Circle In The Deep (The Outcast Royal Book 1)

by Aaron D. Schneider

  This combined with the way he'd been attired in an elaborate and gaudy assemblage of Wain Dwarf garb and jewelry ensured that even a man like Argbed Alborz, who was no one's fool, would be utterly convinced that Durra was an irate clan chief.

  Standing atop Numi’s chariot—which now practically blocked the gate of the Gold Quarter barracks—was the final masterful stroke.

  “If this were only a matter of the heart or even of justice, you know I wouldn’t be here,” Vahrem said, the hastily but precisely forged contract still hanging from one hand. “But this is first and foremost a matter of business. If the chief doesn’t get his concubine in short order, the contract is invalidated and that means I don’t get my healthy compensation for arranging transport. And if I don’t get my compensation…”

  Alborz, a man of middling height who looked as tender as old boot leather wrapped around a bar of iron nodded as he took the contract from the merchant.

  “Then the prince doesn’t get his share for all such commerce,” the Argbed muttered as he studied the contract with red-rimmed eyes. “I believe the tax for the transport of such persons indentured but not enslaved is a hefty thirty percent?”

  The caravan master snorted.

  “We both know it is thirty percent for Jehadim and an additional five percent in tribute tax,” the caravan master said chidingly. “And we also know I plan to pay every last shekel.”

  Alobrz held a hand up in a placatory gesture as his gaze darted across the document.

  “My apologies, Vahrem,” the Argbed grunted as he squinted to read the contracts. “But it’s been almost two years since we shared the Table together and I know you were here last season purchasing some fine horses.”

  Vahrem opened his mouth but promptly snapped it shut when Alborz waved away any proffered explanations.

  “I don’t need you to make excuses but I did fear your feet had strayed from the Watchful Way,” he continued, his voice firm but without malice. “And now you simply arrive at my door and ask me to get involved in something that happened in the Tin Quarter.”

  “I’m sorry about not sharing the Table last year but in point of fact, the abduction happened outside the stockyard along the Fijal side of the Prichan corridor,” he corrected and folded his arms. “Which practically makes it the Silver Quarter.”

  Alborz looked up from perusing the contract to give him a wry glance.

  “Even if that were true,” he began as he cleared his throat. “If you haven’t noticed, this is the Gold Quarter and I am Argbed of the Citadel, not Gondbed of any quarter—Silver, Gold, Copper, or Tin.”

  The merchant put on a show of casting a nervous look over his shoulder at Durra, who responded with flared nostrils and an acidic glare. He would have to mention to his Mehk that if the boy had no head for business, he could always take up with a performing troupe.

  “Look,” he said with a weariness that was hardly an act. “Right now, I can’t even get a Salar from the Tin Quarter to respond to this. Every second I stand here begging you is one more chance that the clan chief rides out of Jehadim without giving me even a whiff of copper.”

  “You’re begging now, are you?” the other man asked and rubbed his chin as he handed him the contract.

  Vahrem met his old friend and fellow convert’s eye and with a heavy sigh, sank onto one knee.

  “In the name of the Shepherd,” he intoned solemnly, his head bowed so his beard rested against his chest. “I’m asking you to bear this burden with me. This woman is very important.”

  Alborz weighed the sight before him for a moment before he made his decision with a nod.

  “All right.” He sighed and proffered his hand to the kneeling merchant. “Get up here and tell me what this is all about.”

  “What?” The caravan master grunted as he rose to his feet. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t honestly think I’d forget who little Durra was did you?” the Argbed remarked dryly before he called past the merchant to the dwarf in the chariot. “Your beard’s almost come in, Durra. Well done, lad.”

  The young dwarf froze halfway through his pantomime of an officious pout and his gaze darted from the guard officer to Vahrem. Alborz chuckled and turned to the merchant, who seemed stricken with a sudden bout of muteness.

