Einsdee, the 1st of Falling, 768 A.E.

  Following Leander and his men’s arduous pace through the night was no easy task for Genero. These were men that had been bred and trained for this, and while Genero was no slouch, he was beginning to suffer the ill effects of Dark Poisoning. Even from just the brief lack of exposure to light endured in the last few Mynettes and sporadic exposure to darkness of the last Dee or so, he was already beginning to feel out of sorts.

  It began as whitish specks of light dancing before his eyes, but it grew to include lightheadedness and a touch of vertigo. His limbs began to feel like rubber and his stomach twisted in uncomfortable knots. Dark Poisoning was something that could sneak up on a man and surprise him like sunburn. Under the some, one moment a person may feel fine, only to find a few Mynettes later that he is blistering up.

  Because of the seriousness of Dark Poisoning, many Aureans are mild hypochondriacs as far as Dark Poisoning goes, but Genero had good reason to worry about it. This wasn’t just some mother’s overactive imaginings when her child felt a little out of sorts; it was the honest to goodness real deal. After all, he’d been in and out of less than healthy low-light conditions for the last couple Dees, and now they were doing a night raid.

  It was madness, but Corydon wouldn’t permit any failures. The thought of the fate his son, his wife, and he would suffer if he should fail was enough to make Genero dig down deep and draw from a well of strength he didn’t know he’d had. His legs pumped a bit faster, and the ill effects caused by Dark Poisoning receded enough to let him continue.

  For a few Mynettes, they’d been running past ramshackle huts and closed businesses, most of them completely dark other than the reflections of the city’s lights and the burning pillar of fire that used to be the harbor tower on their windows. Of course, the outlying buildings were hardly even buildings by Aurean standards. They were really just crude squatter huts or something of that sort – not that Aurean settlements had squatters. Yet with the light he saw ahead, he’d not have rather seen the crystalline spires of the towers in the inner city of Cenalium. These huts were all he needed as long as there was light.

  He never thought he’d be so happy to see light again as when he stumbled into an intersection lit dimly with a quartet of oil lamps. It wasn’t really any better than modest cellar lighting in Cenalium, but in that instant it seemed to him like the glow of middee.

  Genero had to stop for a moment to bask in the luxurious light, and that brief few Saycunds was nearly enough to separate him from Leander’s group. There was no telling what that would have led to. With no way to speak the language of these people and only the faintest understanding of the haphazard layout of the town, he had no doubt that he would have quickly become lost. That would have easily spelt a death sentence for him in the dark.

  But no, Leander waited, barking back at him to pick up his feet, or something equally undignified and inappropriate to say to a superior, but Genero didn’t care. He heard nothing more than the familiar tone prodding him into moving. That alone was enough to get his feet moving again.

  As he ran alongside the strange Guardians, he noticed that they were uncomfortable, as if they too were finally feeling the effects of Dark Poisoning. It’s about time, he thought to himself. After all, they’d been in and out of the dark for the last few Dees, with nary a worry about exposure. Had they truly hit a wall of endurance, or was it the town itself and the fact that they were surrounded by thousands of hostiles making them nervous?

  That was a disquieting thought in and of itself – being surrounded by enemies – but the notion that this extensive dose of dark had no effect whatsoever on these men was even more disquieting. The idea was enough to get his stomach rumbling uneasily once again.

  They broke into the waterfront area then, which was, by nature of the Ouer, the only still active part of the city usually. The attack on the waterfront had been enough to wake other citizens of the town, but most of them had looked away when the ten of them had passed.

  You don’t bother a sizeable group of men when they run past your doorway in the middle of the night, not if you know what’s good for you. Of course, had they been in Guardian regalia, it would likely have been a different story, but to anyone who briefly looked their way they were just a bunch of Kerathi who were intent on getting somewhere.

  Illias’ group was sweeping the very waterfront. Because of their greater exposure to the natives, that was a more dangerous job than that of Leander’s group. Leander’s group was sweeping two to three streets back from the waterline. The number was indefinite because the streets were so crooked and laid out in such a strange sort of plan that it was hard to tell. The pattern made no sense whatsoever to the orderly minds of Aureans, but Genero had to wonder if it even made sense to a Kerathi.

