Death by Cliché (28 page)

“I’m out of chapter quotes. Better start Act Three.”

—Bob Defendi

urkand led them down the halls of the Heart of Light, the
old plans springing unbidden to his mind. Left here, then straight, then right. He ran, and he listened, and he smelled the air for clues, but the memories were still fresh after all these years.

“You sure you know where we’re going?” Omar asked.

“I stared at these diagrams every day for a year, making tweaks here and there. I still dream them sometimes.”

He stopped at a T-intersection and took a deep breath. “We have to decide what to do from here.”

“What do you mean?” Damico asked.

“Well, this leads to the lord’s chambers.” Jurkand gestured down the left path. “This leads to the throne room.” He gestured the other direction.

“We go after Lotianna,” Damico said, his voice tight, the muscles on his neck straining.

“But where is she?” Jurkand asked.

Damico stopped, blinking. “In his chambers, right?”

“Unless she’s in a slave bikini, chained to his throne,” Gorthander said.

Damico cursed and his eyes darted around like a trapped animal. Jurkand’s heart ached to see his son’s pain.

“This is sick, women in refrigerator
bullshit!
” Damico growled. “I’m going to rip out Carl’s throat and feed it to Gail Simone, the dirty son of a bitch!”

“What are you talking about?” Jurkand asked.

“Google it,” Damico said.

Well, Jurkand had no idea what any of that meant, but this was the first time he’d seen Damico too upset to make a call, so he took a deep breath and said, “Look, maybe we should make two groups.”

“And maybe we should
all
split up,” Omar said, “each with a flashlight. One of us is sure to find the ax murderer.”

“What’s a flashlight?” Jurkand asked.

“A wand of light,” Gorthander said with a dismissive gesture. “His point is that splitting up is always a bad idea.”

“Except when it isn’t,” Jurkand said.

“Oh, that’s just brilliant.” Omar’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I’m sold.”

“Look,” Jurkand said. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but he let you out for a reason.”

“So?” Damico said.

“So, it has to occur to him you’re going to try to stop him.”

“So?” Omar asked.

“So, whatever he’s planning, he must think he can do it before we get to him.”

Omar opened his mouth to say something then snapped it closed. Damico looked back and forth between the two.

“You think he’s toying with us?” Damico said. Taking a deep breath and visibly seizing control of his emotions.

“I don’t think he would let you go if he thought you could stop him,” Jurkand said.

“So, you’re saying you think we have no chance of winning?”

“I’m saying we have no time for arguing.”

“Or staying together, Good my lords,” Arithian said.

“Or staying together.” Jurkand nodded.

“This could be his plan,” Gorthander said. “Split us up and kill us one by one.”

“Because he’s a theatrical git?” Damico asked.

“He
is
the evil overlord,” Gorthander said.

“Point taken.”

Damico seemed to agonize. Then he nodded. “Omar, you’re with me. Jurkand and Gort, you go to the throne room. Arithian, make sure they don’t kill each other.”

Jurkand nodded and described the route to the lord’s chambers. Then he described it again. Then he described it a third time and made Damico recite it to him. Finally convinced Damico could find the way, he nodded at Gorthander, and they headed the other direction.

“Do we have a plan?” Jurkand asked as they ran down the corridor.

“Bust into the throne room, kill everyone inside. Get the Artifact.”

“A good plan, prithee,” Arithian said.

Jurkand nodded, then said, “Good plan.”

They ran down halls and around corners. Soon they skidded around one last turn, Jurkand gasping, short of breath…

Three guards stood in front of them. They were huge, seven feet tall and four feet wide, covered in armor, heads like grapefruits on their shoulders. When Hraldolf was a boy, Jurkand had talked about using magical breeding programs to produce the perfect guard. Obviously Hraldolf had taken the idea too seriously.

The guards charged.

“Get past them if you can,” Jurkand shouted at Gorthander and Arithian. Jurkand had his one-shot resurrection, after all.

Jurkand drew his two swords and charged, screaming like a fop in a mud factory.

He hacked and thrust and smashed and for a moment, just a moment, the juggernauts paused under his onslaught, looking for all the world like a bulls that had their noses slashed by a kitten.

In that pause, Gorthander shouldered past them, hugging the wall. One of the guards followed him, and Jurkand slammed his right-hand blade into the guard’s back. The mail parted and bone splintered. The guard gurgled and fell.

Gorthander and Arithian were past, and Jurkand stood alone in a hall, fighting two men who were big enough to have shit him in a privy. He was doomed—he’d die in seconds—but he wanted to make them
long
seconds. Get Gorthander a head start. Call the one kill good and end it there. If he could hold out long enough, Hraldolf might die before anyone could react. The boy could kill with a glance. If Gorthander didn’t beat him fast, he couldn’t beat him at all.

