by Eli Steele
Pushing the manhole lid aside, the thief emerged in a stone cellar. The others climbed up after him.
“If I never see another sewer...” Kassina muttered.
“This way,” Pisk urged. “They’re waiting.”
Rowan grabbed the imp by his stubby arm. “I want to know what you’re walking us into.”
Pisk tried to jerk his arm away. “This will all be over shortly, my lord... Now, let go.”
“Not without the boarding word for the Cormorant.”
“Elekhoi,” replied Pisk, snatching his arm free.
Upstairs was a mostly-empty, nondescript warehouse, save for a few additions. Crates obscured the entrance. The midday sun stole through several gaps in the planked exterior; its beams were narrow and bright, illuminating the fine dust that hung in the air. Otherwise, the sole source of light was the five braziers that encircled a common anvil in the center of the space. Atop it lay what appeared to be an ordinary smith’s hammer.
Seven figures, the Seven High Mages Rowan presumed, waited. Their appearances were as varied as the three known continents flung across the six seas. Some wore long flowing robes that dragged the ground, while others wore belted tunics with overcloaks. One man in a black cuirass looked more like a warrior than an arch mage. Three of the figures were women, and ages ranged from twenty-something to ancient.
A welcome surprise... I’d expected seven Thatchers; wrinkled, and white-haired, and wasting away.
“Without Orick, we’re shorthanded,” Pisk said, “And since I’m a little small for the anvil, and he did give you the sword, perhaps you might stand in.”
“What must I do?” Rowan asked.
“Just put the sword on the anvil and swing the hammer when you’re told.”
Passing through the braziers, Rowan and Pisk approached the center of the room. One of the seven stepped forward, meeting them in the fiery circle.
The old man nodded. “You have it?”
Rowan slid it from its sheath and placed it on the anvil.
“Now, we will imbue the hammer. Do not touch it until we have focused our energy. Pisk will tell you when. When he does, take it and shatter the blade. And thus will end this long struggle.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“A simple task for you, yes. But for us, it will be a great undertaking, and will leave us debilitated. Some of us may even die, as unlikely as it is, but the ransom is cheap compared to the reward. To think that this will all be over before nightfall... It seems almost a dream…” Stepping back, the arch mage found a position among the six between the braziers.
Pisk returned to Bela and Kassina’s side.
The Seven bowed their heads. Silence filled the space. Rowan stared at the sword on the anvil. A tinge of melancholy nagged at him.
You have brought me nothing but misery since I found you, and yet...
When the mages raised their heads, their eyes were solid black. Their faces looked grim by the light of the braziers. Seven voices whispered chants in seven languages unheard before by Rowan’s ears. An unseen electricity filled the air. The hairs on his arms and neck stood on end. A metallic taste soured his mouth. Unease gripped him. His heart raced. “Can you feel that?” he shouted to Pisk and the girls.
“Feel what?” Bela replied.
“Are you alright?” asked Kassina.
A toothy grin slithered across the imp’s flattened face.
The Seven’s voices grew louder. Raising their arms, the electricity intensified.
Fear overwhelmed Rowan. He wanted to grab the sword and run, but he dared not touch it. It seemed different. It looked evil, though it looked no different than before.
You’re resisting them, aren’t you...
For the briefest of moments, a shadow flickered past one the beams of light. Rowan searched the room, but saw nothing.
The mages shouted at the sword and the hammer with timeworn words. Again a flicker interrupted the sunlight. Rowan jerked his head to the side and caught a flash of movement.
“Pisk, someone’s here!”
“Nonsense!”
“Pisk, call it off!”
A high whine pierced Rowan’s ears.
“It’s too late…” the squat man replied, “…the hammer, now!”
Glancing up, something flashed through the rafters, before disappearing again. Rowan gripped his dagger.
“The hammer, do it! Before it’s too late!”
Exhaling deeply, Rowan stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around the hammer. He tried to lift it, but its weight surprised him; it was much heavier than it appeared. His palms tingled. The scar on his temple throbbed.
