The Marechal Chronicles: Volume VI, The Crucible: A Dark Fantasy Tale

by Aimelie Aames

  No … not yet.

  She looked down at her hands, tightening them into fists in the same moment that the creature lifted its blades, readying itself for its next onslaught.

  As before, it moved like a striking serpent, pounding forward with the very ground trembling under its feet.

  Swords lifted as Melisse lifted her own fisted hands.

  Then she closed her eyes as fire erupted from her opening palms.

  Behind her eyelids she saw the flame leaping up like paired bullwhips, coiling lazily through the air, then meeting and wrapping round each of the great sword blades.

  The creature collided with Melisse, each of them coming nose to nose to one another, but this time no blows followed, for the creature’s weapons were mired in living fire.

  Melisse smiled and flames danced upon her white teeth.

  She opened her eyes, and she laughed as her fire drew tight upon the swords, the metal glowing first bright red, then gleaming white hot.

  The nebulous face before her looked upward as it struggled in the fiery bonds Melisse had set it, then spoke again, this time with a voice meant for her and her alone.

  “You are blasphemy. You cannot be permitted.”

  Melisse made no reply as the swords seemed to scream before sparks showered down, followed by molten slag that flowed over both combatants’ upraised arms.

  One of them screamed in pain and fury.

  The windows lining the corridor blew outward, the howl of pain blasting them from their casements in tens of thousands of sparkling fragments.

  This time it was Melisse who broke away as liquid metal dripped from her arms to spatter to the floor. It sizzled and danced on the flagstone before finally coming to rest, its silver sheen frosting over instantly to dull lifelessness.

  This time it was Melisse who spoke, and her voice burned with anger as well as flame.

  “You have dared to enter my home.”

  Fire burst in an aurora that outlined her entire body.

  “You have dared to bring your evil into our midst.”

  Flames rose higher with each word, their color veering from orange to a deep and bloody red.

  A harbinger of doom, the color of her power had become terrible in its beauty.

  “It is time for you to leave,” Melisse said.

  The creature had fallen to its knees. Its arms, seared and smoking, were cradled in its lap.

  With horrible tenderness, the fire reached out in a flood that flowed around the thing, surrounding it.

  Then Melisse raised her arms, one hand gathering the fire trapping the creature in her grasp like the neck of a burlap sack.

  Her other hand reached toward the corridor wall and fire followed, blazing onto the stone blocks carefully set there hundreds of years earlier, of a thickness meant to withstand any siege machine.

  But it was only stone, after all, and never meant to withstand the kind of power that seized it then from within House Perene. Flaming claws ripped into it, broke it apart, and sent it flying into the courtyard outside.

  The creature screamed and battered its damaged arms against the cocoon of flames surrounding it, but the fire was inviolate, impervious, to its efforts.

  Melisse strode through the opening in the wall and drew the creature after her.

  Her stride was determined and took on speed.

  She remembered how it had been when she traveled long roads. The fire would carry her forward, tirelessly and more swiftly than any horse.

  It was that speed that she reached for then, despite the burden she brought with her.

  Into the forest they went, flames roaring in their wake, as Melisse reached to the fire, gathering it to her, keeping it from setting all in flame.

  Deep, deep into the forest the two adversaries went, more deeply than Melisse had even intended.

  A clearing opened around them, at its heart a great outcropping of rock and boulders that, at its highest point, would tower over most people’s homes.

  “Here,” Melisse said to herself as she stopped, leaves whirling around her to curl and crisp in the heat of her presence.

  She heaved her prisoner forward, then opened the net of fire imprisoning it.

  The creature tumbled forward onto the ground. Smoke rose as it groaned, then it spoke in a gasping voice.

  “Those who sent me will brook no life such as yours, a vessel weak beyond belief to house newfound power of a puissance that defies the imagination.”

  Melisse felt her anger and her fire rise as she heard the implicit threat.

  “Who? Exactly who is it that sent you? Why did they?”

  The answer was weak laughter.

  “You will learn one day that I, Celaeno, once messenger — now witness — am as nothing in comparison.”

  Melisse nodded.

  “So be it.”

  Without warning, her fire roared and the creature screamed with undisguised fright.

  “Speak in circles if you must. Suffer then the consequences.”

  Rock was sundered. Millennia's old boulders cracked and were heaved aside and the unbroken stone beneath them grew hot until it flowed and that, too, was cast aside until a deep pit had been gouged into the heart of ancient rock.

  “Mercy!” the creature shrieked as Melisse lifted it into the air, then cast it down into the pit.

  “I will not die … I cannot die. I will suffer forever!”

  Melisse shrugged.

  “Well, maybe I will come back one day to release you. Until then, you should consider telling me everything I want to know.”

  Another scream erupted from the creature.

  “You understand nothing. I cannot tell. I am unable to tell.”

  Melisse nodded.

  “So be it.”

  The creature’s last scream was cut short as her fire drew one enormous stone after another to pile into the pit, crushing and covering the thing over beyond any hope of escape.

