Return of the Paladin

by Layton Green

  His voice boomed into the ear of every single person congregated in the public square. “Behold the treachery of the Oath Avoiders.”

  “He lives!” someone in the crowd shouted, followed by “Destroy the Revolution!”

  “Kill the gypsies!”

  “All hail Lord Alistair! Preserve the Realm!”

  Lord Alistair still had his arms extended. “They would strike at the very heart of our republic! Yet another cowardly act of terror!”

  The members of the partisan crowd—virulent Protectorate nationalists carefully selected by the Congregation—had whipped themselves into a frenzy, stomping their feet and shouting for the heads of those involved in the assassination attempt. In the back of the public square, a commotion was taking place. A circle had formed around two majitsu, each dragging a black-sash gypsy through the crowd. The eyes of the gypsies, a man and a woman, were looking wildly about as they tried in vain to free themselves.

  With a snarl, Kjeld Anarsson rushed into the crowd, causing it to part like a hot knife through butter. He flew low above the ground to meet the two majitsu, exchanged words with them, and grasped the two prisoners by the necks, holding one in each of his enormous hands. The crowd cheered as he flew them above the crowd, returning to the steps of the capitol building.

  When the woman captive saw Melina, she gave a strangled cry. “You traitor! You betrayed us!”

  Melina’s mouth twisted into a smirk. A few feet away, Kjeld shouted up at Lord Alistair, who made sure the words of the Head Don were amplified to the assembled crowd.

  “Milord, here are your attempted assassins. We caught them fleeing the scene after trying to witness the result of their murderous intentions.”

  “You’re sure of this?” Lord Alistair asked. Earlier in the day, after learning of the planned assassination attempt and capturing those responsible, he and Kjeld had prepared a dialogue for the masses.

  Melina pointed at them. “These are the two. I overheard their plans myself.”

  “Thank you, Melina. And you as well, Don Anarsson. What do you recommend?”

  Before Kjeld could respond, someone in the crowd shouted, “Kill them both! Kill the gypsies!”

  “Death to traitors!” another shouted, and the rest of the crowd picked up the chant.

  “Tis true, milord,” Kjeld said, “that treason is a crime punishable by death.”

  “Indeed it is. Yet I alone cannot command such a fate. Since the Firesphere of the traitors has consumed the Scepter of Peace, in the spirit of cooperation, why not let the will of the people decide?” After a long and dramatic pause, he continued, “Who here would have these traitors stand trial for attempted murder?”

  Except for the cries of the two black sash gypsies still struggling in Kjeld’s iron grip, not a single voice could be heard in the ensuing silence.

  “And those in favor of execution?”

  The roar of approval seemed to shake the foundation of the stately Fifth Protectorate Capital Building.

  “Then let it be so,” Lord Alistair’s giant form boomed above the crowd.

  Under Protectorate law, a death sentence—even for black-sash revolutionaries caught in the act of attempting to assassinate the Chief Thaumaturge of the Congregation—was only available after trial in a court of law. The prisoners knew this, the assembled mages and political leaders knew this, the crowd knew this—and that was exactly the point.

  In the new state of affairs, the new Chancellor was the arbiter of life and death.

  After Lord Alistair’s proclamation, Kjeld flung his two adult prisoners through the air as if they weighed as much as a bag of beans. Alistair turned his palms towards them, and the baubles of white-blue light he had captured shot towards the prisoners, hitting them in midair and expanding until they were large enough to encompass the prisoners, high enough for all to see.

  “They wished for someone to burn,” Lord Alistair said calmly, “and so it shall be.”

  As he swept a hand towards the prisoners, the bluish-white globes started to rotate and change color, adopting a pinkish hue that deepened to orange, and then bright red. The crowd cheered as the captives writhed in agony, screaming for release while the Firespheres roasted them alive.

  -14-

  The harsh reality of the situation flashed through Will’s mind as the lasso tightened around his waist and arms.

  Trapped on a precipitous staircase halfway down a gigantic nilometer in the middle of the most dangerous city of Urfe.

