by Mike Truk
“So we’ll need to counter them. Anyone? Thoughts?”
Pogo looked up from his paperwork, pushing his spectacles down the length of his nose. “How much time till they arrive?”
“Estimates put them outside our walls in a couple of weeks. The Lioness is growing infamous for her punishing marching pace.”
“Two weeks? There are mercenary companies with flying components. None currently within the city, however.”
“If there were, we’d have hired them by now,” I said. “We’ve paid every available mercenary twice their normal rate, and stolen those willing to be bribed away from their employers.”
“Expensive but necessary,” sighed Pogo. “And currently costing us over twenty seven thousand gold a week.”
“But adding a core of a thousand three hundred experienced soldiers to our militia,” I said. “Without whom we’d not have a core at all.”
“True, true.” Pogo sighed. “I wasn’t complaining.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Not much, at any rate.”
“How go the repairs on the walls?”
Netherys shifted her weight. “Dismal. Not that the workers aren’t motivated, but - alas. The defenses have been allowed to crumble to the point of scandal. They’re working around the clock, day and night shifts, but I doubt we’ll be able to seal every weakness. As such, I’ve directed the bulk of the work to ensure our gates are as strong as we can make them. The weaker parts in the walls? We’ll need to employ soldiers to keep them secure.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “All right. Thank you, Father, for keeping the city so ready for war.”
“To be fair,” said Pogo, tone absent as he browsed something in the paperwork before him, “Port Gloom hasn’t been attacked in such manner in over a hundred and seventy-six years.” He glanced up at me. “Quite an accomplishment on your part, Master Kellik. Little more than a month in power and already we’re facing a siege.”
“Ha.” I smiled mirthlessly at the goblin. “Thank you, Pogo.”
Pogo’s smile was all sharp little teeth, and then he resumed reading his paper.
“Tamara? How are the faithful doing?”
Tamara sat farthest away from me, across from Seraphina, subdued and looking worn out. Her white robes were rumpled, and dark circles ringed her eyes. “To be honest? Hard to say. Our pastors report that their congregations are in a frenzy. Many of them have been talking about rebelling against the government for weeks now, mostly due to the economic changes that Kellik has brought about, as well as the destruction of the Tangles. But now more and more of them ask why we close our gates to the Lioness. There is a growing sentiment that if we welcome her with open arms, everything will be fine.”
Netherys snorted.
Tamara didn’t protest. “Our argument that the Lioness is a heretical figure is losing traction with each passing day. She benefits greatly from not having issued any theocratic reforms, or challenging the orthodoxy in any way. As such, there is little to argue against. She is a symbol, enigmatic and powerful, and that makes for the most dangerous kind of foe.”
“Invent her platform for her, then,” said Netherys. “State that she’s demanding everyone donate two-thirds of their wealth to the church. That she’s banning alcohol and anyone engaging in sexual acts outside of marriage will be hung.”
Tamara narrowed her eyes in distaste. “Lie to the faithful?”
Netherys’s eyes gleamed. “How is the truth working out for you?”
“Mercult is a good man. He won’t preach lies.”
“Then he’ll be preaching funerary rites,” said Netherys, “because this Lioness is going to bury us.”
“Your optimism is always cheering,” murmured Pogo distractedly. “Now. Ever since Master Kellik gave me, shall we say, the right to act as his principal agent, I have undertaken numerous initiatives to improve the odds of our surviving to the end of the month.”
“Sounds promising,” I said.
“First, I created what I am calling the amicum populi branch of the government. Currently staffed with seventy-five full-time employees, along with… let’s see here, a hundred and twelve current part-time runners -”
“Wait,” said Cerys. “You’ve created a new branch of government with over two hundred members?”
