EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (12 page)

Ezekiel nodded and knocked on the wooden bench in a nervous tic before getting up.

“So,” he said, standing and stretching, “how about some dinner?”

She grinned. “I think we have some boxes to unpack first. Besides, at least one of us needs to stay here to guard the artifacts.”

“Yeah, true,” he admitted, crestfallen.

“Which means
you
should be going to get the food,” she said.

He nodded. “What do you want?”

“Whatever the tavern next to the fishery is serving,” she said, fumbling for her coin pouch.

He nodded and waved her off when she tried to hand him a few coins. “I’ve got it. It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done today.”

“Thanks.”

“Besides,” he said with a grin as he backed out of the door, “it
is
your first day on the job, after all.”

“And second to last,” she shouted as he exited.

When the warehouse was empty except for her and a bunch of artifacts, she looked around.
 

“Better check the interior perimeter,” she murmured to herself. She did a quick jog around the sides and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Staring at the new shipment in the front, she checked the balance of her sword on her back just in case, and then grabbed the crowbar to pry each crate open. With her own strength, careful to not use even a hint of her battle magic, she pried the top off of each crate. She had used her gifts before because she
had
to. To shift the weight of the crate off Ezekiel and get the heavy box to the floor without damaging the contents inside. Cormar seemed to expect it as part of her job after all.
 

They were packed to the brim with straw, and she couldn’t see any of the ten new artifacts that they supposedly held.
 

Setting the crowbar down, Sara went to the heavier crate first. She was careful to remove the straw from the top section-by-section and set it aside until she could see the five objects nestled in the depths. They didn’t look like anything remarkable and there was no shipment manifest that she could see. To her practical eye, the most useful object was a ship’s oar finished in dark teak. A very expensive wood from the isles, and one she wouldn’t expect an oar to be made out of. But she didn’t pick it up. She didn’t pick
anything
up. She remembered Ezekiel’s caution the first time around when she’d asked about the warehouse’s artifacts. If one little statue could turn her to stone, she hesitated to think what these new ones could do.

Sara turned to look at the contents of the other crate when she heard the door open behind her. “Back so soon?”
 

She was speaking to Ezekiel, and out of reflex she had gripped the tip of the sword sheath that sat at a sixty-degree angle on her back, the handle poking out just above her left shoulder. Gripping the hilt allowed her to steady the weapon and draw the sword at a moment’s notice. And she was very glad she had.

Because from one moment to the next, she heard the
whoosh
of a sword carving through the air—straight for her neck. Sara ducked and rolled. As she came up on her feet with a bounce in her step, she drew her sword and faced her enemy. Three people had come into the warehouse. All three carried swords and every single one’s face was covered. They were big and brawny enough, though, with their forms outlined in black leather, that she knew they were men.

Sara didn’t speak. There was no point. It was clear they were after one of Cormar’s treasures and just as clear they would kill her to get it. Silently, she ran at the first and didn’t even bother exchanging blows. She cleaved that person into two without any effort. The body fell behind her and she watched warily as she stood between the two remaining thieves. Sword upraised, Sara prepared to take them on.

They didn’t waste any time and came at her in unison. The one on the left lowered his sword to strike a death blow while the second came in high to distract her from her opponent.
 

Frustrated, Sara ducked closer to the one in the left, reached out, and kicked him with a burst of battle strength that sent him flying across the room. It wasn’t enough to kill him. Just enough to get one opponent out of her hair while she dealt with the other one. Turning with a harsh grin, Sara put her remaining opponent on the defensive. She came up with a cross-slash that was inches from his chest before he jumped to the side and she was forced to turn to keep him in her sights. Their swords met again and again as they danced across the room. She heard her other opponent rise up before long and hoped she could finish this one off before the other engaged with her.

Dancing forward, Sara feinted right to trick her opponent into leaving his side open to her blade. It didn’t work. She started to gain some respect for this one. He was smart. But not smart enough. She saw eagerness flash in the man’s eyes as he pressed forward. That together with the almost silent steps she heard behind her told her they were trying to trap her between them.
 

Sara quickly dove to her left, out of range of both of their swords, and ended up on the ground with her back to the crate. One opponent was coming from her left. The other from her right. She caught the blade of her opponent on the right with her upraised sword in a jarring clang that had both of their hands vibrating from the clash. But she couldn’t stop the sword on her left with an already occupied blade. So she surged up and twisted at lightning speed using her gifts. She knew she was using too much battle magic, but she had no choice.

 
Slipping her sword out from under the other, she managed to bring up her blade as her opponent fell forward. It didn’t really matter whom she killed first. So, with a yell, Sara cut off the head of the opponent who now stood on her left and turned immediately to face the remaining one. For a moment they stared at each other, then both started running straight toward the other with swords extended horizontally in front of their bodies. Without stopping, she jumped over his sword aimed at her chest and front flipped in the air. By the time she had turned, he was already turned around, and coming at her again. He was too close for a sword fight. So she bounced straight up and grabbed for his hair, intending to bring him to his knees. Her hand grabbed the face mask on his head instead and tore it off in her descent.

Damn
,
I forgot he was wearing that
, she thought.
 

It only made her madder. She whirled again and grabbed a head of hair before he could get away. With a wrench of her arm that made her wonder if she had dislocated it, she yanked him around so fast that they had moved in a circle before he realized it. With a scream, she thrust his face forward until it connected with the sharp corner of the crate. Heaving up twice more and slamming it back down assured the end of her final opponent.

She dropped his smashed head with an exhausted sigh and let go of her battle magic. She was still on edge, but not over it.

Then the door banged open and Sara whirled around with blood all across her clothes, her sword hilt clenched in her fist, and a look of fury on her face.

