Take the Darkness...: Epic Fantasy Series

by Schenk, Julius

  The wagon stopped again and she heard Goldie jump down from the driver’s seat. Soon he was at the back curtain smiling with his smug face. He looked to Flint and Stone. ‘Okay, all. We’re here at the happy merchant. You and you,’ he said, pointing at Josette and the Black Rock guard. ‘Stay with the gold and we’ll go explore.’

  Josette pulled back her hood and looked him in the eye with her clear green ones. ‘My name’s Josette, and I’m with you.’ She said simply.

  Flint and Stone laughed, but Goldie’s face went a little red. ‘You’re no use in a tavern, except on your back, so you can fucking stay here.’ She felt such a rage build in her. She stood up from her wooden seat and shoved past him, starting towards the tavern. She heard him shout ‘fuck’ from behind her, but in the next moment she had pushed open the heavy wooden door and was inside.

  She’d been here a few times before because, as far as taverns went in Pellota, this one was all business. Even a girl sitting alone would be left alone because people came here to trade and talk business. Besides that, she had a habit of drawing her dagger and placing it on the counter in front of her. She sat at the polished wooden bar, drew her long steel dagger, and did just that, placing it on the bench in front of her. It was a busy night and groups of people sat in the leather-seated booths, talking quietly with drinks and food on platters between them. Soft music came from the stage where a single old man sat playing a flute as if to himself.

  There was a lively hum of business and she saw many open ledgers on the tables between the men sitting at them. They were all dressed like the fat one, Rosen, who had betrayed them. Bright colours and expensive tailoring. She stood out like a sore thumb, with her leather archer’s tunic and hood, and her long bow and quiver across her back. Her red hair in a long pony tail also didn’t help. Many of the patrons looked over to her, but then each looked away quickly as a very angry Goldie sat down hard next to her, along with Flint, who sat down on her other side, his body pressing against hers as he tried to fit on the small stool.

  The bartender was a well-dressed man who smiled at them, but looked very nervous. His face was timid and weak, with a thin moustache to match his thin body, but he spoke in a friendly way.

  ‘Welcome, travellers,’ he said, looking at her dagger on the bench and away again. ‘How can I serve tonight?’ He asked.

  ‘You can fetch us two ales and water, we bring regards from Master Rosen and the Brave North,’ he said loudly so all could hear. He was speaking in a drunken voice even though she knew he was stone cold sober.

  She’d thought it was a mistake coming here, but now saw his game, and it was smart in a way. If the Red Bastards were in the city then they would be well aware of the conflict at Black Rock. Rumours travelled fast in this city, and if they heard the Brave North were in this tavern then they would come. Everyone knew it was the Northerners who had hired Dagosh’s mercenaries, and even the sight of Flint would have mouths running. Moments later, she saw two different people leave quickly out the door. One was a small boy of a young age who’d been sitting with a trader that looked like his father, and another was a semi-drunk looking city guard, who was off duty, she hoped.

  ‘I’ll have an ale as well.’ She said.

  The man just nodded and set about pouring their beers from a wooden keg mounted and resting on the bench, and poured them into metal cups with lids. They were the only ones drinking ale. The rest sipped on imported wines and spirits.

  ‘Regards from Master Rosen.’ The man said eagerly. ‘He’s still with you, then? We did wonder when he rode off with your troops and never returned.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Goldie said easily. ‘He finds himself well at home at Black Rock Keep, and to be honest, he’s not really in the position to leave just yet.’

  Now the man looked very nervous. ‘And why is that?’

  Goldie looked around as if sharing a secret, and saw the entire tavern was watching them and straining to hear his words, but he spoke loudly anyway, playing up the drunken fool. ‘We’re in a battle, man! We’re up against the Duke of Twin Plains and he’s making life fucking difficult!’

  She didn’t know if he was overplaying it as she saw another three people almost run out of the door, eager to spread the news. Goldie stood up from the bench and walked to a booth where a young couple were sitting. ‘Move,’ he yelled at them, and they got up from their seats in moments. He sat down heavily and waved her and Flint over.

