Free DW02 Dragon War by Mark Acres Page B

a second blow, and then a third. The bone gave way, and the steel cut through the remainder of the stringy flesh. Bagsby fell to the street, the ice-cold hand still locked about his throat.
    The soldier stood motionless. Bagsby rolled onto his back, clutched the hand that continued to choke him, and pried back the thumb. He hurled the severed member into the crowd that had gathered to laugh, jeer, cheer, and strip the soldier’s body of anything that could be cut loose from it. The man seemed not to even notice their presence. He stood, Bagsby assumed, stunned, looking blankly at the empty space that a moment before had contained his hand and Bagsby’s head. Very, very slowly, a few droplets of black blood began to drip from the severed end of his wrist.
    No time to waste. Bagsby rolled his head in the sandy muck of the street, and saw his staff which he had dropped when the man grabbed him. He rolled, grasped the weapon, hopped to his feet, and then doubled over as his lungs vomited up the fluid that had begun to fill them. Bagsby hacked and gagged, coughing violently, trying to suck in great gasps the air that his burning lungs rejected.
    “Go on,” voices from the crowd shouted. “Kill him!”
    “Somebody get that horse,” another called.
    “Can’t make him let go of it,” answered another man, who was prying at the zombie’s grip on the reins. “Have to cut bridle and reins, I guess....”
    The zombie whirled, rocking unsteadily on its feet, and landed a crushing blow with the bloody stump of its right arm against the side of the man’s head. The thief went sprawling.
    Bagsby managed to stand erect, and he saw the would-be owner of his horse go flying into the crowd. He hefted his staff, lowered his head, and swung—aiming for his assailant’s unprotected shins, which protruded from below the mid-calf length of the chain mail. The blow landed solidly; Bagsby felt pain in his hands as the staff shattered from the impact.
    Unnoticed by the jeering crowd and the stunned Bagsby, a decrepit, fat, old crow circled lazily down from the sky far overhead to land on a nearby rooftop.
    Bagsby stared at his opponent, not believing what he saw. The man had not even flinched from the blow that should have filled his mind with overwhelming pain. Bagsby thought he might even have broken the shinbone, or at least cracked it. But the soldier showed no reaction. He turned his head slowly to face the shorter man, and his dull eyes seemed to gleam for an instant.
    “Bagsby,” he growled, spitting the word into the air.
    “Nice to see you again,” Bagsby taunted back. “But I really have no time for a chat just now. Maybe later!” Bagsby dropped the worthless staff, swept up his dagger, and took a running leap into the crowd that circled the two combatants. A well-placed boot here and a fist there soon cleared him a path. The little man ran down the narrow street, came to the first intersecting alleyway, turned, and ran some more. He kept running, taking widening circles through the backstreets for several minutes, until he was well away from the scene of the fight, and the crowds no longer recognized him as the little man who had just been half-killed by the strange, one-handed soldier.
    Finally he stopped running, drawing up to rest against the whitewashed wall of a two-story building. He leaned back and drew quick, deep breaths. What in the name of all the gods, he wondered, had that been about? He was sure he didn’t recognize the man, and most of the victims of the more elaborate swindles he had pulled he would certainly know on sight. Other victims of his vocation either did not know him or seldom lived to describe him, and the young soldiers he’d robbed on the road were still days away from Laga by foot—even if they had come east instead of west. Bagsby shook his head. It didn’t make sense. He tried again to picture the soldier in his mind. Was there something about the livery markings that was familiar? But