by Travis Smith
His eyes widened. The sound certainly came from within the prison. He snatched the gun slung around his back and set off down the large crater into Fanxel, his crew dragging the ragged prisoner at a breakneck pace.
When they descended upon the barracks outside the prison, Resin came to a halt and motioned for his crew to follow suit. From here, they could hear incessant gunfire coming from within. Better to be safe and take the last stretch with caution. The barracks were comprised of a long pathway circling the outside of the prison with a few exits here and there into the surrounding desert. The path was littered with refuse, bundles of cloth in corners for the trustees to sleep, and crates filled with weapons and relics from other nations and—some speculated—other worlds.
Resin crouched behind a crate and waited for his men to line up behind him. When they did, he peered around into the pathway. It was uncharacteristically empty. In his prior visits, no matter the time of day, there were bound to be some lazy guards or custodians lounging around or wasting time. Today, no one was in sight. He slinked forward and shuffled to another pile of crates to hide behind, surveying the area ahead with his weapon aimed keenly before him. He motioned for his men to follow.
In this fashion the group made their way around the barracks, silent save for the automatic gunfire coming from the prison center. As Resin was preparing to step out from behind a lean-to and push forward farther, he heard footsteps approaching. He held out a hand to stay his men.
Two frantic men in tattered clothes came skittering around the corner, eyes wide and chests heaving. One stumbled as they turned the bend and collapsed onto his stomach. As his companion turned back to help him up, Resin stepped out and trained his gun upon the man still on his feet.
“What the fuck is goin’ on in there?” he barked in a hushed tone.
The men yelped and cowered before him. The one who had fallen remained on his knees, now bowing with his hands above his head in surrender. “Please don’ kill me, please don’ kill me!”
“I said what’s happenin’ in that prison!” he demanded, louder this time. “What’s all that shootin’ abou’?”
The men continued to tremble and repeat, “Please don’ kill me! Please don’!”
“Hey!” Resin bellowed, planting his boot on the man’s ribs and shoving him over onto his side. He seized the man’s companion by the hair and placed his gun against the side of his head. “Ye see this?” The man on his side sobbed, his eyes wide and glistening with tears. Resin pulled the trigger, and the prisoner’s head exploded, raining blood down atop his companion. He suddenly grew heavy in Resin’s grasp, and he let go, allowing the lifeless body to drop into the sandy path. “Now tell me who’s raidin’ the prison!”
The man rolled onto his stomach and retched into the dirt. Between heaves, he belted hoarse sobs and incomprehensible words.
Resin bent down and seized him by the hair. He drew a smaller gun from his waist and placed the tip of it under his chin. “Tell me now, boy, or yer next,” he promised, drawing back the hammer.
The wretched man continued sobbing. He managed to stammer, “The—the b—b—boys. Th—they’re lettin’ the p—pris’ners go.”
Resin growled. He let go of the man’s hair, and his head collapsed back in the dirt, where he continued sobbing. Resin stood and fired one bullet into the back of the wretch’s head, ceasing his cries instantly. He pocketed his pistol and set off again along the path. This time he bothered not to signal to his men or take cover behind the rubble.
The boys, he thought as he stormed forward. Lettin’ the pris’ners go.
Which boys might that be? Certainly not the same boys who’d ambushed him, ransacked his cabin, and stolen away his only daughter and steady source of paga.
As he rounded the bend and the clay wall that made up the back of one of the rows of cells came into view, he saw them. The very same boys. They were facing away from him, firing into a crowd of inept guards.
“Stole my daughter, now topplin’ the prison,” he growled under his breath.
But they wouldn’t get away with it today. Not today or ever again.
He rushed them from behind. His men took down the larger of the boys who was still firing into the crowd, and he seized the blond one who was standing in front of an open cell.
