Beyond the Bulwarks Page 5

  “Actually,” she said, “we’d call it anarchy.”

  Something about her tone, a patronizing echo of words he’d heard uttered by primped men in fine robes bordered with Patrician red, rankled him. “It can be dark and cruel, but in its blundering way, it’s freedom.”

  “I suppose.” A challenging fire lit her eyes. “It’s freedom in the way of nature. But nature is unforgiving. It cares nothing for the weak, the infirm, the old, or for the higher expressions of man; art, knowledge, science, or a sense of self...”

  “...or for taxes, riots, laziness,” Anzo shot back, “the perfidy of Emperors.”

  Varya met his gaze, jaw clenching. “You’d prefer this?”

  Anzo opened his mouth to snarl but relented. He gave the fire another jab. “I didn’t say that.”

  Logs tumbled in on one another, coals sputtering, and Anzo threw on more deadfall. The morning call of birds had stilled. Sunlight shafted through the canopy, going white in the haze of wood smoke.

  “So, tell me how we get to this center of power,” Varya said in a clinically detached tone.

  “Like it or not, strength is what passes as law, here.” Anzo glanced about to avoid looking at her. Below their perch, a bush stirred though there was no breeze. With a prickling across his skin, he cast his stick into the fire and drew Enu’s blade slowly, set it across his lap. “All things support it, the food grown in the villages, the work of artisans, the spoils from banditry, and anything else you can put a price on—including information. To get us near any of those things means I have to make a reputation.”

  An incredulous smile wrinkled her features. “You intend to become a warlord?”

  “Not exactly.”

  The bush stirred again. A patch of sunlight caught a flutter of motion. In the stillness that had gripped the morning air, something hissed. Rock crackled from the other side of the hillside. Undergrowth rustled.

  Anzo stood and flexed his shoulders, limbs getting light as awareness flooded his skull into cool, familiar clarity. “I have to draw the attention of a warlord, ingratiate myself into his band.” He gave the saber a slow swing. Varya’s smile fell, her brows knitting as she watched him swing the blade again, hard. “You will find,” he said to her, “that infiltrating these people is a balancing act of sorts, between restraint and outrageousness.”

  Something fell below the crest of their rise, followed by a soft grunt as rubble slid downhill. Varya’s eyes widened. “Anzo...”

  “I know.” His teeth bore into an expression that could not be called a grin. “It’s a small group, maybe half a dozen.”

  She rose, grimacing at the flames. “Our fire. I told you it wasn’t necessary. By Thoth, we’ve probably been seen for miles!”

  “As I was hoping.”

  She looked up at him in shock. “You meant for them—”

  “Quiet.” Motion flickered all around. “No more Aurridian from here on. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “How’s your Vhurrian?”

  “I understand...a little.”

  Gods, what the hell did they send you here for? He shook his head, gave the saber another testing stroke. “All right. Just don’t speak unless necessary.”

  A figure stepped from behind a tree below them. The man had little armor, only a vest of boiled leather over a ratty brown tunic, and a sword badly notched and blackened from lack of proper care. He might be in his early middle age, dirty blonde mane and beard streaked with the beginning of gray, but a form wasted by hardship and scar tissue knotting about a furious visage made the determination difficult.

  Six other shapes blurred into sight in a ragged circle around the low hilltop, feral blonde and red-haired mirrors to the first, though the rest wore only tunics and inexpertly-patched leggings. They brandished cudgels or spears, one massive youth in only an animal skin top carrying a hammer improvised with a granite head.

  Relief mixed with currents of adrenaline as Anzo eyed the party. Their poor gear and poorer condition marked them as independents, probably unallied with any greater canton that would have seen warriors properly outfitted. Maybe some of Enu’s luck had come with his sword.

  “Ho, mighty heroes!” The words came slowly at first as Anzo’s mother’s tongue returned to him. “It is by Orkall’s grace that I have lucked upon so great a company!”

  Eyes glimmering with desperation, hunger, and hatred answered him in silence. The first man to appear, the leader it seemed, advanced uphill slowly, the circle of his comrades following, closing in. Varya stood close to the fire, eyes scanning about frantically. Her right hand worked at something. A curious purple flicker limned the campfire’s flames.

