How Black the Sky

by T J Marquis

  He took it, let the woman help him stand up.

  "Thanks," he said.

  The woman had the build of a westerling - tall, wide hips and shoulders, thick, corded muscles that were flattered by the mold of her dyed leather armor. Her jet black hair was tied into a high ponytail that stuck up above her gem-infused circlet. Her face was broad, angular, with bright yellow eyes and cheeks painted as if for war.

  "Gorgonbane," Pierce commented on the warpaint's pattern. "They did good work back in Alba." The woman didn't say anything, just gave him a polite smile. Pierce flinched, having a thought. "Wait, no. You're not..."

  "Scythia of Chasmreach," she introduced herself, clasping his arm in greeting.

  This woman was a living legend, and he'd just been stupid enough to assume her warpaint was borrowed, a tribute.

  "How did I look out there," he grimaced, honestly curious about his performance. Recruitment was part of the reason he'd been in this mess to begin with. "I know the situation wasn't ideal, but you wouldn't believe where I just came from."

  "You actually looked pretty good, from where we were standing," Scythia said, raising her brow.

  We? Ah right, there had been a man with her. If this was Scythia of Chasmreach, the man had to be...

  The man strode up casually beside his wife, taking Pierce's arm in a firm grip. He was built like a tree - tall, gnarled, strong - and little about him was refined or attractive. His face was hard-set under its thick covering of red beard, but his eyes were earnest and approving. "Axebourne," he said.

  "The Cleaver," Pierce breathed in awe. "Sir, it's an honor to meet..." he flicked his gaze to Scythia, "To meet both of you. Mr. Cleaver, my dad fought with you, years ago. He told me so many stories!"

  Axebourne screwed up one side of his mouth and scratched the side of his red head.

  "Making me feel old, kid," he said.

  "Sorry, sir," Pierce said.

  "Ah, don't do that..." Axebourne groaned.

  "What?" asked Pierce. "Apologizing, or calling you sir?"

  "Neither!"

  "Sorry sir, it's just really exciting."

  Axebourne shook his head.

  "Look, my wife's right," Axebourne said. "You did alright. It's not always pretty, kid, but that thing's dead, and you're alive. I'd say job done." He looked over at his wife. "Buy him a drink?"

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mead

  The tavern Scythia and Axebourne brought him to was a dump. It was tucked into the corner of a row of closed shops, its front entrance blocked off so you could only enter through the alleyway. Inside it was dim, low-ceilinged, stuffed with regulars, and quiet in that way only a long-established drinking house can be.

  The barkeep imperceptibly raised a wet rag to greet the two living legends and their guest.

  A pair of merchants stood near a lonely wooden pillar in the middle of the long room, looking as if they wished to sit, but only one table was open, and it was the one that the legends led Pierce to. He removed his helm and set it down on the sticky floor. Thankfully, the chair was sturdy enough to accommodate the bulk of his armor. Most furniture would be in a place like this.

  Sitting, Axebourne raised a hand, holding up three fingers, and not long after, a server came by with three steins full of golden mead. It smelled sweet, but tasted dry and strong. Pierce dove into it greedily, relishing the distance it put between him and thoughts of the Underlands.

  "So?" Axebourne prodded, and Pierce realized he'd gotten lost in the moment.

  "Ah, yes sir, sorry sir," he apologized and sat up straight in his chair.

  Axebourne balked, scrunching up his face. "Sir again. I ain't your officer, boy," he said. "But do tell us, what was that all about?"

  Pierce closed his eyes, as if remembering something distant. Well, he had been down in the Underlands a while, hadn't he?

  "The most important thing's first, if you don't mind," he said. "Kash has found a way to invade Overland. I have to stop him."

  Axebourne looked incredulous, Scythia frowned. "Just you? And how do you know this?" she asked.

  "I was trapped in Testadel," Pierce said. It was embarrassing, but true.

  Axebourne made another face, and like the first, Pierce thought it strange on him. He seemed so serious, but his honest confusion and big red lips made the look of disbelief humorous. Pierce thought he would make a good dad.

  He realized he'd paused again. "Sorry," he said tapping one of his temples. "I get sidetracked." He cleared his throat and tried once more.