Ezekiel stood in the center of the room. Astonishment written in the lines of his face as he gasped. “What in the seven devils happened to you?”

“What do you think?” Sara said as she let the point of her sword rest on the floor for the first time since she’d removed it from its sheath.

Chapter X

T
WO
PLATES
OF
HOT
FOOD
steamed in his hand as Ezekiel took in the bloody mess with his mouth agape. Three bodies in various conditions met his eyes. An upper torso lay against one crate comically, arms splayed as if he was trying to raise himself up. A head had rolled close to the doorway and the face of one man had been completely obliterated. He gulped, put down the food, and quickly said, “Excuse me!”

As Sara watched, emotions dulled, he ran back the way he came and threw up outside while standing just inside the doorway. She heard his wretches from where she stood. That and the smell of the fish stew he’d brought effectively snapped her out of her blood haze. At least enough to get her mind to calm down as it recognized Ezekiel as a non-threat and everyone else as dead.

Sara watched curiously as Ezekiel walked past the plates of food to the cot where she was supposed to sleep. He ducked his head with a splash into a large barrel standing nearby and came up quickly with his head soaking wet.

Dripping, he turned around.

She said, “Feeling better?”

“A little,” he admitted.

“You realize that’s the water we’re supposed to drink out of, don’t you?”

 
He turned to look at it and back at her. “Sorry. Shock.”

“You’re refilling it.”

He nodded still dripping as he looked around. “Tough business, being a watcher.”

“It’s a tough life no matter what you do,” she said quietly.

He looked at her. Trying to keep his eyes from wandering to the pieces of body littered around the warehouse. She could tell because he would flinch every time he caught sight of one.

“Never seen a dead person before?” she asked.

“Not like this,” he said with a shudder. “If Cormar tore pieces off of someone, he would do it privately.”

She nodded. She could understand his shock, then. She’d been seeing pieces of bodies scattered to the wind since she was a toddler and her father fought in the arena. When she’d come of age, she’d started practicing with her own practice dummies, then trainers, then human partners, and finally simulated kills with pigs before she’d been picked to do the real thing in the militia training corps.

“Well, tell you what,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and…um…I’ll try not to faint at all the bloody corpses.”

Before she could speak, he hurried to say, “I mean…I would help you clean up. It’s just…”

“The sight of the bodies makes you faint,” she said wryly. It was a common excuse from her friends outside of the training school when growing up.

That or,
“Eww,
why are you covered in blood?”

He nodded.

She said, “Its better if I clean up these bodies first, then.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“There’s no point in rinsing myself of blood if I’m going to get drenched in it anyway.”
He gulped and nodded.

“But first I’ll take care of my weapon,” she said as she moved the sword that rested like an extension of her arm. Grabbing a cloth from a work bench she came to the bucket and wiped it down with some water. Making sure no trace of her opponents rested on the blade or hilt, she sheathed the sword.

Then she grabbed the legless torso with a grunt. Heading out the door, she said, “Don’t think me using that water gets you off the hook for refilling that barrel,” she said.

“Of course not!”
 

She heard the guilt in his voice.

Coming out to the cliff overlooking the sea, Sara halted for a moment. She took stock of her senses and her surroundings. The smell of blood rose in her nose, the heaviness of the corpse in her arms made them cramp, and the stiff sea air blew across her face, which stung from cuts she’d endured in the fight. With a grunt, she threw the torso over the cliff wall. “So long.”
Then she did it again and again and again, until every piece and body part had been removed from the warehouse.

When she came back inside, she saw a pale-faced Ezekiel scrubbing the blood off of the floor.

She stopped and said, “You didn’t have to do that.”

He avoided her eyes. “The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can eat.”

A practical man. She liked that.

Without another word, Sara got down on the floor alongside him and scrubbed.

By the time they finished, her hands felt cramped and she could tell with a glance that Ezekiel’s soft skin had been rubbed raw.

“Help me dump it,” she said as she walked over to their water barrel. “We’ll go together to the well and refill it in the morning.”

He nodded as he came over.
 

She glanced into the barrel and quickly away. The stew of dirty water, blood, and bits of body parts reminded her too much of what she had just done. She didn’t regret killing those men; after all, they would have killed her. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be reminded of it.
 

With a grunt, she and Ezekiel hoisted the barrel up and placed it on the wheeled mover’s cart that rested nearby. Both of their hands guiding it, they walked the barrel outside.

When they came back in, she dug into her fish stew with gusto. Ezekiel was more hesitant, but even he dug in when his stomach growled loudly enough for her to raise an eyebrow.

“So what was it this time?” he asked as he finished.

“This time?”

“The thieves—what did they want?”

“They didn’t say,” she said shortly. “But I know this—Cormar owes me double for what I’ve been put through in just one day.”

He snorted. “Good luck in getting it out of him.”

“Well, he did say you were in charge of payment.”

He shook his head wryly. “He’d kill me the moment he learned I gave you one shilling more than he said.”

Cormar will probably kill you anyway
, she thought silently.
The man doesn’t have the greatest respect for anyone and he particularly dislikes you. Besides, no matter how useful you are, psychopaths like that don’t tend to be reasonable.

The thought unsettled her. But Ezekiel was a grown man, one who could make his own decisions. He’d gotten himself into this contract with Cormar and he could get himself out.

“So how about some cards?” Ezekiel said as he sat back.

She stood up abruptly. The feeling of camaraderie the gesture exhibited was too much. Even if she wanted to accept his offer, she had a rule: Don’t become friends with dead men walking.

“Or, you know, we could do dice.”

She sighed in irritation. “Neither. Let’s just unpack the artifacts and call it a night.”

“Whatever you say,” she heard Ezekiel murmur as he went to put the plates by the door.