Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1)

by Hans Cummings

  Ktinos lifted Kale up, roaring and bellowing. Kale's eyes bulged as the minotaur squeezed him with hands as big as the drak's head. Delilah tried to push herself to her feet, but her arms wobbled. She shook her head in an attempt to clear her swimming vision.

  Kale cried out and coughed. Then, he exhaled a gout of flame into the minotaur's face. With a high-pitched, primal scream, the minotaur tossed Kale away and swatted at his face. He ran around, flailing his arms as the stench of burning fur filled the air. Flames wreathed his head, climbing higher and higher until they licked the ceiling. The minotaur ran headlong into the stonework hearth, and with a crack, his flaming head smacked the stones. He fell to the ground, his wails of agony trailing off as smoke and fire seared his throat. The tavern's customers watched in silence as his head continued to burn until Lenka grabbed the nearest table's ale and doused the flames.

  Delilah pushed herself to her feet. "What—by Maris's bloody spear, what just happened?"

  Kale trembled. He eyes darted from the dead, but still twitching minotaur, to his sister and back. "I don't know, Deli."

  * * *

  Kale shook with such intensity he couldn't see clearly. The taste of brimstone filled his mouth, and he spat to clear it. His spittle hit the wooden floor and smoldered there, leaving a black scorch as it evaporated.

  "Have you ever done that before, Kale?" Pancras stared at him, watching as he leaned around the table to help Delilah to her feet.

  Shaking his head, Kale reached for the tankard of ale on the table. "I don't even know what I did."

  "You breathed fire." Pancras knelt down and pulled Delilah up. He touched the back of her head, causing her to wince. Blood glistened on his fingers.

  "Deli, are you all right? You have to be all right."

  Staggering back to her chair, Delilah nodded. "I'll be okay. It's just a bump."

  Janek approached their table, clapping his hands and calling for everyone to go about their business. "You might think about leaving here now. Ktinos was a brute, for sure, and I'll vouch for you that it was self-defense, but even that doesn't get very far these days."

  "We have to leave town?" Kale's stomach knotted up. No, no, we can't! We'll die out on the plains when it snows. We can't get to Muncifer before winter. He grabbed Pancras's arm. The necromancer chewed his bottom lip and rubbed his right horn.

  "We have nowhere to go. Nowhere we can get to before the snow falls." Pancras shook his head. "We'll try to reason with the authorities. It's our only chance."

  That didn't sound like a good idea to Kale, but he was willing to go along with Pancras. He looked back at the dead minotaur. Maybe he's right. What's happening to me? He rubbed his chest. His lungs burned, although the sensation faded when he concentrated on ignoring it.

  "Nuts to that." Delilah stood up but was forced to grab the table to keep from falling. She sat back down. "There's got to be another village or something around here." She looked up at Janek. "Right?"

  The human scratched his head. "A few farms here and there, and Fallow Gulch about three days west of here."

  "Three days. We can make that. It won't snow in three days." Delilah reached across the table and took Pancras's hands. "We can't be at the mercy of these humans, Pancras. You know they'll see us just as monsters. They always do."

  "Here now—" Janek protested, as guards burst into the tavern. One of the humans who fled the initial confrontation pointed at their table, and guards surrounded them, swords drawn. Another stepped over to Ktinos's body and gagged at the sight of charred flesh.

  Kale prepared to rise, but a glance from Pancras told him to stay put. The necromancer gestured for Delilah to sit back down as well. "We don't want any trouble."

  A burly guard approached the table. He regarded the three in silence before smoothing his drooping mustache. "You three are under arrest." He gestured to the other guards. "Take them away."

  * * *

  The door slamming shut on Pancras's cell sounded like a pealing bell announcing a momentous death. The guards stripped him of his clothes, jewelry, and even the gilded tips of his horns, and he stood there literally and figuratively naked. A trussed cot and waste bucket were his only companions.

  Kale and Delilah were in separate, but nearby, cells. They, too, were stripped of their possessions, but as for clothing, they had only their cloaks. Delilah sat on her cot, holding her head and groaning. Kale paced, wringing his hands. He stepped up to the bars and gripped them, sticking his snout between them.