  “Now this kind of thing seems to align with some of my investigations,” the Argbed said and folded his arms over the front of his breastplate. “But there is one thing we need to start with.”

  He tapped a finger on the contract in Vahrem’s hand and almost dislodged it from his numb fingers.

  “What kind of heathen name is Ax-Wed?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tumbling end over end was grueling, and sinking into a lightless world was disconcerting, but doing both at the same time was something the likes of which she’d never experienced.

  The fact that she was pursued by Masheed’s mad screams was merely an added flavor to the horror. The snatcher clung to her with the tenacity of a hook-clawed parasite and her screeches were barely interrupted by each rolling impact. More than once in the seemingly eternal tumble into the dark, the Thulian tried to close her fingers around the woman, but every impact shattered her coordination and her fingers only managed to rake across her skull and shoulders.

  In this sense-destroying plunge, she had enough time to grow introspective and remember the dark stories of her youth of the horrors that lurked beneath the oldest fortresses and temples of the world. Would they be dropped into the heart of a volcanic furnace? Or worse, would they plummet into the waiting maw of a titanic beast? Worse still, they might plunge into a lightless lake filled with blind, needle-mouthed horrors.

  Or perhaps worst of all, she’d already fallen into one of the hells where she’d be damned to fall with Masheed for all eternity.

  She might have shuddered at that last thought but it would have been hard to tell with all the bouncing.

  Regardless, she need not fear as her jolting came to an end with a heavy impact against a wall, followed by a short but truly terrifying plunge and a hard landing on a most unforgiving floor. With this final shock came the sickening sound of bone snapping like wet kindling and the clatter of her helm when it finally came free to roll across the floor.

  Ax-Wed lay motionless, her eyes pinched helplessly against the spinning that was now entirely internal, and waited for the agony of a broken bone to seize her. After a second and as her fluids finally began to settle within her, she realized that not only were her bones unbroken but distinct points of light burned on the outer side of her eyelids.

  She had little time to appreciate the revelation as she discovered that Masheed was beneath her—the possessor of the broken limbs. The warrior woman’s eyes had barely opened when she winced against another aural assault, this one almost beyond human limits. When her fist pounded into the snatcher’s face, she suspected she was doing the woman a favor. No one should be awake to make that kind of noise.

  With effort, she dragged herself to her feet and her suspicions were confirmed when she studied the gleaming spear of pink bone that stabbed through the woman’s breeches above the knee. The bleeding seemed to be minimal for the moment, so the mercenary wasn’t in danger of bleeding out immediately, although that might have been a mercy. The odds of the wound not getting infected in some dungeon were unlikely, and any hope of escaping with such a crippling wound was so improbable it was laughable.

  Or at least it would have been if one weren’t in such agony.

  Ax-Wed began to inspect the worked stone chamber beneath the light of guttering torches when she noticed that her hand was painfully empty. With a snarl, her gaze swept frantically around her and she found her ax in the same instant that she realized she and Masheed weren’t the only occupants in this room. Two men and one woman huddled under the light of a torch that the woman must have taken off the wall. One of the men grasped her ax in trembling hands and the edge of Thulian sylver danced keen and crimson in the torch’s g
uttering light.

  Another figure was sprawled a few feet from her and the sharp angle of her neck told the tale of an unlucky fall from the chute above.

  “Give me that!” Ax-Wed snarled at the recoiling three as she began to straighten to her imposing height, then hissed as she clasped a hand to her side. Her dagger had been driven in almost to the hilt. Masheed had barely possessed the strength to drive the blade half an inch into her flesh but gravity and her armored bulk had finished the job as she’d fallen through the dark.

  “It looks like you're in no position to give orders,” retorted the man behind the one holding her weapon. He appeared to be middle-aged with a jowly face but his shoulders and chest seemed solid if not particularly broad. In her opinion, he might be better suited to wield the weapon than the spare-framed young man—scarcely more than a boy—who grasped it unsteadily. As she glared at them, she saw the terror threaten to turn his growling to a pitiful whine.