Jurkand fell back under the sudden onslaught of the two guards, whipping his swords around, parrying like there was no tomorrow. Parrying like the Devil himself attacked. Parrying like any other clichés you care to think of.

The guard on the left knocked Jurkand’s sword away and slashed at his neck. Jurkand leaped back away from the attack, hot pain following the tip of the sword as it cut across his throat. A hot trickle of blood squirted down his front. Not a gush, just a squirt. He smiled.

A clatter rang from the ground. His one-shot resurrection hit the stones, a small glass trinket. Jurkand’s eyes widened as the guard stepped on the charm, shattering it.

His
last
one-shot resurrection.

“Ah hell.”

Chapter
Fifty-Three

“You might want to close your eyes while you’re reading the next part.”

—Bob Defendi

otianna came around slowly, her head aching as if a
thousand drunken elves were inside making a thousand chocolate shoes.

She reached up and grabbed her forehead, poking herself in the nose as she did so. Her hands didn’t work properly. She pulled them back and tried to work each of the fingers in turn. It was like trying to operate an elephant from the inside, using only pulleys and levers.

“Wad da helth,” she said. Then frowned.

She looked around, and the movement caused her vision to split, then come together again. She lay in a bed piled in furs. Around her a lavish bedchamber blurred out of focus. Some sort of gold-trimmed armoire stood in one corner, a large silver mirror in another. Fancy carved chairs and padded benches decorated the rest of the room. Over one of them hung her dress.

She tried to peek under the covers, but it took three tries to make her hands grasp them. She wore nothing more than a light shift. She dropped the covers.

What was going on here?

Besides the obvious. It didn’t take a mage’s intelligence to know why an evil overlord would stick a half-naked woman in his bed. The dress was reassuring, though. Maybe she was supposed to put it on.

No, the thing that puzzled her was what was wrong with her hands. And her mouth. She didn’t
feel
drunk, she felt like she was hung over, but her body
responded
like she was drunk.

Or drugged.

She had to get out of here. If she couldn’t move her hands, if she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t cast spells. She needed to move before someone came.

Lotianna fumbled the furs aside and swung up to the sitting position. It took three tries.

She needed to take this slowly. She couldn’t move too quickly when the slightest miscalculation could send her skull-first into the flagstones.

Lotianna placed both her feet firmly on the floor. Using her hand to form a tripod she carefully heaved herself off the bed. Teetering there, she assessed her balance, then stood.

She took a step. Another. Her dress firmly in view she stepped forward. And again. And again. It wobbled and waved in her vision, but she made it there after a few eternal minutes. She lifted it into the air.

Her shift barely reached to mid-thigh, and it was all but transparent. She had to get this dress on before walking out into hallways filled with guards and servants and who knew who else.

She examined the dress, and the laces in the back seemed undone. That was good news. Now she just had to get the thing over her head before—

“Going somewhere?”

She spun and started to fall, barely catching her balance on the chair. She squinted across the room, but all she could see was a blurry form with a bald head and a round, shaggy body.

“Whooo er yu?” she asked.

She’d been hoping for a maid and an invitation to dinner. That’s what happened next when one woke up with a dress neatly laid out for them, wasn’t it? The dress should be fancier, though.

“The Overlord calls me ‘Not Beaver,’ but you can call me by my real name: Henchman.”

She tried to make out Henchman’s details, and as he approached she managed to focus. He was short and fat and covered in furs. His expression was one of… interest.

She pulled up the dress in front of her.

“Go a’ay,” she said.

“I’m afraid, My Lady, the Evil Overlord sent me to prepare you for tonight.”

“Sen’ a maid.”

Henchman chuckled and stretched out in a nearby chair. He examined her curiously, but the interest seemed more academic than threatening. “I always prepare the ladies for an evening with the Overlord. It’s… tradition.”

She squinted at him and swayed.

He said, “Sit down.”

It was better than falling down. She collapsed into her chair. She spread the dress over the front of her as demurely as her club hands could manage.

“I’ve been in his service a long time, did you know that?”

“Yu muss be vary prude.”

“You probably meant proud,” he said and smiled. “I am, I suppose. Do you know what I’ve learned?”

She shook her head, but he continued without looking at her.

“It’s all ashes. I was once content to do everything he asked. He was my only concern in the world. Now… something’s changed. I don’t know if I love him or I hate him. I feel… so strongly. It’s hard to tell.”

She squinted at him. Where was this going?

“In the past, I just did what he said. I never thought about it. I did the bare minimum for myself. The rest was all for him. It’s funny, he’s given me so many leeways, especially of late. It’s never occurred to me to indulge in them before. What’s happened to me?” The last came out very small and childlike.

She tried to smile at this poor man. She knew exactly how he felt. She felt the same way since the… change… She couldn’t convey what it was like to be so empty inside then to inexplicably have that emptiness fill. The poor fellow didn’t even have a real name. She reached out to pat his hand, and only when hers flopped uselessly did she remember the drugs.