  At each inn they came across, and there were many, Leander and two of his men would go in. They’d force open doors if they had to, ask a few questions in a most impolite manner that demanded answering, look around for any signs of the foreigners, and then leave. Since the Kerathi were a rather prickly lot, this more often than not resulted in fistfights or worse. The Aureans didn’t care about the impression they made, so they had no qualms about severely wounding or even killing the lowlanders who attempted to stop them. They didn’t have time to waste on a few innkeepers who got a bit self-righteous about their mistreatment. Every Mynette was precious, for they were in short supply.

  Genero kept expecting Leander and the pair of Guardians who went with him to come back looking a bit roughed up, but there were rarely more than a scratch or bruised knuckles to show for their efforts. Each time it happened, Genero was more convinced that these men he worked with were less than Aurean. Something profound had to have been done to them. Kerathi should be stronger on average than any Aurean, yet these Guardians worked their way from inn to inn, cleaning the floor with anyone who stepped up against them.

  Had they been taking their leisurely time, surely the trounced upon would have organized their friends to straighten things out, but the Guardians moved with such alacrity that there was never any time for the Kerathi to sort out what was happening. Most of the innkeepers and their patrons were dead, incapacitated, or convinced that what had happened to them was an isolated incident. In this case, the very pride of the Kerathi worked against them. To admit being thrashed so badly and go asking for help would be a strong blow against their individual pride and honor.

  Genero and the six other men around him were waiting at what must have been the eighth establishment Leander had broken into. The interrogation seemed to be going normally, or so it sounded from the meaty thwacks of fists meeting Kerathi flesh and the sounds of furniture breaking into kindling. Genero found himself twitching and jerking his head around at every strange sound the night offered. To his overactive imagination, alley cats were suddenly enemies crawling in the darkness, and the strange smells the Kerathi city offered him were consciously seeking out his nostrils to fill him with their poison.

  He shivered at the same moment the glass window above him broke. The night was dark already, but it grew even darker as a great shadow loomed overhead. Out of reflex, he looked up. Shrouded in a shower of tinkling glass shards was the impressive bulk of an Ox-Man falling upon them. No, not falling he realized, but rather jumping down into their midst.

  “Move!” Genero shouted, diving away from the site where the Ox-Man would impact.

  One Guardian was not so lucky. He was crushed beneath the Ox-Man’s four hundred plus Kees and his heavy hooves. Bones snapped audibly and the man died instantly. The Ox-Man threw back his head and roared, throwing his horned head around as he unlimbered his great mallet from his shoulders.

  In the near darkness Bedros was an imposing sight. The light seemed to shift on his coarse hair as his massive chest heaved with each breath, giving the illusion that his skin crawled. His eyes were massive orbs of red hatred that caught every iota of available light, using it to draw the eyes to his terrible face and the curved horns the width of a man’s thigh that curled on either side of his Ox-Man’s head. But all of that was just a distraction for the death he swung around in his arms.

  The first of Corydon’s Guardians to taste Bedros’ mallet never took in another breath. He was swept twenty Mayters through the air. He sailed across the street to smack lifelessly into the wall of a closed shop. His body flailed limply as it slumped to the ground.

  With a fierce snort of anger Bedros sprung at a trio of Guardians who backed away in terror. Genero almost laughed to finally see a reasonable reaction from Corydon’s Guardians. The Ox-Man’s mallet whistled past the Guardians and crashed noisily onto the street cobbles, shattering them and spraying about a cloud of stone chips and dust.

  “Leander!” One of the men shouted, calling for their captain.

  Genero threw himself forward, surprising himself at the sudden courage he found. His arc sword lashed out, spraying an arc of light at the Ox-Man. Smoke rose from the Ox-Man’s heavy coat as he wheeled about to face his attacker. Genero danced back outside the considerable range of the Ox-Man’s mallet, while his companions harried the Ox-Man’s flanks and rear, throwing more stinging bolts from their arc-swords at the beast. He might be much larger and stronger than a man, but he would still fall if hit enough, of that Genero was sure.

