From Across the Clouded Range (59 page)

Despite that initial success, the
battle was far from won. The legionnaires were still outnumbered,
and they had already seen one hard fight this day. Jaret could tell
that their reflexes were not as sharp as they might be, and as the
guards recovered from their initial shock, they began to push the
legionnaires back. Several of the men in black fell or dropped back
wounded. The problem, Jaret realized, was that the guards were
doing exactly what a force of their type should do. They were
working as a single unit rather than a set of individuals, using
the weight of their numbers to strengthen the advantages of their
armor. They had formed an anonymous wall, shields raised, sword
slashing down over that barrier at whatever was in front of them.
And the legionnaires had no way of breeching that wall. They could
only block the blows raining from above and search for cracks that
no longer existed. Slowly, the legionnaires began to give room, and
Jaret saw potential disaster. The legionnaires were in danger of
being split, of being forced back into the walls at their backs
with nowhere to go and no way to use their advantages in speed and
training.

Jaret felt his heart tremor. Then his
mind cleared. He was still Imperial Warlord, and he would not lose
to Nabim an’ Pmalatir. If he could not stop the unspeakable horrors
he had witnessed, if he was going to be remembered for all time as
the traitor who brought down a two thousand year reign, he might as
well make the most of it, might as well use this tragedy to repair
his broken land. And the first step to doing that was to rid the
world of men like Nabim.

He examined the situation before him
with clear eyes, thought through the required maneuvers in a
heartbeat, and raised his hand in a fist above his head.
“Legionnaires,” he yelled. His well-trained battle voice easily
carried over the sounds of melee. "Formation! Squeeze and press,
close quarters!"

Before he drew the breath to repeat
the order, the legionnaires reacted. Contrary to all apparent
reason, they charged the guards, pressed shoulders to their
shields, pushed them back. They came in face-to-face with their
opponents, doing exactly what unarmored men should never do against
armor. As Jaret expected, the change caught the guards by surprise,
and they gave ground until they were crammed into a
shoulder-to-shoulder cube. From where Jaret stood on the dais, it
looked like the snake’s eye of a die with the silver men all packed
around one spot of gold.

The legionnaires strained to hold that
cube in check, pressed on despite trembling legs and mounting
injuries. Jaret knew that they could not hold the close quarters
for long. Soon the guards would recover from their shock, untangle
themselves, and cut the legionnaires to pieces, but he waited
nonetheless.

His hand went to a half-fist.
"Legionnaires! Archers disengage. Position center!" Another yell
and eight men broke from different positions in the outline of the
cube. The archers, many of them bleeding from slashes across arms
or legs, formed a single line in front of the throne with arrows
notched.

Jaret came down a step and spoke to
his men in a voice for them alone. "Fire upon release. You will see
the time. As many volleys as you can." He did not look to see if
the men had heard but saw their bows rise to the ready.

Jaret let another long moment pass. He
waited to see the guards eyes narrow, waited to see their surprise
turn into frustration and renewed determination. He waited for it.
. . .

His voice echoed over the sounds of
battle; his hand came open. "Legionnaires! Release and spread! Run
like hell!”

The legionnaires flew back from the
guards. The release and spread command was an instantaneous retreat
with no commitment. The men were to turn tail and run, and that is
exactly what they did. The cube that had been straining to expand
suddenly burst. The guards gave into their instincts and followed
whichever man had been in front of them. Their discipline was lost,
and they scattered to every corner of the room in
disarray.

When the legionnaires had drawn their
opponents from the door, they reengaged. This time they had room to
maneuver, could get to the sides and backs of the guards, and they
made the guards pay dearly for their zeal.

At that same second of release, the
archers fired into the exposed core of the guards. Thirty men
waited in that core, shocked by the explosion of the human walls
that had held them in check. In the time that it took those men to
deploy themselves, they were feathered with two volleys of arrows
that dropped a third of their number. When they finally did charge,
it was into the archers and the throne, leaving a single golden
shape behind to gawk as his plans unraveled.

Jaret looked for Nabim’s eyes,
expecting to see fear, but the fool was smiling, smiling as if the
battle were all but won. The expression was so preposterous that
Jaret surveyed the room again. The imperial guards were falling in
droves. They were scattered about the room with no chance of
reforming their lines, and the legionnaires were pressing their
advantage, using the space they had been given to attack the sides
and backs of the slow-moving guards. Still Commander Nabim wore an
arrogant grin.

Few things could disgust Jaret more
than a commander who smiled at the deaths of his men, so he strode
off of the dais, down the steps, and into the teeth of the battle.
He would wipe that grin off of Nabim’s face himself and ensure that
it never returned.

His sword appeared without thought in
his right hand. The dirk he held back-handed in his left. He
gripped them hard as he moved with deadly malice toward the golden
figure twenty yards away. A broad sword flashed at the corner of
his vision. He blocked it with his own, forced its owner’s arm up,
and planted his dirk in the gap at the pit of his arm. The guard
screamed as he fell, just another lost in the roar of battle. Jaret
pushed the man away, abandoned his dirk, and continued his advance
without ever lowering his eyes.

He closed slowly on the Commander of
the Western Peace and saw fear bloom in his eyes for the first
time. Seeing that fear, Jaret relished his advance all the more,
relished watching Nabim’s confidence crumble.

He dispatched another guard with a
series of three easy strokes and bent in the same motion to pluck a
second sword from the body of a fallen legionnaire. He did not
expect to need the second weapon, but he was equally good with each
hand and did not want to leave anything to chance.

