by Plague Jack
“More!” shouted Phineas. This time his cry was answered by a red-haired, mousy-faced serving boy. “You weren’t quite so optimistic when I first met you, Pendragon. You had my predecessor killed here in this hall. Back when you were on the warpath to avenge the Queen’s broken cunt. You had him killed, the last Ashen of his line, because you found out he was sneaking medical supplies to Prince Darius’s rebels.”
“Brarian Ashen was a traitor and he paid the price,” said Pendragon with a stone-faced shrug. I shouldn’t have to defend myself to the likes of you, he thought, but again his stomach churned guiltily.
“He was a good man and a fair ruler whom you had killed over bandages. I took his surname to honor his memory. You’ve played your part in a fair share of atrocity, haven’t you, Clark? But, to be fair, so did I. We’re both partially responsible for fogging the elves and backing the dwarfs into a corner,” said Phineas. “That’s another thing you and I have in common, Pendragon. We’ve both done our part to make this world worse. Of course, me more than you by far.”
“I did what was required of me,” said Pendragon. He’s right, old man; for all your good intentions you’ve only caused hurt. He didn’t like where this was going. I don’t need this.
“I was personally chosen by the Queen herself. I was one of Brarian Ashen’s favorite lowborn pets because I was the best at counting coin.”
“And laundering it,” said Pendragon.
“I was so good with money that after you killed Brarian, the Queen appointed me treasurer. Even gave me a special title to go with it—Archduke. Ever since, I’ve sat here and watched that fucking whore spend all of our country’s money defending against threats that don’t exist,” said Phineas, red in the face. Pendragon couldn’t tell if that was from the wine or his temper.
“You’ve had a bit too much to drink,” said Pendragon. “Minerva isn’t stupid. There is likely to be an attempt on your life. No reason to pretend things aren’t getting worse. I passed through the ghetto earlier, and it’s one bad day away from exploding.”
“Of course it is!” said Phineas angrily. “Norfield is filled with more refugees than it can handle. Thank you for that, by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep the peace? Norfield sits on the borderline between what’s still habitable and the Nixus fields. When you destroyed Capricorn, the survivors gathered here, and we can’t handle them all. We can’t feed them all! Norfield’s broke because I have to give it all to the queen you helped put on the throne!” Phineas stared into an impossible distance, drunk. “The guards at the ghetto gate are more for the protection of the elfkin than the humans,” Phineas continued. “This city teeters on the brink of hell.”
“I avenged my Queen’s honor and saw the rebels’ cities razed. I made sure the monster Darius was put down,” said Pendragon.
“Monster? He’s not the one who poisoned a continent. Let’s face it, Clark, we meant well but we chose poorly.” Phineas finished yet another stein before shouting, “More alcohol!”
He’s right, thought Pendragon. Be honest with yourself, Clark. You let this happen; you could have stopped the fogging and you didn’t. “Then what would you have me do, Phineas?” asked Pendragon.
The fat man shrugged. “We both made our beds, Clark. We both have to lie in them. That’s the price of being a man instead of a sheep.” He pointed at the crowd. “Don’t you envy them?”
“More than you know,” said Pendragon. A serving girl appeared holding another stein for Phineas. She was dark-skinned with blond hair.
“A toast, then!” said Phineas. “To great men and their burdens!” He raised his stein and clanged it against Pendragon’s flask.
“To great men,” responded Pendragon, drinking heavily as Phineas drank his stein in one swill. When he was done he noticed the serving girl was still standing there.
That girl. Have I seen her before? A strand of hair came undone from the girl’s ponytail, and she tucked it behind her ear. Pendragon took a closer look. The tops of her ears are scarred. Scarred. Pendragon drew this sword and raised his shield.
“You’re fatter than I imagined,” she said to Phineas. A transformation seized the woman as her eyes shone blue and her skin rippled with shimmering energy. At the base of her hairline a twisted crown of horns began to sprout, tearing the skin as they grew. A pale blue fire engulfed the girl’s body, scorching her clothes to cinders. Six spiked tendrils erupted from her back, segmented and armored like a scorpion’s tail.
