Blood of War

by Remi Michaud

  He could see. He suppressed the giggle that rose in his throat.

  Rising shakily, he brushed an itch at his nose, drew his hand back when he felt wetness, saw blood. He turned, searching his tent, wondering, suppressing a filament of fear.

  His mind exploded. The comforting light shattered into razor shards that ripped into him, flayed him.

  “Gixen.”

  He shrieked, clapped his hands to his head.

  “Gixen.”

  There was noise outside his tent, the thud of footsteps, and the call of...of someone. It took him a moment to realize that it was Herkan, calling him, asking him a question. What? Of course. He thought something was wrong. There was. But there was nothing Herkan could do.

  “I'm fine, Herkan,” he called and he would have happily murdered anyone whose voice was as weak and pathetic as his own was. He cleared his throat, forced some strength into his voice. “Stay out.”

  Again, a blast took him, rattled him to his core. He groaned behind clenched teeth. His hands came up again, clamped over his ears. They slid greasily on the blood that leaked, that dripped from his lobes. He leaned forward and vomited.

  “Gixen, you have failed me. You have taken too long.”

  “Master, I-”

  “SILENCE!”

  The tent shuddered and went dark though he could still hear the faint hiss of the lantern.

  “I have changed your plans. You will finish building your army. In one week, you will march south.”

  Gixen trembled, had just enough presence of mind to keep his water inside. He never showed fear but how could he not? His master was displeased. His master could destroy him in a heartbeat. If it had a heart.

  Images began to fill Gixen's mind, each one preceded by its own flash of agony as though they were being beaten into his skull like nails beaten by a hammer. At first, the images were unfamiliar and indistinct, and the flashes of pain were nothing he could not handle. Soon, they became understandable, but conversely, perversely, the agony increased, spreading from his head, to his guts, to his arms and legs, until his entire body felt both on fire and crushed. When the last image blazed in his thoughts, brighter than the sun, and hotter, he fell into a black, black well.

  * * *

  Consciousness slowly came back to him, like molasses oozing into his mind. His cheek was deathly cold. He opened his eyes and after the wave of nausea passed, after the watery shimmering of his sight settled, he saw that he was on the ground, his face pressed into the cold soil and his own vomit.

  As unsteadily as an old man with the shaking disease, he pushed himself to his knees, dripping pebbles, blood, and half-digested gobbets of his dinner. With a grunt, he hauled himself to his feet, wavered there for an instant, teetering on the brink of collapse. He blinked owlishly, trying to pull himself together, trying to pull his frayed and unraveled mind back into some semblance of coherence.

  When he succeeded, he shuddered. His master had been most forceful. Usually, Gixen welcomed the sweet rush that accompanied pain, that fiery ecstasy followed by the mellow dullness, the languid aftershocks pulsing, pushing further and further into his essence. It was so much like sexual release. But perhaps there were times when more was not always better.

  He chuckled weakly, brushed itchy gobbets that clung to his face, and stepped to the ragged swath of half rotted leather that served as the entry to his tent. Breathing deeply, he pushed it aside and nearly yelped when Herkan's grotesque image appeared suddenly before him.

  “Sir, are you well?” His eyes widened as he got a good look at his commander and he spun, opened his mouth to bellow commands.

  “Shut up, Herkan. We have things to discuss.”

  Clamping his mouth shut, his teeth clicking, Herkan eyed him inquisitively.

  “You look like you've been in a battle, sir.”

  “Perhaps I have. But it is of no matter. Come in. We have been given new directives.” He turned, hesitated as a thought came to him: “Bring goat's mead. Lots of it.”

  * * *

  The young man who reached for the door latch was familiar in appearance. Tall, broad shouldered, thick patch of dirty blond hair, blue eyes that recalled lightning. But even his closest friends might have called him a stranger. For though he looked the same, there was something different about him. Perhaps it was his stance: tall, straight, almost belligerent, instead of the usual hunch of self-effacement. Perhaps it was his eyes, not the color, but the set of them, the hardness that glittered like granite, where softness and smiles normally resided. Or perhaps it was his features, features that had always been open and ready to grin, but were now so thunderous, it seemed they had never known anything else.

