Brigands (Blackguards)

by “Melanie Meadors”

  If the shadow stick failed, there would be no getting her money back.

  Looming south, the Cogspire Mountains. Not the largest or most far-ranging she’d ever seen, but as spiny and prickly as they came; dangerous and close, stone protrusions covering the odd-shaped hills and valleys like a pox, gnarled fingers of rock through which strange currents of wind sang. The ostentatious lowing of beasts—giants?—vibrating through the star-speckled sky.

  Standing somewhere in all that tremendous power; Vilka’s tower.

  Jancy had gotten herself into some precarious spots before, but this one was looking worse by the minute. You knew that, though. Didn’t you? You heard Hopper’s story. But, the child!

  Yes, indeed, the child. This specific child, who, if Hopper’s story could be believed, remained trapped in some sort of sorcerous time bubble, never having felt its true mother’s touch, never able to grow up, never to grow old.

  How, then, do you justify yourself this time, Jancy? It was true. She had no mental category for this particular jaunt. Usually, it was “if I can just make this one child’s life better, it will be worth the danger,” or “I may die doing what I’m about to do, but this family won’t be bothered by collectors anymore,” or “putting my blade through that wretch’s throat will be the best thing that ever happened to them. He was their father, yes, but with a father like that, who needs enemies?”

  A bad life for a good life. A chance to make the world a better place when the ‘establishment’ failed—a far too common occurrence for Jancy’s liking. Her methods seemed like a solid approach. And, in a strange way, it was as if every life she freed from the yoke of injustice seeded for her a little family of her own. They may never remember her, of course. She was just a shadow, some flicker of movement passing through their lives in the blink of an eye, cutting out all the bad things like…like…well, like, any good mother would do.

  But this child. This child. Isn’t it long past helping? Wouldn’t it be a deranged soul by now, whatever mental and spiritual growth it may have attained in a normal home now stunted by magic and the selfish wishes of a cruel sorceress? Jancy had no real appreciation for wielded magic. Too wild to control, it corrupted even the wisest of wizards.

  What does magical imprisonment do to a child so exposed over the course of hundreds of years?

  Still, she had to see, had to be sure, even though Death’s attention was turning her way once more; even as she stalked the landscape and carefully picked her way south into the teeth of the unknown, Jancy found herself grinning. It was not an unfamiliar thing. It was the itch.

  The itch to move.

  JANCY HAD HATED breaking Hopper’s trust—especially with the business end of her dagger—but she minced nothing when it came to things like this. From the pointed end of her blade, she’d wrung the directions from the bard. He’d been reluctant at first, fearing Vilka’s wrath for his indiscretion, but when given a choice between dying now and dying later, Hopper had wisely chosen to extend his life a little while longer. She hoped the bard would forgive her as he rested comfortably on the stuffed wool mattress in the cushiest room in the Broken Dog.

  Probably thought of it as his last good night’s sleep.

  In any case, her course was set.

  The dilapidated dock was right where he said it would be, next to the slow-rolling mountain river. Smelled like moss and mold and old wood. The thing was so rickety she was surprised it still stood. But that’s what you want someone to think, isn’t it, Vilka? This is where Hopper would be expected. But not me.

  Jancy followed the lazy river upstream several miles to a small lake surrounded by sloping rock walls on three sides. A waterfall gushed an icy cascade over a weak lip of rock across the way, drenching leafy branches that sprouted from seams and cracks.

  Jancy crouched behind a clutch of brush and two moping trees and gazed at her surrounds. Another dock perched at the lake’s edge with a wide, flat-bottomed boat moored to it. It was amazing, this secret, this clandestine operation at the northern edge of the Cogspire Mountains, just a hundred miles from the original crime. Aside from Hopper, Jancy wondered who else visited Vilka in her remote tower? Who else knew this criminal remained alive? Surely, someone in Thrasperville? Maybe they did, and there was nothing they could do about it. She had to believe, if they knew, they would have finished her if they could.

  Jancy shuddered. This was no ale-swilling brute of a parent, or even an uncommon thug. This was an evil older than she could imagine. Vilka was a thick rod of might… a master witch… who’d laid low a small army of trained gnomish fighters and mages.

