Swords of the Six (23 page)

"Have you come far?" The innkeeper, a towel thrown over each of his narrow shoulders, drowned the mug in soapy water and pulled it out, drying it with one hand while his dark eyes remained on Ilfedo.

"No." Ilfedo watched a fly buzz onto an empty, used mug. "A few days steady riding. There are only half a dozen homes out there, not all are presently occupied."

The man finished cleaning the mug and shelved it on the wall behind him. "What brings you here? We don't get many people passing through. Too many rumors have spread concerning the creatures for which the Sea of Serpents was named.

"I've heard the serpents are growing bold, even entering human dwellings. A family north of here mysteriously disappeared. Their house was a disaster." He swallowed. "Folks are saying they were killed by a Sea Serpent."

Ilfedo didn't know if he believed the rumors. Yet he didn't doubt that they could be true. After all, hadn't his own parents been slain in cold blood by a wild beast?

"Where I'm from we don't have to worry about Sea Serpents," Ilfedo said.

"Ah! But I hear that people out your way tend to stick to the forests, live off the land. And I heard tell the first settlers had it real rough." He flipped the towel from his hand, throwing it over his shoulder.

"I heard that one young fellow's parents were killed—the Mathaliah family, I believe—by one of those man-hungry bears that wander round those parts—"

Ilfedo cut him off. "
Wandered
those parts . . . but not anymore."

"
If
," the innkeeper said, leaning against the counter, "and only
if
the stories are true."

In a tired sort of way, Ilfedo sighed. "What stories?"

"Stories of the young orphan lad, the last remaining Mathaliah whose parents were killed by one of those bears." As the innkeeper spoke his eyes lighted with eager retelling. "They say the lad personally visited every cave in the forests and slew every single one of those furry beasts that he could find. They say he came out of every encounter with the blood of the beast's heart dripping from his sword and never a scratch on his body."

Ilfedo inconspicuously lifted his hand, felt the small jagged scar at the base of his neck.
Almost
without a scratch.

"Anyway"—the innkeeper stood up—"such are the stories. Though few believe them, which is probably why so few choose to venture into the wilderness and even fewer settle there."

"More will come in time," Ilfedo said, rising from the elevated stool on which he'd been sitting. "But I, for one, am thankful for the peace and quiet the wilderness offers." He paused, cocking his head to listen to the cries of vendors in the streets outside, the whinnies of impatient or bored horses, and the clattering of carts wending down the narrow streets.

The innkeeper laughed and set his towels out of sight behind the counter. "Yes, I'll admit the noise can get on the nerves. It would be a nice change to live in the country, but . . . you learn to ignore"—he drew a circle in the air with his hand as if to encompass the activities outside his establishment—"all of this."

The man held up a bronze key and Ilfedo smiled back.

"Up the stairs, second door to your right." The innkeeper pointed past six round tables in front of the bar, his eye squinting. Steps rose into the dark second floor, flanked on the side by a rickety railing. "The bed's made. There's fresh water, and you'll find a lamp on the bedside table. If you need anything else just let me know."

With a slight bow, Ilfedo turned to the stairs. The long sword at his side clanked against his leg and he glanced back from the corner of his eye at the innkeeper's furrowing brow.

"Wait, please!" the man said, running up behind him. "The sword?"

Ilfedo twisted on the stairs, one foot on the step and his hand on the railing. "I use it for hunting."

Understanding dawned on the man's face. He held his hand almost to his mouth, then closed it into a fist. "
You
? You're the son of Ilinor Mathaliah? The stories . . . they're about you?"

"Good night, Sir." Ilfedo ascended the creaking steps, adjusting his black fur coat higher on his shoulders.

He found his room without difficulty in spite of the dim light shed by a grimy lantern hanging from the ceiling in the narrow hallway. The scent of oil hung in the air with unrelenting thickness. The door groaned into the room. He shut it after him and walked over to the simple four post bed, patting the coarse, brown sheets and fluffy white pillow.

