The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron (26 page)

Cimozjen added, “But maybe it’s just that you’ve been having trouble learning to eat with a fork.”

The other shadowy attacker snickered at the jibe, and the combination of insult and laughter proved too much for the affronted man. He yelled and charged, swinging his flail in a powerful two-handed blow.

Cimozjen steeled his resolve.

Four wondered how best to handle the situation. In all the times the world had broken open his home, he had never had more than one person attack him at once. This was a new experience.

He had, somewhere in the foundation of his consciousness, some basic predispositions and concepts, but he had never explored these—he’d spent his time in his home in a quiet contented emptiness of no-thought—let alone put them to use.

On the other hand, it was a pleasant change of pace to have an upcoming combat unleashed slowly, giving him time to identify the attackers and begin to formulate a plan. It was far better than being surrounded by a hundred screaming people and wondering where the threat was.

He faced three attackers. He had to assume that the one named Hellekanus would handle the other two. The one named Minrah
was of no immediate tactical use, save possibly to throw in the path of an oncoming attacker.

As they closed on him, one of the three held back. Four could tell that it was because there was not enough space for all three to attack at once, and for that, he was grateful to Cimozjen and his tactical expertise. All of Four’s previous fights had been in the open, and he would not have thought of using a building as a defensive weapon.

Four decided the best approach would be to focus on the destruction of the attackers one at a time. That way, if they tried to use clever team tactics to divide his attacks and defenses, he would not be fooled. The danger that this focused approach required was a risk that he considered acceptable. He knew he would be repaired.

The one on the left was the size and shape of a human, and held a spear. He closed the gap, crouched low, spear at the ready. The one on the right was small like a halfling. He wielded a short sword, and he hung back a bit, perhaps fearful of the superior reach of Four’s weapon. The spearman would come first. The swordling would make the follow-through attack. That conclusion made Four’s priorities obvious.

Four held his weapon high, keeping his eye on the one with the spear. The human would likely try to get a quick jab in before the warforged’s powerful arms could bring his heavy axe-head to bear. Four knew that the spearman could jab quickly and either retreat or roll to one side. The inertia of Four’s heavier weapon meant that he would miss an overhand counterattack two thirds of the time.

Four primed himself to strike back.

The spearman lunged, pushing off with his rear leg and thrusting with his arms. Even as he closed, Four thrust with the haft of his battle-axe, a straight-on shot to the face. Inertia was much easier to overcome in a linear fashion than with an arcing swing. The spear plunged through the tightly-strung tendons of Four’s torso, severing many of those that helped manipulate his left
hip, but Four’s counterstroke smote the man at the very top of his cheekbone, and Four heard the bone crack beneath the impact.

Staggered, the man lurched back, left hand rising to his face. He sensed the danger and kept himself low, slashing blindly about with his spear as he backpedaled.

Four cocked his arm and stepped forward, hoisting his battle-axe for a slower but much more powerful centrifugal overhand swing. The blade bit into the back of the man’s shoulder, breaking that bone as well. The man hit the ground on the seat of his pants, bent over almost double.

Four stepped to the side and swung the axe.

Minrah wanted to run, but pressed against the storefront there was no place to go. Only her two acquaintances stood between her and the six unknown attackers. She looked at Cimozjen through wincing eyes, her heart caving within her breast. She saw the first attacker take a swing at him, and she gasped, near to a scream—and Cimozjen managed to get his staff in the way of the strike, although the flail’s chains wrapped around its haft, and now the two weapons were sorely tangled.

She heard a heavy, meaty thunk. Unable to stop herself, she glanced at Four. One of the attackers sat at the feet of the warforged, head dangling grotesquely between his knees as blood pumped from the nearly severed neck.

She screamed. Her hands covered her face and her fingers obscured her eyes, but for a long, horrid moment she could not tear her gaze away from the decapitation.

She didn’t fully hide her face until the halfling stepped in behind Four and plunged a short sword into the soft, organic wrappings of his back.