A hellion, thought Pendragon. I haven’t seen one since the Green War, when our sorcerers let their unchecked power over take them. Impossible! The hellions were defeated by the Bottler, thought Pendragon, placing himself between the burning girl and Phineas.
The revelers began to scream as the cords from the girl’s back lifted her burning body off the ground. The cerulean light from the witch’s flame made the walls dance with the shadows of stampeding partygoers. “Shoot her!” shouted Pendragon, holding up his shield as the hellion eyed him coldly. “Shoot her, damn you all,” he shouted. The Queensguard responded to Pendragon’s cries by unleashing a hailstorm of crossbow bolts. The bolts hung midair, caught by an invisible wall, before igniting in a puff of flame and clanging on the floor. The hall grew still as the last of the guests fled, followed closely by a mob of guards. Cowards, thought Pendragon, disappointed that so many were Queensguard. Disappointed, but not surprised.
A brave young guard in Norfieldian yellow snuck forward in a mad attempt to blade the creature. A coiled tentacle greeted his belly and tore through armor and tabard. He stumbled forward before the hellion tossed him effortlessly down the Ribcage. His body landed with a wet thump. The hellion cackled as she tossed herself at the knights, bounding along like a spider stalking prey. One of the Queensguard managed to slice her leg just before she tore off both of his. The hellion was a whirlwind as she ripped the men to pieces, spitting fire with every chuckle. All Pendragon could do was watch as the walls were spattered with gore. Blood coated missing word? and pooled along the floor while entrails wormed and curled over the stone like snakes stuck in red mud. Soon only Pendragon and the Archduke remained.
Was she sent to punish me? Is this my retribution? thought Pendragon as the hellion walked towards him. Had Pendragon not just witnessed her slaughtering his men, he might have found her strangely beautiful. Blood parted in little waves as she slinked naked and burning towards the throne. The hellion curled her fingers into a fist and her magic crumpled the fallen soldiers’ armor inwards until their bones snapped under the pressure. She would leave no survivors. Seconds passed like hours as Clark waited for her to attack. Instead she stared him right in the eye before cocking her head like a hungry hawk.
“Our judgment has come, Clark,” said Phineas calmly. “The gods have sent their avenger.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “I am ready.”
Pendragon pointed his sword’s black blade forward. It seemed heavier than he remembered. My hand is shaking. Why? A bony tendril shot forward and smashed Pendragon’s shield into green and black splinters. Armor saved his arm, but the impact knocked him to the ground, coating him in blood. Phineas was still smiling as the monster slit his throat. His crown of horses tumbled down his belly as the hellion gently lifted Phineas’s head from his shoulders. The crown landed unceremoniously in the muck beside Pendragon.
She gave him a clean death. Doubtful I’ll get the same mercy, thought Pendragon as she burned away Phineas’s clothes and traced a claw down his belly, leaving a red line in its wake. When she reached the Archduke’s bellybutton he ripped open like a bag filled with too much grain. Blood and bile poured from the gash in a heavy waterfall of fluid. A lifetime of gorging had stretched the Archduke’s organs to gargantuan proportions. Gravity wrenched the guts from Phineas’s corpse and they tumbled to the floor like veiny pink pythons. The hellion laughed as she struck Pendragon and threw him to the floor. His skull might have cracked were it not for his helmet. His world went black.
Pendragon awoke to darkness. Am I dead? I can’t be. That smell… I know that smell, that’s the smell of death. If I can still smell I must be alive. Something kept Pendragon plastered firmly to the floor. Only one thing could be that heavy, he thought. Phineas. Pendragon pushed against the wet bulk as hard as he could but it was no use. He found his dagger and punctured intestine and viscera. Phineas’s corpse ripped open and Pendragon climbed out, finding his footing on the slippery tile.
There was blood in his eyes as he stood, and through the red blur Pendragon could see the hellion sitting atop Phineas’s litter. Pendragon bent over and looked for his sword, furiously digging through the muck. Finally he felt something hard, something familiar. Never had he been so frightened in his life, nor so glad to find his sword.
Blade in hand, he spun around to face the beast. Pendragon was a horrid sight, the plume atop his helmet stained red with blood. His once beautiful cloak’s feathers were stuck together and ruined with gore. Green was streaked with brown and crimson, and the dragon’s face of his visor seemed to roar as if it delighted in the carnage. For the second time in his life Pendragon resembled a newborn.
