131 Days [Book 3]_Spikes and Edges

by Keith C. Blackmore

  131 Days (Book 3)

  Spikes and Edges

  By

  Keith C. Blackmore

  131 Days (Book 3)

  Spikes and Edges

  By Keith C. Blackmore

  Copyright 2014 Keith C. Blackmore

  Edited by Karen Allen

  Cover by Karri Klawiter www.artbykarri.com

  Formatted by Polgarus Studio www.polgarusstudio.com

  131 Days (Book 3)

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons—living or dead—actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  A special thanks to Mark E. Crouse, Sean Meadows, and Miguel Tonnies.

  Table of Contents

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  About the Author

  Try these other titles by Keith C. Blackmore:

  CHARACTERS

  1

  The mug clattered off the countertop, loud enough to frighten the old man tending bar amid the raucous crowd filling the alehouse. As right the servant should, Strach concluded, tonguing the inside of his cheek and exploring the gaps left by missing teeth. He leaned over the worn wood, his tall frame stretching, and placed both elbows down while fixing the barkeep with a red-eyed look of murder. The white sleeves of his shirt slid back just a few fingers—enough to allow the old bastard a glimpse of black tattoos covering white flesh.

  The barkeep’s eyes bulged. He sputtered, momentarily paralyzed with recognition. Even the few lads standing on either side of Strach quieted and pulled away, as if he were touched by some deathly affliction.

  A strand of graying hair fell across one of Strach’s eyes, and he left it, knowing it made him appear even more sinister.

  “Give us another one of those,” Strach commanded in a dangerous voice, indicating the tapped barrel of Sunjan Black and daring the man to deny him.

  The old barkeep glanced around. A large man, thick necked and well muscled, appeared in Strach’s side vision, but the white-bearded barkeep warded the guard off with a shake of his head.

  Strach’s smile widened unpleasantly as a curl of smoke drifted past his eyes. “Smart, you ancient shite rag. Now, give us that drink.”

  Strach didn’t care how many alehouse guards the old man might employ. The serpentine markings on the Son of Cholla’s wrist exuded an aura as menacing and dangerous as the Axemen surrounding King Juhn. The black-ink tattoos caused brave men to shiver, caused wenches to give him his way, and more often than not, allowed Strach to drink for free wherever he pleased. The Sons of Cholla disliked him venturing into taverns and alehouses for the single purpose of causing such stirs—disliked him showing off his markings. That bothered Strach. What good were the badges if he couldn’t use them? He’d bled for his markings, and though he doubted he’d live to see his fiftieth year, he’d make certain he lived every moment between now and then. Not even the Sons––his own brothers––would deprive him of his pleasure.

  That included imposing his will upon ordinary Sunjans.

  The barkeep reached for his mug.

  “Use a clean one.” Strach flashed a warning smile spotted with gold teeth, enunciating every syllable like the hellion he knew himself to be.

  The barkeep produced a fresh mug from a well-stocked shelf behind him, worked the keg’s spout, and poured the drink. Strach didn’t take his eyes off the man.

  “That serving wench your daughter?” Strach asked.

  The momentary disruption in the flow of Sunjan Black confirmed that she was.

  “She’s a pretty one,” Strach knew the barkeep hung on every word, despite the surrounding roar of good times threatening to bring down the roof. “Can’t be more than twenty—if that.”

  The barkeep moistened his lips and struggled to stay composed. The mug almost overflowed, and he jolted into action.

  Strach placed his drink directly between his hands. Others called for the barkeep, but the man wouldn’t leave, remaining in sight of the Son. Strach drank, made a show of swallowing, and studied the contents of his mug before making a spectacle of licking out the rim. Once he’d finished, he sought out the barkeep’s daughter, flashing a sinister leer in her father’s direction.

  “That honeypot’s more than ripe, I’d imagine.” Strach winked. “You’re smart to have her working here. That figure would bring them in from as far as Vathia—I daresay—just to drink in her goods. Wouldn’t you?”

  Wicked Strach regarded the barkeep.

  Clearly not wanting to, the tortured father gave the barest of nods.

  “Come on, Willfar,” someone bawled and jostled Strach’s back with a gruff chuckle. “Apologies, lad––”

  Strach whirled upon the drunken man, gripped him by the thick hair, and bounced his face off the hard countertop, leaving a dark blot of red. The offender crumpled to the floor. The hard whump of face on wood didn’t disturb the ongoing merriment. The incident didn’t bother Strach as he placed his elbow upon the dab of blood as if nothing had happened. He studied the barkeep, curious what the old punce would do.

  A nervous Willfar again warded off his guards––three of them now. One powerful-looking lad resembled the barkeep.

  That interested Strach. “Your son, old man?”

  Again, Willfar nodded, obviously wishing that this nightmare would end.

  “You want to fight me, lad?” Strach inquired of the younger man, a full head shorter than the towering Son of Cholla. Strach cocked his head like a prickly vulture and waited. He didn’t have to look to know Willfar was shooing his son to stand back.

  And like a good boy, he did just that.

