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

drew his other knife against the man’s exposed throat.

The bandit with the sword swung but Vrenna parried. He attacked with measured power, forcing her to dodge and parry. She cut free her cloak and danced as the bandit’s blade swung. Soon he swung in a horizontal cut and Vrenna dropped and spun. Her blade caught the inside of his knee and a trail of blood followed. He fell to the ground, clutching his leg. Vrenna was already moving to the next opponent but the Kal walked to the wounded man and killed him with a single powerful blow.

Ca’daan heard a roar and turned to see Thorn, his horse felled by a sheaf of arrows, defending attacks from an equally large man with a warhammer. The man slammed his warhammer, missing Thorn by a hair but kicked, connecting with Thorn’s stomach. Thorn fell backward but when he saw Thorn’s eyes, Ca’daan saw something inhuman. Thorn rolled to his feet as the hammer came in again. The huge bandit swung again and Thorn stepped inside the blow. He smashed the hilt of his wide-bladed sword into the man’s nose, shattering it. The man stepped back, blood gushing through his fingers from his ruined face. Thorn’s blade swung and cut the man’s arm and opened his belly. He fell to the ground gasping and Thorn left him where he lay.

Ca’daan saw two whipmasters fleeing on horseback. He saw Jon draw a flintlock pistol from his belt and fire. Gray smoke blew into the night air and the crack sent Ca’daan to the balls of his feet in a crouch. One of the men fell off the horse and crashed screaming to the ground.

Vrenna and the knife wielding man had engaged the four guards of the camp’s slave master. In seconds, the four guards were dead or dying. When only the pasty noble remained, Vrenna stepped back and raised her hand, offering the man to the dark-skinned blade wielder. He accepted the offer. He brushed past the man and turned, walking away. When he was ten paces away Ca’daan saw the deep gash flooding blood down from the slave master’s throat.

The battle was over. The Kal stood next to Ca’daan while the others finished off the few whipmasters who had survived.

Ca’daan looked over the camp in shock. Dozens of whipmasters lay dead or dying. Another eight bounty hunters lay dead as well.

Vrenna spoke with the dark-skinned man.

“Are you hurt?” Ca’daan turned and faced Jon. Ca’daan had known why he had asked these men and women to do battle for Fena Dim, but to see the results here frightened him. He could do nothing but cower when the whipmaster had attacked. Jon, Thorn, the Kal, and the others had cut them down easily. They had saved Ca’daan’s life.

“No,” said Ca’daan. Jon nodded. Jon was a changed man. His tunic was tied with a line of rope but a pair of fine leather belts buckled in silver hung low on his hips. In his left hand he held his rapier of shining silver steel with the falcon-winged guard. In his other he held a flintlock pistol, the barrel still smoking. The matchlock was shaped like the head of a falcon as well, the beak striking the firing plate.

The pistol was alien to Ca’daan. Before meeting Jon he had never seen anything like it before. The one Jon held now was not the same as the ones the dark rider had held. That one had a dragon’s head for the hammer. This one matched Jon’s own rapier. He had carried these all along, Ca’daan realized. What other secrets did the man hold?

Thorn and the Kal approached. Thorn had removed his shirt and for the first time Ca’daan began to understand this creature. A black webwork of tattoos circled Thorn’s body. In the center of his chest was a grizzly scar, wide and star-shaped. How could any man could survive such a large wound so close to the heart?

Thorn looked at the pistol in Jon’s hand and then up to Jon’s cold blue eyes. Jon holstered the pistol, the barrel still smoking, on his left hip. Ca’daan saw an identical pistol hanging on his right hip. The two men, Jon and Thorn, seemed to share a silent conversation. Thorn turned and left.

Jon nodded to the knife wielder talking to Vrenna.

“What do you think of this new ally?”

“He wears no armor, fights with knives, and moves like the wind,” said Ca’daan.

“Indeed,” said Jon. “When you speak to him, mention the possible enslavement of your people. He is a vindicator,” said Jon. Susan, standing behind Jon, looked up to Ca’daan.

As Ca’daan walked towards Vrenna and the dark-skinned man, they ceased their conversation. Vrenna smiled. The man was not large, perhaps as tall as Ca’daan himself. He was thin, with long muscles and a topknot of braided hair running down his back. The rest of his head was shaved. His eyes were gold-amber and shone in the moonlight when he looked to Ca’daan.

“I cannot thank you enough for your assistance,” said Ca’daan. “My foolishness got me captured by those bounty hunters and nearly sold into a life of slavery.

“My small village, Fena Dim, stands under the sword. I have asked these men and women to help protect my village from the slavery that will soon fall upon them by a large band of murderers most vile. I beg your assistance to help my town.”

The man looked to Ca’daan and then to the others.

