"High pay, great danger, long journey, bad company."

How could you not be tempted by an offer like that?  In the days of the ancient near-east, a story of love, betrayal, murder, magic and a fell beast.

"Voice of the Spoiler" is revived from our archives to lead off a five-part serial from Michael Ehart.  This story appeard in The Sword Review October 9, 2005.  Next month, we reprise "Servant of the Manthacore" and follow after that with three never before published stories that complete the tale.

 

         I sat on the bare rock, weeping, as the blood dripped from my lowered hand to form small, black balls in the dust. Through my tears, this is what I saw: the scuffed grey toe of my boot, spattered with gore. The oilwood hilt of my sword, dropped in a puddle of its own making. Red dust. And the outstretched hand of Olveg, which still lightly twitched in death. A pariah dog barked somewhere. A hawk cried, or perhaps a sunbird, behind me, over the plain of Aturia.

         Olveg was a follower of the Ugarit Masked God, who seems to expect treachery, and so should have been more suspicious. In fact, it was he who died last, the only one who even suspected the trap that left only me alive. I raised my head.

         One of Olveg's heavy boots was stubbed against Tovar's head. The rest of Tovar was several feet away, his thickly-muscled frame slumped against the rocky dirt wall of the wadi. I had hoped for more from him, too, a scarred veteran of a dozen wars between the Cities of the Plain. He was quick, and tough, with an old soldier's cynical eye.

         Uhlma of Nineveh and his servant, whose name I already could not remember, lay in twin heaps where they fell. They were worthless, their deaths not even causing enough of a delay or outcry to warn the others.          

         I sighed, and wiped my eyes with my sleeve. My arm was no longer bleeding. Already the wound was closing: soon it would be just another scar. Stiff for a while, but not enough to keep me from the unpleasant task before me. I knelt beside Olveg, and unfastened his blood-soaked tunic. Soon they were all four naked, laid out side-by-side in a neat line, Tovar's severed head resting on his chest.

         I stepped back, and pulled the talisman by its chain from under my tunic, where it rested searingly against my bare flesh. It was red, its broken-tooth shape stained by blood. My blood.

         I held it up against the afternoon sun, and cleared my thoughts. Come, I called silently. Come.