by Anthony Ryan
“Got no right here!” the barman was shouting as he straightened. “Comin’ in here hitting customers, making threats. Ain’t right.”
There was a loud growl of assent from the inn’s patrons, most now on their feet, many holding a variety of knives and cudgels.
“Order bastards,” one of them spat, brandishing a broad bladed knife. “Ventured where you shouldn’t. Need cutting down to size.”
Nortah’s sword came free of its scabbard in a blur, the man with the knife staring at his severed fingers as the blade clattered to the floor.
“No need for that kind of language, sir,” Nortah cautioned him sternly.
The rest of the crowd drew back a little and silence stretched, broken only by the knife man’s keening over his mutilated hand and the rasping chokes of the prize fighter Vaelin had punched. They’re afraid, Vaelin decided, scanning the faces in the crowd. But not scared enough to run. Numbers give them strength.
He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, once, sharp and loud. He had expected Scratch to use the door but the slave-hound apparently saw little obstacle in the window. Shattered glass exploded across the inn, the dark bulk of snarling muscle landing in the centre of the room, snapping viciously at any patrons unfortunate enough to be close by.
The inn emptied in a few seconds save for the two injured patrons and the barman, clutching a hefty cudgel, his chest heaving with fear.
“Why’re you still here?” Dentos asked him.
“If I run without fightin’, he’ll kill me,” the bald man replied.
“One Eye’ll be dead by morning,” Vaelin assured him. “Get out of here.”
The bar man gave them a last nervous glance before dropping his cudgel and running for the back door.
“Barkus,” Vaelin said. “Help me with this.”
They jammed their hunting knives into the join between the floor and the trap door and levered it open. The hole it revealed went straight down into a dimly lit cellar. Vaelin could see fire light flickering on the stone floor about ten feet below. He stepped back, drawing his sword and preparing to jump. Scratch, however, had picked up a fresh trail and saw little reason to linger. He flashed past Vaelin and disappeared into the hole. After a second or two the mingled sound of shock, pain and Scratch’s roaring growls left them in no doubt he had found some enemies.
“Think he’ll save any for us?” Barkus asked, wincing.
Vaelin jumped into the hole, landing and rolling on the stone floor, coming to his feet with his sword levelled. His brothers followed him in quick succession. The cellar was large, at least twenty feet across with torches set into the walls and a tunnel leading off to the right. There were two bodies in the cellar, both large men with their throats torn out. Scratch was sitting atop one of them, licking a bloodied maw. Seeing Vaelin he yelped briefly and disappeared into the tunnel.
“He’s still got the scent.” Vaelin lifted a torch from the wall and chased after the slave-hound.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, though in truth it could only have taken a few minutes of racing after Scratch before they emerged into a large vaulted chamber. It was clearly an old structure, finely pointed brickwork arching up on all sides to meet in an elegant ceiling high above. A terrace of tiled steps led down to a flat, circular area in which was placed a large oak wood dining table decorated with a mismatched variety of gold or silver ware. There were six men seated at the table, playing cards in their hands and a scattering of coins between them. They stared at Vaelin and Scratch in stark amazement.
“Who in the name of the Faith are you?” one of them demanded, a tall man with a cadaverous face. Vaelin noted the loaded crossbow resting on the chair next to him. The other five men all had swords or axes within easy reach.
“Where is my brother?” Vaelin demanded.
The man who had spoken flicked his eyes from Vaelin to Scratch, taking note of the blood on his jaws, then blanching visibly as Barkus and the others emerged from the tunnel behind Vaelin.
“You’re in the wrong place, brother,” the tall man said, Vaelin admiring the effort he put into keeping the tremble from his voice. “One Eye doesn’t take kindly to - ” his hand flashed towards the crossbow. Scratch was a blur of muscle and teeth, leaping the table and fastening his jaws on the tall man’s throat, the crossbow sending its bolt towards the ceiling. The other five men were on their feet, clutching their weapons, showing fear but no sign of fleeing. Vaelin saw little point in any further talk.
