The Forge of Men Page 7

  The two once again began circling, with Nikomedes on the balls of his feet and Kratos plodding deliberately forward, his posture belying his immense speed and coordination.

  Nikomedes took a pair of textbook shuffle-steps forward before lashing out with his blade, aiming for Kratos’ lower midsection. Kratos easily brushed the first blow aside with the edge of his shield and counterattacked classically, bringing his own blade down toward Nikomedes’ shoulder. Nikomedes blocked the blow and kicked out with his right foot, aiming for Kratos’ lead knee in the final move of the fluid, practiced combination he had learned at Felix’ instruction.

  But the larger man had clearly anticipated the attack, having already raised his lead, left foot from the ground to avoid the attack. Before Nikomedes recovered his balance—and in a wholly unexpected move—Kratos jumped from the ground and drove forward with a kick of his own. His armored boot came dangerously close to Nikomedes’ head as the younger man’s lightning quick reflexes were all that saved him from a trip to the dirt, and he quickly rolled away before regaining his feet.

  “Pedantic,” Kratos rumbled, and for the first time Nikomedes felt uncertain of victory as he looked up at the massive man. His combination of speed, size and power had never failed him before—even against Felix, that particular combination attack had at least resulted in Nikomedes gaining the initiative—but standing before him was a man who was capable of dealing with everything he had thrown at him without breaking stride.

  And all of this took place mere minutes after losing an eye.

  Nikomedes shook such thoughts from his mind as he began to circle again—this time circling to his left. Kratos grinned savagely as he accepted the position, and closed distance quickly with a pair of quick, massive strides.

  Kratos’ blade lashed out point-first, and Nikomedes parried it with his own blade easily enough but the large man followed up with a barrage of short, stabbing attacks. He varied his thrusts between high and low strikes, and Nikomedes was forced to block with his shield after the third such strike.

  The larger man then spun around so quickly that Nikomedes barely had time to react as Kratos’ blade split the air where the younger man’s ankles had been an instant earlier. Sensing an opportunity—and unable to discern a clearer course of action—Nikomedes planted his feet briefly after landing and leapt into the air, bringing his blade high in the hope of impaling the larger man’s neck from above as he came down.

  Kratos’ shield came up at the last instant to successfully block the attack, and Nikomedes felt his chest explode in pain as Kratos turned the would-be killing blow aside while rising to his full stature and planting a knee into Nikomedes’ lower sternum.

  Nikomedes knew he had broken at least a half dozen ribs, and it was all he could do to fight the urge to collapse on the ground gasping for air as his lungs no longer obeyed him. He managed to keep his feet, however, and backed away doing his best not to cradle his ruined torso.

  “Rash…and tiresome,” he heard Kratos growl, and Nikomedes’ senses returned just in time to see the mountain of a man barreling toward him with his sword raised for a killing blow.

  He weakly blocked the blow with his shield, which Kratos then knocked from his grasp with a quick kick. The shield went flying and Nikomedes backpedaled away, desperate to regain his breath as his entire body began to burn from the exertion.

  But Kratos had clearly decided now was the time to end the impromptu duel, and he hurled his own shield like a discus toward Nikomedes without breaking stride.

  Nikomedes barely managed to duck the incoming projectile, but doing so cost him precious distance—distance which Kratos closed faster than Nikomedes had believed possible.

  He brought his blade up to defend himself as he felt a surge of indignation at this man having toyed with him. Ignoring his shattered ribcage—not to mention his lack of breath—he hurled his own blade at Kratos’ hips. Kratos easily deflected the missile with his own weapon, but doing so had brought the blade’s tip down to the ground and Nikomedes lunged toward the larger man with outstretched hands seeking to wrestle the blade from the larger man’s grip.

  Nikomedes saw a look of surprise come across the behemoth’s features, but he quickly regained his composure. Still, Nikomedes had managed to snake his right arm around Kratos’ forearm, and locked his left hand onto the larger man’s massive, scarred wrist.

