Seven Swords by Michael E. Shea (the speed reading book .TXT) 📕

Adrin joined them as they descended and headed south. Thorn led them in the dark night. The red moon hung low overhead with the orb of the demon moon cutting in from below. The sight chilled Jon’s skin.

They walked for a long while past huge slate boulders that collapsed centuries ago. Jon examined the landscape along the way. No clear defense existed but it was a good place for lightning ambushes. They had been successful in the Voth war, creating enough fear and anger to route the enemy where one wished.

Thorn led them into a copse of dead trees, thick branches clutching for life in a canyon that provided none.

They saw Vrenna, her hood pulled low over her head, staring at the back of one of the huge trees.

The sight they saw when they rounded the large gnarled tree shook Jon to the bone.

“Gods help us,” said Adrin. He pulled off his hat and held it limply at his side.

“There are no gods here now,” said the voice of the monster in front of them. “They are all dead.”

They all stared at the man, if he could be called that, in silence. No one spoke.

He was ageless, neither young nor old. Like Jon, his head was shaved. His scalp was lined with tattoos of an old script. When Jon looked at the script, it shifted under the man’s skin. His entire body, naked from the waist up, was covered in tattoos depicting every demon or devil in the five hells. Large knobs protruded from under his skin along his collar bone and a small ridge lined his forehead.

A deep cleft of a scar cut through his left pectoral, very deep and as long. Another old wound had deformed the muscle of his left arm.

There were many things that disturbed Jon as he stood in silence and observed the scout. The man’s eyes were solid black orbs. They stole the light of Thorn’s torch instead reflecting only the light of the blood moon overhead. The demonic tattoos shifted and wreathed in the shadows of the torch.

What disturbed Jon most of all was the saber Vrenna had buried in the scout’s chest, pinning him to the ancient gnarled tree and the fact that the man seemed very angry about it.

That he lived at all shook Jon’s perceptions of humanity. The man should have died instantly. The wound was fatal. The man’s right arm had been broken and completely twisted around. The other was pinned to the other side of the tree by Vrenna’s hand spike.

The man’s sword sat on the ground nearby. Jon picked it up. It was heavy and wide-bladed, all forged from a single piece of steel. The tip was hooked towards the edge, the same way the tips are hammered for knives used for slaughter. The hilt was wrapped with light strips of oiled leather. Jon nearly dropped the blade when he realized the leather was human skin.

Jon looked back at the scout and the scout grinned revealing teeth sharpened to points and a tongue split down the middle like a snake.

“Where are the rest of you?” asked Jon. The man continued his black-eyed stare. Jon repeated his question in two other languages before the man answered. His voice rasped like glass and gravel.

“We will make your women whores for days before we roast them screaming on spits,” said the demon scout. It would be hard to get anything valuable out of a man who already had his arm broken and a sword pinning him through his heart to the tree behind him. Jon continued to examine him instead. Somehow this man had crossed the torrent. His clothes, thick leather, had been shredded to tatters by the ice and winds of the storm.

Thorn handed Jon a skin bladder, now mostly empty. Jon unplugged the cork and turned it over. A stream of blood poured to the dirt in front of them. The man watched the stream fall.

“Gods help us,” said Adrin again.

“No Gods,” said the horror in front of them. “Only us.”

“We’re going to kill you, you know,” said San’doro. The calmness in his voice gave Jon a chill.

“What a pity. The pleasures I would have given your women will be lost,” said the scout. “But my brothers will make up for it. The Sticks pay attention to everyone.”

“What do you want?” said Jon. The man’s face fell from a smile into something more terrible.

“Justice,” said the scout. “We will feed on your young and enslave the rest of you as our cattle. We will feed you to each other making you fat on your own until it is our time to feast. When we have tired of you we will bury you in your mines and leave you screaming in the dark.”

“Within the week,” said the horror. “Fena Dim will burn.”

He knew the name of the town, thought Jon. How did he know?

They stood in silence, staring at the man. His breath came in rasps. Fluid from Vrenna’s cut filled his lungs. His eyelids fell but soon flashed open.

“I will tell Stark to pay special attention to your little one, the little bitch with the red hair. We’ll bugger her with a spear and…”

The demon scout never finished the sentence. Jon would not have known Thorn to be so fast for a man his size. His heavy blade swung hard, beheading the scout and cleaving deep into the tree. Jon stared at the head, the scout’s tongue lolling out on one side, split like a snake.

Gods, help us, he thought. One hundred and fifty of those fiends were coming here in a week. They were out of time.

Jon collected the head and wrapped it in the scout’s leather cloak. Vrenna drew out her saber, one boot on the scout’s stomach as she pulled it free.

“He fought like fire,” said Thorn. “Vrenna and I both fought him and he nearly took us. He didn’t even stop fighting when I broke his arm and Vrenna pinned him to the tree.”

“If they’re all like that, we’re in trouble,” said the Kal.

“Likely not,” said San’doro. “A scout who travels through a storm like the torrent with nothing but a skin of blood to sustain him is likely to be one of their better men.” San’doro turned to Jon. “What did he mean about justice?”

“I don’t know,” said Jon.

“I wish Susan were here,” said Adrin. “I would like to know and she could have told us.”

“I am glad she wasn’t,” said Jon. “I don’t want her going inside the head of a man like that.”

Jon tied the cloak around the head and slung it over his shoulder. He took the wicked blade as well.

“What is that for?” asked Adrin.”

“To show the elders what we face.”

The head served its purpose. It sat on the floor of the elder’s council room - the sitting room of Alvic’s home. The senior, Emrold, vomited and Oden whispered to the same forgotten god as Gauve’s wife. Severn just stared at the head.

“He came through the torrent, alone, with nothing but a skin of blood and this sword. It took two of us to stop him and he lived with a sword in his chest for much of the night. I asked you to convene because we must act now or Fena Dim will fall to men like this one and it will happen within the week.”

Jon let this sink in before he continued. “We must stock the caves and prepare for every man, woman, and child to flee within. Adrin and I will work with Severn to map out the caverns for defense. We will also need any able bodied men to help us spike the river. Blacksmiths and carpenters will have to work throughout the week to make enough spikes to matter.”

“San’doro and Vrenna will scout south. Thorn and the Kal will help prepare the spikes. This has to be done, friends, or this village is lost.”

“How can we defend against such men?” said Alvic.

“With trickery and deception,” said Jon. “Rest now while we can. Tomorrow we begin.”

The elders looked ten years older than they did when Jon entered. They all nodded.

Rest found few of them that night. Jon fell in and out of sleep until the huge red sun rose and painted the Old One in scarlet. He, Thorn, and the Kal went to the smithy.

“I need long plates or crossed beams of iron. Cheap and soft is fine. Nails must be hammered into them, big ones. Jon saw the look of confusion on the smithies face. He slowed. “Two beams in a cross or a plate wide enough to not fall over. Nails welded or hammered facing up. It shouldn’t be any longer than four feet or it will be too heavy.”

“How many do you need?” asked the smithy.

“About two hundred,” said Jon. The smithy’s jaw dropped “We need