2nd to the Dark Lord (part 1)

I stopped in my tracks, sword in hand dripping blood on the stone floors of the castle as guards lay dead or dying behind me scattered all the way back to the castle doors. "Did you just say that the Dark Lord is dead?" I asked. Did my last three years - countless quests, riches won and spent, friendships forged and broken, training learned and forgotten, a journey most men might spend a lifetime walking if they could make it at all - did it all really mean nothing?

In front of me paused three adventurers in armor. I watched them turn to each other silently. Behind them, the throne room doors stood shut. The middle adventurer spoke. "Yes, young master, the Dark Lord is dead, slain by our hands. An epic battle the bards and minstrels will sing songs about for years to come." He moved to the side and his companions pushed themselves against the walls. "You're free to gaze upon the monster's corpse if you wish to put your mind at ease that the deed has been done."

I nodded and stepped slowly forward, a journey of a mere ten steps to the throne room doors taking what felt like hours to reach. Finally, I pushed open the doors prepared for the carnage and mayhem that accompanies battle. Instead what I found was neat and tidy, a murder scene. At my feet lay a woman dressed in silks suited for a bedroom than a battlefield with her throat cut and blood soaking her chest. Next to her lay two servants dead in similar fashion. Their blood had pooled and I needed to take a long stride to get across it and further into the room.

At the other end of the hall the throne sat empty though not at all clean. One side had been partially set aflame, fires still eating slowly away at it. Next to it lay the bodies of three royal guards that had taken the brunt of the fire spell, roasted in their armor. On the other side of the throne lay three more guards with their helmets removed. One let out a single cough, spewing a black sludge onto the feet of the throne before going still. Poison, I thought.

In the very center of the throne room lay the Dark Lord's corpse. His hands bound with a thick cord and dark bruising wrapped a line across his throat, signs of a garrotte wire. They wanted him to die and not quickly. Across his chest lay a small boy and pierced through both bodies was the Dark Lord's own sword. I'd recognize it anywhere. The same sword I saw when I closed my eyes at night. The same one that haunts my dreams as it cuts down my family one by one before turning its edge to me and cutting a deep scar down my face and chest. I shiver as the moment replays itself a dozen times in the blink of an eye. That same sword now sat impaled through its owner and his offspring, soaked in their blood and for reasons unknown to me in that moment I feel a stream of tears fall down my cheeks.

I turned back to the women and closed their bewildered eyes. Then I took some copper coins from my purse and placed one on each eyelid. The guards would need more assistance than I could give as the fire partially welded their helmets shut and I feared getting close to the others without knowing the poisons used in their killing. I pulled the sword from the boy and the Dark Lord and placed it on the ground. The boy I lay next to his father, putting two coins on his eyes. For the Dark Lord, I placed two gold pieces, certain it would cost more than the usual fare for the ferryman to take his darkened soul to the Beyond.

I exited the throne room to find the other group of adventurers still standing in the hallway watching me. I glared back. "There was no battle. You just went in there and murdered those people."

Their leader in the middle just shrugged his shoulders. "We did what needed to be done. The kingdom couldn't wait for you to collect feathers before finally committing to your true quest."

I shook my head. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. There's no honor in what was done here today. No justice. Just blood and death. The people will never trust you as their saviors once I tell them the truth. All they'll see is another pack of monsters."

"We can't let you do that," said the adventurer standing on the left as she pulled a throwing knife glistening with poison from her belt. Her companions began to reach for their weapons as well.

Magic, though, is always faster. I activated the Krezteican Ring I won in a high-stakes card game and a wave of invisible energy pushed out around me. The adventurers were tossed backwards except for the one with the knife. She was instead swept up into the air, hitting the ceiling before being slammed back down onto the stone floor with a crunch. She didn't get back up.

The man on the right got to his feet first and launched a fireball in my direction. Thanks to the crime scene I already knew at least one member of their party wielded fire very well. I grabbed the hem of my cloak and pulled it in front of me like a shield, speaking of Word of Power as I did. The fireball hit the cloak with a brilliant flash and then immediately flew back to its caster thanks to the ward stitched into the cloak with golden silk collected from jaguar-spiders of the Crestenting Forest. The man immediately burst into flames, dead before he could even let out a scream.

The leader unsheathed his sword at the same time I drew mine. Our blades clashed in the narrow hallway. Strike, parry, thrust. He was a competent swordsman but he didn't go through the same training I endured at the hands and fists and rods and canes of all the masters I studied under during my three years of travels. He never needed to face down the same gauntlet of bandits and fighters and monsters I slayed.

With a flourish I knocked his sword aside and came down with a strike. Instead of cleaving into his shoulder, the edge of my sword connected with a magical barrier lying an inch above his armor. I swung a fist to keep him off-balance and still hit the magical barrier.

"Dammit, your armor is enchanted," I said backing off a step but careful to avoid tripping over the poisoner's body.

The other man also backed up a step or two and readied himself for another exchange. "My wards and armor will tire you out before you even get a chance to land a killing blow."

I muttered a Word and brushed a hand along the flat of my sword, activating the runes etched in it. Then I charged again with a sword thrust, hoping to shatter his ward and break his armor in one shot. The other man didn't even attempt to to evade or block my attack, instead letting my sword pass his guard and allowing his ward absorb the blow. Instantly, his entire ward flashed a brilliant glow and I could see exactly how it was weaved over his armor.

Suspecting a trick, the other adventurer swung his sword, a killing blow aimed at taking off my head. Instead I dropped my sword and rolled backwards. When I gained my feet, I threw the poisoner's knife as hard as I could. The knife flew through the air and struck true, breaking the  one weak spot in the ward and sinking into a joint between the armor plates.

The other man pulled the knife stuck in his chest. "One of Nadia's knives?" he asked looking at the knife glistening with blood. "Dammit," he said after seeing me give a brief nod. He dropped his sword and sank to the floor with his back propped up against a wall. "How'd you spot the smallest crack in my enchanted armor?"

I stooped to pick up my sword. "When you spend a month collecting hawk feathers in the woods in autumn, there isn't much that can hide from your eyes." Carefully, with my sword, I lifted the helmet off of his head. I dropped to a knee in surprise as the metal helm clanged on the stone. "I know you," I said, staring at the familiar face. "You're the traveling woodsman I met out near Kettorak's Bend."

The woodsman answered me with a glare. "Ah, The Traveler. Off to defeat the Dark Lord you said. Well, looks like me and my party took care of it for you." He spat a glob of phlegm at my feet, already tinged with the black of the poison coursing through him. "And if you had done it like you said you would those two years ago, his troops wouldn't have slaughtered my family last month."

I hung my head, feeling tears starting to well up in my eyes. "I'm so sorry about your family. I knew I needed to get stronger before facing him so I traveled the kingdom to hone my skills. But everywhere I went people needed my help, and I couldn't turn my back on people in need or what kind of hero would I be."