  He gripped the latch roughly and pushed. The door swung open with a surprised squeak of protest, and he crossed the threshold into the place that had once been his home, but was now home to whores, and swung the door shut behind him, the clean light of outside a thinning bar that disappeared like lost hope as the door thudded home.

  His glare raked the room. Dimly lit, for the windows were covered with thick purple drapes the color of heart's blood, the furnishings still gleamed like cheap stage jewelry under the flicker of the chandelier's light. Like outside, he had the distinct feeling of recognition. It was similar: the same wooden floor, though covered now with ghastly rugs that displayed the most vulgar of scenes, amateurishly woven and dyed, or perhaps just filthy beyond all hope; the same counter at the far end of the room, though pitted and spotted with substances he did not want to guess at; the same staircase across from him that had led up to his family's cozy apartment. He was fairly certain that the chandelier was the one that his mother had so carefully designed and his father had commissioned, complaining vociferously yet entirely unconvincingly the whole time about the ridiculous cost, from the tinsmith across the square. It was all faintly familiar, but different, corrupted by the new owners of the Horse and Chariot, like an infected wound.

  A pall of acrid smoke hung over the room, partially covering the sickly sweet stench of mingled sweat and sex and cheap perfumes, partially obscuring the gaudy red divans, the brass sconces, and the faces of the men and women who frolicked and giggled on the floors, the divans, the tables, engaged in activities ranging from feeding grapes by hand, bathed in the garish red glare of the standing lamps, to massages, to full intercourse in the darkened corners for those who could not afford the extra cost of a room, and they appeared hazy, indistinct, like the ghosts of some long past battle still locked in mortal struggle. It seemed appropriate to hide one's face behind smoke and shadow in a place like this. Sounds drifted from the upper, urgent moans of passion that, to his ear, as false as the lacy strands of jewelry adorning the walls.

  From behind the long, dully gleaming counter at the end of the room, a plump woman approached, bustling like a woman with a lot to do and not enough time to do it. She was garbed in an overstuffed dress, dyed the most eye-watering shades of red, green, and gold. Her hair, a wig most likely, was piled on her head in a thick bee hive of tight curls, and her face was painted so thickly that he wondered how she managed to smile without cracking it like an eggshell. Behind her, two burly men kept pace. One shorter than he but wide and powerful, a goon, a thug with a livid scar on his cheek. The other, slightly taller and more slender though still bulky, with a shaved head. Both wielded ugly cudgels. Goons, no doubt hired ironically to keep out less savory types. Like him.

  “Welcome to the Garden of Pleasure, young man. My name is Mistress Melinda,” the woman smiled ingratiatingly at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Why would I need an appointment?” he growled and the backs of the thugs stiffened. “I'm not seeking audience with the duke.”

  Her smile froze, but she did her best to maintain her airs. He presumed she aimed for lustiness. She fell wide of the mark by a long mile.

  “Well then, perhaps you would like to view our girls? I'm certain we can find one that would be to your liking.” She turned partly, kept
her eyes on his, extending a hand out as a merchant would to showcase a rack full of wares.

  Raven black hair, eyes that cycled through all the shades of blue depending on mood, on how the sun reflected, full red lips, lithe body, an acerbity of tongue to complement the beauty of cheek and breast and neck line. A mind as agile as the body...

  A black gush of grief welled up, choking him, but he quelled it with a blast of rage.

  “No,” he grated between clenched teeth. “I've come only to see where my past has gone. No more.”

  Her smile fell abruptly away, her eyes hardened. “Well if you're not here to spend some coin, then off with you.”

  The hand that displayed the wares of her shop flicked into a wave of dismissal and she turned away, already forgetting his presence.

  “I would see my home before I go,” he called after her.

  Scar-Face and Baldy stepped forward, brandishing their cudgels.

