by Scott Rhine
Simon sank to one knee. “If something happens and I don’t survive till your coronation, I wanted to be the first to call you majesty, King Legato.”
The other five people still in the camp sank to their knees as well, including Sajika. A small tear actually formed in the debaucher’s eye as he said, “Rise.”
Chapter 47 – Reversals
Brent passed fruit out to Jotham’s entire group for breakfast. Wound tight and ready for combat at any moment, Tashi put his apple in a pocket for later. As soon as the sun rose, Sophia led them to the proper mausoleum and into the c
atacombs. Tatters had some spare rags and oil, and wrapped the end of Tashi’s staff to make a torch. The light source smoked unpleasantly, but Brent said, “We shouldn’t need it for long.” They passed through a snaking series of tunnels, each lined with skeletons stacked on stone shelves. Eventually, she went down a staircase that led into a brick wall. She turned to face the rest of the group with shock on her face.
“It seems the Marchion is dangerously intelligent,” Jotham admitted.
“Use the coin,” said Tashi.
Jotham asked the coin, “Should we go back up or turn right at that last branch?” Ting.
The magic coin rolled down the steps. Tashi followed and bent over to read it. “It says up.”
He glanced straight up from the coin, and the shaft continued into the darkness. The ex-sheriff asked, “Up here or the mausoleum.” Ting. “Here.”
The young Tatters climbed the rough stone with ease. “About four paces up, there’s a smooth square of fancy marble on the same side as the wall. It’s sitting on top of some wooden planks.”
Sophia signed. “P-r-y. W-a-l-l.” Brent translated.
Jotham snorted in amusement. “It appears that his main concern is keeping people in, not out.”
After popping out the marble tile and the one next to it, Tatters was able to wriggle into the room beyond. It was a private room in the hospital wing, now vacant. The entrance to the chamber was covered only by a blue curtain because no doors were used in this wing. Physicians and caretakers needed to be able to come and go without disturbing the patients. Unfortunately, any sound would carry. They could see him laying a finger over his lips by the faint daylight that leaked through. He hooked a grapnel to the heavy, brass bed frame and lowered the attached rope through the hole.
The gravedigger peeked through the curtain, but could see nothing but a hall of similar curtains with a large common area in the center and a stairwell at both ends. This room was the third curtain, about ten paces from the nearest stair. He kept watch while the rest of the team began ascending.
Extinguishing the waning torch, Tashi volunteered to go next. Once in the hospital room, he used his strngth to pull the others up one at a time. Jotham climbed third, then Sophia.
The priest crept to the past the curtain to see if the ward was occupied. The next room had two entrances and ten cots. Every cot contained a man or woman, too sick or elderly to move on their own. Despite the evidence of emptied gruel bowls on a cart, the patients were stick-thin. They had thick blankets, as the rooms were only marginally warmer than the catacombs. There was a second cart of empty chamber pots in the room. A worker must have been hauling away full ones. They’d need to act swiftly and silently to avoid exposure.
Tashi was pulling Brent up when they heard voices from the nearby stairs.
“Don’t touch me,” a woman objected loudly.
Tashi froze—Sarajah was here.
“Or what?” gloated a man.
The ex-sheriff ran to the curtained doorway, handing the rope to Tatters.
“Your status as a Beyonder won’t protect you, Devarog. Archanos has risen, and I am his favored one. Any who attempt to harm me—”
“Will be crushed before his army. Blah, blah. The lieutenant informed me. Brave words for one in chains. And my name is Captain Devereaux. I come from a respected Fireton family with a long tradition of military service. You can’t frighten me with . . .” After growing louder for several steps, the man turned his back on the hall and his voice muffled as he descended the stairs with his captive.
“No. What I said was my boyfriend is going to kick your walking-dead ass before my army levels your pathetic hole-in-the-ground temple.”
Sophia and Jotham followed Tashi. When Tashi release his hold on the rope, the unexpected weight dragged Tatters across the slick floor. As he bumped back down the hole, Brent braked by jamming his legs out. The boy let out a “Youch” as the rock smacked him in the back, but his downward motion halted.
“What was that?” demanded the ki mage who was leading the seeress into the basement.
“My boyfriend knocking out the guards in your dungeon,” she said confidently.
The two guards with them laughed. But the woman spoke with such assurance that the elderly mage of the Left Hand of Life stopped on the steps and held the woman against his chest as a shield. He placed his hand on her breast and proclaimed, “You down there, surrender or I’ll drain the life from her before your very eyes!”
Tashi’s staff knocked out the man to Devereaux’s right.
The ki mage turned to face his attacker, attempted dramatically to siphon Sarajah, and failed. He was recovering from his befuddlement when the man to his left fell to the same holy myrtle weapon. Why was a Son of Semenos fighting against him? The captain darted his hand out to drain the attacker but, again, nothing happened. The clear chainmail merely turned black under his hand. “Enough!” he bellowed. The air tingled as he prepared his unstoppable bolt of energy.
The hellcat head-butted him. The force knocked Devereaux backward down the stairs, and the ki blast shattered the plaster on the ceiling. White dust rained down on the group. Spitting plaster fragments, the bound seeress shouted, “Pin his arms to the stone! He’ll be helpless.”
