by C S Vass
Curiosity burned inside Benjiko so fiercely that he almost stood up and approached the men. What harm could come of friendly conversation at a tavern? He pushed the thought out of his head the moment it popped up. The recklessness of it would be beyond stupidity. He would have plenty of time to ask his questions later. For now, he would just have to wait.
“What time is it?” Brett asked sleepily as he stirred from his chair. “How long have we been here?”
“It’s all right,” Benjiko said. “There’s no rush, Brett. We’ve strained ourselves greatly. We can enjoy the day and rest before the next stage of this adventure begins. Brett nodded, yawning.
“If I know the Captain like I think I do, he’ll be a lot better rested if we arranged a nighttime visitor to ease his troubled mind,” Logun laughed.
Brett’s brow furrowed as he straightened his back. “Sins of the flesh still hold no candle to sins of the heart, Shigata,” he growled. “Be careful not to throw stones in a house of mirrors.”
Benjiko didn’t have the energy to chide them, but thankfully they didn’t have the energy for a real argument. The two men’s eyes fluttered as they struggled against their full bellies and heads swimming with drink.
“Speaking of the next stage,” Brett asked, “When do we get to it? Will it be safe for us to approach… our target,” he finished carefully.
Benjiko smiled. “If I know my servant like I think I do, we will simply have to wait. It’s not like him to be unaware of such things. He’ll know where to find us. Pray he takes his time. I have a grim feeling that this little stretch of relaxation is going to be the last we get for a long while.”
That evening, Benjiko’s instincts proved true. The group had eaten more than they had in the last week combined, drank their fill, and engaged in several rounds of Tanzen with some friendly strangers as sunlight faded. Before the sky had fully darkened, they had paid for a single room at Logun’s insistence (the Shigata remained suspicious of the seemingly good fortune in Frost and did not want to separate) and drifted off into a deep, happy slumber.
The stranger entered their room at midnight. Brett had leapt out of bed at once, sword in hand and demanding an explanation for the break-in. Logun stood in the shadows, his fearsome eyes glittering in the darkness as he gripped his war hammer. Only Benjiko remained calm. It would have surprised him if Nicolai had not sent a little bird.
“A note from Master Nicolai,” a man with purple robe said as he extended the parchment towards them. Benjiko did not fail to notice a large brown sack at the stranger’s back.
“Master Nicolai, is it now?” Logun scoffed. “It’s good to know the servant has found himself some servants.”
“It is good to know that,” Benjiko said calmly. Taking the note, he brought it to the moonlit window and read.
This man is to be trusted if he knows my greatest fear.
The handwriting was unmistakably Nicolai’s.
“I didn’t think that Nicolai had any fears,” Brett mused.
“Well?” Benjiko asked. “The note is unsealed. No doubt you’ve read it. Out with it.”
“Let me guess,” Logun smirked. “Ghosts? Or is he one of those dainty lordlings scared of spiders?”
The stranger did not smile. “Lord Nicolai’s greatest fear is blood.”
Logun chuckled, and Brett frowned. “Blood?” the captain asked. “Truly?”
“I’m not surprised,” Logun said. “These fops can’t stand the sight of the messes that they make. That’s why people like you and me exist, Captain.”
“Enough,” Benjiko said. Then turning to the man, “You’ve proven your identity. It seems we are to trust you. Well? What have you to say to us?”
The man removed the sack he wore on his back and tossed it on the ground before them. “Don those,” he said in a grim, monotone voice. “And follow me.”
Benjiko peered inside of the bag. There were three large robes as black as night. Benjiko handed them out to his guards and placed one on over his own clothes. “Good,” the stranger said. “Follow me. No talking. Try not to make a sound.” Without waiting another moment, the man turned on his heel and fled at a quick pace.
