Bladvaneer Page 8

  “But maybe you were being overconfident, too,” she argued.

  “How? How was I overconfident? I bluffed him, and he fell for it. He just wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. And even if he went back, he couldn’t get in. We made sure of that.”

  “I’m just not sure …” Maurya said.

  But Klavin was done listening to her. He thought it was funny how overwhelmed he’d felt when the king first told him about this mission. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to complete it. And now he had already saved the kingdom. Sure, Grallen might go after the other three Elite Guard members, but why would he bother? Without the fourth one, they’d be all but useless. Since he’d put together such a successful team, he wondered what kind of adventure they might go on next.

  “I have a question,” Maurya said.

  Klavin rolled his eyes. “What is it now?” He didn’t appreciate being snapped out of his reverie.

  “How exactly are we going to pay for these drinks?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we gave all our money to get into the temple. But in all the commotion, I never managed to get it back.”

  “Er … do you think maybe they’ll give us drinks on the house to thank us for saving the world?”

  “Sure, if you can make them believe that we did,” Maurya responded, grinning.

  Meanwhile Grallen stood outside with his guards behind him. The hooded man and the Elemental Warrior stood on either side. Grallen grinned.

  “And now I believe it’s time to pay our friends a visit,” he said.

  “But why?” the hooded man asked in a raspy voice. “They believe they’ve succeeded in their task. Let them go with that knowledge, and they won’t get in our way again.”

  “That’s exactly why we must do this. I allowed them to believe they had defeated me, and it turned my stomach. I cannot allow them to continue thinking that they bested me. Not even for one more second. Besides, it makes no difference. Within a few moments they won’t be able to get in our way again any way, and at least we’ll be able to have a little fun. Now, let’s go.”

  Grallen pushed open the door to the tavern and struck a dramatic pose. Klavin, Simko and Maurya jumped to their feet.

  “You probably didn’t expect to see us again, did you?” Grallen asked.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? We beat you before. We can do it again,” Klavin challenged.

  Grallen laughed. “Of course you did. And perhaps you’d like to see just how hollow your victory was. Jord!”

  “Jord?” Klavin asked, suddenly panic-stricken.

  A muscular man, well over six feet tall, stepped forward. He wore no armor, but was built so solid it didn’t look like he’d even need it. He drew a sword from a scabbard on his back. At first glance it looked like just any other weapon, but upon closer inspection it seemed that it was made out of stone rather than metal. The rest of Grallen’s men filled the room. The hooded man, as usual, stayed in the back. Most of the crowd, as drunk as some were, figured out that this wasn’t the place they wanted to be, and hurried out. Their exit was not stopped. The musicians, however, continued playing, although their song had suddenly turned somber.

  “Jord, these three are the ones who tried to stop your resurrection. That one,” Grallen said, pointing at Klavin, “even dared to think that he could kill you with a simple mace.”

  “Oh really?” Jord said, smirking. “Now why would you want to do something like that?”

  Klavin drew his sword, having very serious doubts that it would help. Simko prepared a spell. Maurya wanted to find someplace to launch a sneak attack, but with the element of surprise gone it seemed hopeless. She drew a dagger instead. Jord eyed Klavin’s sword and laughed.

  “Really? You actually think that’s going to affect me? I’ll tell you what. Go ahead and take your best shot. But just remember, after that it’s my turn.”

  Jord dropped his arms, leaving himself vulnerable. Klavin suspected a trap, but realized he was in no position to let an opportunity like this pass. He swung his sword, and it struck Jord right in the chest. The blade shattered against his skin. Jord smiled.

  “Now I believe it’s my turn,”

  Klavin fell back to join his friends. Grallen’s men began to surround the trio.

  “Hey! That’s not a fair fight!” one of the musicians shouted.

  “I suggest you don’t stop playing if you know what’s best. I rather like the idea of a musical accompaniment to this slaughter,” Grallen responded.

  “There’s too many of them, and there’s not enough room to move around. We don’t stand a chance here,” Maurya warned.

  “Agreed. I think we need to get out of here, now,” Klavin responded.

  “There’s a window in the back. Run for it. If we get separated, we can always try to regroup later,” Maurya said. Klavin and Simko nodded.

  “Enough whispering. And enough stalling, too. Come and face me like a man, so I can slaughter you like a lamb,” Jord said, grinning.

  “You got it,” Klavin answered, and ran for the window, Maurya and Simko right beside him. The ground seemed to rise up in front of them, blocking their way. They turned to see Jord still grinning.

  “Oh no, did I do that?” Jord asked. Several of Grallen’s men burst into laughter.

  “Enough playing around. We do have a schedule to keep. Please finish them so we can move on to more important things,” Grallen scolded.

  “Fine,” Jord said, clearly unhappy that someone was interfering with his fun.

  “What do we do?” Maurya asked.

  “The only thing we can,” Klavin answered, grabbing her dagger and running at Jord.

  “No!” Maurya screamed.

  Klavin stabbed the weapon right into Jord’s heart. Or at least he would have, if it hadn’t shattered on contact. Jord smiled and then swung his sword right across Klavin’s chest. Klavin’s body flew across the room as blood splattered everywhere. Jord laughed.

