The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “Hammerfiss!” Spades shouted.

  Ava was yanked out of her musings by the crunch of stone and sunbaked grass as the warrior woman approached, sword in hand. A froth of red curls framed her face and spilled over her shoulders. Her skin bore a scatter of freckles under large green eyes and high cheekbones. “Aeros need help with that useless Bloodwood,” she addressed Hammerfiss. “He’s coherent enough now. His time has come.”

  “My honor.” Hammerfiss smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile. He had large yellow teeth that made him look like a crazed child. He expelled a grand gust of laughter before saying, “It’s about time the Spider was meted out his punishment.”

  “Indeed.” Spades’ voice was bereft of emotion as she watched the big man saunter away toward Aeros’ tent. She pulled forth a coin and flipped it in the air, catching it deftly, naturally, flipping it again, as if it was just part of who she was and always would be—a woman with a sword in one hand, coin in the other.

  Ava tried her best to ignore Spades, looking instead toward Mancellor and Jenko still banging swords. Of the two young men, Jenko Bruk was slightly thicker and stronger. He was also swaggering and confident with a sword in hand, arms stacked with muscle. He had amber eyes and tousled brown hair that fell in sweaty waves to just above his shoulders. Mancellor Allen was no slouch, tall and rangy with braided rows of russet-colored hair. He bore Wyn Darrè fighting tattoos under both eyes. All things considered, Jenko and Mancellor were evenly matched.

  “Like a shaft of iron, your Jenko,” Spades said. She tilted her head and eyed Ava Shay up and down casually, her glance mischievous. “I’ve never seen cock swell so hard and so fast. His eagerness knows no bounds.”

  Ava did not want to dignify the woman with any response or utterance at all, but couldn’t help but notice the woman’s every move out of the corner of her eye.

  “I presume you already know of what I speak,” Spades carried on, coin now dancing between her fingers, the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve also had your pouty little lips wrapped around his staff.”

  Ava remained silent, letting the White Prince’s wine cloud her mind, glad she was drunk.

  “How does our Lord Aeros measure up in that regard?”

  Lightning-hot pain seemed to lash through Ava’s entire soul. She clamped up even tighter than before. I’d rather be dead than spend one more moment with these vile people. She forced her eyes forward, trying to concentrate on the sparring boys on the grassy, windswept hill.

  “Well.” There was a hint of laughter in Spades’ voice. “Clearly you are taking this conversation more seriously than I. But I really wish to know, what do you make of our Lord Aeros’ heavenly sessions?”

  “He rapes me.” The words spilled forth as her glance darted toward Spades.

  It was faint, nearly indiscernible, but the woman’s eyes seemed to widen slightly at the rushed frankness of Ava’s remark. The coin no longer danced in her hand. Her other hand gripped the sword tight. “Be honored that our Lord Aeros has chosen you.”

  “Honored?” The word tasted sour on her own lips. She wanted to puke, the wine no longer sitting so comfortably in her gut.

  Spades lifted her sword, the tip of the blade right in front of Ava. “This is what sets us apart from the women of Gul Kana.” The woman had ice in her voice, a flicker of something like pain behind her gaze. “Makes us not so concerned about our man and his cock or his sexual habits or infidelities. Makes us not so concerned about rutting of any kind. Nothing is so precious when you’ve a sharp blade in your hand and know how to wield it. When you can kill as efficiently as a man, that is strength. When nobody can defeat you with a blade, that is power. There is no more dangerous force in the Five Isles than a woman with a sword. Or a woman willing to use her own mind. Or a woman ready to do whatever she damn well pleases.”

  Spades’ unblinkingly eyes pierced Ava over the edge of the blade as she continued. “Why do you think your quorum of five and grand vicar in Amadon keep the women out of their priesthood? Why do they forbid the women to speak of their Ember Gathering? Why have your kings throughout history not allowed swords in the hands of their girls?” She let the blade dip below her waist.

  Ava felt like she was being examined and shifted uncomfortably. Does she think I can actually answer that? Spades had a gaze that could chill her soul from a mile away. And everyone knew the Ember Gathering was too sacred to speak of. Still, after a few breaths, Ava did answer. “Only men are strong and brave enough to fight.”

  Spades’ eyes widened again, but in mocking way. Then she winked. “I will teach you to think different.” She held the sword out, hilt first, as if expecting Ava to take it.