Rays of sunlight spilled through the moderate amounts of dust hanging in the air. He followed the rays to their source: a twelve-paned window set low in the wall. It looked west over vast fields of nearly-ready-to-harvest corn to the line of white sand spread between the Hemmed Land and the Sea of Serpents. White crested breakers splashed gently onto the shore, retreating with ease to be replaced by other waves.

Five years
. He shook his head, struggling not to see in his mind's eye the faces of his parents on the night of their deaths. He shed his coat and hung it over one of the bed's posts, then unbuckled his belt, grabbing his sword's scabbard before it could fall to the floor.

A lot had happened in five years. He thought back to Jevnar, who had taken Ilfedo into his own home and sheltered him with his own son, Ombre. The man had treated him with kindness, and it had been with reluctance that he'd let Ilfedo move out and build his own home in the forest. Ombre too, had built his own place—only months before another of the dreaded man-killing bears killed Jevnar in his bed.

Ilfedo leaned his sheathed sword against the bed, letting his hand linger on the weapon's cool pommel. In his mind he paid a visit to the past, to the day he and Ombre had found the bear devouring "their" father. With a hatred he'd not known he was capable of, Ilfedo'd leapt onto the bear's back, driving his sword's blade again and again and again into the fat body until rivers of red blood ran across the cabin's wood floor.

Somehow, killing the beast drove Ilfedo to go alone into the wild woodlands. He'd hunted down and slain every last one of that abominable species that he could find. None remained to impede the settling of the wilderness his father had wished to tame.

He gazed out the window, leaning against the wall as he did so and crossing his arms. Yimshi, his planet's sun, turned from pale orange to red and then to a deeper red until he could see a couple spots on its setting disc. At last, it disappeared beneath the tree-covered horizon, its last few rays spread across the heavens, reflecting off the calm surface of the Sea of Serpents as light surrendered to the darkness of night.

When the first stars peeked through the velvety dome of sky, Ilfedo settled into the bed. The soft pillow compensated for the bed sheets scratching at his legs. He kicked off his boots and closed his eyes.

If tonight repeated the pattern he'd grown accustomed to over the past year, then he would again see
her
, but not her face. He didn't know if it was healthy—and he suspected it wasn’t—to look forward to seeing someone who existed only in his mind, only in his fantasy. But a part of him did not care. Though he had met several fine young women whose parents had tried to play matchmaker, he hoped to someday find someone uniquely charming . . . someone like the woman in his dreams.

* * *

The tracks of a deer led Ilfedo upstream through a haze of milky white light that seemed to pull him with invisible hands along the water's edge. Not a single sound penetrated the air. He could not even hear the wet ground sucking at his boots. He sniffed a whiff of . . . nothing. Anyway, it didn't matter. All that mattered was running along the stream's bank and reaching his destination.

Miles passed effortlessly beneath his feet, miles that brought him out of the forests of the Hemmed Land and into the Western Wood, a stretch of land west of his home territory untouched by humankind.

He followed the stream to a pool of water glistening in moderate sunlight and partially shaded by trees on all sides. A waterfall fell in silence over a face of smooth stone to a pool below. Ripples spread from where the water landed in the pool, building outward a series of watery half-rings breaking around olive-skinned legs, smooth as oil.

A feeling of ecstasy overpowered Ilfedo. The reflecting solar rays painted themselves on the young woman's legs. She held her silken skirt out of the water in one small hand, fingers clutching the fabric with the grace and strength of a swan. Her hair, dark and wavy, fell down her back almost to her waist. She was short of stature, yet all the more beautiful for it, and her purple dress clothed her like a queen.

He prepared to call out, to make her turn to see him there. If only he could see her face. But the scene evaporated like mist into utter darkness, and the dreams of ordinary men took her place.

* * *

The next morning dawned with a clear sky. Ilfedo rose early and sat on the edge of his bed, scratching his itchy legs. The floorboards felt warm under his feet. He listened to the flames crackling in the fireplace one floor beneath him.

