Blood and Iron 3

by Eli Steele

  Unheading a man from behind without regard, the stranger drew towards his adversary until they were a little more than a blade’s length apart. Together, they revolved around each other in the bloody slog, like two partners on a dance floor in the court of the king of the damned, helmed eyes guarded by shadows but undoubtedly fixed on one other. All around, swords fell to men’s sides and a circle gathered around the pair.

  The blue tower struck first with a mace as long as a yearling squire, swinging down in a sharp arc. Brimstone broadswords in tandem stopped the blow mid strike. Stunned, the giant stumbled backwards, before planting his heavy foot and heaving the spiked head across the space again. Swaggering to the side, the black paladin kicked the man hard in his ass, sending him careening forward. A chuckle like rattled bones raised the crowd’s hackles.

  Enraged, the blue tower threw down his shield and gripped the mace with both hands. Lunging, he swung the weapon with the force of five men.

  Stepping into the arc, the gloom knight brought both blades up again. This time, he drove the edges into the mace, sundering head from shaft while tripping the giant, sending him headlong into the bloody filth. Ten pounds of steel sailed over the heads of the gawkers and landed with a heavy thud.

  Standing over the blue tower, the outsider raised his blades high. A hush fell over the circle, while beyond them, the chaos of the battle endured unmolested. As he started the glinting steel down, three crossbow bolts pierced his cloak, staggering him and affording the giant the moment he needed to roll to the side and crawl through the circle.

  Standing upright, the wraith snapped off the shafts and looked over the heads of the men to the far side of the grove, pausing a moment, before reigniting the chaos of the battlefield.

  Byron followed the path of the dark stranger’s gaze and glimpsed Lothe. With a sneer, the old mage nodded, before fading into the shadows.

  Chapter 38

  Griffon Alexander

  The Caverns Below the Brae

  Kingdom of Beyorn

  Griffon climbed the stairs to where he anticipated the throne room would be, feeling the smooth walls with the tips of his fingers. The air was the same as that of the surrounding caverns, crisp and cool and unbreathed for years uncounted. Torchlight danced across the walls in familiar patterns. Though he was certain he was awake, he could not reconcile away the thought that this was somehow all a dream.

  Or a blood vision…

  The courtyard was smaller by a third, but the walls and keep structure seemed similar in size to the Brae. Subtle differences appeared throughout; thresholds were carved with flowering ivy, often with a depiction of the sun at the peak of the arch. Busts of eagles were prevalent, too, keeping watch over the main gate and the keep entrance, like august gargoyles.

  Whoever built this place obviously pined for the things we so often take for granted on the surface…

  Just as was expected, the throne room opened up before them at the end of the third-floor hall. The throne, dais, and benches were permanent fixtures, hewn out of the larger stone formation.

  Bo and Jarin planted their torches in empty brackets, before turning and marveling at the replication.

  Griffon hesitated at the throne. “I’ve never sat here,” he said, as much to himself as either man. “I mean, the one above. But even as a child, never…”

  “It’s not your father’s chair, m’lord,” said Bo, “have your seat.”

  It was broad, and cold to the touch, but surprisingly comfortable for solid stone. Placing his arms on the rests, Griffon leaned back. A smile betrayed him.

  “It feels good, does it not?”

  “I’ve always wondered,” the young lord said, still smiling, “and yes, it does.”

  Bo and Jarin found their places on the bench, like elder counsel to a young tetrarch of the underworld. Looking up at the throne, Bo said, “So what is this place?”

  “I’m not certain,” replied Griffon, “but let’s speak of what we do know. Whoever built this was decidedly acquainted with the Brae, and most likely constructed them both.”

  “Your forebears?” Jarin asked.

  Griffon shrugged. “Perhaps… but perhaps not. We’ve held the Brae since the first Alexander arrived – as the stories are told – so many assume we built the keep, but that was a long time ago and we’re not even certain ourselves. As the books are written, so long as there’s been an Alexander in this land, there’s been the Brae, but before him, we don’t know.”

