Weapon of Flesh (19 page)

“I’ll double it!” Forbish cried, trying to think of anything to save his daughter.

“Double, triple, it don’t matter, Fat Man.  You broke the rules.”  He nodded to his men, and then at the kitchen door.  “Lets go someplace where we can discuss this private, like.”

Forbish, Wiggen and the terrified serving woman Josie were pushed and prodded through the kitchen, tap room and finally into the storeroom.  There, the hulking creature who held Forbish bound his hands and tied them to a hook that supported sacks of onions from the ceiling in the corner.  The women were held, and Urik brandished his dagger, pacing the floor and chuckling dangerously.

“Nice thick stone walls in here.  Good.  We’re not likely to disturb the neighbors.  Now Forbish, I’ll let you choose which of these lovely young ladies we’re going to entertain first.”  He flipped the knife, a foot-long, double-edged fighting dagger, and spun it in his palm expertly.  “Your daughter, or your employee?”

“Damn you, Urik!”  Forbish struggled, but every move threatened to dislocate his shoulders.

“Oh, you want
me
to choose.  How kind.”  He strolled to Josie and leaned close with a predatory smile.  “I think the serving wench first, then.  That way the girl can see what’s in store for --”

Josie spat in his face.

“Filthy cow!”  Urik’s dagger swung in the dim light, but it was the hilt, not the blade, that impacted upon Josie’s temple.  The woman collapsed, sagging in the grasp of her captor.  Urik wiped his face and waved the woman away as if she could respond.  “Let her rest for a while, Baral.  I’m sure she’ll wake up before we’re finished with the good innkeeper’s young daughter.”

Baral dropped Josie in the corner.  She landed like a sack of grain, utterly senseless, blood oozing from the shallow cut on her temple.  Urik turned to Wiggen and the girl’s struggles redoubled, even to the point where she broke one arm free and flailed at her captor.

“That just won’t do, Tomi.  Let Quegul hold the girl.”  He brandished the knife as Wiggen was handed off to the hulking half-ogre.  Hands closed on her arms like iron manacles and all her struggles didn’t affect the brute’s grip in the slightest.

“Now...”  He stepped forward and put the tip of his dagger under Wiggen’s nose.  “Hold still while your daddy learns why he mustn’t break the rules any more, Lassie.”  Without pause, he gripped the neck of her dress firmly in his free hand and jerked, tearing the material open to the waist.

Wiggen’s scream rose on the air like a dying bird, piercing and horrible, and it broke her fathers heart as surely as if a knife had been thrust through it.

“NOO!” Forbish wailed, wrenching forward against his bonds, heedless of the pain.

“Oh, so much over so little?”  Urik laughed, grabbing a handful of the girl’s hair and wrenching her head back.  “I haven’t even touched her yet and you’re both crying like spitted pigs!”

Wiggen’s tears streaked her face, her eyes clenched tightly, her chest heaving with each sobbing gasp.  Forbish couldn’t take the sight of it, his daughter, his only child, naked and weeping.  “Anything...” he cried, falling against his bonds.  “Anything you want...”

“Oh, we’ll take what we want, Fat Man.  You can be sure of that.”  He brought his blade to the unscarred side of the girl’s face and said, “And what I want first is to give this young lass a little symmetry.”

“What are you doing?”

At the strange voice, everyone’s attention suddenly snapped to the door.  Lad stood there, eyes wide, hands at his sides.  Wiggen’s eyes snapped open, her sobs coming up short.  The thugs stared in wonder at being surprised.  The two at the door brandished their weapons, and Forbish saw Lad’s eyes shift left, then right, then back to Urik and Wiggen behind him.

“We’re just teachin’ this young lass some manners, Boyo,” he growled, jerking the girl’s hair again and waving the knife.  “Unless you wanna be next, I suggest you take a hike.”

“Stop.  I won’t let you do this.”  Lad’s voice was the same calm timbre as ever, but there was a tremor in his jaw that Forbish had never seen.

Wiggen screamed, “No, Lad!  Run!”

“Yes, run, Laddy,” Urik laughed, turning back to Wiggen and raising the knife.  “Show him the door, boys.”

