Travellers' Rest Read Free Page A

good. Iagiawôn turned slightly to face the flying mug and caught it in his spinning blades; it shattered like glass. One of the larger chunks bounced off Morlock’s knee and he staggered a bit. Iagiawôn gleefully stabbed at him with his sheaf of blades, but Morlock managed to keep his feet and fend off the blades with a sweeping slash, like a reaper mowing glittering deadly stalks of hay.
    “I told you to get them out!” Morlock shouted to Wyrth past his antagonist.
    Wyrth hesitated. That meant Morlock thought there was a real likelihood Iagiawôn would win the fight, and Wyrth and the others would be in danger. On the other hand, Wyrth thought he could better Morlock’s odds if he stayed. On the other other hand, Wyrth hadn’t been doing a very good job of helping so far. … How many hands was that?
    Hands. Suddenly Wyrth realized the importance of something he had noticed earlier. Iagiawôn had six hands, but he couldn’t use them independently. When he moved them, he moved them all in the same way.
    He shouted to Morlock in Dwarvish. “Hwaet! Vakt sorn knektan wyruma thledhan; dal sar aknekt ma kapt!” ( Hey! The bug has six clever hands but just one stupid head! )
    “Yes,” Morlock said. “Get. Them. Out.”
    Wyrth was about to say they were out when he noticed the innkeeper and his family watching the fight from the doorway just behind him.
    “Go,” he said, pushing them back. “Go, get out. It’s life or death for you.”
    He led them into the dining hall, each clash of the blades feeling like a thrust through his own heart. But what could he do? If Morlock thought this was worth spending his life on, Wyrth had better make sure it was not for nothing.
    There was a clatter that caused him to look over his shoulder. Iagiawôn had leapt up on the counter to rain cuts down at Morlock’s head. The monster must have been confident about the carapace protecting his legs.
    But Morlock didn’t attack him directly. The crooked man jumped to one side and shattered the counter itself with a single slash of Tyrfing’s glittering unbreakable blade. Iagiawôn hit the ground rolling on his shoulder—he had a lot of shoulder to roll on—and was almost instantly on his feet.
    Morlock grabbed a stretch of the shattered counter in his left hand, extended Tyrfing, and stabbed at his enemy. Iagiawôn caught the accursed blade in a sixfold bind. Morlock swung the length of wood he held in his left hand and buried the end of it in Iagiawôn’s skull. The six-armed swordsman slumped to the splinter-strewn floor. He was dead by the time Wyrth ran up to stand by Morlock.
    “Are you all right?” the dwarf said to his craft-master. “That chunk of metal seemed to hit you pretty hard. Sorry about that, by the way.”
    “It’s all right,” Morlock said. “Wyrth.”
    “Morlock.”
    “‘Out’ does not mean ‘part way into the next room.’ In case this situation comes up again.”
    “How likely is that?” Wyrth shouted back, stung. “More important, how would I carry the news to my father under Thrymhaiam that I ran away while you fought to your death against a six-armed beast?”
    “I’d prefer that to seeing you die next to me.”
    “But I wouldn’t , and neither would my father, as well you know.”
    “You think too much of your father’s opinion.”
    “And you think too little of it. No, I’ve heard what you said, Master Morlock, and I’ll consider it. You’ll note I obeyed you sufficiently as to be no damn use at all, anyway.”
    Morlock’s scarred face bent slightly in a one-sided smile. “It’s a start. Let’s haul the meat into the sideyard. If that suits you, Sunlar?”
    The hosteller and his family had approached tentatively and were eyeing the dead body with interest and some dismay. Sunlar realized he had been addressed and jumped. Morlock repeated his question. Sunlar nodded mutely, and Morlock remarked to Wyrth, “I want to have a look at his wrists, at least, before we eat.”
    “They