The burly man he charged attempted to feint to the left and bring his axe up under Vaelin’s guard but was far too slow, the sword point taking him in the neck before he could begin his swing. Impaled on the blade he goggled, eyes bulging, blood seeping from his mouth. Vaelin withdrew his blade, letting him collapse to the floor, twitching.
He turned finding his brothers had already dispatched the other four. Barkus, grim-faced, was wiping his sword blade on the jerkin of the man he had killed, a pool of thick blood spreading over the tiles. Dentos knelt down to pluck a throwing knife from the sternum of his enemy, Vaelin thought he may have been blinking away tears. Nortah was staring down at the man he had killed, blood dripping from his lowered sword, his face a frozen mask. Only Caenis appeared unaffected, flicking the blood from his sword and kicking the corpse at his feet to make sure he was dead. Vaelin knew Caenis had killed before but still found his brother’s coolness disconcerting. Am I not the only true killer among us after all? he wondered.
Scratch gave the tall man’s neck a final twist, snapping the spine with a loud crack. Releasing the corpse he trotted around the chamber, his nose twitching as he searched for Frentis’s scent.
“This is an interesting structure,” Caenis observed, moving to one of the columns that stretched up to the vaulted ceiling and smoothing his palm over the brickwork. “Fine, very fine. You don’t see craftsmanship like that in the city these days. This is a very old place.”
“Thought it was part of the sewers,” Dentos said dully. His back was turned to the man he had killed and he stood with his arms tightly crossed, shivering as if chilled.
“Oh no,” Caenis responded. “This is something else, I’m sure. See the motif here.” He pointed out a strange stone carving set into the brickwork. “A book and a quill. An ancient emblem of the Faith signifying the Third Order, a sigil long out of use. This place dates from the earliest years of the city, when the Faith was still new born.”
Vaelin’s attention was molsty fixed on Scratch but he found himself drawn by Caenis’s words. Looking around the chamber he noted there were seven columns rising to the ceiling, each with a carved emblem set into the base. “Once there were seven,” he murmured.
“Of course!” Caenis enthused, moving around the chamber to inspect each of the columns. “Seven columns. This is proof, brother. Once there were seven.”
“What are you wittering about?” Nortah demanded, some colour returning to his cheeks. In contrast to Dentos he appeared unable to look away from the body of his slain enemy, his sword still bloody.
“Seven columns,” Caenis replied. “Seven Orders. This is an ancient temple of the Faith.” He stopped beside a column to peer at the emblem it bore. “A snake and a goblet. I’d wager this is the emblem of the Seventh Order.”
“Seventh Order?” Nortah finally looked up from the corpse. “There is no Seventh Order.”
“Not now, no,” Caenis explained. “But once…”
“A tale for another day, brother,” Vaelin told him. He turned to Nortah. “Your blade’ll rust if you don’t clean it.”
Barkus was examining the riches piled on the table, running his hands over the gold and silver. “Good stuff here,” he said in admiration. “Would’ve brought a sack if I’d known.”
“Wonder where they got it all,” Dentos said, hefting an ornately engraved silver plate.
“They stole it,” Vaelin said. “Take what you want but don’t let it weigh you down.”
Scratch gave a short
yelp, his nose pointed at a solid section of wall to Vaelin’s left. Barkus moved to examine the wall, thumping his fist against the bricks a few times. “Just a wall.”
Scratch scampered over and sniffed at the base of the wall, his paws chipping away at the mortar.
“A hidden doorway perhaps.” Caenis came over to run his hands over the wall’s edges. “Could be a catch or a lever somewhere.”
Vaelin pulled the axe from the limp hand of the man he had killed and walked over to smash it into the wall. He kept hacking until a hole appeared in the brickwork. Scratch yelped again but Vaelin didn’t need the hound’s senses to tell him what lay on the other side, he could smell it plain enough himself: sweet, sickening, corrupt.
He exchanged glances with Caenis, finding sympathy in his friends eyes.
