Neversfall (11 page)

Taennen loosened the grip on his khopesh and turned its blade up. He brought his shield close to his chest. There were three of the attackers coming at the tower entrance, their swords low and ready. They dressed like barbarians and wild men, but Taennen knew better. Berserking warriors held their swords high for powerful blows. These

men were at the ready with weapons dancing lightly in their hands.

Taennen charged, knowing his only chance was a desperate maneuver, the kind Jhoqo would disapprove of. Taennen grinned a little at that thought but quickly brought his mind back to the moment.

His opponents stood still as he charged them down. He threw his weight backward and to his left as he drew within two sword-lengths of the lead foe, falling to the ground in a forward slide aimed between the two foremost men. Taennen snapped his shield into the knee of the opponent on his left. The man howled as Taennen continued on and sliced his khopesh along the thigh and hip of the man on his right.

He came to a stop on the ground in front of the third man, who brought his sword down in a heavy swipe. Taennen rolled onto his feet. He danced to his right to avoid another blow. One of the first attackers held his injured knee, but was recovering quickly. The other lay on the ground screaming, blood pooling around him.

The man ahead of him came forward in a thrust that Taennen easily parried. He feigned a shield block and thrust out at the bald man with his dangerous curved blade. His enemy was no fool and swung low at Taennen’s legs. The Maquar durir hopped over the sword and drove his khopesh forward while still in the air. Again, the man was too clever and stopped his swing short, bending his body backward to avoid the stab. The man drew a dagger from his boot with his free hand and threw it hard. Taennen tilted his head and felt the dagger brush past his ear.

Taennen feigned a straight thrust. His opponent sliced across low and to the right. Taennen jumped again, letting

the sword go under his feet, but this time he kicked out toward the man’s wrist.

He felt his foot connect and knew that with thinner soles on his boots, he would have felt the bones in the man’s wrist break. The man howled in pain, and Taennen brought the blade of his khopesh across the back of the man’s neck in an easy, fluid movement that cut between his vertabrae, killing him quickly.

Taennen crouched, only to see the man whose knee he had’damaged moving on the offensive and holding two swords, one long and one short. The long sword sailed toward Taennen from his right, and he knew he would have no chance to parry it.

Before death found him, he expected that his life would flash before his eyes or he would come to some grand understanding of the world around him, but nothing happened. He merely watched, as if everything were slowed by some arcane spell, as the blade that would be his end cut through the air toward him. He pulled his neck low with what little time he had left, hoping beyond hope that the blow might miss his head.

His nose found the dirt and several heartbeats passed. Confused, he rolled to his left to stay low as his would-be killer fell to the ground, an arrow shaft protruding from the middle of his back. Taennen followed the line of the shot to see Loraica standing across the courtyard, bow in hand. Not for the first time, Taennen thanked the Adama for linking his life to hers.

Taennen saw a group of his own men cornered by a larger number of the barbarians, and he ran for them. He would not fail his men again. Never again. Taennen came from behind the attackers as the wildmen attacked a trio of Maquar soldiers. The Maquar durir dragged his khopesh

across the back of one barbarian, his blade slicing through the man’s leather armor. The soldiers pressed their attacks harder with the arrival of reinforcements. One of his comrades felled another attacker with a series of quick strokes. Taennen bashed his shield into the face of a third enemy, but he took a shallow cut on his shoulder from another at the same time.

A strange noise rang through the air, deep and bellowing. All over the courtyard, the attackers began backing their way toward the open citadel gate, coming together in groups to fend off the Maquar and Durpari. Taennen cursed the wizard Khatib to himself. Why had he opened the gates?

Taennen saw Jhoqo at the front of the defending forces where he was exchanging mighty blows with a man covered in dark animal hides. The invaders continued their retreat, covering one another as they streamed out the gate into the plains. One of their number fell and was picked up by others who dragged his body with them. Perhaps two dozen of them remained. They split their formation well, archers in the back covering their escape.

Jhoqo and his men pursued them for a few hundred paces out the gate, trading blows, until the Maquar commander ordered his troops to desist. Everyone returned to the citadel, closing the gates behind them. Taennen barked orders to the men around him. Those still able-bodied moved to the wall while the injured helped one another to the center of the courtyard for healing.