  Melisse turned away from what she had wrought that night.

  Fear slipped into her thoughts as her fire continued to rage, searching and snarling for something, anything, it might burn.

  She recognized it. She had felt it like this before.

  When the Alchemist had asked her to bring his life to end, she had felt her fire become the ravenous beast it was then.

  Avid to burn the world down … if she let it.

  It was with these thoughts that she was unprepared for what happened next.

  A voice spoke in her mind.

  A voice that she had all but forgotten.

  The time has come. I shall bring the undying man to the Tower now. It is time for you to keep your promise.

  With the voice in her mind, she saw the image of a lizard warrior looking back at her through darkness.

  It is time for his life to end.

  The flames faltered as Melisse felt herself falter.

  She did not know if any amount of fire would be strength enough to face what was to come.

  She sighed, then turned back in the direction of her home.

  As she strode across the lawn of House Perene, Melisse saw that the main entrance doors of the manor were open.

  She quickened her pace, only to come to an abrupt halt just before the doors.

  Helene was there.

  She sat on the ground, her torn gown still askew, as tears rolled down her face. She sobbed then laughed, then sobbed again, until finally she noticed that her half-sister had returned.

  She lifted an arm before her, cringing backward.

  “I will not harm you, Helene,” Melisse said. “At one time I might have, but the monster you invited into our home has done enough in my stead.”

  The noblewoman lowered her arm then trembled all over.

  Her voice when she spoke cracked, and Melisse understood that she was on the brink of outright hysteria.

  “I found it, you know,” she said as her tears streamed. “As soon as you had gone with that … that thing, I went looking and fou
nd where she had hidden it. Only then did I see it for what it really was.”

  Melisse did not understand what she meant.

  “None of that is important, Helene. For now, can you tell me if the Marquis still lives?”

  She had seen him fall hard and knew doubt as to his sort.

  Helene nodded, then laughed with a high cackling sound.

  “The Marquis is confused, but his eyes are focused enough to demand that I bring him a sweet at once.”

  Again, her laughter echoed high to descend into a wracking sob.

  “Row after row, I found them, each piece wrapped in fine tissue paper. And within each wrapper, what did I find?”

  She looked up at Melisse, appealing to her in some manner, as if what she wanted to be saved from what she would say next.

  “Dung! Sheep’s dung … pellet after pellet of animal ejections that she had bewitched us into eating.”

  Melisse’s eyes widened as she thought that at least some small bit of fortune had spared her from tasting such indignity.

  “Worse still is that I refused to believe what I saw with my own eyes …”

  Helene fell silent, the conclusion of her phrase hanging between both women, a distasteful truth at once unspoken and unneeded.

  Melisse waited a moment then decided that she could spare no more time to coddle her half-sister.

  “As I said, you have been punished enough. Know then that she will not trouble this house ever again.”

  Helene nodded, then shifted her legs under her to get unsteadily to her feet.

  “I cannot stay here … for now,” Melisse said. “But during my absence, Helene, you must set our home in order at once. If, upon my return, you haven’t done, then you will not be spared from my wrath a second time.”

  Helene trembled, and Melisse could see that she fought with herself to not back away from Melisse and the demands she placed upon her.

  “You shall reinstate all of the manor’s staff, all those who haven’t yet left the region. Most especially Mathilde. House Perene is her home as much as it is ours, sister.”

  Helene’s voice shook as she quietly replied.

  “Yes … of course.”

  “Use the Marquis’ fortune to refurnish the manor. Have stonemasons set to work without delay upon the broken wall.

  “Do these things and our home will live again almost as it once was. Refuse, or flee from your duty, and I will hunt you to the ends of the world.”

  She could feel the fire within her, desperate to erupt anew and wreak havoc.

  Helene must have seen it in her eyes, for her courage failed her and she backed away from Melisse with shuffling steps.

  “I will do it. I swear.”

  Melisse turned her back on Helene and House Perene. She did not say what was in her heart for she knew the once vicious Helene had become a wounded, fragile soul.

  Now I go to affront Hell itself, perhaps to become one of its own devils before the deed is done.

  Her fire rose, unbidden … its appetite for destruction all too apparent, and she swept down the path leading to the broken tower and the horror awaiting her.

  Chapter Fourteen — Alexandre

  His jaw clenched, bunching then releasing, as he walked with a long stride that would take him quickly to the Eel’s abode. Naturally, where one found L’Anguille, one found his henchman, Modest Klees, otherwise known as the Eel’s Dagger.

  Anger rose and fell, cresting only to fall again, as he thought of all the evil deeds he had encountered over the years and the certainty that its culmination was embodied in a single man.

  Where is your honor, sir?

  He no longer knew if honor played any part in what he meant to do.

  The cadence of his footsteps slowed as doubt tempered the fury burning within him.

  I am charged with upholding the law. I, of all people, am meant to carry the banner of justice.

