Kendry the Vicious

Prologue

The sun glinted off his blade, death beckoning it forward. Yet the sharpened metal remained idle as its bearer scowled down at it. He was distracted. A streak of reflected light irritated his pupils. A honey gold that never should have been chosen for this world, this harsh desert.

He closed his eyes and, with raw might, released flagrant force on the longsword. He listened to the slice, the rip, the squelch, and only opened those eyes, subjected them back to the sun and sand and sweat, when the crowd roared.

An amphitheater of heathens and whores. Frothing at the mouth to see blood spilled by his hands. He hoped it was a gruesome enough victory to quell their hunger.

Without taking a second look at the life he stole, Kendry the Gate leveled a severe look at the crowd, raised his linen hood and left the massive sword buried where it was, a piercing reminder that all bones could be crushed, skull or otherwise.

Bounding across the crimson sand, he kept his chin down. That sand had darkened, smeared like blood across the hard lines of his face during battle. His brow, the sharp line of his broad nose, the slashes of raised cheekbones.

He'd scrub at it that night. Until it was soft, pink, new skin.

The innate, intrinsic parts of Kendry the Gate, Kendry the Vicious, Kendry the Unjust, the Last and Final defender of Ihra were not suitable for the vast wastelands. His skin was entirely too pale, prone to blistering under the untamable sun. His eyes too delicate a shade to withstand the glare of clashing blades. His teeth too white to pass as another lowly lost soul.

Those things he could not change. Drinking the dark wines left his teeth unstained, shielding his eyes made them more sensitive and his skin became blotchwork red and white in every afternoon sun.

The Gods truly hated him.

The feeling was mutual.

Murmurs rose to cries as he strode for the exit, massacred bodies laying in his wake. The tiered stands of the arena were carved of a grainy yellow stone that crumbled under the force of pounding boots and blunt edged blades.

Reaching across his back, through a fold of fabric that didn't seem to age, Kendry released his bow. A long curved ancient wood, pale in its viciousness. Whatever Gods, whatever powers that bore him, left the bow pliable and yet, powerful. Running callused fingers over the resin glossed string, Kendry kept his tired eyes on his feet as he picked through the ramblings of the desperate people of Ihra.

A man in little more than an arm's length of dark fabric tied at his hip, leaped from the stands, redemption in his breath.

Young, handsome, strapping enough to try his hand at the other Gates, the newcomer flexed raw hands, his eyes dark and erratic.

Maybe Kendry's brothers would have submitted to him, seen the towering frame, the inexpensive robes and known he would fight with ruthlessness. Maybe they'd fight him bored, one handed and blind. It did not matter.

Kendry would not yield.

Could not.

He was the Last Gate. The last challenge and the ultimate truth teller. The unworthy did not beat Kendry. In the years he could recount, the time that hadn't shuffled out of his mind's reach, he had yet to meet a worthy opponent.

He wondered, idly, as he called foward a honed arrow, notching it meticulously in his white untenable bow, what losing felt like.

He would never find out.

Kendry the Great. The Immovable. The Last Gate.

It had taken many lifetimes over for Kendry to hone his skill. To lose the desperate compulsion to win. To think and evaluate every strike before it connected.

Alone, Kendry had forged himself to withstand Ihra and the harsher lands beyond. He'd learned metal working and craftsmanship to blunt the sun's glare on his blades. He'd cloaked himself in thick, impenetrable clothes and, as suited the lifestyle in Ihra, he'd never smiled.

Happiness did not exist in the ruins of a lifeless city. Women's smiles hid wicked cunning. Men's grins were born of greed and hate.

He loosed his arrow at the man's first step. It flew true.

Kendry the Cursed, he liked to call himself.