  “It sure took you long enough,” Grallen said under his breath. He turned to his guards and said, “Finish the rest.”

  “That’s enough!” said a voice somewhere in the room.

  “Who dares?” Grallen asked.

  His question was answered when the five musicians stood, dropped their instruments, and drew a variety of weapons seemingly from out of nowhere. They ran at Grallen’s men, and the two groups fought. Grallen was astonished to see the musicians get the upper hand, at which point his own guards chose to run from the building. He then watched the musicians pursue them outside.

  “Perhaps it’s time to leave,” Grallen suggested.

  “What about the other two? I want to kill them too,” Jord protested.

  Grallen looked at them with disgust. “They’re not even worth it. Neither of them will be able to stand in our way. Besides, I want them to live with the knowledge that they couldn’t defeat me. Let them share that with their friends.”

  “This is a mistake,” the hooded man, suddenly next to Grallen, whispered.

  Grallen smiled. “I don’t make mistakes.”

  Grallen turned to leave. The hooded man and a reluctant Jord followed. On his way out Grallen stopped at the bar, lifted an abandoned drink, raised it to Simko and Maurya in a mock toast, and drank it. He placed the empty glass back on the bar and, unnoticed by most, placed a small violet gem next to it. He left with his companions.

  Simko and Maurya quickly cleared a table and pulled a semi-conscious Klavin on top of it. They moved away the remnants of his shirt to reveal a very deep wound.

  “He’ll die without treatment,” Simko said, stating the obvious.

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to find anyone to help in this small town. Even if we did, we’d never be able to pay,” Maurya added.

  Maurya and Simko stared at their fallen friend, feeling helpless. Simko turned away for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. He turned back, having reached a decision.

  “I can help him.” />
  “You? How? Do you have the money to pay a priest?”

  “No.”

  “Then what can you do. It’s not like you’re a—“

  “Healer?” he asked, placing his hands on Klavin’s chest. Maurya grabbed them and pushed them away.

  “What are you doing? If you heal him, it could kill you.”

  “I don’t care. I can’t just let him die. Not if I can do something.”

  “He wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for him.”

  “He’s a lot more important to this mission than I am. I never even managed to get off a single spell back there.”

  “I think he believes we’re all important to this.”

  “I’m doing this. Please don’t try to stop me.”

  Simko again returned his hands to Klavin’s chest. To his surprise, Klavin’s right hand weakly tried to push him away.

  “No …” Klavin managed.

  “I have to do this.”

  “No …” Klavin repeated.

  “Look, can’t you just heal him part of the way? Enough so that we can at least dress the wound? He’s so bad right now there’s nothing I can do, but maybe you can make it so that you’re both still able to walk out of here.”

  Simko thought this over and nodded.

  “I’ll try,” he said, placing his hands back on Klavin’s chest. There was no glow. No sound effects. Nothing to indicate anything out of the ordinary was happening. Except that Klavin’s wound started to dry and shrink, while at the same time a similarly shaped blood stain began to appear through Simko’s shirt.

  “That’s enough!” Maurya yelled, pushing Simko away. “That has to be enough!”

  Simko stumbled over to one of the few tables left standing, and managed to slump into a seat. A few moments later, the musicians returned.

  “They won’t be back,” one of them said.

  “Thank you,” Maurya responded, wishing that were the truth.

  Several of the musicians began tearing off parts of their shirts, creating a supply of makeshift bandages that they used to bind the wounds of both Klavin and Simko.

  “I didn’t even notice you get hit,” one of them remarked to Simko, who only smiled weakly in return.

  The band prepared a quick meal behind the bar, and brought it as well as some water over to the trio.

  “We don’t have money to pay,” Maurya said.

  One of the musicians looked around the room. “I don’t think it matters. I doubt the owner is going to notice a few pieces of beef missing with all this mess.”

  “We never would have gotten out of this without you. We don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  “Forget it. We just don’t like to see anyone getting bullied like that.”

  “Look, we’re on a very important quest, and we could really use your help.”

  The musician waved off the idea. “We haven’t done things like that for a long time. Thanks for the offer, but we’d rather stick to our music.”

  “I understand,” she responded.

  Klavin forced himself to his feet and scanned the room until he found what he was looking for. He picked up the remains of his sword and held it in his hand. He’d been embarrassed today, and had let down his group. Now he didn’t even have a weapon.

  “Here,” one of the musicians said, apparently reading his mind, and tossed him a sword.

  “Thanks,” was all he could say in return, as he put the sword in his scabbard. He looked back at his two friends, and regretted ever dragging them into this.

  And on the outskirts of town, Grallen stared into a small violet gem which looked remarkably like the one he left in the bar. He smiled.

  “Interesting,” was all he said.

  12

  Klavin, Simko, and Maurya walked the road to Farbo Town. They’d need to pass through in order to continue their journey. Had they realized that Vosko and his mob were still in control of it, they might have chosen a different route.

  “I think I should go back to the king and tell him to find someone else,” Klavin said, breaking out of a deep reverie.

