The Weapons Master's Choice Read online

  He waited as he heard her rummaging about, and then abruptly a small light flared and he saw that its source was a crystal she was holding. “This way,” she whispered.

  They crept down countless corridors deep into the interior of the complex, edging their way forward with the help of the crystal’s bright light. They passed dozens of doors and a handful of chambers open to the passageways they followed, but everything remained silent and empty. Once, they descended one set of stairs, and then shortly afterward climbed back up another. There were no lights anywhere. In a few of the corridors they passed down, windows closed over by heavy drapes and wooden shutters let in slivers of ambient light through cracks in the fabric and boards.

  When they heard the first murmurs coming from somewhere still far ahead, Lyriana stopped him where he was and backed him against the wall.

  “You must promise me,” she said, “that if your efforts to save my people fail you will not let me be taken alive.”

  He could barely see her face in the deep gloom—only the curve of one cheek, a burnished lock of auburn hair, a glint of bright eyes—so he could not read her intent in making this request.

  “I won’t fail,” he said.

  “I can’t let Kronswiff do to me what he’s done to the others,” she continued, almost as if she hadn’t heard him.

  He was taken aback by the intensity in her voice. “No one will do anything to you. Don’t even show yourself. Stay out of sight.”

  “You don’t know. You haven’t seen what happens yet. If you are killed, I don’t want to be left in his hands. If I am to die, I wish it to be on my own terms. That will not happen if Kronswiff takes me alive. Promise me!”

  He was stunned by the change in her behavior, as if simply the act of returning to Tajarin was enough to peel away the confidence she had displayed in coming to find him in the first place. There was real fear in her voice, and he was suddenly convinced there was something important she wasn’t telling him.

  He reached for her, intending to offer reassurance, but she shrank away instantly, just as she had at the start of their journey. “No, don’t,” she whispered so softly he could barely hear her. “Just promise me.”

  His hands dropped away. He felt a vague disappointment, but quickly brushed it aside with a small shrug. “All right. If it makes you feel better, I promise.”

  She started them down the corridor once more, still leading the way. As they progressed, the murmurs ahead grew louder and more distinct, containing recognizable words. Lyriana slowed, and he detected the beginnings of hesitation and uncertainty. He almost took her arm, but remembered her earlier reticence and held back. Better to let her do this alone.

  She did so, easing ahead through the darkness, tracking their way with the crystal’s glow. In only moments a fresh brightness shone ahead, the flicker of torches burning through the dark. The voices rose and fell, interspersed with laughter and shouts. It sounded like a party, like men gathered in a tavern to share drinks and tales of the road. Garet Jax felt a surge of adrenaline as he anticipated what lay ahead.

  But such was his conditioning that, for him, a sensation that would have made most men tense and even fearful instead had a strangely calming effect. He knew it well; it greeted him like an old, familiar friend.

  When they reached a stairwell branching off the corridor and leading upward, Lyriana turned into it. They climbed twenty steps to an overlook encircling the chamber below, then moved forward to where they could peer downward through gaps in the stone balustrades.

  The chamber floor was open and sprawling, and the torches generated more smoke than light, leaving the corners of the room layered in hazy darkness. A leather-wrapped settee sat atop a broad platform that dominated the center of the room, its brass-studded fastenings glimmering like cat’s eyes. Upon it reclined a large, corpulent figure wrapped in dark robes and laden with silver chains and pendants. The Het were gathered all about—some acting as guards, others simply watching the proceedings. They joked and laughed freely and seemed unconcerned if they were heard or not. The figure on the settee ignored them, round face flushed and sweating as he drained a tankard of ale and gestured for more.

  To one side, bodies lay piled in a wooden bin, collapsed like discarded dolls, arms and legs akimbo. Some seemed badly mutilated, and all had a strangely deflated look to them. Garet Jax counted at least ten, but there were likely others concealed by those he could see. As he watched, six of the Het shouldered the bin and carried it out of the chamber. They were gone for several long minutes, and when they returned they brought the bin back with them, empty and ready for further use.

  Garet Jax studied the figure reclining on the settee. The warlock, he assumed, but he took nothing for granted. Kronswiff? He mouthed the name to Lyriana, gesturing. She nodded back, her face rigid with fear. Watch, she mouthed back.

  While he waited, he counted the number of Het within the chamber below. He quit at twenty. There would be more beyond his sight lines, but hopefully not too many more. He would have to frighten off some of them. If they all came at him at once, he was finished.

  Or he could wait for the group to disperse, track the warlock until he found him alone—or at least with fewer Het surrounding him—and dispatch him more easily.

  A door opened to one side, eliciting shouts and cheers, and a clanking of chains announced the arrival of a prisoner. It was a woman, stooped and ragged, her head lowered as she was led into the chamber to stand before the warlock. The room settled into an uncomfortable silence as the corpulent figure rose slightly from his reclining position to study the woman, then gestured for the release. The chains fell away, but the woman never moved. She just stood there in a posture of hopeless acceptance.