He pulled on his boots, rose from the bed, stood in front of the window, and pushed against the glass panes. The window swung outward into the cool, refreshing morning air. Dragging his black fur coat off the bed's post along with his sword, he pulled it snugly around his shoulders. The coat weighed on his shoulders with comforting familiarity as he belted on his sword.

Smells of syrup on waffles drifted from below. Breakfast would soon be ready and Ilfedo smiled to himself. The empty pit of his stomach felt on the verge of a rumble. First he would eat breakfast, then he would gather supplies from his coastal countrymen and head home.

The morning light revealed mist-enshrouded cornfields beyond the town. To the left and to the right stretched a wall of tightly bound logs which, he knew from the previous day, fortified the town on all sides. Two gates—one by the inn, the other on the opposite side of town—were the only access points.

A small sailboat headed out to sea from the stone pier jutting from shore near the town, and he watched it with an unexplainable sense of foreboding. As he observed, a black tail stabbed from beneath the waves and slapped across the sailboat. Splinters the size of spears flew upward, then fell into the sea. Moments later, as witnesses on the pier ran screaming for town, the sailboat crumbled to the waves as a snakelike body raced amid the wreckage.

Suddenly a scream broke from the cornfields, high and terrified, riveting Ilfedo's gaze on an enormous black serpent head rising amid the stalks. A set of human legs struggled in the serpent's closed, beak-like jaws, then fell limp as the serpent clamped tighter.

Ilfedo sprang through the window, in his haste throwing himself over the town's wall. Over eight feet he fell, hitting the ground hard. But the wilderness had made him resilient. He rolled into the corn and stood, sprinting ahead through the rows of stalks rising a dozen feet from the ground like a close-growing forest.

The sword in its scabbard swung against his leg as he ran. Dew wetted his face. He swatted aside the long leaves blocking his view of the territory ahead.

He saw a clearing through the stalks ahead and slowed his pace. Forty feet of black snake slithered across his path. The serpent's head passed by without reacting to his presence, and he breathed relief.

But a gust of chilly breath struck his back. He spun around, reaching for his sword as he did so. Such was the speed with which he drew that sparks flew from the blade. The enormous fangs stabbed at him, he ducked to the side, and they gouged the ground where he'd stood.

Ilfedo lunged forward, piercing the creature's neck. Thick blue blood spurted from the wound. Again Ilfedo struck, this time carving away two feet of blubbery meat. As the serpent thrashed around, death overtaking it, he raised his weapon above his head and brought down the blade, severing the head from the body.

Nearby, in the clearing, three more serpents worked together, herding a cluster of farmers defending themselves with hoes and spades. The farmers struck back with their makeshift weapons, but they were too slow.

One serpent loosened its lower jaw, opened it wide and snatched a man from the bunch, swallowing him whole. Another serpent did likewise and the third followed.

Noticing an ax lying on the ground nearby, Ilfedo dashed over to it, picked it up, and sent it somersaulting through the air. The head stuck in one serpent's body. The creature opened its cavernous mouth in a hissing scream.

Ilfedo ran forward, ducking to avoid the other serpents flailing at him. Clutching his long sword in both hands, he slashed the wounded serpent's body, opening a portion of tender dark flesh to the elements. The creature shrieked. Its white eyes startled open as he struck again, jerking the ax from its body and used it to chop into its neck, ending its misery—ending its life.

"Now," he said, turning to the other serpents, "it's your turn!"

With the sword in his left hand and the ax in his right, he assailed the creatures. He took down one of them with a cut across its throat. The blue blood splattered over his face. For an instant he hesitated, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. During that moment the remaining serpent lashed out with its fangs, catching them on his shoulder.

Ilfedo felt the poison spread through his body. It flowed unhindered through his veins, immobilizing him. Through blurred vision and dulled senses he felt the serpent close its jaws over his entire body, its wet tongue whipped around his torso, pulling him into its throat.

No. No, he would not die like this! He forced his stiff limbs to move. He released his hold on the ax to grip the sword with both hands. Thrusting upward as he struggled to his feet inside the great mouth, he drove the blade into the creature's brain.