  “So, we don’t know who…” conceded Bo. “Do we know why?

  Reclining on the throne, Griffon mused the thought. “…The Barbeau is the most strategic pass through the Braeridge Mountains. There are others, but none that I would want to move an army through…” Still thinking, he grew silent. “What if this place, this massive gulf under the mountains, was similar to the Barbeau?”

  “But it’s abandoned,” remarked Jarin. “So is it no longer important, or did the men that were here die defending it?”

  “Or is the threat gone?” suggested Bo.

  Griffon shrugged. “That too may be lost to time itself. I see no dead men, so perhaps the threat is indeed vanquished.”

  “So we know nothing,” Jarin snorted.

  By the light of the torches, Griffon smirked. “We know it exists, which is more than we knew when we stepped through that dungeon wall.” Standing, he said, “But there is a mystery that nags me still, and it’s one I can answer. If the dungeon in the Brae led here, then where does this dungeon lead?”

  * * * * *

  The stairs down mirrored those at the surface, except that again they were hewn out of solid rock.

  “It must have taken a hundred craftsmen and a legion of slaves two lifetimes to create this place,” the young Alexander remarked.

  “It truly is a marvel,” said Bo.

  “Imagine living here in a dark that’s unending. I’ve spent a week in a hold, pulling oars by lantern light until my hands wept red. Time has no measure; an hour and a day are one and the same. A man was never meant to not see the sun, it’s a torturous thing.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, a chamber – long and narrow – opened up before them.

  “This is no dungeon…” whispered Bo.

  “No,” said Griffon, trading his spear for the oarsman’s torch. “It’s something altogether else…”

  Light flickered off the stones underfoot and flooded in and out with the procession of columns, two by two, that disappeared into the gloom that lay ahead. Five strides in, the first pair of alcoves appeared by the light of the flames.

  “It’s a crypt,” Griffon said, stepping forward to study the sepulcher. Carved into the back of the recess was a statue of the man once living, but now rested in the tomb before him. His beard was full and hair hung past his shoulders. His hands rested on the pommel of a granite sword that pierced the floor. On its front leaned a stone shield.

  Just ahead of the statue was the vault, the body of a lion with an eagle’s head and wings, head turned down in eternal grief.

  “It never was an eagle,” remarked Bo. “They were gryphons... all of them…”

  Griffon’s chest tightened. …And Elsie’s vision, too…

  Though the statues changed – shorter or taller, with rounded faces or strong jaws – two things remained common among the crypts, the beards and the beasts.

  At the end of the gallery of the dead, a granite warrior stared back at them with wavy hair and a beard kept short. And if the likeness was true to life, then the man was taller than most. Before him, like all the others, a gryphon lay mourning the one interred within.

  Torchlight filled the alcove, bringing movement to the shadows and giving the statue a semblance of life.

  “Something’s in there…” Griffon whispered as a glint of steel shone back. Turning sideways, he edged between the wall and the beast, until he stood beside the statue, shoulder to shoulder.

  Bo snorted. “You look just like him, m’lord.”
r />   “It cannot be…” Griffon whispered. “It is but a myth…”

  “What do you see?”

  “Dærnwyn,” he replied, pulling the sword from the hands of the first Eleksandr. “And Skyfell,” he added, raising the shield.

  Somewhere in the distant depths, a screeching roar, like grated granite, reverberated through the gloom and trembled the ground beneath their feet.

  “What in the nine hells was that?” gasped Jarin.

  Griffon’s face turned pale. “Had only I known… I thought it was legend piled upon lore…”

  “What was legend?”

  “The Bramwar…”

  * * * * *

  “What exactly is a bramwar?” Jarin asked.

  “I’m not certain,” replied Griffon, climbing the stairs from the crypt. “I’ve never seen one before.”

  “Well haven’t you heard stories?”

  “Told by people who’ve never seen one before? Yes…”

  The oarsman huffed. “Do we have to go up there? Can’t we just wait it out?”