  A group of armed attackers sliding down on ropes.

  Dalen slumped on the ground, felled by whatever drug the dart had contained, a smart decision to take out their wizard at the start of battle.

  Mateo and Yasmina were also ensnared around the waist, their arms pinned to their sides. As Yasmina bucked to free herself, Mateo grasped onto the rope with the fingers of his chain mail glove and ripped it away.

  Though he couldn’t lift his arms, Will was able to flex his wrists. As the first assailant drew near, hanging ten feet above his head, he gripped Zariduke and, with a twist of his powerful forearms, began to saw his bonds with the blade. Will’s attacker, a middle-age woman dressed all in black leather, dropped the remaining distance and landed in front of him. She dangled a small cudgel in one hand and an odd weapon in the other, a cane with a blade sticking out of the end.

  Will felt his bonds give just in time to block a swing of the cudgel with Zariduke. Three more strikes came in rapid succession, forcing him down the staircase and into a defensive posture. He parried furiously and, as soon as he saw an opening, thrust forward. Quick as a snake, moving in a strange fighting pattern he didn’t recognize, the woman cracked him with the cudgel on his sword arm, causing him to drop his blade. He turned to find that three more attackers, dressed in a variety of clothing, had dropped down behind him. Mateo was also surrounded, Dalen lay unconscious on the ground, and Yasmina was still caught by a lasso, her wrist gripped tight by a man twice her size.

  As Will scrambled to pick up Zariduke, the cudgel cracked on the ground beside him, cutting him off.

  “Skara Brae!” he shouted. “We’re looking for Skara Brae!”

  The woman’s blade stopped a millimeter from his eye. A tan headscarf swept her blond hair off her face, and he noticed a set of brass knuckles on her left hand, daggers in her boots, and a hatchet attached to a chain looped around her belt.

  “Who,” she said, pressing the bladed cane against the tip of his closed eyelid, “wants to know where to find her?”

  Sweat trickled down Will’s back as he spoke. “I’m Will Blackwood, leader of this expedition.”

  “And where are ye from?”

  “Freetown. It’s on the Barrier-”

  “I know where it is,” she snapped. “If it’s Skara Brae yer after, then yer looking right at her. Who sent ye to kill me?”

  “What? We’re not here to kill you.”

  The blade pricked tighter against his eyeball. He tried to lean back but she pressed the cudgel into his back with her other hand, keeping him still. With a snarl, she said, “Speak yer piece and convince me otherwise. Ye have to the count of three before I take yer eye and drop ye into the kraken’s mouth.”

  Having no desire to lose his eye or to find out whether the kraken was metaphorical or real, Will told her the truth. “I led a different expedition that found the Coffer of Devla in a pyramid in the Mayan Kingdom, in the tomb of the sorcerer king. We took it back to Freetown, but a thief stole it and carried it here. To Praha.”

  Her eyes bored deeper into his. “How do ye know that?”

  “It was a gateway bauble. A mage traced it back. We thought you might know something about it. If you do, we’ll pay good coin for the knowledge. Is my friend going to live?” he said, glancing at Dalen’s prone form.

  “Good coin, is it?” She started to laugh, causing a ripple of chuckles to spread through the crowd. She slid the cane into a long sheath on her back, gripped the front of his shirt, and brou
ght their faces close. She was a few inches taller than he and smelled of olives and shoe leather. Though a handsome woman, scars crisscrossed her exposed skin, including an ugly welt on her left cheek that resembled a cigarette burn. “Saying I believe ye about the Coffer, which I don’t, then the last time I hired out me services, half a decade ago, was for two thousand gold pieces.”

  The council had reached deep into the treasuries of Freetown and given Will two hundred gold pieces for the journey, in anticipation of just such a scenario. He swallowed. “We don’t have that much.”

  “Then my people will escort ye to the surface, and if I catch ye near me Nilometer again without an invite, I’ll kill ye meself.”

