Page 55 of The Empty Throne

"Why?" asked the second one.

"They deserved it." He warned them off with alook not to ask the next predictable question.

"Are you really going to help us fight?" oneof them asked instead.

Bittersea finished the absolutely appallingfish and moved on to the soup and stale bread, using the first tosoften the second. "Of course. I need transportation, and I'm morethan happy to kill Terekians to get it." Hopefully the vanguardwould be an interesting fight, and there was the bonus thatLindquist couldn't be mad at him for slaying the enemy.

Looking at his little observers, he said, "Goto the nearest temple of death and dreaming and wait there forfurther orders. Go now," he snapped when they started to questionand protest.

When they were gone, he finished off the sadexcuse for food and drained the tea. The unreliability of findinggood food was the only thing he hated about traveling.

He'd just finished taking a piss and readyinghimself for a fight when the warning bells clanged. Tingles randown his spine in anticipation. Hot blood on a cold day? There werefew things better.

Outside, he joined the soldiers at the gate,though he slid through the cluster to stand at the front withMacker. "Captain."

Macker grunted and spared him the barestglance.

"Should I fall, there are papers on me thatmust reach the Regent. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Aww, someone's feelings were still hurt. Howpathetic. Every day Bittersea was grateful he had none.

Or that he only had them for one person, andeven then he had them in limited capacity. Not that Lindquist everseemed to mind.

Something very much like longing flickeredthrough him, but Bittersea ignored it. Now was for battle. Forblood. For screams of agony.

The vanguard actually proved to be twenty-twostrong, but that still was rather pathetic for such an infamous,greatly feared group of soldiers. They came through the snow like ahorde of ravenous beasts, curved swords drawn as they charged fullspeed, likely intending to cut them all down with brutal efficiencyand have the town largely secured before the main fighting forcearrived.

As they drew closer, archers let their arrowsfly and foot soldiers rushed in with spears and glaives, going forthe caribou first, taking away the one major advantage the vanguardhad.

The snow was painted red in minutes. Too manywere Cremision soldiers, but that was to be expected with theseopponents. Bittersea surged on to his next victim, the commanderherself. Blood already streamed down her face from a minor headwound, from the way she moved stiffly she'd suffered in the fallfrom her caribou.

Her eyes narrowed as they landed on him."You."

Bittersea laughed. What a delightful twist.He'd known she was Captain of the Royal Vanguard of Terek, and yetthe knowledge hadn't registered until now. "Captain Narla, how islife with your new husband?"

Narla screamed and lunged at him with hersword out. Bittersea dodged it easily and kicked out the knee ofher injured leg, sending her slamming face first into the snow. Shescrambled up with remarkable speed, drawing her own daggers, swordlost to the snow.

"You know how much I love a knife fight,"Bittersea purred.

She lunged again, never the patient type, andBittersea countered easily. After that it was a flurry of thrust,parry, block, dodge, swing, turn, repeat it all in varyingcombinations and orders. Twice he had to dispatch interlopers,throwing their bodies carelessly aside.

His wounds froze over almost as quickly asshe made them, as nobody came out of a knife fight unscathed. Well,except for him, but he didn't want to expend too much energy tooquickly. So he ensured the wounds didn't bleed too much andotherwise left them to attend later.

His opponent did not have the benefit ofhealing magic, and as much as Bittersea would love to heal her onceor twice just to prolong the pleasure of the fight, he had moreimportant matters. As she lunged at him again, he slipped under thethrust, sliced her thigh open right where the strongest arterybeat, then grabbed her around the neck and pulled her in close sohe could say roughly into her ear, "Your new husband was the onewho paid me to kill the old one. Wonder if I'll get a bonus fordisposing of you."

She tried to say something, but passed outfrom blood loss before she could. Her death rattle was lost to thewind and snow.

Bittersea went back to work, but only had tokill one more before the twenty-two vanguard were all dead. Hecleaned his knives in the snow, then went around healing everyonehe could only because Lindquist would be pissy if he didn't.

When that tedious chore was finally finished,he commandeered the first good caribou he could find, raidedsupplies from a few others, and swung up into the saddle. "CaptainMacker, get your surviving men and get out. There are two cadets inthe temple of death where I told them to wait. Retrieve them."

"Why did you send them there?" Mackerdemanded.

Ignoring him, Bittersea heeled the caribouinto motion and rode off. Thankfully, the city streets were nowdeserted, making it easy to race to the southern end, through thatdeserted gate, and off into the winter storm swiftly descendingnow.

While he generally preferred to travel alone,he wasn't terribly disappointed when he caught up to the evacuees.In weather like this, safety was in numbers. Also there was alwaysfood, if you got lost and wanted to become one of the grislycampfire stories people loved to tell. Tales of people who atetheir own out of desperation but grew to love the taste, to craveit, becoming ravenous monsters who wandered about in Eternal Nightlooking for easy prey, hibernating the rest of the year to avoidthe deadly light of the sun. These monsters, called Kellish, werethe dark avatars of Takar, bringing fear and misery and painfuldeath wherever they went.

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