  A shot rang out, then another. A Guardian stumbled and pitched over onto the ground, blood spurting from his chest. Genero cursed and ducked into an alley. From there he could see the gunpowder smoke from the same window where Bedros had jumped out of, the glint of a rifle, and from behind him the shooter a pale face curtained in silvery hair stood out in the darkness. Anthea, he realized upon seeing her for the first time. She was here and within reach.

  Leander chose that moment to step outside of the inn to see what was going on. His pair of arc-swords was already drawn, as he had no doubt heard the commotion from outside. He hadn’t expected all of this though. Bedros’ mallet nearly took his head off as it swept through the twin pillars that held up the awning over the inn’s stoop. With nothing to support its front end, the awning fell inward, its street side swinging down toward the doorway. Leander was forced back inside with a shout of anger as the heavy awning swung toward him, an indiscriminant crushing force.

  “The girl! She’s inside!” Genero called out, hoping that Leander would hear. Then he darted back into combat, throwing a bolt from his arc-lance at the rifleman in the window. The bolt missed, but it drove the shooter back.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Leander would have to deal with whomever was still inside, because the Ox-Man was going to take everything they had to stop, and they were running short on Guardians at the moment.

  Makan glanced down the stairwell for what must have been the fifteenth time. He had been watching it since they had left their room and heard noises from the disturbance downstairs. It had taken only a single peek at the men causing trouble to discern that they were not Kerathi. That meant that they were likely in league with the men burning the port if not the same men.

  Even though he only saw them for a Saycund, Makan’s eyes and wits were sharp enough to determine that these Aureans, for that was what their accents and coloring showed them to be, no matter how much they tried to hide it, were of a strange sort. They shared little in common with Anthea’s lithe build and graceful features. They were bulkier, a bit darker, and they moved with the deadly sort of fluid grace that a trained warrior did.

  Even three of them were more than he’d like to have to tangle with, yet there were seven or eight more outside if there weren’t any more hiding in the alleys. They were standing in plain sight of the second-floor window that faced the road, waiting to support the men inside if needed. In close quarters Bedros’ strength would be severely limited, as would Rolf’s shooting. That limited their tactics rather greatly. Battling through the three in the lobby of the inn would just lead them to the ones outside, and there were probably even more in the alleyways waiting for them even if they couldn’t see them from the windows. Whatever they did had to be done with a minimal amount of exposing Anthea to harm’s way.

  Makan saw little choice other than to try to fight through the force outside and avoid the three inside if possible. They’d have to make their getaway through the alleyways and head for the shorefront then. This meant that they’d have to fight through no less than seven trained men intent on stopping them. The fact that they would probably try to capture Anthea, or so he guessed they would try to do, meant little to them. Anyone preventing them from capturing Anthea would likely be killed on the spot. That they’d burned the ships in the port meant they cared little for whom they harmed while they went about their task.

  It made Makan more than a little curious about the girl he had sworn to protect less than a Dee ago. After all, how often is a single young girl worth all this bother? What did she possess or know that made her so valuable that the Aureans would risk outright war with the Kerathi? Even the Elegians had never managed to totally subjugate and control the clansmen, and they hadn’t had the Aurean’s physical limitations relating to light. Of course, these Aureans didn’t seem to be exhibiting the typical Aurean limitations either. Even a half-breed like Anthea still needed sunlight. What did that make these men then?

  To Makan and the rest of them, including Bedros himself, it had seemed most appropriate for the Ox-Man to lead the charge. This said nothing for the courage of the other two men, who both wished they were able to do it. Bedros was simply the more able man for the job because he was more durable.

  In fact, after seeing Bedros smash through the window and scatter the Aureans in the street like a comet dashing against the earth, Makan was positive they’d made the right choice. Rolf’s rifles added to the clamor below and the noise in the street, but he watched the stairs and kept an eye on Anthea. She was nervously pacing back and forth, stealing glances at her friend in the streets who was fighting bravely on her behalf.

  After Bedros collapsed the inn’s awning inward and forced the Aureans downstairs back inside, there was nowhere else for them to go but up. It would have made no sense for them to go out the back entrance when they knew their quarry was upstairs. They were not after the Ox-Man. Makan didn’t need to understand High Elegian to guess what had been shouted to them either; they would have said something to the effect of “check upstairs for the others.”

