Ghostwalker (34 page)

“But, Walker, I have to tell you—”

His steely gaze cut her off and told her Walker would brook no argument.

Biting her lip, Arya took Walker’s hand and squeezed it.

“Be wary,” she said.

Walker nodded, squeezing her hand back to show he understood. Then Arya took up her place opposite Bars.

The ghostwalker closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. His focus returned, dampening the hot rage to a cool fury, shuffling it behind icy walls of control. Deep in his dark resolve once more, Walker opened his eyes, prepared.

Sheathing the shatterspike, Walker stepped to the doors, pulled them open, and walked out, arms wide open…

Into a hail of arrows.

30 Tarsakh

Arrows from two dozen bows shot for him, arrows seeking to turn Walker into a human forest. The ambushing rangers were fully confident the battle was over before it had begun, for there was no way Walker could dodge or deflect so many arrows. The arrows shot right through him and slammed into the open doors, carpeted floor, and walls inside Greyt’s manor, and more than a few bristled from the end table behind which Derst hid. Arya stifled a scream, covering her mouth. Bars and Derst looked at one another, shocked.

Walker just shook his head. It was all just as he had expected.

As the rangers, standing in a rough line in the middle of the plaza, looked down at their bows as though the weapons had betrayed them somehow, Walker raised his head and continued to stride forward. As he came, they realized they could see through his body; he was translucent, like a ghost.

More than a few of the twenty-four rangers gasped in terror, seeing the vengeful spirit of folk legend, and their limbs shook. The others, old and hardened veterans all, gazed at Walker in doubt and disbelief.

The two dozen men stood in front of the Whistling Stag, which rested across the way from Greyt’s manor. Walker nodded. That must have been where Meris had fled.

“I am the Spirit of Vengeance,” said Walker. His matter-of-fact words were soft, but they projected throughout the square loudly enough to reach all their ears. “I am the son of the Ghostly Lady of the Dark Woods, who brought the fires of heaven upon Quaervarr a century past. I was born and live in darkness, I breathe retribution, and I sleep to the screams of the damned. I fear no living thing, man or woman.”

He paused, waiting while all that sank into his foes, but he need not have bothered. The rangers were trembling.

“I have slain your champions, and one alone awaits me,” he continued. “My fight is with Meris Wayfarer, not with you. I offer you this one chance to throw down your weapons and to quit Quaervarr and the Moonwood forever.”

Many of the guardsmen looked hesitant and afraid, but the reminder of Meris, their new lord, seemed to snap them out of it. Not that they knew loyalty, but as much as they feared the black specter before them, they feared the cruelty of Meris Wayfarer more. After all, one man could not defeat two dozen men, no matter his power. No ranger threw down his arms—indeed, many fitted more arrows to the string or drew swords.

“Then it seems I have no choice,” said Walker, slowly drawing the shatterspike and continuing to walk toward them, “but to kill you all.”

Half the rangers replied by aiming for Walker once more, and half tightened their grip on their weapons.

The ghostwalker made no sign of changing his calm walk until the first ranger, two short swords in his hands, lunged at him, screaming the name of the late Lord Singer.

Walker whirled, his blade out and dancing in the breeze. It cleaved one sword in two then snapped against the man’s arm, sending him away screaming. A second ranger thrust a long sword at Walker from the other side, a blow that was deflected with perfect timing. The ghostwalker brought the sword up high, then threw the ranger off and continued walking, as though the man had never attacked. This ranger looked at his sword, saw that it was still whole, and swung at Walker’s back. At the same moment, the dozen rangers with bows drawn fired upon the ghostwalker.

Unfortunately for the rangers flanking Walker, the arrows passed through the ghostwalker’s head and chest as through mist and found resting spots in their bodies.

Screaming, the rangers tumbled down, even as Walker broke into a run toward the bowmen, who now scrambled to set arrows to bowstrings. As he went, he leaped bodily through a ranger who chopped two axes down through nothing and ended up on the ground, confused.

“He’s an illusion!” shouted one of the rangers. “He’s not even really—”

Then Walker brought his blade down into the man’s mocking smile and ended his words.

