Blackwood Marauders

by K. S. Villoso

“Any particular reason why you were passing through?” He said the words like he didn’t believe them.

  “We’re mercenaries,” Luc replied. “We came from Blackwood, heading to Sein Canal for a job.”

  There was no flicker of recognition on the soldier’s face—that, or he just didn’t care. He hadn’t put his sword away, either. Anxiety crept in. Luc thought his plan had been sound. The others had agreed with him—even Tasha, who was inclined to find every single one of his suggestions ridiculous. Dageians were uncommon in those parts, but not unheard of. Their nations hadn’t been at war for decades, maybe even over a century.

  One of the soldiers in brown approached them. “Prefect Zeno,” he said. “Bearer Lorkas wants you to know about that one.”

  “What about him?” the soldier asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Marked Gorenten,” the other murmured.

  Prefect Zeno flicked his sword. “I thought so. Take him to the mages.”

  “You fuckers—” Demon started, drawing his sword.

  “No,” Luc said, before he and Caiso could charge. “We’re outnumbered.”

  “Lucky, I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re taking this pacifist stance a little too far,” Caiso murmured. “If we hold them off long enough and you call the others…”

  Luc wasn’t sure why, but the man’s words…marked Gorenten…was unsettling. He scratched his chest. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but they were buying Roena and Hana time, and perhaps this was the sort of distraction they needed. “I’ll come with you,” he told the soldier. “Just let my men walk free. This doesn’t have to turn into a bloodbath.”

  Zeno pressed his lips together before nodding.

  “Gods damn it, kid,” Demon snarled as Luc strode forward. But he and Caiso slunk back as the soldiers closed in around Luc.

  He could feel his heart through his shirt as Zeno led him around and through the gated courtyard where he saw, with a measure of surprise, tents laid out on the bare ground. Ston had assumed they were staying inside the building itself. As he struggled around his confusion, a robed man emerged from one of the larger pavilions. He was wrinkled, bald. There were jewelled rings on his fingers.

  “A marked Gorenten,” he said, holding out his arms.

  Luc stopped. Zeno tried to push him forward, but he dug his boots into the ground. “What do you want?” Luc asked.

  The man smiled. “You don’t know? But I felt the connection with you. Don’t tell me I was wrong.” He stepped towards Luc and grabbed his collar, ripping his shirt with one pull. Luc tried to strike his arm away, but Zeno grabbed his elbow before he could lift it.

  “Ah,” the man continued. “No, I wasn’t wrong. You see there, Prefect?” He pointed at Luc’s bare chest, where there was a rune tattooed. Jak had once explained that it must’ve been a Gorenten tradition, one that was imposed on him not long after birth. The rune had long faded over the years, turning a strange, greenish-grey as the skin stretched and he grew older—most days he didn’t think much of it as anything but a strange birthmark.

  But the mage’s attention was doing something to it. Luc felt his skin burning as he watched the tattoo darken, turning nearly black, as if the ink was fresh. A faint blue glow appeared around the edges, followed by a drip of blood where the runes curled upward. He started to scream.

  The mage pulled his hand away. “He’s untapped,” he remarked.

  “What does that mean?” Zeno asked.

  “He’s never been used before.” The mage looked almost excited. Luc pretended that the word used didn’t bother him. It made him feel like an object.

  Zeno released Luc’s elbow. “But he’s got that thing…”

  “You live out here, boy? In the Kag? Gorenten like you?”

  Luc wiped the blood from his chest. “I’ve been here all my life,” he said.

  “Marked in a ship as an infant, probably,” the mage said, glancing at Zeno. “Not ideal, but it happens when they’re desperate. Escaped somehow before any mage could feed off him.”

  “I don’t understand what you people are saying.”

  “Bearer Lorkas is trying to explain where you came from,” Zeno replied. “Your parents must’ve been slaves. Your mother, at least.” He peered at Luc’s face. “If he’s untapped, he wouldn’t have built up a tolerance. That’s how it works, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose not. Still, quite a lucky find, don’t you think?” Lorkas reached into his tent and pulled out a piece of bread. He thrusted it into Luc’s hands. “Eat.”

