Sword of the Scarred

by Jeffrey Hall

  “They were standing idle while good people died!” Grey’s face reddened, and it was the first time Requiem had seen the man raised to such anger.

  Lady Atrerian and the other officials from Bothane just stared, their mouths slightly open. “Easy,” whispered Requiem.

  Grey took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Apologies. Sometimes the battlefield never leaves a man.”

  “I understand, and didn’t mean to—”

  “Five percent!” A shout broke their conversation. All heads turned to see the Elder standing, his hands balled into fists at his side, staring down at the still seated Glassius. Many rose from their seats at the sign of contention.

  “A small increase to your stores in order to make up for the deficit,” said Glassius.

  “A small increase! That will bleed the countryside. Do you want my people to rebel?”

  “We want your people to chip in their appropriate share.”

  “Does the appropriate share include their blood?”

  Before Glassius could respond the Elder stormed off, his boots clacking against the floor like clicks of the tongue reprimanding such an insult.

  “Lord Larken, there is more to discuss. Lord Larken!” By then the majority of the room had been stirred into standing, and all attention was focused on the confrontation.

  It was a perfect time for Requiem to sneak away unnoticed, slowly backing into the crowd towards the door they had come from.

  He tried to open it with his front still facing the crowd, but it was locked. Instead he called upon the strength of the stone, bore the great pain it dealt him, and pried the thing loose. It made barely a groan amongst the tumult of voices now burying his escape.

  He snuck into the stairwell, the darkness enveloping him and putting him into its sanctuary as he closed the door quietly behind him. The scar stone relented as well as the strength, allowing him to unclench his teeth.

  He waited to ensure that no one saw him and was now in pursuit. Satisfied, he descended into the warehouse.

  It was strangely quiet when he passed through the double doors that served as its entrance. With the absence of others he could hear the tiniest drip in the distance from somewhere in that huge chamber. The piles of stones loomed like mute giants to either side of him. They were so large and hulking he half expected them to come to life as soon as he put his foot inside the warehouse.

  Instead, he heard scurrying behind him.

  He ducked into the shadows of one of the nearby alleys created by the containers of stone and waited as the noises grew louder.

  He gripped Ruse’s hilt as the scurrying turned to footsteps and then to whispers.

  “Told you I saw him come down here.”

  Grey and Garp stumbled into the warehouse, Garp creeping about as well as a hammer-tongue in heat.

  Requiem emerged. “By the Abyss, what are you doing?”

  Garp pointed at him with his good hand. “You take us to do a job and then just leave us in a mire thicker than stew?”

  “Didn’t take you to do a job,” admitted Requiem, already beginning his scrutiny of the warehouse.

  “Then by Bolliad, why’d you take us?” said Garp.

  “You really that slow?” said Grey. “He took us to save our skins.”

  Garp blinked. “Why would you go and do something like that?”

  Requiem walked further into the warehouse, looking. “To even us up.”

  Grey laughed, but Garp just stood, blinking, until something seemed to settle inside of his head. “No. Uh-uh. No way. You ain’t gonna put me in here like some charity case ’cause you feel bad about taking my hand. I ain’t some useless livestock you can poke and prod to do whatever you want with. Just because I ain’t got a hand don’t mean I ain’t got two to give.”

  “Never said you didn’t,” said Requiem.

  “Well…”

  “Well, doesn’t look like you’re using anything just standing back there. You going to help me poke around or not?”

  “I’ll never help you do a thing. I’ll do it because it’s a job and Garp don’t ever give up on one.”

  “Just shut up and start looking,” said Grey.

  And together the three wandered into the depths of the warehouse.

  “Look at all this clink,” said Garp as they walked, peering into alleys, looking beneath piles. “To think this is where it all goes.”

  “What should we be looking for?” said Grey.

  “Anything out of the ordinary,” said Requiem.

  “Out of the ordinary?” said Garp. “They’ve already been counted. We ain’t no accountants.”