Together, she and Sophia each grabbed an arm. Tashi pinned his legs with increasing mass. When Sophia seemed immune from his leech powers as well, Deveraux tried to ask, “Who are you?” but the tongue he’d just bitten wouldn’t work properly.
“This is the boyfriend I warned you about,” jeered Sarajah.
The ki mage roared defiantly until the ex-sheriff shoved an apple into his wide-open mouth. “Why don’t we just toss him out the window?” asked Tashi.
As if discussing paint color, she replied, “If the windows faced the other way, we could throw him into the cemetery. Off the parapet works nicely, too. They come apart like old parchment. Otherwise, he’ll just keep crawling at you.”
Tashi shouted to his teacher, “Get pitons.” He asked the seeress, “What are you doing here?”
She smiled, “I just took out two wizards so you wouldn’t have to. I left you the light work, four regular troops.”
He blinked. “You’re disobeying direct orders.”
“One, nobody orders me to do anything. Two, I had to bring back your precious artifact. And three, if you want to spank me, you’ll have to survive to sundown—which won’t happen without me.”
He had no reply. Sophia snickered.
Jotham jogged back to the room just as the gravediggers helped the boy up the shaft. Rapidly, he asked, “Might I trouble you for your climbing gear?” He dashed back with the sack of tools and tried to hand it to Tashi. The ki mage’s eyes bugged out when he saw the rock hammer.
“You do it; we’re sort of busy,” Tashi complained.
“Whatever I inflict on another, I’ll feel when I go through the Door,” Jotham explained.
“He’s already dead,” pleaded the seeress, but the priest refused.
Tashi sighed. “Sit on his knees and I’ll start by nailing his feet down.”
“Ankles,” the seeress corrected. “The foot bones he could just pull through.”
The former Executioner didn’t even ask how she knew this bit of anatomical trivia; rather, he set to work with a vengeance. Everyone looked away as the metal sank into flesh under a flurry of hammer blows. They remai
ned faced away as the second leg commenced. “I guess I should have done both ankles at once, sorry.”
Sophia threw up.
Brent poked his head in from the hospital corridor. “I hear troops from the other stairwell. We’ve got to . . . oh, gross.”
Distracted, Sophia began to sign, “Turn.”
The ki mage shifted and slammed his fist into the side of her face, knocking the women into eacher. But before the mage could follow through with another attack, Jotham rolled onto the freed arm.
“Overlap the arms,” suggested Sarajah. Sophia ran to shield Brent from the scene. The seeress called to the others, “Meet us up one level at the entrance to the Great Hall.”
Brent, Sophia, and the gravediggers took off. Tatters rewrapped his grapnel line as he ran.
Tashi helped Jotham and Sarajah arrange the arms. The moment they lined up, he pounded the spike furiously. “Hold him still, will you?” In two heavy blows, he anchored the man’s arms to the step. When they heard shouting coming closer, he snapped, “Run, teacher.”
Taking Sarajah’s right manacle, Tashi drove another spike through the hasp. It cracked open, freeing her arms as the soldiers reached their stairwell. He said, “I’ll go low, you go high.”
He roared as he slid into four soldiers, staff held horizontally before him. Three of the opponents tumbled like tenpins. The only one left standing was the swordsman. Without thinking, the seeress smashed him across the bridge of the nose with her chain. There was a satisfying snap of cartilage and the swordsman collapsed, gripping his injured face. Tashi wrestled with the largest man while two others rose to their knees. Sarajah kicked one in the jaw, knocking him out with ease. The other was standing before she tapped a nerve on his club arm and kicked him in the groin. A gong sounded somewhere above them.
When Tashi stood, victorious, she sighed, “Finally.”
Just as they reached the Great Hall, a portcullis dropped from the ceiling. Instead of diving under it, Sarajah held the ex-sheriff back from getting injured. “We’ll take the rooftops; it’s safer.”
“What about locks or a guide?” Tashi asked.
“Throw me the rope,” she said to Tatters, and he slid it through the bars.
Tashi took off his chainmail. He handed the armor and hardened staff through in exchange. “Give these to Jotham. Tell him not to kill anyone, but I don’t think Beyonders count.”
“Wait,” the seeress said, removing a clear brick from her pouch. No one had considered it worth confiscating, although her spare food and money had been stolen by the soldiers on the parapets. She placed the brick against the armor and closed her eyes. The black spot came out like a stain in the laundry, barely noticeable to the naked eye. “That’s as much as I can do. Go!”
“Goodbye, teacher,” Tashi said, hand pressed against the bars. They heard the heavy tromping of guards immediately below.
“Hey, stupid!” Sarajah shouted as she continued up the stairs. The native guards and the invaders all broke into a run.
Jotham’s group slid into an alcove to hide. He whispered, “Which way to the dressing room?”
Brent examined his sleeve. “Heated baths are that wing, guards are that one, library, and there! Second floor, above that arch. Will they be safe?”
Owl snorted. “She hunts on rooftops. Don’t you remember?”
“But . . .”
