ghosts.
“You won’t get any more steel just by sitting here!” said the Balladeer.
“This isn’t doing you any good,” said the Apothecary.
“You’re not a warrior; you’re a drunk,” said the Cavalier.
They were his own personal ghosts. When they appeared, they looked like ordinary people, albeit transparent. Their voices sounded like echoes, and when they moved or expressed any activity, it was all flickering shadow. They didn’t glow, as one might expect, although firelight seemed to catch in their incorporeal forms and illuminate them the way it does in a glass figurine or a precious gemstone.
Actually, the ghosts haunted the sword, so Vanderjack called them the Sword Chorus. He had bought the sword from his mother, an infamous Saifhumi pirate, on her deathbed. Or at least that was what he told everybody, but in truth he hadn’t really paid for it at all, which he supposed was only fair, given the sword’s curse. So long as he gripped Lifecleaver’s hilt, the souls of those who had not yet been ready to die on the end of the blade haunted him.
So far seven souls had been snared by the sword’s curse, and they had come with the sword when he acquired it. Legend had it that with two more souls, Lifecleaver would break. Vanderjack made every effort not to test the legend’s veracity, and so far, at least in his opinion, everybody he had killed with the blade had deserved it.
“Drinking is no substitute for true thought,” advised the Philosopher.
“True thought? He hasn’t had a true thought in months,” said the Aristocrat.
“No prey in sight, so no motivation,” said the Hunter.
An enchanted sword such as Lifecleaver was a vital asset in this day and age. Although he had little of it anymore, Vanderjack made his steel by killing people. The so-called War of the Lance had been won, the Queen of Darkness had been defeated, her Temple of Darkness destroyed. None of that meant the fighting was over, however. The dragonarmies had retreated to the five corners of Ansalon, tenaciously holding onto lands they had conquered during the war. There weren’t enough knights in shining armor to hold back the tide, so the free nations of the world had taken to paying people such as he for protection.
“The sword’s magic is wasted on him,” said the Conjuror.
Vanderjack exhaled and muttered, “All I’m trying to do is have a blasted drink.” He lifted his hand from the sword, and the shimmering phantoms around him vanished.
When standing, the sellsword was over six feet tall, with muscles that had been much harder when he was twenty years younger. He was still relying on his dark Ergothian complexion and shaved head to make him stand out among the other mercenaries. Vanderjack had many imitators, several of whom were being rounded up to answer for the numerous jobs he’d done and enemies he’d made. He’d heard many rumors about his own demise. If it weren’t for the ghosts in the sword, he’d be wondering if he were a ghost himself.
Vanderjack reached for his beer. As his fingers closed about it, the mug shattered.
“Ackal’s Teeth!” he cursed, snatching up his sword from the puddle of beer and leaping to his feet. The Sword Chorus swirled back into his vision again. A crossbow bolt was still quivering in a wooden post a yard away from him, the source of the exploding mug. “That was my last beer!”
“What did we miss?” asked the Balladeer.
“We’re under attack!” said the Cavalier.
“Be quiet for one blasted minute,” barked Vanderjack. There were no other patrons in the common room; it wasn’t a busy time of day, and it wasn’t a good enough bar. The bar’s owner was still dozing under an awning over in one corner, oblivious. All he could see outside through the open window was rain, but the bolt couldn’t have come from anywhere else, so he ran to the door and ducked outside. The ghosts sailed after him in his wake.
Outside, the rains of Nordmaar were warm and heavy, as they always were in early summer. The road between Pentar and Jotan wasn’t paved; rumor had it that old King Huemac had decreed it, but the dragon-army invasion put an end to any public works. King Huemac’s captive son, Prince Shredler, had more than enough to worry about, so the surface of the road was an inch of mud. Thirty feet from the bar, wheels deep in the slick sludge, Vanderjack saw, was an expensive-looking carriage was under attack.
