“Of your speaking, one thing’s certain,” snorted Kot, the leader of the ogre trio. “You’re not going to be returning home.” Tightening his grip on his mace, he let out a howl that shook mugs from the rafters, then charged.
Bijendra did not run. He did not try to dodge. He did not even employ the innate magic for which his kind was known. Instead, he simply raised his longsword high above his head and held it parallel to the floor.
Brought down by the full weight and strength of the ogre, the heavy iron mace slammed into the sword. The blade did not shatter. Nor did the arm of the one who wielded it. Instead, the rakshasa twisted his sword just enough at the moment of impact so that the much heavier mace slid sideways along the guiding blade. Sparks flew as the parried head of the bulky weapon smashed into the floor. From where he presently crouched behind the bar, Norgen looked on in amazement. What kind of rakshasa noble was this, who fought with blade as well as with magic? An explanation was forthcoming.
“I am Ruhan Bijendra, and in addition to being of noble blood, I am also by choice-a ranger.”
Clearly confused, Grerg paused as he was about to swing his club. “Your lies multiply. There is no such thing as a rakshasa ranger.”
Sliding his right foot back to firm his fighting stance, Bijendra’s frown was fraught with mock seriousness. “Then how can I possibly be standing here before you? Or perhaps I am not here at all. Perhaps I am only a figment of imaginations as dim as your wits.”
Growling, Mulk readied his ball and chain for a second swing. “For a small traveler with backward hands, you have a big mouth. We will close it for you.”
Gesturing with his reversed left palm, Bijendra beckoned. “Then come and seek. Oblivion awaits. As a rakshasa noble I would rather not fight-but as a ranger, a melee is as good exercise as counting coin. I will defeat all three of you with only my one sword.”
They came at him from two sides this time, intending to catch the haughty cat face between them. As one swung his club and the other his mace, the rakshasa spun. His sword was a blur. At the last possible instant, so was he. Descending mace connected with onrushing skull at the same time as swinging club met out-thrust face. Blood and jumbo dentition went flying as the weapons of the charging ogres connected not with the head of the stranger but with each other. Kot and Grerg went down in separate but equally bloody heaps. As the only one of the belligerent trio to retain consciousness, the last member standing clutched his ball and chain nervously. His small, glaring eyes sought danger in every shadow and corner.
“Some illusion again!” Outrage, as well as the first inklings of fear, filled the ogre’s voice. “You said you would use only your sword!”
From behind him, a powerful feline shape stepped forward and gestured. A pale essence coalesced around Mulk, engulfing him in otherness. As a strand of it grew dense around his throat, the frightened ogre spun and swung wildly, striking at the smoke. As soon as he faced the ogre, Bijendra swung his enchanted sword around in a wide, powerful arc, striking With the flat of his blade. As it made contact with the side of the ogre’s skull, Mulk let out a gurgle. His eyes rolled backward into his head and he collapsed into a pile of unconscious, motionless meat. Stepping forward, Bijendra stared down at the unmoving body.
“I lied. It’s clear you don’t know much of anything about my kind or you would be aware that we are known for deception in word as well as in image.” Wiping clean the gore-streaked blade on the ogre’s backside, he slid it neatly into the sheath slung against his back as he turned and strode toward the bar. Brave and confident dwarf that he was, Norgen was ready for him.
“Drink?” the dwarf mumbled, swallowing hard as he held out the sloshing goblet. “On the house.”
Bijendra looked over his shoulder and said, “Three mighty ogres in a heap, who upon awakening will wish that they were dead. I could oblige them that, but I must not linger here. I have leagues to cross still, and they would be better traversed without having to always look behind me.”
Norgen knew what the rakshasa was getting at, and said, “The ogres have other kinsfolk in Hammerfast. And there’s always the outside chance that Goldspinner, the leader of the Merchant Guild and the current High Master of the town, might take an official’s interest in the brawl-though we dwarves tend to look first after our own.”
