The Brat's Final Gambit

Maerillus jigged back as his opponent opened up with a furious volley of jabs. His hands throbbed from the countless impact of parries and blocks so that every time he had the chance, he checked to see if he still possessed ten fingers. Quickly, he backpedaled to open up enough distance to launch a counterattack of his own, but the infernal man kept moving relentlessly toward him.

“Do it now!” Jolan Kine shouted, and Maerillus thought fleetingly that the man had to be crazy. If he tried pulling the move they had worked so hard on all morning long, the officer wielding the menacingly thick practice sword was going to brain him a good one on his helm.

Maerillus cursed. The man was coming on too quickly for him to do anything except back up until he lost his balance and fell.

Before he allowed himself time to think about what he was doing, Maerillus launched himself forward, feeling incredibly awkward, and went low into a rolling dive.

The sudden change in direction took his opponent by surprise, and the man’s sword passed harmlessly over Maerillus’s head. Wincing, he pushed himself up like a spring and whipped his arm around and took his practice partner hard in his left side, just below his ribs.

The man grunted and froze for one brief moment while Maer stood there panting, feeling incredibly lucky that he didn’t have a knot rising off the top of his head. Both of them took off their leather practice armor.

“I didn’t see that one coming!” Lieutenant Hamm said with a broad smile. “You’re learning some of the Hammer’s secrets I see.”

The officer gave Maerillus a friendly shove that nearly drove him to his knees, but he didn’t dare let it show. Between deep gulps of air, Maerillus found enough to say earnestly, “That last attack was a killer.”

“Once you’ve got an opening you’ve got to press it like your life depends on it, young Mr. Sartor.”

Jolan Kine’s voice broke in a moment later. “And that’s because it does.”

“Aye,” agreed Hamm.

“Not bad,” Kine said approvingly. “If you don’t do anything stupid like Niam’s last maneuver you might live to see your next birthday.”

Niam of course wasn’t going to let that one slide. “Um . . . may I remind everyone that my ‘stupid maneuver’ worked?”

Jolan Kine looked less than amused.

“Unhooking the straps on your sparing partner’s practice armor before a match does not count as a win.” Jolan Kine was very emphatic about the “not.”

“Hey, it fell off—I saw an opening—I made my move. Good enough for me.”

“This isn’t a game,” the Wizard’s Hammer reminded him.

“I’m just saying.”

Maerillus knew not many people would have realized that Niam really didn’t see what he had done as merely a joke. Between the workouts with the soldiers, the Hammer and the Count, Niam had been taking the worst poundings out of the three of them. Growing up running from Bode and his band of bullies had forced Niam to consider options no one else would have. He certainly never could have matched Bode muscle for muscle, so instead of using his fists, he did things like trick him into falling over the edge of an old privy well. Maerillus never would have admitted it to Niam, but he sometimes found Niam’s way of handling things poetic.

Sometimes.

When it didn’t almost get them killed.

“You do have to take this training seriously,” Maerillus chided him.

“I’ve got twice as many bruises as anyone else,” Niam said, and they both closed their eyes sympathetically as Davin took blows from Joachim on the other side of the barn where he and the Count dueled one another with Joachim correcting him, then repeating new moves until he got them right.

Which didn’t take long.

Already, Davin looked like a pro. None of them could have kept up with Joachim, and although Davin still trailed behind Joachim in skill and finesse, he took longer and longer to beat each day that passed. Davin was already as good as any of Joachim’s seasoned regulars.

“Ow!” Davin cried out as Joachim spun his sword, sending Davin’s flying, and then brought the tip of his down across Davin’s wrist.

Niam whistled. “Well, maybe Davin’s catching up with me on the bruise thing.”

“You think?” Maerillus said sarcastically.

From outside, a soldier shouted, “Incoming rider!”

Joachim lowered is sword and walked to the barn’s massive sliding door and pushed it aside allowing the harsh glare of brightly lit snow to flood the interior. Maerillus averted his eyes until they adjusted.

Galloping hard. A soldier raced down the long road leading to the complex of barns, kitchens, servants’ homes, and storage buildings behind the sprawling Joachim family manse, rivaled in size only by the Sartor manor, which was smaller.

“What now?” Joachim asked aloud.

Jolan Kine moved up to stand beside him as the soldier rode down the deeply furrowed path in the snow shoveled out by the soldiers. The man brought his sweaty, winded mount to a halt.

“Report,” Joachim said before the man had a chance to salute.

“There’s been another attack, sir! Mayor Ledge . . . his daughter, I mean. At the mayor’s office.”

