I
Like all the young, he thought himself immortal. Now he knows better.
— Milton DeBoors
The wide avenue that led to Tragoss Mor’s dock ward sang with swordplay and ran red with blood. A dozen Kalathen knights, a squadron of House Alder’s marines, and two born killers battled Brother Claradon Eotrus, newly named Lord of Dor Eotrus, and his small band. Bartol of Alder’s arrest warrant for Claradon and “his mercenary” lay trampled underfoot.
In a somber alley just off the avenue, Claradon dueled a legend — a sword master and bounty hunter famed and feared throughout the land for a generation. Kaledon of the Gray Waste was his name, better known to most as The Wild Pict, a born killer that stories claimed had slain a thousand men by his own hand. The Pict stood before Claradon, battered, bloody, and dazed, his chest smoking and scorched, courtesy of Claradon’s magic. The Pict’s sword was still in his hand and the fight had not yet left him, but he was weak and unsteady. In truth, Claradon fared little better — but now came his chance to end their lengthy battle and to defeat a legend.
Claradon advanced and thrust his sword at Kaledon's bare chest. The wounded Pict’s parry was far too slow and failed to keep the blade from his flesh. It sank deep. Blood spurted from the wound and splashed Claradon's face, already bloodied and dripping sweat. The Pict roared in pain but returned Claradon's strike before the last of his strength was spent. His war blade slashed Claradon's breastplate, cleaved through at the center, and shattered. The young lord stumbled back in shock and disbelief.
The broken remnant of Kaledon’s sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the pavement. The Wild Pict clutched his chest and tried in vain to stem the flow of his lifeblood. His eyes burned with hatred and never left Claradon's face. He dropped to his knees. Moments later, eyes still open and staring, he fell face forward to the ground. He did not move again.
The Duelist of Dyvers, Milton DeBoors’ eyes went wide and he knew at once that he’d underestimated Claradon Eotrus. When Chancellor Barusa of Alder hired him to kill Claradon and his foreign mercenary, he expected a challenge — not from their personal martial skills, but from the combined might of the fighting men that traveled with them. He never dreamed that the young Eotrus could stand up to the Pict, his friend and ally of long years, little less best him. Such mistakes were foreign to DeBoors and costly when rare they came. The Chancellor’s coin was not worth this.
DeBoors rushed forward through the smoke, blood, and din of the melee; too late to save his comrade, but in good time to avenge him.
Claradon's sword hung loose from its guard; his eyes were glassy, his face pale, his legs unsteady.
“Eotrus,” boomed DeBoors.
The young knight turned, grievously wounded; sweat poured from his brow as he gasped for breath.
DeBoors aimed his thrust for the narrow gouge in Claradon's armor where that last strike of Kaledon's had laid it open. DeBoors’ wicked blade passed unerringly through the center of the rent, and clear through Claradon, garment, flesh, and bone. Through the heart.
Claradon wore a look of shock. Like all the young, he thought himself immortal. Now he knew better.
DeBoors pulled the blade free. It made a curious, sucking sound as it slid out; a spray of blood followed it.
DeBoors raised his sword to take Claradon’s head — a trophy for Chancellor Barusa, and a bit of satisfaction for him, but before he struck his blow, a mountain fell on him. The world spun into chaos and he sailed through the air. He crashed to the ground, the air crushed from his chest; something massive atop him; something alive. At first, DeBoors thought it a horse, felled in the battle and fallen on him; such was its bulk. But it was a man; one of Eotrus' mercenaries; a veritable giant.
A snarling face appeared over DeBoors, and two vise-like hands clamped about his neck. The power of that grip would've crushed another man's throat in moments, but the thick, corded muscle of DeBoors' neck held, though he could not manage a breath.
DeBoors' hands were pinned between his torso and the giant's; his sword lost from his grasp; no room to swing it anyway.
His throat screaming for air, DeBoors wrenched one meaty hand free and pummeled the giant's jaw. Unfazed, the giant clamped down tighter; his thick digits dug deep into DeBoors' throat, his hot breath washed over DeBoors' face; his sweat dripped into DeBoors' eyes.
