Iron and Blood (4 page)

Tyvian ran around the periphery of the Hanim's palace until he was reasonably certain he had catalogued all the visible exits. Doing a little mental geography, he calculated the most obvious route one would take from the palace to the Blocks, and placed himself in an alley a quarter mile distant that gave him a good view of the area. The problem, however, would be how to make a move on Hendrieux's party without getting killed.

“Hmmmm . . .” he said, trying to beat warmth into his arms. “If only I had a sword with me.”

It was then that Hacklar Jaevis jumped from the rooftops onto Tyvian's back.

 

T
he first thing that happened was Jaevis broke Tyvian's nose by slamming him into the wall of the alley. Then came a swift kick in the guts, which sent Tyvian's breath whistling through his teeth. Jaevis then picked the smuggler up like a sack of flour and threw him on the ground. All of this transpired in approximately two and a half seconds.

The alley spun in the darkness. Tyvian's nose was throbbing and clogged with what he guessed was a lot of blood; he couldn't breathe, see, or hear anything over the pounding in his ears and the white hot pain in his face. He felt Jaevis plant a knee on his breastbone, pinning him in place, and then Tyvian's world exploded again as the bounty hunter began to pound his head with his fists as though it were a lump of dough on a baker's counter. Dimly, Tyvian could hear the Illini muttering a single word, over and over:
“Vendetta.”

After the third punch in the face, Tyvian managed to pull his knee to his chest and draw the dagger from his boot. Jaevis was so focused on pounding Tyvian's head flat as a coin that he very nearly didn't notice the flash of steel until it was too late. As it was, the Illini twisted at the last moment so the point of the dagger pierced his arm rather than his heart. Jaevis snarled with a mixture of rage and pain, clutching at the deep wound with his free hand and leaping up before Tyvian could stick him again.

Unpinned, Tyvian rolled away and into the street, which was really more stairs than street, and bounced down several icy stone steps before he managed to stop himself. Jaevis charged after him, his arm pumping blood but his mind apparently too filled with anger to care. Tyvian tried to rise with the aid of a lamppost, but the bounty hunter kicked him in the chest and sent him sprawling onto his back and tumbling down another half-­dozen unforgiving steps. Air wheezing into his lungs, blood dripping into his mouth, Tyvian pointed his dagger at Jaevis to keep himself from being tackled again.

He didn't kill me—­he needs me alive.

Jaevis drew one of his long, curved sabers with his good arm and adjusted his cloak. “Not so full of jokes now, eh?”

Tyvian, trying not to fall down any more stairs, scuttled away from him until he had room to pull himself into a crouch. “You're early, Jaevis.”

The bounty hunter advanced slowly, leaving drops of blood in his wake. “You were not expecting Jaevis. Jaevis was expecting you.”

Tyvian retreated, wracking his brain for a plan. “Must we debate semantics? I mean, let's be honest, you
barely
speak Trade. Shouldn't you just defer to me in linguistic matters?”

Jaevis grunted. “Still with jokes. I will cut out tongue, Reldamar.”

Dagger against saber was no contest, even if Jaevis
was
short an arm. Tyvian had stabbed him deep, but the wound wasn't fatal. Thanks to the studded leathers Jaevis wore on his torso, the odds of getting a fatal blow in there were extremely slim. There was only one way out of this.

“Well, good-­bye, then!”

Tyvian turned tail and ran.

Jaevis roared and pursued.

The bounty hunter was swift, and Tyvian had just gotten his face pounded in for a few moments, so his balance wasn't perfect; his flight was more of a controlled fall down the steep, stair-­lined street. There was little doubt in his mind that he would be caught in a matter of seconds. Fortunately, a matter of seconds was all he needed.

Tyvian made a sharp right turn and ran, full bore, into the arms of two of Hendrieux's men. He made a show of struggling, but in all honesty he could not have been happier to see them. They had just come from the Hanim's party, as Tyvian had anticipated, and their group included eight soldiers in livery, as before, as well as the hulking Gallo, the fur-­caped Hendrieux, and two men in rust-­red robes and hoods.
Artificers, I presume.
Tyvian tried not to smile.

“Look what we 'ave 'ere!” One of the Dellorans held a tiny bead of illumite close to Tyvian's face. In the pale light, Tyvian could see the man had a black eye—­great, it was the guard from the party. “It's Tyvian bleedin' Reldamar, and he's got his fine clothes all mussed.”

Tyvian nodded. “Well identified, sir—­and with only one eye, too! Hendrieux should give you a raise.”

