The Devil's Judgment

by Chris Pisano

  The man was slightly beyond middle-aged, with a torso like an ale keg. Tousled hair, reddish in hue like the Morning Sun, sat atop his rounded head. His face was ruddy, and he was clearly winded as breath wheezed its way between parted lips that had seen the unkind effects of either too much wind or too much sun. His clothes were fancy, though clearly worn from use. His voluminous mustache quivered as he scrunched up his face in greeting.

  “Mayor,” Landyr said, shaking his hand and inviting in the pair of arrivals.

  The woman was dusky of complexion, her skin bright about the face, as though vine ripened. Long hair, dark and lustrous as obsidian, was plaited into a single braid that reached to her mid-back. Small, round eyes of green as deep as weathered copper, blinked at Landyr. Tall and thin, she stood like a patch of crane grass untouched by the hand of man or beast. Landyr couldn’t guess her age by the wrinkleless skin around her eyes or by the stately mien that seemed to belie the hint of youth about her.

  Her clothing was fine and fresh, exotically colored in black and greys with some teal in a crosshatched pattern that was foreign to Landyr’s eyes. Her shoulders were bare as was a small diamond shaped patch of her lower back. Landyr felt strangely at peace in her presence as he bowed and took her long, bony-fingered hand in his, crowning it with a quick kiss as he welcomed her inside.

  “Honored guests, this is King Perciless,” Landyr stated, leading them farther into the stables.

  Perciless parted his hands in an inviting gesture. “Thank you for coming, Mayor Felindrous, Lyyra of Tsinel.”

  “Thank you for keeping hope alive, your grace,” the mayor of Ironcore replied, after peeking over at his companion and acknowledging her nod of consent.

  “Please, there is no need for titles. Perciless will do.”

  “I am in a great hurry if it pleases you, Perciless,” Lyyra said. “We, the leadership of my country, that is, wish to see your brother removed from his position as king as quickly as possible. His war with us is a constant threat to our way of life. We are not incapable of protecting ourselves with great ferocity, but I fear that he has resources at his command that would demand great sacrifice if we are to prove victorious. We have lived as neighbors in perfect peace when you sat upon the throne and we wish to see you return to your rightful place.”

  “I do not wish harm upon my brother, nor do I seek the glory of rulership; however, the danger of allowing him to continue with this war is unacceptable. He must be deposed for the good of my people and yours.”

  “Yes, this is why we think that you must gather your forces and strike at him with haste,” Mayor Felindrous said with a little more eagerness than Perciless thought safe.

  “We are preparing our forces, I can assure you,” Perciless smiled thinly. “But we have been doing so in secret, from town to town, just as we’ve done here in Ironcore. We are not ready to unveil ourselves just yet. At the moment, our presence is still unknown to Daedalus and we must use that to continue to grow our numbers for as long as we can.”

  “But in doing so,” Lyyra argued, “you are extending the war at the cost of Tsinel lives. You must take up arms and come to our aid.”

  “Believe me,” Perciless countered, “if we had the strength to do so, we would take up the challenge immediately, but to do so prior to having adequate numbers would be foolish. If we charge in recklessly, then we will be destroyed and all hope of defeating my brothers will be lost.”

  Lyyra frowned at his words. Perciless imagined that she thought him a coward.

  “People will die in even greater numbers if we attack too soon. I promise you that we are working as quickly as we can to bolster our forces.”

  “But when? When are you going to be ready?” Mayor Felindrous asked, wringing his hands together.

  “Yes, when?” Lyyra asked as if pressing an attack of her own. “Do you have a specific number of days in mind, or are you pursuing an elusive feeling of preparedness?”

