Target Rich Environment

  Praise Droth, that hurt, Lavro thought as he desperately got back to his feet, gasping.

  “I find your fighting stance fascinating. I will call it Lumbering Ox style,” Decimus said. “May I be on my way now?”

  Lavro didn’t bother to respond, he just hurled himself at Decimus, counting on his extra mass and weight to crush the atlan. Decimus caught his arm again and rolled Lavro over his hip, using his momentum to hurl him across the bridge again. He hit in a clang of metal and a rattle of chain.

  “You do not give up easily, do you?” Decimus asked as Lavro got up again.

  “Easily? I do not give up period.”

  “It’s only a bridge,” Decimus said.

  “It is my duty.” Lavro was wary this time, and he led with the tip of his sword. He would use his reach advantage to impale the obnoxious atlan. He thrust, and was glad to see that Decimus actually had to move back. Lavro had him now.

  Decimus snap-kicked his sword aside. The next kick hit him in the thigh, which caused his leg to buckle, and the next spinning kick hit him in the teeth. For just a moment, Lavro saw a cloud of spit and road dust floating in the sunlight, but then he was somersaulting through the air again. The Drothmal found himself facedown on his precious bridge, bleeding onto the wood.

  “Now may I pass?”

  Shaking, dizzy, Lavro got up and looked for his sword. “No.” He couldn’t find his damned sword. Decimus offered it to him helpfully. Annoyed, Lavro snatched it. “You will have to kill me.”

  “I respect your dedication,” Decimus said as he drew his sword. It was a simple, thin blade. The atlan could have just run him through while he was dazed, but he waited for Lavro to collect himself. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Lavro was young, but he was no stranger to war. He’d survived many battles. He’d fought monsters, dark beasts, and other soldiers, but he’d never fought anyone this skilled. There was no doubt Decimus would kill him.

  He attacked anyway.

  Decimus moved effortlessly around the blow. His counterattack stung Lavro’s arm. Lavro crashed forward, desperate, and Decimus slashed him in the neck. The Drothmal gasped in pain and flinched away, touching one hand to his throat. It came away clean. Both times Decimus had struck him with the flat of his blade. “Are you trying to mock me?”

  “I’m trying to convince you to step aside.”

  “I’ll be convinced when I’m dead.” Lavro brought his sword up, but Decimus smacked it aside with his smaller blade, and with his other hand stabbed two fingers hard into Lavro’s wrist. The great sword dropped from his suddenly numb hand. Before he could do anything else, the tip of Decimus’ sword was pressed beneath his chin. He could feel the steel against his jugular.

  He was doomed. “Praise Droth,” Lavro whispered, totally prepared for his spirit to move on.

  Decimus frowned, stepped back, and sheathed his sword. “Fascinating.”

  “Aren’t you going to kill me?”

  “I’ll decide in the morning,” the atlan muttered as he walked off the bridge and returned to his traveling pack. Decimus pulled out his bedroll.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? Making camp here for the night. Or is that against your arbitrary rules as well, Drothmal?”

  “Just keep it on that side of the bridge and I don’t care what you do, atlan.”

  The food Decimus was cooking smelled much better than the raw frogs and berries Lavro had eaten for lunch. Because of the visitor, he’d not been able to leave his post long enough to forage for supper. His stomach ached with hunger.

  Praise Droth.

  Decimus squatted next to his small fire, checking the trio of small animals roasting on spits. “Are you hungry, Lavro?”

  “It is not unbearable.”

  “Oh, do all Drothmal stomachs rumble so loudly they can be heard from ten feet away?”

  “It is not safe to travel these roads alone, atlan. These little kingdoms are always at war, but this part is worse than most. Your fire will surely attract monsters. Only a fool would be alone here.”

  “You’re alone. Are you a fool?”

  Probably. But Lavro dismissed those thoughts of weakness. “I am mighty Lavro, son of Ulm, hired to guard this bridge, and I will not shirk my duty. Why are you here?”