5
It was the dead of night when Denwyle’s bladder interrupted his slumber. He groaned and glanced at the distant horizon. No sign of sunrise yet, so there was still time to rest, but he knew he’d struggle to fall back asleep, despite the exhausted aching in his joints. His group had walked all through the previous night and the day that followed. It was only a collective dissent that had earned them half of this night to rest.
He stood on painfully stiff legs and hobbled away from the campsite in to a nearby thicket to do his business.
“Got me marchin’ through the desert on these swollen knees,” he grumbled to himself as he pushed through some tall bushes for privacy. He lowered his trousers and let his stream start to flow when a voice piped up from behind him. He yanked up at his pecker in surprise and sprayed piss all over his hand and pants. Nearly falling backward, he spun ’round and drew his weapon toward the voice.
“Painful knees are no types o’ knees to be marchin’ on.” The clean-cut man was seated casually on a rotting stump. His legs were spread wide, and his hands rested atop a tiny skull that adorned the tip of a heavy cane. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, friend,” he said without looking up. He lifted one four-fingered hand and gestured toward the bushes on either side of them.
Denwyle glanced into the bushes and saw nothing, but he sensed an eager rustling on either side. He swallowed hard. “The fuck’re you?”
“Let’s keep this between the two of us,” Maldeive said with a smile. Then he mouthed, “Lower your voice and your weapon,” without a sound.
“The fuck are you?” Denwyle demanded again, softer this time.
“Oh, you can call me,” the man began; he placed his four-fingered hand beneath his chin in dramatic gesture of consideration before concluding, “The Glorious One!”
“The Glorious One?” Denwyle repeated.
Maldeive shook his head side to side and made a soft, dissatisfied tut-tut-tut sound with his tongue. “We’ll work on that,” he conceded. “For now, lower yer weapon and allow me to ask some questions.”
Denwyle lowered it, but only slightly. The man was thin and well-groomed, with a tight beard and relatively clean teeth, but something about him was menacing. His unconcerned posture and misplaced whimsical attitude set Denwyle on edge.
“How would ya like to have no pain?” Maldeive drawled in his eloquent way.
Denwyle’s brow furrowed.
“Do ya wanna be in pain?” Maldeive asked.
Denwyle shook his head.
“Do ya wanna live forever?” he asked, a crazed twinkle in his eye, visible even beneath the night sky.
“The fuck’re you on about, man?” Denwyle asked, raising his gun again.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Maldeive warned, waving a finger in front of his face. He pointed again at the bushes to Denwyle’s right, then his left. “Do you want to live forever?” he asked again, punctuating each syllable.
Denwyle scowled at the strange man. He’d never considered such a farcical question.
“Do ya wanna die?” Maldeive asked.
Denwyle clutched his weapon tighter and took a step backward.
“No threats, friend,” Maldeive assured the man. “Certainly ya don’t wanna die, no?”
He shook his head slowly.
Maldeive lowered his voice to a full whisper. As he spoke, he rose from the stump and limped forward, his right hand resting on the cane, his left extending to pat the man’s shoulder. “What if I told ya you can have eternal life, an’ ya don’t have to live in pain?”
Denwyle nodded, uncomprehending. “How?” he whispered back, his weapon now lowered by his side.
“Simple.”
6
The White Sword lay on its side, unsheathed, in one corner where he’d tossed it and forgotten it long ago. Now he allowed himself to get lost in a glint of sunlight on its shining surface. How fitting it would be for the ancient weapon forged by the first of Reprise’s kings to slit the throat and end the toxic royal bloodline once and for all …
He bent and grabbed the sword by its heavy hilt and dragged it out of his quarters. He made his way down the castle’s halls, sword’s tip dragging behind him across the stone floors, like a child trawling his comfort blanket. Once at Laura’s quarters (cell) he unlocked the heavy padlock on the door and stepped inside.
Laura looked upon him with immediate concern. She moved her body on the bed to position herself between him and William.
“You’re back …” she observed. When The Baron continued to stare darkly at William without replying, she asked, “What are you doing?”
