by Anton Le Roy
“Capt, if the Coyote magicked you all the way here then why can’t it also take us to the next marker on the map to stop the Newborn?” And why does the Coyote care anyway?
Capt shrugs. “Beats me. Maybe it ran out of juice?” Figures, maybe it’s low on whatever godly power it took from Loktie. “Ganer’s balls, still taking a while to get our damn heads round it all, you know?”
“You’re not the only ones.” I finally glance back at Gregor reacquainting with the others, in particular Razor who leads the showmanship and roaring amusement. Gurny the bowman with a viscous new scar down one cheek cries with laughter, two arms around a couple of comrades. Handsome Lt Jones silently standing proud and impressive with a slight grin. The Twins waving at me before helping some local carry a load of laundry – they’d enjoyed hugging me the most. Meanwhile, the early risers of Broken Naile in turn watch us with caution and intrigue. They must know the local Newborn are all gone, that the Reeve and his gang are all dead, and are probably suspicious that one gang is just replaced by another.
And, once again, all the many dead from my past lurk in the shadows, wisps no longer they’re now solid looking apparitions, almost as if I can reach out and touch a solid body. It feels wrong seeing them like that, seeing my dead zombie-like friends. I curse and that confuses Capt.
“So you think this witch of yours can help?” he asks with a quizzical stare.
“All depends if she still likes me or not.”
“Shit,” Capt chuckles. “Well I better keep my damn fingers crossed then, eh?”
“Wetlock.”
She keeps her back to me while standing at a table preparing herbs on a chopping board. A cauldron bubbles and there are potion bottles strewn everywhere. Smells funky. Cliché witch stuff – unless this is just her dinner.
“So you’re not dead then,” she snaps, “Disappointed by that?”
“Things have changed.” I think I’ve changed since we last talked too. I’m seeing things much more clearly now.
The knife keeps chop, chop, chopping. “I know what happened in there.”
I glance at the crow watching impassively from the back of a chair. “I failed.”
She finally stops chopping and turns to me with a steely gaze. “Failure is nothing to be ashamed of, Vet. Everyone fails at some point. It’s how you recover from it, that’s what makes you.” She’s right, of course, as always.
“He wasn’t interested, didn’t care for my apologies. The bond we had... it’s gone.” And that final truth hurts me more than anything.
She sighs and her expression softens. “At least you tried. That day the Six fell, the day that haunts you both, no one should blame you for honest mistakes, bad luck and things beyond your control.”
“Satipo does.”
A frustrated wave of a hand. “Then to hell with him! He’s wrong too. It's not your fault what happened. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that!”
“Still, you weren't there.”
“I didn't need to be! I know what happened and I know you! Maybe now you can see it’s time to move on from the past.”
I nod, seeing the sense and still finding it difficult to follow it. “It’s hard. Must be over thirty years I’ve lived with this guilt!”
“So learn to live without it.”
Easier said than done, but maybe it’s time to try. “I have a lot of other regrets, you know?”
“Yes I know.”
“One of those regrets is you.”
She raises an eyebrow and there’s a sparkle in her eyes. “What, you regret ever being with me?”
I chuckle at that. Can’t help it. “You know what I mean…”
She grins. “Yes, I know what you mean.”
How I want to hug her, to kiss her, to feel her warmth. Last time I spoke to her I was an idiot for not seeing just how much she still cares for me – I think that’s half of what makes her annoyed at me. Once again though, I’m going to leave her. “I wish… I could have been different for you.”
She shrugs at that. “Yes, well… maybe we’re both too old to change our ways.”
Don’t give up on me. Not yet, please. “I want to be different for you.” Time in that cell definitely changed me. “I think I’m different already.”
She raises her eyebrows. Crossing her arms she leans back against the table and states, “Okay, then show me.”
“Well, first, I have to leave again.”
A sad sigh. “I know, with Gregor by your side. It was wonderful seeing him again. I’m worried about him though.”
Yeah, me too. His vampire curse is something we’re going to have to sort out after this is over. “He saved me.”
She smiles. “In more ways than one?”
Maybe, yes. I continue. “I’m going to stop Satipo and his cronies.”
She nods. “And you will. Then what?”
I say it before I can think of the repercussions. “Then what… Well, maybe I could come back here. Maybe I could stay, see what happens?”
“See what happens…” she says, eyeballing me. “Maybe you could. You’re not going there to die anymore, then?”
“No.”
Another hard stare, as if she’s trying to figure me out, then finally, “Good to hear. So, what do you need from me before you go?”
Clever minx. Can’t believe how difficult this is, but, “I need to… ask for help.”
An incredulous glare. “Help?” she blurts, “You’ve asked for many things over the years but you’ve rarely ever asked for that.”
“Maybe it’s about time that I did.”
“Well aren’t you full of surprises.” She steps up to me and her luscious perfume forces its way above the heady cooking odours. I can see the cogs working in her brain while she’s trying to figure out how changed I am since our last conversation. Her eyes flicker to the window. “I see you have a new group of friends.”