The duelist squirmed, twisted, and stretched to align and leverage his next desperate strikes. His fist slammed unerringly into the giant’s head, again and again and again.
The giant grunted, spit blood in DeBoors' face, and squeezed ever tighter. “Die,” he said; that was all he said. In all his years, DeBoors had never battled a man of such strength — strength to match his own. Close to blacking out, he struggled to pull those hands of doom from his throat. After the uncountable battles he’d weathered, he would not fall to some random mercenary. That was inconceivable; the moment surreal.
DeBoors head-butted the giant, producing a sound akin to a hammer slamming a stone. The giant reeled and for a moment, his eyes went unfocused. That moment was all DeBoors needed to pull his other hand free and thrust the giant off.
Both men scrambled, rolled, and made their feet in an instant — the giant, nearly a head taller than DeBoors, who himself towered well above men called tall.
The giant was fast, far faster than any man near his size should be. His massive fist appeared from nowhere and pummeled DeBoors' jaw, smashing his head to the side, a crushing blow.
But DeBoors remained solidly planted, his eyes clear and bright. He snapped his head back toward the giant and saw his eyes go wide with surprise. No doubt, he'd expected DeBoors to go down with a broken jaw, and all his fight spent. Instead, DeBoors returned the blow and sent the giant reeling — a hammer blow to the head that would've dropped a horse. The giant staggered back, but did not go down.
The giant charged, fire in his eyes, long dagger in hand. DeBoors grabbed his tunic as he came in, dropped to the ground, rolled back, kicked the giant's midsection, and sent his massive bulk flying. He crashed to the ground yards away.
DeBoors rolled over, snatched his sword from the ground, and leaped to his feet in a single motion. Pain seared through his arm. The giant's blade had found some hole in his bracer and pierced his forearm. He ignored it. A moment later, sword again in hand, he glanced toward the mouth of the alley in time to see an arrow streaking for his throat.
DeBoors flicked his blade to the side, perfectly timed, and deflected the arrow away; a metallic pinging sound marked its demise. Another arrow came on just as quickly, and then a third — launched by a slim archer who stood amidst the roaring battle in the avenue. DeBoors’ blade knocked each shaft aside — a feat few men were fast or fortunate enough to do once, but three times in as many seconds bespoke of martial skills untold.
With a glance, he found his shield and plucked it from the ground. Looking up, he expected more arrows, but instead saw a swarm of fiery blue orbs rocketing towards him. Wizard’s work.
“Zounds!” No time to dive for cover, he dodged to the side and ducked down behind his shield. The heater shield, his long companion, iron and oak, forged in dwarven fire in ages past, was blasted from his grip and exploded into sorry fragments. Another bolt slammed into his shoulder plate and blasted the steel away. Spheres of fiery death streamed just over his head and to either side as he dodged and spun with preternatural speed. Each bolt detonated nearby, on ground or masonry walls, raining dust, sparks, and shrapnel everywhere.
Then the giant was there again. Battered and bloody, he barreled toward DeBoors, his huge war hammer slicing through the air with enough power and speed to fell a tree. DeBoors sidestepped the blow and with a lightning flick and twist of his sword took the hammer from the giant's grasp.
Before DeBoors could finish him, and without an instant of hesitation, the giant pulled a sword from his belt and stood at the ready, glaring at DeBoors, nostrils flaring.
They moved together and traded blow for blow with dizzying speed and unrelenting resolve. The giant's slashes and thrusts came in with thunderous power and precision, not born of desperation or anger, but founded in skill, and steeped in mastery of the blade; its wielder, a veritable harbinger of destruction and death.
DeBoors' strikes were no less powerful and even quicker; his sword a blur of movement; its ancient metal hummed a dull tone as it cleaved through the air, a somber song that promised only death.
Each man was nigh unbeatable. Neither had ever tasted defeat. Together, two gods of the sword, two giants among men; though in such contests no impasse could long stand. One always proved the greater, but for the whim of chance or the whisper of fate or the right hand of doom. Such was the way of things.