She glanced from his sweat-soaked face, black hair dangling in moist tendrils around his eyes, to the sword hanging limply in his hand. His eyes were dark and more deranged than usual.
He muttered something inaudible, still staring at the baby in a ghastly daze.
Laura swallowed hard and waited for him to make a move. “What?” she asked, breathless.
“I could kill him,” Bernard mumbled, only slightly louder than before. He spoke as though in a trance. “Could slice his little gut right down to the hilt. It would be simple.” Frustrated tears welled atop his eyelids, threatening to spill down his cheeks.
Helpless, Laura reached her hand behind her and lay it atop her sleeping son. Tears welled and did spill from her eyes. “Bernard, you need to go lie down and think.”
“Think …” he repeated. He’d had so long to think on his voyage back from Fordar. Now that he was here, he was finding it difficult to think about anything other than skewering the useless child. What would that mean? What would happen to the transference of the royal power if he killed the boy and Skuttler managed to kill his brother? These were questions he could not answer. Perhaps they were better left unanswered … at least for today.
The Baron stood in silence in Laura’s doorway for a long while before turning and slamming the door back behind him.
—
“That’s the last fucking time I travel across the Great Sea!” Bernard shouted, letting himself into Antonio’s cabin unannounced and slamming the door behind him. He’d done as Laura asked—though she’d no doubt express no token of gratitude—and slept off his deadly temper.
Antonio sat in his chair by the eastern window overlooking the sea. He did not turn as Bernard entered. His face wore the usual ill-tempered scowl.
“Uh, hello?” Bernard exclaimed, walking around to the other side of the room so that he could face his number two. “It’s me,” he waved with caustic sarcasm.
“Not a pleas’reable furlough?” Antonio grumbled.
“I should say so!” Bernard said. “Whole fucking prison was up in flames by the time I left. I’d scarcely set foot off the ship before The Battle of Bastion’s Lowe had broken out!”
Deficient leadership, Antonio didn’t dare say out loud.
“My brother wasn’t even there! His cell was empty, and I had to make a deal with that canyon rat Skuttler to hunt him down.”
That won’ end well, Antonio thought. Again, he didn’t speak aloud.
“Something to say?” Bernard demanded darkly.
“Any o’ my men get killed?” he asked.
Bernard reeled backward with dramatic flair. His coiffed black hair fell into his face. “Your men? Pardon my ears—must be filled with sea salt. You said your men?”
“Yes, Baron, my men ye had me round up t’ sail ye ’way on yer private excursion!”
Bernard’s claws retracted minutely. “Have you been here sulking this whole time that I didn’t bring you along?”
“There was a time we made these forays together,” Antonio growled. “Lest yer left hand f’rget yer right.”
“Yes, and now my right hand must stay in Krake and look after the affairs while I’m away!”
“What affairs?” Antonio demanded. “What affairs’re we runnin’, Bernard? Openin’ some door in t’ castle? Wanderin’ through t’ woods all night? I ain’t seen any affairs in—I can’t remember the last affairs we handled!”
Bernard raised a hand and closed his eyes in annoyance. “My right hand needn’t know what my left hand does when the lights are low. I’ve two hands for a reason, Antonio, and ye’d serve well to tend to your own. This whole thing is …” He waved his hands in a circle, searching for a word. Fucked was the word that rose to his tongue. “This whole thing can’t work until my brother is dead and that door opens.”
Antonio scoffed. “Ye can’t rule ’less yer sittin’ in ’at throne?”
“There’s more to that room than the throne,” Bernard replied darkly. With that, he pulled another chair beside his friend and snatched a piece of stale bread from his table.
7
Antonio Staig was still sitting in his chair peering out the window at the setting sun when someone rapped upon his door.
“Come,” he called without turning.
A timid officer opened the door and stepped inside. “Ye sent for me?” he asked, closing the door behind him and keeping his back against it.