  "I went down to the Underlands to get my tribute," he said. "I figured if I came back with something awesome, something brutal, I could get the post I wanted in Dogranborn, or some other group like yours. Your old one, anyway." Pierce started. Had he just insulted them? They didn't react. "I mean, I don't actually know what you're up to now, not that you have to be up to something, but Gorgonbane really kicked..."

  "It's okay," Scythia said calmly. She fixed his green eyes with her yellow ones. Did the gems in her circlet brighten? "Stay on track."

  "Right," Pierce said. "So I dove down at Murkfathom, and..."

  "Wait," Axebourne cut in, "you swam to the Underlands?"

  Pierce nodded.

  "Through Murkfathom?"

  "Yes sir," he said. "It was nasty, but I figured that would be a great feat to tell the other mercs about, get some clout. But have you ever seen a shriekeel? Heard, I should say. You don't see much in Murkfathom. They really scream! Feel it right in the gut, and then..." He cut himself off.

  Axebourne didn't believe him. His face wrinkled in an amusing scowl.

  "Look, sir," he said, trying to keep eye contact with the Cleaver. "That won't be the craziest thing I say, and I'll stay on track better if I stop seeing your faces, so please don't be offended, but I'm just going to address Mrs... um, Scythia. Or is it Mrs. Cleaver?"

  "Faces?" Axebourne said.

  "You make some wonderfully entertaining faces, Axebourne my love," Scythia said with a tiny smile.

  The Cleaver blinked and shrugged, gesturing with an open hand that Pierce should go ahead.

  "So Murkfathom opens into a waterfall that runs down the jagged mountains east of the Testadel, which I didn't really know, but I do now," Pierce continued, keeping his eyes on Scythia. "So be careful if you ever go that way, 'cause some of it's jagged, like I said. Saw some bodies that got real cut up. I mean, I guess they did, 'cause I just saw skeletons stuck on the rocks.

  "So anyway, I rode the falls down until I could go on foot, and headed down out of the mountains. I wasn't going to try for Testadel, but after I killed a father dogran -"

  Axebourne opened his mouth to say something, but Scythia put a hand over his and he shut it.

  "- the mother and pups chased me into the Deadhedge and I had to go through to the other side."

  "But why would you have to kill..." Scythia began, then said, "never mind. Go on."

  "My food got wet," Pierce said. "I had to steal the heinoushog the father dogran had just hunted down so I could eat." He took a long draught off his mead. Just thinking back to all of it was exhausting.

  "Why not just go hunting?" said someone from a nearby table. Pierce turned toward an older man with tufty white hair.

  "Too much work," Pierce said. "Dograns don't run away." He turned back to Scythia.

  "So Testadel's back gate was open since you're supposed to die in the Deadhedge maze anyhow, so I went in that way - had to. And this forgemaster sees me and says, 'You came in the back? You're too nuts to rat out - I'd rather see what happens to you. You can come on in if you promise not to kill me.'"

  "Wait," came a voice from behind Pierce. He turned to look. It was one of the seatless merchants. He had a crazy accent. Was he an eastern cliff-dangler? "But how you did make it through Deadhedge?"

  "Oh," said Pierce, craning his neck to address the man. "It's the armor - puncture enchantment. They can pierce almost anything unenchanted, but the arsenic barbs on the hedge couldn't
poke me to poison me." He turned back to Scythia. "So I watched where the forgemaster went, but I pretended I was heading into the dungeons. He didn't look back again, and I followed him up into the smithy."

  "But you're supposed to go to the dungeons," said a patron from another table. "That's how you get the tribute for your band." Pierce turned toward the man.

  "Yeah but I wanted something special, remember?" he said. "I kept thinking about all the things they make up in the smithy that don't make it down to the dungeons and I thought, 'Would I send the coolest thing I've ever made down to the dungeon to be a weapon for some cliff-licking painreaper?" Pierce turned toward the merchant with the cliff-dangler accent and said, "No offense."

  The man made a puzzled face.

  "So right before the forgemaster went into his forge he noticed me and said, 'Really? Is it because I said something?' So I grabbed him by the apron, picked him up, shoved him into the forge, and made him close the door."

