Hunting Haidians

[Jake Narmolanya]

Darkness swallowed me as I stepped through the portal, landing beside Selima’s body on the cold mountain plateau. The wreckage left by the green fireballs cast silvered shadows beneath the stars, and the hilt of Marvin’s embedded skinning knife glinted in the moonlight. I knew that mountaintop well… and feared I’d never forget it.

“To a joyous afterlife for you,” I whispered to Selima. I didn’t know if the Fallieni believed in an afterlife, but it seemed appropriate. I lifted the glass vial to my lips and drank the dark green concoction.

I nearly retched at the acrid, venomous flavour. It burned my tongue and my throat and settled in my stomach like a live eel. I covered my mouth with one arm and unshouldered my crystal sword with the other. It whispered from its scabbard and I slipped into a moonshadow, opening another portal. This one was just a short hop. It carried me to the bottom of the passageway, near the trap I’d disarmed with a fireball. I still recalled the shape of the rune engraved on the floor.

Firelight flickered ahead. My hope had been validated. Arkboss had returned to his lair.

I crept forwards and peered around the winding corridor’s last corner.

Beyond the open stone door, a green fire crackled in a large vat, its plume of heady smoke magically vented from the enclosed space. Past the flickering flames I saw a long shelf covered in shrunken heads, hands suspended in jars, and a number of other grisly trophies. A table and chair stood on one side of the shelf, while a thick cloth pallet lay on the other. Sleeping atop the pallet was Arkboss the Hunted.

“Get up, scum.” I hissed, straightening my eyepatch and then taking up a two-handed grip on my sword.

Arkboss sat up like I’d put a bolt of lightning through his body. His wild red eyes looked at me from within a twisted, sneering visage.

“I did not expect to see you again so soon,” he said in that unsettlingly smooth voice, “especially not alone. Only a coward runs away.”

“A coward would have killed you where you slept.” I pointed out, tipping the point of my blade at him. “But that would be far too easy an end for you. I’m going to make you suffer, demon. I’m going to watch you die slowly. Now summon your blade.”

“Or you could give me yours.” He commanded, standing and outstretching a scaled hand.

I felt the impetus to give him the weapon and fall under his power, but Nevin’s potion had bolstered my mental defenses. For a moment thoughts of obedience flooded my brain, but then they were gone, washed away like the receding tide. I smiled.

“That won’t work this time,” I said, clicking my tongue. “You’ll have to rely on your mastery of the sword now. Only, you’re not quite a master, are you Arkboss?”

He roared and drew both of the six shooters from his belt. The cavern rang with the concussion of twelve consecutive explosions. As the ringing in my ears faded I allowed the portal I’d summoned in front of myself to dissipate. The bullets had all winged through it, flying up and away into the Haidian night.

“No master of the blade would answer a swordsman’s challenge with a gun,” I taunted. “How did you manage to gain such a false reputation, Arkboss?”

“My reputation was earned on the battlefields of Hrenta Nodos,” he spat, his black flaming aura appearing around him. “I have wielded a blade since long before you were born. And I will wield it long after you are dead.” The fiery greatsword appeared in his hands, and he circled around the vat towards me.