by K. T. Davies
He had a point. “I, well…”
“Is it because I have a beard and long hair or because I prefer axes to swords? Perhaps it’s what I’m wearing. Do you think I look like a Nuntka hunter from the Fang Frost wastes?”
“Well, you are wearing a lot of fur, so…”
“Because it’s cold here,” he retorted. “I hate the cold. I was born on a beach, under the heat of the midday suns.” He hunched his shoulders and plodded over the bridge like a constipated mammoth.
A little voice told me that I should leave him to it, but as is quite often the case, my little voice was silenced by the brash shout of coin.
“Are you ready for this?” The barbarian unslung his ax.
As there weren’t any signs of life or activity of any kind I wasn’t sure what ‘this’ he was referring to. “Aye, my friend. I’m ready,” I said without a quip or sharp comment for the ax he was carrying was as long as I was tall.
I followed him through the gatehouse into the bastion, but we could progress no further as the walls of the inner bailey had collapsed into rubble. Moss and scrubby plants were growing on the stones indicating the fall had happened years ago. I thought I caught the scent of another human, but the wind shifted and snatched it away. The only tracks I could see were those of beasts hunting in the ruins.
“You sure this is where your friend’s being held?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m sure.” He didn’t sound sure.
“Well, my friend, unless you’re a sorcerer we’re not getting in that way. We should probably head back before the fog really closes in.”
He paused a moment then spotted what I had seen but had chosen to ignore. “Over there.” He stalked over to a flight of stairs. The steps led to a door beneath a partially collapsed arch. “It’s locked.” His voice echoed. Reluctantly, I headed down after him. A shaft of wan light silvered the rain blackened stone and illuminated a heavy door. Ulthvarr put his shoulder to it. It didn’t budge. “D’you have any skill with locks?”
I couldn’t help but give a little smile. “I’m no expert, but I could take a look.” I crouched by the door and slipped the tools of my trade from the hidden pocket on my belt. After a quick poke around I ascertained that the lock was a three-tumbler affair, very basic. It took seconds to unlock the teeth and retract the bolt. “It was just rusty,” I said as I slipped my picks back into my belt. He grunted but let the explanation pass and gave the door a shove. It creaked open. A cold blast of air whipped out of the darkness bringing with it the taste of death and decay. Uli got out his flint and sparked life into a torch that was ensconced on the other side of the door at the top of a further flight of stairs.
The oily smell of smoke ameliorated the musty, dead air odor that oozed from the crypt. With his ax in one hand and the torch in the other, the barbarian headed down. I drew my blades and followed. If there was a beautiful death waiting down here, I’d generously let him find it first. I was convinced his friend was dead and that whoever had slain her was most likely waiting for their next victim. Or if we were lucky, we’d just slotted the gang who’d taken her, and all we’d find was a body instead of a fight. The steps led to an atrium and another door. Piles of bones and rags littered the floor, and the plinths of smashed statues gathered dust in cobwebbed niches.
The door that confronted us here far below the keep’s bastion could only be described as macabre. It was carved in the Imperial style from thorn wood, the black grain a favorite for use in tombs and magisterial palaces when the dagger-like thorns were planed down. The thorns on this door hadn’t been planed. Impaled upon the spikes were dozens of giant cockroaches. The insects’ bodies were as big as my palm, in of itself not unusual, especially out here in the wilds. That they hissed in alarm, and that their antenna flicked wildly when they really ought to have been dead was somewhat out of the ordinary.
“Sweet Salvation. Why aren’t they dead?” said Uli and he began hacking them off the door with his ax. When every gleaming carapace had been smashed to glistening shards, he tried the handle. Of course, it was locked. He sliced away more of the thorns and kicked it. Despite his considerable strength, it didn’t open. Beaten, he turned to me. “You want to see if you can do anything about the rust on this one?” he asked.