“The amicum populi branch,” said Pogo, “as I’m trying to get people to call it. I’m having trouble getting the name to stick. They’re charged with printing posters, pamphlets, and more considered tracts that promote the virtues of Port Gloom’s rightful government, with a focus on Magistrate Mellonis’ accomplishments, our storied history, along with, shall we say, more crude material denigrating the White Lioness. The civil unrest has grown very problematic, and my sources tell me we’ve been on the verge of an uprising for some time now. Hatred for the Star Chamber and the local government are at an all-time high, and has only been quelled by the threat of imminent invasion. But here, I have some samples of my work for your examination.” And he cracked open a folder to hand out a number of papers and pamphlets.
“Has The White Lioness Lain with A Mule?” read Cerys, eyebrows rising.
“Murder Most Foul: How the Lioness Slew and Ate her Son?” said Netherys.
“I’m still calibrating,” said Pogo, rising to try and peer at her page. “We’ve found that the more salacious and scandalous, the better.”
“Witnesses Reveal: Lioness Impales Three Thousand Innocents Via The Rectal Passage,” I read.
“That one has done very well,” said Pogo, tapping the edge of my sheet. “We can’t print it fast enough, and the images that go with it are stolen off posts and walls everywhere. Though… I’m starting to think people are taking it for the imagery, which was meant to repulse, but perhaps some of the more prurient are - well, never mind.”
“Pogo,” I said, handing the poster back. “This is… enterprising.”
“Yes, well. I am only now starting to understand the ramifications of the printing presses we employed briefly against the Family. What is power? What is reality? How does the written word mold public opinion? All fascinating questions, but until I can study the matter more formally, I’ve opted to flood the markets with this slander.”
“You have seventy-five people printing these full time?” asked Tamara.
“Around the clock, as it were. And a hundred and twenty-five runners posting them about town. Now, onto other matters. I’ve begun hearing back from Aurelius’s business partners in Carneheim, whom I took the liberty of threatening quite, well, forcibly, if they didn’t immediately come to our assistance. It looks like we’ll be losing four to five hundred thousand gold in investments, but in exchange, I’ve secured promises from three barons, two guild heads, and a rather spectacularly shady underworld figure to send armed forces to our aid. Assuming a seventy-five percent execution of their promises, I hazard we should be seeing some four to four thousand five hundred soldiers arriving outside Port Gloom in thirteen days’ time to assist us.”
We all sat in silence.
“Four thousand soldiers are marching to our aid from Carneheim?”
“An estimate,” said Pogo. “No doubt their calculus is informed by hopes we are all killed by the Lioness, and my threats thus rendered null. I’ve sought to balance out these rather squalid hopes by making the payment of my debts and promissories contingent on surviving the siege. Still, there’s room for hope.”
“Pogo!” I couldn’t help but beam. “You are a genius!”
“Well,” said Pogo, removing his spectacles to buff them on his burgundy waistcoat. “Quite possibly. I’m coming around to the notion myself.”
Seized by an excess of emotion, I leaned forward to plant a loud kiss on his bald pate. “You materialize four thousand Carneheim Suns before the Lioness gets here, and I’ll make you a baron.”
Pogo squawked and then blushed furiously. “Please. I’ve no need for official titles. Now, having spent so many years working with Mistress Yash
ara in the Black Fists, I’ve some understanding of military matters. Several times we were tasked with defending hill forts or partaking in the defense of city walls, and I’ve undertaken some initiatives there as well -”
The coach exploded.
A terrible force hit the side where Tamara rested, elbow on the window sill. It crushed the wooden wall, shattered the glass, lifted the coach clear off the ground, threw us all bodily into the air.
Madness.
The laws of physics didn’t make sense for a harrowing, terrifying moment.
Sound, screams, shattering, and then the coach crashed down onto its side, glass and splinters everywhere, wood snapping and crunching as the coach slid over cobbles. Bodies fell upon me - Seraphina, Cerys, limbs intertwined, up somehow sideways, and with a roar of fury, I fought to break free.
Somewhere a horse was screaming, the sound harrowing, shrill. And just as the world had ceased to make sense for a moment, everything snapped back into place as we came to a stop.