Benjiko felt a rush of cold air slam into his face as he stepped outside. Cursing under his breath, he saw that the messenger had already taken off at a sprint down the road. Without time to waste, the three men raced after him. He took them past houses and shops, weaving through streets and avoiding any areas lit by fire. Benjiko immediately felt a painful stitch in his side and forced himself to keep up with the group. He was sharply aware that if this were a trap, the three of them would likely be out of breath the moment they stepped into it.
They continued onwards towards the walls of Frost. Occasionally they saw one of Jeri Dantos’s guards patrolling the streets with a torch in hand, but they maintained a wide distance and nobody attempted to stop them. For a while Benjiko was worried that the messenger was leading them out of the city, but before they reached the stone barrier that separated the wilderness from the city and made another turn.
Benjiko immediately found himself standing among a sea of graves. Chipped headstones running with vines shone eerily in the starlight. The messenger in front of them had stopped. Nicolai, you better have a good reason for bringing us out here, Benjiko thought.
“Odd place for a party,” Logun whispered.
“Not here,” the stranger responded in a deathly low voice. “But it does not do to run among the dead. It is… disrespectful.”
“Disrespectful?” Brett snorted with disbelief. “Better to run among the dead than lie with them. Come now. Lead us to where we need to go.”
The stranger nodded. He guided them towards a massive mausoleum. It was only then that Benjiko noticed something odd about the graves. There were no names written in the common speech. Instead, each headstone was marked with strange runes the likes of which he had never seen.
They walked into the entrance of the mausoleum. A massive stone coffin surrounded by red candles sat in its center. Their guide walked up to it and quickly made a series of twisted signs with his fingers. His hands glowed purple, and he brought his open palm down onto the marble casket. For half a heartbeat a purple pentagram glowed hot on the coffin’s surface. Then, the slab slowly disappeared to reveal a staircase that descended into blackness with only the faintest glow of light visible in a very far distance.
Without so much as glancing at them, the messenger swiftly moved down the stairs. “Why would I expect an explanation for such a thing,” Brett scoffed. “Prince Benjiko, allow me to go first. Logun, take the rear guard.” Benjiko half-expected an argument to break out between Brett’s taking charge, but Logun simply gestured with his arm for Benjiko to follow Brett.
The air grew dank and musty as they descended into the belly of the mausoleum. Benjiko had the distinctively unpleasant feeling that he was moving down the gullet of a dragon. They moved deeper and deeper into the hot stone heart of the earth. Benjiko did not fail to notice that Brett’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword. Logun, by comparison, had left his war hammer back at the inn and instead taken the heavy broadsword he favored when fighting in closer quarters.
At last their path ended in a cramped circular chamber carved from stone. They must have been nearly a mile below the surface.
“All right,” Brett said with authority. “We’ve followed you all this way. It’s safe to say that nobody is going to eavesdrop on us down here. So why don’t you start talking?”
“I see you’ve grown even more impatient since I’ve last seen you, Captain Brett,” a drawling voice from the shadows said.
Benjiko smiled as Nicolai emerged from the shadows with Lord Jeri Dantos following behind him.
Chapter 11
“Now there’s a welcome sight.”
Godwin was inclined to agree with Robert. The trees had parted to reveal a beautiful green valley looked on by cheery sunlight. The Shigata felt his lips pull up in a smile. He had gotte
n so used to constant snow that he was beginning to forget what a landscape looked like without it.
“Do you really think the end of winter is upon us?” the Tarsurian asked, stretching his arms upwards and basking in the sun glow.
“It looks like it,” Godwin said. “It almost feels warm, and not a cloud in the sky.” Godwin ran his hands over a gift from Banfrey: a pair of bracers made from some special material that was lighter than leather and stronger than steel. He had told the Shigata that he would be able to stop a sword in full swing with them, and Godwin believed him.
“It’s almost a shame that we’re so close to Iryllium,” Robert said. “This is the kind of weather I could get used to camping in.”