Taennen looked up at the impressive height of Neversfall tower and wondered about Khatib. Despite his confidence before the battle that he could wield the tower’s weapons, Khatib hadn’t managed to keep the gates closed, let alone fire off the flurry of missiles he’d promised. Taennen scowled.

He would need to get a better sense of what Khatib could and could not do with the tower before another attack.

“Haddar!” Taennen called. The muzahar trotted over and saluted. “Send your men out to find Khatib. We need him to help search the bodies of the attackers. You four”— Taennen gestured to a group of Durpari—”go check on the prisoners. There’s no telling what happened to them in all that chaos. Secure them and make sure no one’s hurt.”

^ir, are you well?” Taennen said to his commander as Jhoqo approached, waving off the attentions of one of the Durpari healers. Blood trickled from his right wrist, the crimson stain spreading through the colorful silk cuff of his undershirt. Adeenya approached looking weary but otherwise well.

“A few cuts,” Jhoqo said. “And you, son?”

“Same, sir, but nothing serious,” Taennen said. He had received worse in his time, but the wounds ached already. His stomach wound had reopened in the battle. With the rush of battle over, he was fighting to move past the pain. By morning it would be debilitating without aid. “I can wait. And you, sir?” Taennen said, looking to Adeenya.

“Fine, Durir, thank you,” she said.

“Get a count of our liabilities, Durir,” Jhoqo said. “We need to know where we stand as soon as possible.”

“What in the….” Adeenya said, turning around.

“Sir?” Taennen said, his hand going to the hilt of his khopesh.

“Where are they?” Adeenya asked.

“Who, Orir?” Jhoqo said.

“The bodies. The attackers we just killed.”

Taennen released his weapon. “I saw them collecting some of the fallen as they fled.”

“But why pause for your dead when you’re being pressed?” Adeenya said. “And how did they get every one?

Taennen shook his head. Recovering fallen comrades was a priority, but given the circumstances of the routed attackers, their care with their dead was surprising. Taennen turned when he heard Loraica curse behind him. The woman stood next to Haddar who limped out of the central tower with Khatib’s lifeless body cradled in his arms.

Taennen stared at the corpse of the wizard with whom he had spoken only a short while before. Haddar’s broad chest served to miniaturize the man’s body. Khatib’s face was pale, his blood lost through a slit in his throat. The wound spanned the breadth of his jaw, leaving a flap of skin hanging wide open.

Taennen stood silently and took the corpse from Haddar when the soldier offered it. Loraica ordered Haddar to have his leg examined. Haddar saluted and shuffled away, his head hanging low.

Taennen felt the damp coolness of more blood along Khatib’s lower back, and his fingers found a wide, deep gash there. His digits explored the cavern of their own will, Taennen’s bile rising. Though he had never felt particularly close to the wizard, the man’s death, so cowardly in its execution, angered him, and he felt a pang of loss for the comrade whose excitement about the workings of the tower he had found so engaging just moments before.

“They breached the tower,” Jhoqo said, staring hard at Khatib’s body.

“This…” Taennen started. “This can’t be.”

Jhoqo reached over the wizard’s cradled body and patted the younger man on the back, but Taennen shrugged it off. “No. I mean, he was safe. He locked himself inside the top of the tower,” Taennen said, taking a step back.

“What?” Loraica said.

“The tower. The room at the top can be magically sealed. I was with him when the attack started. He locked the door behind me.”

Jhoqo looked puzzled. “So someone broke in and killed him.”

“No,” Taennen said. “He said someone would need to know the proper way in once it was locked. There was a passphrase.” He lowered his voice and looked to Jhoqo, forgotten hurt resurfacing. “He said you told only him what it was.”

Jhoqo’s lips twisted tighter into a frown. “He must not have locked it, or perhaps the damnable invaders had a more powerful arcanist with them.”

“If that’s so,” Loraica said, “we are in a lot of danger without Khatib.”

“We will avenge him. Do not doubt that,” Jhoqo said. He stepped in close, placed his hand on Khatib’s head, and whispered something so soft that even Taennen could not hear.

“Get me the counts, Durir,” Jhoqo said. “Terir, liaise with the Durpari dorir to ensure that the healing needs of everyone are met as well as we can accommodate.”