  “I must beg your patience,” Perciless said. “Daedalus is wearing himself thin. We are waiting for the proverbial straw to break the camel’s back. I can sense that moment will be coming soon.”

  three

  Bale Pinkeye saved the world two decades ago. He should have been lauded, exalted everywhere he went and given the rewards often known to accompany celebrity status. At the very minimum, his name should have been added to the list of all the greatest ogres, right at the top of the heroes’ list. At times he fancied himself to be an individual who could offer great insight about the way the world worked, finding time to pontificate poetically to anyone within earshot. Afterward, the listener would be sure to tell him that he forever changed their life, right before they disappeared the very next day. Bale’s chest always bloomed with pride, and he took their words to heart, assuming he inspired them to cut through the tethers of fate and choose a different path. He believed he could also make the list of all the greatest ogres as philosopher or cleric because of this but felt it more accurate to be placed on the heroes’ list.

  But he was on no list, ogre or celebrity or otherwise. Only a handful of people knew he saved the world. Those he told not only disbelieved him but laughed. Just as they were laughing now.

  Bale was ankle deep in mud and pig slop, surrounded by laughter. A dozen guards sat on the thick fence that formed the pigpen. They laughed each time he fell.

  About an hour ago, a boar got loose. The guards exhausted themselves getting the thing back into a pen, one getting wounded in the process taking a tusk to the thigh. But they corralled the beast into the wrong pen.

  The boar was a Furonian Valley boar, this one larger than any man sitting on the fence, each tusk thicker than an arm. The pen held domestic sows, too small to survive any form of ardor, but the men were too drained to get the boar out of this pen and into the proper one. They had just enough energy left to release Bale from his dungeon cell to do the task for them and to place wagers among themselves if he would survive the experience or not.

  Bale had fallen twice just getting into the pen and two more times getting to the center where the boar snorted and paced in circles. It had been eying the sows until Bale got close enough.

  The boar shook its head, flinging mud as it swiped its tusks against the ground. Bale assumed that it did not appreciate being interrupted while trying to gain attention from the sows. He could empathize, but he had a job to do and no desire to face the consequences if he failed. He tried to calculate how bad those consequences might be when the boar charged him.

  Even though he was a foot taller than any man on the fence and twice as heavy, he had no desire to get into a head-on collision with a charging Furonian Valley boar, especially one built from nothing but muscle. He dove out of the way to escape a goring but landed perfectly for a face full of muck.

  Spitting mud and slop from his mouth, he got to his hands and knees. Right when the laughter got louder was when Bale realized that in this position, he presented his rump as an enticing target for the boar. The sounds of churning hooves sloshing through the mud told him to brace for impact.

  A smack of meat against the boar’s skull.

  An eruption of laughter.

  Bale had very little grasp for the physical sciences, so he envisioned that he would fly. He was confused and mildly disappointed when the attack sent him cock over nose, rolling halfway across the pen. After coming to a stop, he thanked the minor deities in the ogre pantheon that the boar had its head down for the collision, keeping its tusks out of the way.

  The boar charged again and Bale prayed to the major deities.

  Bale squirmed and rolled around, trying to get any form of footing in the mud. Windmilling his arms, he got to his feet, only to fall ass first into a patch of loose slop. Luckily for him, it was the best tactical maneuver he could have executed. The splash was grand, a wave directed right at the boar’s face. Te
mporarily blinded, it squealed and pulled up, slowing just enough for Bale to jump on top of it.

  Getting his hands on both of the boar’s tusks, he drove its face into the ground. He outweighed the beast, but not by much, and the creature had far superior muscles. Its legs kicked trying to gain any form of purchase on the slippery ground while its stout body squirmed. Bale hoped his bulk was enough to keep the boar pinned. He wanted to make the creature tire itself out, and then he would be able to lead it back to the proper pen.

  “Hey, Greenie!” one of the guards yelled. “Just got word from the pen master that this was one of the boars scheduled for slaughter. Go ahead and just kill the damn thing.”

  As if the creature understood, it unleashed another wave of thrashing. Still unable to get to its feet, it managed to roll, driving Bale into the muck. Tightening his grip on the tusks, Bale thrashed around as well to get back on top of the boar. He shook his head to clear the shit-smelling mud from his face and mouth. “Then give me something to kill it with!”