  “Wait!” Will said. He hadn’t wanted to mention Mala’s name, in case there was bad blood between the two. Mala had never told him how she knew Skara, and seeing how volatile the woman was, mentioning the wrong name might get him killed. But if he didn’t figure something out, the quest would be over before it began.

  “Mala sent us to you. Mala of Clan Kalev.”

  Skara’s eyes narrowed, a mixture of wariness and grudging respect. “Mala, is it? Why would she send ye here?”

  “She said you knew the city better than anyone. That you might be able to help.”

  “She got the first part right. As for the second, she knows as well as anyone there are two things alone I care about. One is finding new breeds to mount on me walls, and the other is, well, don’t ye worry yer short little head about that.”

  Little? Dalen stirred beside him, until one of Skara’s cohort shot another dart into his back. They weren’t taking any chances with a mage.

  “Unless ye can lead me to the lair of an intelligent beast I’ve never encountered, which would surprise the boots right off me, then we ’ave nothing to talk about.” She smacked his thigh with the cudgel. “Ye have two minutes to reach the surface.”

  “What’s the other thing you care about?” Will said. Some of her people had started climbing back up the ropes they had descended.

  Skara ignored him and gripped one of the ropes.

  “Hey!” he shouted in desperation, ignoring the looks of warning both Mateo and Yasmina were giving him. Still the black-clad woman didn’t pause, and he roared her name again.

  Finally Skara turned, a dagger in her hand and fire in her eyes. “Ye have a death wish, Will Blackwood? One minute and counting.”

  He planted his feet and thrust his jaw forward. “You said there were two things you care about. What’s the second?”

  Skara gave an ugly laugh and leapt onto the rope, almost as agile as Mala. “I need a way through a magic door that can’t be opened, not even by wizards. So you see, ye’ve just wasted precious more seconds, and I’m beginning to doubt whether ye’ll make it out of the Nilo alive. When I said two minutes, ye should know, it’s not us ye need to worry about.”

  At that moment, something caused the water below to displace and lap against the sides of the Nilometer. Skara’s crew jumped onto their ropes and scurried upwards, hand over hand.

  “The kraken feeds at night,” Skara finished, flashing an evil grin before she resumed her climb.

  Mateo scooped up Dalen across his shoulders, as Yasmina grabbed her staff and urged Will up the stairs. He shook her off and called out to Skara again as he retrieved his sword. “I can help you!”

  “Eh?”

  “I can open that door.”

  The water below grew more and more agitated, swirling and lapping against the walls of the Nilometer. He had to make Skara believe him without tipping his hand completely, since he was at her mercy and didn’t trust her not to kill him and take the sword.

  “And how, pray tell, might ye accomplish such a feat?”

  “You’ll have to trust me. But I swear it on my life.”

  “Why would I trust ye? Especially when yer life is about to be forfeit.”

  “Because I’m standing here to gain your help when I could be running up those stairs.” The others were tugging at him, but he looked up the rope, staring right at Skara. “And because whatever lies behind that door you want opened so badly, I promise you’ll never get another chance like this.”

  The spark of interest in her eyes turned to curiosity, and then a quiet desperation harbored over long years. As the water exploded beneath them, revealing a huge, mottled gray body that turned Will’s stomach to jelly, Skara slid down the rope and vaulted off, somersaulted in midair, and landed on her feet at Will’s side.

  “Quick!” she said. “After me!”

  Skara dashed up the steps, hurrying past the first alcove that appeared and darting into the second. Will, Yasmina, and Mateo, still carrying Dalen on his shoulders, raced after her as something vast and scaly shot out of the water and surged upwards, almost filling the Nilometer with its bulk.

  As Will entered the alcove, terrified they wouldn’t make it in time, Skara stopped him with a hand on his chest. “If yer lying to me, I’ll slit yer throat meself.”

  “I’m not.”

  With a grim nod, she removed her hand, threw something on the ground that exploded in a puff of dense smoke, then dashed into a curved, narrow stone tunnel looming beyond the alcove. It was too dark to see the end of it.

