Child of Fate (29 page)

“Tend to him,” Alto said before he took off
running down the hall.

“Hey!” Tristam wheezed behind him. “William,
go!”

Alto ignored the wounded veteran and ran on.
He smashed his opponent’s raised sword down with his first swing
and then bashed his shield into the man’s chest to knock him back a
step. Alto followed with a swing that he misjudged the range on.
His sword swept across with inches between his opponent’s chest and
the tip of his blade. The counter-attack hammered into the metal
scales on the shoulder of his shield arm.

Alto stepped closer to his foe and raised his
shield up. He caught the sword on the lip of his shield behind the
crossguard and yanked it up and out of position. The young warrior
brought his blade back in a backhanded cut. The supernatural edge
parted the steel rings and hewed into the man’s bottom ribs.

Alto’s opponent cried out and fell back. His
left hand went to his side and he doubled over. He managed to hold
his blade up in a defensive posture but Alto smashed it aside with
his sword. “I yield!” the man cried out, but it was too late. A
bolt from William’s bow that was treated with the alchemical
ointment Thork had given him punched a hole through the defeated
man’s head.

Alto stumbled to a halt and stared back over
his shoulder. William was cranking his crossbow back to reload it.
“He surrendered,” Alto said.

“Not soon enough,” William replied. “Watch
out!”

Alto spun as another man emerged from a
doorway a few steps away from him. He raised his shield in time to
deflect the sword that thrust against it. Alto’s broadsword rose up
to strike but he paused as he glanced at it. The red glow along the
fuller had nearly reached the hilt. His delay cost him a gash along
his left thigh.

Alto spun his arm and twisted his wrist,
slapping the attacking blade away from his leg and out to the side.
Alto followed it with a kick that caught his attacker between the
legs. His leathers softened the blow but no amount of cushion would
be enough to protect the sensitive region from the full force of
Alto’s boot. Alto brought his sword up and around, reversing his
grip on the hilt as he did so. He drove it point first into the
junction between the man’s neck and shoulder as he bent forward to
grasp at his bruised genitals.

Alto heard William’s crossbow twang again
with the release of another bolt. The barbed missile flew past him
with little more than a whisper as it sailed through the air and
struck a man in the upper thigh. He clutched his leg and fell back,
and then managed to rise up and stagger forward.

“How many more are there?” Alto growled.

“All of them,” William said while putting his
foot in the end of the crossbow so he could reload it.

Alto ran forward to meet the wounded enemy
warrior. He took the readied attack on his shield, knocking the
sword aside so he could level a low swing with his sword. It hewed
through the wounded man’s leg just above the knee. He crashed to
the ground and reached for the stub at the end of his thigh. Alto’s
blade rammed him back into the ground, pinning his chest to the
floor.

Alto pulled it free and felt as much as saw
the red stripe in the middle of his blade spread into the
crosspiece and fill the black pearl. Red lines spread throughout
the hilt and filled the pearl at the pommel, causing the sword to
glow brightly with an almost fiendish reddish hue. Alto stared at
it, amazed, and then was smashed from behind by something that
drove him into the wall.

He fell over the corpse and rolled over,
raising his shield by instinct alone. It saved him and deflected a
sword even more massive than his own. His shield arm ached from the
impact and his shoulder, already bruised, felt like it had been
jarred from its socket. Alto tried to pull his feet beneath but
found only one of them twitching; the other lay still on the
ground.

“Alto!” William cried out. His crossbow was
far from drawn. He hurled it at the man that had attacked the young
warrior and drew his sword at his side.

The man spun at the shout. He swatted the
crossbow out of the air with his greatsword and laughed at
William’s approach. He stepped out of range from Alto and readied
himself. He held his two-handed weapon in front of his steel
cuirass, content to let the man approach.

Alto glanced down at his legs and tried again
to will them to move. They refused to obey him. His clenched teeth
relented to a gasp when he noticed a dark liquid spreading beneath
him. A liquid that looked even more sinister in the light his blade
gave off. Wasn’t this how the Kelgryn hero had died, by fighting
for his people until he could fight no more?

