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

The entire plan hung on their ability to keep their numbers unknown. Two pistoleers were manageable but unknown shooters killing man after man would shake the best commander.

Jon waited and came around the other side of the rock. He shot a man in the side. As he rode on, a river of blood flowed and the man slumped in the saddle. Another shot blew the head off of one man, showering the rider next to him.

“Jon,” said San’doro. Two riders wheeled around the rock. Jon holstered his right pistol and drew his rapier. A huge man grinned with a mouth full of long black teeth. He raised a battle axe high over his head. Jon ran his rapier through the horse’s flank and into the man’s groin. The horse toppled and Jon stabbed the huge man through the eye. The man smelled like spoiled meat.

San’doro cut open the thigh of another rider, the smaller of the two. The man screamed and dropped his scimitar to grab at the gushing wound. San’doro pulled him down and tore him open.

Jon reloaded his guns as he heard another pistol fire in the dark. He peeked around the rock to see Vrenna dancing between three dismounted riders. She swung once and two of the men sprayed fans of blood into the night air. Another cut and the third man’s intestines splashed to the ground. Behind her, Adrin aimed and fired another shot into a rider’s chest. His back blew out and he fell over the back of his horse as it rode past.

“How are Thorn and the Kal,” thought Jon.

THEY HAVE KILLED SIX AND SEVENTEEN REMAIN. ONE HOUSE BURNS AND THREE FELL TO THE SPIKES IN THE RIVER, said the child’s voice in his head. THE KAL IS MAKING A LOT OF NOISE AND THORN CUTS DOWN THOSE WHO GIVE CHASE. SIX VILLAGERS ARE DEAD.

Jon gave grim thought to the villagers. He wanted to save as many as he could but the chaos of their first flight would aid Thorn and the Kal. Checking his rear, Jon chanced a glance at the river. He watched the Kal cave in the skull of a fallen rider in the river. Jon smiled and turned.

His next two shots landed in the chests of two riders carrying long bladed sticks. One fell dead immediately but the other swung hard. Jon ducked and San’doro’s knife hamstrung him. He fell near Jon and Jon stamped his skull twice hard under his boot heel.

San’doro moved like wind, cutting saddles off of horses, cutting the arms that dared to attack him, and the throats of the fallen. The brown man was covered in blood. Across the road, Vrenna climbed the rocks and cut a man off his horse on the fly. Adrin reloaded like he had been born to it, twin ramming rods sliding down the barrels and dragon hammers cocking back.

THE KAL IS WOUNDED, came Susan’s voice in his head. A line of nervousness crept in. If they did not begin to route now, the swords would be in trouble.

One of the sharp-toothed monsters cried out in a low desert language. Jon stepped out and shot him in the face. The man next to him fell and the two behind them. Adrin glanced over at Jon and smiled, smoke pouring from the barrels of his guns.

The demon touched raiders began to turn.

“Shoot only the ones that face us,” Jon had told Adrin. “Cut down only those who raise arms.” It had nothing to do with mercy and everything to do with the contagious nature of fear and panic. Run and live was the message Jon wanted them to learn. Stay and die.

Two more straggled. Jon shot them both and San’doro cut down the one who survived. The others fled.

Four or five from the town rode past, routed by their diminished numbers and the fury of the Kal and Thorn. One of these rode past, eyes blazing in controlled fury. Stark. Jon’s guns were empty. San’doro lunged but Stark’s short blade kept him at bay. The demon faded into the shadow of night.

“They will come back quickly,” Jon told San’doro. “We must move.”

“Can Thorn and the Kal take another twenty?” asked Jon to Susan. Silence sat for a moment followed by a single word.

FIFTEEN.

“Fifteen it is,” said Jon. “Tell them to move to the bridge.”

Jon, Adrin, Vrenna, and San’doro moved south to the line of fallen boulders. The route would not last long. Jon figured that twenty to twenty five fell in the first charge. That left many to return.

“Get ready,” Jon told Adrin. The man nodded under his three-cornered hat. A splash of black blood streaked one cheek. Jon listened to the hooves as they approached. This time they would go for Jon’s last location. When they reached it, Thorn and the Kal should run, give them a taste. Then they get cut off again.

The rumble of the horses came again. Again they rushed past, wary of the rocks further north. Fifteen passed and the rest, feeling the confidence of unmatched hostilities, rushed forward.

This time Adrin shot first, dropping one of the horses of the riders. The man toppled and Vrenna cut him down as he tumbled through the air. The woman was amazing. Jon considered himself a good swordsman but he could barely follow her cuts. Men raged and rushed at her only to fall stumbling away clutching slashed throats or eviscerated bellies. One of the better swordsmen parried her saber, catching the black steel sword in his own sword’s guard only to catch her palm spike in his temple. He fell away, teeth chattering and limbs shaking as blood squirted from the hole in his head.