  But Ava stepped back, apprehension carving a hole in her chest. Spades rammed the sword into the ground between them, her face suddenly formed into a cold mask. She turned her back to Ava, posture stiff as she folded her arms. The long blade stayed quivering in the dirt between them.

  “Forward! Forward with your feet!” Spades shouted at Jenko, who appeared to be backing Mancellor down with his own swift sword, the Wyn Darrè fighter using one of the random poles as cover.

  Ava stared at Spades’ unprotected back, her eyes slowly drifting to the sword jammed in the dirt, wishing to take it up. But I haven’t even the strength or bravery for that. . . .

  †  †  †  †  †

  Aeros Raijael approached. Hammerfiss was with him, a coiled whip with a barbed tip in hand. Between them they dragged the Bloodwood, barely able to keep his feet, dressed in naught but a simple pair of rough-spun tan pants and a loose-fitting black shirt. The bandages had been removed from the Spider’s head; one side of his face and jaw was purple and swollen under his close-cropped black hair.

  The Bloodwood had been Ava’s travel companion, riding with her in the covered wagon that had borne them both north with the armies of the White Prince. He had remained unconscious the bulk of the time, recovering from the head wound. Aeros had placed her in charge of cleaning the wound daily, deeming her the Bloodwood’s “healer.” This task she abhorred. The Spider’s Bloodeye stallion, Scowl, had made the trip too, tied behind the wagon, its fiery-red eyes always seemingly fixed on Ava whenever she looked its way, as if the beast wanted to devour her. The black steed seemed spawned of the underworld—a demon-eyed phantom bred of sorcery.

  Aeros Raijael commanded the attention of all as he drew up beside Jenko and Mancellor and the gauntlet of poles and both he and Hammerfiss let the Spider slide to the ground. Like a marble sculpture, the White Prince’s bearing was always beautiful, even whilst dragging a limp Bloodwood. Under his white cloak he wore pearl-colored chain-mail armor, glistening and smooth, knee-high black boots with iron-studded toes, and fitted brown leather leggings. His shimmering blond hair hung unbound to his shoulders in lank white waves. His skin was always pale, bloodless and hollow. It was always his empty eyes that captured Ava in their dark embrace, pupils naught but twin circles of moldering blackness.

  “Another one of my Knights Archaic has failed me.” Aeros spoke loud enough for the hundred gathered around to hear. Hammerfiss latched on to the Spider’s shirt with his free hand and roughly yanked the Bloodwood back up for all to see. The Spider’s normally red-shot eyes appeared foggy, narrow brows not quite as sharp as before, that vaporous icy confidence no longer present in him.

  “Like Stabler before him,” Aeros continued, “Spiderwood set out on a mission at my command and fell woefully short in his duty. He had the boy, Nail, within his grasp and allowed him to escape. And he lost my sword, Sky Reaver. Now that he has regained some coherency of thought, he will be allowed to make right his wrongs and answer for his failures.”

  “What have you to say for yourself, sneak thief?” Hammerfiss growled, shaking the Bloodwood, seeming to take great pleasure in the man’s suffering.

  The Spider didn’t even look up as he answered. “ ’Twas by happenstance I came upon Nail. ’Twas by
happenstance the boy escaped. I bear no blame.”

  “That is a feeble defense for a feeble man.” Hammerfiss smiled.

  “You would have me slay you now?” Aeros said, venom in his voice. “I thought more of you. I thought more of Black Dugal’s Caste.”

  “You’ve already deemed me guilty,” the Spider responded, not meeting the eyes of the White Prince. “I submit to whatever you wish.”

  “I desire that you invoke the Chivalric Rule of Blood Penance,” Aeros ordered.

  “As you wish.”

  Ava had been on the beachhead in Tomkin Sty when the knight, Stabler, had returned, also having failed to capture Nail. Stabler had invoked the Rule of Blood Penance. He’d chosen a duel to the death over a flogging to atone for his failure. Gault had been selected by Aeros to fight Stabler. And Gault had brutally cut Stabler down.