The potion! Alto pulled his arm free from his
shield and reached into the pouch at his side. He gasped, his
breath coming faster for some reason he couldn’t fathom, and then
put thoughts of breathing aside as he desperately gulped the
foul-tasting liquid.

Would his fingers cramp up on him? His hands,
maybe? Or worse, would he face some other fear he didn’t realize he
had? Alto looked up and saw William retreating from the large
warrior. His greatsword gave him a greater range than William and
his steel cuirass protected him, but his legs were only protected
by leather pants with greaves hastily buckled over them. The man’s
arms were bare other than the leather gloves he wore.

William lunged forward, trying to pierce the
man’s leg. The warrior kicked up with his foot and caught the flat
of William’s blade. It snapped up and smacked William in the
forehead and nose. William didn’t have a chance to react to the
sword thudding into his head; the warrior’s greatsword swept across
and buried itself in his arm and side.

William was hurt and probably dying. Tristam
was wounded and possibly dead. He’d abandoned Karthor with Tristam
much as he’d abandoned his father and his family. Was that how his
life was to be? Drefan and Gerald were gone already. He’d left
Trina behind, safe perhaps, but if he couldn’t stop the men that
were out to disrupt their nations, she might be next.

Alto blinked the tears out of his eyes at his
failures. If only he could stand, he might be able to save William.
If only he wasn’t dying from the earlier attack. He blinked again
and saw the man standing above him.

“You’re just a boy,” the man sneered. “Pity,
you killed several of my men, such promise tied to such
cowardice.”

Alto blinked the moisture away and stared up
at him. He was dying, much as his friends had. He’d face it like a
man, even if it had been his drive that had doomed them. The fear
of failure faded like a mist rising with the morning sun. The
effects of the potion ran their course in him. “Who are you?” Alto
asked.

“Barador.” The man turned his head briefly,
distracted by something down the hallway. He looked back at Alto
and kicked his leg aside so he could stand directly in front of
him. “Time to die, boy.”

Alto gasped at the pain in his leg. The pain
in his leg? His eyes widened even as Barador’s sword rose up above
him. Alto kicked out, striking Barador in the knee and glancing off
the armored greave. Barador’s leg twisted from the strike, making
him stumble to the side.

Alto swatted with his sword to bat away the
greatsword that hung threateningly above him. He grabbed his shield
and rolled across the floor three times before daring to climb to
his feet. He blocked a powerful strike from the sword on the
battered shield even as the strike drove him back. His shield arm
hung at his side, the bottom lip of the protective device catching
on his belt to keep his exhausted arm from dropping completely.

Barador snarled at him. “Tougher than I
thought. I’ll not make the same mistake twice!”

He swung his sword at Alto, forcing the young
man to block with his broadsword time and again. Barador’s snarl
grew with every foiled strike. Alto’s arm grew stronger and
quicker, unlike his shield arm, which had dropped and hung at his
side. Barador caught him with a kick that doubled Alto over and
nearly cost him his head as the greatsword clipped his helm and
sent the piece of armor bouncing down the hall.

Alto stumbled back and shook his head to
clear the ringing from his ears. Barador advanced and then paused
long enough in his assault to shout out, “Leave him for me!”

Alto heard the shuffling noise of men moving
behind him. He’d nearly been surrounded and cut down. He shook his
shield arm to work the shield loose, and then cast it to the floor.
Alto grabbed the broadsword in both hands and pointed it at Barador
in an attempt to look threatening.

“I just figured out what’s wrong,” Alto told
his seasoned opponent.

Barador laughed. “What’s that, boy? Forgot to
have your mommy nurse you this morning?”

Alto grinned. “No. I forgot that defense
isn’t for me.”

His brows furrowed until Alto leapt forward
and struck with his sword. He hammered mercilessly at the leader of
the enemy forces, forcing him back several steps until Barador
deflected Alto’s strike to the side and brought them both shoulder
to shoulder. Barador released his sword with his left hand and
drove his fist into Alto’s belly.

Gasping for breath, Alto stumbled back and
barely blocked the next three crushing blows. Frustrated, Barador
swore and promised, “Soon as I’m done with you, I’ll make sure your
friends are butchered slowly! And just wait for the day I find that
wet nurse of a mommy of yours!”

