Year Minus Fifty

  1

  Will Stalking Light frowned as he looked at the fairy glow in the distance. He and his

  six brothers had been contracted out as regulators for the Steps of Corwin down

  below. They were looking for a missing child, and here were fairy lights.

  He didn’t like that at all.

  He made the call of the common owl as he went to investigate the lights. Something

  was going on. It was his job to make sure the town was safe.

  His brothers answered his call with calls of their own. They were on the way to help

  him.

  Will pulled an arrow from his quiver as he moved forward. He was the best shot of

  the seven of them, and the most patient in his opinion. He could wait for hours for the

  best shot and then hit the bull’s eye every time.

  He angled in to get a better look at the coming battlefield. He didn’t like the looks of

  things.

  The lights drifted around a set of standing stones on an outcropping from the face of

  the mountain. The forest fell short of the natural platform. Once he was out in the

  open, he would have maybe two shots against some kind of magician, or natural

  monster, from the looks of things. Clouds scudded across the sky, blocking moonlight

  occasionally but not enough to hurt his vision.

  What did the magician want to do? He decided it had to be a magician, and that the

  fairy lights were a spell building up energy. If it was a monster, he would have to

  reassess how to battle it when he saw it.

  If the girl was there, he would have to rescue her while he was dealing with the

  monster.

  It wouldn’t be the first monster he had put down since becoming a regulator for the

  town. He was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

  A dog barking told him that Wendall was close. His brother could take care of any

  close in work if it came to that.

  Wendall had a natural talent for movement. Swords were his dancing partners.

  Anyone who got too close learned what it meant to try to cut in from him.

  Will didn’t answer the bark. He was too close. If the magician, or monster, heard him,

  it might make them suspicious and then they would do something to the little girl to

  spite him and his brothers.

  He moved to the edge of the trees. Shadows danced inside the standing stone circle.

  He was going to have to make a move without his brothers.

  He moved forward. He nocked his arrow as he went. He needed to be ready to shoot

  as soon as he had a target.

  Things came out of the shadows. Too long teeth and eyes that dripped red fire

  contrasted with the blue flame of the fairy lights. He shot one in the eye as it charged

  him.

  Wendall exploded out of the darkness on his left. His twin blades sent black blood to

  boil the air as he cut into the guardians.

  Will pulled another arrow and shot another black thing as fast as lightning. He was

  pleased that the arrow had enough power to carve a hole through the head of his

  target.

  The other five brothers appeared out of the night with weapons in hand. They slashed

  about with swords and one axe, killing the guardians as swiftly as they could.

  “Get the girl, Wendall!,” demanded the eldest brother, Wilson. “Get her clear so we

  can retreat.”

  Wendall barked like a dog as he sliced through the guardians in his way to get to the

  central stone of the ring. It was a flat cube raised out of the ground. The fairy lights

  danced around it as someone spoke words that ground on the ears. He sliced through

  the wool restraints and pulled the victim loose. He backed up with the girl in his arms.

  Will shot the guardian nearest Wendall in the face. His brothers were working so well

  as a distraction, he could shoot at will.

  He couldn’t make out the magician. His creatures were a cloud in front of him. If he

  had one good shot, he could end this.

  Wendall dropped the girl outside the circle so he could draw his weapons again. He

  waved her away as he backed up to defend her from any threats. She would have to

  make her own way home until they were done with this.

  Hopefully they would catch up with her on the way back to town and hand her over

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  to her parents in the morning. They had to kill the monster behind everything before

  they could do that.

  Wendall sliced through anything coming at him. He barely had to move as his swords

  sent blood burning into the ground. He wanted to kill the magician, but the beasts

  were coming out of everywhere to stop him.

  The chorus reached a crescendo. Blue fire filled the air. Wayne’s axe knocked one of

  the black protectors out of the way by splitting its head so that it fell to the ground at

  his feet.

  Will had an arrow ready to go. When he saw the cloaked figure revealed behind the

  falling thing burning the ground, he released the string. He cursed when he saw that

  the arrow hit some kind of protection and only partially stabbed into the magician. He

  drew another arrow to finish the job.

  Whatever else happened, their foe could not be allowed to do what he wanted. They

  were charged with protecting the Steps of Corwin from things like this.

  Wayne raised his axe as he moved to slice at the magician. Blue flame covered the

  seven brothers.

  The magician looked up at the sky. He looked down at his burned hands. He

  considered explanations for what he had done to the townpeople who lived below.

