The Old Warrior Read online

overhead is obvious and dangerous looking, most fail to see the other attack coming in from below, the true attack, the deadly attack, the sharp dagger or short sword that is aimed for the guts or groin.

  The old warrior took the weaker overhead blow on his heavily armored shoulder while he slashed down with his sword, knocking the long dagger from her hand and spun around her at the same time. He was able to deliver a strong blow to the back of her lightly armored head, though not as squarely as he had wanted. Thus, she merely stumbled forward instead of falling flat.

  Still, when she spun to face him, he saw the look in her eyes. She had killed many times. He could see it. She was as tough an opponent as any he had faced. What he wouldn’t have given to face her when they were both fresh. As it was, neither had much left.

  This was morning. They had both been fighting their own battles throughout the night. He could see her wounds. See her weaknesses. As his eyes took all that in, so too was he inspected in turn. Her eyes drifted to the child. A look of disgust came over her as she looked back at him. A look that vanished quickly. Something in his face must have shown through. Her look changed yet again.

  “Escaping?” Her voice was sharp. Her accent was heavy. The old warrior studied her. His granite eyes not blinking. What was there to lose?

  He nodded in a swift jerk of his head. He wanted to see this woman dead. To feel another victory. Or, at last, look up at his own conqueror as he was slipping away. To die on the field as was his right. As was the honor of all warriors. The fate of all true warriors. Any other day, any other battle, he would have attacked and not bothered to answer even in such a small way.

  Today was not any other day.

  “I wanna go home…” The nightmare’s sob startled them both. The old warrior wasted a glance at her over his shoulder. Too late he realized his fatal mistake. He crouched down ready to receive the blow. A blow that could mean his death here and now. The old warrior was hoping it would be an easily deflected one none the less.

  A blow that was not coming. He narrowed his eyes as the woman warrior held her ground. He came slowly to his feet.

  She had not attacked. He felt sure on any other day, she would have taken him then, in that one single mistake.

  Any other day.

  A small smile on her lips showed him he was right. She knew. She had seen. She had chosen otherwise.

  “Your burden… old one.” She inhaled deeply, standing a bit straighter as the sounds of battle came closer. Her eyes sparked with the inner fire of a predator as she looked towards the sound. Oh yes, she was a warrior as much as he. She longed for it as badly as he did. “Maybe some other day, we can settle this.” Her eyes ran over his body, narrowed, looked into his again. “Or not.” She stepped aside, heading for the sounds of death. “Go old one. Hurry! Take the child to safety. She has seen enough horror for one day. At least one we can save. At least one.”

  As the woman padded by him, she scooped up her long dagger and stopped by the little girl, the little nightmare, she patted the top of the child’s head and said something in a language the old warrior did not know. With a look back at him, a small salute, she was gone. Off to fight another. Off to live. As warriors, there really was only one kind of life. She was headed to hers. Death. Life. Only the battle field ever gave a true warrior the feeling of true living.

  The old warrior watched her vanish down a dark alley that was spewing smoke. A bit of regret in him because he could not follow her. She had been a young one with eyes too old. The youth of today. He’d never understand it. Sometimes it showed such lack of common wisdom he wanted to thump all of them. Others, like this one, were wise well beyond their years.

  Did battle do that? Was it life and death that changed a youth into an old soul? The sounds grew closer. He had to move. Looking into the sky blue eyes of the nightmare, he knew he had to take her up and go. Go now.

  Grabbing her, he lifted her up onto his shoulders and took off at a sprint. She let out a bit of a gasp as her bare leg draped over his one armored shoulder, but she would have to endure. His sword held in front of him, he snatched a small sword from one of the men he had killed and trusted the nightmare to hold on as he ran.

  Hold on she did. Almost too tightly. Her legs locked onto him and her arms wrapped tightly about his head.

  He tossed his head to the side a bit, the nightmare understood. He needed to see to get them out of here. She changed her grip. He leapt across the bodies. Dead and dying. He ran passed those that sat motionless, staring at nothing. He ran passed those wounded, crying out for help. He ran passed those begging to be killed. He turned this way and that through the smoking ruins. Here and there he actually ran into burning ruins to evade.

