Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (59 page)

He rose and made motions with his hands to his two
shieldmates.  Kerwin stepped back a pace.  Landon nocked an arrow to his
string.  Marik drew his sword where he stood before the door.

After a deep breath he instituted his strength
working.  The upcoming fight hardly called for it, battling against untrained
amateurs.  He only wanted the door to go down under the first kick.

In Kingshome he had spent the winter refining this new
technique whenever other matters allowed him the time.  Unlike the battle at
the Hollister Bridge, he had brought it to a point of greater control.  Though
he could not maintain it indefinitely or move mountains through sheer strength,
he better understood the intricacies of his body.  He could call upon that
fantastic strength without running the risk of shattering his bones through a
simple movement.

In his mind he visualized his body, its every muscle,
every sinew, every bone, every blood vein, every fiber.  Marik only needed to
strengthen his legs for the next moment yet he had learned to never focus
solely on any one portion of his anatomy.  Such only invited misfortune.  Once
he fixed his body in his mind, he envisioned the energy coursing through his
fine network of energy webs.  He opened his power reserves to the network,
flooding his body with new energy that swelled the channels in his muscles. 
Strength burst through his body.

He raised his booted foot and slammed it into the door
inches from the knob.  The door ripped from the frame, its bolt streaking
across the room like an arrow, striking one man in the back shoulder before he
could register Marik’s arrival.  While the door slammed into the wall with
terrific force, the man clutched his shoulder in surprised agony.

Marik quickly glanced around the room, seeing the men
to whom the auras belonged.  Nearest to him stood a scruffy, untrustworthy rat
of a man, staring at him in comic surprise.  Before anyone could react, Marik
lashed out and cut the rat’s throat.

He deliberately swung in a wild manner, concealing the
care he actually imbued the strike with.  If he showcased his phenomenal
strength it would scare them off, stampeding them into the hallways, into a
Dietrik unprepared for such a mass exodus.  The rat fell in a tumble, clutching
simultaneously for the long knife sheathed at his belt and the frothy blood
spurting from his ruptured neck.

Alarmed shouts erupted from the remaining men, for
which Marik felt glad.  It added to his sudden restudy of the room when the
crowd drew weapons.  “Oh hells!” he muttered, striving for the tone of one who
realizes he has walked into a situation far beyond his expectations.  He
shuffled backward a step in a show of fear when the door struck him in the
head.

The top hinge had snapped during the impact with the
wall.  It leaned at an angle, its bottom pressed hard against the wall as the
surviving lower hinge squalled in twisting agony.  Marik, startled, lifted his
free hand to hold back the leaning door.  Enraged howls brought his head around
to the angry tide surging for him.

Marik released the door and jumped outside in a haste
no longer feigned.  From inside he heard the first voice shouting, “Hurry!  Get
that bastard!  Get him!”

The second voice, no longer muffled, screamed in
protest, “No you damned fools!  It’s a trick!”  His words found no purchase
against their howls.

Kerwin quickly stepped to a point far enough away they
could both fight effectively.  They knew each other’s fighting styles well. 
“Nothing like a grand entrance, eh?”

“Here they come,” Marik replied when the defunct door
was ripped aside.  He allowed the strength working to slip.  He would not need
it for this battle.

Two swordsmen, unmasked this time, were pushed outside
by the press of cutthroats thirsting for vengeance.  One still shouted for the
fools behind them to stop.  He quickly understood that an unavoidable fight
loomed, so abandoned his unheeded shouts in favor of drawing his sword.

Kerwin and Marik faced the swordsmen, recognizing them
for the only genuine fighters.  The local thieves pushed their way out, intent
on revenge for the slain rat-man.  Swordsmen and mercenaries gauged each
other.  All four leapt as one.

Marik’s opponent was the apparent leader heading the
Spirrattan delegation.  He used a blade with a single edge, though not one so
oddly proportioned as Sloan’s.  This blade reached three feet in length with a
basket hilt encasing the hand.  It resembled the sabers used by mounted
calvary, if less broad across the blade.