  In the distance a bell began to sound. Its notes rang out in a frenetic rhythm that had nothing to do with marking the turning hour.

  The scarred man’s instincts prickled and he broke into a loping run. Suddenly, it seemed as though time was running out.

  He went only a few paces when he heard the soft sounds of jingling metal coupled with the heavy footfalls of at least a dozen men rushing in his direction.

  Just as the first of them hove into view, the scarred man slipped into the shadows of a narrow side street.

  He held himself still, forcing his breathing to calm, all in the hopes that he had not been seen.

  For he knew very well what the bell meant. An alarm had been given. Evil was afoot yet again.

  “Halt!”

  Alexandre’s stomach tightened into a knot.

  A second command was given, this time the voice of the company’s leader was too low to be heard, but the scarred man could guess what was said.

  His suspicion was quickly confirmed as he heard a few of the men move quietly back to where they had come from, then peel away in separate directions.

  What he had heard meant two things. These men knew what they were about. A few of them had dropped back only to spread wide so that they might come in from a side opposite their fellows, thus surprising their quarry from behind.

  It also meant that despite his hope for the contrary, he had been seen.

  “Come on out, you gutless bastard!”

  Alexandre sighed, then walked out from the shadows into the dimly lit street.

  Facing him was a strange group of men, some of them in standard militia garb, which marked them as part of the city guard. However, between each of these stood men whose colors would have been startling in full light.

  The scarred man recognized them for what they were and his heart sank. What was about to happen promised to be ugly.

  Unarmed, one might have thought they were a group of motley fools dressed as harlequins. These men, however, wore grim faces and in their hands they gripped long hardwood poles tipped with vicious iron points.

  They were the Lansquenets, pike men, traveling mercenaries from far flung lands whose forests were so thick and dark they were named black.

  The city of Haccia kept her wealth hidden, but here, with these men, the city had spared no expense to bolster its own defenses.

  “Filthy murderer … throw your blades down or you’ll be run through sure as the sun sets in the west.”

  Murderer?

  A rustling sound sifted across the two dozen paces separating Alexandre and the men confronting him. The implied order brought the pike men forward, their weapons lifted and at the ready, while the guardsmen slipped backward.

  “As you’ve already determined I am the guilty party, please do me the favor of telling me just who it is I’ve murdered,” the scarred man called out.

  Their chief stepped to one side of the group.

  Alexandre recognized him and knew him to be a capable man, but also a man of principle.

  However, any hope of reasoning with him evaporated as his dark eyes grew as hard as his words.

  “House Keld. You took their coin to protect them … and tonight you slit their throats, dirty whore’s son that you are.”

  His blood ran cold as he heard the words. The bell continued to clang out bloody murder and each note marked the seconds slipping away from him. Klees had flanked him, just as the guardsmen meant to do then, and the beautiful, manipulative Lady Keld was no more for her deal with the devil had come to term.

  “You’re mistaken. I am not the one you seek.”

  The guardsman chief shook his head.

  “We heard different. Now throw down or you’ll pay for it with your life.”

  Alexandre knew then he could not convince them otherwise.

  The lead man spoke again, and this time his words were reserved for his fellow guardsmen.

  “Remember, boys, keep him out in front.”

  All doubt fled as he scanned the vanguard of the men before him.

  In an instant his decision
was made, for there was only one way out and it was the one thing they would not expect.

  The lone swordsman burst forward, straight toward them.

  Pikes bristled as the mercenaries stiffened their arms and shoulders while leaning themselves forward, setting one leg back as they had been trained to do. Apparently, Alexandre’s reputation with a sword had preceded him. These men meant to keep him well out of reach.

  Their eyes were cold, heartless. He had seen such things before, on faraway battlefields so long ago.

  That was what he saw as he closed the distance between them, and Alexandre wondered if his own eyes were just as dead and pitiless, or if the rage he felt had kindled some spark resembling a worthwhile life there.

  He gritted his teeth. He knew the pain would be immense.

  He crashed into them as a pike took him through the middle.

  Blood burst from his mouth as he ran himself up the smooth length of the weapon’s haft.

  He had not chosen his position by hazard.

  Two of the mercenaries were left-handed and by chance or design, they stood side by side.

  Even as the scarred man felt the spear tip plow through him, he made no movement to draw his own swords. They were too light, too precise for the butchery at hand.

  A heavy short sword was a pike man’s secondary weapon of choice because once the enemy made it past the business end of their spears, close blade work was all that remained, for the other pikes would be fouled, their own lengths working against them.

  Alexandre knew this. He also knew that a left-handed man wore his sword in the mirror image of a right-handed man.

  Two left-handed men, however, meant a more suitable weapon in easy reach while the second of the two would be forced to draw his own sword from the far side of an attack facing the first man.

  It was a spare advantage at best, but it was all he had.

  The scarred man felt his left leg go numb as the spear point glanced off one side of his spine then burst through the skin and muscle of his back.

  He pitched forward, his own momentum carrying him along as pikes fell clattering to the ground around him.