  I’m a fool. What can I hope to do that they could not?

  Jancy clutched the hilt of the dagger at her side, her teeth grinding as she imagined the poor wailing child kept prisoner in that tower. She could turn around now knowing this was likely too much for her to chew. Good chance she’d die; who could she help then? But another part of her said this was the perfect time to stand true, to leap from the edge of the precipice and fly, kicking, at the face of doubt. To prove her justice reached far… even for someone as heinous as Vilka. But even then what would it prove if she could pull off what so many others could not?

  That I’m quicker, that’s what.

  Her clear emerald eyes scanned the hills and rises, cliff edges bathed in star light and the glow of a fat, somber moon. The wind was up, shifting branches and carrying leaves across the surreal landscape, stirring up the scents of musty fall.

  She didn’t feel watched, yet the air rang with tension. Or maybe she was the tension. Yes, that must be it. Quicker.

  Jancy found the path, a track of dirt wide enough for a horse, and followed it around the lake and up into the rolling hills, steeper, deeper, toward the heart of her mad obsession. She moved swiftly, resting only to grab a bite of food and to stretch like a cat. As she jogged along, courage and doubt competed inside of her, fighting for control, twisting her stomach into nervous knots. At the head of a long, stone path flanked by obsidian posts, she stopped, eyed the subtle etchings—wards—presented on the smooth surfaces.

  “I think not,” she chimed, softly.

  Shadow stick held high, Jancy leaped off the path and into a lightly forested area, hoping it would shield her from watchful eyes. She made pace with her steady breathing, hypnotic, as she fed off the chill air. Ahead, through gaps in the claw-fingered branches of trees, she spied a spire of darkness rising from a distant hill. A thrill ran through her, and dread, too; Hopper had spoken true, and the reality of Vilka’s legend struck her in the face like ice water, a sobering reminder that this was no ordinary foe. Doubt edged up again, but she forced it down. Her legs propelled her onward, strong and fleet, undeterred by her mind’s wavering confidence. She pushed the pace, sticking to gullies and wooded areas where she could, rebellious against common sense, until sweat beaded her brow. She’d exhaust herself reaching the tower if she must, but she’d not be a coward. Sure enough, the effort of tackling the rugged terrain soaked up the nervous tension like a sponge soaking up water.

  Soon she was beyond worry, beyond fear. A bit worn out but soul-fired. For a long time, her feet on the ground and her quickened breathing were the only sounds, but then came something else. A series of hums and metallic screeches, interspersed with loud clangs that echoed through the hills, growing louder as the tower loomed larger. The echo of machinery.

  Jancy approached a low wall at the base of a gently sloping rise. Dilapidated and in ill-repair, missing whole sections in places. The black, mossy stone marked the edge of Vilka’s fortress. At the top, rose a curtain wall and a gate made of the same stone.

  Vilka’s main tower was a beast of an edifice, a thick and imposing hunk of rock and steel… moving and glinting mechanics in the sheer moonlight.

  What kind of place is this? More importantly, Jancy, what’s your plan?

  She skirted the edge of the wall, looking sharp. If she went up the hill, they’d surely see her. They? Who? It didn�
�t matter who. She felt the scryer’s roving eyes, felt other eyes, too. But then she came to a place where the short wall had crumbled inward, followed by a thick patch of brush and grass intruding up the hill and well into the outer courtyard. The wall was only twenty or thirty yards distant at that strategic point.

  Without another thought, Jancy charged silently through the brush, keeping low, then sprinted across the open ground to the wall, slammed her back against the slimy stone, and listened for signs she’d been detected.

  Too quick.

  She took the shadow stick in her mouth. Its non-fire burned her nose and eyes like a smoldering soot as she proceeded to search for purchase up the wall. Her thin fingers found cracks, her toes crevices, and then she was scaling… the inhuman or unhuman part of her taking over, an instinctive skill she’d had since she could remember.

  At the top, Jancy slipped over and crouched on the battlement, eyes searching. Within the inner yard, she spied a squat tower, its veined, domed ceiling, like translucent skin pulled taut over a brazier, pulsed with a pale, sickly glow. She sprinted down the battlements toward the gate and then angled toward the tower. Leaped… soared… her eyes half-lidded in the gusting wind… until she met the wall. Her fingers gripped the lip of a protruding window sill, her feet knocking gently against the stone below.

