Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Ar’tor circled and circled, and then slashed out clumsily, his ankle turning under him. Tluman flashed in, eager to end this charade. Ar’tor’s ankle suddenly straightened, and Ar’tor lunged out, gashing Tluman’s right wrist with a speed and precision more feline than human.

Tluman’s hamlike left slammed out instinctively even as he realized he had been tricked.

Ar’tor tried to retreat from the blow, tried to roll with it, but was too slow. The grazing backhand snapped something in his chest.

He hit the ground and tumbled backward almost into the fire.

Tluman examined his wrist. Blood squirted out of it, puddling onto ground. He squatted to snatch up the knife, then struggled to find a tourniquet for the wrist. A scrap of tom shirt, a belt, anything.

Ar’tor didn’t let him have time. The only hope was now, before Tluman fully absorbed the shock.

He bore back in, feinting and slashing now, putting everything he had into the attack. There would be no second chance, no other opportunity. For this instant, the mighty Tluman was confused. He stumbled back, guarding with his left, fighting to stop the blood that gushed from his right wrist.

With the blade in his left hand, his own blood smeared over his chest and drooling onto the ground, Tluman was still dangerous.

But Ar’tor moved insanely, darting in and out like a striking snake, his spine so fluid that Tluman couldn’t make contact.

Ar’tor couldn’t score another wound, but Tluman was totally off balance, with no chance to fix that gushing wrist.

Finally, bellowing with rage and frustration, Tluman charged in blindly. Artor twisted to the side and pounced, literally swarmed up Tluman’s back, stabbing and slashing like a mad creature.

Tluman slashed Ar’tor’s ankle, grabbed it and stabbed into his leg. Ar’tor screamed and levered the point of his blade under Tluman’s ear.

Ar’tor frantically kicked Tluman in the jaw and twisted away, staggering to stay on his feet. His crimsoned leg wobbled beneath him, and he made it wobble more, trying to lure Tluman into imprudence.

Blood squirted from Tluman’s slashed throat as he lumbered after Ar’tor. The council was no longer silent. A chant of “Ar-tor! Ar-tor!” had grown up and up, and even the men who had accompanied Tluman took it up, slamming their spears against the ground in tribute. Tluman’s face was covered in blood. He stopped, staring at his men, who now chanted the name of his hated adversary.

He screamed in hatred and frustration and jammed his gushing wrist into his belt. He wanted only to get his hands on the limping demon sprite that still mocked him, still sneered at him, waving that puny blade in his face.

With a final despairing cry, Tluman lunged. Ar’tor tried to twist out of the way, but Tluman caught his ankle again, and both fell into the fire. Tluman had him now, and Ar’tor’s world became black tinged with red as the brutal hands touched his throat.

There was no air. The coals burned horribly into his back, and the stench of his own charring flesh filled his nostrils.

So be it. This was his dying place, as it had been his uncle’s. If he could but take this bastard with him . . .

As Tluman pressed him back, Ar’tor stabbed and stabbed and twisted the blade, and stabbed again.

Then the pressure at his throat was gone, and Ar’tor felt strong hands pulling him from the ashes. He windmilled frantically at the air, until he heard Rollif say: “That’s it. That’s all. It’s over.”

The mists finally cleared. There on the ground lay Tluman’s gashed body, the great hands still twitching at the air, the mouth gasping to speak.

“Finish it,” Rollif said, handing Ar’tor his spear.

Mind swimming crazily, he took two halting steps to stand above Tluman. For a dozen breaths he just stared into the dying man’s face. Then he gasped, “Carraign waits for you in hell,” and drove the spear into his throat.

He turned. All he could think of was collapsing, but this was not the time for it. Now every face was on him. Gretcha, Rollif.

And there, shining with pride, lovely Eloi.

“I speak now,” he said. There was great pain in his chest, and he fought for each breath. He pulled the spear from Tluman’s body and leaned on it.

His thin, wiry body quivered as he fought to remain erect.

“We have had peace in the Hilltribes, until this outsider came and tried to turn us against each other. He killed my uncle, and my brother. In vengeance, I killed his lover, and I killed him. That’s the end of it. That is the end.”

He turned and walked away from the council. If he was careful, he would make it all the way to Syman’s house.

He grew dizzy. He couldn’t make it. He couldn’t . . .

“Let me help you,” a warm voice said, just behind his ear.

“No, Eloi. I have to . . All eyes on him, he managed to stumble across the threshold before falling to one knee in his uncle’s house.

Wrong—his house now. His, to live in, to heal in. To raise his and Eloi’s children in.

To fill with his own trophies. He hoped he lived to have many of them, because one he would not have would be the skin of Old Cat.

That most precious of gifts would be buried in the hills, next to the graves of his brother, his father, and his uncle.

It did not matter that his people would never know why, or begin to understand.