Cimozjen glanced at his staff. Held high and braced against the outside of his foot, it had held against the attack. The flail’s spiked heads, whipping around the staff at the end of their chains, had entangled his makeshift shield entirely.

Just as he had hoped. Cimozjen knew a thing or two about fighting with flails.

He yanked his left arm to the outside, pulling the flail, complete with the attacker’s hands. The unfortunate man was surprised that his flail had tangled so badly, and as Cimozjen pulled it aside, the attacker instinctively—and foolishly—held his grip, leaving his startled expression with nothing to guard it. With a powerful punch, Cimozjen slammed the pommel of his sword into the man’s face. “Inept novice,” he mumbled as the man stumbled and fell to the ground.

The leader snapped his fingers again, the sound sharp and crisp against the hazy background of magical fog. “Take him down.”

Cimozjen looked over and saw the second of the thugs hesitate and pull back toward the leader. He held a rapier, judging by the silhouette of the weapon against the faintly lit fog.

The rapier waggled up and down. “But I—he’s a soldier, and I’ve just—”

The leader smacked the other across the back of the head. “Then smite him with your magic, dolt. Gods, how you managed to avoid frying what little brain you have is beyond me.”

Cimozjen charged.

Four staggered. The arcane currents that maintained his existence eddied and swirled within him. It felt as if his legs and hips were changing shape, and the chaos within him worsened as the halfling twisted the blade, shearing away more of the tendons that held his bone-and-metal frame together.

He heard Cimozjen mutter something as the sound of combat continued to his right, and he knew that Minrah was not created
in such a manner that she might provide him aid. He was on his own, and his target was small and behind him, away from the functional threat area dominated by his arms and the blade of his battle-axe.

The sword twisted again, and Four twitched as the flow within him changed once more. After all this time, he thought, I shall fall to an attack from the rear, a strike to the back. His mind echoed the phrase—
strike to the back
. He wished he could do that. In that moment of clarity, he realized that the head of his weapon was double-bitted, front and rear, and it, too, could strike to the back. With a mighty heave, he swung the weapon high in the air, giving it as much momentum as he could. When it reached the apex of its arc, he yanked the hilt forward, snapping the heavy blade into a fast swing.

Four felt the blade of the short sword press deeper into his interior, but he was satisfied with the sensation. The long haft of his battle-axe trembled with the heavy chop as he hit his assailant squarely in the back. The warforged backpedaled, knocking the halfling down with his bulk. The short sword remained stuck in Four’s body.

Four turned and stomped on the halfling’s neck as hard as he could. He was rewarded with the sound of a wet, pained gag, and he trusted that the halfling would be out of the fight for a while at the minimum. Regrettably, the disruption within his flow caused the warforged to stagger as he tried to recover his feet.

That was when the third attacker’s mace hit him squarely on the temple.

Sensing that the mage was uncomfortable in martial situations, Cimozjen tossed his staff at him, spinning it through the air, and charged the leader. The leader gave ground quickly, raising his shield for protection while drawing his own weapon.

Cimozjen slashed his sword low, hoping to catch the leader’s
knee beneath his shield, but the man was too fast, skipping his leg up as Cimozjen’s blade passed. Cimozjen lunged forward and thrust, but inexplicably hit nothing as the man raised his shield to block.

“Curse this mist,” growled Cimozjen. He thrust again, once more missing both the man and his dark shield.

The leader spun around, keeping his shield toward Cimozjen, and struck a backhand blow at Cimozjen’s unprotected right side.

Cimozjen felt the blade bite deep into his flesh, then slice as it was withdrawn from the wound it had just made. The edge of the sword felt hot as it cut into his muscle, and he felt the weave of his tunic being pulled along through the wound like little barbs.

The leader’s momentum carried him around to face Cimozjen again, but the veteran soldier charged in hopes of getting a strike in before his foe could raise the shield anew. With a roar he struck a heavy downward chop toward the man’s collarbone, but the enemy had anticipated such a move. He came around with his shield raised high, and in that brief moment before impact, Cimozjen saw his face.