  "What are we going to do, Pancras? You know they want to string us up. You heard them talking."

  The possibility the humans would refuse to listen to reason crossed his mind. He lied anyway. "It's just talk, Kale, to intimidate us. You acted in self-defense. They must see that."

  "I didn't do anything! Not on purpose, anyway."

  "Everyone says that, at first."

  In the cell next to Kale's, a drak with burnt-orange scales stepped out of the shadows. From her temples two horns ran back along her head and curled under her ear fringes. She leaned against the bars and grinned. "I'm Kali, in here for yet another misunderstanding. How about you?"

  "I melted a minotaur's face off." Kale's head drooped. He slid down the bars until he sat on the floor and drew his knees up to his chest.

  "Nice! Magic?"

  "We're not sure how it happened." Pancras grabbed the cell door, rattling it to see how secure it was. There was some play, but was still quite secure.

  "You have stripes, huh?" Kali glanced over at Delilah. She still held her head but now regarded the other drak female with narrowed eyes. "Is she your mate?"

  Kale looked up. "Sister."

  "Hm, striped siblings. Your clan must think you're something special. Strange they'd let you run around a city like this."

  Pancras didn't like where the questions seemed to be headed. "What do you want from us?"

  "From you, oh, Mighty Hairy One? Nothing. I just haven't had anyone to talk to in a while."

  Pancras frowned and sat down on his cot. "You're asking more questions than talking."

  "You can't learn nothing by keeping your mouth shut." Kali tapped the bars of her cell with a claw.

  "Sure you can. You should try it." Delilah hopped off her cot. She grabbed the door to her cell and yanked on it. As with the door on Pancras's cell, it rattled but did not open. "We need to get out of here before the humans decide to be done with us."

  Kali chuckled. "They've already made up their minds. Whatever's going to happen to you is going to happen. If you're lucky, they'll waste enough time that I can get you out of here once they cut me loose."

  Rubbing his right horn, Pancras shook his head. "No, we must bide our time. I need to think." He didn't doubt Kali's word that the humans already decided their fate, but he suspected a jailbreak was not the answer. He didn't want to be on the run from the law while trying to survive winter in the wilderness. Pancras looked around his cell. It was stark, cold, uncomfortable, but it beat freezing to death on the plains.

  "Suit yourself." Kali shrugged and chuckled.

  Kale jumped up and approached her. "How could you help us, exactly?"

  "We don't need her help, Kale." Delilah rattled the door to her cell to get his attention.

  "Sure you don't."

  The door to the holding area opened. A guard appeared and looked around. "All prisoners on your cots! Move it!"

  He waited until the three draks were seated and then proceeded into the holding area. "Three of them now… which one of you is Kali Blackclaw?"

  The orange drak raised a clawed hand. "That'd be me, Chief."

  "All right, you're done. Stay on the cot." He approached her cell and unlocked it. Pulling it open, he waved his cudgel. "Out you get. The Master Jailer has your possessions. Collect them on the way out."

  Kali hopped off her cot, smoothed her brown, leather jerkin, and sauntered past the guard, winking at Kale as she passed him. "If you get out, come see me at The Assassin's
Dagger. Just ask the barkeep for me by name. That's Kali Blackclaw, Stripey."

  The guard pushed her. "Keep moving."

  Delilah hopped off her cot and ran to the cell bars. "Hey, you have to let us out, too. All we did was defend ourselves from that mad minotaur!"

  Slamming his cudgel against the bars, the guard wheeled on Delilah. "On your cot, Worm!"

  Delilah glowered at him but returned to her cot.

  Pushing Kali out of the holding area, the guard looked over his shoulder at the three prisoners. "The magistrate will hear from you in the morning. Keep quiet until then."

  "He'll hear what idiots you are!" Delilah hopped off her cot again, her fists clenched. "If we had our foci, we'd blast this place to rubble! Our minotaur's a necromancer! You'll be lucky if he doesn't raise an army of zombies and raze this city to the ground!"

  "Delilah!" Pancras fought to keep his voice steady. "Quiet!"