I chuckle at that. “Aye, they’ve decided to follow me for some reason.”
“Maybe because they believe in you. Sometimes a person’s strength can be found in the friends they have.” Aye, I guess. “Call me crazy,” she says, “But I still believe in you too. I always have, even if you were being an idiot at the time. Even if you were too blind to see it.”
“Thanks. You think we can stop Satipo and the Newborn?”
She smiles and there’s a love there that breaks my heart. After all that I’ve done to her in the past and she still cares for me? I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it at all and, I know with sudden clarity, I want it more than anything in the world.
“You’re beat up,” she begins, “The wounds you suffered when I found you aren’t fully healed and your confidence has taken a pounding too. Plus, all those ghosts lurking at my door are almost close enough to touch. They’re like… like a great army of the dead!” The hair on the back of my neck tingles at that. “Despite all that I think you and Gregor are two stubborn old bastards who won’t ever quit till the job is done. I have faith in you.”
Her words surround me like armour, strengthening my resolve. Then there’s a hand on my cheek and it feels better than any drug. The rest of her body standing close and I want it all again. All of it, swimming deep until I can hardly breathe from drowning inside her.
Not yet, Vet, not yet.
“Now, what is it that you want me to do?” she asks, her voice husky.
Chapter 26
Lightning flashes all around us in a deadly storm, the electricity catching on our armour and weapons and running through our bones. Damn, it hurts. Our world warps and stretches and my body is being pulled, drawn out and funnelled through an impossibly small hole. Broken Naile vanishes in a blur of colour and twisting shapes while Wetlock, her body contorted in pain from the magic being used, disappears from view.
Then everything stops moving with a harsh jolt and Gregor leans over to puke up on a marble floor. A couple of the others join in while we all stagger about a bit before getting our b
earings.
We’re someplace entirely new.
And still the spectres are here in full view. They crowd into the shadows about us as if emerging from doorways. Then they just stand there. Watching. Waiting.
Lt Jones is the first to exclaim, “She did it!” before falling onto his arse in a dizzy stupor.
“We’re here!” gawps Gurny, desperately hugging onto a large garden urn lest he fall from the earth and plummet into the sky above.
On cue, the rest of Blackwater chatter with exclamations of wonder.
Aye, Princess Icromm’s Golden Palace in all its splendour. I remember this place well when me and Gregor came here not too long ago to chat about stealing from a forgotten god. That pipe. Now we’re here again amongst gold and white spires, domes and towers situated on a snowy hill overlooking the great city of Toren, while snow peaked mountains tear the sky asunder in the opposite direction. A light snowfall drifts lazily across endless open courtyards and pathways filled with gardens and palms and ferns amongst polished stonewalls. However, these snowflakes do not settle and simply disappear entirely at a certain height. They say she employs magicians solely for the purpose of protecting and heating these gardens in order that the winter cold never touches a single leaf, blade of grass or delicate stonework. Because of this, the air temperature is surprisingly pleasant; there’s even chattering tropical birds, perhaps trapped in this oasis of the Sanpelle Mountain Range; the cooling haze of fountains defies logic; complicated patterns carved into pillars and archways are not hidden by settling snow; and multi-coloured stones used for intricate mosaics glitter like fantastic ice crystals. All very beautiful and very different to the landscapes of spring in Broken Naile. It’s all rather surreal.
“Well this makes a change from all the damned cold,” mutters Gregor, “And to think, if we’d just come here in the first place after getting the pipe, instead of chasing shadows, we could’ve finished things a lot sooner and I’d be rutting whores before you could even blink.”
An interesting thought, the bit about us finishing things sooner, I mean. We’d have never taken the Newborn seriously though, even had we stumbled upon their plan.
“Fucking and fighting,” I say, “You’re an easy man to please.”
He laughs. “The simplest pleasures in life are sometimes the most rewarding.”
“That sounds like a quote.”
“Aye, it is. Mine.”
The clouds are dispersing to reveal a sun in its final moment before slipping below the horizon. A final blaze of colours and then, suddenly, the sky is a dark blue riddled with stars and I realise one of those stars overhead, a bright dot that wasn’t ever there before and shouldn’t ever be there, is Umbra, the harbinger of doom.
A bit handy that the Newborn left us a backdoor to sneak right into the heart of the palace, I bet Satipo wasn’t expecting that! As most of the palace guards are probably at the gates and garrison then hopefully there won’t be many for us to bump into along the way and by the time reinforcements are called this will all be over. Satipo had been confident that I wouldn’t crash his party – won’t he be in for a big surprise!
We’re in a secluded courtyard filled with ferns and as we finally start fanning out a Newborn appears from around the corner. A look of stunned wonder on his face is quickly replaced by the shaft of an arrow.
“Still skilled with the bow, I see, Gurny,” smirks Gregor.
“Yeah, you know I still, erm, but this bow of Daida’s is…” he gives a thumbs up. Excellent. Gave him Daida’s quiver too so the lad should be well stocked on arrows now. Daida would be pleased, I think, for a decent archer to make use of his things for a good cause.