  Nikomedes felt the larger man’s free fist bury itself in his kidneys, but he kept his focus on breaking the man’s grip on his sword. He used the same technique he had employed against Felix two days earlier, pressing his armored head against Kratos’ face and neck and thrusting his hips away from the larger man’s body to create as much leverage as possible against the pinned arm—and to avoid being lifted and slammed onto his head, as had happened against Felix.

  “Interesting,” he heard Kratos hiss from behind him as he continued to rain furious punches into Nikomedes’ back, breaking at least another two ribs in the process. Nikomedes did his best to rake his metal helmet across the other man’s face, but to no apparent effect.

  Then, inexplicably, Kratos dropped the sword and Nikomedes was tempted to leap for it. But he recognized the ploy for what it was before he did so. Before he could have brought the weapon to bear, the larger man would have likely gripped him in a crushing bear hug like Felix had so frequently used, and there was no way Nikomedes could fight out of such a hold in perfect shape—let alone his current condition.

  “Good,” Kratos congratulated as he continued to rain punishing blows into Nikomedes’ flank, and Nikomedes felt his left leg go numb when one of those blows landed on his spinal column.

  He realized that this was to be the end of his life, one way or another, and that realization filled him with a sensation he had only felt once before:

  Rage.

  The words of his former warlord echoing in his mind, and it was as though a great beast had risen up somewhere within his body—and it brought with it a final surge of defiant strength.

  Without thinking about the move beforehand, he collapsed and twisted his hips slightly. When he felt Kratos’ body fall forward as a result of his subtle shift in posture, he threw his legs over in a counterclockwise rotation as he gripped his foe’s arm with all his might.

  With a roar of surprise, Kratos tumbled to the ground with him just as Nikomedes had expected—only he had not kept his arm free as Felix had done two days earlier, which was a common mistake for those uninitiated in the higher arts of unarmed combat.

  Instinctively wrapping his legs around the man’s massive arm as the rolled to a stop, he isolated Kratos’ shoulder and squeezed with his thighs as hard as he could while straightening his foe’s arm. This flattened the larger man out on his back momentarily, and Nikomedes brought his adversary’s hand up to the center of his chest, ignoring the incredible pain caused by doing so. He pulled with his arms and pushed with his hips, as he squeezed Kratos’ shoulder in a joint lock his father had taught him as a boy.

  But Kratos was too big, too strong and, most surprising of all, too flexible. He rolled backward by throwing his legs up over his head and Nikomedes rolled with him, straining for all he was worth. He felt muscles in Kratos’ arm begin to tear—he only needed a few more of them to go before the bones of the arm snapped, and he would have gained a decisive, final advantage.

  But Kratos, using his sheer, brute strength, gathered his feet under himself and clasped his free hand to the wrist Nikomedes had trapped. Impossibly, he began to lift, and Nikomedes fought with every fiber of his being to break his foe’s arm before the other man regained his feet.

  He felt his own muscles begin to shred, and he even heard a pop in the larger man’s arm just as Kratos regained his feet. But before he knew what had happened, Nikomedes felt his body lift from the ground an instant before the world turned to black.

  Nikomedes regained his senses lying on the ground, and it took him a few moments to realize he was still in the middle of the
circle.

  Is this the afterlife, he wondered, have I been uploaded?

  Then a massive boot came into view, and he looked up to see Kratos towering over him. The large man bent down, his right arm hanging limply at his side, and he pressed a blade to Nikomedes’ throat with the other, still functioning hand.

  “You have a choice, man-child,” Kratos explained casually, a hint of grudging respect in his voice. “You’ve given me something I hadn’t expected to receive here: a surprise.” He tilted his head toward the line of Ice Raiders, who Nikomedes only now realized were standing behind the kneeling remnants of Felix’ army. “My men believe my magnanimity to be a weakness, but I intend to prove them otherwise,” he continued, “and in the spirit of…honorable resolution, I offer you new terms.”