  “The lady told you to shove off,” Baldy said.

  Jurel smiled coldly. “I intend to. After I see what is left of my home.”

  “You're goin one way or another.”

  A cudgel swung, whistling through the air. Jurel reached up and caught it. Pain lanced up his arm, but somewhere below the torrent of rage, he was surprised: it did not seem as painful as it probably should have been. He kept his face expressionless as he twisted the weapon from Scar-Face's hand, and tossed it aside.

  Shocked, the thugs stared at him, before lunging forward with twin roars of rage that brought the carnal scene in the main room to a grinding halt.

  Jurel's time with Mikal was not wasted; his hand snapped out, caught a wrist, pulled, as his other hand swung under the thug's other arm and around his thick neck. Twisting his torso, he heaved, launching Scar-Face over his hip, releasing him to crash upside down into the door. He landed with an audible grunt, and he did not move. Jurel continued his spin and brought up an elbow. Baldy ran into it and his head snapped back as his nose shattered. He too fell with a crash and the carpets soaked up another spray of bodily fluids.

  He turned again to face into the room. Wide eyes gaped back at him, men and whores frozen to the spot, and the room became a disgusting painting of carnal hedonism that etched itself in his mind, that tainted his memory, that repulsed and revolted him so strongly that he almost fled. A dozen whores in various states of dress, from barely to not at all, serviced their clients in various, exotic, unimagineable ways; the acrid taint of drugs hanging heavily in the thick air; goblets and cups filled with all manner of liquor scattered on the tables. Bile rose in his throat, burning. He swallowed, blinked tears away, fought to suppress the shudders that wracked him.

  He closed his eyes, envisioned the same room as he remembered it. He saw tables filled with men and women laughing, drinking from tankards, jesting and playing games while a bard sang in a corner. He saw his father standing behind the bar, wiping dishes with his rag, his braying laughter so like Galbin's had been, overriding the rest of the din for a moment when Sergeant Daved delivered the punchline to his joke. His mother slapped a man's over-adventurous hand away as she set down his goblet, scolding him for his indiscretion, threatening to send Gram after him if he kept it up. The man's friends laughed at him and he hung his head, shamefaced like a chastised boy. Roasting pork scented the room, and baking bread, providing a sort of olfactory harmony, overlaying the more sour stench of stale alcohol and clean sweat earned from hard work. That was the home he remembered.

  But when he opened his eyes, the scene of red greed remained.

  A small hope burgeoned in him, a futile one but the only thing he had left: perhaps the apartment was still there. Perhaps some part of his earliest life remained. It did not occur to him that nearly fourteen years of depravity and a terrible siege lay between him and that past, or if it did occur, he quelled it before he realized it.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Mistress Melinda hurrying back toward him, her lips pinched, her eyes wide with outrage, gripping her skirts in her hands so she would not trip on them.

  “Now look here, you young ruffian. This is an honest place of business. What right have you to disturb my house so? What right have you to assault my men?”

  “This was my house long before it was yours. I wished merely to see if anything of the good was left under this rot.”

  He strode to the staircase, knocking a sailor sideways. The man yelped but did nothing to impede Jurel. Greedy and inflamed with empty, aimless lust, the patrons were here not to engage in battle but rather the more futile struggle of filling the desolate voids within themselves—or, for at least a short while, forgetting.

  Taking the steps three at a time, Jurel bounded up and into the dark hall at the top. He did not pause; he knew the way, passing garishly painted doors, doors that had at one time hidden simple but clean beds for travelers to rest or for drunkards to 'sleep it off' before going out the next day, but now hid things far more private, far more primal, each with a sign that spelled out the name of that particular room's merchandise: Carla, Cendilla, Rachelle. He ignored the rest. False moans of passion and placebos of undying love emanated from behind a few of those doors—apparently not everyone had heard the commotion downstairs—and Jurel sneered, his eyes slitted to two slashes of glittering shadow.

