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

you need. They assume we protect the town but we protect nothing here. When pressed, we fall to the western trails and to the caves.” No one replied to Jon. They stood ready. “Thorn and Vrenna, take the west. Adrin and the Kal, east. San’doro and I take the north. Let them fall between us and close in on their exposed flanks.”

They got into position and Jon stood on the rock overseeing the town and the mist beyond. The fog would hide much from both sides but with far inferior numbers, the favor went to the Swords.

Dots of torchlight burning green in the fog appeared in the distance. Jon knelt and placed his hand upon the rock on which he stood. It vibrated under his hand. The Sticks were coming.

“Give us the sight,” said Jon to Susan. She closed her eyes and Jon’s vision expanded. It was nauseating at first but he soon got his bearings. He had his first sight, his own clear vision of the world around him, and his second sight, that of San’doro. One vision moved and one stood still but Jon soon came to understand it and use it. Strangely, San’doro saw the world differently. The colors looked different, blues appearing as green. It disoriented him a little. Also, San’doro saw much further and with much greater clarity than did Jon. He should have given him the pistols, thought Jon.

The green fire grew closer. Jon felt the rumble through his boots. Adrin would soon begin firing and Thorn’s huge blade would cleave in.

“Give me their sight as well,” said Jon. Now two more visions flowed into the sight he had already. One stood a head higher than Jon was used to. He saw Vrenna, cloak billowing around her lithe body and the hilt of her scorpion sword in her gloved hand. In the other sight he saw Adrin’s hands cocking back a pair of dragon-hammered pistols. Nearby, the Kal twisted his waist, wincing, and pinwheeled his arms. His muscles cracked and loosened.

A deep and shrill cry rolled out of the fog. The sound was sad and haunting. It took Jon a moment to realize it was the sound of the brill being slaughtered. It would seem the Sticks, denied the villagers, took out their blood lust on the beasts left behind. Jon felt for the doomed beasts.

The green torches grew into large arcs in the fog, landing on the roofs swinging end over end into the doorways of the houses and shops of the town. Even in the rain the houses burned. Green flames, appearing blue in San’doro’s second sight, rose through the roofs and exploded out of the shuttered windows. It tore into the cloak of fog that surrounded them.

The rumble continued but it was not as strong as the night before. Something had changed.

A flash of steel in the green and orange light of the night, painted by the burning houses and the blood moon above the fog, flew towards Thorn. Jon saw it through the big man’s eyes. Thorn had clutched just in time, grabbing the masked figure who cut at him. The Stick had red leather armor and brown cloth over his mouth and flowing back behind him. Thorn pulled him against the strong wall against which he held his position and cleaved deep into the Stick’s skull. The black eyes of the Stick rolled and he fell in a heap.

The tip of a spear stabbed towards Adrin but the Kal’s club splintered the shaft and then crushed the ribs of the wielder. Adrin was prepared to shoot but doing so against the enemy on foot wasted the advantage.

In Thorn’s vision Jon saw Vrenna beginning her dance, parrying at her opponent’s wrist instead of crossing blades. Two Sticks fell away clutching gushing wounds deep in their forearms.

Now Jon understood the lack of the full charge. While some rode in across the bridge most of the Sticks attacked on foot. They waded across the stream, sliding their feet across the bedrock to avoid the spikes that had hobbled their horses the night before.

The green flames of the burning houses scorched the sky. Thorn, Vrenna, Adrin, and the Kal soon lost their cover. The hot air would cook them if they remained too close.

Jon could not see this new battlefield but he could imagine it. Forty or so Sticks on each side, west and east, cutting north. In between was a column of riders, lighting fast and able to cleave into any resistance the two groups of foot soldiers ran into.

“Susan, go to the caves,” said Jon. He looked at her and she looked back. Jon ran a finger across her cheek, wiping away the rain. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then she turned and left.

Jon and San’doro moved forward until they could see the riders cutting through the middle of the town. Time seemed to slow as he moved in, his mind moving faster than the battle unfolded. Jon fired, red flame and white smoke exploding slowly from his pistol in his hastened mind, killing the first rider immediately. The others pulled left and right, avoiding the flailing horse and fallen rider. Jon fired again, seeing a satisfying gush of blood explode from the hard leather armor of the left rider.

Then Jon and San’doro were on the move. In his third vision Jon saw Adrin moving east until he saw the flank of the riders. He shot two near the end of the column and then fell back to the Kal’s furious defense as he reloaded. Jon too reloaded on the run, seeing San’doro behind him parrying a sword thrust and stabbing into the thruster’s thigh.