  As Will and the others raced down the tunnel, a fat and slimy tentacle with suckered appendages shot through the cloud of smoke, probing, grasping, reaching. It fell just short, slapping wetly against the stone behind Yasmina and then retracting into the depths of the Nilometer.

  Though Skara slowed to a walk, another tentacle smacked against the ground, causing Will to jump.

  “It’s just probing,” Skara said. “It can’t reach us here.”

  “That’s the kraken?” Will asked.

  “Aye.”

  “How do you know for sure it can’t reach us?”

  An amber glow from somewhere ahead lit the smooth stone passage as they walked. “Because I’ve measured the length of its tentacles, down to the millimeter, and marked them on the corridors. I also know the circumference of its maw, how many pounds of bite force it can produce, and a host of other statistics that will make ye lose sleep over how close ye just came to death.”

  “I don’t need any help with that,” Will muttered. “Is it really a kraken?”

  “It is a kraken. One of many in its phyla. I claim discovery over this particular species myself,” she said proudly, “which I’ve termed Skaraticus Lesopteridus. It surfaces at regular intervals in the Nilometer to feed on the waste flushed out by the sewer system. As well as anything else unfortunate to cross its path.”

  “Ick,” Yasmina said.

  When the tunnel spilled into a larger room, Will took a step inside and then stumbled back, thrusting his shield forward in defense. A spindly, ten-foot tall humanoid with the long ropy neck and sword-like beak of a heron stared back at him, poised to run him through. Lurching backwards caused him to collide with Mateo. As Will scrambled to right himself, he looked to his left and saw another monster, this one even taller than the first, with the body of a woman but the head of an owl. White wings curled into its back, and it clutched a sword with a bronze hilt.

  He heard Skara laughing at the same time his eyes adjusted to the brighter light and he realized neither of the two monsters was alive. Though extremely realistic, and suspended from the wall by slender wires that made them appear to be looming threateningly above them, he noticed the waxen nature of their skin and the glassy rigidness of their stares.

  A chorus of raucous laughter filled the room. After exchanging a sheepish glance with Mateo and Yasmina, Will crossed his arms as he took in the enormous, alabaster amphitheater in which they stood. Circular and at least fifty feet high, filled with a tiered seating arrangement reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum, the underground stadium must once have been able to host thousands of spectators. Twelve-foot high walls encircled the bottom level, and throughout the amphitheater hung a startling variety of monsters. All of them were different, each more terri
fying than the last, and Will gaped at the exhibition. It was like looking at a life-size display of a Monster Manual.

  “Ye like me taxidermy?” Skara asked as she gazed reverently around the room. Some of her followers had climbed down to stand guard around her, and some lounged in the seats above to play dice games.

  Will turned in a slow circle, mesmerized. “It’s unbelievable. You’ve . . . killed all of these?”

  “Me or me disciples.” She took off her headscarf and shook out her long blond hair. Both of her eyes were as white as eggshells, including the irises. “Though I’ve killed more than half meself.”

  “Why?” Will said.

  The question seemed to amuse her. “Why does a painter paint? A minstrel sing? I like monsters, Will Blackwood. I like to find them and I like to kill them.”

  Yasmina’s eyes flashed. “I see very few monsters here. Only creatures whose habitats were disturbed.” She waved a hand around the room. “And these abominations . . . how would you feel if a family of trolls had taken someone you love and mounted them on a wall? You think you know these creatures, you study and hunt them, but you know nothing of them.”

  The sound of conversation and dice games ceased. Skara’s hand moved to the hatchet at her side. In the corner of his eye, Will saw bowstrings stretched taut and pointed at the party. Skara took a step towards Yasmina, a dangerous glint in her eye.

  Will stepped between them. “She’s a wilder,” he said. “She has . . . different priorities.”

  He glared at Yasmina, praying she had the good sense to leave it alone.

  “A wilder should know better than to enter my own abode and insult me. Ye must be new to yer profession,” she said to Yasmina, then pointed at the white-winged humanoid. “Or do ye not agree that the owlshrike has a heart of pure evil, and loves in particular to dine on the flesh of young children?”