Iron Paladin

by Max Irons

  “What happened?” asked the same guard.

  Lonni’s form, outlined by firelight from a bracketed torch, pointed to one of the effigies a stone coffin. “He sat up. S-stared at me, he did. W-wailed about his unjust d-death.”

  Galeron swallowed. Almost there. He and Iven were a few feet away from the guards now. They split up, each of them creeping directly behind one of them.

  The other guard shifted weight from one foot to the other, turning to stare at the figure in question. “It’s Fallen Ones’ Day, young lady. Many wraiths might stir this night.”

  Lonni gave a nervous laugh. “But, those are just stories, aren’t they?”

  “Used to think so, too,” said the first guard. “After a year of protecting the royal crypt, though, I’ve seen some things I can’t rightly explain.”

  Galeron’s gaze darted to Iven. They rose, reaching full height. Galeron held up two fingers, waited for a brief moment, lowered one, waited again, and then lowered the other one. As one, they wrapped an arm around their guard’s throat and jerked back, squeezing hard. Plate metal thrashed as the guards struggled to throw them off, but within a minute, both had fallen still and silent.

  Iven exhaled sharply and lowered his man to the ground. “Sorry. You were just doing your job, but you’ll thank me later.”

  Lonni stepped over the fallen figures and hurried out of the crypt. She stood among the rows of coffins, casting furtive looks back at the room.

  Galeron stared at her. “You all right?”

  “That was some good acting,” Iven said. “You made me shivers.”

  Lonni shook her head. “One of them did sit up and wail.” She buried her face in her hands. “I think my heart’s going to burst.”

  Galeron frowned as he awkwardly patted Lonni on the back. “Take a deep breath.”

  She gulped down air.

  “Slowly,” he said. “Draw a breath, hold it, and let it go.”

  Lonni nodded.

  “Slows your heart,” Galeron said. “It’s one of the first things you learn as an informer.”

  Iven looked at the engraved runework over the entryway. “Figures. Blasted Sabinians never die right.”

  “What?”

  “The wars, again,” he said. “A few members of house Sabinius thought the only way to beat the Delktians was by using their own sort of necromancy. Didn’t work, and it was kept quiet and swept away. They had a reputation for darker practices, but that kind of magic can’t be good for a man’s body or spirit.”

  Lonni hiccupped again.

  Galeron nodded toward the royal crypt, his spine tingling. “Let’s hurry.”

  They ascended the stairs, footsteps like thunderclaps in the huge expanse. No doors hung in the entryway, and a narrow, vaulted room opened before them. The statue of a man loomed over them at the opposite end. Dressed in battle garb of simple mail and cloth, he leaned on a great, two-handed sword, a confident, almost arrogant, smile on his chiseled jaw. He stared down at them, eyes unmoving, but some trick of the light pulled the braziers’ reflections in his pupils down as they drew close to the stairwell spiraling into the depths beside its base.

  “Artair Vaughan,” breathed Iven. “Heard rumors his statue was in here.”

  “Not just that.” Lonni pointed to the base of the statue. Similar runes to those engraved above the house crypts spelled out something in the stone.

  Galeron squinted. “What does it say?”

  Iven knelt and brushed a bit of dust and dirt from the surface. He traced the wording with one finger, then stood up and backed away, eyes wide.

  “Iven?” Galeron asked.

  “Here rests the Drake’s Bane, the First among Kings. Even in death, his foe cannot escape.” Iven shook his head. “Just stories.” He swallowed and grabbed a torch from its bracket. “Time to disturb the dead.”

  Galeron nodded, and, Iven leading the way, they descended into the darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The journey into the crypt brought a drastic change in temperature. A chill permeated the air the further down they walked. Galeron shivered and drew his cloak about him. Iven’s torch illuminated the stairs, occasionally throwing long shadows into corridors that branched off into side chambers or inlets. The stairs twisted ever downward, into endless black.

  “How will we know the right place?” asked Lonni.