Ar’tor knew why.

And Yelloweye knew.

And some secrets should remain between kin.

Ties of Faith

by Gillian FitzGerald

Gillian FitzGerald is five feet two, red-haired, blue-eyed, and Irish; more personal statistics are available on request. She has acquired several interesting but useless degrees, and has, in the best writerly tradition, held the normal number of weird jobs. When not avoiding writing, Gil is usually sewing costumes for SCA events and convention masquerades, listening to Irish music, or petting Corwin, her seventeen-pound black cat. Her short stories have been published in Elsewhere, Amazons II, Dragon, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, with another story in the forthcoming second volume of Heroic Visions.

Giliahna Sanderz, Undying High Lady of the Confederation, was beginning to regret her decision to return home to Sanderz Hall. Perhaps she should have taken her stepson Gy’s advice and gone instead to Theesispolis. She could have talked to Mara about her feelings. Surely Mara would have understood how hard it was to adjust to being an Undying. Right now she would have traded her eternal youth and her regenerative abilities for the look of quiet contentment she had seen in the eyes of Gy’s young wife, Decahna, as she suckled their first child. She would never hold a child of her own in her arms. So she was running home to Sanderz Hall, where she had grown up, where she had first known Tim as lover, where they had been reunited after long years of separation, where they had learned that they were Undying. If she could, she would have run to his arms, but he was off fighting on the western borders, so going home was the only choice.

What she had not counted on was the late-summer storms which had made many of the roads impassable and forced

them closer to the mountains than she would have liked. She had left her baggage train at a Kindred holding and ridden on with an escort of ten men, hoping to make better time without the encumbrance of the slow carts. Even without the baggage train, however, they were still four days’ ride under the best of conditions, and the conditions were far from optimum. The horses slogged through mud which splashed their clothes, and the near-constant warm drizzle left their light cloaks soggy.

She could put up with the physical discomforts, however. Like any Kindred woman she had been raised to hard riding, and her father had taught all his children that dry lodgings and a warm, soft bed were luxuries, not necessities. While she did not enjoy the unpleasant warmth of her riding leathers or the chafing of the breastband with which she had confined her bosom, she didn’t bother to complain. Her men suffered just as much as she, so why play the spoiled lady? No, what nagged at her was the possibility that her thoughtless whim might be leading them into danger, danger which could have been avoided if she had stayed with the baggage train and the ridiculously large troop Gy had insisted on sending with her.

For the last two days she had heard disturbing reports of bandits and even more disturbing reports of raiders. The bandits were no surprise. In this outlying area they were only to be expected, and even the great Bili the Axe could not be everywhere. But these raiders were something different. They struck with the swiftness of the lightning bolt that was the symbol they left pinned to their victims’ bodies, and what they left behind was death. Not clean death, either, but half-grown boys raped and strangled, grown men castrated and tortured, women mutilated. Young children were taken away, for some dark reason. She did not like the sound of it at all. It stank of the Old Church, and she had no love for that vile band. If the raiders who left the sign of the lightning bolt were somehow allied with the Old Church, Bili would want to know.

If they were able to make it to Morguhn Hall safely.

“Time to make camp, my lady,” said Nik Smith, the heavy-set lieutenant who was the ranking officer of her escort. He was one of Gy’s best men, and much in awe of the young and beautiful High Lady, who was also Dowager Princess of Cumbuhluhn.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling slightly. She was used to his reaction by now, though she still found it a trifle disconcerting. Beauty was such a stupid reason for men to value a woman. It faded so quickly, while quick wits and a kind heart endured.

She allowed him to help her dismount, though she was perfectly capable of climbing down unaided. She had given up trying to help while they pitched the field tents. It was as if they believed her rank had somehow rendered her helpless. When the camp was set up, she had coaxed them into allowing her to cook the evening meal; once she had proved herself a better cook than any of the soldiers they were more than willing to let her handle the chore. Besides, it freed them to keep watch. After she had eaten, she retired to her small tent. She had learned that her presence left the men unable to speak for fear of offending her. That had made her giggle; she had been Djylz’ wife and Tim’s lady; she doubted they could think of anything she hadn’t already heard from those two seasoned campaigners.

In the darkness of her tent, she listened to the quiet voices of her troopers around the fire and thought of Tim, who would be sitting with his own men somewhere to the west. She missed him with something close to desperation, and it did not help that Aldora, beautiful, arrogant, sensual Aldora, rode at his side. Oh, it made great sense for Aldora to accompany him. She was as good a commander as the best of Milo’s generals, and she and Tim made an excellent team, his hard-earned caution balancing her natural recklessness. If Aldora had been a different sort of woman, one who did not want to come between pledged lovers, then Giliahna would not have worried—but she knew that not all women shared her sense of honor where a handsome man was concerned. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Tim locked in Aldora’s arms.