  “You can’t do that,” Simko said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I guess you can, but if you just give up now, who do you think is going to do it instead?”

  “He’ll have no problem finding people who are actually up to this task. If it brings some embarrassment to the royal family, then that’s the way it has to be. But I just don’t believe I can do this.”

  “Come on, we lost. So what?” Simko asked, trying to cheer up his friend.

  “We did a bit more than lose. I nearly got killed.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about.”

  “Yes, that’s what this is about. That, and the fact that I could have gotten you two killed as well. We were completely outmatched in that fight.”

  “Maybe the next time we fight, it’ll be different.”

  “Sure. It could be a lot worse.”

  “Look, there’s no time for this,” Maurya interjected. “We lost that fight. We might lose the next one. But we’ve got to keep trying.”

  “You’re not exactly making me feel better,” Klavin said with a half smile.

  The trio entered the town. They immediately noticed how quiet it was.

  “Where is everyone?” Simko asked.

  “Well, it is getting late in the day,” Klavin answered, hoping it was that simple.

  “The sun’s not even down yet,” Simko argued.

  “I don’t know, okay?” Klavin responded.

  They didn’t get very far before two of Vosko’s men noticed them.

  “You three, stop right there,” one ordered.

  “What did we do?” Simko whispered.

  “I don’t know, but they don’t look like official guardsmen to me,” Maurya said.

  “What are you doing here?” the other tough asked.

  “We’re not looking for any trouble. We’re just passing through,” Klavin said.

  “Oh, just passing through? Is that all?” the first one said.

  “Well then there’s no problem, is there?” the second one added.

  “Good,” Klavin said.

  “Of course, there is a small tax for passing through our town,” the first one said, as the second one started to snicker.

  “There’s a tax just to pass through? It shouldn’t take us more than ten minutes,” Simko protested.

  “Well, of course that will be figured into the price,” the first one said, while tears began to roll down the second one’s face.

  Klavin rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just tell us how much.”

  “Oh, it comes to around … everything you’ve got,” the first one answered. The second one had to walk away.

  “Everything we’ve got? That should be easy to pay,” Klavin said.

  “Really? Good?” the first one said.

  “Because we don’t have anything.”

  “I see,” the first one remarked. The second one returned, no longer laughing.

  “So you come into our town, and think you can just pass through without giving anything in return? That takes a lot of nerve,” the second one said.

  “Look, we really have to pass through. We don’t have any money, and we know you’re not really city guardsmen, so you have no right to stop us,” Klavin argued.

  “We never said we were city guardsmen. Not that it matters. The town is ours, and that’s pretty much all you need to know,” the first one said.

  Simko leaned in toward Klavin and whispered, “We outnumber them. Let’s take them and get out of here. I doubt they’ll bother chasing us.”

  Klavin nodded, and drew his sword. Vosko’s men smiled.

  “You know, I have to admit I was kind of hoping it would go this way,” said the first tough, pulling a flail from behind his back. The other tough did the same, only with a short sword. “Then you can explain to Vosko why you’d do such a thing.”

  “Vosko?” Simko asked, shocked.
He’d heard of this guy.

  “How much trouble are we in?” Klavin whispered to Simko.

  Several other men turned a corner and, seeing the discussion, decided to join.

  “There goes our advantage,” Maurya pointed out unnecessarily.

  “Fine,” Klavin said, gripping his sword. “On the count of three, you know what to do. One …two …”

  Minutes later they ran out the other side of town. They kept running until they were surrounded by a thick forest. It didn’t seem that they were being followed. Klavin threw his sword to the ground.

  “Well, at least we managed to get through the town,” Simko said, trying to lighten the mood.

  Klavin shook his head in disgust. “We just got humiliated by a bunch of thugs. Thugs!”

  “Klavin, calm down. They did outnumber us at least five to one,” Maurya said.

  “So what? We’re going to have to be able to face things a lot tougher than them if we’re supposed to complete this mission.”

  “Remember, you two are still wounded from that last fight,” Maurya tried to point out.

  “Even more proof we’re in over our heads.”

  The trio found some rocks and sat on them in silence.

  “Those poor people,” Simko said absentmindedly. Maurya shook her head, but it was too late.

  “What poor people?” Klavin asked.

  Simko sighed. “You’ve never heard of Vosko? You haven’t, have you? You don’t get out of that library much, do you? Well, if he’s still here, then that means the townspeople are still in there, too. Or what’s left of them. He usually only moves on after he’s taken everything and killed everyone.”

  Klavin stood. “We have to help them!”

  “How? We couldn’t stand against them a few minutes ago, and chances are he’s got even more men at his disposal than the ones we’ve seen,” Simko said.

  “Besides, we have to keep going. Rha is on the other side of this forest, and we need to get there as soon as possible. And from what I’ve heard, this forest isn’t any place we should want to spend a lot of time in either,” Maurya said.

  “So we just leave all those people at the mercy of some maniac and his army of thugs?”

  “I don’t think we have a choice. There’s more at stake than just a single town here,” Maurya said.