The Agent (34 page)

“Just be ready to act when it happens. Garran, you have to seek Victor out immediately.”

“Don’t worry, I will. He has my stuff.”

“I’m glad you are properly motivated. I just hope it’s enough. A lot of people are putting their lives on the line to see you freed.”

“Karla,” Adam said as she turned to leave, “why are you doing this? You were going to hand me over just a few weeks ago.”

The agent looked around and clenched her jaw. “I thought that all was lost, and I did not like where the kingdom was headed under The Guild’s rule. I was going to use the reward for your capture to get out of Anatolia for good, but when Garran showed up, and hearing of how he beat Victor and Dragoslav, I began to think that maybe I don’t have to if you two are able to complete your mission. I still don’t think you have a snowball’s chance in hell, but I’m willing to take the risk and do what I can to give you shot.”

Adam nodded. “Thank you.”

“Just get ready to fight like hell.”

Adam scowled at Garran as Karla walked away. “You knew this entire time that she was on our side?”

“Not the entire time…”

“Yet you still let me sit here and worry.”

“It kept your mind occupied. Boredom is a terrible thing.”

“It’s better than stark-raving terror!”

“Maybe to you.” Garran turned to Liam and Friedrich. “Listen, when the crap starts to fly—”

“We’re going to hide behind this tree and try not to get splattered,” Liam finished.

“I was going to tell you to grab the nearest weapon and fight.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t work for me.”

Friedrich shook his head. “Me neither. While I have given some great performances putting on displays of masterfully choreographed fight scenes, I have no illusions of being able to properly wield a sword in actual battle.”

Garran scowled. “Pickle tits, each and every one of you!”

“Shut up over there before I put my foot up your ass!” the bald-headed soldier shouted.

“You shut up before I draw a line down the middle of your head and make it look like an ass!” Garran shouted back.

“Smart-assed sonofa—,” the man growled as he jumped to his feet, drew his sword, and stormed over.

Garran raised his hands before his face. “Wait! You wouldn’t hit a man in shackles would you?”

“Those are my favorite ones to hit,” the soldier replied with a sadistic grin.

“Oh well, they aren’t attached anymore anyway.”

Garran held up the manacles now dangling from his hands. The man’s face went slack and he stepped back. Garran swung the iron cuffs overhand and clobbered the soldier, dropping him to the ground and leaving a deep gash atop his head. Several men gathered around the nearby fire stood and reached for their weapons, but a chorus of shouts and dark figures bursting into the clearing charged at them before they could take more than a few steps toward their freed prisoner.

“Garran!” Karla shouted and hurled his weapons belt toward him.

Garran rushed over to where his weapons landed and pulled them from the belt. Both sides of the melee appeared to be near even, but the attackers had taken Garran’s captors by surprise and were quickly overwhelming them. Their initial success was about to prove fleeting when Garran spotted Victor hewing into his rescuers.

Three men fell before the agent in as many seconds. Victor locked eyes with Karla for a brief moment before sprinting across the campsite, ignoring the enemies fighting closer at hand. Karla had just a moment to comprehend the death bearing down in her with impossible speed. Victor’s sword flashed so fast she could barely discern the blur of the blade.

A heavy weight struck her in the side and sent her flying sideways. Garran’s reaping blade caught Victor’s sword with a resounding peal of colliding steel. Victor’s sword rebounded from the impact. He spun with the weapon’s inertia and turned the parry into a swift riposte. Garran caught the blow between his twin blades, and the two locked eyes.

“I had hoped to humiliate you in Leva before killing you, but I’m perfectly happy to end your miserable life here and now,” Victor seethed.

“Do you know the old saying that the most dangerous thing in the world is standing between a mother and her child?”

“What of it?”

“That person has never stood between a junkie and his drugs.”

Garran heaved Victor’s sword away and launched into a flurry of blows. Victor initiated a steady, controlled retreat, ducking and parrying Garran’s manic assault. Victor’s muscles tingled from the constant vibrations Garran’s unrelenting blows sent through his sword and into his arms. After several interminable minutes, the fury of Garran’s attack began to ebb. He stepped back and tried to catch his breath, but Victor was not going to give him the chance.

The moment Garran let up, Victor launched into a vigorous offensive. Victor’s heavier sword sent shockwaves through Garran’s arms with each parry, sapping strength from them with every intercepted blow. Unlike Garran’s attack, Victor did not let up and appeared to have no intention of doing so until his foe lay dead at his feet.

Garran needed to break the assault. He ducked beneath a heavy swing and spun behind Victor. He continued his rotation even as he darted past; his reaping blade slashing at Victor’s exposed back. Victor turned with his swing, letting the momentum of his sword spin him around.

Garran scored a hit on Victor’s lower back, but his small victory did not come without a price. Victor’s longer reach and the speed of his reaction allowed his blade bite into Garran’s side before he could slip away.

Both men pressed a hand to their wounds. With neither of them finding the cuts lethal, they squared off and began to circle like two predators fighting for territory. Garran readily acknowledged Victor as being the superior fighter, but Victor knew it was foolish to become overconfident. He had done so once already, and it nearly cost him his life.

Garran hung back and stepped away from Victor’s probing strikes, not bothering to expend the energy to parry the half-hearted thrusts. Victor quickstepped to his left before leaping right and lunging forward. Garran slapped the blade aside with his left reaping blade, spun, and swiped at Victor’s back as he darted past. Expecting the move, Victor ducked his head and rolled the moment Garran parried his thrust and felt the weapon whistle past.