Forbish’s eyes were on his daughter, so he didn’t see what happened while his heart hammered twice in his chest.  He heard a crack, a gasp, then a sickening crunch and the sound of a body hitting the floor.  He looked back, fully expecting Lad to be lying in a pool of blood.  His jaw dropped at what he saw.

“Unholy mother of --”

“What?”  Urik looked back and his eyes widened until Forbish thought they would pop out.  One corpse lay at Lad’s feet, its head twisted backward on its body, a look of utter astonishment painted on its features.  The other man still stood, but the thug’s own sword, still gripped in his hand, was thrust up his nose and through the back of his skull.  Lad released his bloodied grip on the man’s wrist and the twitching corpse dropped.

“Let her go.”  Lad took a step forward, poised, blood dripping from his fingers, his eyes welded to Urik’s.

Urik grabbed Wiggen’s arm and stepped behind her, nudging his huge companion and nodding toward Lad as his blade tucked under the girl’s chin.  The other thug limbered up two broad-bladed hand axes and stood ready, the weapons held on guard.

“Kill him,” Urik said simply and the huge brute lunged like a cat at an unsuspecting mouse while his companion spun in a sweeping two-bladed attack.

Forbish was watching this time and still Lad’s movement was almost too fast to follow.

Lad spun low.  The heel of one lashing foot intersected the axe-wielding thug’s knee.  Bone splintered and the thug went down screaming, but one of his sweeping axes was right on target.  An inch before the blade would have cleaved Lad’s neck, it was clapped between his two flat palms and twisted from the man’s nerveless fingers.  Lad’s deadly pirouette continued.  The stolen weapon flipped in his grasp and swept around to meet the charging half-ogre’s skull just above the jutting brow.  The creature landed with a resounding thump, its skull halved like a melon on display.  The other thug lay crumpled and weeping, clutching the shards of bone that jutted from his leg.

Lad stood among the carnage, his eyes once again on Urik’s.  He took a step, and to everyone’s astonishment, dropped the hand axe.  He stood two strides from the embraced pair, but Urik’s dagger was firmly nestled at Wiggen’s throat.

“Now, let her go.”

“I’ll cut her pretty throat, Boy.  Quick as you are, you can’t keep me from killing her!”

“You will not kill her.”  Lad’s voice quivered like a tuning fork, the muscles of his jaw and neck bunching and relaxing rhythmically.

“Won’t I, Boy?”  Urik grinned maniacally, jerking the girl’s hair back again.

“No, you --”

But Urik had seen something neither Lad nor Forbish had detected, and the innkeeper’s yell of warning could not prevent the dagger from plunging into the boy’s back.

“Lad!” he yelled as the man on the floor lunged, but it was too late.

He watched the dagger go in just below the ribs.  It slammed to the hilt and Lad stood there, perfectly still.  Forbish could see the blade tenting the skin of the boy’s stomach and thought he must be in shock.  But Lad was not in shock, and reached back in a flash to grip the man’s wrist.  His grip tightened until Forbish heard the bones of the man’s forearm crack and splinter.  Screams shook the air as the man released the dagger, but none were Lad’s.

Then, as everyone stood in horror, Lad reached back with his free hand and pulled eight inches of bloodied steel from his back without so much as a twitch of pain.  Crimson cascaded down his trousers as he brought the dagger around and economically drew it across the man’s throat.  The screams died in a gurgling torrent.

Lad dropped the dagger, turned to Urik and took another step.  He stood within striking distance now, and there was naught but terror in the thug’s eyes.  Lad held out a bloodied hand.

“Give me the knife.”

“I’ll cut her Gods-damned throat!” Urik threatened, his voice trembling in stark fear.

Forbish stood stunned as Lad’s jaw clenched.  He saw the muscles of his forearm and neck writhe under the skin.  Then, as he watched, a faint spider web of light shone through the skin, green white, like runes or symbols.  Forbish was three feet away and could feel the heat emanating from Lad in waves, as if he were on fire.

“Wiggen.”  Lad’s voice was a whisper, calm and soothing.