  “No, thank you,” Luc said. He was full and the bread was both damp and dry, which he didn’t even think was possible.

  Lorkas frowned. “I’m trying to be nice. Maybe I should explain. Sit him down, Zeno.”

  The soldier grunted before grabbing a crate. He pushed Luc’s shoulders, forcing him to take a seat.

  “We’ve been trying to create a spell,” Lorkas said. “Well—I’ve been trying to create one, along with Adherent Ogrihn, my apprentice. But this city is unforgiving. It’s blanketed with spells I can’t even begin to imagine how to untangle, and it’s making everything blurry for me. My own connections are feeble here.”

  Luc blinked at him.

  Lorkas sighed. “Where do I start? Here, look…I’m a mage, which means I was born with a natural affinity to the agan, the life-stream or whatever you call it here. People like me, if we train well, can use this connection to create…”

  “Magic,” Luc breathed.

  Lorkas smiled. “Well, yes. I suppose that’s a simple way to call it. Magic.” He looked amused. “But it’s not a matter of making things appear out of nowhere, or disappear, or…well. You can’t expect me to lay out theories upon theories just to satisfy your curiosity. It’s a skill, there’s a method to it, and depending on what you want to do, you can be limited by your own natural abilities and your own environment and…but I’m getting carried away. You should know that one of the many functions slaves fulfill in the Empire of Dageis is to provide strength for a mage. People like you may be what we call blind to the agan, but you have a connection to it, too. Every living thing does. And we use this…” He tapped the rune on Luc’s chest again. “—in order to draw on that connection for our own uses.”

  “Like leeches,” Luc said.

  “I suppose you can call it that, too. I’m not here to argue semantics with you. It is what it is.”

  “I’m not a slave.”

  Lorkas glanced at Zeno, who shrugged. “You would still be, technically,” Zeno said. “But I’m not really interested in upholding Dageian laws so far away from home, either. What would I get out of it? More paperwork, and I’d have to make sure you were placed properly, and so on.” He huffed. “I just want to get out of this unholy place, and the faster he gets this spell done, the faster we can get out of here. And you can help with that.”

  Luc touched his chest with a measure of self-consciousness.

  “It won’t harm you,” Lorkas said, answering his unspoken question. “I’ll say that right from the start. Sure, tap in to a slave too often and you could weaken, even kill him. That’s not going to happen from one spell. I’m not going to be using your own essence, either—not for what I need to do.”

  “Help us,” Zeno continued, “and we’ll be friendly, like you wanted us to be.”

  Luc stared at the both of them for a moment. He wasn’t sure how much he trusted them, but he was, so far, doing a remarkable job in keeping them occupied. He placed his hands on his knees, pretending to think the matter over. “I suppose if you promise it won’t hurt too much, I can assist you,” he said.

  Lorkas’ eyes brightened. “That’s…all I need.” He pointed at the bread. “Bit of food in your stomach before we start.”

  With a sigh, Luc began to eat it. It tasted worse than it looked. “Are you doing the spell here?”

  “No.” He gestured at the building. “Over at the archives. The east wing.”

  The east wing. That’s where Roena
is. He struggled to keep his worries at bay. He had faith in Hana, at the very least. “And the spell?”

  Lorkas tugged at his beard. “How do I say this without sending you running off into the marsh...”

  “He promised to help,” Zeno snorted. “If he backs out now, I’ll force him.”

  Lorkas laughed. “You do have a way with them, Prefect. I’ll be upfront, then. I need to create a trap-spell. A simple enough spell under normal circumstances, but out here it’s been eluding me.”

  “A trap-spell,” Luc repeated. “For what?”