  “We won’t be able to go any further,” Iven said. “I’m reading the runes as we go. The crypt starts with Artair Vaughan’s grave and goes from there. We’ve almost reached the mark, though.” He pointed at another side chamber. “That’s for King Padruig and his family, Balen’s father. Means this next one should be…”

  His voice trailed away as they reached the end. The stairs simply ended in a blank wall next to a chamber. Iven peered over the edge and into the gloom, holding the torch aloft.

  Galeron winced, his stomach doing backflips as he looked over the side. Heights normally didn’t bother him, but something about this pit made him want to vomit.

  “Don’t do that,” Galeron said, looking away. “I thought you hated heights.”

  Iven nodded, backing up slowly. “I didn’t know this was a deep shaft.” He shuddered and groaned. “I’m regretting doing that now.”

  They walked into the chamber. It was small, with a rectangular stone slab, smooth and unadorned, in the center. Grave niches were carved into the three walls. Galeron counted eleven total. Four of them contained figures wrapped in crimson, linen burial shrouds. Galeron approached one of them. Was this Princess Carys’s body? Hard to tell under all the wrappings. Galeron bit his lip. He had to know, but it seemed disrespectful to unmask every corpse in the chamber just to find the right one.

  Iven held his torch up. “Not her. It’s one of the princes. You can see the sword hilt sticking up near his chin.”

  Sure enough, the wrappings bulged towards the base of the skull, exactly where a sword would be placed on the body. Galeron moved on to the next figure, but he ignored it on further inspection. Too small to be Carys.

  “Did one of the children die early?” asked Galeron.

  “King Balen’s eldest daughter caught the yellow fever when it came through,” Iven said. He swallowed. “I lost my mother to it as well.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Galeron said.

  “I was young.” Iven shrugged. “Happened a long time ago.”

  Galeron inspected the body in the grave niche perpendicular to the stone slab. A woody, earthy scent still clung to the wrappings, leaving a sickly-sweet taste on his tongue as it mixed with faint aromas of decay. His jaw tightened.

  “Is it her?” asked Lonni.

  “No mistaking it,” Galeron said. “I can still smell the libani oil.”

  He knelt beside the niche and ran his hands gently over the wrappings. There had to be an edge somewhere. Finding one under the left shoulder, Galeron slowly peeled away the cloth. Carys’s gaunt face emerged, skin loose over the skull. Her hair looked brittle, as if touching it might cause it to crumble into dust. She had been a small woman, petite features and almost frail limbs. She was still dressed in her night shift, brown, dried blood coating the front.

  “What are we looking for?” asked Iven.

  Galeron shrugged as he pulled the wrappings past her waist. “I don’t know. It has to be something small, something that might be overlooked at first glance.”

  The longer he stared at the princess’s desiccated corpse, the more he wondered if he was mistaken. Had his assumptions been correct, or was there something else he’d missed among the conversations?

  “She just looks dead,” Lonni said thickly, as if her words were caught in her throat.

  “I would never have guessed,” said Galeron.

  “Don’t get snippy with me,” she said.

  Galeron glared at her. “I’ll be snippy with anyone I like.”

  Iven sighed. “We have a princess who needs to be stared at. Let’s take care of that first.” He glanced over his
shoulder. “Besides, we’re down in the royal crypt on Fallen Ones’ Day, and one of us has already seen a wraith. That’s not good.”

  Galeron turned back to the body. Carys’s death blow had been one swift stroke. She wouldn’t have known she was in trouble until half her life’s blood was all over the bed. His gaze trailed down her limbs. No broken skin or bruising on her hands. The cold had slowed her decay but her fingertips held a strange greenish pallor to them. That could just be the way a body looked when it had been dead for a month.

  Wait.

  His brow furrowed has he took the cold, crackling fingers in his. Carys hadn’t fought back, which meant she was either surprised by the attack, or she knew and trusted her attacker.

  Just like she knew Fletcher.

  Technically true, but that wasn’t what Arlana had asked him to investigate. How did a man sneak into the room of a well-trained Broton informer without his knowing? Fletcher had been famous for his suspicion and wariness during their training.

  “Anything?” asked Iven.

  Galeron sighed. “Not so far.”