  Aeros spoke even louder than before, launching into his set speech. “The Bloodwood named Spiderwood, one of my honored Knights Archaic, wishes to invoke the Chivalric Rule of Blood Penance. He wishes to redeem himself. For he desires to be worthy to sit at my side in heaven. He can select a flogging and rejoin the Hound Guard as a squire, or he can select a duel to the death with a warrior of my choosing!” Aeros’ frosty, black-pupiled eyes turned toward the Bloodwood, who was again drooping in Hammerfiss’ grip. “If you are triumphant in the duel, you may resume your position as one of my Knights Archaic and all will be forgotten. Die and I deem your shed blood sufficient repentance for your failure. Your body will be burned on the pyre and your soul allowed to take wing into heaven.”

  The Bloodwood held his head up straight. His swollen face seemed incapable of expression as his lusterless gaze fell upon Aeros. “As you know, a Bloodwood has scant use for Laijon or Raijael or your heaven or even your Blood Penance.”

  “Be that as it may,” Aeros hissed, “choose you the duel, or the flogging?”

  The Spider shrugged Hammerfiss away and stood on his own. He pulled his shirt swiftly up and over his head, letting it fall to the ground. He turned once for all to see, both arms held out in supplication. His upper body was sallow in the sunlight, the ridges of his spine like the fins of sharks, plying the skin of his back. When he stopped turning, his gaze, though still misty with pain, lanced toward Aeros. “I choose to fight!”

  “Splendid.” Aeros bowed to him.

  “I choose to fight,” the Spider repeated. “But only when I am healed of my wounds. I will not be forced into a shameful end like Beau Stabler.”

  “Ha!” Hammerfiss shouted. “He has always been a coward!”

  Aeros’ face held a scowl of disbelief. “You fight now. Or you are flogged now. Those are your choices, Bloodwood.”

  “I will not fight today.” The Spider bowed.

  Aeros’ gaze sliced into the Bloodwood. “Then you know what is to come?”

  The Spider bowed again, deeper this time. “Be careful of whom you choose to wield the whip, my lord. For know that I will kill the man who does. Not today. But someday.”

  “Well then.” Hammerfiss held up the barb-tipped whip. “Let the honor be mine.”

  The White Prince nodded once at Hammerfiss. “Twenty lashes.”

  Hammerfiss forced the Bloodwood toward one of the tall stumps Jenko and Mancellor had been sparring near. “Today you will suffer the punishment of a bleating cur.” Hammerfiss’ gleeful eyes burned as bright as two candles. “And suffer it at my hand.” He shoved the Bloodwood face-first against the wooden pole. “Tie him up!” Hammerfiss tossed a thong of leather at Mancellor. Together with Jenko, the Wyn Darrè grabbed the Spider’s hands and secured them tight near the top of the stump.

  Hammerfiss cracked the whip. “That leather strap may not be enough to hold him for twenty lashes, boys. If he slides down the pole, be ready to brace him up. Twenty is double what most men can bear.”

  The Spider stood chest-first against the pole, arms bound above his head, pale skin exposed. He turned, looking in the direction of Ava and Spades and the sword jutting from the dirt between them. Why does he so easily submit? This entire scene just stressed to Ava the fact that if Aeros could inflict pain and humiliation like this to a coldhearted demon like the Spider, he had the power and willingness to visit cruelness upon anyone at any time.

  The whip was coiled tight in Hammerfiss’ hand as he centered himself behind the Bloodwood. “This man has proven he is without honor!” Hammerfiss shouted. “Respect is earned on the field of battle with hard steel! One cannot cheat their way into it with black daggers and sneaky assassin ways! When it comes time to pay the butcher’s bill, only a coward chooses flogging! And this man has proven himself naught but a coward!”

  The Spider’s bloodshot eyes fell on Ava. A chill settled over her. She did not want to watch this, but she couldn’t break her gaze from it. One thing was now sure. For survival’s sake she would have to learn to live like Spades, hard as iron and hollow inside, devoid of tender feeling.

  Hammerfiss’ face was a rash of red as the timbre of his voice grew. “We can all see the Spider’s true heart now! Full of weakness! Lacking in courage! It is why he has relied on sneakiness and devilry and childish acrobatics his entire life! He mocks The Chivalric Illuminations and this army with his very presence! What have any of the black-hearted Bloodwoods done to help this war effort? These twenty lashes are for Felisar Gannon, who died at the Battle of Agonmoore! Wolfmere Lohr, who died at the Battle of Oksana! These lashes are for all men who died glorious deaths! With honor! Men who helped conquer two entire kingdoms! The Illuminations record their deeds. Above all, these lashes are for Gault Aulbrek, who has gone missing in Ravenker! For my brother in war, Gault, who was last seen with this betrayer!”