Even as the rangers milled around in confusion and terror, Walker flew into a dance of death, his sword weaving back and forth, deflecting and shattering weapons even as arrows and swords passed through him. Though his body had no substance, his shatterspike—shimmering and almost translucent—still cut with just as much deadliness as it always had. Only his blade could bridge the gap between worlds and inflict pain in either.

Ironically, Walker carried the only weapon in the plaza that could touch him as a ghost.

Rarely did the shatterspike cleave flesh, though—most of the wounds that set rangers grunting, cursing, or falling were the result of the rangers’ own weapons. Arrows flew through the battle without guidance, sailing through Walker’s ghostly form to find ranger flesh instead.

Walker brought the shatterspike whirling in a glittering semicircle, shearing two raised blades in half and cutting a bowstring neatly on the back swing. Before the bowman could even drop his ruined weapon, Walker slashed him across the face and sent him down into the mud. It was only his second kill.

As though at random, Walker danced through the crowd, leaping around and through rangers, his shatterspike flashing, dropping weapons and men. He cut bowstrings, cleaved apart bows, and sliced quivers in two.

After a few moments, when the rangers were largely panicked, mostly disarmed, and completely disorganized, Walker smiled. “Go forth,” he whispered on the wind, even as he sheathed his blade.

With that, he turned and ran toward the Whistling Stag. Many turned to give chase, hefting what weapons they could—belt daggers, hatchets, and the like—but then they heard new shouts.

“Forth the Nightingale!” came a mighty cry, shared by three throats, from behind them.

Most of the rangers turned, just in time to see three Knights in Silver, stripped to gray tunics and breeches, charge into the fray, weapons hungry for Greyt ranger blood. And the rangers had no bows or swords with which to cut them down.

Meanwhile, Walker sprang toward the Stag and vanished through the closed door, passing through the wood like a ghost.

The three Knights in Silver swept upon the confused rangers like a trio of giants, hacking and crushing left and right. Four rangers went down in the initial rush—Bars having taken down two himself—and the knights’ courage did much to shake the rangers’ crumbling resolve.

In the first confused moments of battle, Derst disarmed two men of their backup weapons and was dancing around a third, his improvised chain-dagger creating havoc for the ranger as he tried to cleave the wiry knight in two with a mighty war axe. An overhead chop was sidestepped, a withering cross ducked, and a reversal hit nothing but air as Derst rolled and stuck the dagger in the man’s side. The man yelped and staggered forward, but the dagger was firmly lodged between ribs and brigandine plating. The ranger turned, but his motion only pulled Derst to the side—in time to dodge the falling axe.

Meanwhile, Bars worked furiously to hold off four rangers, his mismatched maces dancing and flashing like lightning. Though he could not launch a counter, the huge paladin put up a stunning defense, where he picked off every thrust, slash, and jab his opponents launched. Every time, they recoiled from the attack shaking their sword arms, which rung with the force of Bars’s parries. Growling, Bars kept his duel at a standstill.

Fighting three men, Arya, not as nimble or as strong as her respective companions, more than made up for it in ferocity and cunning. She parried aside one ranger and immediately shield rushed the second, catching him off guard. She discarded her shield, which she had only held, not strapped on, and he had to fumble it out of the way with a clumsy downward cross of his two short swords.

The Nightingale shield fell to the dust, but Arya followed through and slammed her left fist then her left elbow into his face. The man staggered and collapsed backward, and Arya brought her sword back around just in time to parry the attack of a third ranger. She locked blades with him, then hooked a foot around his ankle and sent him staggering into the man she had left behind.

With a shout to the Lord Singer, the man on the ground slashed her across the front of the shin with his blade, but it was a weak blow, driven mostly by panic and not by skill.

Arya gritted her teeth against the pain and brought her sword plunging down into his chest. The man screamed and lay still.

“No mercy!” she shouted, slashing back around to deflect another seeking sword. The feral rage in her scream sent two rangers staggering back, doubtful looks on their faces.