The man kneed Tyvian in the groin, which, he had to admit, was fair enough. He fell to his knees, nauseous with pain, but the two Dellorans hoisted him back up.

Hendrieux's face split into a genuine smile. “Tyvian! Now, what has you running scared, hmmm?”

Tyvian heard the cock of a crossbow and, between gasps of agony, managed to make introductions. “Gentlemen . . . I . . . give you . . . Hacklar Jaevis.”

It turned out that Jaevis didn't have a crossbow, but rather a close relative. It was a hurlant—­a crossbow-­like device designed to throw spheres rather than bolts—­and this hurlant was loaded with a smooth, fist-­sized stone that popped and sizzled in the cool night air. “You give me Reldamar now.”

The Dellorans all drew their swords; Gallo hefted his heavy maul. Hendrieux moved so he could leap behind Gallo, should it become necessary, and smiled. “Now now, friend—­we've no love for this wretch, do we? We were just about to slit his throat ourselves.”

“I take him alive.” Jaevis's aim with the hurlant never wavered from Gallo's massive form. “I take him now.”

“There are ten of us and one of you.” Hendrieux said. “I don't think you are in a position to give orders.”

Jaevis nodded at his weapon. “Thunder-­orb gives me position. Give Reldamar
now
.”

“One thunder-­orb won't kill us all, Mr. Jaevis. Let's be reasonable—­I have personal business with Mr. Reldamar here that will end in his death. You're a bounty hunter, aren't you? Why don't I pay whatever you're being paid plus, say, ten percent, and we call it even, hmmmm?”

Tyvian saw an opportunity to jump in. “He's bluffing, Jaevis. He's a coward—­he's soiling his breeches at the thought of you firing that thunder-­orb at him.”

Hendrieux gave Tyvian a withering glance. “I am
not
bluffing.”

“That's exactly what you'd say if you
were
bluffing.”

Black Eye gave Tyvian an ear-­boxing that sent his head spinning. He let himself fall to the ground and pretended to whimper.

“Enough talk!” Jaevis's finger trembled over the trigger. “Back away!”

Hendrieux, his face a bit paler than before, began to back up. “Very well, very well—­no need to—­”

Gallo charged, heavy maul held high. He made no cry, bellowed no challenge—­he was like a war machine with its switch thrown, sudden and inexorable. The next few seconds were complete mayhem. Jaevis fired at Gallo, and the magical stone detonated on the huge man's breastplate with thunderclap force, blowing everyone off their feet. Everyone, that was, besides Tyvian, who had sensibly gotten down earlier. The heat and crackling energy of the blast was still coursing through Tyvian's body; he was deafened by the sound, disoriented by the concussion. Still, he had the wherewithal to sit up.

Gallo, impossibly, wasn't dead. He had lost his maul and the loose wool cape he had draped over his shoulders, and his armor smoked and crackled like something stuffed in a furnace, but he stood up without so much as flinching. He backhanded Jaevis as the bounty hunter tried to rise, spinning the Illini around and knocking him back over. Tyvian grinned at this, but stopped grinning when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hendrieux coming at him with a drawn sword. Thinking quickly, Tyvian scooped a handful of gravel from the road and hurled it at Hendrieux's eyes. The Akrallian flinched, buying Tyvian enough time to stand up and snatch a sword from one of the dazed Dellorans.

The Dellorans—­the ones not blown to pieces by the thunder-­orb, anyway—­were getting up, too. Sounds were coming back to Tyvian's ears; they were fuzzy and indistinct, but they were definitely sounds. He took heart that, at the very least, he wasn't deaf.

Five of the eight Dellorans were left. Tyvian tried to stab one of them before he rose, but the ring shot a lightning bolt of pain up his arm and he was forced to drop his sword. The Delloran in question—­Black Eye himself—­tackled him by the legs, and the two men were left to rolling down those damned cobblestone stairs in an awkward wrestling match. Black Eye had strength and size, but Tyvian knew a few dirty tricks. Chief among these was biting, and he dug his teeth into Black Eye's nose as though it were a massive wedge of Leventry cheese. The guard responded with a few kidney punches that made Tyvian let go, but not before he took a chunk of nose with him. “Kroth-­spawned tit,” the Delloran growled. “Messin' up my face.”

Another thunder-­orb went off, blowing Black Eye and Tyvian up against the front stairs of a house. Tyvian felt his shoulder pop out of joint, and Black Eye cracked his own head on a stone and fell unconscious on top of him. Between his wounded shoulder and Black Eye's bulk, Tyvian was trapped. From his vantage point underneath Black Eye, he could see that the battle, such as it was, was nearly over.