Victor bolted back to his feet just in time to catch one of Garran’s reaping blades diving for the top of his head. He shoved the weapon away, ducked beneath the one coming at him from the side, and delivered a powerful overhead chop. Garran trapped the sword in the crotch of his crossed weapons, bulled forward, and drove his knee into Victor’s thigh and side.

Victor snarled his rage, released his two-hand grip on the hilt, and punched Garran in the side of the head. Garran reeled back and ducked the follow up blow. Finding himself at the edge of the clearing, he backpedaled into a stand of young aspen trees. He put the slender trunks between them to thwart Victor’s longer reach and deadly swings. Garran kicked against the slender trunk of one of the trees and sent the top whipping down at Victor’s head.

Victor cursed as he dodged to the side. Garran darted behind another slim tree and bent it down as well. Anger and frustration building, Victor hacked at the tree and sheared though the trunk just above where the tree sprouted branches. He barreled forward, shouting his rage. Garran continued to retreat and tried to kick over another tree, but the grove was maturing, and the trunk only shook and swayed wildly under the impact. Victor swung his sword, buried it deep into the wood, but wrenched it back out before Garran could move around the tree and take advantage of the split-second opportunity.

Furious, his transcended state starting to take its toll on his body, Victor thrust past the tree, striking for Garran’s heart. Garran twisted away but felt the blade cut deeply and skip along his ribs. He accepted the strike and hooked his left reaping blade behind the quillon of Victor’s sword. Victor’s face showed a moment of surprise before Garran sheared through his wrist with his other weapon. Victor’s sword dropped to the ground with his hand still gripping the hilt.

Victor looked dumbly at the stump of his arm as it spurt blood. So stunned by the unexpected turn in their battle, his brain only nominally registered the other reaping blade he saw out of the corner of his eye before Garran buried it into the side of his head. Victor fell to the ground and lay next to his severed hand. Garran took two staggering steps before collapsing an arm’s length away.

***

“Garran. Garran!” The voice called his name, leading him out of the darkness and back to the world of consciousness. “Garran, are you all right?”

Garran opened his eyes and found Adam looking down at him while he knelt next to his side. “Other than being exhausted and dreadfully sober, I’ve been worse.” He turned his head and found Karla kneeling at his other side and inspecting his wounds.

“It’s a deep cut, but nothing vital was hit,” she declared. “We’ll need to stitch it up.”

“Not until you find where Victor hid my stuff.”

“Garran, the last thing you need to worry about right now is getting drunk,” Adam said.

“Wrong. It’s the first thing I need to worry about, especially if you’re going to sew me up like one of your dresses.”

“Yeah, he’s fine.”

“I’m not fine, I’m sober. You want to know why I don’t like to transcend, well here you go. Now go find my stuff!”

A gravely chuckle sounded off to his side. “You sure don’t change.”

Garran turned toward the voice. “Cyril, you old prick! I knew you loved me.”

“Naw, I just dislike what I see The Guild doing more.”

Garran raised his arm. “Help me up.”

Cyril stepped forward, grabbed Garran’s wrist in both hands, and helped him to his feet. Garran weaved unsteadily for a moment before catching his balance.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Garran nodded. “Yeah, it just takes a minute for me to get my bearings.”

Upon returning to camp, Garran found seven of his former captors bound, most of them sporting bloody bandages and wounds. His rescuers numbered close to twice as many, few of them coming through the battle unscathed. Liam emerged and handed Garran the flask he found in Victor’s tent.

Garran took it gratefully and downed its contents. “Ah, that’s better. Where’s the rest of my stuff?”

Liam shrugged. “That’s all I found. I think he probably tossed out the opium.”

“Rotten bastard. Just for that, I’ll let the buzzards pick at his carcass. Where’s Elroy?”

“He’s in one of the tents,” Liam answered. “He wanted to wash up and get some sleep before the rigors of rough travel caused any permanent wrinkles.”

Garran nodded, impressed by Friedrich’s commitment to his role. He sat near the fire not far from Victor’s captured soldiers. They looked upon him with a mixture of anger and awe. Victor, aside from Gregor, was the most renowned and feared agent and fighter in the world, and Garran had defeated him.

Karla knelt beside him with a needle and thread in her hand, nudged him to lean over, and began sewing up the deep slash. “I won’t ask what you’re going to do next. You know I’m placing a lot of faith in whatever it is you have planned. We all are.”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“My point is that this isn’t just about you.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, and you damn well know it. The question is whether you are capable of appreciating the fact. If you fail or decide to do something stupid and selfish, as you have so often done in the past, you are sinking many lives. Hell, the future of our entire kingdom is at stake. Those people you have lurking in Leva’s shadows, just waiting for your word to activate, they become exposed the moment you call them into action.”

“What do you know about my people?”

“Almost nothing, just like The Guild, but that changes the moment you set them loose. I just want to remind you that those are real people with real lives and families who are putting their future in your hands.”

“You think I’ll betray them after all of this?”

“I think you’ll do whatever is convenient and aligns with your goals without regard for collateral damage.”

“Your faith in me—”

“Is born of personal experience and years of watching you operate.”

Garran poked his bottom lip out. “It still hurts my feelings.”

“Your only feelings are in your prick.”

“I like to keep them where they’re needed most. How did you end up with Victor?”

“I ran across him after our little—meeting. He was in pretty bad shape, but he was intent on going after you. I offered to put a team together and join him while he recuperated. That’s when I decided to throw my lot in with you, so I also put together my own team to lay in wait to rescue you if we did manage to catch up to you.”

“How did you know to get Cyril?”

Karla smiled. “You aren’t the only one who is good at their job.”

“Hey, speaking of good jobs, how about you and I—”

Karla jabbed him with the needle. “Not going to happen.”