  Iven grunted. “Maybe we’re looking for a harder answer than really exists. I know you don’t want to hear it, but maybe Fletcher did kill Carys. We don’t know what went on between them.”

  Galeron shook his head. “I won’t accept that.”

  “There’s nothing here,” Lonni said. “You’re just being stubborn.”

  “The job,” Galeron said through clenched teeth. “Is to find the truth.”

  “All we know is hearsay,” Iven said. “I understand, but sometimes hearsay’s right.” He yawned. “Let’s get moving. Coffee’s wearing off, and there’s a nightcap calling my name.”

  Galeron rolled his eyes. Typical of Iven to think of drinking at a time like this. He started to make a retort, and then stopped. Nightcap. Naturally. He drew a slow shuddering breath. Could it be that simple?

  “Think with me for a minute,” Galeron said. “If Fletcher’s as suspicious as I remember him, he’d notice everything. Alert to every detail, no one’s going to take him by surprise, even at night.”

  “If someone killed Carys and set him up for the blame, I guess they did,” Iven said.

  Galeron paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Whoever did it would have to dull Fletcher’s senses, make him dead to the world.”

  Iven nodded, looking up at the low ceiling. “So, someone drugged him, made him sleep through it all.”

  “Not exactly,” Galeron said. “Fletcher drinks from his own skins and flasks. That’s how dedicated he was. He can’t be drugged just by dropping something into his evening wine goblet.”

  “Why is this important?” asked Lonni.

  Galeron frowned at her. “I’m getting there.” To Iven, he asked, “Did Carys have a particular type of wine she favored?”

  Iven grinned. “Oh, yes. She had a soft spot for this Soterian vintage before bed, just like Queen Tulia.”

  “How common was that knowledge?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t know. It’s not exactly a worthy secret.”

  “Soterian wines are known for their particular tastes and for their strength,” Galeron said. “Am I right?”

  “True enough.”

  “Doesn’t take much of one to make a man sleepy.”

  “Also true, but why do we care?”

  Galeron pointed to Carys’s green fingertips. “She was drugged. This is what someone was trying to hide.”

  Lonni glared at him. “We came all this way for green fingertips?”

  “It’s a powerful sleeping agent called valeros,” Galeron said. “Maybe you’ve heard its other name, the—”

  “Soldier’s Mercy,” Iven said. “Thought we saw the last of it.”

  “What?” asked Lonni.

  Iven’s eyes hardened. “We used it to ease the pain of men whose wounds couldn’t be healed. Let them die with peace.”

  “Valeros loses its potency the more you’ve had it,” Galeron said. “Fletcher used to take it in small doses so it couldn’t be used against him.”

  “How does this relate back to him?” asked Lonni. “All you’ve proven is Carys was drugged.”

  “It’s not a stretch to think he and Carys shared a nightcap,” Galeron said. “Valeros would still affect him, especially with a wine like that, but he’d throw it off sooner than the poisoner would expect.”

  “Hmm, interesting,” Iven said. “Fletcher and Carys share a nightcap, the drug puts them to sleep, and someone sneaks in and cuts Carys’s throat. Fletcher wakes up, and…shoots himself? Why?”

  Galeron scratched his head. “That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

  “Can we ponder the rest of this above ground?” asked Lonni, now hugging herself and shivering. “I don’t have a cloak.”

  Galeron turned back to Carys’s body, squinting as he began wrapping the linen cloth around her. “Bring the torch a bit closer.”

  Iven shifted positions to give him more light, and a guttural yelp leapt from his throat. “What’s wrong with her face?”

  He scowled back at him. “She’s dead. Corpses look like that.”

  Iven pointed at the body. “Then what’s in her mouth?”

  “What?”

  Galeron examined the face. Something was in her mouth. A protrusion stuck out against the cheek facing the wall of her burial shelf. Her skin had folded around it as it shrank. Galeron shifted her body, pulling head and shoulders slightly out of the burial niche, and swallowed. There was only one way to know what it was, and no one could call it pleasant.

  He glanced back at Lonni and Iven. “You might want to turn around.”