The swordsman launched an attack the same moment Marik
unleashed his own.  Both targeted the other’s chest.  Their blades clashed. 
Marik’s sword commanded the advantage of length and weight, forcing the
swordsman’s blade to yield, but the Spirrattan’s sword held the speed
advantage.  While Marik recovered from the first strike, he found his
opponent’s blade slicing for his neck.

Marik stepped back in a quick step, able to do nothing
except raise his sword’s hilt before his face.  The opposing blade struck steel
rather than flesh.  Without the counterforce Marik would have applied in a
genuine block, the saber forced the larger blade away.  Steel touched his neck,
too slow to cut skin yet making Marik jerk sideways in reflexive startlement.

He needed to take control of this fight.  Marik sidled
away across the dirt.  An arrow streaked past him.  Peripherally he noted the
shaft piercing the throat of the man shouting for vengeance, the first voice’s
owner.  A thick bloody bubble burst from his mouth to cut short his cries.  One
other knife wielder already lay on the ground, an arrow protruding from his
chest.  Two local thugs fought to maneuver around the occupied swordsmen.  They
were unaware of their friends’ plight.

While inexperienced in the ways of fighting, this
Thoenar rat pack had purchased their deaths in advance, paying in full
measure-weight through their attacks on Hilliard.  They were grain to be mown
down by a mercenary scythe.  Any distaste the Crimson Kings might have felt at
killing such unworthy men had long since departed.  This would be a battle
without quarter granted.

The extra distance of Marik’s blade cost the swordsman
the moment he needed to launch a speedy follow-up.  Marik renewed his assault. 
He cut at the man with an eastern slash.  The assassin met it with a block
rather than an attack, not wanting to count on dumb luck again.  While Marik’s
blade slipped off at an upward angle, the swordsman tried to brute his way
forward to cut the mercenary’s legs out from under him.

Except Marik had entered full battle mentality,
regarding this Spirrattan thief as being deadly as any foe he’d ever fought on
the battle field.  He had hoped for a quick resolution.  Marik adjusted,
bringing out his combat skill.  Slower than his previous sword, he had
nevertheless adapted his combination strikes to this newer blade.  Already he
followed through into a western strike, looping the sword around using the
momentum off the reflected attack.

This nearly caught the assassin off guard.  He slid on
the dirt when he twisted to block the new strike.  Marik continued with an
eastern slash, met this time by the man’s altered defense.

His opponent waited for the blow.  In a move Marik had
never seen before, the man raised his sword upright to block the heavier blade
head-on.  He braced the sword’s backside with his free hand, eerily resembling
Colbey’s stance whenever the scout initiated a practice session.

Marik’s blade struck the vertical length of steel and
stopped dead when the man applied resistant force with both hands, his feet
digging into the ground for purchase.  Before Marik could reposition from the
stalled strike, the assassin leaned forward, his blade skimming along Marik’s
sword.

The man lashed.  Marik instinctively rotated his
blade.  His hilt moved left, altering the guard’s position enough that the
saber clanged against the T-guard rather than biting into his face.

That was too close for Marik’s comfort.  He slammed
the hilt forward in an attempt to smash the man’s face.  His opponent ducked
lower and spun at the same time, bringing him away from Marik while
repositioning for a new strike.  A pained scream from the side briefly drew
both men’s attention before they reengaged.

Kerwin’s opponent stared at his wrist, ending in a
bloody, fountaining stump.  The sword he once held came to rest on the ground,
a severed hand still clutching the hilt.  In shock, the man did nothing as
Kerwin finished the job with a centerline thrust through the chest.

“May your god damn you!” shouted Marik’s foe.  “Damn
you all to the lowest hell!”

“Not us,” Marik replied, despite the fact he usually
avoided conversation during combat.  “You damned yourselves.”  He reared back
in an obvious eastern strike that duplicated his previous.