“They just eliminated two patrols of guards and we didn>
With the bars on all the portals leading into the Great Hall, they had to improvise a way up to the walkway above. Tatters borrowed a coil of rope from Brent. Jotham dragged over a heavy bench for Owl to stand on. The older workman planted his arms on the wall, and Tatters virtually ran up his back to grab the banister above. Clambering over, the young gravedigger tied the short rope off and lowered it to the others. While the others climbed, with Owl as the stepping stone, Jotham put on the chainmail. The armor didn’t reach his navel, but some protection was better than none.
“Did you hear something down the hall?” echoed a stranger’s voice.
The tall priest jumped for the banister himself while Owl huffed up the rope. The others helped them over before guards pattered by.
Moments later, they’d ducked into a private changing room. Sophia signed, “C-l-o-s-e.”
Brent smiled. “Actually, this is pretty good for one of our plans. No one’s caught fire yet, and there haven’t been any dragons.”
Jotham said to Sophia, “I saw sick people being cared for in the hospital wing. This seems uncharacteristic for this Marchion rogue.”
“F-e-d o-n,” she spelled with a disgusted look on her face. Brent translated for her.
“Ah, the Beyonders won’t die, but they need help healing and staying mobile.” Jotham did some math on the number of wards. “A room of victims for each? I don’t understand. Why would anyone come here for such treatment?”
“T-e-r-m-i-n-a-l.”
“They have no hope. Does the temple pay their families?”
Brent shook his head. “They pay the Marchion. Each month, one person in ten gets cured and sent home. That’s enough to keep an endless supply of victims coming.”
“Monsters playing god,” the priest spat.
“Let’s close them down,” Brent encouraged.
****
Twenty bits after dawn, Griswold the cook, one of the Kiaterans at the ambush, broke cover. “Do you hear that whistling?” He wandered out into the middle of the five-stride-wide path in order to get a fix on the source. A message arrow plummeted to strike him in the foot. A swordsman clapped a hand over Griswold’s mouth to silence the scream that was building.
The smith snapped the arrow off so that the surgeon could pull it through. He read the attached message and ran back to Pinetto at the base of the stairs. “The good news is that the enemy scouts have been and gone. It should take a couple hours for them to circle around to the low road. The bad news is that there are seven Imperial guards coming our way.”
“From the garrison?” Pinetto asked.
The smith shrugged. “It wasn’t a novel; it was an arrow.”
“She didn’t kill them?”
“Aren’t we the bloodthirsty one all of a sudden? Technically, she only said she’d get them out of the tower so the boss could pass unmolested.”
“What are we going to do with them? If we tie them up, they might make some sound warn the Intaglians.”
“I’d imagine that we’re going to kill them as quickly and quietly as possible.”
The panther-headed spirit whispered, “If you want, we could eat them.”
Both Pinetto and the smith said, “No,” at the same time.
“What should we do while you humans play?” the Dawn creature sighed. “We’re bored.”
Pinetto said, “I don’t know. Weren’t you supposed to dig holes that you and the other Dawn folk could jump out of later?”
“Hmm . . . I suppose. The armadillo likes that idea. But the eagles are restless.”
“Where are the others?” asked Pinetto. “The dark men and the dog-headed one?”
“Fido’s here. He’s up for a dig, too. No men. I’ll send the eagles searching.”
The wizard grunted. “Have one of them check on Tashi.”
****
Simon drove the wagon across open terrain, in full view of the wall. Using a powerful telescope, the temple soldier overlooking the final road to the falls spotted the Kiateran uniforms. “Load both weapons,” he ordered. “We’re about to have unwelcome visitors.”
Chapter 48 – The Final Door
Sarajah ran across the rooftops, giddy with freedom. She had to hold back for Tashi to keep up. When she saw the thick column of shadow over the inner sanctum, she plotted a course through the arches and greaves of the cathedral.
The Door was a circle two paces wide. When they reached the peak of the temple dome, she saw the valley laid out before them in all its grandeur. He saw the ballistae being loaded and the increased
troops. “Trouble. We’re going to have to act fast.”
There was a flicker of mana as she tapped the energy of the open Door. The undead soldiers several stories below slowed for a moment as the energy animating them was redirected. However, no one on the parapet noticed the fluctuation.
When Tashi turned to face her, the woman was different. Her chest was a little smaller, her hair a little darker, and her face younger and more tanned. Only the eyes were the same, gazing at him with a pleading mixture of hope and affection. Stupidly, all he could say was, “You changed.”
“Is that good or bad?” she asked shyly.
“I . . . um . . . You’re . . . uh . . . very pretty. I’m guessing this is your real face.”
“Yes. If we’re going to be together, I want you to love me for myself.”
He gave her a quick kiss. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Sarajah. No offense, but below the neck still looks . . .” he said, staring at her figure.
She blushed. “I was nine when Zariah took me. I don’t have a body of my own, not a woman’s. Since you seemed to have such fond memories of this one, I thought I’d save myself some pain.”
“Pain?”
“This close to a Door, I can make small changes, but they hurt like crazy.”
He stroked her face. “Show me how.”
“What, why? You chose your form when you passed through the Door last time.”