Nabim seemed to shrink in his armor as
Jaret closed the gap between them. Even though his armor did
everything possible to make its owner appear larger – with a
vaulted helm, broadened shoulder guards, and platform boots – it
just made the man inside seem smaller. Jaret was not much taller
than Nabim or significantly broader, but he had always thought of
Nabim as much smaller than himself. Perhaps it was because of his
long nose, large ears, and weak chin, or maybe it was the delicate
hands that trembled as they held the well-polished, but never-used,
sword. Most likely, Jaret realized, it was because the man had such
a small mind, a mind that could not see past himself to the people
he hurt with his petty need for power. Now, that mind was learning
a new emotion, one foreign to pampered royalty. Commander Nabim was
learning the meaning of fear.

Jaret cut down two more guards to
remove Nabim’s final line of defense. Nabim brought the golden
sword up to defend himself. It required all his strength just to
raise it, and then it shook erratically. The sight made Jaret want
to laugh. He considered how to kill the pathetic fool, wondered if
he had the self-control to do it quickly. Then the unbelievable
happened.

A swirling black disk appeared out of
nowhere. After a heartbeat of motion, a tiny man in a black robe
stepped from the disk and positioned himself next to Nabim. The
disk and man were there so suddenly that Jaret took a step back and
looked around, wanting someone to confirm what he had just seen. No
one else appeared to have seen the event, and when he turned back
to his target, the hole in the air was gone, leaving only the small
man at Nabim’s side.

The new arrival was truly a small man,
standing a few inches below five feet. His small size was
accentuated by a curved spine and bent knees. His hands, which were
the only part of him outside the black robe, were white but not
wrinkled with age as Jaret had expected. They were young, delicate,
and nimble, probably never having performed a day of work in their
existence.

Hoping to find the man’s eyes, Jaret
looked deep into the shadows of his mighty cowl. What he saw there
was not like anything he had ever seen. At first he mistook the
man’s dark eyes for mad, but this man suffered from no madness. His
eyes held something far more frightening. In his eyes was
destruction, hatred, and an utter disdain for the order of the
world. If ever he were forced to define evil, Jaret now knew its
eyes.

The entire appraisal took only a
second, but Jaret felt like he was held by those eyes for an
eternity. When he was released, he took a step back and stumbled to
the floor. He felt as if he had been hit between the eyes, and he
reeled for several seconds before he remembered his intent. He
grabbed his swords from the floor where he had dropped them and
formed a new resolve. More than any other task in the world, he had
to kill that strange little man. If it cost him his life, he would
do it, and although it did not look to be a difficult task – the
man did not even appear to be armed – he somehow knew that it would
be very nearly impossible.

Jaret brought his eyes back up and
found the hunched man looking away toward the far side of the room
as if he did not exist. Nabim smiled broadly, inviting him to
advance. It was an invitation that Jaret was all too happy to
accept.

He sprinted the remaining steps to his
opponents with his swords ready to strike two different targets.
The final steps closed quickly, but neither of his opponents
offered the slightest resistance to the blows they must see coming.
This fact unnerved him, but Jaret could not change his approach. He
drove his left hand forward, prepared to feel it sink to the hilt
into the chest of the black-robed man as his right swept around to
catch the gap at the side of Nabim’s breastplate. Jaret’s eyes grew
wide with anticipation. His attack was destined to succeed. There
was nothing that either man could do to stop him.

At that same moment, the little man
acted. His hand came up like a snake, and an unseen force smashed
into Jaret, blocking his thrust and hurling him back onto the tiled
floor. He crashed hard, and the wind rushed from his lungs. He
reeled, gasping from the blow, but struggled to his feet
nonetheless and prepared for another charge.

As he came to his knees, pain hit him
with unspeakable intensity. It was like a bolt of lightning had
struck him. Every nerve in his body wailed. The swords slipped from
his hands, and he thrashed in agony. When the pain ended, what
seemed like hours later, he convulsed on the floor. His body
tingled as if it had fallen asleep from lack of blood. His arms and
legs would not move. All he could do was watch Nabim and his
henchman through hazy eyes as they walked the few steps to stand
over his twitching form.

The black-robed man looked down on him
with his terrible eyes. Through the cowl, Jaret could see his
delicate, almost feminine, features as they stretched into a
joyless smile.

“
Kill them,” Nabim ordered
from the other side, his nasal whine making Jaret’s skin
crawl.

The little man seemed to sigh as he
turned to the side of the room that Jaret faced. “You agree to my
masters’ terms?” the man asked with a soft, feminine
voice.

“
Yes, yes,” Nabim waved
his hand in annoyance. “I have already told you so. If you live up
to your end, I will gladly do as you wish.”

“
Very well,” the man said.
“I am at your command.” The man held out his hands. They appeared
to twitch beneath the long sleeves of his robe. A wave of calm came
over Jaret that he could not explain, and he watched the battle
before him with sudden disregard.

The legionnaires on that side of the
room were finishing the last of the guards and concentrating on the
effort. They never saw the sheet of fire that sprang from the tiny
hands of the black-robed man. Jaret’s emotions returned, and he
watched in horror as legionnaires and imperial guards alike were
incinerated by the wall of flame until nothing but ash remained on
that side of the room. The flames struck the far wall, and a wave
of heat leapt back all the way to where Jaret lay at the feet of
its source. Without any seeming regret, the man turned to the other
side. Paralyzed, Jaret did not have to witness the deaths, but the
roar of the flames, the screams, the wave of reflected heat told
him everything he needed to know.

“
Now lift him. I want to
look in his peasant eyes.” Nabim ordered. “Head over heels. Just
like that fool servant who tried to keep you from my estate last
week.”

“
As you wish.” Jaret found
himself lifted by some unseen force. He was held upside-down a full
five feet off the ground so that he was looking into Nabim’s eyes
only a few feet away. His arms hung limply by his head though he
begged them to strangle the sneering weasel before him and his
ghastly little henchman.