The girl screamed and dove into the dirt. He leapt over her
and thrust at Scar, who barely got his own sword up in time to deflect it from
his heart. He took a nasty slash across his arm—but there were seven other men
with swords closing in, and the Ultor didn’t have time to take him down piece
by piece. He kicked Scar into the surprised Boss and both men tumbled over. The
Ultor whirled to face the rest of the gang.
The fire had revived his hands and feet some, but he was
still weak as a day-old colt. Eight men. Eight men and the Boss.
The young one came first, hot and eager, rushing in with all
his weight forward. The Ultor ducked out of his way, tripping him,
and knocked him over the head with his pommel. The kid hit the ground like a
sack of rocks.
The next two weren’t quite such fools.
The Ultor put the fire over his left shoulder and the well
over his right, forcing them to come at him head-on. They’d worked together
before—one came in high and one low. The Ultor ducked the high and parried the
low, pushing low toward high and high toward the well. Then he dropped back and
to the left, swinging his sword high, raining light blows on the left man’s
shoulders and head, forcing him to keep defending, leaving his own middle
undefended, all but begging the right man to—he did it, the right man lunged
forward, thrusting at the Ultor’s torso—the Ultor twisted, slipping away from
the blade, putting both men in a line in front of him—and with a mighty kick he
put one man on the ground and the other in the well. His sword pierced the one
man’s heart before the other one even made a splash.
The Ultor nearly fell on top of him. The Ultor could not
die, but he could hurt, he could tire, he could fall. He brandished his sword
at the more cautious men closing in on him. His knees trembled. Six months
crossing the mountains of giants; a month on starvation rations; a week without
food or water of any kind. He batted away a halfhearted thrust, and another.
They saw how he was weaving on his feet, how his sword wavered and bobbed. He
couldn’t do this. He couldn’t win this fight. And they all knew it.
Their eyes gleamed in the firelight. They closed in on him
like wild dogs on an injured lion, probing his weakness, waiting for him to
stop fighting back, slavering to take that first bite while his heart still
beat and his blood still flowed.
A big yellow-bearded man slashed at him from the left, and
the Ultor snarled and kicked a chunk of burning dung at him—and his goat-hair
tunic went up like a candle.
The yellow man screamed and dropped his sword to wrestle
with his flaming tunic. Scar, with some presence of mind, knocked him to the
ground, but instead of rolling him just leapt over him to engage the Ultor—and
got a face full of dung and fire for his trouble. Using his sword as a shovel,
the Ultor flung more flaming chunks of feces at the rest of them, lighting up a
couple more.
Then the Ultor got an idea—and he laughed. Fending off Scar
momentarily, knocking him into a man trying to help a burning comrade, he
dropped back to the fire and speared the biggest chunk of flaming manure he
could find—and flung it at the big wood house.
Even Scar stopped to watch. For a second it looked as if the
flight had put the fire out … but then it puffed back to life.
“Stop that!” the Boss screamed from where he stood watching
the melee, “Stop that!”
Scar moved to obey, slashing viciously at the Ultor, who
needed every bit of technique his body remembered to parry the rain of blows.
He fell back, and back some more, until he felt the well wall at his back.
Someone screamed—something, it was
horses, they were running through the square, letting out those high equine shrieks
that convulsed into groans, running mad, running through the crowd, skittering
around the fire, leaping—
The Ultor dropped to the ground. An enormous bay roan leapt
and barreled into Scar, knocking man and horse into the well.
The Ultor looked up and saw a pair of eyes staring into his.
It was the little translator who had freed him, huddled by the well.
“Run,” he commanded her. She darted an eye at the sword in
his hand. “Run,” he told her again, and got back on his feet.
The village was in pandemonium. While Scar had been beating
him back, the wood house had gone up like kindling, and half the front was on
fire. People, horses, even a few goats ran around the square in confusion. The
Ultor turned and began limping toward the town gate.
Someone grabbed him. He slashed at the man, and it was lucky
for both of them that he was now nearly drunk with fatigue, and missed
entirely. The villager (for so his cowering and lack of weapon marked him)
babbled something desperately at him.
“He says don’t go to the gate. You’ll die.” She was still
there, the little translator, lurking behind him like a shadow. “He says he can
help you.”
“Will he?” he asked her.
She looked at the man. He said something to her. “You should
trust him,” she said, “he’s your best chance.”
“He says, or you say?” the Ultor asked.
“Both.”
She looked confident, defiant, like a little queen. “All
right,” he said, and nodded to the man.
The man led them out of the square, through a winding series
of paths and alleys. The Ultor staggered along after him, stumbling here and
there on the uneven terrain in the dark. Once, the little translator grabbed
his hand, and he flinched back before realizing she meant to guide him. She cowered
defensively. The Ultor moved on.
The guide finally stopped, and gestured for them to wait. As
he peered around a corner, the Ultor gripped his sword tighter, checking behind
them as well. Then the guide gestured them forward, and the Ultor saw where
they were: the mouth of the cave. The guide waved them inside.
“This is a trap,” the Ultor said, pointing his sword at the
man.
“No,” translator protested, scurrying between them, “it’s
huge in there, as big as a city.” The Ultor wondered if she’d ever seen an
actual city. “It’ll take them weeks to search it, and only the locals really
know it; they’ll never find you.”
Still the Ultor hesitated.
“Fine,” she said, and scooping up one of the oil lamps stacked
at the entrance. “Stay out here and die if you want. I’m going to safety.” And she
disappeared inside.
The guide babbled at him and beckoned him to come, looking
nervously at the town center lest someone should spare a glance from the
confusion and see them there.
With a growl of frustration and an angry prayer, the Ultor
snatch up his own lamp—and followed the strangers into blackness.
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