Free Swords of Waar by Nathan Long Page B

around I still hadn’t seen any signs of life. I didn’t even smell any cooking or a fresh latrine, but then, as I was sneaking past the castle, I heard a cough.
    I hunched down behind a mound of rubble and looked up, thinking the sound mighta come from the warship, which was sailing so close to the mesa I could hear its sails flapping, but no, the ship was way on the other side just then, and that cough had been nearby.
    I turned toward the castle. I still couldn’t see any lights, but as I edged closer, I thought I heard a couple of people talking, low and quiet, then another cough. Yup. Definitely the castle, and definitely through that gap in the wall right in front of me. Hmmm. There was about forty feet of open space between me and it—so three or four long strides. I just had to time it so the warship was behind something as I made my run.
    I looked up. It was circling past a long open stretch where the outer wall was completely down, but beyond that was a narrow three-story building that had three walls intact. When the ship went behind that, they’d be blind for at least five seconds. Perfect.
    I waited until the prow of the ship just started slipping behind the building, then bolted, running as fast as I could across the courtyard. Not quite fast enough. I was still a stride away as the ship started coming out on the other side of the building, and I dove for the opening like I was diving for home plate.
    Well, I didn’t hear anything from the ship, and it didn’t shoot at me, so I guess that was a win, but I scared the living piss out of the two pirates who were on guard inside the room I dove into, and they did shoot at me. Fortunately, they were so surprised that their shots went nowhere near me, and I came up waving my hands to show I wasn’t armed.
    “Wait! Wait! I’m on your side, don’t—!”
    I don’t think they heard me. Their eyes were bugging out of their heads like they were on stalks, and their knees were shaking.
    “A demon!”
    “The priests have sent a demon after us!”
    They’d been standing at the head of a stairway that went down through the floor behind them, and now they turned and ran down it, still shouting.
    “Close the doors!”
    “We’re breached! Hurry!”
    I ran after ’em. “Goddamn it! Wait! I’m not a demon! I—”
    The double doors at the bottom of the stairs started to close. I jumped down the flight in one step and shouldered through just before they slammed shut, then went down on all fours as I tripped over one of the guys pushing them closed.
    I came up in a little room with an open door in the far wall, and smack dab in the middle of a handful of pirates, all staring at me and raising swords and axes and crossbows.
    “By the Seven, it’s horrible!”
    “The white skin! The red hair!”
    A tall, bald guy with a braided beard edged toward me, holding a cutlass and dagger.
    “Kill it, friends. Or we are all doomed.”
    “No you’re not doomed! Now just shut up and listen to—”
    They didn’t listen. They just came in, screaming and slashing. It was too tight in there to draw my ridiculous sword, and I didn’t want to anyway. I didn’t want to hurt these guys, I just wanted them to not kill me.
    Braid Face got to me first, and he was good, slashing with the cutlass to get me off balance, then stabbing at my blind side with the dagger, but all my months of gladiator training down in Doshaan hadn’t been for nothing. I kept my feet under me and caught his dagger hand as it came in, clamping hard on his wrist, then whipped him around at the rest of ’em like he was a giant rag doll.
    Guys staggered back with his knees to their jaws and his feet to their ears, but the guys with the crossbows were hanging back and aiming. I made to throw Braid Face at one of ’em and dive at the other, hoping my big-and-scary act would throw off their point blank aim, but before I could let go, a skinny pirate with a bandage around his middle limped into the room,