  “Enough with the speeches,” Aeros said, a small measure of impatience in his voice. “Get on with it.”

  Hammerfiss bowed low to the White Prince. “To quote the Chivalric Rule of Blood Penance, ‘May this flogging be a gift unto our Lord Aeros, a lord who communes with both Laijon the Father and Raijael the Son.’ ” He flicked out the whip’s barbed lash with a sinister snap, voice growing heavy with power. “You, Ser Bloodwood, disgust me. You are naught but a mouse who boasts of paying scant homage to Raijael or Laijon, or even Mother Mia. Let the pain I am about to inflict upon you be a reminder of whom it is you serve. And the one whom you serve is my blessed Lord Aeros Raijael!”

  Hammerfiss drew back the thick bulk of his arm in a flash, and the whip snaked high into the air behind him, then exploded forward with the sound of angry lightning, all his brute force into the blow. The Spider bunched his shoulders in preparation. The barbed lash of the whip struck his back with a violent crack of thunder, slicing him open from right shoulder to left ribs in a swift red line. His eyes flew open as his back muscles spasmed and bunched. Yet he did not cry out, just stared into space somewhere above Ava Shay’s head. Blood ran in a thin sheet of scarlet from the wound over his ivory-skinned back, pooling at the rim of his rough-spun breeches, soaking in.

  Hammerfiss reared back for another strike, snapping the barbed lash out behind him, striking a second time with powerfully muscled fury. A crack like lightning and another cruel line opened up into the Bloodwood’s shuddering pale flesh. The man’s fingers clenched and strained against his leather bonds.

  Ava closed her eyes for the third lash. Her mind and soul had already witnessed far too much pointless violence. She ceased to watch as ten more lashes followed, her thoughts wandering to places even darker still. With each callous crack of the whip, her inward vision shimmered and swam with the wraiths. She let go her senses, felt nothing save hearing and smell. These people are cruel. Evil, for evil’s sake. They’ll gleefully torture their own as quickly as their enemies, with no rhyme or reason behind any of it.

  Fifteen lashes she counted, and a breeze dragged across the slope. She felt it sweep back her hair, and with it came the pungent taste of blood. The sixteenth lash crackled, a merciless wet slap, barbed tips lashing into skin. The sound br
ought the bile to her throat. At the seventeenth sodden slap of the whip she nearly vomited.

  She wanted to force herself, with every ounce of her being, to open her eyes and look. To look and to not vomit. She needed to discover some resolve, some strength within herself and show it. At the eighteenth lash her strained eyes opened.

  The most shocking part of the scene before her wasn’t the flayed, mutilated flesh of the Spider’s anguished back, or the stark whiteness of his exposed ribs against his bloody torn flesh. The most shocking part was his dark eyes. They were no longer foggy and flooded with uncertainty or even pain. They were sharp and icy and clear.

  And as the nineteenth and twentieth lashes rained down, his two intense orbs were focused on her—orbs that seemed to glow as red as the blood pooling at his feet.

  * * *

  Thus, my greatest fear cometh that the writings of the Last Warrior Angels will eclipse the word-of-mouth stories. Indeed, they will eclipse the ancient symbols once scratched into standing stones, totems, and altars. Words on scrolled parchment carry import. Words on a page within a bound book carry the weight of a world.

  —THE ANGEL STONE CODEX

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  LINDHOLF LE GRAVEN

  8TH DAY OF THE ETHIC MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  AMADON, GUL KANA

  The apron-clad bartender placed a steaming bowl of stew right in front of Lindholf with a thud. Startled, Lindholf jumped in his chair and yanked back his straying hand, breathing deeply. He was sitting in the Slaver’s Tavern and Inn, trying his level best to remain calm. He was here to pickpocket his first victim.

  The efficiency of the bartender wasn’t helping. But once the fellow scuttled away behind the two double doors leading to the kitchen of the tavern, Lindholf moved his hand back again. Gently. Ever so slowly. Palms sweaty, heart thudding, he felt behind him for the pouch hooked to the man’s belt, tense fingers lightly brushing the man’s thick leather belt. He tried to keep his fingers malleable. But he couldn’t see what he was doing. And that was the frustrating thing. No matter how much Val-Draekin had taught him about thievery and sleight of hand, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that most of a thief’s work was done blind—just like this.