Frentis… Wanna be a brother… Wanna be like you…
He redoubled his efforts with the axe, bricks and mortar exploding in a cloud of red and grey dust. His brothers joined in with what tools they could find, Barkus using a hatchet taken from an enemy, Dentos a broken chair leg. Soon, enough of the wall was gone to allow them to enter.
The chamber beyond was long and narrow, torches set into the walls provided light enough to illuminate a scene from a nightmare.
“Faith!” Barkus exclaimed in shock.
The corpse hung from the roof, its ankles chained and arms secured with a leather strap across the chest. It had clearly been hanging for several days, greying flesh loosened and sagging from the bones. The gaping wound in the neck showed how the man had died. Placed beneath him was a bowl, black with dried blood. There were five more bodies hanging in the chamber, each with their throats cut and a bowl placed beneath. They swayed slightly in the draft from the demolished wall. The stench was overpowering. Scratch wrinkled his nose at the corruption staining the air and kept close to the wall, as far from the bodies as possible. Dentos found a corner to throw up in. Vaelin fought the desire to follow suit and moved from body to body, forcing himself to check each face, finding only strangers.
“What is this?” Barkus said in sick wonderment. “You said this man was just an outlaw.”
“He appears to be an outlaw of considerable ambition,” Nortah observed.
“This isn’t about thievery,” Caenis said softly, taking a closer look at one of the hanging corpses. “This is… something else.” He looked down at the blood-black bowl on the floor. “Something else entirely.”
“What would…?” Nortah began but Vaelin held up a hand to silence him.
“Listen!” he hissed.
It was faint, an odd sound, a man’s voice, chanting. The words were indistinct, alien. Vaelin followed the sound to an alcove where he found a door, slightly ajar. Sword held low he eased the door open with the toe of his boot. Beyond was another chamber, this one roughly hewn from rock, bathed in the red glare of firelight, deep shadows flickering over a sight that made him stifle a shout of shock.
Frentis had been tied to a wooden frame in front of a roaring open fire. A gag was firmly secured in his mouth. He was naked, his torso marked by many cuts forming an strange pattern on the skin, blood flowing freely down his body. His eyes were wide open, alive with agony. At the sight of Vaelin they widened further.
Next to Frentis was a man with a knife, bare chested, his strength evident in the knotted muscle of his arms and the hard angular lines of his face, a face with only one eye. The empty socket had been filled with a smooth black stone, reflecting a single red point of firelight as he turned to Vaelin. “Ah,” he said. “And you must be the mentor.”
Vaelin had never truly wanted to kill before, never felt a real blood lust. But now it raged in him, a song of fury blinding his reason. His fist tightened on his sword hilt as he stepped forward into a charge…
He never knew what happened, never truly understood the paralysis that seized his limbs, only that he found himself sprawled on the floor, his lungs suddenly empty of air, his sword clattering from his grasp. His hands and feet felt like ice. He tried to stand but could find no purchase on the floor, flailing like a senseless drunk as the one eyed man moved away from Frentis, his knife a blood stained yellow tooth in the fire’s glow.
“Ho there!” Barkus shouted, charging along with the others. “Time to die One Eye!”
The one eyed man raised his hand, an almost careless gesture, and a curtain of fire rose in front of Vaelin’s brothers, sending them reeling back. The fire wall spanned the chamber, rising from floor to ceiling, an unbroken barrier of swirling flame.
“I like fire,” the one eyed man said, turning his angular face back to Vaelin. “The way it dances, quite beautiful don’t you think?”
Vaelin tried to reach inside his cloak for his hunting knife but found all his hand would do was shake uncontrollably.
“You’re strong,” the one eyed man observed. “Usually they can’t move at all.” He glanced over at Frentis, wide eyed, blood streaming from his cuts, his naked form straining against his bonds with all his strength.
“You came here for him,” the one eyed man continued. “You’re the one he said would come to kill me. Al Sorna, Blackhawk fighter, assassin killer, Battle Lord spawn. I’ve heard of you. Have you heard of me?” He gave a mirthless smile.
Vaelin found to his surprise he could still spit. It landed on the one eyed man’s boots.