“Now!”
Groaning, he hoisted the hammer high overhead. Teetering, he struggled to balance the mass. His muscles burned from the strain. Energy radiated out from his hands and up his arms.
“Now!”
Eyes focused on the blade, Rowan started the hammer down. Somewhere behind him a cry rang out. A sharp pain stung his shoulder. Grimacing, he stumbled. The forging hammer smashed into the anvil’s horn, releasing a blinding light and shattering it into a thousand iron shards. The sword clattered to the floor.
Dropping to one knee, Rowan searched his shoulder and found a bolt buried there. He looked up in time to see a figure in black drop from the ceiling onto one of the Seven and draw a dagger across her neck. Screaming, she spun, arms flailing. Blood sprayed the face of the mage beside her. Two bolts struck the man in the tunic. Crimson blossomed across his chest.
The spellsword in the cuirass drew his blade and crossed steel with a hooded assassin. Lumbering about, the armored man struggled to parry his foe’s strikes. The assassin ducked low and drove glinting steel under the spellsword’s armor and into his belly. Groaning, the man dropped to his knees. With a flash, the assassin plunged his blade into the dying man’s throat.
Grabbing the sword, Rowan stood up and raced towards Kassina. The blade pushed back the blur of the battle and the burning in his shoulder.
A cloaked figure charged at Rowan with daggers drawn, but an arrow from Bela’s short bow cut him down. Gurgling, he slid face first across the floor. The clanging of metal on stone caught Rowan’s ear. Leaning low, he scooped up the coin that had spilled out of the figure’s pocket.
Kassina fired her crossbow at an assassin straddling a mage across the room. The bolt pierced his side, sending him toppling over. A howl of pain joined the chaotic chorus.
“We have to go!” Rowan shouted.
“To the sewers,” said Pisk. “They cannot get the blade!”
Together, the four sprinted across the warehouse to the stairs leading down below. As fast as she could nock her arrows, Bela launched parting shots behind them like a Parthyan horse archer.
Several strides from the threshold, Rowan heard a gasp. Looking back, he saw Pisk stumble, a bolt sunk deep in his back. His bulging eyes met the thief’s. The imp tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Instead, he flicked his hand, urging them onward.
Rowan spun, but Kassina caught him by the arm. “There isn’t time, Ro; he’s gone!”
In the cellar, the sounds of the struggle still rang out overhead. Rowan pulled back the manhole lid. Kassina and Bela slid through. Somewhere overhead, a voice thundered in a primordial language. The stone floor under the thief’s feet shook. Up above, the warehouse groaned and creaked and crashed in on itself. Arch mage and assassin alike shrieked, and Rowan dove into the sewers below.
Chapter 20
Griffon Alexander
Braewood Forest
Kingdom of Beyorn
“Are you sure about this?” Pagan whispered, peeking out from behind a tree.
“That’s the second time you’ve asked,” replied Griffon. “See anything?”
“No.”
The pair slipped out from around the broad trunk and continued into the depths of the Braewood Forest.
“It just seems heretical, especially by an Alexander.”
“If there’s another way, I don’t know it, though I wish I did.”
“What about that?” Pagan said, motioning ahead.
A pile of deadfall loomed in the distance. Branches and limbs lay rotting on the spongy floor. Griffon circled it, careful to keep an eye over his shoulder. “It’s big, but I don’t know if it’s enough fuel. The bark of a braewood is thick, and as hard as iron. It’ll take a hot fire to catch. But when it does...”
“The sap will carry the flames all the way to the top,” Pagan added. “And then there’s no stopping this, Griff.”
“It’s not enough, not this one,” the young Alexander said, “and we’re too close to their camp. We risk their rear guard or a scout discovering it. We need it to be an inferno by the time they know. We need it to consume everything.”
“Then we keep looking.”
The wind carried with it the distant, muffled sounds of war. Chaos and death whispered on its fingers, adding to the urgency of their task. Griffon pushed the thoughts back. He’d found that if he allowed his mind the freedom to wander the battlefield, or to consider the trebuchet, paralysis edged in on him.