  "What? These idiots—"

  "Necromancy is punishable by death in some cities." Pancras put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. There's no situation that can't be made worse by an excitable drak.

  "Yeah, well, they're still lucky." Delilah paced in her cell. "Gods, my head hurts." She stopped and looked at her brother, her brows furrowed in concern. "How are you, Kale? Your aches and pains? Better? Worse? Talk to me."

  Kale kicked his feet as they dangled off the edge of the cot. "My back still hurts. Other than that, I feel pretty good."

  A small window at the far end of the holding area allowed Pancras to judge the time of day. It was nearly dusk when they were arrested, and now, it was pitch dark outside. Lanterns at either end of the holding area provided scant light.

  Tracking the passage of time with the growing darkness became challenging. Pancras stretched out on his cot. A moth-eaten blanket was his only protection against the cold, and his hooves hung off the edge of the prison bed.

  Sleep did not come easily to Pancras that night. He tossed and turned on the cot, unable to find a comfortable position. The whispers of the drak twins added to his anxiety. Life was simpler when all I had to do was create a few skellies now and then. Study my magic, fend off a few dwarven attacks, and everybody left me alone.

  "Pancras? Are you awake?" Kale's whispered voice cut through his thoughts.

  The minotaur considered not answering. Maybe if they think I'm sleeping, they'll be quiet.

  "Pancras? Hey!"

  "Yes, Kale?"

  "Deli and I have been talking."

  "I know. It's keeping me awake." Pancras rolled over so he faced the wall. By what foul sorcery do they still have enough energy for this?

  "We have a plan to get us out of this place. We'll have to leave Edric behind, but we think he'd do the same in our place anyway."

  Pancras couldn't disagree with that sentiment, but he still thought they would be better off not trying to escape.

  "When they come to feed us, Deli will pretend she’s dead, because she hit her head, right? They'll collect her body and when they take her outside to dump her, she can go back to the inn, get our stuff, and break us out with her magic."

  He didn't want to say it was a stupid idea. Portions of it had merit. He rolled over. The draks' eyes glowed in the darkness of their cells, reflecting the dim light of the lanterns.

  "There are a lot of things that can go wrong with that plan. What if they dismember and burn the corpses of their prisoners, to keep them from being raised by a necromancer?"

  "Oh…"

  "We can't just sit here, Pancras!" Delilah's voice was a hiss, dripping with anger and frustration.

  "Go to sleep." Pancras didn't think they would listen to him, but he wanted to sleep. "Things will be clearer in the morning."

  "They'll come to take us to our executioner in the morning!" Delilah banged on the bars of her cell. The sound cut through to the base of Pancras's spine.

  "Shut up for a minute and think!" Pancras clenched his teeth. "If minotaurs and draks are treated as poorly as everyone here has said, then do you really think they'll care that much about one ill-tempered minotaur being killed in a bar brawl?"

  "You know, he's got a point, Deli."

  "Kale—"

  "Yes, I have a point. Now be quiet. It's bad enough I'll have to face the magistrate without my clothes. I don't want to face him exhausted as well."

  Pancras heard nothing more from the draks after that, but neither did he get his wish for even the most minimal sleep. With dawn's light came the sounds of the city through the jail walls, and the jailers followed soon after.

  "Minotaur! Sit up." The mustachioed guard who arrested them entered the holding area with two guards wielding pikes. They brandished them through the bars of his cell. Pancras complied with the guard's order. Another guard entered holding shackles and leather straps.

  "You're coming with us this morning. Someone wants to talk to you." The guard opened Pancras's cell. The man holding the shackles and straps entered. Kale and Delilah rolled out of their cots. Before they made it halfway across their cells, the guard yelled at them to return to their cots.

  He pointed at Pancras. "Muzzle him."

  * * *

  "See? I told you!" Delilah threw her waste bucket across her cell as the guards led Pancras away, shackled and muzzled. It splintered and broke against the stone. Glad that was empty.

  "What do you think they're going to do to him, Deli?" Kale slipped down from his cot and paced the floor.

  "They'll probably skin him for a rug. We'll be next!" Delilah clenched her fists. She considered sending a message to Edric. She concentrated on the wisps of magical aether permeating the world. Without her staff, her focus, grasping them with her mind was difficult, like trying to hold smoke in one's hand.