  But Strach didn’t like the vengeful gleam in the young man’s eyes, so he stepped in close and peered down the sun-scorched shard of his nose. “You want to fight me, lad, you follow me out these doors. I’ll wait outside. I haven’t killed anyone since dawn. You may as well be the night’s entertainment, even as boring as I expect you to be. You come look for me like a good son protecting the family’s business. You do that. You see, I understand everything about family. Outside. Just follow me out.”

  Strach lifted a hand to the pommel of a well-used shortsword, hanging off his hip in a battered scabbard. “And I’ll use this. To cut you open. Just like a full wineskin.”

  The son of Willfar did not appreciate being spoken to in such a manner, and it showed on his conflicted face. The old man would later explain the nature of the tattoos on Strach’s forearms. Strach knew he would. But whether Willfar’s seething boy would dare follow the Son of Cholla out into the night was another question.

  Smirking in the guard’s face, Strach brazenly sauntered toward the open entrance. Some men got out of his way. Others, he pushed. Not one retaliated. The few who considered confronting the tall, rakish ghoul of a man struggled to find something else to occupy their thoughts.

  And on his way out the door, Strach grabbed the firm bottom of Willf
ar’s bent-over daughter, drawing a startled peal of shock and a glare. Strach very much approved.

  Outside, he gasped at the night air and stopped just beyond the door. Strach placed his fists into the small of his back, popping his spine. He sighed with the stretch, fully intending to meet Willfar’s son and at least smash that saucy look off his youthful face. Whether or not Strach would kill him was another matter, but he did smell blood on the night’s air, and he had to admit he longed for a fight.

  Blood.

  Strach rolled his neck upon his high shoulders and stopped to stare. To his left, a one-legged man gripping crutches regarded him with a look of pure terror, as if he were a diseased hellion. Strach studied the lad with growing interest, tugged along by a feeling of familiarity he couldn’t quite place—cropped hair, wide, unblinking eyes, and a haunted look that reeked of fear. The single leg was obvious but not entirely uncommon. Strach suspected he knew this punished frame of skin and bones. He took a step toward him.

  The one-legged mystery gasped as if he’d forgotten something and tried to speed away. Strach watched the spectacle with amusement. Tonguing that gap of missing teeth, the Son snorted and forgot about the alehouse guard. This runner was much more interesting.

  “Run, lad, run! That’s right! Swing those nubs of yours.” Strach strode after the fleeing cripple, harsh features splitting into a sly smile. He couldn’t place the man’s face, but in time… he would.

  A few people in the street noticed the developing chase, but one evil glance from the tall poleaxe of a man, and they quickly looked elsewhere. And well they should. Throttling a few peasants wasn’t beyond Strach’s wicked whims. He believed everyone should bash a commoner’s head or two in the morning. It set the day.

  “You get by well on those sticks,” Strach yelled and chuckled when the cripple worked frantically to outpace his pursuer. Wood tapped fitted stone. Strach followed, enjoying the hunt and a little mystified about who he shadowed. He grew more determined to discover this rabbit’s identity.

  The cripple disappeared down a dark alley. Strach’s broad grin blazed at the turn of good fortune. He knew every street, back way, and crawlspace of Sunja like the crack of his own ass. He intimately knew the narrow alley his puzzling prey had taken.

  The path ended in a wall.

  Strach had cornered several street minions in that very dead end over the years. A loose iron grate covered a chute that emptied rainwater into the city’s underground sewer system—a particularly deep hole, which made it quite impossible to extract the numerous bodies Strach had pushed and even stomped through its narrow opening over the years.

  Taking a firm grip of his shortsword, Strach made certain no one would disturb him and pursued this rabbit down its hole. The alley housed deep, forbidding shadows and walls that towered over three stories. He eyed the stone and wood backs of merchant shops with the lowest windows entirely boarded up. Shutters loomed above, below a cloudless night, brilliant with stars, shining through a gauze of smoke.

  Strach became a hunter, well aware that a cornered rat would fight to the death. The human kind were just as quick when faced with being killed. He placed his back to a wall and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark. People walked past the mouth of the alley but paid him no mind. Strach moved deeper down the gullet of the passageway and paused at the first corner some ten paces away from the street.

  “I think I know you.” The unpleasant rasp of Strach’s voice carried. “It’s your leg. There are more than a few men in the city with missing limbs, a handful with missing legs. One lad doesn’t have any ears, a fact that amuses me to no end. You might wonder how I know. Wait, wait, I’ll tell you. It’s because I cut the ears off that squealing asslicker. Now, I know of only one street maggot with a single leg, but you can’t be him, can you? You can’t be that wasted hellpup—the one I know would gratefully eat scraps off the ground.”

  He leaned around the corner, peering down another empty length, and judged it safe to proceed. Strach gripped the hilt of his shortsword and treaded deeper into the alley.

  “Not to mention the smell coming off his hide. You can’t be him. You’re much too clean. It would take every bathhouse in Sunja to scrub that shite of a man clean again. And the rags he wore? Corpses are dressed with better care. Wretched, wretched pisser. I’ll say this, however: those pitiful looks brought in his share of coin. Which reminds me, I haven’t seen him in quite a while…”

  Strach stopped in his tracks halfway to another turn. He regarded the heavens above.