  The men laughed again, but Bale could not see them to know why. “You got it, Greenie.”

  As the laughter came to a crescendo, a whistle split the air and ended with a sharp pain in Bale’s right ass cheek. An arrow. Someone shot Bale with an arrow. “Whoops! Sorry, Greenie. I was aiming for the boar.”

  Bale had fought against demons from the very depths of Hell, had lost friends and family, had sacrificed his way of life for the betterment of the world, and this was how it repaid him—a face full of pig shit and an arrow in the ass. Angry beyond words, he howled and yanked the arrow free. Wailing like a mythical creature from a cautionary tale to keep children in line, Bale stabbed the boar in the neck. The beast released an angry squeal, one that Bale matched with pitch and timbre, but surpassed it in volume and duration. Bale howled the whole time he stabbed the boar again and again, rainbow arcs of blood spurting through the air. Crimson sprayed Bale so fast it washed away the brown, painting him red. Bale raged on, stabbing well past the pig’s death. There was no more laughing.

  Panting, he stood and wondered if the dead creature was luckier than he. Bale turned to the guards on the fence and decided to take payment for his efforts. A sight I must be, he thought as he stomped his way toward them—larger than any three of them combined and covered in blood and mud. The guards all jumped from the fence and drew their weapons. One had pulled his short sword and waggled it at Bale. That was the one he wanted. Before the guard could reel his arm back to strike, Bale snatched the sword and turned around. None of the guards attacked, but there was plenty of posturing and yelling. Bale cared not one bit. He was hungry.

  In his beefy hands, the short sword was a mere knife, and Bale used it as such to carve a large chunk from the boar’s hindquarters. The guards made threats and aimed their weapons at the ogre after he finished and approached them wielding the short sword. He handed it back to the guard he took it from. Bale turned his back on all the confused looks and started to walk back toward the dungeon entrance at the back end of the castle. He was tired and wanted to rest.

  Falling into place as if they were the ones to initiate the prisoner return, half of the guards escorted Bale into the castle and left the other half to deal with the boar. Bale trundled along, following a specific path along numerous hall and stairwells, a route he had walked many, many times over the past ten years. The cut stone hallways were quiet. They were always quiet, save for the occasional cry of pain or the gurgle of death coming for one of the other prisoners. Sometimes at night, silence embraced the dungeon so tightly that he wondered if he had gone deaf, if not for the guttering of flames in the sconces upon the walls. Bale turned one final corner, into a room that had iron bars to the right and to the left. Bale was home.

  “By the gods, Bale!”

  The only other person who lived in this room.

  Dearborn Stillheart.

  Bale’s cage was on the right side of the room while hers was on the left. These cages were built specifically for them. They were larger than any other cell in the dungeon and offered far more amenities, almost comparable to the hospitality of a public house. They each had a bench and a mattress that was stuffed with new straw twice a year and a new blanket once a year. Dearborn even had a window. High enough on the wall that she could only see out of if she used her incredible strength to pull herself up, but too small to escape from. Her head would get stuck if she were ever fool enough to try to put it through.

  The guards snickered as they closed the cell door behind Bale and exited the room.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. But they shot my ass with an arrow.”

  Dearborn moved from her cell to his and gently took the chunk of meat from his hands. “Come on. I haven’t used my bath this week. You take it.”

  “Okay,” Bale mumbled as he trudged from his cell to hers. A metal container had been jammed into the corner of her cell. Another accouterment of unknown origin. It was meant for her alone, the water changed once a week, but she would allow him a soak now and again. Usually after the guards humiliated him in some fashion.

  Dearborn had been skinning rats. She collected a half dozen carcasses and a large bowl she had hidden under some straw in the corner. She placed the little skinned bodies in the bowl as well as the chunk of boar that Bale had brought and moved to Bale’s cell. Bale got in the tub. The water was not warm, but it felt nice. Soothing. As he washed away the filth from his skin, turning the water reddish brown, Dearborn sat in his cell cutting up rat and the boar. When she finished, she took the bowl and walked to the edge of the doorway to the hall. After a quick peek in either direction, she slipped out. She had been doing this for nine years now.