  Decimus ignored his question. “I’ve got plenty of food. I caught these rabbits along the road earlier,” he said as he turned the sticks.

  The atlan had no bow or sling. “How?”

  “By hand,” Decimus said. “It is easy, really. You just need to be faster than the rabbit.”

  Lavro had a hard enough time catching the damned frogs. “Where I am from, we use spears. I am a great hunter of mighty beasts . . . delicious, tasty beasts.”

  Decimus took one of the rabbits from the fire and tossed it to Lavro. The Drothmal caught it, fumbled, and managed to burn his fingers.

  Praise Droth.

  He thought it might have been the best meal he’d ever had.

  After supper, Decimus sat cross-legged, straight-backed, and eyes closed for a very long time. Lavro thought it was some sort of strange manner of prayer, but Decimus had called it centering, and then politely shushed him, saying he needed to focus. Lavro watched him carefully the whole time, to make sure this wasn’t some manner of trick.

  However, once Decimus had finished his centering, he’d gotten into this bedroll, wished him a good night, and promptly gone to sleep. The man snored like an Orog. He thought about bashing his head in while he slept, but that seemed dishonorable. So Lavro went about his duties, lighting torches of sticks wrapped in dried reeds on both sides of the bridge, so he could see anything coming. Then he grudgingly sat and rested his back against a wooden bridge support, great sword resting across his legs. He would stay awake as long as it took for this strange man to leave him to his duty.

  A few hours later, the beast men attacked.

  Lavro had broken his vow and nodded off, but the instant their bare feet whispered across the wooden bridge, he woke up. The beast men should have known better. The bridge had become his whole world, and he had not patience for trespassers. As Lavro lumbered to his feet, the beast men who’d intended to quietly slit his throat realized they’d been seen, and a cry went up. The noise was answered from the reeds and surrounding trees.

  He’d only ever faced a few at a time before. There were a lot of angry bellows all around the bridge. This time they’d brought their whole tribe.

  A huge number of the creatures rushed, screaming, from the darkness.

  They were misshapen, hideous things, dressed in rags and filth, armed with sharpened bones, sticks, and rocks. As they climbed over the edge of the bridge, Lavro swung his great sword and embedded it in the boards. A severed arm landed at his feet, and the beast man splashed into the mud with a scream.

  “This is my bridge,” he warned the approaching mob.

  They came at him in a rush of jabbing sticks and hurled rocks. Lavro split one in half.

  In the heat of the moment, Lavro had forgotten his annoying visitor. The strange atlan was probably already dead. He risked a quick glance, and sure enough, the improvised camp was covered in blood and swarming with beast men.

  But then he realized all the blood was from the monsters. Decimus was spinning through their midst, sword in hand, turning and cutting so incredibly fast Lavro couldn’t believe his eyes. Each strike was precise, dropping another beast man. It was like Decimus was dancing between their attacks. He had been holding back when they’d fought earlier. The sword flashed back and forth, so quickly that the blade seemed to glow.

  Quicker and quicker, Decimus took down the beast men. The stupid creatures never even realized what was happening. He used their momentum against them, guiding them into each other’s weapons simply by shifting his stance. Every single movement dispensed crippling injury or death, all while Decimus wore a mask of serene calm.

  Lavro was fascinated by the
display, but he had to pay attention to the monsters swarming the bridge. His technique was much simpler than the atlan’s. Be stronger than your opponent. Hit harder. It had worked well enough for most of his life, and sweeping his sword in a wide arc swept several monsters over the side and hurled them down into the mud.

  It had worked well before. Only he’d never been attacked by so many of the terrible things at once before. It wasn’t working nearly as well while surrounded. A club splintered over his shoulder, and another slammed into the back of his leg. Lavro roared in pain as he cleaved through a beast man’s chest.

  For each one he knocked down, two more took its place. Lavro tripped over corpses. Thrown rocks clanged off his armor. One split his lip. A bone dagger pierced deep into his hip. It was incredibly painful.