  “We ain’t,” said Requiem. “But we’re dogs.”

  Garp lifted his eyebrow.

  “Sniff out hidden things. Buried things.”

  “A room bigger than a town filled with valuable clink ain’t exactly making things easy to sniff out,” said Grey.

  “You’re right. It ain’t. I’ll speed it up.” Requiem dove into his memories to conjure up the stroke Dorja had taught him to perform the Revealing Light and unveiled Ruse.

  He cut down, and then straight back up again. The blade’s tip sputtered into a soft yellow flame, like it was the steel wick of a candle.

  He felt a new, minor wound open on his abdomen and barely made a face as the pain washed over him.

  “What’s that gonna do?” said Garp, looking at the small flame glowing from the sword.

  “Show us any magic at play here.”

  Requiem went forward, ensuring the light bore down on the piles.

  “Didn’t that hurt?” said Grey, eyeing him with curiosity.

  “It did.”

  “Don’t it bother you when the stone takes its share for a minor spell?”

  Requiem shrugged.

  “I thought the Scarred were supposed to be more stingy with their power?”

  Requiem shined the light over a pile of yellow stone. They turned clear like glass with the help of the light.

  “Supposed to conserve it and not waste it on petty spells unless they want an early grave,” said Grey.

  “Look at me. The grave ain’t far away, one way or another.”

  “And thank the Abyss for that,” said Garp.

  Requiem stopped, projecting the light down a narrow alleyway. “Check down there, will you? All the way to the end. Think I see something.”

  Garp’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “A hidden pile of stone maybe.”

  “On it!” Garp hurried down the hallway.

  When he was out of sight Grey spoke. “You really see something?”

  Requiem shook his head, suppressing a smirk.

  Grey smiled too.

  “He’s excitable, ain’t he?”

  “Always has been. Spent half my life trying to unexcite him.”

  “If only you were a lady like Modaline up there. That seemed to shut him up.”

  Grey chuckled. “Women ain’t really ever been in his quiver. No mother will do that to a boy.”

  “No?”

  “Died a year after she put him here. Some sickness took her. Left him to a daddy who didn’t care too much to have him.”

  “Your brother?”

  He nodded. “He fought the brimlings too. Never really recovered from that horror. Only ever found comfort with steel again. Steel and the drink. Went back to war at the start of the Shamble. Lost his head in the Turning Field, or so we were told. No one else to take care of Garp save me and the other miners of that piss hole, Drip.” Grey scratched his beard. “Seen too many folks grow up without someone. Seen wives and husbands lose their lovers to the mines. Seen kids lose their parents to the brimlings. Seen those people become lost, just pebbles in the dirt waiting to be kicked around. Wasn’t going to let it happen to my own flesh and blood. Not when he’s already… the way he is.”

  Requiem went deeper into the warehouse, shining his light wherever he could before it fizzled and the magic faded. “You’re an interesting one.”
/>   “Why is that?”

  “We both fought brimlings, had the same enemy once upon a time, yet you treated me like a monster first time you set eyes on me in Drip.”

  “That’s what you are. Don’t think ’cause I saved your life I don’t still think it. But despite what Garp says about you, I know he’d be in the shit of a sleeper if it wasn’t for you.”

  “That why you clubbed that soldier back in the forest?”

  “Yup. Wasn’t gonna be in debt to no monster. ”

  “Glad we could come to terms.”

  “Don’t think it makes me your man. Seen too much of what you’re capable of to align myself with you. Once this deal is done we’ll be keeping on our way.”

  “Don’t think you’ve seen half of what I’m capable of.”

  “Not you. Your kind.”

  “You been around others?”

  “I was there when Proth put Bolliad into the Abyss.”

  Requiem stopped and shined the light on Grey as if it could reveal the truth of his words.

  “Get that out of my face.”

  “You having a go with me?”