“Okay lads,” states Capt, “Look lively. You know the drill.”
Razor twirls his two big blades. “Aye, we know the drill alright. Find the bad guys and dice ‘em up.”
“No hero shit,” Capt snaps, “We came in here as a unit and that’s how we’re leaving.”
“That’s right,” I add, “And if things start looking dicey then you get your boys out of here, Capt.”
“And girls,” a few of the female soldiers retort. And there I was thinking that you don’t get many female warriors in Eiseggar: it’s not normally in their culture I heard, not like many other nations.
“Nice,” says Gregor, raising an eyebrow and smiling at the females. One or two smile back. I know what you’re thinking, you dirty sod.
“The Twins started a bit of a female revolution in our ranks,” shrugs Lt Jones.
The Capt holds his chin up proudly and says, “Veteran, Gregor, we’re all Blackwater Platoon here and, by Ganer’s balls, we don’t abandon our comrades.”
“It’s one of our little rules,” adds Lt Jones.
Damned fools. Well, no time to argue, let’s get this done.
Blood is splashed across the vibrant greens of fern leaves; on the white marble; on the gold leaf patterns engraved in the stone; on the bright mosaic pieces; and even hisses near a lantern flame. A small troop of Palace Guards (dressed in expensive armour highlighted with deeply coloured red cloth) lay sprawled out in the courtyard, hacked to pieces. A few Newborn join the corpses. Then there are even a couple of hapless servants who’ve met the same fate. Beyond them is a ceilinged enclosure and sitting on the floor, resting against a wall decorated with a fresco of mythological creatures, is Princess Icromm.
Last we met she was a plainly featured and charismatic young woman with jewellery and eyes gleaming as bright as glass; silk clothing of such deep red as if dyed from blood, vivid against dark hair weaved and bunched into an intricate hairstyle; and a serene face layered in delicate makeup including golds and silvers that made her appear to be sculpted by an artist. The overall impression was fascinating and despite her lack of natural beauty it’s no wonder she has many lovers, concubines and husbands. However, the closer we now get to her I can see that the usually perfect hair is now tussled; the jewellery is snapped and tarnished with blood; and blood is also splattered upon her pained face and soaking her red clothes even darker. Blood pools around her legs and pumps through fingers trying to staunch the wound in her gut. Her once vibrant eyes are dulled and ringed, her flawless complexion grey. She’s dying.
A smile reveals perfectly shaped teeth painted in blood. “Veteran. Gregor. What a pleasant surprise.”
Gregor replies with, “I wish we could say the same.”
She scoffs at that. “Ever the charming Gregor. And you, Veteran, look terrible!”
“As do you,” I reply.
She laughs and wheezes out a wet cough.
“Gilly,” Capt urgently barks to one of his crew, “This woman needs urgent medical attention!”
I kneel down next to Icromm. “Capt, I wouldn’t bother. She’s done for.”
She gives me a steely gaze and chuckles, a sound bereft of humour. “Veteran is correct. I am, as you so plainly say, done for.”
Capt scowls and simply states, “We’ll still damn well try, your highness.”
Two Blackwater members unknown to me begin to fuss around the injury and I can tell that even they think it’s futile. She let’s go of the wound and allows them to work anyway with a brave realisation of her impending fate. Gilly looks up at Capt and shakes her head.
“Leave me be, then!” snaps Icromm, awkwardly pushing them away from her.
“Satipo,” growls Gregor.
“Yes, and also no,” she replies. “Such lethal handiwork resulted from his assassins.”
Me, “Why?”
“Delusions of grandeur.” She pauses. “Why is it that you are all here in my palace?”
“We’ve come for Satipo and his band of Newborn. We know what they plan to do.”
“Oh, please! The Newborn retain the ridiculous notion they can actually summon Umbra and bring about an apocalypse! As a result, Satipo holds the daft opinion that he shall be crowned the king of a new world!” Laughter, despite the pain. It fades when she notices that we’re all looki
ng at her in puzzlement. “Pitiful fools, she is not real! None of it is! What makes you believe otherwise? She is naught but the figment on my own imagining. I created her.” Another laugh. “That is why you have come, is it not? To stop them? Oh dear, oh dear, this has gotten rather silly now, I must say!”
“What’re you blathering on about?” hisses Gregor.
“I am laying here, dying in a pool of my own royal blood,” she winces and shifts her position to somehow ease the pain, “And my last moment as the great Princess of Tore is discussing matters of the court with a rabble of…” she peers closely at Blackwater, “A rabble of Eiseggar soldiers and two aged has-beens!” She sighs. “Very well. I appear to have nothing better to do and it matters not what I tell you now. Naturally, being a powerful woman who seeks yet more power, I simply desired all of the most potent magical artefacts across the known and unknown lands. And what better way to obtain them?”
“By creating a fake religion,” I say. “Get the fanatics to tirelessly steal these artefacts in the belief they’re making their pretend goddess even more powerful.”