“That being the case,” Bijendra said, “I’ll content myself that I have one friendly witness to the fight on my side. It would be easy enough to persuade the individual in question.” The ranger reached in the direction of his longsword.
Sensible coward that he was, Norgen tried to bury himself in the lower reaches of the back bar. “Please, noble sir! I beg of you, mind twist me if you must, but spare my life! I am but a day removed from departing hence for the wedding of my second cousin’s eldest sister, and if my body arrives without its head it will most surely put a damper on the nuptials!”
Stopping well short of his sword, Bijendra’s hand dipped into a purse sequestered in his belt sash. He flung a couple of gold pieces onto the bar. “Calm yourself, good innkeeper. I seek your silence and possibly your witnessing, not your blood.”
Peeping tentatively out from his hasty hiding place, Norgen eyed the stranger uncertainly. Then he spotted the glint of gold on the bar and emerged the rest of the way. The coins looked real enough. So did the stranger’s grin, though it revealed all too many teeth for the dwarf’s liking.
“Silence you shall have, noble rakshasa.” He quickly scooped the coins off the scarred and gouged wood. “Are you truly a ranger?”
His long thick tail switching sharply back and forth, the visitor with the face and body of a backward-handed snow leopard and the bearing of a knight paused at the entrance to the inn.
“I go where I will, unconstrained by house, family, or friend. I journey freely and without encumbrance. No obligation lies upon my head as I travel to the Gray Downs.”
Norgen emerged further from behind the bar. “The Gray Downs! You’ll find nothing there but bare rock and cold memories. Why would a nobleman such as yourself seek such a place when temptation and good comfort lie the same distance away to the south in Fallcrest?”
“You may have heard me say that I seek a legend, told to me since youth of a place in the Gray Downs. It is called the Sword Barrow, and I would seek it out to learn the truth of the story. For I am on a journey on behalf of another more so than for myself.”
“Sword Barrow.” Norgen shook his head sadly as he regarded the stranger. “You have come a long way in search of a trash heap. Nothing lies there but rusting blades of ancient design.”
“Then I will return home satisfied in self and content in mind that I have done my best to learn that truth. Your concern is touching, innkeeper.”
“As is your gold.” One thick-fingered fist clutched the two coins the stranger had given him. “Journey well, then, noble cat-face. Journey safe. And beware the ancient warding magic they say lingers about that place like an outhouse stink.”
“I will be careful.” Bijendra indicated the unconscious ogres. “Will you be able to manage this lot? When they wake up, they will be discontented.”
Norgen smiled through his beard as he turned to take a sip from the untouched goblet. No sense in wasting good ale. “I have excellent clean-up people. Do not worry yourself on that score, stranger. Stranger?”
But in an elegant swirl of silks and scent, money and musk, the rakshasa ranger had disappeared.
On the southern edge of the Winterbole Forest, the Gray Downs formed an unhappy bulge between the Nentir and Winter Rivers. All soil fled, little but tough grass and determined bracken grew on the otherwise bare stone. Diced and broken by the contortions of a disturbed geology, the Downs promised a visitor rough walking and the likely prospect of a turned ankle.
Hailing from higher mountains, Bijendra was not intimidated by the crushed terrain. Picking his way westward, he soon found himself in the depths of the Downs themselves. Around him there was no sign of higher life, no calling of boars or bugling of deer-far less that of civilized conversation. Even the rats and mice, of whose presence there was ample evidence, were reluctant to show themselves in that place.
The Downs presented a prospect that was bleak enough during the day. Night was worse. The nearly treeless, rolling landscape lay barren and silent beneath a full moon, as if the spirit of life itself lay chained and jailed beneath the rocks. He had timed his traveling to be there on just such a night, because the legend told that it was then that She might appear.
It was when he entered the Sword Barrow that his hitherto austere surrounds for the first time took on a quietly threatening tone. Without having to search, his footsteps turned up first one half-buried blade, then another,