  Nikomedes blinked his eyes to clear the fog, and saw Cassius kneeling near the end of the line, looking at him with a mixture of fear and hope—it was a look he would remember for the rest of his life.

  “You see,” said Kratos, “according to our agreement, you’ve lost and your men’s lives are forfeit. But a handful of survivors to spread word of my prowess…well, there are worse outcomes to such a bloody conflict, no?”

  Nikomedes looked up at Kratos, whose ruined cheek was even more mutilated than it had been before their duel, and he took a moment to savor the damage he had wrought. “What do you want?” he asked groggily, his words slurring in his throat.

  Kratos shrugged, “That’s the simple part: you.”

  Nikomedes blinked, certain he had heard wrong, and that his senses were playing tricks on him. “What do you mean?” he asked warily.

  The massive man chuckled. “Boy, you gave me more of a fight than my own cousin,” he explained. “I can use men like you in my organization. Swear fealty to me and I’ll release your men.”

  Nikomedes locked gazes with the larger man, and narrowed his eyes. “Why shouldn’t I kill you at the first opportunity?”

  Kratos pressed the knife against Nikomedes’ neck, and he felt his warm, vital fluid begin to drip down the side of his throat. “You’re an honorable man; you wouldn’t go back on your word, no matter how misguided or foolish the agreement.”

  “How do you know that?” Nikomedes demanded, actually insulted that Kratos believed to have his measure so quickly.

  Kratos leaned down until his face was a foot from Nikomedes’ own. “My cousin would never have trained you as he did if you hadn’t shared his pathetic sensibilities. I am offering you a chance to save the lives of your men and ensure that I leave these lands unmolested, which is certainly an honorable sacrifice…don’t you think?” he asked with a condescending sneer. “What say you: death or honor?”

  Nikomedes glanced over at the remains of Felix’s army, making brief eye contact with Cassius before closing his eyes in resignation. “For how long?” he asked with a sigh as something between relief and defeat washed over him.

  Kratos looked over at the line and worked his mouth as he silently counted. “I see thirty nine survivors who can leave the field on their own legs, thanks to your quick thinking,” he said with a hint of approval. “You owe me that number of kills—on battlefields of my choosing—and then you’re free to do as you will. I promise I will not restrain you longer than five years in any case.”

  He had never before contemplated surrender, and the concept was something utterly foreign to him. But in that moment, Nikomedes could see no alternative which would not result in needless death—which his warlord had done his best to avoid.

  “Very well, Kratos,” Nikomedes said grudgingly as his senses sharpened. “You release them and leave these lands without further molestation, and I will serve you as a bonded warrior for five years’ time, or until I’ve made thirty nine confirmed kills.”

  Kratos withdrew the blade from Nikomedes’ neck and nodded in satisfaction. “I take you to be a man of his word, and I agree to these terms.”

  With a wave of his hand, the Ice Raiders pulled back a pair of steps and placed their weapons at ease. The men of Felix’s army stood slowly and looked around for a moment at their fallen comrades.

  “We will require a few hours’ time to conduct our funerary rites,” Kratos explained to the thirty nine survivors, “what with the scarcity of burnable wood in the area. But after that, you may do as you please with the spoils of war,” he waved to the corpses. “We did not come here for arms or armor, and we have no intention of carrying everything we brought back with us—but we will observe our funeral rites before you observe yours.”

  Cassius nodded in agreement and gestured to his fellow men to make their way to the far end of the field.

  Kratos watched them go, and when they were at a respectful remove, he placed the fingers of his left hand in his mouth and whistled. Nikomedes fought to his feet, which was more difficult than he had imagined it would be owing to the intense vertigo and vision loss which occurred as he did so.

  But he managed to regain his balance after a few seconds’ struggle, and when he had done so he saw the rest of Kratos’ army emerge on the far side of the field. They had hidden below a rolling hill, and now that they were in plain view Nikomedes could not help but question Kratos’ supposed lack of honor. He was a bestial, savage man, but he had far more soldiers ready for action than did Felix at the outset, and it would have been a small thing to overwhelm their force with his own after dividing them.