Cerys was struggling to extricate herself from me. Seraphina was asking something, her voice mingling with the shouts from outside, Netherys saying Pogo’s name with increasing concern.
I had to get out.
I had to protect my loved ones.
With a shout that was more scream, I wedged myself around and then slammed my foot into the coach’s ceiling.
It was never built to withstand much pressure, and crunched before my blow.
Two, three more kicks, and enough of a gap appeared between the lacquered boards that I was able to thrust myself through the gap, stumble out onto the driveway.
My wounds and lacerations had already healed, so I couldn’t blame them for the shock I felt when I turned and saw what had hit us.
A demon was crouched atop the carriage like a massive, smoldering gargoyle, claws hanging between its knees, wings curved up overhead, face a hideous mask of horned bone and black leather. It was easily as big as Pony, perhaps larger; even as my hand dropped to the hilt of my blade, it hopped back off the carriage, caught the edge with both claws, then strained mightily, beating its powerful wings in one fell beat as it twisted and hurled the carriage up and away.
Somehow, it was able to do so. The carriage squealed, metal fixtures on cobblestones, wood crunched under its talons, but then it twisted about and left the ground to spin up into the air, its entire mass flung as if it were a toy discarded petulantly by a child.
I could only stare there and stare, slack-jawed, as the couch spun once, twice, and then collided with the front of Thorne Manor. Exploding into a mass of kindling and lacquered boards, it demolished the balcony and embedded itself through the two doors that led into the room beyond.
“No,” I whispered, trying to envision the destruction that had just been wrought upon those within.
“Kellik!”
Netherys’s cry, off to the side. Feeling as if I were sunken in honey, unable to react quickly, I turned and saw her crouched to one side, having escaped the coach just in time, Pogo limp and bleeding in her arms.
The relief was muted, too little compared to the shock of what had just happened.
There was a powerful downdraft, and a second demon descended upon us, a lithe, black-skinned monster, feminine in its proportions, its hair a mass of writhing snakes, its tail ending in a foot-length of serrated bone that it whipped from side to side.
Was there something elven about its features?
A third flew down from the sky, this one squat like a toad, broader than it was tall, skin pebbled and green, mouth full two feet wide, nose nonexistent, eyes near hidden under thick folds of leathery skin.
A fourth dropped behind me, insectile, its wings those of a dragonfly, its body warped so that its waist narrowed to an emaciated point just above its pelvic cradle, giving it the appearance of a thorax and abdomen. Its body was sheathed in iridescent chitin, its head a praying mantis horror that quirked from one side to the other.
Slow applause sounded, and then Eddwick emerged from the shadows of a doorway set in the far side of the manor, slender and plain as ever, hair a rough bowl cut; his face so familiar it ached, his smile more sneer.
“Well done! It seems I lost my bet. I suppose Master Ripple can throw a coach across the street. I’d doubts about the coach’s structural integrity, but they really know how to make them these days.”
“Eddwick,” I hissed, orienting on him and drawing my silvery blade.
Pony came charging from around the back of the manor, sledgehammer in hand, and now thwapped it into his other palm. With a low rumble, he began striding toward our little crowd.
“You know, things aren’t looking food for you,” said Eddwick. “And I’m not talking about your being surrounded by five demons right now. I’m talking big picture. The White Lioness is concerning. I’ve heard that a full fifth of the city has already fled, and there’s not a ship left in the harbor. Perhaps, in a way, we’re doing you a favor, ending it all here.”
“This’ll be an end,” I said. “But it won’t be mine.”
“You always were good at turning a phrase. Something I had little practice at, seeing as I was mute and all. But no matter. The demon within me has given me wings. Now the words spill forth seemingly without end. As if I were compensating for all the years -”
The feminine demon hissed in annoyance. “Cease your prattling, seer.”
“I’m telling you, it’s nearly impossible to find an appreciative audience these days,” said Eddwick. “Never mind. All right, everyone. Remember: remove his head and we can get back to work rebuilding the Family.”
