by CW Thomas
Aside from the Black King himself, Ustus Rapere was the most protected man in all of Perth. Everywhere he traveled, whether by foot or horse or caravan, a small contingent followed. His entourage usually consisted of a young scribe, an assistant, and anywhere from six to twelve guards. Moreover, his bedchambers were in an area of the castle that was almost impossible to reach from the outside, discretely at least. With the right equipment, Merek knew he could scale the wall, but his fingers, though they had healed on his journey, were still weak and wouldn’t hold up to the vertical climb.
Four days later a hard rain came in from the sea.
Merek took advantage of the storm’s noise to mask his entry through the castle’s kitchen window, smashing it with a broken tree bough. The sound of shattering glass brought a maidservant rushing to see what had happened, but upon finding the tree branch the woman assumed the storm had done the damage.
Merek stashed his wet cloak under a wooden cabinet to avoid leaving a trail of water through the castle. He worked his way up several flights of stairs, glad for the noise of the wind and rain that helped hide the creaks of floorboards and door hinges. Apart from the miniscule sound of his footfalls, Merek moved in perfect silence. He had left behind his armor and leather garments, favoring close-fitting and lightweight black fabrics that made little sound when he moved.
He located Ustus’ bedchambers. The door was locked. After waiting for a guard to pass through the hallway, Merek pulled out his lock picks and went to work. Once the door clicked open, he slipped inside.
He pressed himself into a dark corner and waited.
Outside, the storm lingered on, bringing with it sounds of distant thunder and high winds that rapt the castle’s windows.
At long last the bedroom door opened and a man in a hooded maroon cloak stumbled inside with the limbs of a whore wrapped around him. She giggled, nipping at his neck and mouth while drizzles of rain trailed down her bare arms. The pair groped their way to the bed where the cloaked man threw the woman down and started pawing at her body through her thin white dress.
Merek crept across the dark room in total silence, a dagger clutched in his right hand. His eyes stayed locked on the outline of the man looming over the woman writhing on the bed. He moved up behind him, the blade poised to thrust between his ribs. He reached.
The pale leg of the whore slammed into Merek’s stomach. He doubled over just as the man spun around and knocked him in the ear with a solid fist.
It wasn’t Ustus.
Merek lunged at him, tackling him onto the bed and off the other side while the woman ran to the door and called for help. She delivered, not a panicked or frightened cry, but a voice that came easily and controlled. She had been expecting him.
Fear began to build within Merek.
The whore stood at the doorway nipping at her cuticles while Merek tussled across the floor with the man. Fists hit flesh. Knees pummeled ribs. Their bodies lashed against the floor as they twisted and grappled.
Merek knew there was no way he could outmuscle the man, and so he began to kick and claw his way out of his clutches. When he had finally managed to put some distance between him and his opponent, Merek sent a quick jab to the man’s face, which broke his nose.
Two more guards barreled into the room.
Behind them, carrying a torch and a victorious smile, was Ustus Rapere. He stepped into the room in a floor length green and brown tunic, its collar, cuffs, and hem fringed with gold patterning. Like a master commanding his dogs, he said, “Grab him!”
Merek went on the defensive. He dispatched one of the guards with little effort, but took more blows than he could avoid from the second. When two other guards stomped into the room, he knew it was over.
“I want him alive,” Ustus said.
Three of the guards restrained Merek’s arms while the fourth jabbed balled fists into his ribs like hammers. Sparks rushed to his mind like a tide, threatening to white out his brain.
“Harder!” Ustus shouted.
The hammers drove him again and again. His ribs gave, snapping and popping, until he could hardly breathe.
Ustus applauded. He walked up to the man with the hammer fists and patted him on the back. “Well done, sir.”
The Ivy of Edhen strolled over to the whore standing in the doorway and caressed her cheek. She had a fascinated grin on her bony face.
“What do you think, my beauty?” Ustus asked.
She practically purred at his words.
“If I were to tell you to hit him, where might you strike?”
The woman touched her chin as she considered her options. Merek thought she looked far too excited by the prospect.
“I want to kick him between the legs,” she said.
He waved an open palm toward Merek. “Please. Indulge yourself.”
The young whore’s blue eyes, rimmed with dark circles, were alive with sadistic curiosity. She readied her leg. Merek grit his teeth and braced for the blow. When her foot connected, he crumpled, but was forced back to standing a moment later by the guards.
