“Don't reckon it's worth the thankin' 'til it's a fact, Anders,” Henry said reversing the grip on her daggers and readying herself to pounce.
“Then how about an apology,” he said giving her his infamous and well-prepared smile. She ignored it. “I'm sorry about that whole incident with my losing your trust.”
The demons were closing slowly now, wary of Henry and her glowing daggers. “What incident?” she asked. “Ya mean the whole, you workin' fer Drake fuckin' Morrass thing?”
Anders picked up a broken chair leg, it wasn't much of a weapon but he supposed cracking a skull was much like cracking an egg only involving more swings. “Precisely that. I'm sorry.”
Henry snorted. “Ya want ta be sorry, stop fuckin' workin' fer him.”
“One doesn't simply leave the employment of Drake Morrass, my dear. One is usually let go... from a great height.”
“Coward.”
“I never claimed to be otherwise.”
“Ya ready fer this?”
“No.”
“Good enough.” Henry led the charge and Anders followed.
They hadn't moved. Neither Pern nor master Kochin. He had yet to see the old master's face but Pern didn't need to see it, he knew its every line, every wrinkle, every scar and every expression. Master Kochin had been old even when Pern was a child, the clan's longest surviving Haarin, never lost a client, never failed the clan. Kochin was everything that embodied the Haarin and he was here to kill Pern.
There didn't really seem like much to say. Pern knew the day would come when a Haarin from his clan caught up to him. He had truly hoped it would be somebody, anybody else but the world worked in its own ways and no amount of hoping would change that. Kochin was Haarin, Pern was Honin. They would fight. One would die. Likely that one would be Pern but he hoped otherwise.
The sounds of fighting started, metal clashed against metal, shouting, screaming, even an explosion or two. Still neither Pern nor Kochin moved. It was a nice night, a slight chill in the air and the lanterns did their best to ward off the darkness. Stars winked in and out of existence overhead and still the two of them faced each other from across the street, no more than ten paces between them.
Action through inaction was part of the Haarin training. Battles should be won with a single stroke of the blade and in that discipline stillness was as important as movement. Pern ran through a hundred moves in his head, then thought about a different stance and went through a hundred more. It was possible Kochin was doing the same, likely he was doing the same.
Pern had never known his father. None of the Haarin did. They were taken as children, given names by the clan elders and raised by the entire clan to be the next generation of Haarin. He had never known his father but in his weak times, in his flights of fancy he had imagined he was sired by Kochin. The strong hands, the steady, even stance and that sky-blue aura the colour of the deepest control. Any Haarin would have been proud to be sired by Kochin and Pern was no different.
Another scream in the distance, this one sounded almost like Henry, and Pern's eyes flicked away just for a moment.
“It is time to fulfil your contract, Honin,” master Kochin's voice was rich and deep and accented by his many, many years out in the wilds. He had served no fewer than four contracts. Most Haarin only manage two at best. Pern had not completed his first, he had barely even started it before helping to kill the man he was sworn to protect.
“Has the clan given a contract to Kessick?” Pern asked.
Master Kochin slowly raised a gnarled hand and with the butt of his sword raised his hat an inch. Pern saw a deep green eye set in a wrinkled old face glaring at him from underneath the straw hat. “Kessick came to us. He requested no contract. He told us you were with the Black Thorn and that the Black Thorn would come to him.”
“Then should you kill me,” Pern said slowly. “I would ask you to visit the same fate upon Kessick.”
Silence. It stretched on for so long Pern almost began to think the old master Haarin would not answer. “It is not my place. I am Haarin.”
Pern clenched his jaw. For the first time in his life he felt the inactivity grate upon him. His friends were fighting, maybe dying. The Black Thorn and Anders. Henry. His teeth ground against one another and he drew his sword, a slow motion, letting the blade fully clear the scabbard before taking the hilt in both hands, the point of the blade dropping to the ground and slightly to the right.
Still master Kochin did not draw his sword.