They stood a while taking in the view. Idyllic green fields sprawled out before them with a spiderweb of rivers that veined through the slopes of the hills. A soft breeze tugged at their clothing, kissing them gently as it moved on and dissipated in the woods behind them. It was like that for miles. Godwin could even see patches of wildflowers flashing pink and purple in the light of day. It was hard to believe the misery he had traveled through to reach this.
“Well?” Robert said after a while. “Shall we make our way to the capital?”
“I suppose so,” Godwin replied. Just as he started moving something caught his attention. Looking, he saw what appeared to be a cluster of very large houses comprising a very small village. The structures were several miles off and blended in neatly with some scattered trees that surrounded them that he almost missed it.
“Ominous,” Robert said.
Godwin raised a brow. “Ominous? Looks comfy enough to me.”
“Look up.”
Godwin did. A group of four massive turkey vultures haloed the houses from above. “Hard to believe I missed that. I never did like turkey vultures.”
“Oh? Why in the world might that be? I always thought of them as the maids of the forest, keeping everything nice and clean.”
“Maybe,” Godwin admitted. “But their olfactory senses are far better than any other breed of vulture.”
“So what? Did you brew a bad potion with one once? Maybe you drank it and someone farted shortly thereafter?”
Godwin ignored the sally. “It means that they’re the first scavengers to arrive after something dies. But it doesn’t take long for others to see them and follow suit.”
“I see,” Robert said. “Well as far as I’m concerned, it’s far too nice of a day to waste thinking about buzzards. Let’s leave those homes and birds as they are and make our way on to Iryllium!”
They found the man not ten minutes after descending into the valley.
He was a young fellow and going bald far too early. Godwin guessed he wasn’t a day over twenty. His clothes were soiled with mud and dirt despite the fact that they looked to be fairly expensive. He was sitting in a puddle of brown muck, splashing his hands in it as a toddler might.
Robert gave Godwin a quizzical look as they approached him. “Hello there,” the Tarsurian said in a friendly manner.
The man-child looked up at them with wide eyes. “Sin!” he shouted merrily before slapping his hands back in the mud, causing the two of them to step back.
“What should we do?” Robert asked.
“I don’t know that we should do anything,” Godwin said.
“What do you mean?” Robert insisted. “Something’s clearly wrong with the fellow. He could have been hit on the head.”
“He could be three weeks dead with a demonic spirit trapped inside of him,” Godwin replied.
Robert remained unconvinced. “Leave it to a Shigata to see a demon behind every pair of eyes, no matter how helpless. Come on, friend, what’s your name?”
“Sin!” he shouted in the same merry voice.
“Your name is Sin?” Robert asked.
“Sin, sin, sin!”
Godwin chuckled darkly. “So a flock of birds you accept as ominous, but the man who says naught but sin is perfectly normal. Strange logic.”
“We’ll have to take him to the village at least,” Robert said.
“Why? So a bunch of superstitious bumpkins can hang him out of fear? He’s clearly sustained himself this long.”
“He could be injured. Maybe he was set on by bandits.”
“I think we’d likely see some blood if that were the case.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.”
“Maybe these are his friends coming to help.”
“What? Who?”
Robert turned around and stared. In the distance were three riders rapidly approaching on horseback.
“Guess we’ll see what they have to say about Mr. Sin here,” Godwin said. “Won’t do us much good to try to outrun horses. Not in this terrain.”
Godwin watched warily as the horses approached. He did not like the gaunt faces of the riders. He did not like their hungry eyes, nor the steel they wore by their sides. But he especially didn’t like what they had to say once they arrived.
“Friends of the village, are you?” a rider with an untamed beard said as he descended from his horse. The others followed suit.
Godwin stared back with eyes of ice. “No.”
“I see. What’s this one doing mucking about in the filth?”
“Don’t know,” the Shigata said.
“Don’t know, do you?” the rider said. “Seems a bit unusual, doesn’t it?”
“What’s it to you?”
The rider laughed, revealing a single black tooth in a mouth full of bleeding gums. “What’s it to me? Not much, I suppose. If you’re in a rush to move past the pleasantries, we can get straight to the point. Start emptying your pockets. I’ll take the swords and boots too, thank you.”