I slowly swirled my blade about in a circle, but couldn’t help stare past the closing circle of demons at the crumpled carriage embedded in the manor’s second floor. A back wheel was still turning lazily, but otherwise, no sound of movement came from the wreckage.
Tamara. Cerys. Seraphina.
A terrible, all-consuming hatred burst forth from my heart.
First Iris. Then Yashara. If I lost more?
I felt my grip on sanity begin to slip.
Eddwick pouted with mock sympathy. “Come, Kellik. All’s fair in love and war, right? This is just a little more war resulting in a little less love.”
My body was shivering as if a fever were creeping over me. A fire was burning in my core, rising like a twister of naked flame, consuming everything within me. My identity, my doubts, my reservations, my hopes, my dreams.
Leaving nothing behind but the raw essence of king troll.
The massive, squat toad-demon hesitated, then parted its vast mouth to loll a tongue the size of a three-year-old child about its face. The feminine demon with her elven features moved out wide, talons extending till each was nearly a foot and a half long, while the massive monster who’d tossed the carriage pounded its fists once, twice, thee times into the cobbles as if warming them up, and then began to amble over.
Pony ran into his side with the force of a rogue avalanche, sledgehammer impacting his head a moment before his blue stone shoulder slammed into the demon’s side.
The demon stumbled but didn’t go down.
My body felt alien. Something was happening to me. The tornado of fire was turning liquid, melting and flowing into me, filling my insides, sluicing into my limbs, suffusing my mind.
I saw Cerys smiling, rays of sunlight and shadows dappling her face as she looked up at me, one eye closed.
I saw Tamara leaning over me, tending to my wounds the first time I’d met her, in the dim darkness of her crude shack.
My body shook, quaked. Eddwick was shouting something. A command. The demons were closing on me. Moving fast, but the quicker they moved, the more time seemed to slow down. Sounds grew slurred and lost meaning.
I was sleaved in sweat, my skin prickling, swarming over my frame. My bones were liquid, my mind a cloud of crimson that needed blood.
Needed to conquer.
To dominate these demons.
To break them down, one b
y one, and force them to kneel.
To acknowledge me their ruler.
To bow their heads to their master.
To call me their king.
My body changed. Began to grow. Felt as if my muscles were changed to toffee and being stretched between two clamps. I was growing taller, the larger of the demons lowering to my eye level, or I climbing to theirs. A fell strength was supercharging me, feeling as if molten iron was coursing through my veins, suffusing my flesh. I needed to let that energy out. I needed to release the potential for violence that was coursing through my body.
The toad demon opened his mouth from a distance and his massive tongue snaked out, fast as a lash, dripping ichor and whipping toward my face.
I raised my forearm and the tongue wrapped around it, the slime burning through my black skin, exposing gleaming red flesh beneath for a moment before healing over, the pain receding, gone.
I clamped my hand down upon that tongue and squeezed my fingers into a fist.
The toad demon’s eyes bulged.
With a roar, I hauled on the tongue, which was surprisingly elastic. Still, not elastic enough. The power behind the yank lifted the demon off his squat legs and brought him flying toward me, blood fountaining from his broad mouth as his tongue nearly tore out by the roots.
He came flying right into my other fist.
At least, I assumed it was my fist, which had changed. My skin was cinder black, my forearm striated with muscle, the tips of each knuckle edged now with inch-long spikes of horn. My hand looking large enough to defeat Pony in a game of thumb war.
My fist sank into the demon’s soft face down to the wrist, and I felt delicate bones snap as the architecture of his skull failed to withstand the assault. His bulbous body went out from under him, as if he’d run headlong into a beam, and when his massive form was fully horizontal, tongue curling all around us like some winding mountain path made of gleaming flesh, I drove my fist straight down into the road, piledriving his head into the cobbles.
It cratered from the force of the blow, my fist driving another three or four inches into the demon’s skull.