  “This thing has been sealed by the sword for legions of years, and you think we can just wait it out?”

  “Just... put the sword back, then.”

  The young Alexander snorted. “There is no undoing this, Jarin. The seal’s broken, the demon is wrought forth, and if we are to live, then we should get the hell out of this place before it finds us.”

  * * * * *

  Pressing against the main door of the keep, it creaked open, revealing the darkened courtyard beyond. Rowan peered about, not quite sure what he was searching for. “Nothing,” he whispered.

  Long shadows stretched out in front of him as he led the men towards the main gate, sword and shield of the first in hand.

  If we can only make it to the bridge...

  Through the gate, at the ledge by the foot of the bridge, a faint glow radiated up, licking the rocks and chasing back the gloom as it grew brighter. Somewhere down below, echoes resounded as rocks crumbled and broke loose and plummeted into the depths.

  Dærnwyn tingled with electricity, standing on end the hairs on Griffon’s arms.

  Again a roar rose up, like thunder crashed against a banshee’s wail, ringing the ears of the men.

  Claws like kopis snapped up out of gloom, scraping against stone and marring it like a plow turning over parched earth, before drawing the bramwar up.

  “What manner of devilry?” Bo gasped.

  “Back,” Griffon shouted “into the keep!”

  Whirling, the three raced to the gate. As the armsman and oarsman crossed the threshold, the doors groaned shut behind them.

  “Griffon, what are you doing!”

  “Bar it!” he commanded.

  This is my fate... my blood right…

  Gripping Dærnwyn and Skyfell, he turned to face the demon. Though the torches were behind the wall, the space glowed with the light of a hundred campfires.

  Molten eyes sized up its mortal foe with an inferno that radiated outward. Four horns stretched out from its head, before rolling up and pointing to the heavens. Smoke billowed from the creature’s bony nose. Again it roared, trembling the ground beneath their feet.

  Closing his eyes for a moment, he remembered the duel in the darkness of the mountain cave with dread unseen. In his mind, he heard the terrifying growls and felt the spear tighten as it ruptured the dire bear’s heart.

  Opening his eyes again, the smell of sulphur burned his nostrils and his skin cooked from the fiend’s molten core. Stepping towards the demon nigh as tall as the Brae’s walls, he said with a voice as calm as a Sin of Thim, “You are a foe unworthy; slain by the first, you shall be slayed by the last.”

  Thundering forward, the bramwar swung its razor claws at his timeless mortal adversary.

  Griffon raised Skyfell and ducked low. Nails bit steel, sending him tumbling end over end across the stone floor. The taste of copper filled his mouth, while his eyes watered.

  Standing, he spat blood and lunged to the side, but the bramwar was quick. Scorched obsidian rended his back, cauterizing as it carved flesh. The young Alexander screamed in agony.

  A third time the demon’s splayed hand swept towards him. Without option, Griffon planted his feet, leaned into the coming blow and brought Dærnwyn down hard, severing half a palm and leaving only a thumb. The devil’s momentum sent the young Alexander reeling backwards, slamming him hard against the fortress wall.

  Stepping back, the bramwar drew its cleaved clutch near, clenching it with the other. It wailed hate and anguish with it head thrown back.

  The spear of an Uhnan’akk hunter, launched by a spy’s oarsman from atop the gatehouse of the buried Brae, arced through the air with the accuracy of a Cyrenian scorpion and lodged in the back of the fiend’s throat. It clasped its neck and brayed while retching molten rock and black ash as it staggered about.

  Head still adaze, the last Eleksandr charged past the demon and slashed the exposed tendons in the back of its slag-ash heels.

  With a shriek, the bramwar flailed its charred arms and plummeted back into the abyss.

  As the infernal glow faded into the pit, darkness consumed the battlefield, until two faint flames flickered atop the gatehouse. Looking up, Griffon heard the men’s shouts fade into the nothing. His knees weakened and mouth soured and vision tunneled, until finally, he was consumed by darkness.