Vanderjack took in the immediate situation with a seasoned veteran’s eye. He hadn’t been the target after all. The carriage had a single driver, the owner of the crossbow that had robbed him of his beer. A passenger inside the carriage was fending off one of the six assailants with a narrow sword. Despite the rain, Vanderjack could still make out wings on the carriage’s attackers; they were draconians.
Draconians were the scaly reptilian soldiers of the dragonarmies. They were created from the eggs of the dragons of Light, eggs that had been stolen from the Dragon Isles and subjected to dark rituals. Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, had told the good dragons not to interfere with her holy war against the free people of Krynn, or she would destroy their eggs. When the good dragons learned that the eggs had been used to spawn the abominable draconians, they had entered the conflict, and that had been the beginning of the end.
Some years after the end of the war and the triumph of the forces of the Whitestone Armies and their good dragon allies, those few draconians who survived had been reduced to grunt troops for the surviving dragonarmies or, more often than not, mercenaries just like he was. The draconians threatening the carriage, with their red tabards over chainmail hauberks, belonged to the Red Wing of the dragonarmies holding Nordmaar. The carriage’s occupant was in serious trouble.
“We have to help that man!” said the Aristocrat.
“Well, he looks rich,” muttered the mercenary, wiping water from his eyes. “He might appreciate the assistance.”
The Cavalier shook his spectral head. “Mercenaries. Have you no honor?”
Vanderjack smirked, setting off across the road in long, easy strides, sword held out to the side. “Do I look Solamnic to you?”
The closest of the draconians didn’t see him coming. Vanderjack ran right by the first one, bringing the sword up in a lazy arc that took the draconian’s horned head clean off at the neck. The mercenary was at the carriage before the draconian had toppled forward, turning to stone and landing heavily in the muck.
Vanderjack hated draconians. He’d fought alongside them once, when he was on contract with the Blue Dragonarmy, and learned all of their worst traits up close and personal. Consequently, when he later switched sides and fought with the Armies of White-stone against the Dark Queen’s forces, he knew just where to hit them and just what to do when they died. They were baaz draconians, which meant a quick kill was the only way to avoid having your sword trapped as their death throes turned them to stone.
“Two closing in beside you!” warned the Hunter. Vanderjack spun in place, his sword slicing a lethal trace through the rain and through the upper bodies of the draconians the ghost had warned him of. Their stony faces were frozen in shock.
To the casual observer, the mercenary appeared to have eyes in the back of his head, for he was the only one who could see or hear the Sword Chorus. Most of the time the ghosts settled for incessantly heckling the sellsword. In battle, however, Vanderjack had learned to listen to the Sword Chorus’s warnings, responding so quickly to his opponents’ actions that onlookers could scarcely believe his skill.
The carriage driver had loaded another bolt into his crossbow. Vanderjack ducked around the side of the carriage as the other draconians caught on to his presence. In so doing, the mercenary smacked the side of the carriage driver’s seat with his sword and shouted, “Aim for the head!” The driver swung about, following one of the draconians with his crossbow, and released. The bolt struck its scaly target just beneath where an ear would be on an ordinary soldier. It was enough. The baaz fell dead against the carriage with a thump.
Vanderjack stood ready by the window of the carriage. The carriage’s occupant, a sharp-nosed man in soaking-wet velvet clothes, looked as if he were trained in the fancy style of dueling that nobles in Palanthas favored. He was completely out of his depth. “Stay inside!” called Vanderjack. “I can handle these lizards.”
“You will die with the baron!” hissed one of the two remaining draconians. It was typical baaz bravado. They weren’t the brightest of their kind, and they were often drunk; those fighting him did seem a long way from being sober.
“I don’t think so,” said Vanderjack. He stepped to the side, feinting with Lifecleaver, and the first baaz fell for the misdirection. Vanderjack took the draconian’s arm off with the follow-through, and kicked outward. The draconian fell backward into his companion, who yelled with surprise and fumbled with his own broadsword.
