Fable: Blood of Heroes (26 page)

Inga searched the rocks where she had battled Headstrong. The ogre had dropped one of her axes. If it remained … 

There,
half-buried in the rocks. Inga grabbed the handle and yanked it free.

An ogre could wield this thing one-handed, but if Inga wanted any power or control, she would need both. Reluctantly, she removed Bulwark from her arm and set it on the ground. She gripped the axe with both hands and tested its weight.

“This ought to do it.”
Now
she charged headfirst into the battle.

A bruised and bloody redcap saw her coming, squeaked in alarm, and fled for the woods.

Inga raised her axe as she neared the hut, but the hut lashed out with one of its rear legs before she could swing. She twisted, and the blow grazed her ribs.

“It’s quicker than it looks,” Glory warned.

“I can see that, thanks.” Inga fell back from a second attack. With four legs, the hut could only strike with one at a time without losing its balance. Inga kept her distance, trying to get a sense of its rhythm. There was a pause after each swing to recover.

A pair of skulls detached from the edge of the roof and flew towards her. One dropped and rolled into the mud, thanks to Leech. Inga shattered the other with her axe.

She darted left, then right, getting inside the hut’s reach long enough to slam the axe into the closest leg. The blade bit the wood, then the hut twisted, nearly wrenching the weapon from her hands. Inga held tight. The blade ripped loose. Inga stumbled back, off balance. The hut lashed out again, and she fell.

Her back hit the ground, and the air exploded from her chest. Her armour had likely saved her from a broken back, but she would be feeling that in her spine for the next few days. “This is why Mum wanted me to stay home.”

She pushed herself up and moved towards the hut. There was no way of sneaking up on it, as the thing had no front or back. She couldn’t tell which leg she’d struck, let alone target a second attack to the same spot. She needed to find a way to take this thing down in one swing.

“Stay back,” she called to Leech and Glory. She slowed her breathing, trying to let the sounds of battle flow past her. The laughter of the few remaining redcaps. The creaks and thuds of the hut, and the clattering of its contents. Her focus narrowed, like she was watching the hut through a sighting tube. The sky, the river, the trees beyond, everything else faded from her awareness.

Three of her friends were imprisoned inside that hut. They would die at Yog’s hands if she didn’t take it down.

Bones peeled away and flew towards the gate. Towards Ben and Greta.

Inga tightened her grip and waited. One leg hummed through the air, close enough for her to feel the wind. She backed away, drawing Yog in. Let Yog think she was injured and retreating.

She focused on a single leg, watching it bend and straighten. There were no knees or hinges, but the wood bent most sharply in two places, both near the centre. Each joint was marked by a round knot. She chose the higher of the two.

One hand gripped the axe high, the other low. The moment the hut stepped closer, Inga charged. There would be no swerving this time, no dodging aside. The hut swung, and Inga blocked with the haft of her weapon. The impact jarred her shoulders, but this axe had endured an ogre’s power and ferocity without breaking. Inga spun in a full circle, adding the axe’s weight to her own strength and momentum, concentrating only on that dark knot in the wood.

The axe cut cleanly through the leg, sending splinters flying. The weight of the blow spun Inga off her feet. She rolled out of the hut’s reach. Behind her, Leech gave a cheer as the hut staggered, off balance.

Inga had seen her share of crippled animals growing up. Most of them got along just fine with a missing leg. Her favourite had been a little black pup who was born without front legs but had learned to hop from house to house, begging for scraps.

But the hut’s centre of balance was higher than that of an animal, and it didn’t seem to understand what had happened. It toppled to the left, trying to catch itself on its missing leg. An indignant shriek came from the inside. The remaining legs continued to kick, but it couldn’t get itself upright again. Instead, it simply dragged itself in a slow circle. The remaining bones flew away like rats from a sinking ship.

“Nice hit,” said Glory.

“Thanks.” Inga wondered how long the hut would keep spinning before it tired. The remaining legs could still break bone if anyone got too close.

Leech braced his leg with one hand as he downed a potion. The tension in his body visibly eased. “What happened to Shroud?”

“He went after Headstrong.” Inga shouldered the axe. “Why don’t you two finish off the last of Yog’s flying bones while I crack open this walnut and get our friends back?”