Joachim looked stunned. His voice cracked. “How long ago?”

“Two days, sir.” The soldier looked nervous, as if he were about to be sick. “The road was too bad to get here until now. The mayor had nearly everyone shoveling so we could get word to you. There’s more. Another person was attacked, but several people said it wasn’t a trall.” The man fell silent for a moment, uncertain how to proceed.

“Spit it out!” Joachim demanded grumpily.

“Witnesses said they saw men running from the second murder site and that they were dressed in our uniforms.”

Joachim let out an explosive breath.

“Well this does make things interesting,” Kine said darkly.

Maerillus was about to give Niam an I-don’t-think-you-should-open-your-mouth-right-now look, but Niam appeared to be too stunned to say anything.

“That’s ridiculous,” the lieutenant said in disgust.

“Yes,” Jolan Kine agreed. “And clever.”

“I’d pay good money to know just how many ‘friends’ that filthy, dung-eating sack of entrails has waiting to bite at my boots,” Joachim said angrily. “Karin is . . . was a dear friend, and she died because of it.”

“When we find that out, we will also find out just what Kreeth was up to,” Kine said.

Above them, the mounted soldier cleared his throat. Everyone looked up at him. “Ledge told me the night before his daughter was murdered that Lord Eason’s men were going around talking to anyone who would listen about how badly you’ve made a mess of things, sir.”

“And the worm turns,” Kine mumbled.

Joachim’s fists clenched.

“What are your thoughts?” the Hammer asked.

“We’ve got to get to Old Flood before the sun sets,” he told Kine. “This thing is about to explode if I don’t get it contained.”

“There are still things we’re missing,” Kine warned.

“Don’t I know it,” Joachim rumbled.

“We’ve got to do something,” Davin said unhappily. “Where’s that Voice when we need it?”

Niam arched an eyebrow. “Now you’re starting to see things my way,” he said.

Davin held up his hand to stop his friend before he started.

“Well, it’s not like it remained silent when a few words could have helped us stop this,” he said bitterly.

Davin took in a deep breath. He frequently had to remind himself that Niam had a personal stake in the Voice’s warnings and silences that went back over a year and a half, now. “I’m just not sure what it can do and cannot do,” Davin told him. “I think it’s ultimately up to us to decide what gets done.”

Niam kicked a dust bunny in disagreement, but let the argument go. “We seem to be drawn to trouble,” he began.

“Or it’s drawn to us,” Maerillus added.

“Or it’s drawn to us,” he echoed his friend. “So maybe we should just go stand in the woods until Kreeth, Ravel, and the trall show up to kill us.” For once, Niam was surprised when Davin and Maerillus actually paused long enough to consider that. “We could return to Kreeth’s estate to look around for anything we might have missed,” Niam offered.

“I don’t know,” Davin mused thoughtfully. “The place is lit up day and night now that the garrison is working around the clock to cut everything down and burn it—a half a mile in every direction.”

Niam shrugged his shoulders. “It just seems like the Voice comes to us when we’re in the right place at the right time is all I’m saying. Maybe we just aren’t where we need to be.”

Davin’s head shot up. “I think that’s a great idea!”

Niam sounded shocked. “You do?”

“Yes,” Davin said. “I honestly do.”

“The Lake Valleys province covers a lot of space,” Maerillus said with clear reservations in his voice.

“I think it’s better than nothing,” Davin argued. “Besides, I wonder if all we have to do is get close to an area where we’ll find something important.”

Maerillus gave it a few more minutes of thought. “Well,” he said, “if Niam’s right about us and trouble, I suppose it does make it’s own twisted sort of sense.”

“Thanks pal,” Niam mumbled.

Maerillus punched him in the shoulder.

Bug ran hard through the thick carpet of snow covering the forest floor. The thing chasing her was not far behind. Its feet thudded, keeping pace but never drawing close enough to be seen. Her pursuer was teasing her. In her heart she was terrified that it was playing a game of cat and mouse, toying with her and using her up until she was spent.

Then it would pounce.

Bug wanted to scream, but she knew fear encouraged some animals—so she clamped her lips shut and just ran. Whatever followed had the distinct footfall of something that moved on two feet. Which meant it could be a trall or a person. But tralls also went on four feet, didn’t they? Or maybe they didn’t. And they stank. That’s what Niam told her. But the fact that she didn’t smell anything didn’t mean it wasn’t a trall.

Behind her the steady gait continued. A branch snapped loudly, and she forced her legs to move faster. Ahead, the forest opened up. Home was just a short run past the barns and beehives. Why hadn’t she listened to Niam?

