Princess of Blood

by Tom Lloyd

  Lynx found himself tensing, mostly getting ready to pull Toil back. Ammen was a large and well-built man, but somehow he didn’t think Toil was the one at risk there. Her temper was fiery, she’d already proved that well enough today and he’d seen her fight – hard, dirty and without relent.

  Of course, I could be wrong there, he thought to himself, let’s not test the theory.

  To Lynx’s astonishment, Toil just stood and took the abuse, even ignoring Ammen prodding her in the chest. Out of the corner of his eye Lynx saw Aben edge forward, nothing too provocative but closing the distance between his boss and the man working himself into a lather. Captain Cothkern just smirked, apparently not intending to interrupt a foreign diplomat – especially one who was insulting a woman he didn’t like himself.

  Behind the Envoy Lynx saw the pale face of Captain Onerist, looking more confused than anything else. Clearly he’d been thrown by the whole thing and wasn’t much for thinking under pressure. Instead of getting involved like he should be, the man was just watching and vacillating about what to do. Lynx couldn’t help but suspect his superiors had passed a high-born weakling off on to escort duty where he wouldn’t command troops under pressure. Given Toil’s other mission, that seemed likely.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself, woman?’ continued Ammen. ‘Speak! Get that idiot tongue moving and explain yourself!’

  In response Toil closed her eyes. Ammen paused momentarily, clearly thrown by her action, and she gently reached up and wiped the spit from her face before looking back up at the Envoy.

  ‘Best you take a step back now,’ Toil said mildly. ‘Before you get hurt.’

  ‘Don’t even think about threatening me, you low-born cunt!’ Ammen raged. ‘I’ve half a mind to—’

  A whip-crack sound echoed around the room and Toil slapped him full across the face. Ammen was driven back as much by shock and insult as the force of her blow, but the rage quickly returned to boiling point on his face. Before he could respond Cothkern stepped forward and the Bridge Watch soldiers levelled their weapons at the pair.

  ‘Enough,’ Captain Cothkern said in an irritated voice. ‘You two want to kill each other, you do it outside of the Monarch’s palace. There’ll be no brawling here, anyone tries otherwise and they get a warning shot in the knee. Understand?’

  ‘To lay a finger on me is to assault the Republic of Su Dregir,’ Ammen snarled.

  ‘To the seven hells with the Republic of Su Dregir,’ Cothkern said with a shrug. ‘Never liked any o’ your people anyway, even before an official delegation tried to commit murder in my Monarch’s hall and insulted her name. Your Archelect isn’t renowned for being sentimental, certainly for those who screw up in public, and he’s keen on improving trade relations.’

  ‘You make an excellent point,’ Toil said with an unnecessarily polite nod of the head, apparently happy to afford the man all possible respect now she was in the presence of someone she disliked more. ‘Perhaps you would now escort me and my comrades to our lodgings so I can begin to make amends?’

  ‘No, wait!’ interjected Onerist. ‘They’re official guards of the Envoy – they’re coming with us.’

  Toil grinned. ‘Not so much,’ she said. ‘You’re both free to come with us, but there’s an evens chance you’ll get nailed to the wall as soon as you open that fat mouth of yours, Envoy. I suggest you scuttle back to your own lodgings and pray to whichever god you favour that I forget your words to me before I see you next.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing – you don’t even know what you’ve done, do you?’

  ‘What would that be then?’

  ‘An army has been sighted from the city walls!’ Ammen declared triumphantly. ‘Getting ready to march on the city; a war is coming all because of your stupidity.’

  Toil ignored the gasps from those around her and adopted a carefully nonchalant voice. ‘The rest have arrived already? Well, that moves things up a little. Best we get a wriggle on.’

  Lynx could see her knuckles whitening, down by her waist, and recognised the rage she was holding back. Toil wasn’t a woman of restraint at the best of times from what he’d seen and certainly a man screaming in her face was normally provocation enough, but she’d lost control once today already. To slap a man like that was a socially acceptable response, but he knew she was itching to open the Envoy from groin to gullet.