  Anzo met the leader’s gaze. “We are wanderers, seeking a fire hall and a Lord with whom to share wine, tales, and glory.”

  Their inexorable advance was their only response. Anzo let the saber settle across his front, point down near his left foot. “I have returned to these lands, hungering for a place amongst my people anew, drawn by word that the hated Moravians—” he spat for effect “—no longer hold these lands in thrall.”

  The leader stopped a couple sword lengths away. “You speak of the Moravians,” he growled. “More likely, you are one of them!”

  The man erupted at Anzo, sword leading in a thrust for his midsection. Anzo slashed upwards, parrying the strike and the over-committed barbarian to his right. A follow up kick to the back of the man’s knee crumpled him, opened his lolling head up for the crack of Anzo’s pommel to his temple. He hit the earth with a stunned huff and a felled tree’s looseness.

  A second Vhurr careened from Anzo’s left, driving a spear tipped with soft, deformed iron before him. Anzo pivoted on his heel into a chop that caught the weapon’s shaft and drove its point harmlessly into the dirt. The man’s eyes widened in realization before Anzo’s return thrust drove the saber up through his ribcage into his heart. His face, still rigid with frenzy, had yet to register pain.

  A third barbarian’s cudgel whistled for Anzo’s head. He ducked and the blow crashed into the impaled Vhurr’s slackened face in a spatter of blood and teeth. Anzo skipped back a step, yanking his saber free with the motion. The body dropped, fouling the third Vhurr’s recovery and the barbarian swung wildly to clear his right flank. Anzo sidestepped and slashed low, opening the man’s neck in a plume of gore.

  Varya screamed. The remaining four Vhurrs boiled over the hilltop, one casting aside his weapon to grapple with her while his fellows raced for Anzo. The huge brute with the hammer leapt over the campfire and came at Anzo with a bellow that shook birds from the treetops, his monstrous weapon already halfway into a skull-pulping swing.

  Anzo met the stroke, his saber aiming for the joint below the hammer head. But the lovingly-polished handle didn’t give way before Imperial steel. The impact of the blow crashed through Anzo’s arms, travelled into his shoulders to bend back his body and send him slamming to the earth. The monster landed on top of him, a knee bludgeoning the air from Anzo’s chest. Spots burst across Anzo’s vision as he fought for air. The Vhurr wrenched upright to raise his hammer for the killing strike.

  The hilltop clearing exploded behind him in purple-white brilliance that cast hard shadows and dazzled the eyes in lightning-strike afterimages. The campfire belched skyward on a momentary shaft of hell that bent trees and jolted brush to the ground like a gale blast.

  The barbarian over Anzo buckled forward, blinking in shock and pain. Half-blind but guided by instincts borne of too many close calls, Anzo thrust for the youth’s center of mass. The huge boy’s eyes bulged, a groan of shock escaping cracked lips as the hammer fell from quivering hands, and he folded over the blade in his belly.

  Anzo scrambled to his feet, rubbing tears from his eyes and laboring for breath. The brute’s mass had knocked out his wind but saved his vision from the worst of the glare. Without looking at the boy’s face, he pulled the saber free, left the Vhurr to crumple. He stalked uphill, his arms trembling, pa
in already spreading in a hot wave across bruised ribs. The campfire, settled back into a glimmering mass of coals, hissed and popped, its mundane racket a maddening contrast to the Vhurrian youth’s rising warble of agony.

  Varya stood unsteadily, brushing dirt from her tunic, continuing to brush reflexively even when it was clean, her face a mask of shock and disgust. The man who’d attempted to grab her writhed on the ground, wailing as he tried to bat out flames still sputtering across patches of tunic on his back. One of the other Vhurrs stumbled backwards from the fire and jolted into a tree, eyes blank, club falling from a nerveless hand. The last Vhurr could be heard screaming in terror as he fled down the opposite hillside.

  The leader of the party groaned and began to rise. Anzo kicked him over and set his saber point to the man’s throat. Blood drooled in a thin line from the huge knot above his temple but his eyes focused after a moment.

  “Call them off.” It probably didn’t need saying, but giving voice to his command of the situation reassured Anzo.

