In the second battle a sorcerer and a mercenary struggled to the death. Ajunge reveled in the exhilaration of close quarter combat. How long had it been since he used his sword, felt the sturdy heft of its hell-forged blade, the smooth flow of its motion? Too long!
Toulou ducked as the demon-sorcerer’s blade passed above him in a clean stroke that would have surely taken his head. He leaned in with his own sword, aiming for the demon-sorcerer’s heart. The mage stepped back avoiding the thrust, at the same using his blade to slap Toulou’s sword aside. Toulou countered with a diagonal dagger slash to the face. Ajunge jerked his head back. The dagger missed by inches. Ajunge whirled around like a mad dervish, his sword whizzing in cross strokes that Toulou labored to parry. A tip of the demon-sorcerer’s sword caught Toulou’s dagger arm, drawing a gash across his tricep. First blood.
Toulou ignored the wound, his mind sorting out an array of techniques to use against his opponent. For a practitioner of the magic arts this demon-sorcerer was unexpectedly skilled with the sword, much to Toulou’s dismay.
The demon-sorcerer squatted low enough to cut at Toulou’s ankles. Toulou leapt as the blade blurred underneath his feet. With near impossible swiftness Ajunge brought his sword up in a back swing with the intent of disemboweling the human as he landed.
Toulou barely blocked the blow. But doing so tilted him off balance and the force of the deflection knocked the sword out of his hand.
Toulou’s sword went flying before clattering to the floor far beyond his reach. He stumbled backward struggling to regain some equilibrium.
The demon-sorcerer charged ahead, seeing the human in disarray. He double gripped his sword, lifting it high in a chopping position.
Rather than resist the inevitable fall, Toulou sailed with the motion, hitting the floor in a fluid roll. He caught a split-second glimpse of a double-pronged blade flying toward him and Toulou side-rolled. A bloom of sparks erupted where Ajunge’s hot steel collided with the cold stone floor.
Toulou leapt to his feet dagger still in hand. Skilled as the demon-sorcerer had demonstrated himself to be Toulou saw a weakness. His opponent was too hell-bent on killing, less concerned with protecting himself. He was becoming reckless.
The demon-sorcerer brought his sword up then down in another overhand stroke. Toulou spotted an opening and glided beneath his foe’s swing. He deftly adjusted his grip on his dagger and sank it hilt-deep into the side of the demon-sorcerer’s neck.
A vital artery severed; blood poured from the wound like water through a sieve. Ajunge staggered sideways like a drunkard, one hand pressed to his neck in a vain attempt to block the bleeding. The demon-sorcerer’s grip on his sword weakened until it slipped out of his hand. He dropped to his knees.
Toulou stood over the dying sorcerer, marveling at how the color and consistency of the latter’s blood closely matched that of human blood.
Ajunge gazed up at the foreigner, disbelief clear as daylight in his expression. His eyes and mouth were agape; his body trembling as if struggling not lose his hold on life.
Toulou gave the demon-sorcerer another taste of his dagger. This time through the heart.
The demon-sorcerer’s ragged breathing ceased in an instant and the rest of his body collapsed to the floor.
Toulou stepped back, allowing the tunnel vision of his duel with the demon-sorcerer to expand and encompass the rest of the hall.
He saw that the guardsmen and empee warriors were victorious. The lacerated bodies of the expressionless demon-men were scattered across the floor. And the queen was alive.
Toulou met Zara’s eyes and the two shared a smile.
The kingdom exploded in jubilation at the demon-sorcerer’s demise. Celebrations marked every corner of the land. Queen Zara opened up her palace to her joyous subjects and every space from the courtyard to the parade ground throbbed with revelers.
Zara’s name rang to the heavens in rapturous chants.
The queen stood on the palace terrace next to Toulou, casting an appreciative gaze upon the crowd below. While she was touched by the chants, Zara felt in no way deserving of the adulation. The credit for this victory belonged to the man beside her.
“How did you survive the demon-sorcerer’s attack?” She asked Toulou. “What magic did you use?”
Toulou shook his head. “There was no magic, your majesty. No charms, no amulets, no whispered spells or incantations. It was a matter of not believing.”
“Not believing?”
“The demon-sorcerer’s power was fueled by people’s belief in its potency,” Toulou explained. “With belief came the fear. He used that fear to exert his control over you. I never for an instant believed he had the power to kill me, which is why his fire had no effect on me. That’s also why his army was not as invincible as on previous encounters. My men did not just train your soldiers in the use of new arms and new tactics. We had to train their minds to believe that the demon-sorcerer’s minions could die on the field of battle as easily as a man.”
Zara looked away as a surge of guilt and frustration bubbled inside her. “The men I sent to their deaths, the men he forced me to kill, my dead subjects...all of this evil he wrought upon my kingdom could have been avoided had I simply stopped believing in his power.”
Toulou put a gentle hand on the queen’s shoulder. “Do not blame yourself, your majesty. You had no way of knowing the secret to his power. No one in your kingdom did.”
Zara put her hand over his, taking a measure of solace in the foreigner’s words. “So, what lies ahead for you? More war and profit?”
Toulou’s gaze shifted to a point beyond the horizon. “It’s what I live for.”
While disappointment clouded Zara’s expectations, she did detect a note of hesitation in Toulou’s reply.
That night the queen took the foreigner