  ‘You’re confined to your lodgings until I say otherwise – Captain, arrest her and bind her hands!’

  Toil shook her head, forced amusement on her face as she gestured to the door. ‘Come on, we’ve got some preparations to make before I can make good on my promises to the Monarch.’

  ‘You’ll—’

  Captain Cothkern pulled his mage-pistol from a holster and brandished it in the Envoy’s face as he made to grab Toil’s arm. ‘No more of that, sir. I’ve got my orders and they involve her. Your domestic issues don’t interest me, but I’ll shoot you if you try and impede me in the execution of my duties.’

  Ammen was left speechless by that and the mercenaries simply walked around him, out into the corridor and back the way they’d come. Aben raised an eyebrow to Toil and she gave him a small shake of the head so he kept his place.

  Cothkern leaned closer to Lynx as they went. ‘Hanese, eh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right. So are all Su Dregir folk so fucking troublesome or is it just these two?’

  Lynx cast his mind back to the time he’d spent there. ‘Mebbe not all the ones I ever met, I guess,’ he conceded. ‘But then I’m only a Hanese ex-convict turned mercenary, so I always try to find the good in people I meet.’

  ‘Aye, I hear that about you lot.’

  ‘One of our many fine qualities.’

  Five hundred miles away and fifteen years in the distant past, a group of four people broke through a great stone doorway and had their breath taken away. Even Sotorian Bade had nothing more to say, there at the end of their quest, though words had rarely failed him during the intervening time. It had taken three days and four lives, but finally success lay before them and Toil found the fatigue in her arms and legs fading away. The climb down here had been draining, but now it was all worth it.

  Not to Master Oper, she reminded herself. The sight of him tumbling out of sight and into the black was one that replayed over and over in her mind.

  The hurrying man hurries straight to his death. Oper had said that the night they camped outside the cave entrance, had made a point of stressing it to all his new recruits.

  And he’d tried to keep to it, Toil realised. The man had been moving slowly and cautiously along a high ledge that looked over a vast, deep pit criss-crossed with bridges and stone projections. It wasn’t his fault the section of rock had tumbled away underneath him, but Bade’s dark mistress had taken him all the same.

  I didn’t even hear him hit anything. He just kept falling and screaming until he ran out of breath.

  Toil shivered. It had been a better death than Fittil had managed. Bitten by some angular monstrosity that scuttled through the dark, he’d managed only two steps before his legs gave way underneath him. His face had gone scarlet, his chest had heaved like a bellows while his throat was as tight and white as a strangling ligature.

  The other two had been less dramatic. One had tried to prise open a doorway and been struck on the head in the ensuring rockfall, the other had simply wandered off. They’d only noticed he was gone when they stopped for a rest, about to debate whether to return to their camp or not. The oppressive darkness had claimed him, Toil realised. It crowded her too, pushed and teased and prodded from all sides – testing her defences, seeking a way in. And last night they’d slept inside the ruin itself under weak lamplight, having followed ramps and rappelled rock faces so deep into the ground there was little value in returning for the night.

  She tried to imagine how far down they were now. There was no clear way of working it out, no regularity to the levels that great square pit led to, bu
t twenty of the houses she’d grown up in could have been stacked beside them on the descent. And we still never found Oper’s body.

  ‘This is it, boys and girls,’ Bade said at last. ‘You’re a lucky charm, my girl.’

  ‘Lucky?’ Toil protested wearily. She was exhausted and filthy – four days in this Duegar ruin had taxed them all right to the limit. ‘Wasn’t luck that got us here.’

  ‘I make no charges nor complaints,’ Bade said, waving her words away. ‘I thank the day that old bastard hauled you up on to his wagon. I’d even get on my knees and honour whichever of the gods sent you our way if my knees weren’t getting a bit old for that sort of thing.’ He paused. ‘Assuming we get out alive, that is. Getting out is still the most important bit.’