“Your friends risked their lives for you and for these people,” the man gestured to the camp of slaves, now unlocking their bonds and raiding the food carts. “I am San’doro and I will help you.”

The man tucked his two knives into the back of his leather belt. Each blade was long and curved with hardwood handles worn and grooved from long use. Scars ran across the man’s back, long and wicked. A brand of burned skin stood out on his left shoulder. As they walked back to the others, Ca’daan saw the same brand on Vrenna’s shoulder as well.

“I’ve been hunting this slavelord for some time,” said San’doro. “It’s been harder and harder to hunt the slavers these days. They travel in larger packs than they once did and use mercenaries to capture new slaves along the way.”

“I have heard of you,” said the Kal. “You’re the Desert Ghost.”

“Who?” asked Ca’daan. Jon shrugged.

“The slave trade to Fena Kef used to be strong,” said the Kal. “Tens of thousands each season would come through. Pleasure slaves, workers, and pit fighters. It was a strong business. Some northerners brought Voth slaves from the north to trade for the slaves in the south.

“Then slavers started dying. At first they suspected rival slave traders or mercenaries hired by the other cities to corner the market on the trade, but all the traders were being killed one caravan at a time. The travelers in the south and east told of dozens of freed slaves building camps in the desert and the bodies of their captors rotting in the sun.

“Soon some spoke of not a warband cutting them down, but a single man. The Desert Ghost, they called him. He appeared from dust and faded into the sands leaving corpses in his wake.”

“The truth is not so exciting,” said San’doro. “They chose to steal children from their mothers in their sleep so I chose to steal their lives in return.” The man’s voice chilled Ca’daan’s skin.

They left the slaves to the desert. The brill were slaughtered for food and San’doro assured them that the slaves would find their way. The group found enough uninjured horses to mount. San’doro chose no mount, preferring to run barefoot. His heels and feet were as thick as aged leather.

They traveled south and then south west off of the main trail that led to the southern cities.

Chapter Thirteen: The Iron Jaw and Adrin’s Return

They rode into the barrens, Ca’daan leading the way and pointing out his familiar landmarks. On their second day, resting in the shadow of a large bluff, San’doro sat by Jon and spoke.

“A rider follows us,” he said. “I can take him if you wish.”

Ca’daan was relieved. Adrin had not abandoned them entirely. Ca’daan found it interesting that San’doro already marked Jon as the one to ask. None of the others complained. Perhaps something had happened when he was captured but now it was quite clear. Jon led this group.

“Nay, he will come to us when the time is right,” said Jon.

“I am sorry to ask,” said San’doro. His politeness sounded strange coming from a desert nomad. He addressed the Kal. “What happened to your mouth?”

“She happened to it,” said the Kal, turning to Vrenna. The warrior woman turned and looked away. “and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The Kal unbuckled the straps and dropped the iron jaw to the dirt. A deep cleft creased his chin. He smiled at them and the sight made Ca’daan’s stomach turn. The Kal’s lower jaw moved in two parts, each pulling up on the left and right sides of his face. His mouth formed a grotesque triangle.

“Gods,” said San’doro. The Kal picked up the plate and refastened it.

“I used to be the best pit fighter in Tog Veel. I had fought in two hundred and ten battles, fifty six of those to the death. I had everything I could want. Food, water, wine, women, and freedom. I was famous all over the western desert. Pit fighters from the Gazu Kadem pits traveled weeks across the desert only to fall under my club in two breaths. I had everything a pit fighter could want and I hated all of it.

“Each battle left me unfulfilled. Each beautiful slave queen I mounted made me want to cry. They meant nothing. Every man I put down left me empty. I had no wants and no purpose in my life. Then she came.” Kal nodded to Vrenna.

“It depressed me to first see her in the fighting pit. This is what it had come down to. All my life I strove to fell anyone they put in front of me and had succeeded in that. I was the best pit fighter in the western desert and this is what it got me, a novelty fight. They had taken a pleasure slave, given her a club, and sent her in against me. The audience wanted to see her struggle. They got aroused to see someone like me torment and beat someone like her. I was a joke.

“And then the gong rang and my life changed forever. I never even saw her move. I woke up a week later unable to talk or eat. I had forgotten most of that day but, with lots of time to think, I remembered the strike. I remembered how fast she was. She had feigned an attack with barely more than her eyes. It was a feint so perfect that I saw it as truth. It would have been easy to cry foul. I wasn’t ready for a real fighter when I saw her, I could have said, but that would have been a lie. If our battle had raged for the entire afternoon, the results would have been the same.

“My jaw was split in two, held together by my lips. I couldn’t talk for half a year. They wouldn’t be sure I could ever eat again much less fight. The slave girls I used to bed now fed me bread-ale and chewed meat and wiped drool from my useless lips. I was angry for a while but I found strength in that anger. I wasn’t numb anymore. I had to fight to even stay awake now. I had a lot of