Hacklar Jaevis had lost his hurlant and was fighting against the monstrous Gallo with nothing but his thin, curved saber. Gallo had a weapon that looked like a cross between spiked brass knuckles and a machete, and he used it in much the same manner. All of Jaevis's artistry with his curved blades was irrelevant against the hacking, driving blows Gallo delivered to the bounty hunter's guard with mechanical rhythm. Each block Jaevis made seemed to drive him back half a pace and sent shockwaves of force through his body to the point where he looked scarcely able to defend himself. Gallo pressed on until, eventually, Jaevis was forced to his knees. Gallo's armored paw seized the bounty hunter by the hair, hauled his head back, and laid his blade against Jaevis's throat.

“Say good-­bye to your bounty hunter, Tyv,” Hendrieux said softly. He was crouching next to Tyvian's pinned body, a long thin dagger in one hand. “I just want you to see this last ridiculous ruse of yours fail before I stuff a knife in your eye myself.”

Gallo looked over to Hendrieux. His ruined voice betrayed no sign of fatigue or pain. “Now?”

Hendrieux held up his hand. “I'm glad it will end this way, Tyv—­your body found beaten, dead, and dirty, pinned by a stinking oaf in some dirty Freegate side street. I bet they'll think you were mugged. Won't that be funny?”

It was then that Gallo was knocked across the street and slammed into the second story of a carpenter's workshop by some unseen force. Hendrieux stood up bolt straight. “What the—­”

Tyvian had never heard Hool roar before. It was, in a word, terrifying. The volume and timbre of the bellow that escaped her lips was sufficient to make Tyvian's bowels watery, and he at least knew Hool had no intention of killing
him
.

The two Dellorans closest to Hool saw her copper eyes glinting in the dark and watched, open-­mouthed, as she rose to her full height. Her bulky silhouette towered over them in the dim light of the street. In her hands was Gallo's heavy maul, which she had just used to propel the massive man through the air like a croquet ball.

Sahand was said to pay well, but apparently didn't pay
that
well. The men dropped their swords and fled into the night.

The last remaining Delloran stood quavering before the mighty gnoll's advance, longsword extended. He called to Hendrieux, “Orders, captain?” Hendrieux, though, was long gone. The lone Delloran glanced around him, saw he was alone, and then ran off in the direction the others had gone. Hool dropped the heavy maul as the man vanished from sight and began to sniff the air carefully, her ears rigid and upright.

“Hey!” Tyvian yelled. “Hey! Help me up!”

Hool vanished from sight, darting down an alley at the speed of a galloping horse. Tyvian was left pinned and alone in the cold and dark. “Hool? HOOOL! Dammit, gnoll! I'm stuck!”

A minute or two later saw the weight of Black Eye suddenly lifted from Tyvian's body. The smuggler looked up to see Hool standing over him. “Hool!” He coughed, “It's about bloody time! What are you doing here anyway—­you were supposed to be in the Blocks.”

Hool ignored the question and skipped straight to criticism. “You are very stupid, Tyvian Reldamar. You are lucky other humans are also stupid, or you would be dead.”

Tyvian crawled painfully to his feet. “Yes, Hool, thank you for the valuable critique.”

“Hendrieux got away again—­
another
magic door. You said those things were expensive, but he has three of them now.”

Tyvian tried blowing his nose, but all that came out was blood. He reasoned that, at the very least, the shirt he was wearing couldn't get any
more
ruined. “He hasn't got three, just one—­a door that magically connects to other doors. It's called an anygate.”

“Where is it?”

“I'm not sure yet,” Tyvian said, but the ring pinched him for it, and hard. Fortunately, the rest of him was in enough pain that the effect was largely masked. “Where's Jaevis?”

Hool pointed toward a different alley. “He snuck away when I hit the big man with his hammer. I can track
him
. He doesn't use filthy cheater magic.”

“Not now, Hool, thank you,” Tyvian said, limping over to the piles of bodies now littered around the street. “Speaking of the big man, what
did
happen to Gallo, anyway?”

“He should be dead but he isn't. I don't know why,” Hool observed, cocking her head and listening. “He is close, but he's leaving.”

Tyvian nodded. The man
had
to be life-­warded beyond any life ward Tyvian had ever heard of—­nobody survived a thunder-­orb to the
face
and walked away,
particularly
not when they were knocked through a building immediately afterward. He made a note to avoid frontal confrontations with Gallo for the foreseeable future.