  Iven did so without a word, still holding the torch high. Lonni snorted. “Whatever you’ve got planned, I can handle it.”

  “I warned you.”

  Galeron shifted, raising one knee against the body’s back to hold it steady, and pulled her jaw open. Desiccated skin crackled and bones popped. He winced, and his stomach roiled as the sickly-sweet smell of death grew more powerful. Gritting his teeth, he stuck his free hand into the open mouth. Galeron swallowed back hot, searing bile, barely controlling his shuddering limbs as he fished around.

  His fingers flitted against small bones, but he felt nothing else. Steeling himself, he sank his hand deeper and angled for leverage. Retching and furious footsteps sounded behind him, and bile surged into his mouth. Galeron swallowed hard, and his fingertips brushed against something solid.

  Galeron grabbed at it and found a hard lip around a soft, pliable substance. Sliding two fingers around it, he wiggled the object until it came free and slid out of Carys’s mouth. Not looking at it, Galeron set it down and shifted Carys’s body back into the niche, wrapping her gently back in the burial cloth. He wiped his hand on the linen, though his skin still crawled, and held up the object he’d pulled out.

  A small, crystalline corked vial filled about halfway with a scarlet liquid sat in his hand. What had that been doing in there? He uncorked the container and sniffed briefly. Nothing. A distinct lack of odor hung about the mouth of the vial. Galeron stared hard at it and put the cork back in, hands shaking as he did so. This was bad.

  “What did you do?” asked Iven.

  “I know what made her bleed,” Galeron said. “It wasn’t blood. Someone stuffed a vial of mousebane in her mouth.”

  “Again with the poisons,” Iven whispered. “Why give it to her? She was already dead.”

  Galeron exhaled. If he was right, everything had just changed. “It wasn’t for her, Iven. Fletcher was here to poison someone else.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Iven didn’t speak for a long while. The only sound came from Lonni’s heaving outside and the crackling torch. Fletcher’s decision to kill himself seemed a bit more understandable. Alive, he’d have been searched and Carys’s body examined more closely. Dead left everyone wondering what had happened, speculation ruling the day.

  “Who was his target?” asked Iven finally
.

  “I don’t know,” Galeron said. “But I’m going to find out.”

  It was high time he and Arlana had a very long talk.

  “This can’t be good,” Iven said. “What do we do now?”

  Galeron slid the mousebane into his belt pouch and pulled the strings tight. “We get back to your house. Then we try and figure out just how much we don’t know.”

  They left the chamber and found Lonni kneeling at the edge of the stairs, spitting into the void.

  “Are…are you finished?” she asked.

  “Finally,” Galeron said. “Let’s go.”

  Lonni stood on shaky legs and followed them up the steps. “Why did you do that? How could you do that to her?”

  Galeron explained what he’d found, but his mind wandered as his mouth retold the discovery. Informers didn’t carry out assassinations. That was the job of shadestalkers, Soren’s trained killers. Admittedly, those lines blurred during the wars, but with a shortage of skilled men and women, it had been necessary.

  In peacetime, those lines existed for a reason. Informers were supposed to hold their covers, to gather information. If someone needed to be killed, then you sent for a shadestalker. Why would Fletcher have been trying to poison someone? Mousebane had only one purpose.

  However, shadestalkers worked by Soren’s command alone. Someone who wasn’t the king needed a man dead in Keenan Caffar. Arlana immediately sprang to mind, but he put that thought aside for now. It wouldn’t be hard for her to contact and persuade Fletcher to bend the rules, but convincing Soren to give the assassination order would be a simpler task. Suspicious as he’d become, getting him to see a threat would be as simple as selling water to a man in the desert.

  If not Arlana, then who? He’d have to retrace Fletcher’s steps once they got above ground. He’d need to know everyone the ambassador spoke with, ate with, even passed in the corridors on a daily basis. It was going to be a long night. Or maybe day, depending on how long they’d been—

  “Stop!”

  Iven hissed the command as they emerged into the top room of the mausoleum. He inched backward down the steps, forcing Galeron and Lonni to retreat as well. Iven dropped the torch over the edge, letting it fade into the depths.