“Aye, sir,” Loraica and Taennen both barked.

“Sir, permission to follow the invaders,” Adeenya said.

Jhoqo looked at the woman for several moments but said nothing.

“Not to engage them, sir. To scout the area, to figure out where they are coming from so that we might launch

an attack of our own when we muster our forces,” Adeenya said. She stood straight and tall, her face solemn, as though she were not asking the impossible.

“Reconnaissance, then?” Jhoqo said. “Very well. Take a small contingent of both forces. Do not be seen, Orir, and do not go far.”

“Aye, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said.

Jhoqo nodded and took a step before Adeenya stopped him.

“Sir, one more thing.” “Yes, Orir?”

“Sir, the halfling. He told us he was a woodsman who knew this area. He might be able to help,” Adeenya said.

“You want me to release a prisoner, Orir?”

“Not release, sir. Just make use of a resource on hand in a bad situation, sir.”

She was clever, no doubt about that, Taennen thought. Jhoqo could not deny her request of a useful resource given the circumstances. Taennen had not realized until that moment how brave Adeenya was. And clearly it had worked. She had done the impossible.

Jhoqo squinted at her a moment before chuckling a little. “Very well, Orir. Take the halfling, but I hold you responsible for the safe return of the prisoner. We hold their safety in our hands, after all.”

Adeenya nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you sir.” She saluted and turned to gather her forces.

After Jhoqo had walked away, Taennen looked to his friend and said, “Somethings not right, Lori.”

“Agreed,” she said solemnly. “Let’s check the tower.”

Taennen placed his hand on Khatib’s forehead, uttering a prayer to the Adama. He set the wizard’s body beside the half dozen others laid out in the yard, ordering a nearby

Durpari soldier to give the man a burial proper for his order and position.

“No rank. He was a wizard.”

“Yes, sir,” the Durpari soldier said grimly, then added, “Bad day for magic users.”

Taennen looked down at the bodies. Two of them were Maquar clerics. Taennen swore and turned back to Loraica.

Taennen walked beside Loraica to the central tower. The courtyard was alive with activity, but the air was heavy with caution and fatigue. They had been surprised and significantly damaged in a fortress that they had believed was theirs. The attackers had come in undetected, despite the measures available to prevent such an ambush.

As he pushed open the door to the tower, Taennen faced Loraica. “Kill anyone you don’t know.”

Loraica nodded and drew out her heavy falchion. Taennen crept up the stairs, listening after every few steps for the sounds of anyone moving around at the top of the tower. His pace increased as he continued. They reached the top of the tower to face the door he had seen for the first time earlier that day. The door no longer sparkled with the glow of possibility and mystery. Instead it hung open, dull and uninviting.

“I saw him close it,” Taennen said.

Loraica knelt on one knee, examining the door and its jamb. “It doesn’t look like it was forced. They must have figured out the passphrase,” she said.

Taennen shook his head. “Khatib said one had to know it ahead of time.”

“Do you think the invaders tortured the phrase out of the last regiment?” Loraica asked.

“If so, then why not occupy the citadel? Why keep to the woods?”

“They are wildmen, sir,” Loraica said. “You saw them fight, Lori. They’re no wildmen.” She conceded the point. “They did seem too organized, didn’t they?”

Taennen nodded.

“What is all this?” she said, motioning around the room.

Taennen smiled, thinking of Khatib’s enthusiasm for the crystals. “This is the heart of Neversfall.”

“Well, how does it work?”

“It needs a brain.”

“It doesn’t have one?” she asked.

“He’s being buried right now,” Taennen said, leaving the room. “There’s nothing here to see. Coordinate with Marlke, Lori. I’m going to get a count of our losses.”

+ + + + +

Evening was consuming daylight as Adeenya stalked the plains. Even with Neversfall within sight behind her, she felt conspicuous and naked in the open. The Aerilpar was nearby, promising no end of dangers, yet that was where the tracks of the invaders seemed to lead.

She sought not only an end to the attacks and revenge for her dead but answers to a personal mystery that took precedent in her mind. Not long after the battle had ended, Adeenya discovered that her pendant, the magical device she used to communicate with her superiors was missing. The attackers who groped at her were not interested in her body but her pendant.