“Merek, Merek, Merek,” Ustus said. He began walking around the room, lighting candles with his nimble fingers. “I have known some fools in my day, but you surely are the most entertaining of them all. We spotted you two days ago strolling around the streets outside the castle. If the high king were a betting man he would have lost quite a bit of gold to me. He did not think you would be foolish enough to attempt to break into the most fortified castle in all of Edhen, but I—”
“Quit wasting my time,” Merek said, blinking against dizziness. “Either kill me or let me go. Either way, shut up.”
Ustus went to a wooden bench upon which lay a folded brown blanket. Peeling back the folds, he revealed a wide selection of oddly shaped knives—straight blades, jagged blades, blades with hooked tips, curved edges, prongs, and pincers. His fingers danced over the selection.
“So there is this little question I have been wanting to ask you,” Ustus began. Finding the knife he wanted, he declared, “Ah!”
He walked up to Merek, tapping his chin with the small, spoon-like blade.
“It is a question I have been wanting to ask you for more than three years now. Can you imagine that? Three years to ask one question?”
He cut the buttons off Merek’s black shirt and peeled it open.
“It is a very reasonable question, considering our history together.”
He dragged the flat side of the cold metal blade down Merek’s bare chest, teasing his skin. The blade was cold and razor sharp.
Ustus cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he enunciated very slowly. “Where are my gems?”
Merek grimaced, knowing that what he had to say wasn’t going to make Ustus very happy.
“I’m curious,” he began, hoping to buy himself a little time, “how do you plan to stab the Black King in the back when you get your hands on the regenstern?”
Ustus looked appalled. “You dare call his majesty by that name?”
“I’d call him a fat pig roasting on a spit if I thought there was any difference.”
Ustus dug the spoon-shaped knife into Merek’s skin and raked it across his chest. His toes curled. His jaw locked. The knife peeled back a layer of skin, leaving a thick red line in its wake that burned like fire.
“Where are they?” Ustus asked again.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Merek said once he’d caught his breath. “I know you’re plotting something, always coming up with ways to use others to get to the top because you’re too weak to get there on your own.”
The Ivy of Edhen smiled. “You cannot provoke me, Merek. I answer to the high king of Edhen, not my ego. Unlike you. Now where are my gems?”
Merek took a deep breath, resigning himself to a long night, and said, “I spent them. Never was much of a saver.”
Ustus drew the knife across his chest again, making an identical line right below the first. Merek tugged against the guards holding him, hoping to get Ustu
s’ neck in his hands for one brief second, just long enough to snap it in two.
“I am assuming you can imagine how that makes me feel.”
Merek huffed. “If you want sympathy, you’re at the wrong store with the wrong coin.”
“You spent all of them?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You saved not one?”
“That’s what ‘all of them’ means.”
The spoon-shaped knife dug another gash across Merek’s chest. This time he cried out through clenched teeth. Had it not been for the guards holding him upright he would’ve fallen to the floor.
“Do you believe in the Allgod?” Ustus asked.
Merek was too busy shaking the bursts of pain from his eyes to comprehend the absurdity of the question.
“Most believe he has forsaken this land, if he ever even existed to begin with,” Ustus went on. “In either case, the way has been paved for forces beyond either of our comprehension to enter this world and have their day.”
“What are you blathering about?” Merek asked.
“Lust,” Ustus answered, lifting an edifying finger. “Greed. Pride. Violence. All the things that men and women are so very good at. Our own wickedness has awakened something, and there is no standing in its way. Not anymore, at least. We must welcome it, side with it, or burn.”
“So it’s true. Ustus Rapere has lost his mind,” Merek said. “Was it a gradual thing or did you just wake up one morning and say, ‘I think I’m going to act insane from now—”
Ustus whipped around and smacked him.
“Oh, what to do with you,” he whispered. “At this point you are not worth my time.”
“Then quit toying with me and kill me.”
“True, I should just kill you, but I would sleep so much better at night knowing you were suffering. So here is what I am going to do.” He grabbed Merek by the throat. “I am going to starve you, very slowly, let you waste away to nothing over a period of years. Maybe you will die of sickness. Maybe you will eat your own arm out of madness. Or maybe one day I will get bored, come and fetch you from the dungeons, and throw you to the lions.” To the whore, he said, “Sound good?”
She shrugged, indifferent.