  A patrol ahead. His allies? The enemy? With the nightmare on his shoulders, did it matter? No. The old warrior’s mind worked fast and his body followed. He leapt through a broken window. Blocked a haphazard attack of a broom handle by some dark, vaguely feminine figure, ran across the room and leapt out the other window.

  He hit the ground, spun about quickly, heard and saw and sensed where the battle was and continued away from it. He had to be careful though. He had a destination in mind and he could not let the beast that was the battle herd him to a different place.

  A figure came running out of the smoky alley as he jogged by. It took one look at him, its lips opened to issue a call, he cut it down with a quick slash.

  As he hurdled a small pile of glowing bricks, he felt more than saw the attack coming. There was no helping it. No dodging it. So he jumped, took the arrow somewhere in his leg and landed in a tumble that sent the nightmare flying.

  The old warrior saw her roll to her feet and scurry backward out of the open and into a dark corner. Good, that gave him time. His granite eyes caught the movement in the window as the two hidden cowards burst forth.

  The one that had shot him fired again.

  The old warrior saw this one coming and without the nightmare slowing him down, he was able to twirl out of the way, brace his weight on his good leg and move in on them slashing with both swords. The one armed with a crossbow panicked and fumbled his next bolt. His fellow coward only had a shield.

  What had they been doing out here? Hiding and waiting? Looking to ambush and kill as many as possible or looking to catch any fleeing citizens and have their way with them? Battle bred all kinds of beasts and these were just another type.

  These kinds of cowards he hated most. Those who sat outside any of the real fighting to rape and plunder and ambush those that strayed. Then, at the end of the day, boasted of their feats and received the same pay as those that had really fought.

  The old warrior would make sure these two cowards did not have that luxury.

  He came in fast and low at the one with the shield. The one already beginning to turn to run when he saw he faced an armed warrior and not a scared peasant. It was a foolish move. If he had stood his ground, at least slowed the old warrior up with that shield, he could have allowed his partner to re-load his crossbow. At this range, it would have been impossible to dodge if the coward was any kind of shot.

  But the shielded one stayed true to his nature. A true coward. Not willing to risk his life to give his fellow coward the seconds he needed. So instead of probably dying while letting his fellow get the crossbow loaded and deliver a fatal shot to the old warrior, the shielded coward turned to run and took a sword through the side and a nasty slash across the back of his thigh.

  He immediately fell, crying out like the coward he was. The old warrior caught a glimpse of the dark blood on his blade as he raised it to strike down the crossbowman. He had hit the shielded coward’s liver from the looks of it. Screaming at him, the crossbowman jabbed at the old warrior’s face with the barbed end of his crossbow.

  It was a childish move but the man was not a real warrior. So the old warrior knocked the crossbow aside and ended the pathetic wretch’s life with a thrust of the smaller sword he had taken from the field.
/>   He drove it up and through the coward’s skull. The man’s eyes bulged out and went blood red. The coward slid off the old warrior’s sword just as the sounds of screams erupted behind them. The old warrior turned to see the nightmare had taken a knife from somewhere and was stabbing the first coward repeatedly with the little thing.

  This, of everything else he had imagined from that scream, was not what the old warrior had wished to see.

  The nightmare’s sky blue eyes were filled with a heated hate he knew only too well. Each of her slashes did nothing more than cut the coward’s arm open, spurting fresh blood onto her pale face and splattering more gore onto her torn little night dress.

  The coward was squirming away, trying to hold his arm up to defend himself from her relentless attack as his dark lifeblood left an ever expanding pool around him.

  The old warrior stepped forward quickly, catching the nightmare’s arm and twisting it quickly and painfully to force her to drop the dagger. She let out a yelp of mixed surprise and pain and looked up at him.

  Her sky blue eyes were heated and challenging.

  He shook his head slowly. His granite eyes never wavering. Finally, the heat left hers. The sky cleared. She looked down at his leg, a rain drop forming.

  He broke the bolt off near the tip, leaving the heavily barbed head inside his leg. In the