A Stalker's Game (Short Story) Page 3
“Let’s begin the Gala of Nipha the traditional way, with each Weapon-artist selecting their desired defense,” Dwarflord Tirranus said. He indicated to his men to bring out the weaponry, which rolled about, strewn all over a table. Carried by several guards, the huge tabletop displayed a multifarious selection of killing utensils.
Despite not requiring another weapon, Tom chose a twin-edged longsword. The ancient sword he took when he found the armor vanished long ago, lost at The Battle of Hell, along with many friends. The sheath across his back formed exactly to the size of the sword when placed inside. A nifty advantage of the armor, though the sword could be taken, unlike the sai.
His cellmate decided on a cleaver and a shortsword. The Dragon-Rider, like all of his rank, had a predilection for range weapons, but the dwarves made none available. A game of hand-to-hand, not a specialty of The Paragon, but his skill was far better than Tom’s without the armor.
Only once did The Paragon manage to get his hands on a bow. Tom called it dumb luck mixed with a stupid guard. The other times, one thing kept him alive. Tom. Cellmates till the end, apparently, for after all the dwarves threw at the duo, Tom deflected. Or at least his armor did.
While the rest of the stock armed themselves, the six participants unhooked their tankards and their carabiners. Never had Tom witnessed a clothed dwarf without his attached carabiner and tankard. The clink had become normal to his ears, a warning for when a guard, or any dwarf for that matter, drew near. The Stalkers would be unheard, unrecognizable.
Dwarflord Tirranus grunted, cleared his throat. “Now, the rules for the selected stock. This is a Stalker’s Game, you will be given fifteen minutes to travel as fast as you can to escape, after that, my son and the winning bidders will begin the hunt. Dodging aerial weapons is key, so keep that in mind, and after you have survived the air assault, defense with your selected weapons will be your last chance. Good luck to the bidders. With the grace of Úpok, let the games begin!”
No pause. Not a one nerve of the eight hesitated. All sixteen legs moved. Tom and The Paragon sprinted toward the east, followed by four of the others, knowing their best chances to live longer rested around The Cursed.
After two minutes, Tom turned, yelled, “Keep up, will you.” The Paragon wheezed slightly, out of breath. The chain tightened. Tom eyed his cellmate. “What the hell are you doing, Paragon?”
“Please, Tom. Please don’t call me that.”
“Markus, we don’t have time for rest; it’s been only a few minutes and you’re winded, what gives?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know, something works against me, I don’t feel normal.” Markus gulped in air, coughed a fit, then spat thick white mucus on the trunk of a pine. “I can’t—”
“I’m not going to wait around to be scribbled, ” Tom erupted. Before The Mortal Ring, he would have helped. Before the suit of armor he wore, every ounce of ethics would be forefront telling him not to leave an honorable man to his death. He had changed since. Lately, dressed in the ancient armor, he had wicked desires, consumed with malice to strike at the beating heart of the North.
He could not do that locked up, bound by prison manacles. His ability to use magic was blocked while with the dwarves and in their kingdom, but out here . . . Without glancing at his cellmate, Tom detached his left sai, pointed it at the edge of his wrist fetter.
“No, Tom. Wait!”
“Pyrosus deo spearsae!” Tom screamed. A stream of yellow shot from his mouth to the tip of his sai, followed by a deep red, then by a bright green. A ball of flame hovered there, at the weapon’s point. He concentrated, forced the sphere forward in an intense flash.
Blinded, they closed their eyes.
Tom opened his lids only to see that he was yet chained. Markus displayed his fear, sweating, sobbing, and piss soaking the leather showing around his kneecaps. Markus stuttered to get words out, but nothing coherent parted from his lips.
“Dammit, that was a waste.” Slightly enervated, Tom pulled on his cellmate, made him stand to his feet. The other prisoners had long since gone. Then, from nowhere, a sense of direction rose in him. “We need to go west.” An image of a red sword flashed in his mind’s eye, a sword patterned with markings that matched the armor he wore. A name followed the image: Surge, The Havoc Crier. He grasped that the armor shared its yearning with him, an aspiration to attain its forgotten relic.