CHAPTER 22

SHROUD

S
hroud crouched to touch a dark stain in the dirt. He brought his fingers to the tip of his tongue. The salty-iron taste of blood confirmed Headstrong had come this way.

The Conclave wants this ogre dead. Why didn’t you put an arrow through her neck when you had the chance instead of just giving her the world’s ugliest nose jewellery?

Shroud had hit her several times, but none of his shots had severed any major arteries. Judging from the amount of blood on the trail, all he had likely accomplished so far was to make her angry.

She’s playing it smart, taking the fight to an environment that will neutralise the advantage of your bow. And you’re letting her lead you along like a cow to the butcher.

Headstrong had fled north, running through the woods until she reached a spot where the river was shallow enough to cross, at which point she’d doubled back into the hills. The landscape grew steadily steeper, with a drop-off to Shroud’s left.

Your orders come directly from the Conclave. If you want them to take you seriously, finish the job. Eliminate the target and bring back proof of the kill. Otherwise, the next warrant will list
you
as the target.

Shroud checked every tree and outcropping for signs of an ambush. Most ogres didn’t bother with traps, but then, this was no ordinary ogre, was it? Watching her fight Inga had confirmed it. The way she brought both axes together to block Inga’s sword, or the transition into a Low Cat stance when she started to lose her balance. Though those moves been clumsy and poorly executed, Shroud still recognised them from the Conclave’s Martial Doctrine. But how had an ogre learned them?

He felt the pressure of the trip wire against his shin. Instinct and training propelled him into a leaping roll as a dart tore through the hem of his cloak. Poisoned and barbed, no doubt. He rose into a crouch, knives in both hands.

The odds of a hastily set trip wire killing a Conclave-trained assassin were slim, which meant Headstrong was trying either to slow him down so she could escape, or else to distract him in order to get the drop on him. And she didn’t strike Shroud as one to run away if there was any chance to inflict more bloodshed.

By the time he consciously registered the sound of shifting pebbles ahead, he was already throwing himself to the ground. The rock that would have crushed his skull flew over his head to crack a sapling that clung to the rise behind him. Shroud spun so his feet were pointed at the approaching ogre and flung both knives.

One clanked harmlessly from the head of Headstrong’s axe. The other stuck in her left biceps.

The ogre roared and charged.

Shroud was already slipping his bow from his shoulder. He jumped to his feet and backed away as he fitted an arrow to the string. He aimed at Headstrong’s eye, waited for her to bring her axe up to block, then dropped his aim. The arrow thudded into her stomach.

The gut is one of the only parts of an ogre not protected by bone. It’s a slow kill, though. If you want to bring her down, aim for the mouth, throat, or an eye.

Headstrong had picked a good spot for an ambush. There were few trees here for Shroud to hide behind. To one side was a steep drop. To the other, a wall of rock and dirt. The ledge was perhaps ten feet wide, enough room for her to fight, but minimising the advantage of Shroud’s greater agility.

“Careful of this one,” said one of the noggins. “He’s a Conclave assassin.”

Headstrong snorted. “He won’t be the first I’ve killed.”

Had the Conclave sent others to deal with Headstrong, only to fail? Or had the ogre targeted one of the Conclave’s own, and that was the reason for the blood order?

Focus!

Headstrong charged. Her power was in hand-to-hand fighting. Shroud was a distance killer. He had to keep out of reach long enough to bring her down. He grabbed an unlit bomb and hurled it at her face. She blocked it automatically, and the pot shattered in a cloud of foul-smelling powders and chemicals. Shroud knew from experience how they would burn the eyes, nose, and throat. Her eyes would water, rendering her effectively blind, and woe unto her if she tried to rub her face before washing her hands.

He switched back to his bow and put an arrow into her leg. He fired the next at her foot, hoping to pin her in place, but the arrowhead failed to penetrate her boot.

“He’s right in front of us,” one of the heads shouted. Tears streamed down its eyes as well, but it hadn’t taken as much of the bomb’s powder as Headstrong. The ogre leaped forwards and swung. The axe blade nicked his bow.