  Once they were sitting down and out of earshot, he whispered to them. ‘Now we wait for them and every other sell-sword in the city to come to us.’

  If she’d only been able to see what would happen by coming home, she never would have done it. She would have tossed the coin over the side of “The Opulent” and let Minsetta slit her throat in her cabin. But once again, she’d been greedy. Every time she gave into those feelings, bad and terrible things happened. She’d wanted to keep the coin, its power, and now she’d left a wake of dead in her path, and things were just getting worse and worse.

  She sat in her room crying uncontrollably as the smell of burning bodies reached her nose. She’d seen the piles of the fallen that Grimm had made the men and women of the Cold Death collect. So many, and all so young. She had stood in the back courtyard and looked on as the mercenaries brought wagon after wagon of the fallen, and piled them up without so much as a word of regret. They didn’t know why they were doing it and some refused to take part, but Grimm had just yelled at them in Northern until they complied. It was a hideous sight. More than a hundred dead boys and men all piled up. Broken bodies, mostly riddled with arrows and eyes open and staring at her, with looks of pain or surprise on their dead faces.

  In the corner of the courtyard were piles of arrows, bows, and weapons looted from them. She’d seen Grimm’s reflection cast in the firelight as he’d had them set ablaze, and then she had fled inside and away from the horror. She knew why he had to do it. Dierdra the Duchess would just take the men and share their talents amongst her troops, and soon they would have been facing a force of people like Seth, but still she was sickened by it all.

  She couldn’t do this anymore. If it was her they wanted then she’d gladly give herself up if it would stop all of this bloodshed. There were so few left in her Keep now. Almost all of the town’s people had long since fled, and her own guards were left wandering back and forth, taking orders from men they didn’t know to do things she didn’t want them to do. It was all too much. She wondered if life wasn’t better for all under Renton. Sure, he was sick and had killed some of their slaves, but had he brought wholesale death down on them all?

  Wiping the tears from her face with her hand, she stood up from her couch. When Seth had been here, at least it was a noble mission she’d felt they could win, and that winning would actually be worth the cost.

  Walking to a side panel of a bookshelf in her bedroom, she reached out and pulled a book out. As she did, a small doorway opened to her right. She’d follow the path out and under the Keep, and hand herself over to the Duchess. Maybe she’d stop if she did, or at least she could die and stop this madness.

  As she was walking through, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw it was Linda, her lady’s maid. She’d been with her since “The Opulent”, and years before. They’d travelled the realm together. She held a cup of tea on a silver serving tray in her aged hands. She looked as old as Elizebetha should have, sixty name days at least.

  ‘If you’re leaving, I’ll come with you.’ She said in a quiet voice.

  Elizebetha turned and looked at the aged face of her friend. During this whole ordeal, they had barely talked at all. It was all about battle, war, and tactics. She came away from the doorway and sat back down on her chaise lounge. One more cup of tea, she thought. She took the cup in her hand and let the warm liquid fill her mouth and she swallowed. It was so good, and reminded her of much simpler times in this Keep.

  ‘I just can’t stand all of this horror. It’s too much, and I’
m the cause of it all,’ Elizebetha said.

  Linda sat next to her and took her hand gently. ‘You’re not though. It’s always been this way. Your father knew the Dark Guild would always come to our door, and he’d have to fight them... do you think he liked what he had to do? No, but he had to fight them, for they can’t be allowed to win.’

  ‘But what can I do? I’m not a leader, I can’t defeat the Duke, I can’t even control the men here to protect me.’

  ‘You're the Duchess!’ Linda nearly yelled. ‘Not them: they will follow you if you command them to.’

  ‘I don’t want to command, I just want the killing to stop.’

  ‘It will never stop until the Dark Guild are gone from the land, and even then men will still fight and try take what’s not theirs; it’s just the way of men and kings,’ Linda said, her soft voice familiar once again, reassuring.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to see it, and I don’t want any of it to be in my name.’