And when fate decreed it, the whirling blades at last proclaimed their master. One of DeBoors' strikes slipped under the giant's guard and slashed his breastplate; a skirling rending of metal filled the air as the tempered steel gave way.
DeBoors' spinning hammer-blow thundered down at the giant's head. But the giant was not done yet. He raised his mighty blade and caught the deathblow, though his sword shattered with the titanic impact. Bits of screaming metal flew into the giant's face and he fell back, bloodied.
As DeBoors plowed forward to finish him, an arrow slammed into his back, then another, though they bounced ineffectually from his steel-wrought armor.
DeBoors' senses, born and honed of olden days, alerted him to movement close behind. He spun in time to see a wide, curved sword slicing towards him. It took all his speed and reflex to snap his blade up and parry the blow in time to preserve his life. Even then, his sword was nearly wrenched from his grasp.
A hail of sword strikes rained down on him — faster and faster. Through the blur of motion, DeBoors glimpsed a gleaming knight in midnight-blue armor and massive shield; tall, broad, and powerful, with an aura of death hung around him like an old, beloved cloak.
Each time DeBoors maneuvered to attack rather than parry, the blows rained in faster.
A high strike came in and when DeBoors parried it, a kick struck him in the midsection — a monstrous blow that flung him backward several feet to slam into a wall. He dropped to the ground on his rump. The wind knocked out of him; his strength sapped. In all his days, no one had ever hit him that hard.
Eotrus, the giant, and now this one. Dead gods, how many champions did House Eotrus have? He'd underestimated this one. He would not do that again. DeBoors bounced up, sword at the ready, death flaring in his eyes. All his will and power bent on destroying his opponent. DeBoors' eyes locked on the knight's to take his measure and read his soul before taking his life.
With a sharp intake of breath and widened eyes, DeBoors, undefeated sword-master of Dyvers, froze, at once deflated and diminished, ego, body, and soul. His blood ran cold and all color fled his face, for before him stood Lord Thetan, and Thetan's falchion was poised at his throat. A trickle of blood ran down DeBoors' neck, courtesy of a prick from the sword's tip.
The sight of Thetan’s face dredged a memory from the depths of DeBoors’ mind. He stood on the bridge deck of a great sailing vessel — a vast fleet arrayed behind it. Lord Thetan stood at the prow. He wore that same blue armor and that same falchion hung at his side. Surrounded by his lieutenants, Thetan’s eyes were locked on R’lyeh as they approached that dread isle for the long war’s final battle. Gabriel was there, the Horn of Valhalla at his hip. Mithron the wise stood at Thetan’s right hand. There too was Raphael the healer, and Azrael the alchemist. Modi and Magni were there too, along with the other great captains of the host. The great lord turned towards DeBoors. Thetan’s steel-blue eyes locked on him and DeBoors shuddered.
“Lord Thetan,” said DeBoors, his voice unsteady.
“No other, though they call me Theta now.”
“I knew not it was you,” he said, his composure regained, his voice strong once again.
“No matter, DeBoors. Stand down and call off your men. The Eotrus are under my protection.”
DeBoors pushed Theta's sword away and took a step to the side, his shock fading and with it, his confidence returned. “You're Eotrus's mercenary?”
“I'm on a mission, like those of old, when we fought side by side in common cause.
DeBoors’ brow furrowed. “That business ended at R'lyeh. It's long past and best forgotten.” DeBoors moved to where Kaledon lay. Whistles sounded from all about, near and far. “The monks will come in force,” said DeBoors. “We should sort this out another time.”
DeBoors squatted, scooped Kaledon up, and hefted him over his shoulder even as Artol, ignoring the blood that streamed down his own face from his shattered sword, knelt beside Claradon and bound a cloth about his bleeding chest.
Theta made no move to stop DeBoors. “The Eotrus are under my protection,” said Theta in a tone that defied opposition.
DeBoors paused and looked back at Theta before turning the corner at the end of the alley. “And I must honor my contract.”