By this time, two other rangers had closed on Derst’s duel and were slashing and thrusting, but they only nearly hit the axe-wielder. The roguish knight kept dodging their blows, running in two low circles around the ranger with the axe, weaving the lanyard of his makeshift chain-dagger as he went. Finally, with the man fully wrapped, Derst slid past one of the swordsmen, put both hands on the thick lanyard, and yanked for all he was worth. The lanyard pulled tight around the man’s legs, ruining his balance, and one ranger staggered into the other, sending both down in a jumble of limbs.

“Hail, lass!” shouted Derst as he leaped over another thrust, freed his lanyard, and kicked out, catching the ranger in the face.

” ‘Arya,’ Derst!” the lady knight snapped back. She parried a slash and punched the man in the face as though with a shield. Her fist had much less effect, but it was enough to send him reeling back. “It’s Arya! You want to be ‘lad?’”

“Oh, never that!” replied Derst. “Sorry! I was going to ask—” he parried a seeking blade with his dagger, hooked his lanyard around the weapon, and ripped it out of the man’s hands, “—whether you think a—” he dodged another swipe, “—promotion’s on the horizon?”

“I concur!” rumbled Bars as he swatted a ranger aside like an insect. He faced four more, but they looked more afraid of him than he of them.” ‘Tis not every day you fight almost a score of men with just your two friends!”

“Dashing friends,” corrected Derst as he parried a sword and gave the man a quick kick to the shin, putting him down.

” ‘Tis not every day you win!” replied Arya as she narrowly deflected another slash. “Fight now, talk later!”

Even with that chastening remark—or perhaps because of it—Derst continued right on chattering.

“They might even make you a Knight Protector for this!” he said. Then his brows knitted and he addressed his current opponent, blocking and parrying between each word. “What’s that, eh, chap? Equivalent to Captain? Colonel? General? No, surely not that high.”

He paused, expecting an answer. When nothing but another slash was forthcoming, which he dodged, Derst shrugged.

“Not sure, eh? Well, I guess I’ll just have to find out.”

The man bellowed and thrust again, but Derst leaped high into the air, kicked off the man’s arm, flipped over his head, and come down slashing from behind. The ranger went down.

One of Bars’s opponents finally made the mistake of planting his feet incorrectly on the thrust, leaving an opening as he stumbled back—an opening Bars took. With a bellow to Torm, the paladin leaped at him, working his maces independently to knock the man’s sword aside. Bars thundered over the hapless ranger, knocked him flat to the ground, kicked his sword aside, and brought down both maces on the head of a fifth man who had been seeking to maneuver around Arya. With two foes down, Bars landed back on the ground and continued his defense.

With a glare, Arya lunged at the two hesitating rangers. They fell back into defensive stances, unwilling to approach the fierce woman. She was thankful for the reprieve, since pain was lancing up her leg, even as she bit her lip to ignore it.

The momentary lapse in her duel allowed Arya a moment to glance after Walker, at the Whistling Stag. She could hear nothing from within, and that did nothing to calm her nerves. It was only a momentary glance, though, then the ranger was back, sword lancing for her heart.

Her heart…

“You are his only hope,” had been the wizard’s words.

Arya slapped it aside and growled her frustration.

Meris ran into the Whistling Stag’s common room only to find it deserted except for the innkeep Garion and a few regulars drinking at the bar. At the sight of the bloodied Meris, carrying a drawn axe, bursting through the door, all eyes turned.

“Oi, lad, wha’ be the—” Garion began.

Running across the room, Meris slapped him across the face, silencing his next few words. Stunned, the big man staggered back and knocked a few tankards over—including the ale of a wizened old man who kept right on drinking air without noticing.

Wearing a haggard and hunted look, Meris grabbed up one of the drinkers—a drunken rake with long brown hair and a half-beard—and held the drunkard’s body before him like a shield.

“Now, wait jes’ a moment—” stammered Morgan.

“Silence!” shouted the wild scout. “Malar’s claws!”

He held the rake up between himself and the door, as though expecting a blade to come lancing for his heart at any moment.

Then a fist came out of the darkness behind him and struck the back of his head.

Meris staggered and fell, shoving Morgan away. He drew the main gauche from the rake’s belt, though, and turned with the blade slashing, but there was no one to attack. There were only the other Whistling Stag patrons, who were even now fleeing up the stairs, with a surprisingly sober Morgan following them.