King’s Wrath

‘Engage?’ Barro grinned, prodding at Corbel. ‘You speak like you’re from the old world.’

‘Perhaps I am,’ Corbel replied.

‘Stop this!’ Evie cried.

‘Too late, madam. I think your husband is determined to fight for your honour … not that I had any intention of threatening it.’

‘But your accomplices did,’ Corbel snarled. ‘And you will share the punishment.’

Barro laughed again. ‘You have a single dagger, my friend. You’d better ask your wife to look away. I’ll tell you what,’ Barro said, feinting with the sword and failing to lure Corbel into his trap. ‘I’ll marry your widow and treat her well when this is done. I can’t be more fair, can I?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Corbel replied. ‘As you have no wife to mourn you with flowers, I’ll bury you in this deserted landscape and piss on your grave so the weeds can at least grow over you.’

Barro appeared to enjoy his threat, laughing loudly. ‘I think I’ll regret killing you.’

‘No more talking, Barro. Fight, or die as you stand.’

‘As you won’t share your name, soldier, I’ll ask your wife for it later.’

Corbel was aware of Evie’s movement but his focus was now entirely on his opponent. He knew his dagger looked like a pointless weapon against the long sword but wielded with skill it could triumph. Barro’s sword was heavy — deadly, for sure, but cumbersome by comparison. Corbel would just need speed. And cunning.

Barro stabbed and though Corbel leapt backwards the blade caught him high on the arm. He felt the telltale sting but had no time to even check how deep the wound was, for Barro continued advancing without pause.

He thought he heard Evie yell but then everything dulled to the roar of his blood pounding. Nothing mattered but the man before him. He could smell Barro’s sweat and noticed, for the first time, that Barro carried an injury. While the man was right-handed, he favoured that right side. It must be his shoulder. And now that Corbel concentrated on it, still ducking and weaving and knowing he was entertaining Barro by permitting him to slash at him — taking the punishment but mercifully unable to register any pain for now — he saw that the man’s fighting arm was lowering. The sword was heavy, Barro’s fighting side was injured, and he had to keep adjusting and straightening his stance.

Corbel took a deep breath. He needed to unbalance Barro. His opponent’s natural inclination to re-align himself might do the rest and give Corbel the opening he needed. On the rim of his mind he could hear Evie still yelling, but he had to ignore it.

In that moment he felt a deep pain, one that made him want to retch and dragged him from the special place in his mind, back outside to where the smell of blood hung in the air.

‘No, please, Barro, please … ‘he could hear Evie screaming.

Corbel had taken all the punishment that he knew his body could withstand. But wearing Barro out was working; the strength in the man’s arm had so dissipated that he looked lopsided now, as he struggled to rebalance himself. He lifted the sword one more time, and, oddly, Corbel heard his brother’s voice in his head: Now, Corb, now!

Without thinking, Corbel launched himself forward, dagger extended. He glimpsed a look of bemused surprise on Barro’s face before he hit the man in the belly and then toppled with him. Regaining himself quickly, he straddled the soldier and, to a howl of protest from Evie, he plunged the dagger with great force into the man’s chest, just beneath the ribcage, feeling the satisfying give of flesh and the sudden sigh of breath.

It was over. Barro stared at Corbel with confusion and then looked down at his own chest. ‘You got me,’ he murmured. ‘Damn you,’ he said, with what sounded to Corbel like a hint of respect.

‘Corbel … ‘ Evie sounded ragged. ‘Corbel!’ Then suddenly she was upon him, shoving him off Barro, whose head had lolled back.

‘No!’ she screamed.

‘Evie,’ Corbel murmured, a tremor claiming him now as his mind began to accept that the immediate danger was over and his body began to register his wounds.

‘Shut up!’ she yelled into his face. ‘Just shut up, you fucking murderer!’

Corbel rocked back into the dirt on the ground, lost for words. Murderer? No. The fight had been fair. Unbalanced perhaps, butfair. He watched, disbelieving, as Evie replaced him on top of Barro and lay her hands on him.

Exercising the enormous control she had trained herself to wield when performing surgery, Evie wrestled all her nervous energy back under her own control and focused her mind on Barro.

She was surprised by how quickly she found her calm but she was genuinely shocked at the new and strange sensation that felt like electricity running through her as she went to work on her patient. She had no time to ponder what it meant, though. All that mattered right now was seeing if she could save Barro. It didn’t matter that he had attacked them. She was a doctor. She had taken an oath to preserve life.

Corbel was breathing hard, watching Evie, hardly daring to believe that she was offering ministrations to their enemy. The man had done his utmost to kill him and yet here she was snarling at him, accusing him of murder, swearing at him. His offence deepened when he realised that she wasn’t even going to turn her attention away from Barro for a second to check on his injuries.

He angrily shifted his gaze to the other two bandits. Blacktooth looked to be dead, lying in a surprisingly large pool of blood. The old man was groaning, also prone; Corbel had probably dislocated or re-broken that hip. He didn’t care.

‘Finish it!’ Barro growled at him. ‘Soldier to soldier.’

‘Don’t compare us,’ Corbel replied. ‘Suffer on. I —’

‘Quiet! Both of you, just shut up!’ Evie yelled. ‘I need to concentrate.’

He heard Barro sigh but it didn’t sound like the sigh of someone accepting a rebuke so much as the sound of someone resigning. Corbel had heard it before. And he was sure Evie had. Barro sighed once again, accepting his death.

‘No, please, no! Hang on. Stay alive, Barro. For me.’

‘Evie. Let him die,’ Corbel urged. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of —’

She turned on him, though her hands never left Barro’s major wound. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she raged, her voice barely under control. He had seen her annoyed before, he’d even seen her angry but he had never seen this; this hot rage, and the temper directed at him! Corbel bit back on his next words and staggered slightly, shocked by the snarl on her mouth, the contempt of her tone. He was sure he could see disgust in her gaze. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do, de Viz, or whatever the hell your bastard name is!’

It felt worse than a shock slap, worse even than a punch in the belly. Corbel felt his very world tilt. ‘It’s de Vis,’ he corrected, unable to think of anything else to say. He heard his own voice sound soft and shocked.

But she didn’t care, it seemed. ‘Go to hell!’ she spat at him before returning her attention to Barro.

‘Evie,’ he began.

‘Don’t,’ she warned. ‘Don’t say anything more.’

He didn’t. He left Evie to her ministrations. He carelessly hauled Blacktooth’s body away and left it behind some rocks. Then he busied himself, studiously ignoring the old man prone nearby, pushing soil around with his boots to disguise the pool of blood that had begun to dry into the ground. Satisfied that the worst of it was covered, he glared at the injured man.

‘I won’t be helping you,’ he snarled.

‘Just something for the pain — arack perhaps?’

Corbel shook his head.

Evie silently moved in front of Corbel and knelt down beside the wheezing old man, laying her hands on him. Corbel was desperate to speak but bit back on his words, this time looking away in despair. Her defiance might get them both killed.

He looked back over at Barro and saw what he most dreaded. The man was sitting up, holding his head. ‘What just happened?’

Barro asked, touching his chest, his belly, looking down at his body with incredulity.

Corbel walked over to him but said nothing.

‘You killed me. I died. I’m sure of it. I felt the life leave me.’

‘Seems you imagined it,’ Corbel muttered.

Barro’s crazed eyes searched his own. ‘You killed me, damn it!’