“Wha --”  Her attention snapped to his eyes, to the peace there, so contrasting the strain of his muscles.

“The dagger,” he whispered, his eyes narrowing as one foot moved minutely, “is a sparrow.”

She stood for a moment, then Forbish saw the most curious thing: Wiggen smiled, and closed her eyes.

In the next instant, Lad’s hand was wrapped around the blade of the dagger, his fingers between its edge and her throat.  He pulled the blade away slowly and Urik’s hand came with it, his eyes wide with shock and surprise.  Urik jerked and pulled at the blade and blood poured over it, the edge grating against bone, but Lad’s features remained calm, his grip like iron.

Then Lad moved.

His foot whisked over Wiggen’s head, brushing her hair in passing.  The leading edge impacted upon Urik’s nose, smashing bone and driving his head back into the unyielding stone.  Lad’s kick drove on, crushing bone, pulping flesh and sinew until his foot struck stone.  The small room shook, dust falling like snow from the rafters as Urik’s body slumped to the floor.

“Lad!”  Wiggen lunged forward, her arms flung around him in a crushing embrace.  “Oh, Lad!”

Forbish watched in shock as the boy stumbled backward with her weight.  The strain and the odd green light were gone, or maybe never were, just a figment of an old man’s pain-ridden imagination.  But his daughter’s sobs of relief were real, and watching her smother the stunned boy in teary kisses took much of the pain from his shoulders away.  Then Lad’s hand opened slowly, and he saw the deep cuts as the dagger fell away.

“Wiggen!  Stop it, Girl!  He’s hurt!” 
More like dying
, he thought, remembering the deep stab in his back.

“Oh, Gods!”  Wiggen flung herself back, grasping at his hand.  She snatched at her riven dress, tearing off strips of cloth to wrap his hand.  “You’re bleeding!”

“It’s amazing he’s even standing, Lass!”  Forbish shouted.  “Cut me loose and see if you can wake Josie.  Someone’s got to run for a healer and you’re in no condition.”

“I am not hurt,” Lad said, wiping his hand on his trousers.  While Wiggen fumbled for the dagger that would have ended her life, Lad took a step and parted Forbish’s bonds.

“Not hurt?”  Forbish’s arms fell, pain lancing through his shoulders.  “You should be dead, Lad!  That was a killing stroke you took!  Hold still while I have a look.  You’re witless with blood loss, is what you are.”

“It is not so bad, Forbish,” he said as the man turned him and tore open the tunic from the hole the dagger had made.

“It was in to the bloody hilt, Lad!”  He wiped the congealing blood away, but there was just a thin pink line where there should have been a gaping hole.  “What in the name of the Gods?”

“It is healed.  See?”  He held up his hand for Forbish and Wiggen to see.  As they watched, the torn skin closed.  “I heal fast.”

“Fast?” Forbish gasped, taking a step back.  He made a warding sign with his fingers.

“It’s magic!”  Wiggen’s stood in awe, her eyes as big as saucers.

“Yes,” Lad said calmly.  “It is the magic that heals me.”

“Magic?  What magic?”  Forbish was staring at him suspiciously now, wondering just what kind of being he’d let into his household. 
Whatever he is
, he thought suddenly,
he saved Wiggen, sure enough.  That ought to be good enough!

“The magic that my Master gave me.”

Forbish opened his mouth to ask something more about this magic, but a moan from the corner told them that Josie was waking.  Forbish’s mind clicked into the orderly mode that had served him throughout his life and he was giving orders even before he knew what he was saying.

“Get something on, Wiggen, and see if there’s some cool water and a cloth for Josie.”  His daughter clutched the tatters of her dress to her blood-smeared torso and tiptoed through the gore toward the kitchen.  “I’ll see if Josie’s okay, but we may still need the healer.  Lad, you, uh...  Well you just stand there for a bit.  Maybe clean up some of this mess.  Gods, the storeroom’s going to stink like a slaughterhouse if we don’t scrub it down quick.”

“Yes, Forbish,” Lad said, bending to lift Urik’s decapitated corpse.  “Where do I put this?”

 Chapter
XIII