  Kale inhaled, puffing up his chest. He closed his eyes and exhaled. A jet of flame shot across his cell and into the next. With a yelp, he clamped his mouth shut with his hands. Eyes wide, he trembled and turned toward his sister.

  "You can do that whenever you want now?"

  Lowering his trembling hands, Kale gulped and nodded. "I guess I can. What's happening to me, Deli?"

  As much as she wanted to feel excited for her brother's new and interesting ability, she knew it was not a normal thing. She also knew she could not be fully truthful with him. She realized he was frightened, and she didn't want to risk upsetting him further. "Maybe it has something to do with that chaos rift? You haven't been quite right since that."

  Kale sat down on his cot. "Should we try to bust out of here or wait for Pancras to come back?"

  "I guess we should wait. The guards said someone wanted to talk to him. If they're going to execute him, hopefully they'll bring him back here first." Delilah sat on the floor, cross-legged. I wish I had my lexicon, or my grimoire. This is too boring. If I had my staff, we'd already be on our way out of the city.

  A guard entered the holding area, interrupting Delilah's thoughts. He carried two steaming bowls. Wooden spoons stood in the paste-like gruel. "Stay on your cots." He sat the bowls down in front of Delilah's cell, unlocked the door, and then slid a bowl into her cell with his foot. He locked up and then did the same at Kale's cell.

  "Eat up. Next meal will be at dusk."

  As he turned to leave, Delilah hopped off her cot and approached the bowl of gruel. It looked like wet horse feed. "Hey, what did you humans do with Pancras?"

  "The minotaur? Took him away. Didn't tell me where. Eat." He locked the holding area door behind him.

  Kale crouched in front of his bowl and stirred it. "What is this slop?"

  Tasting it, Delilah pursed her lips. She expected a foul flavor and instead discovered the slop had no flavor at all. "Prison food. Yum, yum."

  Chapter 8

  "Leave him here. Remove his muzzle."

  The guard removed the muzzle from Pancras's snout, shoved him into the room, and shut the door behind him. Pancras stumbled forward, tripping over his shackles, but managed to remain upright. Hand-cut rugs
covered the floor in front of a crackling fireplace. Candles burned in sconces on the wall, casting scant light. A window on the far side of the room provided illumination from the rising sun, and Pancras smelled herbal incense smoldering. A small table sat in the center of the room, the sort of table at which two people would sit to share a drink and conversation.

  A man sat at a writing desk, scribbling something onto parchment. He set down his quill and arched his back, working out the kinks in his knotted up muscles. He turned and regarded Pancras. From his gold-trimmed purple robes, Pancras assumed he was someone of authority in Almeria. The robes were not unlike those Pancras favored, and he appreciated the human's fashion sense.

  "Ah, the minotaur." He stood and bowed. "I am Prince Gavril."

  Pancras returned the bow. The Prince of Etrunia himself? What is this about?

  "You may have heard that I am a man of little patience. I will not waste your time with false pleasantries. Your loud drak companion says you are a necromancer." He paced the floor in front of Pancras, staring at him as he walked.

  Pancras ran his hands down his chest, wincing as fur caught in his shackles. How did he find out about that so quickly? He sighed. "I was once, yes."

  "Once?" Prince Gavril stopped and regarded Pancras. "Have you forgotten all your skills?"

  "No, I simply have not practiced them recently."

  "Very well. What is your purpose here in Almeria? As you may have surmised by now, your kind is not welcome here."

  Pancras licked his lips. "When we arrived, I was not aware Almeria's stance toward my people and draks had changed. We only wished to winter here. We are on our way to Muncifer, and I know you know how deadly the cold and snow can be in the dark of winter's night."

  Prince Gavril resumed pacing. "I speak of necromancers, not minotaurs and draks. Even now, I have councilors who are incredulous I have not put you all to death. Your existence is a crime to them."

  Opening his mouth to retort, Pancras held his tongue at a gesture from the prince.

  "I did not say I agree, but a man in my position can ill afford to anger all of his councilors. What is your name, Necromancer?"