Furious, the assassin gave no thought to why Marik
would repeat a failed attack.  Before starting the swing, Marik reinitiated the
strength working, putting the superior strength of his technique behind the
blow.

The Spirrattan readied an identical block to the
last.  This time it served to defeat rather than protect him.

When the terrible force from Marik’s blow connected,
the man’s wrists, locked and braced to halt the heavier sword, bent back with a
sickening snap.  His broken hands released the sword as bone splinters pierced
through scarlet-red skin.  The sword catapulted away while Marik’s continued
along its path, slowed but still lethal.  His tip gouged through the assassin’s
exposed throat at the same moment the excruciating pain hit his senses.

A blood arc fanned through the air, the dark liquid a
void in the evening gloom.  The assassin fell to lie staring into the nighttime
abyss.  Marik bent down, unable to forbear the comment on his mind, a comment
born from his many frustrations and the continuos attacks against his charge by
unseen assailants.

“If you ever have the chance to talk to your Dark
Father from beyond the veil, tell him what happens to those who cross swords
with the Crimson Kings!”

The man stared into his eyes.  Marik hoped he remained
lucid enough to understand his slayer’s words.

A quick survey revealed four local thugs dead from
amazingly quick bow work along with his and Kerwin’s kills.  “There’s still
three left!”  Marik ran to the door.  He entered after one quick glance for
danger.  Kerwin followed in his wake.

In the far corner huddled a shivering boy, certainly
no older than fifteen.  He held a long knife in a hand that shook so badly it
was a wonder he did not drop it.  His eyes stared at them in wide terror.  Marik
ran past, concerned for Dietrik, knowing Kerwin would end the remaining Thoenar
rat.

Where were the other two Spirrattan assassins?  Worry
for Dietrik ate at the edge of Marik’s battle fire, blowing it away under a
fearful hurricane when he charged into the hallway.

One of the other swordsmen was dead, but Dietrik

No!  Dietrik!

lay slumped against the wall, his rapier impaled
through the swordsman’s torso.  His friend was still.  A bloody sheen coated
his upper torso.

Marik ran to his friend and slipped in blood as he
crouched down at the same moment.  His hand shot forward to grasp Dietrik’s
shoulder.

A groan escape Dietrik’s lips, resounding joyously
through Marik’s heart despite the pain echoing in the sound.  Dietrik’s eyes
fluttered open to focus on Marik.

“Damn it all,” he muttered.  “There goes the other
arm…”

“You idiot,” Marik scolded him.  “You’re supposed to
be better than this.”

Landon thundered into the hall, swiveling with his bow
to find a shot.  When he saw Dietrik, he scowled.  “What, again?”

“No, my right arm this time,” Dietrik replied,
strength returning to his voice.  “The other one must have run down to the
front door there,” he added, indicating the direction with his eyes.  “Watch
out for him, mate.  They were both a fair sight better than good.  I only got
this one by luck.  The other took advantage of my rapier being stuck in his
friend.”

Marik nodded.  “I’ll cut his head off, Dietrik, don’t
you worry about that.  Landon will look after you.”

Before Landon could protest, Marik dashed down the
corridor.  He ran to where he knew the front door would be and rushed outside
when he found it standing open.  In the cool night air he glanced around,
seeing nobody.  Under his magesight, among the brick buildings of the refinery,
the black etheric walls blocked him from finding Dietrik’s assailant.  Marik
started to drift upward before halting himself with a mental slap.

A double damned fool, that’s me!  If he’s lurking
around the corner, he could leap out and kill me before I have the chance to
reenter my body!

He jogged to the nearest corner to peer around. 
Nothing.  His quarry did not crouch in readiness.  That hardly meant this area
could be considered safe.  No, if he wanted to drift the etheric in search of
his prey, he needed a haven to shelter his body.

This corner lay near the tall brick tower he had noted
earlier.  Marik noticed iron rungs set into the side leading to the top.  A
long rope attached to a large basket dangled beside the rungs, undoubtedly used
to haul items to the top.  He judged the tower must be twenty feet across at
the peek.