  “Perhaps that he-bitch kept a coin or two for himself.” Anger undercoated that thought, and Strach’s hand tightened on his blade’s handle. “But you couldn’t be him. Not even he would be so stupid as to hide coin from me. The last street-crusted louse to steal coin from me lost his hand—amongst other pieces—before I shoved his carcass into the sewers. All of my beggars knew that man’s fate. I made it known. I carried around his blackening paw for a week before tossing it to the rats. So it couldn’t be you.”

  The sound of a quickening breath reached Strach’s ears, belonging to a person realizing he was trapped. Strach smiled at the frightened noise and placed a shoulder to the final corner.

  “You couldn’t be that unfit,” he whispered and eased into view.

  There, at the end of the alley, shying away not three steps behind that very loose sewer grate, stood Strach’s one-legged prey with his back against a stone wall.

  Strach loosed his most disarming smile and extracted his shortsword. “There you are.” He glanced at the night sky, fingers flexing on his blade’s hilt. “Blessed night, this one. Now, let us see who you are.”

  His towering figure filled the narrow confines of the alley, and Strach crept forward with one hand extended, as if testing a very hot pot. “Just enough light to see. Just enough to see your gurry face. Seddon above…”

  Strach stopped and peered at the cripple. “It is you.”

  Garl whimpered, bared terrible teeth, and tried merging with the wall at his back. In the brilliant starlight, his gray eyes appeared as cloudy as Vathian marble. He hopped to a corner, allowing one crutch to drop as his arms shot out for balance. He brandished the other crutch as a club.

  “Haven’t seen you in days,” Strach hissed. His smile widened. “You’ve become quite prosperous at my expense, haven’t you?”

  Garl shivered. Whimpered. A bubble of snot exploded from one nostril. “Stay back.”

  “Have you forgotten my reputation?” Strach asked solemnly, just beyond the range of the crutch. “Have you forgotten the eyes I’ve dug out? The tongues I’ve ripped free? Evil deeds done just because a street maggot like yourself failed to greet his lord and master?”

  Garl trembled as if facing unholy Saimon himself. “I remember.”

  Strach disagreed with a sad shake of his head. “No. I don’t think you do. But you will.” With a smile of spotty gold, the Son of Cholla waved his sword at Garl’s face, flicking it one way and then the other.

  The crippled man flinched and moaned.

  Strach’s eyes widened, savouring Garl’s terror. “Yes, you certainly––whuuu!”

  The sharp intake of air straightened Strach’s back. He dropped his blade a split beat before his shirt bloomed darkly and elongated a foot from his abdomen, right before his bulging eyes. Strach gasped as a ruby-colored blade popped through his clothing and slid forth as if fashioned from starlight. All strength fled him, and he fell to his knees, clawing at a wall for support. Blood saturated his clothes and puddled around his knees. Strach’s mouth hung open, and his eyes threatened to burst from his head.

  “What’s that?” Borchus asked through clenched teeth, wrapping a powerful arm around the tall man’s neck. He forced his blade deeper. “I didn’t hear you.”

  The dying man whuffed, popping a gloomy bubble around his lips.

  Borchus twisted the blade, and Strach shivered. The agent held on until the spasms stopped. When he pulled his blade free, the dea
d man crumpled.

  “How are you doing?” the agent asked his spy.

  “Damn near pissed my trousers,” Garl squeaked and swallowed.

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “Damned near—but I didn’t.”

  “Good for you, then.”

  “What kept you so long?”

  “Shadowing a man takes time and patience, good Garl. You should know that.”

  Borchus’s lips tightened as he wiped the blade, a cheap shortsword he’d purchased that evening, upon Strach’s person. A weak moan escaped the fallen Strach, surprising the agent. The miserable sound didn’t sit well on Borchus’s nerves.

  “Make it hurt,” Garl whispered.

  “Oh, it hurts,” Borchus assured him.

  “Well, make it hurt more, then.”

  That surprised the agent, and it showed as a question on his face.

  “You don’t know this dog blossom,” Garl explained. “The man’s tortured and killed street beggars for years. He’s right and proper vicious, a sewer rat that’ll feast on everything. Not a drop of mercy in him. Anything you do to the likes of him isn’t enough for––”

  Borchus screwed up his face and nodded emphatically, cutting the beggar short. “So you’ve said a few times now. Well then…”

  He stabbed Strach again. The man writhed and gasped as if surfacing from very deep water. Then he settled back down.

  “Done,” Borchus declared.

  Strach let out a wheezy peep and clawed at the stones. Borchus frowned at the not-quite-dead man and stabbed yet again, withdrew his blade, considered the corpse, and stuck Strach twice more.

  The last thrust did the deed.

  “Not done yet,” Garl whispered with venom and smashed his crutch across the fallen man’s head. The once-beggar staggered off-balance from the blow. He righted himself and brought the crutch down like an axe a second time across the dead man’s skull.