A tendril reached forward and caressed the end of Pendragon’s sword, which wobbled as his hand shook. This is it, thought Pendragon. This is the end. He would let it get closer and then he would die just like the dozens who lay dead around him. The hellion smiled.
“Not yet,” she said, her voice warm as she stood atop Phineas’s throne. She extended her arms above her, holding Phineas’s head and crown tight. The tendrils on her back began to writhe and twist together, melting and reforming into a translucent pair of dragonfly wings.
“Wait,” said the old man. “Why did you do this? What do you want?” he asked as she stretched her newly formed wings.
“Not here,” she said. “Not yet,” She flew upwards until she disappeared through a skylight in the great hall.
Pendragon was alone amongst the dead. Why did she spare me? Me of all people? he thought, trudging towards the wide open doors of the Ribcage. He sheathed his sword without bothering to clean the blood off. His head was in a daze, and everything seemed so very slow. The courtyard was vacant, the guards having abandoned their posts. Few horses still remained in the stable, but luckily one of them was his own. He saddled her quickly, and after pulling down his dragon-faced visor, he rode her shakily down the steps.
The human district was in chaos. So that’s where the guards went, he thought, riding past several Norfieldian guards trying to calm an angry crowd. Pendragon tried to remain inconspicuous, an impossible task while wearing a blood-soaked suit of armor.
“There he is!” shouted a portly woman in a butcher’s smock. “There’s the traitor Pendragon! Look at the monster covered in our Lord’s blood!” she spat at him.
They think I killed the Archduke? Pendragon was confused, and before he had time to inquire further, one of the guardsmen was on hands and knees, blood pouring from the slits in his helmet. His fellows responded by attempting to beat back the crowd, before vanishing into a sea of rage and repressed fear. Pendragon turned and rode in the opposite direction, past burning storefronts and looted bodies.
A freshly hung elf corpse swung gently over the entrance to the refugee district, silhouetted by the moon. I’ve walked into hell, thought Pendragon as he entered the ghetto. Screams rang in Pendragon’s ears. They came in two types—the first were screams of pain and fear, while the second were the whoops and hollers of those who reveled in the chaos. Rivers of red blood ran through the streets, which were littered with the corpses of the outnumbered subhumans. The vengeful mob had carved a path? through the ghetto and for every human lying dead in the dirt there were three elfkin. By the gods, it’s Capricorn all over again.
He remembered walking through the white elf city of Capricorn. He had been wearing a gas mask which protected him from the Nixus pumped into the city. The mask had obscured his vision but he could still make out the outlines of elves who had fallen dead in the prime of their lives. One image burned in his mind—a mother curled over her child in an attempt to shield him. Such a futile gesture…
“FOR THE ARCHDUKE” was written in a bloody scrawl along the wall of an old inn. At its base a decapitated gilnoid formed a pincushion for spears. There was a long, drawn-out scream of pain from a house, then silence. Human men, plain and common, were busy sawing off elf ears as trophies. The screams surrounded him from nowhere and everywhere. “All of this is because of you,” he said out loud without meaning to. “If you had been stronger you could have saved Phineas. You could have saved all of them…”
Armed men wearing the glistening golden armor of the Queensguard flanked a rioting mob that congregated around the brothel. They protected a living wall of oozing rage and excitement. The beautiful elf woman who so closely resembled his dead wife was the cause of the horde’s lust. The mob hoisted and pulled her through the crowd. She was a leaf in a hurricane of depravity. They scratched and pulled at any flesh they could get their hands on. Breasts and body were covered in scratches and sweaty fingers were finding their way into any open hole. Occasionally she would get pinned down long enough for someone to get a few quick thrusts in before she was swept away.
There must have been others in the crowd getting the same treatment but he didn’t notice. “This is because of me,” he said quietly before bellowing, “I am Sir Pendragon of Voskeer, and I command you to stop this madness at once!” No one heard him. He rode forward, sword in quaking hand, and shouted again: “Queensguard, I command you to put a stop to this!” Pendragon had the attention of the Queensguard but the throbbing mob ignored him. Arterius Blake gestured to his men, and they left the rabble to form a circle around Pendragon.