  Praise Droth.

  Since his sword was stuck in a beast man’s ribs, he grabbed the beast man who’d stabbed him by the hair, and slammed his skull against a bridge support. He was surrounded by screeching, chattering nightmares. More beast men hit him around his legs. One leaped from the rail and landed on his back, scratching at his eyes with its filthy, diseased fingernails. Lavro took that one by its pointy ear, yanked it off, and hurled it into the night.

  But then he was hit with several more stinking bodies. Off balance, the mighty Drothmal found himself on his knees, being beaten with rocks and sticks as the monsters cackled and jabbered.

  Lavro wasn’t afraid of dying, but being eaten by beast men while guarding a bridge to nowhere was embarrassing. It was good that his clan would never know about this.

  A white light was coming toward him, spinning across the bridge. Lavro realized it was the sword of Decimus just as the atlan lifted the glowing blade high overhead, then slammed it point first into the wood of the bridge.

  The flash was blinding.

  It was late in the morning, and already miserably muggy and hot when Lavro, son of Ulm woke up with a throbbing headache. Every muscle in his body hurt. It felt like he was covered in bruises. It had been a very educational combat.

  Praise Droth.

  Sitting up took a few tries, but he managed. There was wood beneath him. He was still on his bridge. He reached up, and found that someone had bandaged his head.

  Decimus sat cross-legged on the road, running a rag across the blade of his sword. “I wouldn’t dignify evil with a proper burial, so I pushed all the bodies into the river and let the current take them. I didn’t think it was wise to leave them out to attract scavengers.”

  “Fish must eat too,” Lavro muttered. Maybe someone in the village of Korval would get curious as to why there were so many beast men corpses floating past, and someone would remember he was still here. His throat was parched, but when he went for his canteen, he discovered it had a hole in it from a beast man spear. “Blast.”

  “I apologize for stepping onto your bridge last night, but I did not think you would mind, considering the situation.” Decimus got up, went to his pack and found a wineskin. He carried it to the bridge, but politely stopped before stepping onto the boards. He tossed it the last few feet so that it landed in Lavro’s lap. “There you go.”

  Lavro glared at the wineskin suspiciously. Suffering was a blessing, but he couldn’t fight again if he was dehydrated. He took it and drank greedily. The wine was much better than swamp water. He tossed the skin back when it was empty. “You saved my life.”

  Decimus squatted at the edge of the bridge. “Don’t worry. I’m passingly familiar with the beliefs of your people. I didn’t intervene until I thought you had suffered everything you could on your own. I didn’t want to deprive you of the experience.”

  “Thank you . . .” It was rare to hear such wisdom from an outsider.

  “I don’t worship any of the Enaros, but I can respect them,” the atlan continued. “Especially the one who gave the gift of challenges to this world. I’m told Droth believes in trials. My school taught that we are the sum of our trials. I spent most of my life preparing and training, then testing myself and correcting my assumptions, all to become what I am today. We’re probably not that different, you and I.”

  Disturbingly, Lavro thought that might actually be true. “Why didn’t you cross while I was unconscious?”

  “That seemed dishonest.”

  “I have never seen anyone fight like you.” It is said that the Enaros and their servants sometimes walked among the mortal world in disguise. “Are you an avatar?”

  “I’m only a man.”

  “Then you are a wizard?”

  “I am Kinjatsi.”

  Lavro had heard of them, mostly whispered rumors of the mystical atlan warriors who could disappear into one shadow and come out of another, or ride the winds, or stop a heart with a touch. “You don’t look like you eat children.”

  “I haven’t heard that one for a while!” Decimus laughed. “Some of our schools are more secretive than others, but I’m afraid there’s nothing lurid about the source of our power, Lavro, son of Ulm. It comes from here.” He touched the side of his head. “If you train hard enough, and learn to center yourself sufficiently, you can call upon energies that most warriors will never understand.”

  “You are an assassin.” The very concept offended Lavro. Killing should be done face to face.