  “We’ll resolve this in one moment,” she said through gritted teeth.

  She spat and swore as she retrieved a silken rag from her belt while her blood-slicked fingers curled around the dagger.

  “Why are we fighting?” the woman asked and her plaintive tone quivered like the light of the torch in her hand. “We’re all trapped down here. Shouldn’t we help each other?”

  “You’d think so.” Ax-Wed grunted as she tried to brace herself for what came next. It was probably a foolish risk but with this much steel in her, she wouldn’t be able to do anything. It might seal her fate but this at least gave her a chance to die with her ax where it belonged—in her hand.

  “You saw what she did,” the dog-faced man said and pointed to Masheed’s recumbent form. “Do you want her to do the same to us?”

  “Look at her hair,” the young man cried and gestured to the warrior woman with his stubble-bristled chin. “She’s Thulian. It’s probably the reason we’re down here in the first place.”

  The warrior woman laughed, a sharp, bitter tune that resounded off the stone walls and made the fearful trio shrink back.

  “Oh, of course, that makes perfect sense.” She snarled and yanked the dagger from her side with a tight-throated scream. Blood welled but she rammed the silken rag home and her tongue worked through the old charms she’d been taught since childhood. While the lowest order of sorcery, it still tore off her tongue and sliced through her lips so she had to spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor simply to finish it.

  Ax-Wed doubled over as the silk kindled with an unholy heat and her wound was seared shut. She forced air through clenched teeth and waited, her knuckles grinding into the steel poleyns armoring her knees. One hand still held her dagger, which dripped her blood onto the floor.

  “Did you hear that?” the older man muttered at the young man’s back. “Witchery and devil-calling if I ever heard it. Strike now, lad!”

  The whiskery youth took one step forward and the ax began to rise in his hands when her eyes flashed at him through a veil of her indigo-streaked hair.

  “If you swing, make it count, boy.” She grunted as she straightened and brandished her dagger before her. “You’ll only have one chance before I find a new home for this.”

  To the boy’s credit—and when she saw him clearly, she knew he was exactly that—he charged toward her with as fierce a cry as he could manage. It was a clumsy, ungainly attack, but he threw himself into the swing.

  Ax-Wed let the blow whistle past her before she stepped in and seized his trailing arm above the elbow to check any backswing. Then it was her turn to strike and she drove in hard with the dagger. At the last second, she changed her mind and altered her hold so the flat of the blade slapped hard across his face with a resounding smack.

  The young man reeled, a bloody welt across his face, and she used his distraction to move her hand to the haft of the ax. She swept the red, flashing blade toward the youth’s face and his hands released the weapon quickly in a desperate attempt to guard his face. With icy control, she pulled the strike short of his sheltering hands and spared him a nasty gash, but she did kick out and plant her heavy boot into his belly.

  He toppled and gasped like a fish, while the other two cried out as they shrank back, all their hopes dashed.

  Ax-Wed examined her weapon and, satisfied that no great harm had been done, planted the butt on the floor in front of her. She sheathed the dagger at her belt and turned a furious scowl upon the three.

  “If that’s all done with,” she declared with a note of warning in her voice. “Could someone please tell me what is going on?”

  All three, even the boy on the floor who clutched his bloody cheek, looked at each other and then at her with dumb expressions. She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat in reply to their mute answer and moved to retrieve her helm.

  When she scooped it up, she noticed it had a few fresh dents, one of which was severe enough that she wasn’t sure she could wear it. With some tools and time, she could make it serviceable again but that was assuming she lived to see either.

  “Perfect,” she muttered and tied it to her belt before she turned to the terrified three. “So do any of you have an idea why we are here?”

  Three sets of wide eyes stared at her without answer.

  The silence stretched and she was about to repeat the question when a chilling yowl issued from behind her.