The smile disappeared. “I see you have. What did you hear I wonder? That I was an outlaw? An overlord of outlaws? True of course, but only in part. No doubt you had to kill several of my employees to get this far. Didn’t you wonder why they wouldn’t run? Why they were more afraid of me than you?”
The one eyed man crouched down, his face close to Vaelin’s, hissing, “You come here with your sword and your brothers and your dog, and you have no idea of your utter insignificance.”
He turned his face, displaying the black stone in his eye socket. “You would be forgiven for thinking this a curse. But it was a gift, a wondrous gift for which I should thank your young brother. Oh, the power he gave me, power enough to set myself up over all the scum of this city. I have made myself a king of thieves and cut-throats, I’ve eaten off silver plate and slaked my lust on the finest whores. I have everything a man could want, but yet I find there is one thing I can’t forget, one thing that troubles my sleep…” He rose and moved towards Frentis. “The pain of a gutter born whelp putting a knife through my eye.”
Frentis writhed in his bonds, his gagged faced distorted with rage and hate. Vaelin could hear the muffled obscenities he attempted to spit through the gag.
“He wouldn’t talk, you know,” the one eyed man told Vaelin over his shoulder. “You should be proud of him. Refused to share your Order’s secrets, although now you’re here in person I daresay my questions will be answered in full.” He placed the knife against Frentis’s chest, pushing the point half an inch into the flesh and tracing a cut from the breast to the ribcage. Frentis’s teeth were white on his gag as he screamed.
Vaelin tried to gather his arms under him, manoeuvring the ice numb limbs beneath his chest, then trying to heave himself upright.
“Oh don’t bother,” the one eyed man said, turning back from Frentis, bloodied knife in hand. “You’re tightly bound I assure you.”
Teeth gritted, Vaelin managed to push himself off the stone floor, his entire body shaking with the effort.
“Strong indeed!” the one eyed man said. “But I can’t have that.”
The same icy numbness seized him again, flooding his arms and legs spreading into his chest and groin, forcing him back to the floor, exhausted.
“You feel my power?” The one eyed man stood over him. “At first it frightened me, even one such as I can feel the chill of looking into an abyss, but fear fades.” He held up the knife stained with Frentis’s blood. “I have the secret now. The knowledge to make myself immune to all enemies.” He placed a finger on the knife blade, drawing a bead of blood from the metal and placing it in his mouth. “Who could h
ave thought it would be so simple? To be a king amongst outlaws requires the spilling of much blood. These past years I have bathed in it as I sought victims to sate my anger against your young brother here. And as I bathed I found my power growing so that now, even one as strong as you cannot stand against my will. I was told your destiny lay elsewh-…”
Caenis leapt through the wall of fire, his sword held high in a two fisted grip. He brought it down as his feet touched the floor, the blade cleaving the one eyed man from shoulder to sternum. The look one his face as he stood impaled on the sword was one of complete astonishment.
“Fire without heat,” Caenis said. “Isn’t fire at all.”
Vaelin’s paralysis faded as the one eyed man’s corpse slipped to the floor, the fire wall he had raised vanishing in an instant. Vaelin felt hands lifting him, his limbs still shaking with lingering numbness. Barkus and Nortah cut Frentis’s bonds and took the gag from his mouth. Free of his ties the boy went wild, screaming hate-filled curses at the one eyed man’s inert form, taking up his knife and plunging it again and again into the body.
“You stinking bastard!” he screamed. “Think you can cut me, you fucking filth!”
Vaelin waved the others back and let Frentis abuse the corpse until he collapsed from the effort, slumped over the body, bloody and exhausted.
“Brother,” he said, placing a hand on Frentis’s shoulder. “Your wounds need attention.”
Chapter 8
“Sister Sherin is still in the south,” Brother Sellin told Vaelin at the gate of the Fifth Order, his eyes flicking to Frentis, hanging bloody and unconscious between Barkus and Nortah. “Master Harin has undertaken her duties. Come brothers.” He opened the gate wide, beckoning them to enter. “I will take you to him.”