  “Me? No. That isn’t my path. It is doubtless, though, that some Kinjatsi are the deadliest assassins on Aetaltis, but there are also those who study the way of the open hand, the fist, or those who follow the path of the sword like me. There are as many styles as there are teachers now. Before the destruction of the world gates, the Atlan Alliance crossed many worlds, and we could pass freely between them. The Kinjatsi were the ones who studied the various martial traditions we came across. We collected the best and made them our own. Kinjatsi was the pure distillation of the arts of conflict.”

  “Sounds impressive.”

  “It was.” Decimus sighed. “It was said that through mastering the one true path, a Kinjatsi could overcome any obstacle. Sadly, all of our grand masters and many of our practitioners were killed during the cataclysm. Techniques, feats, whole schools were lost. We have been rebuilding ever since. There have been disagreements between schools as to the true path. It has been . . . fractious.”

  “Your schools fight each other?”

  “Too much. Pride has become a distraction from our search for enlightenment.” Decimus didn’t seem to want to talk about that further. “You should rest, Drothmal.” The atlan began walking toward the forest. “I will find us some more food.”

  Not that he wasn’t starving, but that act of kindness begged the question, “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because you will need to be at your best when I try to cross this bridge.”

  The atlan was a strange one, but Lavro was glad for the company. Decimus spent the next few days hunting—he was rather efficient at it—and practicing with his sword. The Kinjatsi techniques were unlike anything Lavro had ever seen before. Instead of brute strength and wild attacks, they were about speed, grace, and anticipation. He would move through hundreds of complex movements, stances, and attacks, all from memory, without ever seeming to think about it.

  The last straw was when Decimus took up handfuls of grass, tossed them into the air around him, drew his sword, and then cut every individual blade before any could touch the ground.

  Lavro finally swallowed his pride and asked, “Could you teach me to fight like that?”

  “I can teach, but I don’t know if you can learn.”

  “I am smart.”

  “It isn’t about being able to think, Drothmal, it is about being able to not think. Before we can reach our true potential, a Kinjatsi must be able to clear his mind and truly think about nothing. Only then can you begin to understand everything.”

  “Fine.” Lavro was already sitting on the bridge. He wasn’t flexible enough to cross his legs, but he closed his eyes, like he’d seen Decimus do when he’d been centering, and then he thought about abs
olutely nothing.

  He opened his eyes an hour later. “Was that sufficient?”

  Decimus had gone back to working on his shelter. “Seriously? You cleared your mind of all thought that whole time?”

  “Yes.” Honestly, Lavro didn’t see what was so difficult about it.

  “Hmm . . . that is unexpected. It seems there is much I could learn from the Drothmal.” Decimus actually seemed impressed. “Stand up. Let’s work on your footwork.”

  “My feet are fine. I want to learn to sword fight better.”

  “Your stance is fine for your current style, such as it is, but Lumbering Ox is insufficient to learn the way of the Kinjatsi. Now shut up and do what I do.”

  After a week of training, Lavro was just beginning to understand how little he actually understood about the fighting arts. The Kinjatsi had taught him much, but it was obvious his teacher was becoming impatient. The bridge was Lavro’s world, and now Decimus was his only friend. Soon, his friend would need to kill him so that he could continue on his mysterious mission. That seemed like a particularly profound method of suffering.

  Praise Droth.

  Now they built the campfire at the edge of the bridge. Lavro trusted Decimus, and knew he no longer needed to physically block the way, but it made him uncomfortable to stray too far from his duty.

  The normally serene Decimus seemed sad tonight. “You are healed from your wounds, you’re no longer weak from hunger, and you have improved greatly.”

  “You are leaving?”

  “I’ve procrastinated too long already. Tomorrow I must continue on my way.”

  “You intend to cross the bridge?”

  Decimus nodded as he stared into the fire.

  He could have easily gone on to the next crossing. In the time he’d wasted here, he could have already reached the Donarzheis. But Droth had brought them both to this bridge for a reason.