Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

“Or, on the other hand,” continued Zire smoothly, “you are, as I suspected, merely a drunken thug who throws his weight about, that being considerable since he is now running to podge, and slaughters at random. One day you will answer in the afterlife, to an uproar of furious ghosts. Don’t think I joke there, friend Razi. Another life exists than this one, and we pay our dues once we are in it. I imagine your reckoning will be both long and tedious, not to mention painful.”

Razibond’s face was now a marvelous study for any student of the human mood. It had passed through the blank pink of shock to the crimson of wrath, sunk a second in superstitious, uneasy yellow, before escalating into an extraordinary puce—a hue that would have assured any dye-maker a fortune, had he been able to reproduce it. More than this, Razibond had swollen up like a toad. He cast his wine cup to the ground, where it shattered, being unwisely made of clay, and, disdaining his knife, heaved out a cleaverish blade some four feet long.

Zire raised his eyes to heaven, or the ceiling. Next instant, he, too, had drawn a sword, this one fine almost as a wand, and going by the name of Scribe. As Razibond lumbered at him, Zire moved, easy as smoke, from his path, extending as he did so a booted foot. This brief gesture sent the homicidal guardsman crashing, at which Zire leapt onto his back, landing with deliberate heaviness and knocking the breath right out of him. Then, with a casualness truly awful to behold, Zire drove his own bright sword straight in, through Razibond’s leathers, skin, flesh, muscle, and heart. Blood spurted like a fountain, and decorated the blackened beam above.

At the inn once more, only silence held sway. Zire did not wipe the sword, he kept it ready in one hand. He looked contritely about at the stricken faces.

“My apologies,” said Zire. “But I object to dying at this late hour. I would prefer supper. Oh, and my horse needs shoeing. Otherwise, if you want, we can continue the violence.”

No one answered. None moved. The landlord himself, who had ducked below his counter then reemerged to witness the short fight’s climax, stared with mouth agape.

Then there came the sound of bare feet, and down the stair hurried the inn-girl. She alone seemed able to move, and now, too, proved capable of speech, although it came out in a sort of a quavering shriek.

“Rash sir, you know not what you’ve done!”

“But I do know,” said Zire. “Let me see, killed a killer. Maybe all you here loved him, and now wish to attack me. If so, let’s get on. As I said, I’m hungry.”

“Love him?” wailed the girl. “Razibond? He was a fiend.”

At this, the strange inertia that had held the room broke in pieces. Voices from all sides honked and whispered: “He was a monster—” “A bully—no woman left alone, no man of honor safe—” “May he rot in the swampmost belly of the worst-devisable hell—”

“But,” yelled the girl on the stair, “he was one of the False Prince’s guardsmen. None must harm them no matter what their crimes. Or the False Prince will seek obscene vengeances. He is in league with dark magic, too, and will already know you have trespassed against his soldiers.”

“This inn,” intoned the landlord, gripping the counter white-knuckled, “may be burned to the earth, and all of us whipped. As for you, sir, he will hang you by your feet above a pit of snakes, whose poison dispatches in the slowest, most heinous stages—”

“Or else—” vocalized another, “he will sentence you to the death of two hundred hornets, each the size of a rat—”

“Or the live burial amid fractious scorpions—”

“Or—”

“Yes, very well,” interrupted Zire, apparently tired. “I have inferred the correct sting-laden picture of my proposed fate.”

“Run—” shrilled the pale girl from the stair. “It’s your only chance! We dare not shield you.”

Zire grimaced. He sat down on a bench. “First serve me some dinner,” he said. “Also my poor starved horse must eat. Both he and I refuse to run on an empty stomach.”

Silence once more submerged the room. The noise of the river, always angrier after moonrise, filled it instead.

Some half-mile below, at a second inn, whose name was the Quiet Night, and which directly adjoined the thunderous River Ca, Bretilf the Artisan sat over the remainder of his dinner, thoughtfully slicing the last roast meat from a bone. Beside him rested a jug of Cashloria’s black ale. His tankard stayed full. He was concentrating equally on the bone and on a shape he could detect in the bone’s surface. Once all the meat was gone, he intended to carve the figure free, but an interruption came.

Two drunken bravos, belonging—judging by their cross-swords-and-diadem insignia and studded-leather garments—to some guard militia of the city, had begun to quarrel.