Markus shook violently, his face aquiver with horror. Tom tried to leave him, alone to perish. “I thought,” Markus stumbled over his words. “I thought you were a different man.”
“I used to be,” Tom replied in anguish.
“None of it is true, Tom,” Markus said. “I don’t believe your stories. Your family is alive. Our Savior could not do such vile things—”
Tom waved for silence. He had no time for pointless exchanges that had already taken place on several occasions in the cell. He replaced the sai, yanked on the chain, headed west, or what he thought close to it. A nerve inside him said the weapon he needed lay in that direction.
Tom stopped a few hundred meters later. “You hear that?” Markus nodded. A whizzing noise in the sky above focused their attention. A blue burst of light lit up the firmament. “A mage’s flare . . . fifteen minutes already up. That was not a head start, but a reassured death sentence.” Tom jerked harder on the chain.
Two men ran past them ten meters to their left. How is that possible? Tom had seen them run on, far on to the east. Another pair kept at the heels of the first. He gazed at his companion. Were they that slow that others could catch up? No. Was Markus that slow? He deliberated over the possibilities that would separate the chain. He decided on none, for none would work with what was at his disposal. He possessed no other spells that would break the bindings.
“Let’s move.” Tom felt a yank of resistance from Markus. The armor did not care. A desire not his own flooded his mind. An attraction compelled him onward, toward the west. Surge lay hidden out there, lost and in need of recovery by the armor.
A moment later, another whizzing sound went by, close. Tom’s reaction came too late. Much too late. Shorter than a second passed when a dart hit the chain, an explosion followed, sending the two apart. Tom hit a tree to his right and Markus thudded against a pine to his left.
Tom recovered, raised his left hand, the chained dangled, severed. Freedom. To a certain degree anyway, the armor still clung to his body, and dwarves hunted him like a hare. He bent low, scooped up the snow where the tip of the dart remained intact. “Not possible.”
Another dart zipped by, stuck into a tree.
KABOOM. Tom flew back a few meters.
The armor recovered more than Tom did, propping itself up against a nearby bush. For a while, his vision blurred severely, but with effort, he regained focus. A few steps away, Markus cried like a bleating sheep, wounded in too many places to count. Tom trudged through the snow, felt the man’s pulse. Pretty strong, even through the thick gloves, but he did not boast any skill of a physician; he had no idea if that meant his cellmate would live. He would not, not with the dwarves still afoot, hunting for stock.
The armor’s compulsion took hold, gripped his body. Such a strong force. He turned back to the west. An unwanted foot faltered forward. His cellmate’s annihilation was certain, especially with such uninterruptible screams . . . there was nothing he could do for him. But still . . . with the armor, the man would not be an onerous burden to carry.
With a face like flint, Tom stared down at his cellmate. In four months they had been through a lifetime of agony, double over, if not triple. Ties lingered, ones always meant for cutting. The armor sensed his hesitation, the doubt of purpose in his mind, the confrontation arising. His volition wavered, overwritten by the armor’s involuntary control.
The armor plowed through the heavy powder, westward mattered most to it. A hundred meters later Tom stopped. No. No, he could not leave the man behind. He twisted his torso in the deep snow, spotted another slave, also free from his bonds.
Stevens stared with timorous eyes. “What do we do?” he sputtered, violently twitching.
Tom lifted up his hand, lofted the tip in the air, and watched it land in Stevens’ cupped palms. “They are using elven technology,” he replied, ignoring Stevens’ question.
“Can’t be.”
“Examine it yourself,” Tom encouraged. Stevens had been a decent Footman, now his flesh shriveled like a dry potato, a man all but bone, with little brain activity beyond motor functions. The mines eroded whatever tactical intelligence Stevens once supported, and The Mortal Ring beat out anything else that persisted.
Stevens’ eyes dribbled with tears.
Tom guessed the man identified the peril. Only elves believed in technology, only elves used proper technology. They did not share; they did not barter. But here on high, in The Sepris Mountains, two thousand kilos away from the heartland of the elves, dwarves, of all races, possessed elfish weaponry.
Stevens wobbled, keeled over. “Can’t be.” With a weak hand, he balanced himself on his knees. A possibility to survive existed if the dwarves fought fair, with their own