  ‘You need to talk to someone who can help you, and I think I know who that is.’

  ‘Who can help me now?’ She asked.

  ‘Your father.’

  Chapter 12

  She sat at her uncle’s desk, in his study at the manor house where she’d been born and raised. The fire was crackling in the hearth but she shivered with the cold. In the middle of the room Seth, the tall Northern bastard, was chained at hand and foot in the circle. On the table sat a plate of meat and vegetables that she’d only been able to take a few bites of, and it still tasted cold and filthy in her mouth. The Northman screamed in pain, her black dogs slowly tearing him apart as she watched. Her uncle, Stephan, sat next to her and smiled as he watched the show with her. He looked as she remembered him, strong, powerful, and well dressed with his military clothes and stern face.

  He laughed as Seth died for the thousandth time in front of him. ‘If only it had gone that way,’ he said.

  Seraphina smiled sadly back at him. ‘It will, uncle, it will.’

  Then she heard the noise. It was a deep howl, and it filled her with real happiness. She smiled a real smile for the first time in a long time. As the howl came closer, she let go of her vision and let it slowly fade. Soon the large manor house disappeared around her, as did her uncle. The desk and her writing, and even the fire died away ‘til she was sitting alone in a small cave on a hard rock with just a rotten piece of white meat in front of her. She threw it aside so she wouldn’t see it.

  She knew even her face would change. In her visions, she was as beautiful as ever. Long silky blonde hair, clear blue eyes, and fine skin. Not the tired, defeated women she was now. Even her long hair was a tangle of mats and dirt. She’d been here for more than five years, and now her only friend was coming, it had been so long.

  She saw him appear from around the corner of the cave and let the illusion of the fire spring back to life. It couldn’t cast warmth, but light only. She saw him, a vision that had once terrified her, but no more. The Wolvern slowly paced up the low cave towards her. Its pale skin and long teeth reflecting the light. She stood as it approached and she ran to it. She reached her arms around the creature and hugged it like an oversized dog.

  A dark laugh like she had never heard sounded in her mind, and it actually contained some warmth. ‘Did you miss me, little princess?’

  She had. ‘I did, lord dog, you’ve been gone so very long this time.’ She said the words out loud, just to hear herself speak. Her refined voice was more cracked, but still she tried to be a lady even if she didn’t look like one.

  ‘I’ve brought you some dinner, and it’s at the cave entrance.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said, standing to give the Wolvern a curtsey. Hopefully, it was the bats, since they were at least not human.

  Her relationship with this creature, who she now called ‘lord dog’ – and she was his ‘little princess’ – was a strange one, born from the cold and loneliness of this land. She’d been roughly shoved by Seth from the land of the sun, into this cold hell, with a foot bleeding from an arrow wound and hungry mouths all around. He’d told the creature to try not to kill her, and through some sense of sport or torment, it had done just that.

  At first she’d thought it was trying to kill her. It had chased her through the snow, her staggering on her bloody foot and crying with pain. Yet, it had killed or driven off any of the dead that came to devour her. It wanted her itself, she thought. Slowly, it had herded her like cattle into this cave. It had sat at the entrance for days until she slowly healed. It had brought her food, but never said a word. One day it had said, ‘Be like them and they’ll leave you alone.’

  She had practised her guise and found her powers were growing stronger and stronger with use. Soon, she could look like one of them, and it seemed satisfied. ‘Now you can walk among them,’ it had told her.

  Then it was gone, but it would return every few days or weeks with things for her. Disgusting blind bat-like creatures, small black dogs or parts of them. She’d find them at the entrance of her cave like bloody gifts left by the family cat. One day, as it slunk away after leaving something, she had called out. ‘Please stay, I’m so lonely,’ and it had stayed, curled like a huge dog in front of her imaginary fire, and it had spoken to her. They had become friends. She didn’t know why it liked her or didn’t kill her. If it was some loyalty to Seth or just because it could, she didn’t care... at least she had something that didn’t want her dead in a world of hungry killers.