  Leander and his two men started up the stairs moments later with their arc-swords drawn. Right as they rounded the bend in the stairs at the first landing, Makan kicked a large potted plant down at them. It was little enough of an obstacle, just one of the proprietor’s homey touches that had failed to make the inn look less rundown than it actually was, but it bought them a couple Saycunds they would likely need before all was said and done. And it was rather gratifying to see three grown men scramble back as the pot rumbled down toward them, shattered on the wall beside them, and sprayed dirt and ceramic fragments all over.

  Makan didn’t need to know High Elegian to understand the curses being called up at him either. The steaks of light that burned the wood paneling where he had been standing spoke volumes anyway.

  “They’re coming up this way. Whatever you’re going to do, Anthea, you’ve got to do it soon.” Makan urged Anthea.

  “I know, I know! I’m thinking.” She hissed at him, digging through her box of flowers. “Enchantments aren’t used for battle usually.”

  “’Usually’ means that sometimes they are, so make it work however you have to do it.” He replied, peaking down the stairs again.

  He emptied a round from the hand pistol Rolf had lent him down the stairs without aiming. He just bent his arm around the corner and fire. After he’d fired, he tossed it aside. Reloading would take time, and he didn’t know how anyway. Aiming well would have been relatively pointless as well, since this had been the first time he’d ever fired a gun and taking the time to aim would have exposed him to unwanted danger. Even so, it was rewarding to hear a grunt of pain and more curses.

  As he glanced back down to see where the Aureans were at, Leander leapt up the last couple stairs, surprising Makan. The last time he had seen the big Aurean, he had been nearly at the bottom of the flight of stairs. Yet now he had made it up the entire flight while dodging a slug, and he had done so soundlessly. To top things off, he came flying up with an offhanded swing of his arc-sword that cut dangerously close to Makan’s face. It would have taken Makan’s head off had he not put his fish spear in its way.

  Leander’s face registered shock very briefly, shock that his deathblow had been averted. He recovered quickly, taking only a brief moment to glance over at a terrified Anthea.

  “So, a fishman has decided to save our little friend?” Leander asked with a leaden smile.

  Makan didn’t answer. Instead, he shifted into a defensive position, one he’d used many times before when facing more than one enemy. Every wasted breath and every wasted motion was an easy way to get killed. Let the man brag now, he thought to himself, it was who was still standing after all the talking that mattered.

  After a feint with the left hand again, Leander swung a second arc-sword out with his right hand. Light exploded from it splashing around the shaft of Makan’s spear as his hands twisted the weapon into a blocking position. While the spear absorbed most of the shock, some of it still hit Makan in the right shoulder.

  Makan permitted himself a slight smile when Leander’s face registered shock for a second time. The material of Makan’s Seaskin clothing had diffused and absorbed the electricity. He owed that to the nature of the type of fish he had taken the skin from.

  “How?” Leander asked, glancing sideways as his two companions – one wounded – joined him at the top of the stairs.

  Makan began a complex offensive, a flowing sweep of a dozen feints and strikes that drove all three men back. When he pulled back once more into a defensive position, Leander was bloodied on his cheek and on his left thigh. The Guardian who Makan had shot in the arm had a matching wound in his other arm.

  Leander’s face was all business now. His stance had changed from a man facing someone he considered not to be a threat to a man prepared to fight to the death. “Your clothes might be able to halt an arc-sword blast, but your face won’t!” Leander hissed.

  He scissored his two arc-swords horizontally in front of him, releasing a head-high burst from each at the same time. His companions, following his cue perfectly, did the same. Even though he ducked to the side, Makan felt his hair stand on end and singe as the blasts carried past him.

  Only the narrowness of the hallway saved Makan here. At just under two Mayters wide, he never had to face more than two men instead of all three, but those two came at him in full force. He deflected each strike, sending in a stabbing counterattack every chance he got to keep them from pushing him too far back.

  With his greater reach and the use of a piercing weapon instead of a weapon designed primarily for slashing, Makan had the advantage here. He waited for them to foul each other’s attacks, knowing it was only a matter of time, with Leander using two swords and the other man using one. Three blades in such a close area proved to be too much.