  Everyone knew that the Stalking Light brothers were honest and brave to a fault. He

  couldn’t sell them on all seven of them leaving town.

  He had missed his chance. Their interference meant he would have to wait another

  hundred years. He shook his hands as he turned from the circle. He still had enough

  of the light inside to drop down to town and walk to his residence.

  He should be fixing his hands by the time anyone tried to approach the circle to see

  if there was anything to the lights and sounds they had heard in the night. If the girl

  made it home, that would give the town enough evidence that the brothers had been

  killed in the line of duty.

  All he had to do after that was go along with the story until everyone believed it was

  real.

  He considered if he should help the girl back to town. He decided that it would be

  better if everyone thought the brothers had killed him, and he didn’t want the girl to

  point out he had been on the mountain in the night too.

  He checked the scratch from where the arrow had bit into his armored shirt. That had

  been a piece of luck on his part to have armor proofed against such wounds. It hadn’t

  worked out as well as he had thought it would, but it had worked.

  He walked to the edge of the outcropping and looked down. The town slept below.

  Someone would be up, but he doubted anyone would see him. He concentrated on his

  hands. Marks appeared in the burned flesh.

  He would have to look into fixing them when he got home.

  He couldn’t have his neighbors commenting on his hands when they would be

  suspicious of any magic user that might come their way in the near future.

  And while he might be able to wipe out the town, what happened if someone

  blindsided him. He didn’t want to be hanged by the authorities, or stabbed in the back

  by someone he missed, or set on fire when he had used all of his magic up defending

  himself.

  It was better to readopt his disguise and continue as if nothing had happened.

  He jumped from the outcropping and let the fairy lights surround him as he fell. He

  aimed for a spot behind the mayor’s house. If the man saw him, he could kill him and

  say the same enemy that killed the seven brothers had killed him too.

  He landed gently and let the lights expire. He buried his cloak, mailed shirt, and face

  mask in a space where the mountain formed a crevice. He shoved a stone in place so

  no one would find his disguise without some serious looking.

  He crept around the house and headed for the street. His own house was down the

  terraced steps near the entrance of the valley. He should be able to reach home with

  no problems.

  If the girl didn’t arrive home in the morning, he would lead a search party for her.

  That would help him cover his misdeeds until he was ready to have them revealed to

  the world.

  He crept down to his house, moving from shadow to shadow. He didn’t see anyone,

  and he didn’t think anyone saw him. He reached his house through his backyard and

  stepped inside. Several dogs barking hurried him along. He didn’t need a neighbor

  to ask him what he was doing in the middle of the night.

  He made sure his shutters were closed before he lit the small lantern in his kitchen.

  He inspected his hands under the flame. He winced at the sight of them. The brothers

  had cost him some function in them.

  He gathered some ingredients together in a bowl. He sliced them with his knife,

  smiling as the vegetables whispered under the assault. He used a pestle to further

  reduce the mix into a paste. He spread on one hand, and then the other. Blue fire

  danced around his hands as he felt the aches and pains in them fade away.

  He cracked open the covering on his hands. He worked the dried paste away until his

  hands were free. He smiled. The burning looked as bad as something you would get

  from touching a hot pot.

  He could live with that.

  He cleaned the bowl and put everything away, ate some fruit, and then headed for the

  bed he had built into a wall. He needed to be fresh for when the sun came up and he

  had to hide what he had done from them.

  He needed to work on his surprised expression so he could slip pass the initial

  excitement of his neighbors. He didn’t want them thinking about him when they

  should be thinking about other things.

  He wondered if he could fool the next regulators as well as he had fooled the seven

  brothers. He smiled. Of course he could. All he needed was a big smile and a helpful

  attitude.

  He drifted off to sleep as he thought about how close had come to absolute power.

  Waiting another hundred years didn’t seem fair, but he could draw on the people in

  town to do things while he was waiting. He might be able to help expand the town

  into a real city state equal to Riordiana, or Messer’s Reach.

  On the mountain, a little girl refused to cry. She stood at the edge of the forest and

  looked at the seven statues that had joined the standing stones. She knew they had

  died to defend her.

  She looked up at the sky. She turned away and headed into the trees. She picked a

  path heading down toward the town and her unknown enemy.

  One day they would meet again, and she would show him that he hadn’t escaped the

  consequences of his crimes.

  She listened to a dog barking somewhere and smiled as she walked in darkness.