by Ben Stivers
Arthur trudged down to the stables with Wolf in tow to check with Sab.
“They left before dawn,” Sab remarked without ceasing to shovel filth from a dirty stall. As if Scralz and Anthony disappeared every day, and Arthur and Wolf were just some normal citizens of Hellsgate, the man’s attention did not waiver more than the words it took him to answer.
“Where did they go?” Arthur asked.
Sab shrugged. “Not my business.”
“Scralz owns this stable,” Wolf remarked as Arthur walked past Sab to where Blade stood in an open stall, unrestrained.
Sab replied, “I own it now. She gave it to me for services rendered—whatever ‘rendered’ means.”
“This morning?”
“I thought she meant forever,” Sab replied sternly, still mucking. With those words out, a couple of seconds passed and then he stopped and looked at Wolf with curiosity in his eyes, the first emotion that Wolf had seen. “You think she just meant this morning?”
Wolf shrugged, but then shook his head. “Probably not.”
Arthur came back toward Wolf. Blade followed, looking in a good mood for a fight—or a bite.
“She turned ownership of the stables over to Sab,” Wolf reported.
Arthur’s frown spoke his reply to Wolf, but to Sab he said, “Keep this place clean. We will be back when we find her.”
As they stepped out into the brighter sunlight once more, Arthur noticed the vendors’ withdrawing from the street, away from him, their momentary thoughts of trading suspended.
Arthur focused his attention on them. They returned the favor by staring at him with only a few furtive glances down the street beyond him.
Wolf laid a hand on Arthur’s right shoulder, “Born.”
Arthur reversed his gaze and turned his eyes to the street where a man stood in the hot sun, clothed in dark brown, a draped robe, a cloth kerchief over his face, and a sword strapped to his waist with two knives belted opposite the sword.
“Bornshire!” he challenged. A tear in the voice caused Arthur to flinch. Ragged, his name crawled out of that troubled throat as if the words had been yanked from the man rather than spat.
“You are popular these days,” Wolf remarked, but his humor lay wasted.
“Looks that way. Wait here,” Arthur said to Wolf and then he looked at Blade. “That goes for you too.”
Blade remained motionless, telling Arthur in his own way that he might do as commanded or he might not.
Arthur strode into the street and drew his sword when he was within half a dozen steps from the stranger. The brown-clad man removed his veil from his lower face. A large patch of bare muscle shined through from his left cheek, a thin veil where skin should have been, clear and shiny, treated with something that coagulated the blood in a darkened film. Individual strands of muscle twitched with the tick in the man’s eyes.
Arthur suspected the condition hurt like hell. Someone had tortured him, skinned away portions of his face. Arthur had seen enough atrocities in his life that he felt regret for the man.
Shanay and Adam had ridden hard for three days, and she had a mind to drink her fill of ale when she arrived at the Dead Whore Tavern. The place reeked sometimes, but she and Arthur had met there, had their first conversation there, fought, ate and drank there. To her, seeing Scralz would be nearly as refreshing as seeing Arthur.
They reined their horses a hundred yards from the first building on the edge of Hellsgate. Adam looked at her quizzically.
“You know how dangerous it is in Ploor,” she stated, as much a question as a statement. Adam nodded. “Well, this place is ten times worse. Stay close and do not wander once we find Arthur and Wolf. Keep to this side of the street for now.”
Adam nodded again and Shanay edged her horse forward and toward the edge of Pagan’s Way. Before she passed the first building, however, she drew up short. Arthur stood in the street with his sword drawn and a stranger facing him while something sinister slithered under his cloak.
“Wait here,” she said and dismounted.
Aerilius felt the sharp edge of every breath. Each time his heart beat, his flesh reminded him of Mrandor’s anger and what that meant to his own fate. Mrandor had unmercifully ordered him back to Hellsgate to do his bidding, to die, if not from Arthur’s sword, then from his wounds.
