The Forever Knight

37

I took my time leaving the tomb. For awhile I stared at the place where the portal had been, wondering at the kind of world Diriel would find there. It seemed perfect for a cruel lunatic like him. I had, in fact, kept my promise to him. I had given him what he wanted: his monster. Let Gahoreth deal with him, I figured. This world, my world, was better off without him.

In the last two days I had killed more men than I could count. Their blood crusted my fingernails. But I still had one more execution to carry out. I lingered by the dead portal a few moments more, then sauntered out of the chamber and through the corridors of the tomb without the aid of my fire stick. I didn’t suppose that Wrestler had run off. In some ways he was as insane as Diriel and still thought he could best me. When at last I emerged from the cave, Wrestler was waiting for me, standing in the river, stripped to the waist. He had removed his sword as well, tossing it to the riverbank where his horse waited. The three legionnaires lay dead in the mud.

At first I thought Wrestler had killed them. He was completely unbothered by their corpses, stretching his enormous back and contorting his arms into impossible shapes as he prepared for our fight. He paused as he saw me come out of the cave, and didn’t seem surprised I was alone.

“You killed him,” sighed Wrestler. “I knew it the moment these clods dropped dead. Diriel was a fool to trust you.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “Your master got what he wanted. The monster took him to hell.” I stepped out to the bank of the river, spying the dead legionnaires. If they had died when Diriel left, maybe the other legionnaires did, too. That was part of the plan I hadn’t counted on, but it thrilled me. Isowon was safe, then. “You should have run,” I told Wrestler. “I would have found you eventually, but as least you’d have had a chance.”

Wrestler threaded his fingers together, raised his hands over his bald head, and stretched his body until his spine popped. He bent almost all the way backwards, then stood upright again, grabbed his right leg, and touched his ankle to his chin. I had never seen anything like it.

“Do you know how hard it is for me to find an opponent worth fighting? Maybe you’ll be it this time. You certainly weren’t last time.” He gestured to my sword. “Will you be a man and toss that away?”

I thought of taking his head off with a stroke. He knew I could have, but knew I wouldn’t. I undid the Sword of Angels from my waist and laid it down in the mud of the river bank. I expected Malator to scream at me, to chide my foolishness, but he didn’t. Instead he whispered vengeance in my ear.

Make him suffer.

I pulled off my boots and lay them by my sword. I had wrestled like this as a boy, half-naked and brutal, just to prove myself. It felt oddly familiar when my bare feet hit the mud. I strode out into the river, charged with Malator’s power. Wrestler seemed to be growing by the moment. His giant chest swelled out as he stretched, his ropey arms flexing. The veins in his head pulsed and turned his face scarlet.

“Something went wrong in this part of the world,” I lamented as I watched him. “Butchers for kings, freaks for subjects. I won’t miss this place at all.”

Wrestler stopped stretching and made his stance, bending his knees to pounce. “She said her name was Lisea,” he taunted. “Have you ever been with so young a girl?”

Why, I wondered, had she told him that? Had she remembered her name when he was raping her? But there was nothing he could say to goad me. “She was better than this world,” I replied. “She’s in a better place. Not where you’re going, by the way.”

I saw no remorse in him at all. “You loved her.”

“I loved her,” I admitted. “But with humanity. You’re an animal, Wrestler.”

We’d both crawled out of slums, I realized. Wrestler became a beast. I became. . whatever I was. I didn’t move, waiting for him to come. When he did he came flying. His big body left the ground, his arms out and reaching, spanning the yards between us like a stallion. His speed shocked me, and though I spun to avoid him he hooked me somehow with his fingers, grabbing my ankle as he crashed to the ground and twisted me off my feet. My face hit the rocks; I felt a sudden pain as he wrenched my leg upward. Just as he’d done in Arad, he wrapped himself around me like tentacles, forcing me into his hold.

I barely resisted.

His legs wrapped around my chest and squeezed. The air seeped from my lungs. I closed my eyes and summoned the strength of Malator, concentrating only on my pinned right arm. Wrestler put all his might into crushing me. I felt my bones constrict under his assault. I could smell his sweat as it dripped on me. Slowly, bit by bit, I tugged my arm out of his hold. He cursed as he felt me slipping away, tried to flip me onto my back. That one fatal move loosened his grip. Out came my arm, my fingers like arrows shooting into his skull, bursting one of his eyes. Wrestler screamed, letting go of me and spinning away, but now I was the hunter. I snaked my arm around his neck, used my other arm for leverage, and dragged him backward. He fell against me, choking, gurgling, his legs flailing and his eye socket sluicing blood.

“Wait, wait,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t die yet.”

His iron fingers worked to wedge themselves under my hold. I tightened just enough to threaten him. Saliva dripped from his mouth, but his screams were nearly silent, more like a screech.

“Now you know what it’s like to be helpless,” I said, wrenching him back each time he struggled. “Now you know what it’s like to be a little girl, afraid, with no one around to help you!”

He cursed and kicked but couldn’t free himself. I delighted in his antics. Like a cruel child I wanted to torture him, to make him suffer as Cricket had suffered, but I knew there was no bringing her back. There was only this brutal kind of justice.

“Good-bye, Wrestler,” I sneered. “Let’s see how you do with a broken neck.”

I jerked back, flexed my arm, and snapped him like a toy, twisting his head around as the last breath gurgled from his lips. He died instantly, falling against me, then into the river. I leaned back and watched the water wash through his ruined eye, and I remembered how much losing an eye had hurt. It was so much worse than when my neck broke. I was glad Wrestler had experienced both.

His horse nibbled at the grass by the riverbank. The horses of the three dead legionnaires wandered aimlessly around their corpses. I stood up in the river, and when I did Venger came to me, splashing through the water to reach me. It took a moment for me to realize it was over. I rubbed Venger’s eager nose, my mind strangely blank. With the legionnaires dead, surely Isowon was safe now. There was almost no reason for me to return there.

Almost no reason. There was still the matter of friendship.