“What’s the meaning of this?” shouted Pendragon. “I demand that you answer me!”
Arterius strutted forth. “You are under arrest by order of the Queensguard. Will you go quietly?”
Pendragon was furious. “The Queensguard cannot arrest a noble without the Queen’s approval. Did you run to Voskeer and back already to tell her the Archduke is dead?”
“No,” said Arterius, wiping the sweat off his bald head and licking his lips. “We were ordered to arrest you should things not go according to plan.” He palmed his mace. “Will you come quietly?” he asked, his cold eyes meeting Pendragon’s in a threatening glare.
And then Pendragon trampled him. He rode. Arrows skimmed his armor and one found its way into the rump of his horse, which neighed in pain and bolted forth. His panicked mare rode past a dwarven smith whose head now lay in his forge, his three children each now impaled on a different spike of a pitchfork.
Pendragon was broken, dead, defeated. “Damn you, old man, gods damn you. You should be dead!” he shouted at himself as he fled across the bridge leaving Norfield. That place was dead to him. Roselock was dead to him. He traveled north along the Iron Road, passing under the bones of a great dragon, long since harpooned out of the sky.
A carpet of green gas curled eerily around the tree trunks that surrounded him. His horse, already exhausted, neighed in dismay. “Keep going, damn you!” said Pendragon, sticking his knife into her shoulder. The horse found her motivation once again as she ran, eyes bulging, until blood started trickling out of her mouth, and she slowly stumbled towards the ground and died. Armor clanged as he dismounted the dead horse, and his boots disappeared into the Nixus gas that covered the forest floor. With effort he removed his helmet, its once white plume now stained red and slick with blood, and took a deep breath. Green fog stung his nostrils and made his face tingle. He pulled a flask from a bag tied to the horse’s saddle and nestled himself in the roots of a grand oak. He drank and remembered.
Remembering hurt but he did it anyway. He remembered his childhood, being happy and lucky enough to be born into nobility. His brothers had died of dog rot and his mother had followed soon after. Disease could not be defeated with a sword, despite all of Pendragon’s wishes. Then there were
two wars, one glorious, the other… shameful. All the things he had done were too much to bear. Those who die in battle are lucky. They don’t have to live with themselves afterward. What if your wife and son could see you now? The gas made his eyes burn horribly, but he didn’t care.
There was something moving in the fog, something that glowed blue with heat. Had he been in his right mind Pendragon might have been afraid, but there was nothing that could be done to frighten him anymore.
The fog parted as the being of blue flame glowed brighter and brighter. The hellion stood before him.
“What a sad sight this is,” she said, her voice like breaking glass. “The last dragon has come to die alone?” She laughed. “Tell me, dragon, would you like a chance to wipe away your sins?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then come with me,” said the witch. “There are people you need to meet.”
Chapter 2
O, praise be to thee, mighty lord Cambrian,
For it was thou who hast given the gift of life unto us all,
And although thy body be broken and maimed,
Thy spirit lives on in the heart of thy people,
And in the magic of thy chosen.
—Prayer of the Church of Cambrian
It was a cold January day in Voskeer, which, although warmer than Norfield, was still feeling the sting of winter’s kiss. The new year, 1343, had come despite the gloom and fear cast across Amernia by the Norfield riots. Frost-covered rooftops and lampposts and left the city covered in sparkling icicles. The bitterness of winter was mirrored in the city-dwellers, who bundled themselves in furs and layers of wool clothing to keep warm. Hastily, they cleared the streets when they saw him coming.
The elf rode atop his crested moa. Moas were huge birds from Keonan and the elf had paid a considerable sum to have this one imported. Voskeerian guards had been warned that harassing the elf would be done at their own risk. Compared to the other Amernian cities, race relations in Voskeer were relatively stable, although this reputation was marred by the occasional lynching. The butchering of Norfield’s subhumans had increased tensions on both sides, but despite the anxious looks his eyes continuously met, the elf rode with an oblivious tranquility. Few dared hold his gaze for more than a moment.