“If you will not kill Kessick then I will have to kill you,” Pern said through gritted teeth. A dirty red had begun to seep into his own aura. Had Kochin been able to see it he would have been disgusted. Haarin had no need for emotion, especially not anger.
“There is only one way this can end, Honin. Should you best me, so long as even one Haarin from our clan draws breath they will hunt you.”
Suzku frowned. “Then I see two ways this can end.”
Master Kochin took his sword away from his hat and let it drop back down to obscure his face. “You would destroy your own clan over this?”
“I have seen the type of people our clan protects. I myself was ordered to protect the most evil man I have ever known...”
“It is not a Haarin's place to judge their client.”
Pern straightened his back to its full height. “I am Honin. I can judge as I please.”
Again that crushing silence. Even now, after a year of being Honin, master Kochin's disappointment cut Pern to the bone. He focused, attempting to bury his feelings the way Haarin were taught. It was no good, he couldn't rid himself of them, he couldn't find that sense of peace he had once had by knowing that he was doing right just by serving his clan.
Ash and embers drifted across the street. Somewhere something was burning, likely a building, possible the whole town. Pern wasn't about to look to find out. Taking his eyes off an opponent as deadly as master Kochin was to invite death.
Pern tilted his sword a little and drew his left foot back an inch, still trying to decide how best to attack. Master Kochin himself had once said:
Sometimes the best way to win is not to do something the opponent does not to expect, but to do something they do, just do it better than they expect.
Wiser words may rarely have been spoken but Pern still found himself lost amongst a sea of possibilities. Kochin was by far the most dangerous opponent he had ever faced and now Pern was Honin he would not hesitate to deal the killing blow to his former student.
Pern edged his right foot forward. Kochin charged.
For a man of considerable years the old master Haarin moved like lightning. He covered the distance between them in moments and still Pern was frozen by indecision. He heard Kochin's sword slide from its sheath and saw the tilt of the man's left foot and he acted.
Pern stepped to his left, went down to one knee and struck. His sword moved upwards and outwards from his right hand in a deadly arc. He felt Kochin's sword prick his chest, a white hot lance of pain for an instant and then it was gone.
Pern stood on shaky legs and took a deep, ragged breath. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out a dirty yellow cloth. With exaggerated care he wiped the blood from his blade, making certain the sword was spotless. He pocketed the cloth and slowly re-sheathed his sword. Pern sighed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, and collapsed next to the body of his of old master, their blood mixing in the dust.
For so long the world had been silent. Jacob had heard no music since that day in Chade, since waking up without a tongue. Now was different. Now the whole band was in attendance and they were making such a din Jacob could hear nothing else. Drums, pipes, lutes, whistles, fiddles, flutes and even a harp and a raucous tune they played. Some might consider the mess of notes and sounds to be nothing but noise but Jacob could hear past the chaos to the order within. It dragged him along like a leaf in a current and he was happy and more than happy to go with the flow. He let it pull him, push him, twist him and move him, and his partners, so many partners, were brutally introduced to the joy and terror of his dance.
A young woman, barely old enough to bleed, reached for him eager to join his jig. Jacob caught her wrist, spun her around and snapped her arm with a punch then threw her into the merry onlookers. Her screams only added to the rhythm of the dance.
Another woman, this one older with flesh that spoke of recent child birth and hips that suggested it was the latest of many. She joined in the dance and brought cold steel with her. A man as well, old and pox-scarred and with teeth like knives. Jacob was not opposed to multiple partners. The music was loud and the night was alive and the more the merrier. He spun around the man's axe and under the woman's sword and gave her a fist like thunder to her gut. He counted four broken ribs. As she collapsed Jacob plucked the steel from her hand, planted in the man's face and danced away from the resulting blood. Behind the woman he took hold of her chin and wrenched backwards both hearing and feeling the snap of her neck.
More partners and more entered the floor and Jacob danced with them all. Demons they may be and both stronger and faster than they looked but he was beyond them. Their bones broke like sticks and they bled red the same as any other. His blessings burned with power and with each new partner Jacob felt himself grow stronger.