  "Wait," came another voice. The barkeep. "Aren't forgemasters made eight feet tall?"

  "Yeah," said Pierce, glancing over his shoulder.

  "And they weigh over half a ton?" said the barkeep.

  "Yes sir, far as I can tell," said Pierce. He turned back to Scythia. "So he begged me while I had my blast gauntlet to his chin and I said, 'Gimme your best sword and I'll let you live.' Which of course I was already gonna do since he'd let me in, as long as he didn't raise the alarm."

  "And that's the sword there in your scabbard?" said a woman from another table. "Well come on, let us see it!"

  Pierce shook his head. "No, he didn't have any swords. He only made dust for light enchantments. So he told me that, and I put him down and asked him where the sword-makers were, and he told me. I was about to leave him behind and he said, 'But hey, I made this dust. The Overseer couldn't even stand to look at it. She told me to throw it away, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Have you ever seen this color before?' He pulled a vial out of his apron and it was the most beautiful dust I've ever seen."

  People all across the tavern started guessing, Pierce thought probably according to their favorite colors. No one guessed right until Scythia.

  "Blue," she said, and everyone else shut up. "It was for blue light."

  Pierce nodded. "So he gave it to me, made me promise not to tell anyone where it came from if I got captured, but the painreapers never ended up asking anyway."

  Axebourne had held his tongue for too long. He shook his head."No, no, no. You did not get caught by the painreapers and escape."

  Pierce pulled down the top of his right ear to show Axebourne the point where the painreapers had inserted their harvesting needle. There was an angry red scab there, the size of a nail head.

  Someone whistled lowly.

  "It was stupid. I didn't listen through the doorway before I left the forgemaster's room. There was a patrol just coming up the stairwell as I started going down, and there was nowhere else to run. They got me. So the reapers kept trying to get information out of me, but I don't have a clan, or a merc band, yet, and I'm not a mage, so I really didn't have anything they wanted, and after a while they started leaving me alone in my cell. Best I can tell, I was down there five weeks. Licked up more wall scum than I care to admit, let me tell you."

  Pierce took another long draught of his mead, finishing it. The barkeep was already waiting to give him more.

  "So one night... night I guess... not sure. One night there was a scuffle down past my cell and everyone's attention was off me, and that forgemaster came up to the bars of the cell. He looked all wide-eyed and concerned, and I could see he had a bone-melter in his hand. He told me he couldn't stand it anymore. He needed to know the name of the color he'd made. He said he'd let me out if I told him. So I did. So he cut the lock out of the gate with the bone-melter and then gave it to me. He showed me how to use the light dust on it, made me promise I'd tell everyone his name. He wanted everyone in both our lands to know who had finally synthesized what he felt was the most beautiful color of all. He insisted it was the greatest thing he'd ever done."

  The room waited in silence.

  "So what was his name," asked one of the merchants.

  "Forgemaster Seventy-seven." Pierce said.

  People groaned at the mundanity. Pierce took another drink.

  "So with all the distractions, I made it out of the dungeons and to the front gate. I cut the crossbar with the bone-melter and let myself out. That's where the Monstrosity almost got me."

  "And chased you all the way to a convergence," Axebourne said. Pierce nodded.

  "Yes."

  "And your sword is a bone-melter." Axebourne said. Pierce nodded again. They were silent a moment as everyone took a drink.

  "May I see it?" Axebourne asked.

  "We saw it," Scythia said flatly.

  Her husband wrinkled his brow at her. "See it melt bone," he said.

  Pierce started. He should have thought of that. He'd meant to show the thing off. That was the whole point of his dive to begin with. "Yeah of course."

  "Barkeep!" Axebourne called. "Bring us a bone!"

  The barkeep complied, ducking into a room in the back of the tavern and returning shortly with a hog's spine.

  Pierce looked at him funny. A spine? The barkeep shrugged. He laid the bone on the table.

  Pierce stood and unsheathed his sword. It shone forth with a brilliant blue light, obscuring the orange of the oil-lamps spread throughout the tavern. People gasped in awe. Pierce smiled. He brought the edge of his blade down slowly, careful not to touch the table with it, and let it rest lightly on the hog's spine - more force would mean a faster melt. Immediately the pores in the bone began to bubble and its surface grew slick and shiny like wax. Within moments it was no more than a stained-white puddle, slowly re-hardening on the tabletop. Pierce sheathed the sword.