Bug emerged from the woods into the open where guards were stationed just up the rise in a one-room building by the barn. That’s when she screamed, loud, shrill, and earsplitting. The footfalls slowed and stopped, and Bug screamed again. One of the guards looked out of his shack, recognized her, waved cheerily . . . and went back into the small room where it was warm!

Stupid guards!

Bug kept running and didn’t stop until she got home. Then she dared to look back. Amid the trees by the forest’s edge a dark shape stood. If she hadn’t known to look for it, she might not have seen it.

A man. Wrapped in a dark cloak with his hood pulled up concealing his face. Bug had to wrench herself from the sight of him. Sweat poured down her face and rained down her back, and as the cold air leeched through the fabric of her coat, she began to shiver.

With a massive effort of will, Bug forced herself to go inside, where her father stood over an iron-worked stove cooking salted pork in a pan.

“There she is, my Madeline,” he said cheerfully.

Bug felt her knees weaken, and she fought back tears. If she told him that she had been followed, he might go into the woods to look for her pursuer. And if something happened to her dad, she might never be able to get over it.

It was a man, she told herself, trying to find some kind of relief in that knowledge. It was only a man. But it didn’t help. Card wasn’t a trall and look what he tried to do to her. Salb wasn’t a trall, either. And look what he did to Corey. Then she chided herself for trying to feel relieved because her follower might not have been a man at all. Everyone around now knew about the things Joachim’s soldiers fought at that terrible merchant’s estate.

Moving cadavers!

Lucky for her that thought hadn’t occurred to until now. If it had, she might have frozen even before something evil locked its eyes with hers. Lucky those monsters had been so slow that the only way they managed to kill someone was by taking them by surprise, but she heard that the Wizard’s Hammer warned people that some raised corpses were able to move very quickly.

Bug fought hard to suppress a shiver. This time it was definitely because of fear. But now, she was home. Inside. Safe. A warm, inviting voice spoke up jovially from the small stove.

“Twelve for three days now . . . how does it feel to be a year older?” her father asked, oblivious to the fact that her insides were as wobbly as worms.

“I’m not a year older,” she managed to make herself say. “I’m only three days older.”

“Oh! You’ll have to excuse me. I can only count so high considering I have only four fingers on my counting hand.”

“Oh dad,” she said. An old joke, he had been telling her that one since he had lost a finger when a blacksmith’s anvil fell on it. “I, um, need to go put my dolls away,” she said, and darted into her room. With the door firmly closed, she sank into her blankets and began to cry.

Niam had warned her not to go through the woods whenever she ran errands between Joachim’s estate and Mr. Sartor’s. Ever since she knew she was about to turn twelve she had wanted to be braver—like Niam, like his friends.

She was twelve!

So after a month of scaring herself that something was following her, Bug decided to do what the boys would have done. She wanted to show herself that she could face her fear.

Bug knew that you had to face your fears, or insult them and run like mad—not let them eat at you until you were like a frightened puppy that peed on the floor at every scary sound.

Besides, she reasoned that the trall seemed to be getting father and farther away. Now most of its attacks had been against farm animals, though people still went missing on the outskirts of the Lake Valleys. Joachim’s patrols seemed to have done some good.

Or so her dad had said.

When Count Joachim’s physician summoned her to deliver some of his honeyed berry cakes to Mr. Sartor and Mr. Kine earlier that day, Bug chose to use the opportunity to take the long way through the woods instead of down open roads to deliver the food. The woods today had been lovely and dark, and her eyes feasted on the play of light snow striped by long shadows as she wound her way down the trail, listening to the crunch of her boots as she moved across the frozen ground.

These trails were seldom traveled in the winter, and Bug felt better as she moved down the path because except for her lone footprints, no other passing had disturbed the smooth and snowy surface. She had thought that maybe as she walked the edge of the wood-line she had been tricking herself into believing something was following her after all. Too bad the paths hadn’t been snow-covered the last time she had been in the woods and thought she had heard stealthy movements keeping pace with her just out of sight.

To her alarm she did find footprints in the snow. They came from a trail never used except during the summer because that path led to Siler’s Gorge and was extremely treacherous during the winter.

Now, however, the snow along the path was packed down from constant wear, and at several points along the path, the footprints left the trail and branched off into the forest towards the Joachim and Sartor estates. And toward the roads and paths she walked between the two places. That’s when a cold, icy spear of fear sank itself into her. Now, with the man following her, she had her proof, and she wanted more than anything in the world to tell Niam.