He gauged the man he regarded as his enemy. The last time they had met, things had not quite gone as planned. This time would be no different, not because of his plan going awry, but because he wished someone else’s so. The arduous journey from the Black Forest had proffered him an eternity of torment to consider where his loyalties rested. Each dilated heartbeat gave him pause to rethink the vengeance he thought had ever been his to deliver. If his wife knew what he had become, if his son could see him, what would they think?
“My name is Aerilius. You and I have met,” Aerilius said, using much of his own personal reserves to drag out the conversation. He saw a moment of recognition in Bornshire’s eyes. “I thought to kill you for murdering my wife—my son. I saw an opportunity—I thought.”
Arthur did not reply, but stood his ground, warily. His sword had not yet readied. Unassumingly, Aerilius removed his burlap robe. Each barb of the material raked his naked back as it slid to the thirsty dust of street. Bloodstains covered the inside and pieces of his tattered flesh clung to the fiber. The cloak twitched as it fell to the ground.
“There is a serpent sewn into the fabric. Avoid it,” he warned.
Despite the disgusting embodiment of misery that he had become, a fractured chuckle escaped from Aerilius’ lips. His eyes drifted to the strangers that had gathered on the street. Some of them he had seen on his last trip, but he knew none of them. His life had been a different life then—a lie.
He held his arms in the air and turned slowly around, putting the wreckage, that had been his body, on display for all to see. Such openness had not been a part of Mrandor’s plan and for Aerilius that knowledge felt like tonic. When he turned his sight back, Arthur’s expression had transformed from grim to apprehensive and appeared on the verge of compassion.
“I never had a wife and child,” Aerilius explained as his mind cleared. “He put that in my head. He made me loathe you. How I came to be his in the first place, I will never know.”
“Who?” Arthur asked, his voice low enough that only Aerilius could hear. “Who made you hate me?”
Aerilius considered telling, but the tattoo on his neck intensified its incessant burning and he knew that if he tried to utter the syllables, his own neck muscles would crush his larynx before allowing him to speak the name. That, too, he had considered during his ardent journey. He still carried vengeance as close to him as his sword, but, even though at arm’s length, he also carried remnants of a false life before Mrandor.
“I cannot say,” Aerilius replied.
“Cannot or will not?” Arthur countered and his tone turned iron. Aerilius understood the man’s point of view. He had tried talking before, but the runes on his neck had forced Aerilius to plunge before Arthur could much more than speak.
“Cannot,” Aerilius replied. He could not speak many things, but he sensed that the binding placed upon him could be thwarted if he approached the moment carefully. He turned his neck so that Arthur could see the tattoo, “These. They control us.”
“The spiral?” Arthur asked. Some said that Arthur himself was a powerful sorcerer and Aerilius had no reason to doubt it. Maybe he could undo the making.
“Numbers,” Aerilius replied, skirting a direct answer and holding away the intolerable burning from his neck.
Arthur considered what Aerilius had said, although Aerilius could tell there was not a true understanding of what he tried to impart. That did not make a great difference. If Arthur survived what was to come, he would figure it out. Aerilius had stood once in Arthur’s command tent in awe of his ability to distill seemingly unrelated facts into a whole. That memory was a true fragment and this Aerilius knew becau
se it lay on the firmament of his mind like a shard of glass with nothing left of the vessel from which it had shattered.
“Tell me who sent you,” Arthur said.
“They will not allow it,” he replied, but this time he meant Mrandor and Belial and not the numbers. That could confuse what he tried to relay, confound the meaning he hoped to pass. “Ask me and I will say the things that I can, but when this is done, you must relieve me of his horror.”
“Let me help you.”
Aerilius shook his head. “That is not good enough, cleric. Promise me that you will send me home to be judged.”
Arthur’s fingers opened and closed, an automatic response. “I will ameliorate you as best I can.”
Aerilius considered that, turning his gaze to the ground. He had never considered death, or being buried, what followed beyond his last breath, or what he might say were he to meet the One God. All these thoughts before realizing that Arthur had moved so close to him, their breaths touched. His eyes locked with Aerilius’, probing for truth and setting aside his personal guarded position.