  "You lucky, muck-sucking..." Axebourne trailed off. "I can't believe it."

  "But wait," said Scythia. "You said Kash is planning to invade Overland. It's been a long time."

  "You were there, weren't you," Pierce said. They nodded. "Well it's true."

  "How? And how do you know?"

  "Ah, well there was an old wizard locked up a few cells down from mine. I didn't get his name, but the reapers were interrogating him harshly. I'm pretty sure they took all his fingernails first..." he blinked away the memory. "Anyway, they wanted to know about all the convergences he'd found. Apparently he knew a lot. They wanted to know how close each one was to major cities, and if there was any high ground or low ground nearby. Then they killed him."

  Pierce frowned.

  "But if Kash just plans to use convergences," Axebourne said, "couldn't he have invaded any time?"

  "Well that's what I was thinking," Pierce agreed. "But I always thought the Underlanders wouldn't come up because they hated the red sun. Right? So I thought it might have something to do with that, but you just saw that Monstrosity up here, and he didn't care, so... " He shrugged.

  Scythia shook her head. "We've seen Underlanders up top before, just not very often. They won't attack en masse because they know they'd just be slaughtered at the convergence points. Myths say something about the aversion to sunlight, but I've never observed it."

  "All I know is the reapers were talking with each other about 'making the big push' soon. They kept using words like that - rise, push, lift. And I still might have written it off, but they said they were going to conquer Grondell first, and soon. It wasn't just idle talk."

  "The Everlasting Temple," someone breathed.

  "Could mean to demoralize Overland," said the barkeep.

  "Or it's just the easiest place to do... whatever they're going to do," Pierce said. "So I didn't really know where I'd end up after riding the convergence, but here I am. I figure I need to go to Grondell and do what I can to help. Warn them at least. Will you come too? They'll believe you sooner than me, even if it is life or death."

  There was a long quiet. Everyone s
ipped gingerly on their mead. All eyes turned to Axebourne and Scythia, waiting for their answer.

  "It's a pretty crazy story, kid," Axebourne said. "How do we know we can trust you? That you're not just some nutcase looking for attention?"

  Pierce shrugged. "Hard to say, sir. Anyone can just make up whatever stories they want, and you'd never know without looking for yourself, right?"

  "You're a terrible salesman," Axebourne said, eyes half-lidded.

  "That's what my dad always said, so I just ended up cleaning the shop instead of greeting the customers."

  "Your father," said Axebourne. "You said he knew me. Tell me his name."

  "Don't know if you'd remember, sir Cleaver," Pierce said. "They called him Flay. Flay Ice-eyes."

  Axebourne's eyelids rose. "I do remember," he said. "You don't see a gaze that hard every day." Axebourne looked at Scythia. "Hard to believe that man had kids."

  Scythia tilted her head in agreement.

  "You're telling me," Pierce said. "Mom's a special lady."

  Axebourne pursed his big lips at Pierce. "Quite the warrior, though."

  "Tree doesn't stand far from the apple," Pierce said. He grinned, hoping he looked trustworthy and not stupid.

  "Saved my life once," Axebourne said. "He tell you that?"

  Now it was Pierce's turn to look surprised. "No! Figures though. It was like pulling teeth just to get ahold of the fact he served under you at all. Not a big one for stories, dad."

  "Well maybe I'll tell you sometime," Axebourne said. He mused, "The land is in peril, probably. The kid's dad saved my life."

  "I call him Father," Pierce said.

  He seemed to confer with Scythia silently, a question on his face. "What do you think, love?" Axebourne finally asked his wife. She looked at Pierce intently, and the gems on her circlet glowed again. Pierce wondered what magic they were working.

  "I think..." she said, "we follow him to Grondell."

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Late Night

  Scythia lay next to her husband in bed that night. Pale moonlight waltzed into the room, illuminating his feet sticking out from under the covers. She'd never understand how he could sleep that way - her feet were always cold at night.