He turned aside a sword with the flat of his palm and directed the strike into the path of another. He shattered a man's jaw like glass with an elbow. He picked up the body of a child, soulless and dead with the demon inside, and threw it to the crowd. He dropped, rolled in the dust and came up in a torrent of blows, each to the beat of a drum, and scattered bodies. Yet they kept coming, drawn to his power like a moths drawn towards a flame and he would burn them.
Faster and faster the tempo spun and faster and faster Jacob danced. He was a blur. A flash. Lightning that struck again and again and again. He caught a stray leg, a demon wearing the face of a man as big as a bear, and twisted. The bones shattered and the demon went down face first but Jacob did not let go, he jumped on the demon's back and pulled. Flesh tore and the leg came free in a torrent of blood and screaming. Jacob span away using the leg as a mace.
A man found purchase on his arm, two long claws attempting to tear into skin. Jacob stepped close, butting the man in the head three times until both their faces were bloody. He stepped back and then forward and then to the side in a strange waltz, the man's body hanging limp in his arms. The music changed again, all instruments but the fiddle fading to silence. Jacob shoved his hand in the man's mouth, grabbed hold of his bottom jaw and tore it free, burying the shard of bone in his next partner's eye.
His next partner was a surprise, so eager to join in they hit him from behind. Metal punctured skin and Jacob gasped in pain. They both went down, rolling in the dust and blood and bodies but Jacob was up first. He grabbed hold of his partners arm, a woman with eyes of the deepest blue, and heaved. The shell took flight, a rag doll spinning in the air for a moment then two and then another before crashing to the ground in a heap. Jacob pulled the dagger from his side and the drums took up the beat once again, each clash a stab and each lull a death.
For a moment the music slowed. The harp played a sad note and across the street Jacob saw her. The woman who had started the fight, the woman Thanquil knew. Even if he had still had his tongue Jacob would have been struck dumb by the sight of her. She danced to a beat all of her own. Her moves were water and her sword strokes were fire. She was an artist painting in shades of death and all of life was her canvass. For that moment Jacob stood still, awed by her grace and he wanted nothing more than to dance with her. But she was not his partner, she would never be. Jacob was blessed, it was beyond his fate to die and he knew that she was a fight he could not win.
A soldier wielding a pair of knives stepped into Jacob's view and the music was back, rushing in like a tsunami and Jacob crashed down upon the man. He was a whirlwind of blows each one smashing bone and pulverising flesh. He tossed the soldiers head to the ground and for just a moment the other demons gave pause. Just for a moment.
Weren't much got the blood pumping like a good fight, except maybe a good fuck but it didn't look like that was in the offing so Betrim was more than happy to take the fight. Truth was it had been a long time since he'd been in a proper scrape like this and no mistake. He was beaten and bloody and his chances looked slim but he'd given better than he'd got and if the bastards really wanted to take him down he'd damned sure take a few more of them with him.
A fat drop of blood ran down from the gash on his forehead, pooled at the end of his scarred nose and dropped to dust. The demons were coming for him before the next drop had chance to form. Four of them and each one armed with a sword. Thee men and a woman and all looked like they had once been soldiers or guards or maybe even bounty hunters like him. He flicked out his left hand and another dagger flew into the throat of the woman. Truth was he was fast running short of pointy objects to throw and they weren't really having much of an effect, save the obvious distraction of the victim having to remove a length of metal from their body.
He stepped into the first attack, his axe deflecting the sword and then stepped back into the next, giving it similar treatment then ducked around the third of his enemies and took out a chunk of leg with the business end of his axe. When he had first chopped the rune in two he had half expected his weapon to burst into flames but it didn't, just glowed a little, almost like lantern light on gold only the glow seemed to come from within the blade.
He danced back a few steps, almost tripping over the body of one of his previous opponents. Damned woman stank like a brothel, stale sweat and stale sex and stale blood. Not the most enticing of aromas and no mistake. Truth was there was a time the Black Thorn might have found it appealing. Truth was such times were long past.