Godwin heard Robert take a step back, but he kept his eyes straight at the rider as the man unsheathed the longsword at his side. Naked steel glistened in the sunlight as the point of the blade moved an inch away from Godwin’s nose.
“Well, on with it then,” he insisted. “I’m not a man to leave you dead for no reason, but if you want to gamble on two against three, that’s your business. Can’t say your friend looks much for it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Godwin said. “Robert’s a real brute when he wants to be. I’ve seen him kill men for less. You feel like fighting Robert?”
“Not particularly,” the Tarsurian croaked.
“Not particularly,” the man laughed as if a hilarious joke had been told. “That’s good. Smart. Smart men live longer. So you’ve got a smart friend. It’ll do piss all if you’re not smart too. You smart, silver eyes?”
Godwin sized up the men. They all looked hungry, but like hungry wolves more than hungry men. They were well-armed and muscled. There were no silver eyes, but he had never seen men with eyes like theirs who hadn’t killed.
“Well? I ain’t got all day.”
“Gentlemen,” Robert said loudly. “Surely you don’t want to commit highway robbery so close to the capital. Iryllium is hanging for the lesser offenses these days—not that I wish you any ill lu—”
“Quiet!” the man shouted, suddenly furious. “We’re not here to banter with some stupid cunts about the law! Now either give me your swords, or draw them.”
The two thugs behind him stepped forward, drawing their own blades. Godwin felt the Darksword pulse at his side, and a terrible bloodlust fell over him. It was thirsty. It was hungry. It wanted to feast, and the prey was begging for it.
“Swords,” Godwin laughed. “I don’t need a sword to finish you.”
The blade swung in a sideways arc, aiming to cut Godwin’s head off, but the Shigata dodged it easily. Sweeping past his attacker without touching him, he struck like lightning and punched one of the henchmen hard in the face, breaking his nose instantly.
“Sin! Sin! Sin!” he heard Sin shouting from the mud, screeching like a thrilled child watching his favorite sport.
“You fucker!” the punched man screamed as his ally fell into a cascade of sweeping blows. God
win threw himself left, then right. The attacks were fast, but Godwin was faster. Besides, the Shigata had grown so accustomed to fighting hungry and cold against such great odds that being at full health felt like a tremendous advantage in itself.
“Last chance,” Godwin mocked, still careening backwards as he dodged the slashing attacks.
“I’m going to fuck your corpse into the dirt with my blade, you shit!” the bandit screamed. Godwin let him build up his rage until he had become reckless to the point of sloppy. When a slashing blow came down vertically towards the Shigata, he leapt back as the sword crashed into the dirt where he just was, placed his foot on the blade to prevent it from being lifted, and punched the man three times with the force of a hammer.
Nose. Naval. Nards.
The punches sent him careening backwards, cursing and moaning.
“Sin! Sin!” Sin screeched with delight.
“Godwin!” Robert screamed.
The Tarsurian was on his back, blade to his neck, while the first bandit stared maliciously at Godwin. “Best stop that, silver eyes. I don’t know what kind of freak magic you’re using, but if it goes on, I’ll slash his throat.”
“Sin!” Sin shouted, apparently thrilled at the prospect.
“You think I care?” Godwin yelled, suddenly feeling his own fury rise. Turning his back on Robert’s dilemma, he shifted his attention to the other two who were walking towards him cautiously. “Drop them,” he snarled. “Or I’ll draw mine. You really won’t like that.”
The men looked at each other, suddenly very nervous.
“You fucking cowards!” their leader spat. “He’s not going to do anything. He doesn’t want mustache here to get skewered. It’s a bluff.”
Godwin looked at them like death, hoping they wouldn’t realize Robert’s captor was right.
The men were uncertain. “We leave, and you don’t follow,” the one with the broken nose said. “We don’t want any trouble. Fair?”