  He did not check his pace until he reached the far end of the hallway, where one door stood in front of him, still blessedly the proper color of deeply varnished oak that he remembered. He paused in the act of pulling the door latch, gripped by apprehension; he had gone too far and seen too much. Should he? Dare he?

  He took a deep breath. He pushed on the door.

  It did not budge.

  He noticed then that there was something different about the door after all. Someone had added a lock. He almost laughed, thinking that asking Mistress Melinda to provide the key would likely cause histrionics. He had come so far, and he was stopped by a simple, cheap lock.

  To blazes with it.

  There were plenty of violations going on in his erstwhile home at that very moment. One more would not matter in the slightest. He lashed out with his foot, and the door buckled with a sharp crack, bouncing inward on its abused hinges. He stepped through.

  What had he expected? To see his parents glance up from their table, smiling at him, telling him to join them? To see the wooden top that Daved had gifted him with laying on the floor, waiting to be found by either his hand or his mother's foot? Perhaps he thought he would see the counter that ran the length of the kitchen covered with the tins and pots of his mother's efforts, and smell the fresh odors of baked honey bread and roasted meat.

  There was no hint of his past, of course. None of it was left. A simple table still adorned the center of the main room, but it was cracked and rough and covered with polka dots of char. In the center sat a skama pipe, some residue of the narcotic congealed half in and half out of the bowl and looking like a piece of amber amidst bits of tama leaf. A small desk rested in the corner, barely more than a plank of wood on a rough frame and covered in ratty scraps of parchment and a dried inkwell. Everywhere, there was lace or cheap silk or some other sheer material whose name he did not know, pink, green, blue, colors that gouged at his eyes, draped from the windows, hung on the walls, sweeping down from the nearly empty book case. He almost gagged on the stench: bitter skama and tama; sickeningly sweet perfume as though the entire room had been doused in it; sweat, and something deeper, a scent that Jurel thought would blend right in one level down. Something that repulsed him when he thought of who had emitted them, either with some paying regular or alone, while high on the vapors of one narcotic or another. Through the door at the far end of the room, the one that had led to his parents' bedroom, he saw a cot, its stained sheets rumpled and piled in the middle.

  Jurel closed his eyes, bit back the helpless sob that threatened, bit back the bitter grief and rage that loomed. His home. A brothel. His past, a tainted memory. He squeezed his eyes tighter and pulled together the
frayed threads of his concentration.

  * * *

  When Scar-Face, followed by half a dozen of the city guard, bounded up the stairs, they saw the open door and ran to it, weapons drawn. When they entered Mistress Melinda's cramped living space, they found no one.

  It would become a much talked about mystery in the city of Killhern. Men would whisper about it while in their cups at taverns, women would gossip of it (with a certain amount of satisfaction; no one liked the thought of their husbands being in that...place) over vats of dirty water as they scrubbed shirts and trousers with lye, children would frighten their younger siblings with the tale.

  Soon, rumors—most likely started by the competition, by the proprietors of the other whorehouses and cathouses in the area (one might note that a person who sells the bodies of others is not exactly a paradigm of respectability and will think nothing of resorting to any measure to line their pockets a little more deeply)—that the bawdy house called the Garden of Pleasure was haunted began to worm their way into conversations. Mistress Melinda railed at the loss of business, her whores left for better pay working at rival houses—except for the uglier ones, or the ones deemed too old, who ended up with the much more perilous job of working the streets and alleys away from the safety of torches and hired bodyguards—and ultimately, she had to shut down her business.

  Jurel knew none of this, but if he had, it would not have made much difference. His childhood home, his earliest memories, would forever be sullied by what he had seen there that day.

  If only he had waited a while longer, just a little while, before revisiting his home. It migh have made all the difference. Because the Garden of Pleasure, and most everything around it, would soon be burned to the ground.

  Chapter 27

  A hot wind gusted. The sky was dark. Not night, and certainly not daytime, but somewhere in between, as though everything hung in a balance and all that was needed to tip things one way or the other was the merest breath. In the far distance, jagged mountains rose like purple crocodile teeth, biting into the horizon.