Shroud cursed. The wood creaked and cracked when he tested the string. He tossed the bow away. What good did it do to blind an ogre when she had other heads to see for her? He yanked a sharpened metal star from a hidden pocket on his sleeve, waited for that noggin to try to talk again, and hurled the star into its open mouth.

Forget the noggins. Take down the ogre!

“Humans are so fragile,” said Headstrong. “One squeeze and your little heads just pop off and die. Too bad. You’d’ve made a good noggin.” She advanced, her axe slashing to and fro, following the guidance of her remaining noggins. There was no pattern to her attacks. She was deliberately random, making it impossible for him to anticipate and take advantage.

He threw another knife, sticking this one in her right thigh. She didn’t seem to notice. Her size was too great an advantage in a fight like this. He had to turn it into a weakness.

He pulled a thick punching dagger with his left hand and a hooked blade on a chain with his right. The chain blade was a particularly challenging weapon he had acquired down in Crowsgate. Fling the blade correctly and the chain would slide between the finger and thumb, allowing you to snap it back before it fully extended, or to manipulate it into a complex series of arcs. A master could slit a target’s throat from around a corner. Smaller hooks at the base of the blade allowed it to be used as a makeshift grappling hook for getting over walls and fences.

So far, he had discovered thirty-one ways to kill a man from ten feet away.

“There’s one thing I can’t decide,” he said as Headstrong moved towards him. “Do I count you as a single kill, or do I tally up each noggin separately?”

He moved to the edge and glanced down. There were trees a short distance away, but the ground closest to the cliff was barren. The drop was about sixty feet, give or take. He studied Headstrong, calculating how her size and weight would affect the size of the blood spatter.

Headstrong approached more cautiously this time. She bled from dozens of wounds, and at least one of her noggins looked to be dead.

“Watch the chain blade,” said the head resting near Headstrong’s left armpit. “Could be poisoned.”

Only an idiot uses poison on a chain blade. Too difficult to control. One wrong move and you’ve killed yourself with your own weapon. Who wants to risk that kind of embarrassment?

“No Conclave assassin would be fool enough to poison a chain blade,” snapped the one-eyed noggin, echoing Shroud’s thoughts.

“What’s your name?” asked Shroud.

“Headstrong.” The ogre’s eyes were red, but her vision had cleared enough to follow Shroud’s movements.

Shroud chuckled. “Not you. The noggin. She’s the only one worth talking to.”

“Night Axe.” In addition to the eye, Night Axe was also missing most of an ear.

“How did Headstrong manage to kill you?”

“She didn’t,” said Night Axe. “I was my sister’s noggin ’til a Conclave killer named Peril came along. Killed her and took me as a trophy. Kept me for years, ’til Yog helped old Headstink kill him.”

With that, the pieces began sliding into place. The Conclave wouldn’t bother to avenge an assassin who got himself offed by an ogre. Such failures were an embarrassment to the Conclave’s masters, who had proclaimed that allowing yourself to be killed was a crime punishable by death.

But how much had Night Axe seen and heard in her time with a Conclave assassin? How many secrets had she learned? No wonder the Conclave wanted Headstrong and her noggins eliminated.

Headstrong roared and jumped forwards, her axe swinging down on a path that would separate his hand from his arm. Shroud jerked back, but twisting out of the way left him off balance. Headstrong backhanded him on the side of the head.

Shroud’s foot slipped off the edge.

He didn’t try to stop his fall. Instead, he whipped the chain blade at the ogre’s leg. He deliberately overshot, so the chain hit her leg below the knee. The blade whipped around and crossed the chain. One of the barbs hooked tight.

His dagger fell away. He grabbed the chain with both hands. It jerked taut, slamming him against the cliff side.

Headstrong shouted again, this time from pain. Shroud braced both feet against the cliff and pulled hard. An enormous, warty foot came into view.

He had intended to drive the punching dagger into the cliff and use it as a makeshift handhold while the ogre plummeted to her death. Then he would pull himself back onto the ledge and make his way safely down to retrieve proof of the kill.

Always have a plan. Always be prepared for that plan to go to hell at any given moment.

Headstrong’s entire right leg hung over the edge now.

“Forget the stupid axe,” yelled one of her noggins. “Grab something! Anything!”