  Kronswiff gestured again, this time with both hands, and the woman’s head snapped up so that their eyes met. She shivered violently, her body shaking as if from extreme cold, and she cried out in despair, her voice harsh against the sudden stillness. A strange line of darkness formed a link between the woman and the warlock, and the woman’s arms lifted in supplication, the tattered sleeves falling away to reveal flesh that already seemed desiccated and scabrous. She thrashed, her back arching and whipsawing, her cries becoming screams of horror.

  Lyriana had not lied about what was being done to her people. Kronswiff drained the woman’s life through the link he had formed between them. He fed on her until her body folded in on itself, her flesh sagged, her bones collapsed, and she fell to the floor and did not move again.

  Then two of the Het came forward, lifted the body by the arms and legs, and threw it into the empty wooden bin. Abruptly, conversation and laughter resumed, banishing the silence. Tankards of ale were hoisted and consumed. The woman was forgotten.

  Lyriana was looking at him with those knowing eyes, dark and anguished. He leaned close, his words softer than a whisper as he mouthed them. How long will this continue?

  She swallowed hard. All night. At dawn, Kronswiff will sleep.

  Of course. Kronswiff was a dracul; he fed at night.

  He is a monster, she mouthed.

  And dawn was hours away. By then, dozens more of the city’s populace might join the woman lying in the wooden bin. He would be forced to witness the draining process multiple times when just once was more than enough to turn his stomach.

  He looked down on the assembled enemy once more. So many. But sometimes you did what you had to do despite the odds. Sometimes you acted because doing anything else was unthinkable.

  Turning from the scene below, he backed from the railing to the balcony wall, beckoning for Lyriana to follow. When they were huddled in the shadows, he leaned close.

  “Wait here until I call for you,” he whispered. “If things go badly for me, go down the stairs and back out the way we came. Hide or flee, whichever seems best.”

  Her face hardened. Her voice was an accusatory hiss. “You promised you would kill me rather than let me be captured!”

  He shook his head. “I
cannot do what you ask. I cannot harm you. I need you to release me from that promise and save yourself. I will give you time enough to do so no matter how this goes.”

  “You are going down there right now?” She sounded shocked.

  “Would you have me do anything else?”

  She stared at him, and there were tears in her eyes. Then she reached up with her fingers to stroke his cheek. “Do what you have to. I release you from your promise.”

  He wanted to say something more. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel, how just her presence gave him pleasure, how much he wanted her to leave with him when this was over.

  But the words would not come.

  * * *

  He crept back down the balcony stairs on cat’s paws, feeling his way through the darkness to the corridor below and then moving toward the torchlight burning in the central chamber. He went quickly and smoothly, without hesitation or regret. He still harbored doubts about the secrets he knew Lyriana was keeping from him, yet what difference did they make now? A man like himself made his choices and stood by them. He might die tonight—just as he might have died countless other times in countless other places—but he would not do so out of cowardice or lack of determination. He might be outnumbered, but he was more skilled and experienced than any adversary he would ever face. They were Het—but he was the Weapons Master.

  He was at peace.

  He brought out a brace of throwing knives from their sheaths, moved toward the door to the chamber ahead, and stepped inside.

  They didn’t see him right away. Another victim was being led in, another food source for the warlock. This one, too, was bedraggled and marked by lesions and bruising. All eyes were turned in that direction, and he was through the door and lost in the shadows along the wall before even the closest of those who kept watch saw him coming. As the raucous shouts filled the air, he eased along the wall to where the gloom was deepest, placing himself directly across from the settee and the creature that reclined upon it.

  On the way, he passed two of the Het who were close enough for him to reach. He killed them both before they could make a sound and left them where they had fallen.

  But there were still too many for him to be able to overcome them all. He reaffirmed this, eyes sweeping the room, tallying up the numbers. He would have to kill the warlock first and hope the Het would lose heart when they saw that their leader was dead.

  Except the Het were not usually inclined to back away.

  When he was twenty feet from Kronswiff—the other’s attention centered on the unfortunate man standing before him—Garet Jax hurled the first knife. It appeared as if by magic in the warlock’s chest, the force of the blow knocking him backward. The warlock seemed confused, staring down at the handle protruding from his chest. One hand reached up tentatively to touch the knife, fingers exploring.

  Abruptly, he was on his feet, seemingly unharmed, eyes sweeping the gloom as he roared in fury. Het scattered in response, searching for the source of his rage. Belatedly, the Weapons Master remembered that knives alone were not enough. This was a dracul as well as a warlock and would only be killed if he cut off the head.

  Instantly he was moving, leaving the shadows and emerging into the smoky torchlight, racing for the platform and the monster.

  It is a common belief among men that everything slows in battle in a way that allows you to see events more clearly and to react as if the struggle is unfolding in slow motion. Garet Jax knew better. Instead of slowing, everything speeds up, and there is neither time nor opportunity to consider what is happening or to determine what should be done about it. You don’t stay alive because you make the right decisions; you stay alive because your reactions are quicker and your fighting skills better than your opponents’.

  So it was here. The Het came at him from everywhere, and he countered them with agility and swiftness. He used throwing stars until his supply was exhausted and then turned to his knives. He killed or disabled his attackers faster than they could act to prevent it from happening. He reacted on instinct alone, going through them like a shadow, barely visible, hardly there, leaving them fallen in his wake. He used his skills, his experience, and his strength; he never paused. His purpose was clear; his goal was settled.