  The leader squeezed his eyes shut once and opened them again, surprise warring with defiance. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a man looking for a chieftain to follow.” Anzo glanced about. The Vhurr sagged against the tree hadn’t moved, though his gaze now rested upon Anzo. The singed barbarian had extinguished his back but apparently hadn’t made the choice to get up. Varya scooped up his cudgel when his eyes darted that way.

  “However,” Anzo continued, “if this is the best I can expect from folk such as you, perhaps I should continue my search elsewhere.” He pushed the saber tip under the man’s chin, birthed a grunt as skin dimpled and blood welled. “Now, who are you?”

  “Vengess,” the leader hissed. “We are of the Flinarr. Our chieftain is Greaus.”

  “Flinarr?” Anzo tried out the name in his mind. “The Stone Folk? You don’t seem made of such stern stuff to me.” He chuckled and released the pressure on the sword. “Get up.”

  The man sat slowly, wobbled. Anzo strode to the fire and retrieved a rag from his pack, wiped his saber clean. The man by the tree seemed to recover and scampered to his burned companion’s side, began helping him to his feet. His eyes still on them, Anzo whispered to Varya, “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” The cudgel looked ridiculous in her hand but she clung to it with white-knuckled intensity.

  “What the hell was that? The fire, I mean?”

  “The Second Circle,” she replied. “I told you...power over the Elements.”

  Anzo nodded. “Don’t do that again.”

  “It saved your—”

  “Don’t.” He glared down her protest. Turning, he scooped up his sack and handed it to her. A flicker of outrage lit her eyes before she averted them and accepted the burden. The saber stayed in Anzo’s grip as his stare remained on the Vhurrs.

  The leader, Vengess, sagged a bit with his bruised head in one hand. The others trudged downhill to the bloody tangle of their other comrades. One knelt beside the throat-slashed Vhurr.

  “They’re dead,” Anzo barked.

  “What about...” Vengess swayed to his feet. “What about Heathen?”

  The gut-stabbed youth had curled into a fetal ball, his moans going shrill as one of his comrades tried to touch him. The singed barbarian looked at Vengess and shook his head.

  “How far is it to your settlement, Flinarr folk?” Anzo brought the saber up to rest on his shoulder, forcing a smile. “I would like to meet this Greaus.”

  Vengess turned to him, the glimmer of the saber reflected in his eyes as unconcealed hatred. He knelt beside his fallen sword, his gaze never leaving Anzo’s, and picked it up. Anzo offered him no challenge, let the corpses and Vengess’ own wound speak for themselves. “We dwell on the far side.” Painfully, he nodded eastward to the gloomy rise of the foothill beyond.

  “Then let’s be going.”

  “What about him?” The singed barbarian gestured at the fallen youth.

  “The young fool has failed Orkall’s Test.” Vengess snorted. “It serves him right for listening to that Aurridian priest’s foolishness.” He started towards the wounded boy, adjusting his grip on the battered sword.

  Varya’s hand clenched Anzo’s arm. “You can’t just let him...”

  “Shut up.”

  “Anzo Severnus, you must stop this.” Finger nails bit into his flesh. “Stop him or I will.”

  He looked her in face, a snarl ready, but the blaze in her eyes was more than anger, was the glint of purple fire he’d seen the instant before the campfire blossomed into otherworldly power. He wrenched his gaze away. “Stop!”

  Vengess paused over the boy and looked back at him.

  Anzo yanked his arm free of Varya’s grasp and gestured at the Vhurrs with his saber. “You two, carry the boy.”

  “That’s a mortal wound.” Vengess shook his head. “Better to give him a quick path to his weakly Aurridian God—” he spat “—and let the worms have their due.”

  Anzo’s face hardened. “Carry him, or the worms might have their due with you.”

  Vengess bristled but a quick glance at his comrades showed no support. A furious gesture set the others to levering the huge youth to his feet over squeals of pain.

  The strange party started down the hill, Anzo at the rear with Varya trailing behind. “Thank you,” she whispered at his back.

  He didn’t trust his voice or rage yet for a response.