“Ask me, Bornshire,” Aerilius whispered. “Let us play this game together and end me when we have reached the conclusion.”
“Did Nerva send you?” Arthur asked.
Aerilius steadily held Arthur’s gaze and contemplated his answer. “Nerva is a pawn of my Caesar. My master also has a master.”
“Your Caesar? Are you Roman?”
“My name tells you that.”
“Names can lie as well as the best thief,” Arthur replied, warily.
“True.” There was nothing that prevented Aerilius from speaking as the pressure in his neck declined, allowing his shredded back to remind him once again of his servitude. It reminded him of what lay ahead if he followed this path. “I was Roman. I remember little of what was before this,” and he laid his hand upon the brand. “This prevents me, but my mind has bypassed the false thoughts. I suppose torture has aftereffects.”
“Your master is a sorcerer?” Aerilius said nothing, but returned a committal look. “Is he a follower of Lucifer?”
“Lucifer is dead. There is another.”
“Another what?”
Pressure returned, constricted his throat, and bulged his eyes. Mrandor’s alarm echoed in his weakened mind, but it was Belial’s reach that smote him, crushed the vestiges of his past self.
His vision narrowed. From the neck down, his body abandoned him. The essence that had been Aerilius faded up his spine, the last remnants trapped in his head.
“Bornshire, you must kill them.”
Arthur’s eyes held Aerilius’ ferociously, locking out the rest of the world, seeing the soul of a man who had previously tried to kill him, vaporize before his eyes as he struggled to impart a secret. In Aerilius’ place, another presence loomed.
“Who are you?”
Unanticipated blood spewed from Aerilius’ ears. His head lolled to the side. His arms dropped and pain deserted his face. He collapsed forward onto his torso as his knees buckled. Still, the movement happened so fast, Arthur’s mind took a moment to register that he saw new eyes, familiar eyes, sinister.
“Shanay,” he said. “Why did you?”
She stood behind Aerilius with her sword in hand, her chest heaving from the sprint across the street where Adam sat upon Artex. “He was going to kill you. Are you out of your mind?”
“He was trying to tell me something, then—.”
Shanay kicked Aerilius’ dead right hand and an ugly dagger fell from its grasp onto the ground. “He was not there at the last, Arthur. Some ‘thing’ watched you through his eyes, intent on gutting you.”
Arthur’s admonishment muted. “I—there is peril here in Hellsgate,” he said. “What are you and Adam doing here?”
“So much has happened, Arthur, I don’t know where to start. So, the worst first. Mrandor is alive.”
“That cannot be.”
Shanay plowed over him, “The ghost of your mother told us so through a child of a tradesman at the estate. A more malevolent ghost preceded her.” Arthur’s frown grew as she continued, “There is a hellhound on our estate as well as other phantoms. Ptolomus sees to the tradesmen’s safety until we return. Wizard’s Tower is active again. The Lusty Wench burned to the ground.” She paused on the last sentence as Wolf approached at that moment, having heard her report. He looked at the dagger on the ground, but said nothing. “I am sorry Wolf, but the tavern is gone. Mercenaries again, marked like this one.”
“Elizabeth?” he asked, worry scribed on his lips and inked onto his voice. “Is she hurt?”
“No,” Shanay drew out as Adam approached with the horses. “The tavern is in ashes, but Ptolomus and Elizabeth held their own.”
“Buildings can be replaced,” Wolf remarked, some relief on his face, but not constantly. “At least my daughter is safe. Where is she?”
Shanay exchanged glances with Adam. “There’s something you need to know about this.” He gave her his full attention. “Elizabeth and Ptolomus are—well, they have become close. You know him. He is a good man. Elizabeth has enlisted with the Templars.”
She sheathed her sword and looked away expecting Wolf’s ire to run rampant, but instead he said, “Ptolomus is an excellent soldier. She could do worse to have a commander.”
Adam, however, interrupted for the first time, “It is more than that.”
The conversation stilled as Arthur passed his son a scathing look that only a father could deliver.
