Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Página 62

Rising, he went over to a fallen guard and retrieved
a second blade. The guards had taken his usual
swords, but he’d long ago learned to fight with
whatever weapon fate offered him in the moment.
One edge could cut just as well as another.
Possessed now of a singular purpose, Khellus strode
from the room and out into the main hall. The
marble busts lining this stretch stared at him with
dead eyes, as if in judgment, but he passed by their
gazes and only paused when he reached the top of
the stairs.
“Asmoran!” His voice echoed through the tower
depths. “Prepare yourself!”
He smiled to himself as footsteps tromped up until
several guards appeared at the landing below. They
looked shocked to see him alive, but then charged
up to meet him. Impressed by their loyalty and
courage, Khellus slew them as quickly as he could.
One man fell missing half his skull. Another gushed
blood from a severed arm. The third clutched a
sucking gut wound.
Khellus left them writhing in his wake as he descended. Faint shouts came from further down, and
he assumed an alarm had been raised. Excellent.
Guards rushed him straight on. Others waited
around corners, aiming to ambush. Others ran off
calling for reinforcements. He left some dead, some
bleeding out, others crippled with broken knees or
arms. Their screams of pain and fear filled the tower
the further he went.
Was this what Groxley once felt when he paved
a path in mangled flesh and spilled blood? This
morbid pleasure of dispatching one enemy after the
next, of knowing one less person stood between
him and his ultimate victim? A strange feeling
swelled within him with each guard dispatched. Not

contentment or happiness, but a growing satisfaction of using his skills to eliminate any obstacle.
He’d thought himself so different from the thuggish
killer, yet now might as well have tread in his very
footsteps.
At last, he took down two guards and marched
through the doorway they’d been posted at. The
dining hall held ten long tables, able to hold hundreds of people. Enormous fireplaces lined the
walls, all dead except for the one at the far end.
There, Asmoran sat at the head table, a greasy duck
breast being shredded between his plump fingers.
Eogwen sat across from him, staring at a plate piled
high with meat, fruit, and sweetbreads.
The noble rose at Khellus’s entrance. “I’d prefer my
dinner not be spoiled.”
A band of five guards emerged from the shadows
and headed Khellus’s way.
“You should’ve run,” Khellus said.
“Be routed out from my own home by a brute like
yourself?” Asmoran huffed. “Nonsense. This will be
entertaining.”
Khellus walked straight up the aisle between the
tables as the guards spread out to come at him from
all angles. Asmoran watched, looking anticipatory
of the violent show.
Two guards drove in on his right, attempting to
push him into reach of the other three. Khellus deflected a strike and his riposte left a guard clutching
his shoulder. The other kept his distance, trying to
distract him with constant feints.
Sensing the others rushing at his back, Khellus
swivelled and let a swipe slice air inches from his
face. Khellus flipped over backwards and landed