dripping from her saber. Another black spear soared at her. Vrenna twisted and caught the spear in her cloak. Another rider came in from her opposite side, one of the bandits. Far more skilled than the slaver whipmasters, this rider nearly cut Vrenna in half. She ducked and parried the blow.

In a single motion, the bandit dismounted and rushed. His footing never lost stride as he went from full gallop to full run. The mercenaries were all very good. The bandit’s blade swung again but Vrenna countered.

A blur of motion took Ca’daan’s eyes from the warrior woman. Ca’daan saw the dark skinned woman ride past, a quiver of small spears hanging from her saddle. She wore a boiled leather chestguard molded perfectly around the shape of her bare breasts. A strip of leather tied back her hair in a high topknot. As Ca’daan watched, the woman drew another spear from her quiver and threw.

Somewhere in the distance, Ca’daan heard another crack and another man screamed. It was Jon’s pistols, Ca’daan realized.

The spear missed Vrenna by only a hand-span.

“My leg is trapped!” said the Kal. Vrenna was unguarded. Another spear would take her down.

Wind blew past Ca’daan and a shape, smaller than a horse but nearly as fast, rushed out of the night air. It was a man, dark skinned, thin, and wearing nothing but a loin cloth. The spear woman’s horse screamed and fell. The woman rolled and drew two spears before the horse had rolled and broken the rest.

The man stood, two blades in his hands. The woman snarled and threw. The man shifted slightly and cut the spear out of the air.

Somewhere on the other side of the horse, another man cried out followed by another crack of thunder.

Using her last spear in melee, the woman charged this new opponent. The thin man dodged one strike, parried another, and was soon upon her. His blades worked in rough and savage cuts. On the last, the woman’s throat sprayed a fan of blood into the air. Her last spear fell to the sand.

Another pair of whipmasters charged at them. The dark-skinned man stepped in front of the two men. One, brandishing a long polearm, stabbed at him. The small man turned, grabbing the thrusting polearm and burying the tip of it into the ground. He cut the curved knife across the man’s hand. The man cried out and let go of the polearm, putting his good hand over the wound on the other. The other whipmaster, carrying a heavy sword and small stretched leather shield, took more time.

Ca’daan heard the Kal grunt and felt the horse lift. Ca’daan pulled his legs up and turned. The horse fell heavily to the ground.

The Kal picked up one of the curved swords of the fallen whipmasters and cut Ca’daan’s bonds. Ca’daan stood, his head throbbing and for the first time saw the full extent of the battle.

Fire had taken the noble’s quarters and his carriage to the ash of the sky. Another man, small and scrawny, stood surrounded by four huge guards in bronze armor and leather masks. Two naked woman held each other behind him.

Cries of fear and confusion arose from the fires as the chained slaves worked against their bonds and unsuccessfully tried to grapple with the remaining whipmasters.

Ca’daan saw Jon riding through the slave fires, his rapier slashing at the whipmasters. He opened up the back of one who had been seconds away from cleaving his large curved sword into a cowering child. Madness had taken over the camp.

Ca’daan saw the dark-skinned man dive and turn under the swings of his shield-bearing opponent. The man thrust but missed as the knife-wielding man spun and stabbed into the whipmaster’s back. He pulled the blade out and a gout of blood followed. Pushing against the man’s back, the dark-skinned man