Death Comes To All (Book 1) (27 page)

Roland
stared at his friend in shock. Bloodheart was the powerful mage that
ruled this city with an iron fist, he knew, and yet Malik had just
claimed that it did not really belong to the mage at all, but really
belonged to him.

What
game is he playing at?

Malik might be a dangerous enemy, but Roland didn’t
know what he thought he could ever hope to do against one of the
great mages.

Has
Malik finally lost his mind?
Roland suspected that he very well
might have, though the man seemed unusually serious.

Sloan
laughed, a high, vile sound that grated on Roland's ears. "You
must be mad! Even if you are who you claim, what could you hope to do
against Bloodheart? You come in here issuing threats as if I have
reason to fear you. I had hoped that you would surrender your weapons
at the door as I requested. I know that Bloodheart would love to deal
with you himself. I'll offer the two of you one last chance to throw
down your weapons and surrender. Perhaps if you're lucky Bloodheart
might kill you quickly, after you've told him everything you know of
your sister's whereabouts of course."

Suddenly
the doorway exploded with activity as several guards rushed in. All
around the room hidden panels slid aside to allow more armed, armored
men into the room. In a matter of seconds they were completely
surrounded by over two dozen men, and Roland could hear more in the
hallways outside. Malik stood as still as stone. He didn't seem the
least bit frightened by the turn of events. Roland, on the other
hand, had never been so terrified.

"You
were a fool to come here so lightly protected," the weaselly man
declared. "I can have an army at my command in minutes, as you
are now witnessing. Now throw down your swords!"

"I
will make you a counter offer," Malik answered evenly,
completely calm. "If your men throw down their arms now, I will
spare them. They may return to their wives and make them fat with
children. You, on the other hand, have offended me by attempting to
trick me in such a dishonorable manner. If your men surrender now, I
will make your death quick and painless. If not, I can assure you I
will not be so kind."

Sloan
and several of the guards laughed loudly. "You really are mad!
Take him alive if you can. Kill his man. He is of no use to us."

Roland
sensed the movement before he saw it as three of the guards behind
him rushed in with weapons drawn, eager for the kill. From out of
nowhere, or perhaps only in his own mind, someone spoke in a low
voice. It was slow and rhythmic, almost a chant. While he couldn't be
certain, Roland thought it sounded like his mother's voice. It
sounded vague and indistinct, as if he were hearing it from
underwater.

Even
the greatest of kings must bow before the awesome weight of the
ocean,
the voice droned, repeating his words from earlier that
day.
Mountains have toppled and entire civilizations lost with
only one wave of the ocean's mighty hand.

Without
warning a bright blue light surrounded him, and the air in the room
began to spin and turn, as if a mighty hurricane had suddenly erupted
around them. To Roland, who was in the proverbial eye of the storm,
it seemed as if time itself slowed to a crawl. Everyone around him
moved as if they were being burdened by a great weight.

All
eyes turned to him. Even Malik eyed him with a look of awe. Roland
pulled his mighty blade in one swift motion, and the chaos around him
subsided until only the electric blue glow that surrounded both him
and his sword remained.

If
I’m about to die, I’m at least going to take one or two
of them with me,
he thought. With all his might he swung at his
nearest attacker.

Roland
hoped that his swing would be hard enough to cut deep into his
adversary's armor, at least enough to cause damage. He knew that, as
hopelessly outnumbered as the two of them were, they didn't have a
chance at winning, regardless of whatever the magic Malik had just
used on him might do. He never for an instant expected what came
next.

The
guard began to raise his blade to defend against the attack.

It
was slow,
Roland thought,
unnaturally slow.

Even
with such a slow movement the man's blade still reached its blocking
position in time, though it mattered not a bit. Ocean's Hand crashed
through the man's weak defense, cleaving his blade in two, then cut
the man neatly in half at the waist in one brutal arc.

Roland
moved as he had been taught to, stepping forward into a second swing
at the next opponent. This time the man didn't have a moment to
react. The blade didn't stop with the first opponent however. The
swords momentum continued through to a second man, and then on
through a third. With one swing three men fell, leaving six pieces of
carved meat on the ground in front of him before anyone had a chance
to so much as take a single step. With four of their number dead in a
heartbeat's time, the rest of the guards hesitated.

Malik
recovered from his own apparent shock, pulling his own blade he moved
forward in a swift, dancing step. His blade sliced one man just under
his thick steel helm, then without pausing Malik promptly thrust at
the man behind him, neatly running him through.

The
first guard clawed at his throat, as if hoping that somehow he could
stanch the flow of arterial blood that poured out of his neck and
down the front of his armor. The second man never had time to react
to his wound. He dropped straight to the ground in a clanking heap,
dead instantly, his heart neatly split down the middle.

Strange,
even Malik's movements seem sluggish. The last time he fought I
couldn’t even see him move. He should be faster, much faster,
than he seems to be now.

Two
more men moved forward to attack, diverting Roland's attention away
from his companion for a moment. Though he was looking the other way,
he still somehow sensed Malik's movements behind him. It almost felt
as if he was standing above them all and could watch the fight calmly
from some other place, yet at the same time he was still in his own
body, in complete control his every movement.

He
swung his blade in an upward swing, catching the first guard
underneath his chin. The blade did not stop when it hit the steel
helm however, but continue through with no more effort than it would
take to run a hot knife through a slab of warm butter. The man’s
momentum carried him forward even after the swing. He toppled to the
ground to Roland's left.

The
second guard hesitated for a split second, as if unsure of whether he
wanted to fight or flee. Roland twisted his grip and brought Ocean's
Hand down on his head in a vicious chop. The blade cleaved through
the man's head and continued, passing completely through the armored
body, imbedding the tip of the blade a foot deep into the floor
beneath him.