  When Bale and Dearborn were first brought here, he thought he was going to be executed. After all, they supported King Perciless and fought against his brothers Oremethus and Daedalus when they brought their dragons to Castle Phenomere to take the crown. In an effort to save his people, King Perciless abdicated the throne to Oremethus, the rightful king by birth, not by ability. Prince Daedalus wished to subject Perciless to unimaginable pain, but Bale and Dearborn chose to be instrumental pieces in his escape. Bale mused that he was just a born hero, always willing to step up in such situations. However, this time, it led to his capture and imprisonment.

  Ten years ago, these cells locked, and they had no amenities. Cold stone. Dark nights. Every noise from the hallway could have been Death coming to claim them. Hunger their bedfellows. Their meals were nothing more than stale bread, which Bale shoved down his gullet as soon as he got it. Not Dearborn, though. She conveyed it into something better.

  A hole in the corner of her wall led to a colony of rats, one she helped feed with her bread. Bale helped by giving half of every meal to her. Within months, she had become a sort of rat farmer. Bale enjoyed his rats raw and whole while she skinned hers.

  Something happened exactly one year after their arrival. Dearborn had been taken from her cell. Bale spent the next few hours crying, thinking she had been executed. He almost pissed his britches from excitement when she came back. Things were different from that point on.

  She never told him what happened, never once talked about that day. But from that point on, they got bedding and benches, more and better foods. The guards turned a blind eye when she figured out a way to pick the locks, and they never investigated any rumor they surely had heard about her sneaking around. Even though they had better food, she still kept the rat colony thriving, harvesting some whenever they needed a little extra meat in their meals. If their bellies were full and she needed to cull the colony, she would give them to other prisoners.

  By the time Bale finished his soak and went back to his cell, she had returned. Shoulders slumped forward, Bale sat on his bench and moaned, “I’m beginning to think they don’t respect me.”

  Dearborn chuckled as she returned to her own cell and
closed the door. “Of course, they don’t, Bale. They’re minions of evil.”

  Bale liked her voice. It was nice. Comforting even when she said things that he would rather not hear. She rarely used it, so he savored these moments. “I know. But I help them out so much. Today was catching a boar. Last week was cleaning the fire pits. Last month was unclogging the sewage exit. And they ask me to spar with them all the time.”

  “It’s not sparring, it’s target practice,” Dearborn huffed. Her voice held notes of sympathy and anger.

  “Either way, it keeps me active.”

  “There are much better ways to do that.”

  To demonstrate, she gripped the bottom of her window and pulled herself up until her chin touched her fingers and then lowered herself. She repeated the process. Bale lost count after ten, mainly because he struggled with numbers larger than that. “I know.”

  He had hoped she would say something else to keep the conversation going. Instead, after a few minutes, the only noises she made were quick puffs of air as the veins started to protrude from her bulging arms. She dropped and turned toward the doorway. Voices in the hallway.

  Crossing her arms, she leaned against the wall just as Methel entered with two other guards in tow. He looked none too happy to be here and stood before Dearborn’s cell. “How’s the princess today?”

  Dearborn simply stared at him, her face devoid of any discernible emotion. Methel stared back, his face a frozen mixture of anger and hatred with a good dose of fear swirled into it. Had anyone ever looked at Bale with respect, he assumed it looked like this.

  “Need anything, M’lady?” Bale knew sarcasm, though, and Methel’s words dripped with it.

  Dearborn remained stolid with her expression, blinking only when necessary. Ever since the mysterious incident from nine years ago, Methel had provided Dearborn and Bale with all the comforts they had now and even asked if she needed anything else. She never accepted the offer. After every silent rejection, Methel did the same thing: snorted, spat on the floor, and growled, “Suit yourself, princess.”