Alto drove his sword up into the next swing,
forcing Barador’s greatsword to rebound. Alto pressed the momentum
again, striking out at him and forcing Barador on the defensive.
“This blade’s meant to defeat enemies of the Kelgryn,” Alto hissed
at him. The pearls flashed, pulsing with a red light that cast a
demonic look across the young man’s face.

Alto swung again and felt a surge of
exhilaration as his sword sheared through the steel of Barador’s
greatsword. The tip chewed through Barador’s chest plate, digging a
furrow in his chest. Barador fell back, stunned, and stared up at
Alto.

His chest heaving, Alto stared down at the
man and growled, “Never threaten my people!”

“Kill him!” Barador shrieked, using Alto’s
brief monologue to his advantage.

Alto ended the evil leader’s call for help
with a second slash of his sword. Barador crumpled and left the
hallway deathly silent. In spite of his last wishes, Alto could
hear that no one had dared to approach him yet.

“I’m turning around and I plan to kill any
man that I see,” Alto growled. He waited a moment and then turned.
What remained was an empty hallway. Alto grinned until he
remembered William and the others.

“I’m not afraid this time,” William whispered
when Alto knelt beside him. He lay in a pool of blood. “My hands
still work.”

“Hang on. I’ve got another potion Thork gave
me. Here, drink it!” Alto lay his sword down and noticed in the
back of his mind that the red glow faded instantly. The sword’s
magic didn’t matter anymore; all that was important was finding the
original potion. He pulled it out of the pouch and fumbled the cap
while unscrewing it. A second attempt succeeded but when he put it
to William’s lips, he saw the man staring at the ceiling with eyes
that would never see again.

Alto stared down at him for a long moment.
The exhilaration of killing Barador was gone. Driving away the
others meant nothing to him now. He hung his head and let a sob
slip past his lips.

“Come, Alto, you can do no more for him.”

Alto looked up, uncertain how much time had
passed. Tristam and Karthor stood in front of him. Blood stained
Tristam’s clothes but he moved without sign of pain. Karthor
offered Alto a faint smile and a nod.

The young man screwed the cap back on the
potion and put it in his pouch. He grabbed his sword and glanced
around for his shield that he’d dropped earlier. It was just beyond
Barador’s body.

“Now what?” Alto whispered.

“Now we wait for the army to arrive,” Tristam
said.

“What of Namitus and Kar?”

“If they’re dead, we can’t help them. If
they’re alive, they’ve got plans to stay that way and we’re too far
to help them without getting ourselves killed,” Tristam said.

Alto scowled. They were his companions and
his friends; he didn’t like the thought of abandoning them to the
fates. “I’ll go.” He retrieved his shield and added, “We’ve lost
too many this day already.”

“Don’t be a fool, boy; even if we all go,
we’re hurt and there’s an army of unwholesome savages between us.
Kar’s the smartest man I know; he’ll have found a way to survive if
there’s one to be found.” Tristam moved past him and began to go
through the bodies, looking for coins and wealth.

Alto walked to a doorway and stared through a
window that was unshuttered. Flames still leapt into the sky from
the explosion Kar’s magic had wrought. He cocked his head, hearing
a noise that defied explanation. He moved into the bedroom and
peered out the window. The palace was on high ground within
Highpeak, high enough that Alto could see over the crenellations on
the wall. The field outside the gate looked like an angry swarm of
glowing ants. The armies of the Kingdom and Kelgryn were storming
the gates.

Tristam chuckled behind him. “Seems our
friends succeeded. No doubt they’re already safer than we are.”

Alto felt a weight lift off his shoulders.
His friends were safe and the Kingdom was retaking Highpeak. That
meant he, Tristam, and Karthor would be saved as well.

Tristam chuckled at hearing Alto’s sigh.
“There’s still work to be done, lad,” he said. “This swine holed up
in the palace won’t expect mercy from the king’s men. Not to
mention, it’s not going to loot itself.”

Alto shook his head and followed after him.
He stopped to pick up his dented helm, and then stood guard while
Tristam focused on searching the fallen.