  ‘My boy needs your help’, it said now.

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘The North boy, he’s here, and he needs your help.’

  She started laughing and couldn’t stop. She laughed until tears had come into her eyes. All this time, she’d wished so hard for someone else to come here and save her from this unending loneliness, and it had to be him, of course, the one person she didn’t want to see ever again. She’d love to kill that bastard for what he’d done to her, but still, why him? Oh well... it must be fate. She would get her revenge, if not companionship.

  ‘What the hell is he doing here? Elizebetha get sick of him and shove him in?’

  The Wolvern sensed her tone and spoke darkly. ‘He came here with a noble cause, but needs your help now.’

  She stopped laughing. ‘Okay, and why does he need my help? He’s a lot more dangerous than me,’ she said with more caution, seeing that the creature was still loyal to him.

  ‘He’s under the power of the silver tongue,’ it said.

  The Wolvern had long spoken to her of the land outside her cave, and she’d ventured out only a little. While the dead left her alone when she took their guise, with the dead black eyes and feral teeth, she still hated to see them. Yet, it had told her of the pale ones, and especially the silver tongue. It hated her with a terrifying passion. Apparently they had clashed many times, and he couldn’t kill her because she simply commanded him not to. She’d seen the woman only from a distance, and thought she was incredible, like a living statue, but the Wolvern had warned her to stay away from her.

  ‘If you can’t kill her, I can’t,’ she said simply.

  ‘You can and you will.’

  Chapter 13

  He watched with unfocused eyes as the flames roared and loudly consumed the pile of bodies that they’d built in the rear courtyard. He’d changed from a hero to a monster in the eyes of many of the troops, as they had no idea why he’d had them take the bodies of the fallen, and then why he’d had them burned. He told them that in a siege they needed to collect all the weapons they could, and he had a pile of stolen swords, bows, and arrows to show the truth of this. And the burning was needed, but they questioned why hadn’t thy just taken the weapons from the fallen and saved themselves the tiresome effort of hauling the bodies up one by one with ropes, and now defiling them.

  He could hardly say what the Duke would do with this many fallen, and that they’d be crushed by tomorrow if he’d let them be taken into his camp. So, as the fires burned the
bodies of the young boys and men of Twin Plains and the smell of the burning flesh reached his nose, he hardened his heart. Better they think him a monster than they be killed or he be killed. If Seth was here, he would have done the same thing, though he’d hate every moment of it, just like Grimm did, but in war, sometimes you had to do things you hate because they needed to be done.

  One thing he’d learned by now was that there was no escaping what sort of a man you were, and the path you took in life. He was called ‘Grimm’ for a reason, and the Northern didn’t give out nicknames lightly. He’d been in more battles than he could count on both hands and had taken that cursed ship, “The Fleet” out of Cravoss, because he’d been trying his hand at a life that didn’t involve daily murder... and look how that had turned out. Now, he had a task and he’d to do it well. He had to defend this bloody Keep and the people in it. If he had to do some horrible things to get it done, he wouldn’t shy away. He’d be the monster he needed to be so that the rest of these men and women didn’t have to. At least his gods wouldn’t judge him poorly for it. He knew he could walk with his ancestors with pride.

  The man Goldie had clearly missed his calling in life; either that or he’d been a lot more than a simple sailor before. She watched him from the stool near the bar, which she’d moved to as he entertained and recruited every piece of violent scum in the city. They staggered in groups or alone, and found their ways to the leather booth, seating themselves across from him, where he sat like a King with a small but very noticeable pile of gold sitting on the table before him. She watched as he sat now with the silent Flint at his side, and a short man in stained clothing who looked much like a rat before him. He had a pointed face, rotten teeth, and what value would he be as a soldier, she thought. Goldie spoke to the man in hushed tones, but she had learned to read the lips of people: it was a very good skill for an archer to have, as it always helped spot who was in charge from a distance, even if they had put all their officers in regular clothing to protect them from a well placed arrow.