  Even that little aside couldn’t diminish his obvious excitement. The wonder was clear and childlike on his face, even in the weak lamplight. For a man so assured and full of himself, it was a revealing contrast, and one that made it real to Toil. This was a Duegar tomb, undiscovered for thousands of years. A magical moment in the life of any relic hunter, she knew, and a fortune for them all, just waiting to be plundered.

  And Toil had played a crucial role in finding it – following the undulating paths of this strange, functionless section of the ruin until the shape of it had taken root in her mind. Something had struck her as out of place and Bade had agreed, soon discovering the great panel that hid the stairs to the inner chambers.

  Bade crouched and picked up a chunk of stone, tossing it over the floor of the tomb. A bright, hissing light seemed to fill the air – jagged slashes of lightning exploding across the main body of the tomb. They all flinched back and covered their eyes, the brief burst of magic leaving a stinging trail across Toil’s vision.

  ‘Banesh’s broken balls,’ she howled. ‘Give us some warning next time!’

  ‘I just saved your life, girly,’ he chuckled. ‘You should be puckering up, not pouting.’

  ‘Bring your face over here and you’ll get your reward,’ Toil said, wiping her watering eyes.

  ‘Plenty of time for that when we’re rich as lords.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Reckon I’ll look a whole lot more handsome covered in jewels.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Toil crouched and inspected the floor as she’d been told, searching for tripwires or triggers before venturing forward.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll be just as rich so if you’re after a thank you, I’ll hire some poor girl to do it for me. Let her catch whatever lordly rash you keep scratching at.’

  ‘Watch yourselves,’ Bade said, tossing another stone. Nothing happened and he took a tentative step forward, tensing for a few moments, ready to spring back before finally relaxing.

  ‘Come on, we won’t have much time.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘How should I know?’ he laughed. ‘Stay there if you want, but I ain’t sharing.’

  They scampered forward, Toil, Hoyst and Sovirel – an agile black man from somewhere south of So Han. Another relic hunter veteran, but no great friend of Bade’s so far as Toil could tell.

  There was a large stone sarcophagus against the far wall, intricately carved and flanked by massive stone sconces in the shape of coiling carapaced insects. Six pedestals formed a ring in the centre of the room, each bearing some sort of gem-encrusted golden headdress, beneath a glittering mural of the night sky emblazoned on the ceiling. Some sort of crystal served as a thousand stars scattered around the pale golden arc of the Skyriver, which met the horizon in other images on the walls. A temple complex and array of waterfalls, both shown at dusk and lit by hundreds of lanterns that gleamed like the stars.

  There were fat projections of glass or crystal extending from the side walls, each of those bearing more Duegar artefacts, but Toil could not guess at the function of any. For a long time they all simply stood and stared, marvelling at the fabulous decoration in the chamber as much as the treasure.

  The journey underground had been awe-inspiring in parts but exhausting and perilous – traversing ancient halls and caverns degraded by time and the elements. This room was different, though, this room was almost untouched and the fatigue melted away as they beheld for the first time a room from another age entirely. The Duegar race were long dead, thousands of years gone, but they had stood here too and seen the room almost as it was now. They had created something beautiful and locked it away, preserving some magical spark of their lost civilisation for Toil to remember all the rest of her days.

  ‘Don’t touch anything, not yet,’ Bade warned them all as Hoyst reached for one of the headdresses.

  ‘What, then?’

  Bade tied string to each headdress with a deft touch, not moving any even a fraction of an inch, while the rest held their breath and watched. They didn’t have much rope left, but a pocket’s worth of string would be enough to reach all the way out of the tomb again. Leaving the remaining lamp with Sovirel, Bade gently knotted the six pieces together with a longer section and played the rest out until he was all the way outside at the extent of the string’s length.

  While he was doing that, Toil went to investigate the sarcophagus itself. It wasn’t a solid piece of stone as she’d first thought; instead there were angled panels of smoked glass set into the sides while the top was one large sheet of clear glass. She peered down inside it, careful not to get too close, then gasped.

  ‘Look!’ She waved the others over, Sovirel raising the lamp high. ‘What’s that?’