Merek took a deep breath, cleared his throat of as much phlegm as he could, and spit it in Ustus’ face.
With a smirk Ustus sauntered over to the prostitute.
“Clean it off,” he said.
The whore leaned in and lapped at his cheeks, nose, and chin. When his face was clean, she kissed him, biting his lip until he pulled away, bleeding. He chuckled, looking aroused. He backhanded her across the face, sending her toppling onto the bed.
“Get him out of here,” Ustus said. He didn’t even bother to look at Merek again. His attention was now focused on the woman and the violent passion erupting in her eyes. He tackled her as the guards yanked Merek from the bedroom.
They dragged him down the stairs and out of the castle into the drizzly nighttime air where big raindrops spattered down, hitting the mud with loud plops. His toes dug grooves through the ground as they hauled him across the street. Behind him the dark visage of the castle disappeared behind a thickening black curtain of rain.
The guards brought him to torch lit stairs that plummeted underground into a rectangle of darkness. Merek found himself lost in the shadows as the guards muscled him down the steps. Iron doors creaked open, cages rattled, and men moaned in their shackles. The stench of human waste and death hit him like a squall, and almost made him gag. In the dim light of the underground torches held aloft in their sconces he noticed the decay and misery and days old blood.
The guards roughed him up a bit more, laughing as they rained blows upon his already battered body. They ripped off his outer garments and took his boots, leaving him in his torn undershirt and slacks.
They threw him in a small cell and locked the door, fighting over which one of them would get his boots.
Merek rolled over onto his back, coughing and wheezing. The cold of the stone floor seeped through his undergarments and chilled his skin.
He had tried to keep a brave face while Ustus tortured him, but now, alone in the dark and cold, all pretenses fell and fear and hopeless enveloped him. He rolled onto his side and hugged his throbbing ribs, sobbing out of pain, regret, and worry.
“I’m sorry, Awlin,” he whispered.
With a pained grunt he pushed himself to his knees. There was one last torment he had to endure, one last agony that would now be made worse by his broken ribs, scarred chest, and bruised face.
He took a few breaths, preparing himself for what he was about to endure.
Then he shoved his fingers down his throat, as far as he could, and forced himself to vomit on the floor of his cell. His broken ribs shifted and pinched as his stomach convulsed. When he was done he remained still, catching his breath, waiting out the pain that rolled through his body in diminishing waves. When he opened his eyes he looked on the floor, through the puddle of spilled vomit, and saw it lying there. He picked it up, turning it in the dim torchlight of the dungeon.
The last piece of the regenstern.
Dear Reader
Like many independent authors word of mouth is my primary means of marketing. So if you enjoyed this book please tell a friend, write a review on Amazon, or drop some lines at my blog. It gives me all sorts of good feels to hear from my fans and know what you enjoy about the series.
And if you liked this book—even if just a little—I strongly recommend that you read volume two. These two books serve as an introduction to the series, thus many emotional archs established in volume one reach their conclusion in volume two.
But that doesn’t mean we’re almost done. Oh-ho, no! Believe me, this party is just getting started.
—Craig
www.cwthomas-fantasy.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/cwthomasfantasy
AVAILABLE NOW!
Children of the Falls Vol. 2
Where Evil Abides
About the Author
Craig is an odd duck. He flip-flops between enjoying the high-end signature brands of society’s upper-ups to frequenting hole-in-the-wall pizza joints for a slice and a root beer. He enjoys Star Trek and hamburgers, piña coladas at the Four Seasons and scenic vistas. You can find him in Maui, HI, where he lives with his wife Danielle and their son. He’ll be the pasty Scottish guy getting sunburned at the beach.
More great indie fiction
Independent authors are a fun bunch. We band together like nerds at a cafeteria table. We know we’re not with the jock authors of our culture and their big six figure contracts, but we don’t care. We have our niche and it’s awesome! We support each other and promote each other.
So, in the spirit of indie togetherness, if you liked my novel please share it in anyway you can. Like many independent authors, word of mouth is my primary means of marketing, so if you feel inclined to write a review on Amazon or drop some lines at my blog, I’d greatly appreciate it.
And if you’re looking for more great fiction, here are some awesome indie authors worth checking out—in alphabetical order (because I’m anal like that.)
Harvey Click — The Bad Box
Beth Kanell — The Secret Room
John L. Monk — Kick
Tanya Sousa — The Starling God
J.C. Stockli — The Nothingness