  She spun with her ax in hand and her gaze settled on a black portal set into the far wall. Uncomfortably familiar sigils were visible on the lintel and posts of the doorway, some of which were smeared with glittering, scarlet handprints.

  “What by all the gods is it now?”

  “Did you summon a demon?” the young man cried as he clambered to his feet. His hand left his welted cheek to point an accusing finger at her. “Is this your sorcery?”

  Ax-Wed gave him a withering look over one shoulder.

  Just when I was beginning to like you.

  “If it was, would I be preparing to kill whatever comes through that doorway?” she snapped and gestured to the portal with the head of her ax. “Can you please stop worrying about my hair and spend a little more time preparing to fight for our lives?”

  Another howl, closer this time, resounded from the black corridor and echoed in the chamber.

  The sound galvanized the young man, who looked around quickly, rushed to a wall sconce, and yanked a torch from it.

  “Come on,” he shouted at the cowering man. “Grab one!”

  The older man shrank back, his gaze fixed on the impenetrable darkness of the yawning doorway. His lips stretched over his teeth and his fleshy throat bobbed but no sound came out. In the flickering light, it was evident that his eyes weren’t even focused on the portal. He was too busy filling his mind with whatever imagined horrors he could conjure to be of use to anyone, especially himself.

  She turned away from him with a dismissive snort and nodded to the young man who stood with the burning brand clutched in both hands.

  “Never mind him, boy.” She grunted, rolled her shoulders slowly, and willed a strength she didn’t feel into the weary muscles. The dagger wound, thankfully, showed no signs of bleeding, but it wouldn’t take much to start again. “Some are only fit for dying when it comes time to fight for something.”

  The Thulian warrior spared a look over her shoulder at the torch-bearing woman and then at the younger man before she nodded at the blood-framed doorway.

  “Whatever’s coming through that, we have a better chance if we stick together and put some stone at our backs,” she said in a firm, commanding tone. “We need to give each other enough room to swing but not so much that we can let someone or something get between us.”

  When they both nodded but neither moved, she had to stifle a growl of irritation.

  “Here and here,” she instructed with a sharp command and indicated positions on either side of her. “If we let ourselves get surrounded, we are as good as dead.”

  The woman took a step forward a
nd Ax-Wed got a better view of the lines creasing her face despite the caked makeup. The cracks in the face paint deepened to crevices as her expression twisted with suspicion and she stopped in her tracks.

  “How do you know it's not only one monster?”

  She shrugged and her hands tightened around the haft of her ax.

  “I don’t,” she answered. “But if I’m right, you’ll get cut off and torn apart if you stand there.”

  Neither moved to take the positions she’d indicated until a chorus of baying cries filled the chamber. Then, with wide eyes and sweaty hands grasped tightly around the rusted shafts of their torches, they took their places on either side of her. This close, both felt a measure of comfort in the warrior’s huge shadow.

  Ax-Wed stole a glance at the jowly man who now hunkered down against the bare wall as though he could escape by making himself as small as possible.

  Who knows, she thought grimly. He might last a few minutes longer than we will.

  She hadn’t been able to isolate individual voices in that horrible chorus but there was no doubt that they were badly outnumbered.

  “What about her?” the whiskery youth asked and pointed toward Masheed’s recumbent form.

  The fallen snatcher’s chest rose and fell steadily but otherwise, there was no movement.

  Before she could answer, the sound of rushing, slapping feet began to thrum from the doorway and the volume mounted with each heartbeat.

  The mercenary’s broken and bound legs stretched beneath her, while blood leaked from a nose pulped by the warrior woman’s fist.

  “She had better hope she doesn’t wake up,” Ax-Wed stated grimly.

  “We should help her,” the young man shouted and broke from the formation. “We can protect her.”

  She took a single step forward and stretched one hand to drag him back like a straying pup.

  “Get back h—”

  A flurry of yowling cries, almost sing-song in their mad gibbering, announced the arrival of the creatures in the dark.