Scanning the trees, Griffon stole deeper into darkened grove, his companion close beside him. Up ahead, a brook cut a meandering path through the forest. Sandy, and shallow, and broad, it leisured along. Sunlight threatened to breach the thinned canopy over the stream, but the braewood’s branches clasped tight and held it back yet. A single Meronian knelt at the water’s edge and filled an armful of skins, sword strapped across his back and shield face-down in the moss.
“Cocksure arsehole,” Pagan muttered, stepping behind a wide trunk. “Let me run him through with that spear. He’ll learn to drop his guard so close to the Brae.”
“Shhh... just wait. There’ll be time for that yet...”
Three more scouts, sword and shield in hand, joined the man by the brook. Hardened leather was fastened around their torsos. Nasal helms adorned their heads, the black cross of Meronia emblazoned on the back.
“Who’s cocksure now?” remarked Griffon.
“Hmph, so, what do we do?”
“Outnumbered two to one? Nothing. We wait.”
The guards milled about, eyes searching the trees, while the kneeling man filled the last of the skins. In hushed tones, they spoke words unheard, until finally, they left.
“See?” Griffon said.
“This is not a satisfying conclusion, m’lord, not at all.”
“One day, when you have your own charge of men you can do as you will, but until then, any conclusion where we leave alive is counted as a victory.”
“My own company of men...” Pagan mused wistfully, “Oh, the blood we’d spill and the bowels we’d empty. The bards would tease the taverns with our tales...” Pagan winked.
Griffon chuckled. “And if this war proves to be the fickle mistress I expect she is, you may have your wish yet.”
“The Black Bastards,” Pagan remarked. A devious smirk raked across his lips.
“Bluchnoire.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That’s the name of your company in the olde words.”
“The Bluchnoire, the Black Bastards of Beyorn. The scourge of the Four Kingdoms...”
Snorting, Griffon whispered, “Enough moon gazing, a fire awaits our setting.”
Kneeling at the brook, with Pagan watching his back, Griffon filled their skins. He took a draw and quenched his throat, before handing it off. Turning up the water, Pagan gulped it down. “Damn it’s sweet, and colder than a mid-winter’s frost.”
“It’s fed from the mountains,” Griffon replied, “and as pure as any water you’ll ever drink.” He thought of Kren, and the council under a moonless sky, and the blood visions.
The Braewood, and Hell’s Gate aruin... it seems the mountain sees all...
The young Alexander glanced up at his friend. But perhaps yet I can prove it wrong of one fate...
The woods grew darker the deeper they delved. Somewhere overhead, a murder of crows bickered before scattering. The sounds of war grew faint. Instead, wind rustled the canopy and whispered of things less pressing.
Startled by their approach, a sow and her shoats flushed from their wallow and darted into the shadows. The high squeals of the young chased after their mother’s deeper grunts.
“She’ll take them to either a burrow or a thicket,” Griffon whispered. “And if fate wills it, it’ll be the latter.”
“Then let’s move before we lose ‘em!” Pagan said, springing forward.
Together they chased after the sounds of the shoats. The mossy forest floor crunched under their heavy footfalls. Splashing through a stream, warmer and muddier than the last, they came upon a heavy deadfall and a final squeal.
It was tall and dense, and not of its own creation. A den of some sort, it was built around the base of an olde braewood.
“It’s perfect,” Pagan said.
Griffon handed him the spear. “Flush out the sow,” he said, “I’ll start the fire.”
Pagan poked and prodded the pyre-to-be. “It goes deep,” he remarked. “It’ll burn hot at the base.”
The spear’s tip pricked the thick skin of the sow’s shank. With an angry bleat, she bolted from the brush, her young close behind.
Sparks turned to a faint flicker, and the flicker, a small flame. It licked the brush, crackling and crawling across the heap. Grey, woodsy smoke filled their noses and burned their eyes. The heat felt warm against Griffon’s face.
“Halt!”
The pair spun to find the four Meronian guardsmen a short distance away.
