Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [31]
Then the Nokarran came roaring in, axe twinkling, striking down. I dodged and the heavy weapon splintered an oaken table into fragments. He was fast and the axe licked up and to the side, quick as a snake’s strike. I felt the brush of it against my leather jerkin as I dodged again. Snarling, I slashed at him, felt the shock of his strength as he blocked with the axe’s bone-reinforced haft. He twisted the weapon, trying to drag my blade down and break it.
“You’re meat,” he growled.
“Not yours,” I said, and I disengaged with a spin, coming around with the spiked heel of my boot snapping high.
I was going for the beast’s throat but got his shoulder and upper chest instead, tearing raw furrows through fur and skin. He howled, fell back, and I ended the spin with a drop to one knee, lunging with saber held straight and flat toward the Klar, who was coming hard from the side. He impaled himself, the tip lancing from his back in a spray of red froth. In the next instant I was back on my feet, the sword coming free of the Klar’s body with a wet, grating sound.
At the bar, the two remaining newcomers prepared to rush me, to finish the fight. They never got the chance. The bartender knocked them cold from behind with the drunk-persuader that is usually to be found in such taverns. Then, Diken Graye tossed aside his club and his disguise and vaulted the bar with a laugh and a readied sword.
Of the six assassins in the Rattling Saber when I arrived, only three were left—two humans and the Nokarran axe-wielder. The men turned to face Diken. The Nokarran’s eyes locked with mine, filled with a feral light. And from above on the balcony we all heard attack turn to rout, as the three men who had gone after Valyan found Kreeg slipping from a supposedly empty room to take them from behind.
With the dice rolling now in my favor, I stepped back and offered the Nokarran a mocking salute with my sword. He growled, and rushed. I should have leaped aside; I could have avoided him. But there are those who say that in battle I am devil-possessed, and perhaps they are right. As the being side-armed his axe toward me, whipping it across his body to split me apart, I leaped in.
The axe-head missed me; his arm struck my side. I barely felt that blow as I dropped my sword and punched with a shoulder into the beast’s rib cage. He grunted and I grabbed one of his legs and a hip. And I picked him up and threw him into the wall behind us. The room shook when he hit, and again when he crashed to the floor, and before he could get to his feet I whirled and palmed a dagger and hurled it. That foot of steel buried itself to the quillions in his throat, and his axe fell from useless fingers as he died.
Valyan dropped soft-footed from the balcony to the floor, and Kreeg rushed down the stairs with a bloody axe of his own. The remaining two assassins licked dry lips and backed away from where they had been pressing their attack against Diken Graye. Outnumbered and surrounded, they tossed their swords aside. The battle was over.
* * * * * * *
“All mercenaries,” Valyan said in disgust as he looked over our slain foes and the four survivors bound against the bar. Two of the latter were still unconscious from Diken Graye’s clubbing.
“All except this one,” I muttered, bending over the Nokarran. He no longer smelled like cloves. Already, corruption was seeping in. I pulled my dagger from his throat, wiped it clean against his fur, and sheathed it. Then I bent further to examine the odd tattoo that etched the center of his chest.
A bystander, more curious than wise, peeked into the tavern, then ducked quickly out as Kreeg glared at him. I ignored the distraction, studying the tattoo, and again that sense of familiarity struck me. Two spheres? One inside the other? And lightning bolts connecting them?
For the first time I noticed