There were small trees and shrubs up there. If she got hold of one, she might be able to shake him free.

Shroud let go with his right hand and retrieved the last of his throwing stars. He extended both legs against the cliff to get a better angle, then hurled the star directly into the ogre’s backside.

Headstrong howled and tumbled over the edge.

Shroud pushed away from the cliff as he fell, releasing the chain and launching himself towards the trees he had seen below.

There was no chance of a controlled landing. Wind rushed past his ears. Smaller branches whipped his body, and larger ones battered his bones. Others broke away from the trees, their jagged ends tearing clothes and skin. The earth and sky spun around him. He saw the ground rushing up and had just enough time to exhale and contort his body, hoping to roll with the landing.

He heard the impact quite clearly, which struck him as odd. Everything went white. There was no pain. Why wasn’t there pain? A beating like that should have—

Wait for it.

He didn’t have the breath to scream. All he could manage was a pained whimper as his body registered the abuse it had suffered. He spat blood and pine needles. At least two teeth had come loose. Blood dribbled from his nose. When he tried to focus on the tree towering over him, his eyes couldn’t decide which of the two identical trees wavering past one another was real.

Take a slow, careful breath. Check for broken ribs or a punctured lung.

It felt like he might have dislocated a rib or two in the back, but thankfully, he didn’t feel any stabbing pain in his chest. He tested his arms and fingers, then carefully pushed himself into a seated position. Two fingers on his right hand were broken, and the knuckles were scraped bloody. But considering the height of the fall, he had been lucky.

Wait until you try to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

Headstrong hadn’t been so fortunate. She’d landed a short distance away. All that mass and muscle had worked against her, and she hadn’t managed to break her fall on the way down. Shroud was amazed she was still breathing. Considering the odd angle of her neck and the blood bubbling between her lips, that wouldn’t continue much longer.

Slowly and carefully, Shroud untwisted himself from his cloak and stood. A broken branch as thick as his thumb jutted from his left thigh, but the leg would still support his weight. He hobbled towards Headstrong and collapsed on the ground beside her, careful to stay well out of reach. He didn’t think she was a threat anymore, but he hadn’t survived this long by making assumptions.

Her axe sat in the dirt about ten feet away. Headstrong had landed on several of her noggins. If the impact hadn’t finished them off, they’d suffocate soon enough. Shroud couldn’t have rolled her off them if he’d wanted to. Only one noggin, Night Axe, appeared conscious. She just blinked up at him, her bloodied eyes crossed.

Shroud’s arrow was still stuck through Headstrong’s nose. He found that oddly funny. The fall had broken the ogre, but his arrow had survived intact.

Night Axe’s eyes tried to focus on Shroud. She licked her lips and said, “Nice move with the chain blade. Who taught you that?”

“Desperation.”

Night Axe snorted, spraying blood down her chin. “Good teacher.”

Headstrong’s breath echoed wetly in her chest. Shroud had seen enough deaths to know she had only minutes left. Maybe less.

“Peril was a good master,” said Night Axe. “Made sure I got fed. Let me watch plenty of violence. And he didn’t smell half as bad as an ogre. Then Yog came along, forced me to serve this clod. Headstrong was tough. Yog needed us to make her smart.”

“ ‘Smart’ being a relative term.”

“She said if I didn’t help her, she’d have me tied to a stick like poor Scratcher. Only I wouldn’t be scratching. My new name would be Wiper.”

“I might have broken too,” Shroud admitted. Headstrong’s chest had stopped moving. The ogre was dead.

“Go ahead and finish me,” Night Axe said. “I’m dying anyway. But at least I outlived Headstrong.”

Shroud gripped the stick embedded in his leg, clenched his jaw, and twisted it free. One hand clamped the wound to slow the bleeding. With the other, he tore a strip from his shirt and wadded it into a ball. He jammed the rag into the wound, then tore a second strip and knotted the makeshift bandage into place. He’d need to cut himself a walking stick to make it back to Grayrock.

He limped over to retrieve Headstrong’s weapon. One edge of the axe was badly chipped from the impact, but the other remained sharp and smooth.

The weight of the axe made his shoulder cry out in pain, but that same weight made it the weapon most likely to penetrate an ogre’s skull.