  She listened for a moment, pulled herself up, and spied inside. The scryer at his work bench, head buried in a contraption made of metal framework and lenses, a scrying stone suspended from wires beneath it. The pale, worm-skinned gnome used handles to maneuver the contraption over a map of the surrounding lands.

  Didn’t see me, did you?

  Jancy crept into the room, drawing one of her twin blades from her hip. Her heart thudded in her chest, her eyes narrowed in focus, her breathing all but silent. She hung close to the wall. Circling… circling…

  The gnome jerked up from his divinations and slung a splatter of molten energy where Jancy used to be; the scalding magic struck the wall in a sizzling spray. But Jancy had already spun away, appearing in a quiet rush of air to stand beside the surprised wizard. He gasped and fell backward, knocking the contraption from the scrying table, clasping at the blood bubbling hole in his neck.

  Jancy wiped her blade on his dingy robe and crept down the spiraling steps of the tower into a single large room. The scryer’s living quarters, sparse and bookish, accoutered with the tarnished remnants of some bygone era. She spied the door to the inner courtyard and made for it, hoping the scryer’s death had gone unnoticed by the tower’s occupants.

  Midway into the chamber, she stopped. What was that scuttling? What was that squeak? Her eyes scanned the dark corners, ears strained. There was nothing else alive in the room, she was sure of it.

  But then came a thin, quiet clink, a slow hiss of steam, and Jancy looked up.

  Two spider-like automatons clung to the ceiling, their bulging brass eyes fixed on her. She dove away as they dropped, a cacophony of ear-shattering noise, wiggling torsos flipping, legs flailing as they scrambled to bring her down.

  Realizing she couldn’t make it to the door before they were on her, Jancy turned and faced the snapping, hissing machines. They were a mass of legs, pincers, and claws, each with a stinger-tipped tail. A burnt oil smell rode blasts of hot steam, nearly choking her. Fast but crude things, stupid and ungainly, they pinched, snagged, and pummeled Jancy before she was able to hold her ground with a flurry of desperate parries, both daggers flashing in sparks against the patchwork appendages.

  Most nimble fighters would never have chosen daggers so heavy or long, each blade the length of her forearm, yet Jancy found she loved the weight of her weapons in her hands. They were balance and counter-balance, sharp as sin, and when they met their mark, they could punch right through even plate armor, much to more than one armored assailant’s surprise.

  She leapt above a darting stinger and landed atop one of the wiggling, dog-sized things, burying a blade into a crevice between the head and thorax, pinning it to the ground. Rolled away just as the other crashed through, tearing into its brother in haphazard confusion. Jancy circled, waiting for a proper opening between the snapping, jittering forms.

  Breathe. Wait for the itch…

  And there was the opening she needed. Jancy reached out and snagged the thing’s tail at the base of the stinger, heaved the squealing thing off the pile. Its brass eyes rolled around to find her. It twisted, biting, slicing with an assortment of deadly implements affixed to flexible segmented appendages. Jancy deflected two buzzing saws and buried her remaining blade into its head assembly—ping, ping, crunch!—parting the metal plate and cutting through cogs and gears and cables.

  The thing crashed limp to the floor, although some internal mechanisms continued to whirr and click in broken confusion.

  Jancy sighed. A dull pain in her side screamed. Something warm and wet soaked her shirt. She looked down, although she already knew; the sliver of a hooked leg had buried itself into her flesh.

  Damn.

  It came out easily enough, had only penetrated a couple of inches, thankfully. Superficial, but it hurt like hell. She dressed the wound with a poultice of herbs and a patch of sticky leaf from her light pack. She’d not wanted to waste time doing it, but the bleeding had to be mitigated before she moved on.