“We should’ve ended them when we had the chance,” Pagan whispered.
The young Alexander turned, the shield on his back facing the guards, and kicked Pagan in the ass. “Silence!”
“Hey!”
Leveling his spear at his companion, Griffon said, “I found him sneaking about. Now, help me bind hid hands. Perhaps we can stick a pike up his arse and parade him across the battlefield!”
“I don’t like this shit one bit,” Pagan whispered, before growling, “unhand me you foul, Meronian devil!”
Matching Griffon’s spear, the officer said, “So, a kick to the arse and a black cross is enough to persuade us? What do you take us for, fools?”
Pagan shrugged.
“Red on yellow,” the officer continued, “I know who you are, Alexander. You’ll fetch a prince’s ransom.”
“He’s worth a bit less than you’d expect,” Pagan quipped.
Griffon stepped forward. Before he could speak, two figures with woada-blue faces rose up behind the four. With a shout, Jorok and Ulriich cleaved their axes across the backs of two of the soldiers, snapping their spines and sending them slouching forward.
The remaining soldier and the officer spun to find Kren Redstorm towering over them. His lips curled back, baring teeth in challenge. Stained axes hung by his side. Casting a quick glance to Griffon, he returned his gaze to the Meronians.
“W-we have no qualms with you...” the officer stammered.
“What of these two? Do they qualm?”
“With one word, a thousand-“
Kren flattened his axe and swept it across the officer’s throat. Steel bit flesh. The man’s eyes bulged in surprise. Neck yawning open, his head fell backwards, hanging on by a bit of skin. Blood gushed straight up. The officer collapsed in a heap.
“On your knees,” he said to the last soldier, “and you might yet live.”
The man immediately obeyed.
As the titan raised both axes, the soldier pleaded, “Wait!”
“I said might, fool.” The axes came down hard on either side of the main’s neck. Splayed in three, he fell forward.
As the pair of painted warriors dispatched their victims, the wildman stepped forward. “Lowlander,” he said, nodding.
“Kren, thank you, again.”
“You need much saving, Eleksandr. Perhaps you should wear a gown?”
Flames leapt up the ancient tree, fueled by the sticky sap just under the bark. Kren’s eyes followed them, before squaring with Griffon. “The mountain is wise, lowlander. It showed you this, did it not?”
Griffon exhaled. “If but there was another way...”
“There is no other way, not now. No man can stop this blaze. It will feed until it is full, and only then will it cease.”
A north wind caught the flames in the canopy. Roaring, they surged south, leaping from tree to tree.
“We should go,” Griffon said, “before-“
“We go nowhere, except into the blaze, Eleksandr. When you burn the fox’s den, do you turn away so that he escapes?” He laughed. “No, you press him in. And thus shall we.” With that, Kren raised an axe and shouted. Forty Uhnan’akk stepped out from behind the trees, their axes stained red and faces streaked blue. “A scourge haunts these woods. He sours my mouth like spoiled wine. I mean to press him in, and feed my axes the blood of a witch...”
Chapter 21
Rowan Vos
Ashmor Sewers
Kingdom of Beyorn
Breathless, with heart arace, Rowan slid to a stop atop the slimy bricks. Hands on his knees, he doubled over and sucked in foul air. Hot pain throbbed through his shoulder in waves. “I need one of you to get this damn bolt out...”
Bela stepped forward. “I’m going to take a look, ok?”
Rowan grunted.
She felt around and cut at his shirt, before saying, “You’re in luck, relatively speaking that is. The bolt head is already out the back. All we need to do is pull it through...”
“Just get it over with...”
With her swordbreaker, Bela snapped off the fletching. “I’m going to make this quick... one... single... motion!”
Gritting his teeth, Rowan growled and dropped to one knee. The pain was sharp, and then a bit less, before settling on a dull throb. Hot blood trickled from the wound.
Cutting a sleeve off her shirt, Bela ripped it into strips, tied them together, and wrapped his shoulder the best she could. “How does it feel?”