  Such thoughts would normally be unthinkable to Nikomedes, but he had never met a true heretic before Kratos…and he wondered what it meant for his soul to have pledged himself to such a man.

  He cast a look toward his new warlord and wondered if he had done the right thing.

  Chapter IV: A New Home

  After conducting the funerary rites—which involved little more than the reclamation of the ‘true’ cat-skin cloaks from the fallen elites—the Ice Raiders gathered enough wood for a truly massive bonfire and heaped the bodies on top of it before setting fire to the wood.

  Nikomedes had been mistaken in his initial impression about the cat-skin cloaks; they were not black, but brown and dark grey in an alternating diamond pattern which he had never seen before.

  After the blaze had been set, the Ice Raiders stood silently at the inferno’s edge until they were satisfied that the deed was done, and then turned as one to begin the long march north.

  Two months later and Nikomedes’ wounds were healed. There were skilled surgeons in the Ice Raider camp, and Kratos had made a point of seeing that Nikomedes was well cared for during the return trip.

  Kratos kept to himself on the trail, and Nikomedes scarcely spoke with anyone as they trudged through the increasingly cold climate of fall turning to winter, which grew colder and wetter the further north they went.

  The Ice Raiders lived up to their names, as they had not carried sufficient supplies to billet themselves, so they had taken to raiding the nearby villages as they passed through the area. This behavior was wholly dishonorable, and violated several basic laws of society which Nikomedes had grown up believing in with every fiber of his being, but the Ice Raiders seemed to think nothing of it.

  Still, they refrained from causing wanton destruction or bringing violence to the people of those villages, which was a small—yet important—distinction to Nikomedes’ mind. Without their hard-earned supplies, the villagers would find the bitter cold of winter difficult to survive but at least they would have a chance. In any case, such decisions were no longer in his control—he was a follower now, and could not challenge his new warlord without breaking his oath of service.

  One day, a week after snow had begun to fall and covered the ground in a slushy, muddy mess, Kratos fell back to meet with Nikomedes.

  “Are your wounds healed?” the giant of a man asked as he fell in beside the young man.

  “They are,” Nikomedes replied, feeling fit for the first time since the battle. His ribs had healed, albeit slightly crookedly in a few cases, and his breathing no longer caused him ago
ny.

  Kratos’ facial wounds were closed, and the thick, pink scar tissue which had formed under the surgeons’ careful supervision had healed far better than Nikomedes had expected.

  “You fought well at Felix’ side,” Kratos said after a long pause. “You killed three of my Black Arrows that day…my cousin must have taught you well.”

  Nikomedes kept his eyes forward as they continued their march toward the white-capped mountains, which had drawn nearer with each passing day. A pair of massive, nearly identical peaks rose from the mountain range directly ahead of them, and it was clear that the valley between them was the only real passage through the mountains.

  “Felix was my warlord for two years,” Nikomedes replied evenly. “He taught me much of what I know…but not all.”

  Kratos nodded knowingly. “That arm lock was like nothing I have ever seen,” the huge man said with something approaching admiration as he flexed the fingers of his right arm and gave his recently healed limb a thorough, inspecting look. “And what’s this nonsense I keep hearing of a kraken?”

  Nikomedes shook his head in resignation. He had known that he would need to deal with this particular question eventually, but it still felt uncomfortable doing so.

  “Nearly three years ago, my father was Guardian to a woman of low nobility,” he explained. “One night, while we slept, a small group of men came to the modest estate which she owned and fell upon them as they slept. The next day his body was nowhere to be found, but hers was still in their shared bed.”

  Kratos grunted at this, and a strange expression came over his ruined features, but he failed to elaborate further so Nikomedes continued, “Not long after, Hold Mistress Eukaria pronounced sentence on my father’s line and I was to be marked as a traitor…like my father. I studied tradition and lore with the intention of arguing my line’s case, but I quickly learned that there was no room for objection in the Hold’s system of justice.”