Jon shot into the flank of a horse and then another, building a wall of flailing, kicking beasts to separate the charge from the group they had let through. Jon reloaded as San’doro cut down the riders.

Jon turned and saw more horses flailing in the spiked river among the hewn bodies of their riders. He saw Thorn on the end of the bridge, cleaving into the thighs and flanks of those riders who chose to cross it. In the distance, Jon saw a loose dismounted rider turn around the corner of a building only to have his face smashed in by the knobbed war club of the Kal.

A cry went up in the night, a cry horrifying to Jon and unfamiliar to the riders. The cry formed again and the riders turned and began to thunder away.

“What was that?” asked San’doro.

“Our salvation this night,” said Jon. “A retreat.” Jon aimed and fired another shot into the back of a retreating rider. There was no honor in the shot but it further reduced the odds. There would be little honor in this battle or the ones to come.

Jon waited and watched. The rumble of the horses rode into the darkness of night.

Jon considered keeping San’doro on the watch, later he would regret his choice not to, but they all needed the rest after the fight. Jon crossed the bridge, stepping among the twisted and cleaved corpses. At least ten of the demontouched riders had been cut down on the bridge. Another five lay in the stream among their maimed horses. Within the dirt roads at the town thoroughfare lay twelve more, heads and chests crushed by the Kal’s club or flayed by Thorn’s sword.

Thorn stood, blood covering his body and soaking through his hair. A dozen minor wounds crossed his forearms and body. Bloodlust still filled the huge man’s black eyes until he saw Jon. Thorn’s body sagged and he sat on the body of a felled horse.

The Kal crossed the town’s main road, favoring his left side. His hand held onto his flank where he had tied a wide strip of dark cloth, growing darker as Jon watched. The man looked pale.

“How bad is it?” asked Jon.

“A spearman pierced me from behind,” said the Kal. “The tip went through.”

Jon saw the dark blood staining the cloth around the Kal’s waist. He didn’t want to look.

“How do you feel?” asked Jon.

“How do you think? It hurts like the five hells,” said the big man. He lowered his head. “I’m tired.”

Worry filled Jon’s head. If the spear had put any holes in the man’s organs, he would be in agony by morning and dead soon after. Jon had seen hundreds of men die hours after a stab from the festering of the wound. And who knew what the demonic riders did to their spears before battle.

“How is Susan?” Adrin asked Jon. Jon didn’t know.

“How are you?” thought Jon.

WELL ENOUGH, said Susan’s voice in his head. If it was humor, he didn’t get it. THERE IS A LOT OF ANGER AND SADNESS IN THE CAVES. THE ELDERS HOLD THEM TOGETHER BUT NOT BY MUCH.

Jon looked to the two burning houses that filled the night sky with black smoke. They would burn to the ground by morning. On the dirt roads of the town Jon saw at least six corpses of villagers. They had a right to their tears and their anger but the Seven Swords had killed nearly a third of the raiders on the first two attacks and the village lost less than a dozen in response. That alone was reason for celebration. The rest was about to get much worse and much less popular. How would they act when they saw the whole village burn?

“Are the rest in the caves?” Jon asked the Kal. “If any are left, we need to move them in.” Jon looked to Adrin who cleaned his guns the way Jon had shown him. Jon felt a surge of pride at the boy until he saw the hollow look in the boy’s eyes.

“What now?” asked San’doro.

“Now we lose the village,” said Jon. “If they come back tonight we let them have it, burn it, and wonder what ghosts had cut them so hard.”

“The desert ghosts,” said Adrin. San’doro didn’t smile.

“Adrin and Thorn will guard and watch the caves,” said Jon. “If they learn of the caves we’re going to be fighting with our backs to the wall. If we can keep the caves hidden, we can cut into their flank again and again, eating away at them. Vrenna, the Kal, San’doro, and I will do that. For now we eat and we wait.”

But no food crossed their lips. They sat and stared at the black-eyed sharp-toothed monsters who littered the earth.

“Let them sit,” said Jon when Thorn had tried to kill time by tossing the bodies into a pile. “We don’t want to show them anything that might tell them something of us.”

What did they think of us, Jon thought to himself. Why did they think we were here? Who do they think we are? What will Stark think of us and what will he do? What did he expect us to do next?

Jon sat on an overturned trough, feeling the heat of the blazing houses warm his left side. Stark had expected no resistance. Had Ca’daan not been the one to see it, had the Brill farmer not been the one to travel to Fena Kef and gather the Swords, the Sticks would have already slaughtered every one in the town.

Jon closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself looking through Stark’s eyes. The small man led the Sticks not with strength or brutality but intelligence. No doubt strength and brutality flowed in the man as well but it took more than that to lead men like these.

Stark would have seen nearly a third