  “I ain’t. Was taking a load from Drip straight to the old king’s doorstep back when the Larken in charge had some reasoning about him and didn’t ask for an entire town’s worth of clink. My wagon crested the Empty Hills, and I see Bolliad rising in the distance like something a god slapped down on this world, waiting for me one minute. The next, just falling like someone pulled a rug out from underneath it.”

  Grey stood for a moment, looking into a pile of red stone as if reconstructing his memory with the rocks’ help.

  “I could hear the screams of the people as they fell. Even as far away as I was. Can still hear them…” He grunted and kept walking. “By the time I arrived there were others pulling survivors off the side, those fortunate few who happened to be standing on the break line and had the wits about them to jump or hold on before their home was taken from them. I just remember one woman standing there, a look on her face. I asked her if she was okay. Looked at me and said she saw him. Saw Proth. He was out in the forest for a near day, just swinging. She thought he was just practicing. But then his blade finally touched earth and broke the world.”

  “So the story goes,” said Requiem.

  “The story say what happened to Proth?”

  “Went down with Bolliad.”

  “Not according to the woman. Said she saw him dissolve. Went poof in a cloud of his own blood like the stone took every last bit of him.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “If you’d have seen her eyes then you would have too.”

  Requiem always tried to imagine what Proth was up to all those years ago. Why he was trying to put Bolliad into the Abyss in the first place, and how he knew how to perform such strokes that could make it happen. The most complicated spell Dorja had ever taught him involved ten strokes, and it would leave scars that sometimes traversed his entire body.

  A rare spell. One he rarely used.

  How could Proth have known something that would take hundreds if not thousands of strokes? Who could have taught him such a thing?

  And though he didn’t like to think about it, Requiem wasn’t surprised to hear that such a spell would be the man’s doom.

  His own scar stone had taken enough from him for him to know it was capable of taking all of him if he were to get carried away. If he were to be foolish and try to do too much.

  It had already taken so much of him.

  “You think he knew what he was doing when he did it?” said Grey.

  Requiem shrugged his shoulders. “Only ever met the man a handful of times. Was good at what he did. One of the most sought after Scarred before age and the wear and tear from his own stone took hold of him.”

  “Exactly what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Proth’s story don’t sound familiar to your own? How do I know you ain’t gonna go put this entire kingdom to the Abyss?”

  “I ain’t like him,” said Requiem, though he wasn’t sure he believed his own words. Proth must have known the outcome of such a spell, specifically what it would do to him. He must have been fine with his fate before he started swinging. It was no different than Requiem standing with his toes waving down at the Abyss, over the Edge.

  “You sure? Until you figure out a way to sever yourself from your stone there won’t be a way of changing my mind.”

  “No way to sever it,” said Requiem. “Trust me, I’ve looked.”

  “Then I guess there’s no way to get me around it.”

  Requiem flooded the light once more in his direction. This time Grey didn’t look away from it.

  Footsteps sounded from the darkness behind them. Requiem’s other hand went to the hilt of Ruse.

  Grey held up his hand. “I’d know that dopey run anywhere.”

  Garp came storming into the light, a sheen of sweat on him as if something were attempting to wring him dry.

  “You want all of Bothane to know we’re down here?” said Grey.

  “You find the discrepancy?” said Requiem, a half smile on his face.

  But Garp’s face didn’t show any sign of humor. “Heard voices in the stairwell. Took a peek. Knew one of them from somewhere. That fellow Benglar.”

  “Yeah?” said Requiem.

  “Him and the bandit caught by the caravan.”

  “They taking him somewhere for some harsh justice?” said Grey.

  Garp shook his head. “That’s the thing. He was walking side by side with Benglar, unbound.”

  “You sure?” said Grey, but Requiem could already tell in Garp’s face that he was.

  Requiem recalled the spell, removing the light with a simple strike to the left, causing a minor scar on his ankle, not able to wait for it to dissipate on its own.