Collaborating with Crabwell in the years following Rumbar’s death might just have been the wisest decision that Scralz had ever made. Anthony, however, was unsure that this latest choice could be placed anywhere near that category.
“Are you sure you are up to this?” he asked her as she continued trudging across a short but important plot of land, two wagons full of barrels in tow, each wagon pulled by two horses. She had not taken the animals from Sab. He would have inadvertently divulged that piece of information, even if she told him to hide it. Sab was a good man, an honest soul, and the thought of not revealing any particular information would not cross his mind, even while trying to keep it. In short, the man could not lie worth a damn. She liked that about him. On certain days, she admired it. Anthony, however, was getting on her last, and normally only mostly agitated, nerve.
“Bornshire wants to do this thing on his own. He can do that, but if I want to do it on my own, I reserve that decision for myself. He does not get to choose where I go or what I do. Hellsgate is not his town. It’s mine.”
“He means well,” Anthony replied. “Go back and explain your plan—Scralz, he has no idea.”
She twisted the reins in her thick hands and stretched her still sore shoulder. The damned Snipe had managed to sneak up on her and for that, she gave the thing credit, but had she seen it coming, it would have been hard pressed to hurt her—maybe. That, after all they had been through together, Bornshire would sever her from his scheme gave her an irritable stomach.
“He thinks he is omniscient, Anthony.”
“It is not like that.”
“You can’t tell that hard-headed bastard anything once his mind is set.”
“Alright, it is like that.”
“He’s been that way most as long as I have known him. Don’t suspect he will change now.”
Anthony had no argument for that.
Over the years, she had helped Crabwell map a considerable amount of the labyrinth—at least the local portion. Just where the labyrinth ended, no one knew, but Crabwell for his part had extended the man-made portions into the Syrillian and no one had been the wiser. Through the years, they had built a thriving township in the underground and hidden it away from the rest of the world and most of the trouble the world brought with it.
“You sure this will work?”
Scralz stopped and squinted at him in the bright sunlight. That half-trollish orb pierced him to the bone. Like Born, she had made up her mind. Arguing only was
ted time. They would make their way only a few miles further out of Hellsgate and enter the labyrinth from a remote entrance near one of the largest subterranean rivers. From there, they would strap the flammable barrels together in a long chain and float them down the river to where the Alones and Snipes nested.
When they arrived there, they would ignite the barrels filled to the brim with an oil and manure mixture. The explosion would set the entire place aflame in a pungent cloud of nastiness that would, ideally, drive the creatures from their sanctuary and into the light of day.
From there, the plan got sketchy. Bornshire would need to rally the Templars and Crabwell had promised support, if needed, but her trip would be one-way. Whether a defeat or victory she would never know, but Scralz believed Anthony when he said that no force could stand against those nasty creatures underground. Too many entrances. Too many abnormals. Too much territory to secure. Why not start the creatures off at a disadvantage in the sunlight? Bornshire would be surprised, but he adapted quickly.
As for Crabwell—he may or may not show. Unless the Downs actually became the battlefield, his involvement might prove vaporous.
They stopped the wagons at the entrance, not much more than a hole in the ground and Scralz lay down and peered into the darkness. Her half-troll nature gave her sufficient advantage in this task.
“We will dig a little—widen the entrance enough to accommodate the barrels and wrestle them onto the slide. We will lower them using the horses. Once we find a level spot, you can release the horses. They’ll find their way home.”
“He could trail them back here,” Anthony remarked.
“Won’t matter by that time,” Scralz replied.
Tossing Anthony a hoe, she gathered one of her own and together they dug.
Chapter 22
Ptlolomus and his contubernium of Templars cautiously picked their way through the dense forest underbrush. The undercarriage of small trees and thickets prevented them from maneuvering through the woodlands in as tight a formation as Ptolomus would have liked. With all that had gone on with Rome, Overlord City and the Battle of Wizard’s Tower—trolls, zombies, and ghouls, he was unwilling to bet his life, or that of his men, that the tradesmen had overreacted to whatever had frightened them half out of their minds.