  “The beast lurking in those halls.”

  ~~~

  Hana must’ve heard the movement the same time Roena did. One finger came up to rest on her lips while the other slowly dropped to the handle of her sword. Roena swallowed and allowed herself to do the same. The grip felt remarkably cold against the leather wrappings. It was only after she took another breath that she realized it was because her own palms were wet with sweat.

  Down below, the creature continued to pace. She couldn’t yet see it, but it had to be one of them. No man could walk quite so heavily, nor move as if it was dragging claws along with feet, the scratching sound deep enough that she could imagine the tips digging furrows through the wooden floor. Roena’s mind began going through the stories, the ones her nursemaids would tell her on long nights after they had found her wandering in the halls past her bedtime, ones that were supposed to scare her straight back into bed.

  She could still hear their voices in her head. There was a Gasparian witch, Naijwa. A long time ago, she was shipwrecked off the coast of Hafod, back before there was even a Hafod. And as she made her way back home, she found herself in the forests of the Kag, with its many connections to the agan. And because this was what she did, because she was a powerful necromancer, she left behind dead things that moved, empty things that craved the living not for the flesh of their bodies but the sweet succulence of their souls…

  “Go back up,” she mouthed to Hana. The stench was becoming all-powerful, which made her head feel heavy even as she continued to struggle to keep her stomach still.

  Hana shook her head. She pointed down at her feet. The creaking, Roena thought. It was getting closer. If they started back up the stairs, it would hear them, for sure.

  But staying where they were didn’t seem right, either.

  Hana pointed at her sword and jerked her head up. “On three,” she mouthed.

  Roena’s eyes opened when she realized what Hana wanted to do. She shook her head. She knew how to fight a man, but a beast? One of those things? Did Hana’s own people not warn her what fate waited for someone who got killed by them? It wasn’t just death, people said. It took your soul for itself, dooming you to walk with it for eternity. Roena had always been certain that she wasn’t afraid of death, but she had no intention of rushing towards it if she could help it, especially when the circumstances would be as unclear as this.

  “One,” Hana continued.

  Roena tightened her grip around the sword.

  “Two.”

  She realized that she could hear herself think. “Three,” Hana said, but Roena knew even before she drew her blade and started down the steps that there was nothing there anymore. She heard Hana curse and followed her. They reached a wide corridor, one framed with arches and cracked statues. The broken windows allowed small beams of sunlight to pierce through to an empty hallway. It was almost as if everything they had heard were mere fancies conjured by a fevered imagination. Roena looked up and noticed that the cobwebs on the ceiling were flattened into the corners, as if something had brushed up against them.

  Hana kept her hand on her sword as she came around the corner. “Nothing,” she said, loud enough that it was almost as if she was trying to provoke something to come charging at them. She took a deep breath. “Fuck. Go and find that map.”

  Roena tugged her own weapon free and stepped behind her. They walked slowly, following the beams of light until they reached the main hall. Roena could see the twin staircases on each side, both of which would lead to the main chambers. So many places to hide. The twinge of fear returned.

  “It’s fucking hot,” Hana grumbled, loosening her shirt collar.

  “It’s the spells,” Roena said as she scanned the walls. “After they fled this place, the ka-eng arrived to contain the damage and stop it from…from spreading.”

  Hana laughed nervously. “Maybe explain that so that I can understand it. I’ve never been very good with these things.”

  “The things grow stronger with every kill they make.”

  “Well, shit.”

  Roena spotted a bent frame on one of the walls. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, but wiping it with her sleeve revealed what she had been looking for. “It’s right above us,” she exclaimed.

  Hana frowned. “Ston said they stayed in the west wing.”

  “Small wonder, if that thing’s walking around here…oh.” She made a soft sound in the back of her throat. “If it’s bad enough to scare an entire contingent of Dageian soldiers and mages, maybe we shouldn’t be here.”

  “We made it this far,” Hana whispered. “Up the stairs, you said?”

  Roena took a deep breath and began up the winding staircase. Hana followed her, keeping in time to her steps.