  Reach the warlock before he could escape and kill him.

  Already Kronswiff was off the platform and lumbering toward the door through which his victims had been led, howling for the Het, his hands turned into claws that ripped the air. He might have more powers still, Garet Jax realized, and must not be given a chance to use them.

  He was close now, the Het ranks thinning, some among them already falling back. He was cut and slashed in a dozen places and felt none of it. His mind blocked out the pain and the distraction of the wounds. His attention was focused solely on the attackers who came at him. His throwing stars were already gone; only two of his knives remained.

  He pressed on, but the numbers were too great. He could feel the Het closing in on him. But miraculously, he stayed on his feet. Arrows and darts flew, yet none of them struck him. Blades whipped past, but never touched him. Any number of blows the Het struck at him should have been enough to bring him down, but none did so.

  He glanced upward to the balcony where he had left Lyriana and found her with her arms outstretched, her fingers weaving, her lips moving, her face intense with concentration.

  Magic! Lyriana is skilled at using magic, and she is deflecting their blows!

  He made the most of the opportunity she was giving him. Reaching for the short sword he wore strapped across his back, he whipped it out in a single fluid motion. Using it as a harvester of crops might use a scythe to cut wheat, he slashed at the men surrounding him. The room had descended into chaos, the Het howling and screaming in pain and fury, the warlock struggling to reach the door and an imagined safety that lay beyond.

  He caught up to Kronswiff there, hacking through the last of the Het that sought to stop him. Wheeling back in desperation, the warlock fixed his black eyes on his solitary attacker, employing his magic, attempting to form a link that would drain his life. For an instant, it was there, a dark ribbon hanging in the air, joining them.

  But Garet Jax was moving too quickly to allow the bonding to harden. Leaping onto the edge of the wooden bin and springing into the air, he rose above the warlock, twisting his body so that he led with his sword, descending like a bird of prey. He watched as Kronswiff stiffened, arms extended in an effort to save himself. But the warlock was already too late. The short sword whipped around with a strange whistling sound, severing both of his upraised hands at the wrists and continuing on to his exposed neck. Kronswiff’s head flew from his shoulders and disappeared into the shadows. His body remained upright for a moment longer and then sagged to the floor.

  Garet Jax landed on his feet, his sword streaked with blood. In a crouch, he faced the remaining Het, sweeping his blade in a slow arc from one adversary to the next in unspoken challenge. Then he howled like an animal—an impulsive earsplitting cry born of bloodlust and rage, his black-cloaked form spinning toward the Het as if heedless of the danger they offered.

  He was too much for them. He broke the last of their resistance, and they turned and fled into the gloom.

  * * *

  When he had recovered enough to call to Lyriana, she came at once. Amid the dead, a solitary pair in the blood-soaked chambers they had claimed, she would not let him move from where they stood until she had examined his wounds and determined none was serious enough to require immediate treatment.

  “You were a reaper’s wind,” she said to him, and he could read the wonder in her eyes. “You were death itself.”

  Her words made him uncomfortable. “And what of you? A magic wielder all along. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “My magic is small and of limited use. Mostly, I use it for healing. It would never have been sufficient to overcome Kronswiff.”

  “It worked against his Het.”

 
Her eyes lowered. “I was afraid for you. I had to act. I’m sorry for my deception. I should have said something.”

  Yet she hadn’t. Again, that twinge of suspicion tugged at him. “We should see to your people,” he reminded her.

  She led him through the door to where dozens of them had been held prisoner, waiting to sate the dracul’s thirst. They clustered in small groups, cringing when he appeared, afraid he was another demon to be faced, another threat. But Lyriana was quick to reassure them they were safe now, that this black-clad man was a friend and their rescuer.

  As she said these things, chasing the fear from their eyes, he noticed something strange. All of those who occupied the antechamber were suffering from grievous wounds. Their flesh was blackened and raw. Pieces of their faces and bodies were missing. Some walked with the aid of crutches and staffs. Some were cloaked entirely, and he could smell the sickness that had claimed them.

  “What’s happened to these people?” he whispered when she turned back to him, unable to keep the anger and disgust from his voice. “What has the warlock done to them?”

  He saw at once that he had said the wrong thing. Her face tightened, then collapsed. Tears came to her eyes.

  “Kronswiff did not cause this,” she said. “He took advantage of them because they were already this way.”

  He stared at her. “I don’t understand. How could they already be like this?”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “They are lepers, Garet Jax. They suffer from a disease that ravages their bodies. They are people who have been shunned by the world and have come to Tajarin to be with their own kind. They take refuge in a place to which no others have any wish to come. There were left alone until Kronswiff found them and decided to feed on men and women who could not stop him from doing so.”

  Lepers. Just the word was enough to send a shiver through him. Victims of a flesh-eating disease out of the Old World that had disappeared for a time, but resurfaced as these things often do. He had heard of it—heard of colonies formed of those unfortunates who had contracted it and were forced to flee from the larger world to places like this one so they could live out their days in relative peace.