Jon ran behind a building not yet aflame, the house where Susan had stayed a few days earlier, and prayed to any god who might be listening that they would not find any enemies behind it. He finished reloading and turned around the corner. A rider had knocked San’doro down, Jon saw his vision blur in his view through San’doro’s eyes. Jon shot the horse in the head and it crashed down before it had overran and trampled San’doro. San’doro rolled to his feet, cloak spinning behind him. Another rider bore down on him with a barbed lance. San’doro stood firm. Jon shot the man in the side of the head. San’doro rolled and dashed out of sight before the horse rode him down.

They were hard pressed, Jon saw. Stark had planned this well. Jon reloaded his guns again and holstered one to draw his rapier. Hopping up on an overturned cart, Jon slashed the throat of another rider as he passed. The sword bit deep and Jon saw him riding with streams of blood flowing back behind him.

The world appeared on fire. Much of the fog had evaporated and even the rain had stopped. Vrenna continued her dance, kicking one man in the chest and cleaving into the flank of another. Men squirmed around her and she pinned the knife hand of one wounded Stick before cutting deep into his neck.

Thorn swung hard, shattering an incoming greatsword and cleaving deep into the chest of its wielder. Another came up behind him but Vrenna’s saber slashed both his legs behind the knees and dropped him screaming to the ground.

“Where is Stark,” thought Jon. He focused his vision first into San’doro who tore open a raider wielding a large warhammer, then to Thorn who hewed a man from the horse, then to Adrin who pinned a wounded man under his boot and stabbed his offhand dagger into the Stick’s eyes. None saw Stark.

The riders twisted and wove through the burning houses while the foot soldiers continued swarming the east and west. They would soon lose their ground. Jon stepped into the open and fired both guns into two separate riders. Each fell with the crack of bone under the iron shoes of their horses. Two foot soldiers rounded the horses on Jon’s right. Jon dropped the pistols, hoping to scoop them up later, and drew his rapier and dagger.

Jon parried an axe with the offhand dagger and blocked the man’s left kick with his own raised leg. Jon stabbed into the man’s eye and, drawing it out, across his throat.

The second footman stabbed at Jon with a blood stained spear decorated with a half dozen long-haired scalps. Jon circled the spear, parried it to his right, and pierced the footman under the chin and deep into his brain. A third came around the corner with a two handed sword. Jon spun, grappling the man’s arms before the sword had time to swing, and ran the sharp edge of his rapier from hilt to tip across the man’s throat. Blood splashed on Jon’s face and armor.

From his second sight Jon saw San’doro grappling with a much larger man. Jon worried for his friend until he saw San’doro’s right dagger cutting deep open gashes in the man’s torso. A final stab in the low flank of the man with his left dagger killed his opponent.

Jon scooped up his guns and reloaded.

Adrin and the Kal were back to back. Adrin fired shot after shot into the riders. When they turned, he and the Kal retreated and moved to another open area. Jon wondered for a moment how lucky they had been to pick the right spot for their retreat until the answer came to him. Susan had showed it to them.

As Adrin reloaded, the Kal turned and crushed the leg of a Stick dressed in ringmail and a studded leather helm shaped like the head of a dog. The man’s leg bent sideways and his body folded over the hideous wound. Another slam of the warclub caved in the dog helm in an explosion of blood.

The attack cost Kal his life.

Jon, still looking through Adrin’s eyes, saw a wicked sharp blade burst through the Kal’s chest. His warclub, caked with gore, fell loose from the pit fighter’s hand and hung from the leather strap. The blade withdrew and blood sprayed from the wound in the Kal’s chest. He was dead before he fell to the ground.

Behind the fallen Sword stood one of the red lotus assassins. Mask down, the assassin licked the Kal’s blood from his blade as he stared at Adrin with black on black eyes wild from the smoke of the demon-blooded leaf. Adrin stepped forward, put the barrel of his pistol against the man’s forehead, and fired. Smoke exploded in a red mist from the man’s shattered skull.

Adrin stared at the Kal’s body and Jon stared through Adrin’s eyes.

“Adrin!” shouted Jon. “To me!”

Susan must have pushed his voice into Adrin. It shocked him out of his stunned gaze. Adrin, Jon realized, had never seen a friend die.

“Susan, tell Thorn and Vrenna to move back. Adrin’s alone.” Jon turned to San’doro. “Get Adrin to us.” San’doro looked at Jon from under his hood, a line of blood drawn across one eye. It was an impossible order, a suicidal mission. The desert ghost nodded and disappeared in a flutter of his dark cloak.

Jon reloaded his guns, holstered them, and drew his rapier and dagger. Life was about to get very difficult until Adrin and San’doro came back to him.

Four riders and half a dozen foot soldiers turned around a building burning green into the night. Their leader, a brute with a massive axe, pointed toward Jon. He was alone and they knew it. They would descend upon him like a pack of blood thirsty wolves. Jon would have to take down their alpha.

The axe wielder had learned of Jon’s guns, it appeared. He sent two of his riders in first. Jon didn’t take the bait by shooting the two men. He stood his ground and waited. One of