“If you’ve finished playing with your little friends, I’ll give it a go.” I crouched and slipped my picks out. Not that subtlety remained uppermost in my mind for when I glanced over my shoulder I saw a skeletal hound rise from a pile of bones a few feet behind Uli, a pale blue light shining in its empty eye sockets. “There’s a dead dog behind you,” I said in the calm tone of voice I used when I was confronted by a living guard dog. Which, in hindsight might have been a mistake.
The barbarian canted his head to the side. “And?” The dog leaped. Its rattling bones gave Ulthvarr enough of a warning for him to spin and put up his weapon. Instead of latching onto his neck the dog’s fangs snapped closed on the ax shaft.
“It’s still moving,” I said as he smashed it against the wall. “Well, it was.”
“Fuck,” the giant exclaimed while holding the remains of the skeletal hound at arm’s length. “A warning would have been nice.” He threw the bones on the floor and stamped the skull to powder. The light died, and a chill wind howled up the stairs and out of the crypt.
“I did warn you,” I said. He ignored me and continued to dance on the dog’s bones. I left him to it and set about springing the lock. I put my wrench in the hole opposite where the teeth of the key would go and felt around for the way the lock turned. When I found it, I kept the pressure on with the wrench, inserted the pick, and found the pins. I counted four. With the big lump keeping a lookout, I lifted each one until I could turn the wrench the whole way whereupon I was rewarded with a satisfying click.
I tucked my tools away and stood up. “You, er, you’ve got bits of bone in your beard.” I pointed to the offending chips of bone caught in his sandy whiskers. Glaring, he shook them out.
“Nevermind bone in my beard, I almost had fucking fangs in my neck. You could have given a more specific or indeed, more urgent warning.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to alarm it.”
“It was dead and well beyond being alarmed, I’ll wager.”
I stepped aside. “All right, calm thy self, sirrah. I swear on my mother’s life, the next time I see that you’re about to be attacked by a skeletal hound, I’ll shout.”
4
It’s a crypt.” The echo of the barbarian’s words skittered around the walls of the chamber. Like the spokes of a wheel, short corridors linked this central room to half a dozen others. From what I could see, these other vaults were stacked with coffins that were shelved into the walls.
“A crypt, you say? I wonder what gave it away?”
“You’re pretty funny for a lizard.”
“I’m pretty funny for an anything.”
“You want to watch that. A fast mouth could get you into trouble.”
“Luckily for me, my hands are faster than my mouth. Which way do you want to go?”
He snorted. “Back the way we came if I’m honest. Why don’t you sniff out a way in?”
“Unlock the doors, sniff a way out. What is it you do again?”
He patted his chest. “Provide the gold. I also hit things.”
“You had me at ‘provide the gold.’”
I put my back to a cracked fountain that stood in the centre of the chamber beneath a vine strangled light well. Short corridors led to vaulted crypts that were full of moldering coffins but as well as the high stink of old rot and mold spores, I was sure I caught the musky warmth of living human carried on the breeze. It was too faint to tell me anything more than there was, or had been, at least one living human somewhere north of where we were. “This way,” I said and headed in that direction.
The barbarian stomped along, noisily crushing herbs and husks of sweet flowers that had been strewn on the floor. The first crypt we passed through was dedi
cated to the house of Adrosius which, if the ancient caskets were anything to judge by, died out centuries ago. The passageway continued beyond this chamber and led to another where a wan flame flickered in the darkness. Ulthvarr rolled his neck and loosened his shoulders as we crept— as I crept towards the light, and he did his best to sound like an army. The lit room only had a single occupant. Lying on a raised stone dais set in the middle of the chamber was a fellow garbed in fine if faded velvet and watermarked satin. Jewels winked on his fingers and heavy gold chains sparkled around his neck. His arms were crossed over his heart and his eyes were closed. He looked for all the world that he was enjoying a deep and restful sleep, which was somewhat of a concern because, given the smell emanating from him, I was confident that he was long dead. We tiptoed back down the passage.
“Is he dead?” Ulthvarr whispered in a manner which suggested he already knew the answer but didn’t like it.
“Oh, yes.”
“Are you sure? He has color in his cheeks.”
