Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover Page A

One quarrel strikes fire from the
balcony wall as it glances upward, and the other takes a guard in the
ribs. At this range, chainmail is no protection: the quarrel chops in
till it’s stopped by its vanes, and the guard sags against the
bronze doors— which are opening! —and now even
more guards press through—
    I duck behind the balcony wall to recock and reload, and one of the
guards blows some kind of brief tattoo on a bugle that echoes through
the Donjon.
    This is about to get kind of hairy.
    I have to run the opposite way, draw the guards off, but even as I’m
uncoiling to stand, something snaps past my head and something else
hammers my shoulder from behind. I roll with the impact, and a
red-smeared crossbow quarrel clinks to the floor at my feet, even as
I spin and see for the first time the four guards pounding up the
corridor I was just in.
    Fuck going the other way—I’m not feeling heroic enough to
get pincered on this balcony just to provide a five-second diversion.
    Two of the guards sprint toward me along the corridor walls; the
other two stop in the middle of the corridor and take aim on my head.
    I drop my bows and shoulder-roll to my feet, simultaneously drawing
the little leafblades from my ankle sheaths and flipping them both
backhand down the corridor. There’s no force behind the throw,
but it’s enough to make them flinch and duck and spoil their
shots.
    I sweep up my bows and toss them over the balcony rail and follow
them with the quivers. A bloodthirsty roar goes up from the Pit as a
couple of prisoners find themselves unexpectedly armed. Then without
hesitation I skip forward to meet one of the charging guards and grab
his armor at the collarbone. I fall to my back and plant a foot in
the pit of his stomach, kick him into the air, and he sails right
over the rail and falls wailing into the Pit.
    I continue the roll and let it bring me to my feet. The other
charging guard has skidded to a stop out on the balcony, and now he
looks like he’s not at all sure he wants to deal with me by
himself. He says, “Hey, wait—â€

DAY FIVE
    â€œ What’s so wrong with wanting to help people?â€

DAY SIX
    â€œ Hari? Hari, wake up.â€

DAY SEVEN
    â€œ Do you, Professional Hari Khapur Michaelson, take this
woman, Professional Shanna Theresa Leighton, to be your lawfully
wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love, honor, and cherish
forever, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to cleave
to her only all the days of your life, until death alone doth part
you?â€

EPILOGUE
    THERE CAME A day when Hari woke up and found Shanna sitting at his
bedside.
    He lay on his gelpack pillow and gazed at her through half-opened
eyes while awareness leaked into his brain with the morning light.
    She sat staring idly out the window, toward the clouds, toward the
ocean, high over the shantytown of media vans that invested the
hospital like the siege engines of an Overworld army. She was thin,
her cheeks still hollowed and her eyes dark, and she still carried
her left arm stiffly at her side—and Hari thought he’d
never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
    He didn’t speak, for fear that the sound of his voice might
dispel the dream.
    She coughed a little, with wet discomfort, when she felt his gaze on
her. She smiled and touched her ribs where the quarrel had smashed
through them into her lung. “Pneumonia,â€

A Conversation with Matthew Woodring Stover
    Matthew Woodring Stover lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he works
as a bartender at a private club in the United Center, home of the
Bulls and the Blackhawks. In previous incarnations he’s been an
actor, a theatrical producer, a playwright, a waiter, a barista
(okay, what the heck is a barista?), a short-order cook, a
telemarketer of fine wines, and a door-to-door vacuum cleaner
salesman. With his partner, noted painter and up-and-coming