“Hygiene gets the best of us all, feel no shame in that.”
His sight, much to his relief, was now back to normal and he saw the malevolent night haunter stand in disbelief staring at him.
“You’ve have had it too easy for too long. A blind one-legged baby burping would throw you off. And I’m not that, am I!”
He attacked shouting the battle cry of his ancestors. The creature found itself on the defensive kicking with his hooves at this being who seemed to time the blows to the last second before avoiding them. Moments later it managed to rip its talons across his chest mail tearing the links and sending Sumunguru spinning and off balanced into a wall niche. Slamming hard he dropped his sword. Leaping to catch the warrior before he could right himself, it rushed at its disarmed enemy, sensing victory over the arrogant mortal. Sumunguru struck out with a hard kick to the creature’s chest, then grasping its outstretched right arm flipped it into the wall. Grabbing his sword, he readied himself to deliver the final blow only to have to leap high over its scything talons as it came at him on his knees.
Now the old Celt-Iberian haunt, knowing the doubts of previous opponents it had faced, flailed away furiously as Sumunguru sought to deliver telling blows of his own. To him the creature was fast and tough. It parried off his blows or swerved its body aside when the evernight strike was on its way. He blocked its frantic sweeps when they came too near or ducked or spun away. He sang a traditional battle song all the while shouting “Hai!” when he struck home.
Then, at last, a thrust got through to the being’s chest, all fears of being locked forever in combat with this foe leaving him. A thin ichor splatted on his blade as the creature started to convulse. Trying to muster all its seductive power back, it looked imploringly at him. But all it heard was, “This is for them, night vomit!” and the shearing of its ancient flesh by the vengeful dark-skinned king.
* * *
Sebastiano and five of his men were still in hiding but not from the parties of the Silver Panther. Christian warriors from Aragon had overwhelmed him in this, his once haven of the hills. Sebastiano witnessed a band led by knights such as he used to fancy himself overwhelm his pursuer, Kalawun BrokeNose, slaughtering them to a man. What this portended for the future of Malik Battur was not good. Nor for him.
“Don Sebastiano,” one of his men called to him. “What is it Ruy? Another Aragonese patrol?”
“No, maybe that might be better. It’s that Negro swordsman. And he has the Dona Dihya with him.”
Sebastiano scrambled up to where his man was and saw coming towards them the daughter of the caid looking none to indisposed. In fact, she was riding the grey of her late, butchered husband, without a veil and smiling as she did so. And he strode towards them as if he was coming to resume his seat at his castle after a successful hunt on the estate.
“Ho, Cebashinno!” he called out nonchalantly, “Let us make haste from these hills. They’ve acquired new owners who might be over particular in who they allow in them. The Lady Dihya will like some food if you have it.”
“We thought you dead,” said the man Ruy.
“That’s gotten to be a habit with me lately,” Sumunguru said smiling tossing down a torn garment soaked in blood and buzzing about with flies. Inside were what appeared to be two heads. “Something extra for our paymaster,” said Sumunguru.
The Three-Faced One
By
Charles R. Saunders
The warrior peered intently over a high sandstone escarpment. An unfamiliar landscape spread like a ragged carpet beneath him. Far to the north, his keen vision could discern a dark smudge on the horizon: not storm clouds, but smoke and ash flung skyward from the fiery throats of a lengthy range of volcanoes that erupted only intermittently, but were never completely quiescent. The volcanic range, along with its immediate surroundings, was known as Motoni, the northernmost boundary of the mighty continent called Nyumbani.
It was said that nothing could live in Motoni ... nothing other than demons and the spirits of the damned. The warrior had no desire to encounter either, though he would not retreat if he were confronted. What he saw in the area beneath the escarpment interested him more than the tales of vagabonds who had ventured close to – but never into – Motoni.
The land before him was bleak, but not blasted. Part of it consisted of semi-arid territory, with patches of scrub-brush interspersed with the occasional flat-topped acacia tree. Desert antelope with horns as straight as spears browsed on the brush, and puffs of dust marked the passage of other, smaller creatures that moved so swiftly that the dust was all that could be seen of them.
The other part – the part that lay to the east – was covered with short, dun-colored grass. Blade-leafed mopane trees grew in copses not large enough to be considered forests. Herds of gnu, zebra and impala grazed the plain. Their ears flickered and their nostrils twitched as they kept constant vigil for signs of lurking flesh-eaters.
Farther to the east, the warrior saw clusters of stony spires that towered like monuments to forgotten deities. Outcrops of rock were present on the arid side as well, but they rose in isolation, and were not as high as their eastern counterparts.
At the border of the two territories, sand and grass competed in a never-ending struggle, with dry yellow fingers
