They drew their blades, those specters, and started toward him, the sound of their approach masked by the thick snow, so that everything was silent save for his own breath which plumed in front of him in the cold. He shifted, rolling his shoulders to loosen them and the frost which had gathered on the fur covering him cracked as he did. He flexed the fingers of his gloved hands, working what warmth he could into his numb body. He did not fear—that, then, was another thing he shared with the man he had once been. Perhaps he would die and perhaps he would not. If he prevailed, he would continue on with the boy into an uncertain future, and if he did not...well, perhaps that would be better, for the dead have no regrets, and they alone reside in a place where the past cannot follow.
They approached in unison, warily, their blades held in front of them. Professionals, then, disciplined men who had done this before and who would likely do it again. Only, they would not. For while the men were soldiers, probably some of the best—after all, only the best would be tasked with such an errand as they now followed—he was not. He was a killer. Marching and holding lines, standing in a shield wall and following commands, these were the things at which soldiers excelled. Killers, though, had only the one talent.
He remained still as they drew closer until they were only a few dozen feet away, spread out around him like the end-spokes of some great wheel, one which had turned since before his birth and would continue to turn long after he had faded to dust. They all hesitated, as if surprised to find him unmoving, then one of them motioned with his hand, a gesture just barely visible in the driving snow, and they started forward once more. Six men with six swords. But he did not fear. They, after all, were only men. He had faced far worse.
He stood watching as the men crept closer, slowly, ever so slowly, for they would have been told who their target was, would know the lethality of the beast they’d been set to hunt. He remained still, watching them, watching until twenty feet turned to fifteen, until fifteen turned to ten.
Then he moved.
Poets and bards the world over often likened a warrior’s movements to wind or rain, smooth and graceful, and perhaps they were even right to do so. But Cutter was no warrior. He was a killer and a killer only, so he charged toward the nearest man who waved his sword in a defensive pattern. Truly a professional, one meaning to stall until his fellows arrived. But Cutter’s father had told him and his brother, long ago, before they had become the men they were, that when faced with a job to do, a man had best get it done. And so he did. Instead of allowing himself to be slowed by the man’s attacks, he charged directly into them, batting the sweeping blade away with a forearm covered in thick fur, fur which did much to keep the keen edge of the blade from his flesh. Much, but not all.
He felt the kiss of steel along his forearm, but paid it no attention as he dove forward into the man, lifting him up with both hands by the front of his tunic and jerking him toward him even as his head lunged forward, crashing into the man’s face in a crimson shower of blood and teeth. He dropped the man—unconscious or dead—and lifted his sword in time for two more to be on him. The sword was not his weapon of choice, a weapon made for finesse and skill, and he wielded it with both hands, swinging it in vicious, deadly arcs that would have looked more at home on a lumberjack at his trade.
The men were well-trained, and parried the way they should have, but no matter what stories they had heard of him, they were not ready for his strength, a strength which knocked the first soldier’s blade out of his hands and then powered his own sword as it cleaved deeply into the man’s face and forehead.
The soldier screamed, but abruptly grew silent as Cutter ripped the blade free and, with a horizontal slash, lopped his head free of his shoulders. He let the hilt of his sword loose with one hand as he did, grabbing the headless corpse and spinning, interposing it between him and his other attacker just in time for the blade which had been darting at his back to stick into the corpse instead. Then he flung the impaled corpse into this new attacker, and both man and dead man were sent tumbling over.
It would have been sporting, then, to let the man rise, to let him clamber his way free of his dead companion, but Cutter had never been a sporting man, just as he had never been a soldier, and he brought the blade down in a two handed stab that pierced corpse and man alike before driving into the snow-laden ground and sticking deep into the earth. He left the man there, screaming, writhing, and turned to face the remaining three, weaponless once more.
They hesitated, spread out in front of him, shocked, perhaps, by the violence which had occurred or maybe thinking of the best way to get at him. He didn’t give them time, for hesitation, he knew, got more men killed