Roland
watched the man fall in two directions, as his body was split
vertically down the middle.

Even
his falling body seems to move in slow motion.

Roland
knew he should have felt frightened, or at the very least angry, but
for some reason he no longer felt anything at all, save for a small
amount of confusion. It was as if he was completely detached from
everything, simply watching it happen. At the same time every sense
was heightened, like hearing a bard tell a tale where every detail is
vivid and bright.

Malik
cut down three more men in lightning flash movements, or so Roland
suspected they must have been, as none of those men had moved to
defend themselves. Roland pulled back on Ocean's Hand, which slid
free of the floor easily, and held it before him, looking for the
next enemy. The blade felt as light as a feather in Roland's hand, as
if it weighed nothing at all.

"Enough
of this!" Sloan shrieked, and lifted his hands toward Roland. He
uttered three sharp syllables that Roland couldn't hear, and from his
outstretched arms erupted a ball of fiery red liquid.

Roland
knew that he had no chance of dodging the attack at that distance,
even with the strange lethargy that the world seemed to have taken,
and the man was still beyond the range of Ocean's Hand. Instinctively
he raised the massive blade before him. Strangely he didn't feel fear
or anger towards his fate, but instead waited to meet it with
complete calm.

The
fireball crashed into Ocean's Hand first. Roland expected the
magically created missile to engulf the blade and him as well.
Instead the ball of plasma struck the blade and stopped. Slowly, the
fire seeped into the sword, spinning along its edge like a rolling
wheel, getting smaller and smaller as it spun. As the fireball winked
out of existence the weapon glowed red for an instant, then returned
to the electric blue it had been.

"That
will be enough of that," Malik yelled, and promptly struck,
severing both of the mage's outstretched hands in one hard swing.
Sloan screamed and fell to the floor. Blood pumped furiously from the
hacked stumps at his wrists to pool on the ground at Malik's feet.

Behind
him he sensed another guard entering through the doorway. He turned
quickly, bringing Ocean's Hand to bear. As he held it before him the
edge unexpectedly glowed red once again, and the fireball that it had
swallowed emerged once more in its full glory, striking the guard in
the center of his chest.

The
guard's mouth opened in a scream that never sounded as the ball of
plasma instantly engulfed his entire body. In less than a second it
melted through his armor to blacken his flesh, but the guard was
already dead. The fire had scorched his lungs and stole all of his
oxygen. As he guard melted into nothing more than a puddle of molten
steel and blood the spell's power ended, and the magma-like liquid
disappeared.

This
was too much for the remaining guards, though more than half of those
that had come still remained. The men broke and ran, nearly trampling
each other in their eagerness to escape. Roland watched them go with
detached amusement.

To
think that so many would be frightened off by only two men,
he
thought.

He
turned back to the room, where Malik was now holding the mage by his
throat in his left hand, his sword poised above him in his right.

"Please
don't kill me!" Sloan begged. "I'll give you anything.
Money, women, anything you want is yours! Only don't kill me!"

"Who
ordered my father's death?" Malik asked harshly. "Was it
Bloodheart? He was certainly the one who benefited the most."

"I
don't know. I wasn't working for Bloodheart when your father was
killed. I'm innocent!"

"We
both know you're far from innocent, Sloan. Do you expect me to
believe that you've never heard anything about it during all the time
you've worked for him? What do you know Sloan?"

"Look,
I don't know anything I'm telling you! Bloodheart was supposed to
find you and your sister, and I was told to watch out for you. I
didn't even know what to look for. No one does. All of Bloodheart's
men have orders to report any information that has to do with you,
that's all I know. No one ever expected to actually hear anything
about you. Those orders to find you were all from twenty or thirty
years ago. Most of us all thought that you must have either died or
had gone so deep into hiding that you would never show yourself again
to anyone. Please, don't kill me!"

"Was
it Bloodheart that summoned the dragon? Did he kill my father?"

"Not
by himself, if he was involved at all. No mage has ever been able to
summon a dragon on their own. It takes several mages working together
to accomplish that. Since mages rarely work together for anything,
your father must have really angered a lot of people. I had nothing
to do with it! It had nothing to do with me! Please just let me go!"
His whinny voice was beginning to irritate Roland as he begged for
his life.

"You
were hoping to cash in by turning me over to Bloodheart I take it?
That's why you had your guards hide themselves when we came in? So
you could trap me in here?"

"There's
a bounty on your head of ten thousand gold pieces to anyone who can
bring Bloodheart your corpse and can prove who you are. Double that
if they can bring you in alive. No one knows what you look like, but
someone would have to be stupid not to try if they are lucky enough
to find you. Even if you kill me, there are enough people who know
who you are now that everyone will know before too long. You won't be
able to hide forever. You don't need to kill me!"

"I
have a message I need you to give Bloodheart for me," Malik said
darkly.

"Yes,
yes! I'll give him any message you want!"

Without
warning Malik twisted his arm around in a vicious arc. Sloan's head
left his shoulders in a single stroke, rolling across the floor to
stop with a dull thud as it struck the far wall. His body toppled to
the ground like a tree under the woodsman's ax.

"Tell
him death comes to all," Malik whispered venomously.

Chapter
Ten

The
two men walked back to the inn as quickly as they could without
drawing undue attention to themselves. Whatever strange magic Malik
had used on Roland had long since vanished, leaving him feeling
completely drained, as if he had just run a marathon or had spent an
entire day working on his father's farm. The calm that had descended
on him during the battle had gone with it, and now every nerve in his
body was on edge.