His cheeks were indeed as flushed as though he’d quaffed one too many glasses of wine and was now sleeping it off. I tasted tallow from the small lamps that were burning at each corner of the dais, but the smell of death pervaded the air. The slender thread of living human scent came and went, but it wasn’t coming from this fellow. The name carved on the tomb was that of one Rugorius Adrosius. There were other smells I didn’t recognize, some that I knew I’d smelled before but couldn’t place. There were resinous, oily smells that reminded me of temple incense.
“I’m telling you, he’s as dead as they come.”
“As dead as those roaches, or that dog?”
“Deader.”
“I think it’s an infernal. A blood drinker.” Ulthvarr declared as though I hadn’t considered and discounted the possibility.
I shook my head. “He doesn’t smell of blood. He hasn’t got protruding fangs; he looks—” With a roar, Ulthvarr charged past me. I sighed. “Too healthy to be a blood-drinker.”
He swung his axe over his shoulder and brought it down on the corpse in a two-handed blow, splitting it in twain like a piece of cordwood. The wax death mask shattered like the thick shell of an urux egg. The more substantial pieces clattered hollowly off the now cracked dais and onto the floor. The expertly embalmed body fell apart, revealing the intricate work of the mortician before my superstitious companion hacked it into rawhide confetti. Throughout the assault, the corpse behaved precisely as one would expect a corpse to behave and did nothing.
Eventually, Ulthvarr deemed the deceased to have been rendered harmless and stopped hacking. Panting, he stood surrounded by bits of Rugorius Adrosius and the flickering light from two of the four oil lamps. Beyond the mess, a stiff breeze ruffled the shredded black silk that hung across another corridor like a morbid banner raised on behalf of the ill-used deceased.
“Have you… are you content that he’s dead now?” I tried to bleach my tone of all sarcasm lest the lack-wit turn his ire upon me. He nodded, mouth open, breathing as heavily as one would expect of a fellow who had been sifting wheat rather than wielding steel for the last decade.
“I had to be sure. Back in the day we Ferric’s were thorough. It kept us alive.”
I didn’t remind him that we were here because one of the fucking Ferrics was up to her tits in shit. Although a mite blunt after smashing the corpse and its tomb, that ax was still sharp enough to split my skull.
“Shall we continue?” I asked. While he tore down the silk shrouding the archway, I pocketed a chunk of the gold and gem-encrusted chain that the corpse had been wearing.
The corridor beyond the chamber of post-mortem slaughter was adorned with mildewed paintings that were draped in tattered silk. The portraits were water damaged, swollen and blistered almost beyond recognition save for the occasional glimpse of an eye, a sly smile or a weak chin that hadn’t been entirely obliterated by mildew. I’d robbed dozens of crypts and there was nothing out of the ordinary about this decrepitude. In fact, now that I had a chunk of sparkle tucked into my jerkin the hissing roaches and the skeletal hound didn’t seem all that alarming. The worried look on Ulthvarr’s face told me that he didn’t share my fiscally derived nonchalance. He stomped off purposefully, no doubt listening to the clarion call of war drums banging around in his cavernous, under-stuffed braincase.
I followed him up a narrow stairwell to a typical, noble family chapel. The sanctuary was derelict and crammed with time-worn effigies. At odds with the seeming abandonment, lit torches and candles burned on the altar. It seemed unlikely that bandits would hold vigil, but if not them, who was? There were no signs of habitation, but there was a single set of tracks, and the thread of human scent swam faintly through the air. Aside of the mundane stink of sweat, there was another smell lingering in the chapel, one that I knew well. It was a mix of storm born petrichor and sulfur, it was the smell of sorcery.
“You sure you want to go on?” My question seemed to trouble Ulthvarr as though he hadn’t made up his mind, and my inquiry only served to deepen his indecision. Aware that I was waiting for an answer he resolved himself. He nodded, shrugged off his pack, and stuffed it angrily under a pew. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the door, and then he rolled his shoulders and slapped his chest.
“I’m ready.” His voice was thick with blood. I could almost hear it singing through his veins.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” he snapped.
“Because it’s doubtful that your friend is alive.”