  Moving to the door, she took a peek into the inner courtyard. Clear, as far as she could tell. Nothing but the sing-song of mechanics coming from the tower, and a slight vibration beneath her feet. Had that been there before? The strange, shifting edifice rose up before her, massive at its base, hardly tapering at all toward the top; three-hundred feet of stone and steel with pinwheels and cogs set flush into the wall or rising and descending through slits. Her curious eyes roamed the moonlit construction, wondering at its marvel. She began to hear a cadence to the cacophony, a shurrr, shurrr, clink, click, clink, click, thwack! Over and over.

  It must be some kind of war machine, something to thwart an army. Her mind drifted back to Hopper’s tale, and she wondered how many Thrasperville gnomes had lost their lives assaulting Vilka’s fortress. Good thing I’m not an army.

  And then another sound made her pulse quicken; the unmistakable, warbling cry of a baby. The child’s squall echoed down from the top of the tower, somehow louder than anything else, filling her head with agitation. In Jancy’s mind, the child sounded unhappy. Urgent. Alone.

  “Bitch,” Jancy murmured through pursed lips. On an impulse she opened the door and sprinted across the courtyard. She’d already traced her path up the three-hundred foot tower, and it wouldn’t take long for her to get to the top. Then she’d deal with Vilka.

  She leapt to clutch one of the steel beams that made a frame at the base of the tower, but a firm hand grasped her foot and jerked her down. She met the ground with mind-numbing force, crushing the air from her lungs, and snapping her teeth together. Her vision went black. Her head rang. Even in her dazed state, having her senses knocked flat out of her, she knew. Something wanted to kill her.

  Move… roll… crawl… up… up on your knees… up on your feet! It was all she could think to do until her brain righted itself. All the while, something heavy smashed the ground in pursuit. She tasted dirt and machine oil. Sounded like a giant bashing a tree trunk on the ground!

  A moment more… and her vision crawled back; she was in the courtyard, yes.

  The violent crashing stopped. She’d outdistanced it.

  Another moment… and her head quit ringing; the baby’s hiccupping wail cut through.

  Jancy turned to meet the thing—a brute of a machine, all chest and piston-thick arms, greased parts flexing, glinting moonlight. It positioned itself between her and the tower with thumping footfalls.

  “I could just run around you,” she told it, striding forward. “I’m quicker.”

  The bulk sunk into a crouch. Something inside thrummed with growing intensity.

  “But where’s the fun in that?”

  Jancy burst ah
ead in a blur of motion. She swung both blades left across her body, allowing their weight to throw her off balance and into a careening stagger. The stuttering, sibilant roar of the automaton burned her ears as it reached out a paw to snatch her up. Jancy’s right foot planted itself, stiff-legged, breaking her momentum, reversing her body in a dizzying, slingshot spin. She lost sight of the machine for an instant… until it popped back into view. But by this time, the girl was committed, pitching forward headlong, blades held together, stiff-armed, above her head.

  Her momentum carried her off her feet. For an instant, she was airborne. A feeling of weightless elation passed through her before her blades slammed home to the hilt: the joint at the machine’s hip, a sliver of hope. A weak spot. Steam ruptured from a sliced pressure line, bathing her face in hot agony. Tiny metal fittings trickled downward out of the wound. Something snapped. The machine’s leg buckled, then lifted, and Jancy saw a shred of opportunity. She planted her shoulder into its crotch, gathered her legs, and shoved. Her back screamed, muscles quivering with the effort. If the boys at the Broken Dog could see her now, they’d never take another swipe at her backside again. No, this wasn’t something even a very large man would attempt, much less a waif of a girl. Not even a waif, but a wisp.

  It was the unhuman in her.

  She gritted and grinned as it pitched… backwards… in a fall that seemed to take an eternity. It shook the ground in a violent crash, arms flailing helplessly. Jancy spied a tiny window on the breast facing, leaking a soft, green light. She leaped atop it and plunged her blade through the glass. The machine stopped moving.

  For her own curiosity, she pried open the faceplate with the tip of her blade, and found another gnome inside. Like his kin, that same cold, pale skin, and luminous green eyes that stared up at her, past her, at the twinkling sky.

  Were these the gnomes who’d supported Vilka in the centuries-old fight for the gnomish throne? Had she blessed them with unusually long life, too? Jancy curled her lip at the gnome’s pasty, dead skin. “Some price to pay…”