“Yer man over in Fordar,” Antonio began. He waved a finger at the officer as if beckoning him to fill in the gaps in Antonio’s own memory. “What’s ’at ye tol’ me ’bout some boys muckin’ up ’is operation?”
The officer stood with his mouth agape. “Ahhh,” he pondered foolishly, struggling to recall the conversation in question.
“Causin’ all sort o’ problems? In Fanxel now?” Antonio nudged.
“Uhh, yes, sir,” the man said. “That’s ’bout all there was to it.”
“Well, not anymore,” Antonio said. “Get the crew back together. We’re goin’ over.”
“Back to Fordar, sir?” the officer questioned. “But we jus’ returned …”
“An’ we’re goin’ back.”
“The Baron wants to go back?” he asked. “But it was a—”
Now Antonio stood from his chair and faced the man. His hulking frame towered above the young officer. “The Baron ain’t goin’ anyplace!”
The officer nodded emphatically. “Yes, sir, yes, sir.” He paused before adding, “The Baron’s orderin’ us back?”
“The Baron ain’t orderin’ shit,” Antonio snarled. “He’s too focused on other concerns. I’ll handle foreign matters meself.”
8
The Fanxel guards who had remained in the courtyard during the escape joined forces with Resin’s small band of men and fended off the underground cannibals as they were erupting from the tunnel under one of the cells. They’d managed to get the cell gate closed and fight off the several creatures that’d made it out.
Now the prison was quiet save for the screeching of the cannibals now locked inside the cell. They threw their mangled bodies against the bars and howled in their incomprehensible language. Some eventually grew tired of the struggle and reentered the tunnels from whence they’d come.
Resin sat on a nearby crate and nursed his neck. He was holding a smock, wet and heavy with his own blood, against the wound where the beast had bitten off a chunk. Two days had passed since the chaos, but the wound was still oozing readily. “What the fevered fuck happened in ’at cell?” he barked at the surrounding guards. He’d already asked once, and no one had answ
ered.
“We don’ know, sir,” one man finally replied. “It was chaos all ’round.”
“Who was in ’ere?” he demanded. He’d taken notice of the round symbols carved into the clay walls. The very same symbols that had been on the vial he’d stolen in attempts to recreate its contents.
Before the guards’ uncomfortable silence could drag on too long, someone walked around the corner. “Fuckin’ brats got away. Ain’t no trace of ’em anywhere, but I found this weasel sneakin’ around.”
Resin observed the guard toss a squirrelly man into the dirt before him. His hair was thinning in a diseased way. His face was cracked from long-standing sun damage, and he had sores all around his mouth, which he prodded compulsively with his tongue.
“Now, n—n—now …” Skuttler pleaded, hoisting himself back up to his knees and stretching his arms out before him.
“He was totin’ this,” the guard said, tossing Skuttler’s large machine gun to Resin, who dropped his bloody smock and caught it with a wince.
He cast the guard a murderous glance before picking up his rag. “Somebody get me a fuckin’ bandage for this gash,” he demanded. “It’s re-opened an’ bleedin’ again. Where’d ye get this gun, boy?”
Skuttler’s eyes danced vigilantly between the nearby guards and the large man seated before him. “That’s m—mine,” he said, calculating his next move.
“Ain’t his!” one of the guards shouted from the back of the small crowd.
“I’m a guard here,” Skuttler continued.
“Naw!” a few others chimed in now. “Nuisance! Been stirrin’ up shit since the day ’e got ’ere.”
“Where’s Boss?” Skuttler demanded, his stutter fading as he feigned authority.
“Ye jus’ found ’im,” Resin growled.
Skuttler faltered. “W—wha?” He shook his head, still on his knees. “No, Boss. He gave me that weapon an’ important delegations,” he lied.
Resin stood from the crate and drew his small firearm from his waist. “Well, yer lookin’ at the new boss,” he said, cocking the hammer and placing it against Skuttler’s temple, “an’ yer mission’s cut short.”