  Leander’s right sword caught his fellow’s blade just once, and it cost the man his life. The Guardian glanced in irritation at his superior, and in that moment Makan’s spear ripped out his throat, punching through his larynx. He fell over clasping at his ruined throat that hissed as air escaped from the unnatural hole opened in it.

  Another volley from Rolf’s rifles strafed the streets. From the series of pings and the clatter outside, it sounded like he was using shot instead of slugs. While the small lead shot would only sting Bedros if it hit him, it would do considerably more damage to the Aureans if they weren’t properly armored against such an attack.

  “Anthea, do your stuff now, or not at all.” Makan called out, not daring to look behind him, as the wounded Guardian hesitantly took his place beside Leander.

  “Calling on the girl to save you?” Leander taunted, catching Makan with a cut on the forearm.

  The wound opened a ribbon-like slit that began to drip down toward his elbow. Makan caught Leander on wrist to repay the favor, earning another round of curses, these ones dedicated to Haestos’ wrath. Makan gritted his teeth and drove the two men back with another strenuous flurry of attacks. Being outnumbered, they hardly expected him to press an attack, and while it was a risky thing to do, desperate times require desperate measures.

  Leander’s eyes glanced past him in his third look of surprise in a period of no more than a few Mynettes. Makan couldn’t spare a glance, but when there was a flash of silvery light followed by a low, strange chant that resonated all the way down to his inner ears and through his bones, he knew it must be Anthea.

  Master of Woods, Master of minds;

  Drive away these men, who would do harm to friends of mine.

  Leander faltered then, his muscles locking, and his eyes bulging. His body tried to do what his mind and will told itself not to do. Makan’s spear slid past his guard and right through his sternum, piercing his chest. He died painfully, sinking to his knees. Curse whispered past his bloodstained lips as he grasped feebly at Makan’s legs to remain upright. After his last breath escaped his lungs, he fell forward onto his face.

  The wounded man who had fought beside him died more quickly and peacefully, if death by spear could ever be peaceful. Makan’s fish spear plunged into his heart. He was dead before Makan managed to wrench the barbed tip out past the man’s cracked ribs.

  “Thank Cainel, they’re fleeing!” Rolf cried. “She’s done it.”

  Makan turned away from his kills to see Anthea in a swoon. She sat on the floor with her back to the wood paneled hallway wall. Her head lolled to the side as her eyes fluttered wildly. Her coloring was pale and she looked more unconscious than conscious.

  Makan slung his spear into the harness over his shoulders, and scooped Anthea up in his arms. “Get their arc-swords and your pistol, Rolf. We’ve got to go.”

  Rolf looked back at him, his eyes noting Anthea’s incapacitated state with considerable concern.

  “She’ll be fine… if we hurry and get out of the city.” Makan said, urging the man along.

  Rolf nodded, pushing himself up from his prone firing position so that he could collect the Aurean weapons.

  While he did that, Makan carefully lowered Anthea down to Bedros, who was waiting just below the window. As long as his arms were, and with Makan bracing himself to lower her by her wrists, it was a gentle trip to the ground.

  Makan went next, after Bedros had carefully deposited Anthea on a safe patch of ground, though he was loath to do so. Makan sat on the windowsill with his legs hanging over and dropped onto the Ox-Man’s large open palms. Bedros showed almost no sign of straining as he lowered Makan far enough for him to jump down to the ground. The Mueran marveled at the Ox-Man’s strength as he picked Anthea up once more.

  Rolf lowered the collected weapons first and then performed a somewhat less graceful descent than Makan. It climaxed in his being on all fours where he landed beside Bedros’ feet. As he straightened into a standing position once more, he gathered the pilfered weapons and looked about.

  A crowd had begun to gather, as a fight in any Kerathi settlement tends to draw, and Makan feared that Anthea’s enchantment would not keep the Aureans away for long. They slipped through the forming crowd as unnoticed as a three Mayter Ox-Man and his three companions could be, which is not very. Even with all that was happening, they drew eyes. Anthea, even under cover of a hood had something about her that would cause a man to stop and look, even though Makan was helping her walk under her own power then. As for Makan, he was just another stranger in the mix. Of all of them, only Rolf went unremarked upon, except in regard to the company he kept.