  He hurried back from the way they came, trying his damnedest to remember the way through the many aisles of the warehouse, and arrived back at the doors leading to the stairwell.

  He peered into the poorly lit corridor. There were stairs that led further down into Bothane Rock. Hallways that led deeper into other regions of the keep, a place so large it would be easy to become lost.

  “They were headed down?” said Requiem.

  Garp nodded.

  Requiem put a finger to his lips and then started down the stairs, placing his feet as soft as he could against the stone so that they barely made a tapping sound.

  Grey followed suit, Garp too, slapping down his feet like they were trees falling in a forest.

  Requiem held up his finger again.

  “What?” said Garp.

  “You’re louder than a hungry dog,” said Requiem.

  “I’m trying,” he said.

  They came to the other hallways connected to the stairwell and hesitated at their entries, waiting to hear something.

  Nothing.

  They went further. Requiem was surprised at just how deep the stairs went. He was a fool to think that the prince would hide secrets in such an expected place as the warehouse that contained all his kingdom’s stones.

  Yet the further they went without hearing a thing, the more uneasy Requiem became.

  “You sure you heard right?” he whispered to Garp.

  “Didn’t lose my ears, only a hand,” he said, putting up the bandaged stump.

  Requiem ignored his subtle barb and kept going, losing faith with every step they took. They reached a point where the air felt cool and dank, and he imagined them to be so far beneath the surface that they flirted with the Purple. He was just about to turn around and announce them lost when he heard the faintest whisper come up the stairs.

  “See?” said Garp.

  “Shhh,” said Grey.

  Together the three of them slunk down the remaining stairs. At the bottom, they came to another corridor snaking away from the main artery.

  Requiem, with his back pressed against the cold stone, peered around the edge of the entry
way.

  What existed there was nothing more than a short hallway with one tiny glimmer stone, a thing only able to provide a pinprick of light.

  And beneath it were Benglar, the Elder’s own accountant and advisor, and the member of Proth’s Prodigy, speaking to one another in hushed tones, in front of a black wooden doorway as Benglar rummaged through a key ring.

  “... Stay ready. You’ll be called upon soon. There’ll be more need for your services within the coming day.”

  “I’ll let Carry know.”

  “Carry already knows.” He unveiled the right key and held it up like it was a trophy he was about to present. “But what you can tell him is to keep his work in-house. Outside resources, no matter how strong they are, jeopardize the task at hand.”

  The bandit nodded. “If it eases any concerns, we’ll be hunting him too.”

  “You have other concerns at the moment.” Benglar unlocked the door and pushed it aside. On the other side there was an earthen tunnel leading to somewhere deeper in Bothane Rock, Requiem was sure of it.

  “He’s letting him get away?” said Garp.

  “Yup,” said Requiem, watching it unfold. What did the Elder’s advisor want with a group of fanatical bandits, and why was he setting them up to attack their own shipment when he had access to the millions of stones just overhead?

  “We’re just gonna let him go?” said Garp.

  “Just stay quiet and watch,” said Grey.

  The bandit nodded once more to Benglar before slipping out into the tunnel.

  “By the Abyss, I’m not gonna stand around here and watch this fool escape.”

  “Wait.” Requiem tried to grab him, but Garp had already slipped into the hallway.

  Grey lunged, but couldn’t catch him. Benglar had just closed the door when Garp reached him and shoved his forearm into the man’s neck, forcing him against the wall.

  “Ack!” cried Benglar as the air was forced from his lips, making him some type of strange, fleshy instrument.

  “What gives? You let the bad guy get away!” cried Garp.

  “Garp, you damn fool!” shouted Grey, but Requiem held up his hand to silence him. The move had been made, there was no taking it back. Might as well go with it.

  Garp’s hold on the man lessened, giving Benglar a chance to speak. “You. One of the king’s own agents dares to attack an official of Bothane’s court!”