  There was no body inside. All that remained of the Duegar buried here after several thousand years was dust. What did remain were strangely proportioned sections of worked metal, ceremonial armour Toil assumed. Encrusted with gems and dull with age, the flashes of gold were clear, but what had caught Toil’s attention were chunks of something like green jade, hung on chains of black metal and half buried in the dust.

  ‘Not cut gems,’ Sovirel breathed with the same mounting excitement Toil felt. ‘Not that shape and size.’

  ‘Shattered gods!’ Hoyst broke in, finally realising what they were talking about. ‘Are those God Fragments?’

  ‘Here’s hoping!’ called Bade. Toil looked back and saw the man was at the very edge of the light, just an outline amid the black. ‘Can sell ’em to the Orders, get money and men to excavate this place properly.’

  ‘You’d trust the Orders with all this?’

  ‘We don’t have the hands to work this tomb properly. Hands off that sarcophagus, likely it’s a decoy. I’d wager the biggest o’ these gems that the first man to crack it ends up crispy.’ He patted something at his waist, a black glass sphere the size of a man’s fist encased in crossed metal bands. ‘Or you can help yerselves. I’d be interested to see what happened.’

  Toil opened her mouth to reply but then saw him twist one of the bands and the words died in her mouth. Nothing happened but she faltered still, sensing something terrible was coming.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Ah well, yeah – sorry ’bout this.’

  Bade tipped his hat at her then yanked hard on the string, running a few paces back as he hauled on it. All six of the headdresses flew through the air and clattered down on to the stone floor, but Toil didn’t see it. She threw herself down beside the sarcophagus even as the other two turned and the air burst into flames.

  Someone screamed, the sound almost lost amid a great whump of fire erupting from each of the stone columns. The bright yellow flower of flame flashed out over her head, and in a second it had spread to fill the air as Toil cowered on the floor. Arms across her face, she felt the surge of heat wash over her and shrieked in terror as she heaved for breath. No air reached her lungs; her jacket and arm covering her mouth. The panic increased for one interminable heartbeat then another, the searing heat eclipsing everything else before vanishing as suddenly as it had come.

  Toil flapped at her clothes, rolling madly as she tried to disentangle h
erself and put out any flames that might have caught. Somewhere there was a strangled cry and the mad thump of flailing limbs, but she could see nothing beyond the smeared memory trails in her eyes. The crackle of burning fat, the whisper of cloth aflame and faint whimpers of men continued for a dozen heartbeats before all fell silent. Then the darkness descended once more, a cool touch on her skin as the burner flames receded. When finally she managed to take a breath Toil heaved at the scorched, bitter air with relief then renewed panic.

  The darkness was near total and even as the trails of light faded from Toil’s eyes, the weak flames on the dead men’s clothes faltered. Through her watering and pained eyes she could see nothing, not even the last embers on the clothes. Her fear started to bite as she turned and banged her knee on something, the sting of pain eclipsing even terror for a moment. Then she managed to right herself and reached out, feeling something solid under her hand. She could hear nothing more from the others, could see nothing and only smell the foul, sickly-sweet stink of burned flesh.

  ‘Bade!’ she screamed in panic. ‘Bade, come back!’

  There was no answer, not even the sound of footsteps echoing through the darkness. She knew she’d never hear him, the man walked almost silently – said it was the only reason he’d lived as long as he had. If you made much noise in the dark, it quietened you.

  ‘Bade!’ she moaned, too frightened to scream now. ‘Don’t leave me here.’

  The darkness made no reply. Toil found herself drawing her arms and legs tight to her body, hugging herself close against the malevolent presence that now enclosed her.

  He’s gone, he’s left us.

  Her stomach lurched and went cold. The others are dead, he’s just left me. Oh, merciful gods, I’m all alone.

  The hours of climbing they had done to reach this place, the miles of streets underground, long walkways descending into the belly of the earth and thin lengths of rope leading them down. It had taxed them right to the limit under lamplight. And now here she was, in the pitch-black belly of the world and utterly alone.