  Chapter 39

  Rowan Vos

  Falasport

  In blackness complete, Iseult spun until her eyes locked with his. “What in the nine do you think you’re doing?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Then you come to me, not the other way around. I shall not be dragged around by anyone, even you, son of Vos.”

  Surprised, he replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

  “You mean to tell me you didn’t intend to do this?” she scoffed.

  Rowan stared back blankly.

  “That’s...” She scratched her head. “That’s... impressive...”

  Looking around at the nothing, a void without light or sound, he asked, “Where are we?”

  “It is nowhere, a creation of your mind, and you have drawn to this place only the things you require, apparently you and I. Our time here may seem prolonged, but it will be but a twinkling of an eye. You are in the final moments before you awaken, and dread has crept back into your consciousness. You’re in trouble, no doubt.”

  “I think I’ve been kidnapped.”

  “You think?”

  “The last I recall I was ambushed.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Falasport.”

  She spat. “Someone should’ve warned you. That place is venom behind a thin veil. You’re likely in grave danger if you don’t use your wits. You’ll awake in a dungeon or otherwise restrained, but fear not, for you are a mage, Vos. Such things cannot bind you.”

  She turned to leave, but he willed it not so. “I have told you what you require, now-“

  “You have not...” he interrupted. “You shall not leave before you speak of my father, not again.”

  Snorting, she started her retort, but it was no use; he was in control. Sighing, she sat cross-legged on the blackness and said, “Fine, join me...”

  So he did.

  Looking up, she searched her thoughts for a time, before starting. “Beyond the false shroud of the mundane, there wages a war – many wars actually, but we will speak of one – as it has for time unmeasured. Most often it smolders, like an ember cold and dying, but sometimes, it flares up like when the winds rustle the hunter’s coals on the plains. And when it does, it often consumes nations, or fells empires, or threatens worlds. Thirty-five years ago, this war blazed with a fury that I haven’t seen before or since, and I have lived a long time...”

  Her face was somber, recollecting thoughts long packed away. “There is a…” she paused, struggling for the word, “… a malignance, a wickedness that desires only to conquer, to enslave, to shape the
world anew. He has many names, but I know him by the oldest, Mallum.”

  “Is Mallum a mage?”

  She shook her head. “He is the source of many a mage’s power, but he is far more.”

  “Then what is he?”

  She shrugged. “It depends who is asked...”

  “What do you think?”

  Sitting in silence, she mused the thought. “A daemon, perhaps, desiring to be a god, desiring to rule.”

  In the quiet of the void, Rowan sat for how long he did not know, waiting for her to continue, but she never did. Finally, he asked, “What does this have to do with my father?”

  She sighed. “A mage communed with Mallum, unleashing a portion of his essence. For ten years we warred with him. In the end, it was your father that slew the mage, and sealed back the daemon... and then,” rife with grief, her voice wavered, “…he died in my arms.”

  Tears streamed down her face. Burying her head in her hands, she wept. Rowan slid an arm around her and pulled her close, waiting for the pain to pass, grieving with her.

  “Luther Brayden was there, too. So he took you as his own, and hid you, and forsook his old life, for he knew there were those that desired to end the line of Vos. The same blood that halted Mallum once before is in your veins, and it is purer still.”

  “Can Mallum be released again?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Indeed, and there are those that seek now to do so, but as long as you have the blade and not they, then they are hindered.”

  “Except... I probably don’t have Unforged anymore...”

  “Awake then, and take back what is yours, son of Vos, and do it now.”

  * * * * *

  Rowan bolted upright in a cold sweat. Heart arace, he felt jarred, as if he’d been pushed out of his own dream. A dull ache nagged at him from the back of his head. Rubbing the spot, he felt blood-stiffened hair.

  Groaning, he looked around. It was a small cell with stone walls on three sides and a floor that sloped to a center drain. The fourth wall was bars of banded timbers, thick and square and rough cut, with a heavy iron door. Clammy salt air clung to him.