“Then I shall avenge her. We Ferrics—”
“Are fucking idiots,” I muttered.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
I followed him into what had once been a great hall. Across from the chapel, the door leading to the outer bailey was buried beneath a section of the floor that had been torn up like a giant wave of granite and smashed into the arched doorway. What was instantly apparent was that a terrible, sorcerous battle had taken place here, as evidenced by the skeletal remains welded to walls and the blackened bone and clinker that littered the floor. Within the ashen residue were pebbles of melted metal— steel, iron, copper, even gold. Given the distribution of material, it looked like a good number of clanks had met a grisly end in here. “Someone fried ‘em.”
“What gave it away?” Ulthvarr smiled sarcastically. He seemed more relaxed now that he’d committed to a course or perhaps it was the familiarity of mass bloodshed that put him at ease. At the far end of the hall, a wide, sweeping staircase led to a galleried landing. Ulthvarr saw the track of my gaze. “Up there?”
I wanted to lie and say that I couldn’t smell anything and that we should probably leave, but all he had to do was look up to see the fresh, muddy footprints on the stairs. “Aye, up there.”
He nodded, and we headed up. It was at times like this that I wished I was an adherent to some faith or other, or more accurately that I had one of the imbued charms against the infernal that were popular amongst that ilk. But I didn’t. I had two blades, a quick wit, and above average speed and that would have to do. With any luck, the cove who melted a dozen people and tore up a sizable chunk of the floor was long dead, or far from here and not sitting on a bone throne at the end of the corridor. “Drinking blood out of a skull cup.”
Ulthvarr spun, the ax ready and alive in his hands. “Who, where?”
“What? No. Nothing. I was just thinking aloud. Let’s get going, shall we?”
“Which way?” The gallery split either side of the staircase.
The muddy footprints confirmed what I could smell. “Right,” I said. A door was ajar at the end of the corridor, and a thin spindle of honey light spilled into the hall and pointed to a puddled cloak. I picked it up. “Still damp,” I whispered. The barbarian nodded and wiped his hands on his trousers before adjusting his grip on his ax. I didn’t want the big lump stirring up a bigger viper’s nest than we could handle so I raised my hand
. “Let me take a look,” I said before he had a chance to charge.
I sheathed my blades and padded softly to the door, testing each floorboard before committing my weight to it. Despite having claws, I walk softly. The smell of blood, sulfur, and human musk flooded from the room. I crouched and stole a peek around the jamb. Rather than the fires of hell and a bone throne, the room was lit with candles, and soft drapes hung around a canopied bed. A heap of clothes lay discarded on the floor, and a dead, naked woman lay sprawled on the bed, her face obscured by a fall of auburn hair. It looked like we’d found Murai.
I lingered a moment just to make sure my senses weren’t playing me false, but she was as dead as the fellow downstairs. I was about to retreat and give Ulthvarr the bad news when I heard him come up behind me.
“Murai?” His voice broke on the word. Before I could stop him, he barged past me. “Murai!”
The next moment several things happened at once. Sensing something was wrong, I rolled into the room, sprang up, and drew my swords in time to see the barbarian stumble to a halt halfway to the bed, the echo of his plaintive cry ringing throughout the dismal keep. The dead woman sprang up, twisted in mid-air, and dug her not insubstantial claws into the canopied ceiling revealing the shriveled, bloodless corpse on which she’d been lying. All three of us exclaimed at once.
“Holy Eye, Uli. You could have knocked,” the infernal cull said before she dropped off the ceiling. She landed as graceful as an acrobat on the opposite side of the bed and snatched a robe from under the corpse. “You scared me half to… well, let’s just say you scared me.”
“Mur?” Ulthvarr said again, seemingly unable to comprehend what to me was blindingly obvious. “I thought you were in trouble.” He wasn’t stupefied enough to stay where he was and began to edge back towards the door as she moved around the bed.
“I was, briefly. But then I wasn’t.” She gave a toothsome grin.
“What happened?” he asked, still stubbornly refusing to admit the grim truth.