  “What of Urvus?” one of the barbarians carrying the wounded boy asked between labored breaths. Anzo could only assume the question concerned the Vhurr who’d fled into the woods.

  “Either he’ll find his head and get back to us,” Vengess replied, “or the Old Mother will find him and have herself a party.”

  Vhurrian laughter rang through the tree tops, rich with the disdain of feral children done torturing a fly. Though she said nothing, Varya drifted closer to Anzo.

  He wouldn’t have admitted to her, but he was glad.

  Chapter Four

  Caves of the Dying

  The lair of the Stone Folk fitted its people, a crag of sandstone overlooking a narrow gorge, honeycombed with cave openings that gave it the appearance of a skull badly-holed by worms. A creek split just above the prominence, forming twin waterfalls that framed it like a hag’s whitened locks. The crash of the falls, plummeting into the shadowy depths of the valley, had been obvious to Anzo’s little party as they ascended the heights of the foothill, building to a roar that enveloped them every bit as much as the haze rising in plumes from the defile.

  With Vengess in the lead, the group topped the spine of the hill and started down the opposite side, which fell away sharply, trees thinning out, some clinging to the raw cliffs by meager tangles of root. A bridge of stone, whittled to a harrowing, single-person width by ages of erosion, stretched from the sheer side of the ravine to the lower face of the crag, the only real approach, it seemed, save braving the rapids and falls above.

  Anzo noted movement in the caves as Vengess stepped out on to the bridge and paused with the fall crashing down to his right, bathing him in mist dashed to rainbows by midday sun. Shouts passed from opening to opening above. Thudding that might have been a maniac pattern hammered on a drum was nearly lost in the falls’ din.

  “What’s this, friend?” Anzo stepped forward to the Vhurrs still cradling the wounded boy between them and prodded the one singed by Varya’s magic in the buttock with his saber.

  The man jumped and muffled a curse behind ground teeth. “He’s letting the guards see him. Otherwise, they could be letting an attack through.”

  On the far side of the rock bridge, a knot of armed men appeared from a cave mouth. One’s battered steel cap, leather corselet reinforced with strips of iron, and naked sword made him some figure of importance. He seemed to be arguing with the others. Vengess had his back to Anzo, but he was skinny enough that Anzo could see him doing something with his hand.

  Sneaky son of bitch... Anzo set the point of hi
s sword against the base of the singed barbarian’s skull. “More likely, your pal is setting us up.” He gave the weapon a gentle push, pricked the man’s scalp and caused a whine of discomfort. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Probably,” the wounded youth groaned. “Vengess is a coward.”

  “Shut your mouth, Heathen!”

  Anzo rapped the singed man’s skull with the flat of his saber. “You shut up!” He gave the boy a gentle prod. “All right, you, since you’re being so helpful: what happens next?”

  The boy sagged a bit between the other men, his face beaded with sweat and ridged with pain. Anzo’s blade had certainly perforated the gut, maybe entered the stomach. If that was the case, his life could be numbered in hours—agonizing ones, at that. Vengess’ form of mercy might have been callous—even horrifying—but it may also have been the most humane.

  “There’ll be a spearman above,” the lad moaned. “Vengess will wave you across and hurry ahead. When you reach the narrow part the spear flies. Even a miss—” he winced and gripped at blood drooling from his belly “—even that and you fall.”

  “Well, thanks friend.” Anzo chuckled. “Though, I’ve got to question your motives. Most folk I’ve pig-stuck want to stick back.”

  “I have...” through pain, the lad exchanged glares with his comrades “...reasons.”

  “I ought to drop you—” The singed barbarian began.

  “Hey!” Anzo cracked him over the skull again. “That’s my new friend you’re talking about.” He looked over his shoulder at Varya, noted that she still had the cudgel. He winked and her eyes widened in horror. “Now I think I’ll join my friend, Vengess,” he said. “I know it’ll be hard for you, but try not to be heroes while I’m gone.”

  Without chancing a response from Varya—in Aurridian or however—Anzo stepped from the trees and out onto the bridge. He didn’t look down as he strode across, hobnails screeching for a grip on slick rock, didn’t allow himself to think of how he’d be little better than the water droplets hissing by on their way a thousand feet to the bottom if he slipped.