  The library was at the first door. Roena grabbed the handle as soon as she saw it before recoiling. The entire door was hot enough to burn.

  “There’s spells on this, too,” she said.

  “This job just keeps getting better,” Hana grumbled. She touched the door handle with her finger, pulled away, and made a face. After a moment of deliberation, she kicked the door, right under the handle.

  It fell open.

  “These mages aren’t so great after all,” Hana remarked.

  Roena sniffed. “Over time, the heat must’ve weakened the door.”

  “Start looking for those journals so we can get the hell out of here.”

  Compared to the rest of the building, the library remained in remarkable shape. Roena had been expecting chaos—papers scattered, books on the floor. Instead, every tome was tucked neatly inside a shelf with hardly a speck of dust on them. It made sense that the spell kept the room intact, protected from the elements, but she didn’t think there were any that could do a decent job of housekeeping. She didn’t even think spells worked that way.

  The answer to her question lay with the withered corpse on a desk in the middle of the room. Her bronze-coloured skin was so perfectly preserved that Roena could still see the lines on her face, even the way her lips had twisted at the moment of death. The fabric on her green dress looked like it came fresh from the tailor’s. It wasn’t a uniform, and there was no indication on what her position might’ve been—she could’ve been the librarian or a mere apprentice, for all Roena could see.

  What she had done was clear enough, though. She had allowed herself to be locked in here while someone else cast the spell outside, turning the chamber into her tomb. Roena held her admiration at bay as she tried to wonder why. She walked around the body, noting that it didn’t even stink the way it did outside.

  She saw the parchment on the desk. Lists of books. She had been trying to finish archiving them so that they wouldn’t be lost to the world.

  Roena couldn’t understand why, but something about that felt profound in a way that nothing in her world ever had before. While the Hafed nobles played their games, people elsewhere lived and died for…for what? Something they believed in? Roena tried to scoff—she wasn’t a sentimental person, and the very thought that her mind was wandering down this route made her want to throw up.

  But it didn’t change the fact that someone had died for this. She was almost gentle as she read through the list, comparing it to the one Isobel had hastily scribbled on the note in her hand.

  “Any luck?” Hana called out to her.

  “Patience,” Roena hissed. She found one. Isobel’s titles had been incomplete, but
now she could see that these journals she were looking for were actually attempts at translation of the Gasparian witch Naijwa’s original texts by Kag scholars. Based on when they were written, it must’ve been a popular subject matter in the years that followed Agartes Allaicras’ attempts to liberate the Kag from the creatures. Not everyone agreed that Naijwa was responsible for them—some still insisted they were born from the land itself, or that the ka-eng created them to keep the Kag people at bay.

  Roena found each one on the list, noted where each was located, and made her way through the aisles. The books were exactly where they should be—the archivist had done a thorough job. Roena dropped them into her bag, one after the other. Once she had finished cramming them inside, she tugged the laces closed and raced back to join Hana.

  Hana blocked the doorway with her arm.

  “What’s the matter?” Roena asked.

  “I think it’s back,” Hana murmured. “It’s right below us.”

  As soon as she uttered these words, Roena heard the scratching, creaking sound again.

  “Wait until it leaves,” Roena whispered. “Then we make a run for it.”

  Hana gave a small smile. “I can run fast. Can you?”

  “I beat the boys in races all the time.”

  “Noblemen’s sons?” Hana smirked to show exactly what she thought of that. “Anyway, what if it’s faster than either of us?”

  “I don’t have to outrun it, I just have to outrun you.”

  Hana turned to her in shock.

  Roena grinned.

  The sound of knocking broke their tense conversation. At least, Roena thought it was knocking at first. A moment later, it became clear that someone was trying to break through the main doors. The creature heard it, too. It groaned, and the shadows in the main hall shifted as it dashed down the hall. Roena caught a glimpse of its ragged back, covered in patchy grey fur.

  Hana tapped her shoulder. She nodded. Despite all their talks about running, they walked as slowly as they could. Roena even found herself holding her breath in an attempt to keep silent.

  They found themselves back in the corridor, heading towards the stairwell. But before Roena could turn around the corner, she heard someone scream.