Blackguards

by J. M. Martin

  de Bie is also a known quantity in the gaming industry, working in such properties as Dungeons & Dragons, Iron Kingdoms, and the forthcoming, epoch-spanning Red Aegis game. He lives in Seattle with his wife, their assortment of pets, and an ever-expanding collection of swords. Catch up with him on his website (www.erikscottdebie.com), like his page on Facebook (facebook.com/erik.s.debie), or follow him on Twitter (@erikscottdebie).

  ~

  The Outpost of Gardh

  Winter 978, Sorcerus Annis

  Midnight’s chill wind swept up the gray snow into skirling ghosts that danced wildly in the deserted street, radiant in the moonlight and beautiful in the silence. At a distance, these specters seemed harmless, but only a fool or a corpse would believe it. Winter had come in earnest to the northland, and with it dense flurries of the burning rain from the gray skies. The snow sizzled against the tar-sealed oak buildings and seared exposed flesh, leaving red streaks that could take years to fade.

  Pain in beauty—such is the World of Ruin.

  The Victorious Hunter, Gardh’s stout common hall, squatted beneath a corroded sign that depicted a leaping hart, an arrow thrust through its breast. Someone had drunkenly shot an actual arrow through the coat of arms, but the shaft had found the animal’s rump rather than its heart. The sign twisted lazily in the cold breeze.

  Within, a dozen wind-burned men and women in worn garments perched around stained tables cluttered with half-empty tankards and tureens of congealed stew. They had returned from a hard day’s labor spent hacking at trees and tearing the frozen ground, all the while avoiding the blistering snowfall. A harried dark-haired woman of about twenty winters moved among them with practiced grace pouring ale, mead, and fresh bowls of wine. A crackling alchemical fire kept the chilling darkness at bay, its purple flames pungent enough to fill the room with the smell of metallic lavender.

  A single man sat at a table in the center of the room, as he did every night when the sun fell and cold swept through Gardh. He had seen perhaps forty or so winters, but his posture made him seem much older. The weight of the season, of the town spiraling into ruin, of the decaying world itself—all of it seemed to rest on his shoulders. A forward-curved sword sheathed in a worn scabbard lay on the table within his reach, but he hardly seemed aware of its presence. He bore a single mark upon his face: a black inked teardrop below his left eye, which glittered faintly in the firelight.

  The old man stared at his stew in its stale-hardened trencher, and the small loaf of the same bread sitting alongside it. He hesitated before eating, as he did every night, as if considering starvation as a preferred fate. Ultimately, he took up the bread and began mopping the stew into his mouth, and all assembled breathed a faint sigh of relief.

  Little changed in Gardh, not since the mage-city Tar Vangr had abandoned the place to its fate years before. Life proceeded in the same dreary circle year after year.

  Until the traveler came.

  The thick oak door rattled open, admitting a gust of cold wind and setting the worn metal fittings to vibrating against the wood. It produced a grating sound that filled the common room, drawing a chorus of glares that ranged from the irritated to the suspicious. A single figure crossed the threshold—slight and soft of step, with snowflakes sizzling on her gray cloak. Her features hid beneath a thick leather mask and tinted goggles to keep the snow from her face. She breathed hollowly through the sweaty cloth over her nose and mouth.

  Despite the scrutiny of every gaze upon her, the woman stepped boldly a few paces inside and scanned the common hall for something in particular. When her eyes settled on the old man sitting in the middle of the room—the only one not watching her—she drew in a breath in both relief and unexpected anger. She strode to his side and stood across the table from him, arms crossed.

  “Regel,” she said, her voice muted through her leather mask.

  “Serris.” He kept his eyes fixed on his stew, eating slowly.

  The traveler undid the cowl she had pulled tight against the scalding snow, releasing a fall of golden hair, and unbuckled the mask she’d worn against the cold. The heat of the common hall put a touch of color in Serris’s sharp-featured face and made the livid red scar that cut from cheek to jawline glow brightly. Like unto that of the old man, she bore a teardrop mark of her own, inked in the same place. Serris had fierce gray eyes like the heart of a snowstorm, which seemed to absorb the firelight in the room. Only a fool or a madman would not recognize her wrath from a distance.

  Regel gestured to the opposite seat without looking up. “Sit. Your road was long, I expect.”

  “Long enough.” Liberated from her mask, Serris looked around at the patrons of the common hall, as if she had noticed for the first time that they existed, and dismissed them all. She sat, staring across at her master with cold focus. “Time to come back,” she said. “The Circle of Tears needs you.”

  Regel gave a slight shrug, barely moving his shoulders.

  Seeing his indifference made Serris bite her lip to restrain her anger. “I stood by you for years while you let this pain rot you from the inside, and for what?” She leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “Are you any better? Is this any better?”

  Regel shrugged once more. “I have a new master now,” he said. “A purpose.”

  Serris narrowed her eyes. “And who must I kill to relieve you of it?”

  She became aware of another presence and tensed for an attack that never came.

  “Coin?” The dark-haired ale-bearer stood beside their table, her deep brown eyes focused on Serris. She held aloft a tray with a rough-bread trencher of stew, which quivered on the surface and smelled quite wonderful, as well as a steaming bowl warm with mulled wine.

  “Of course.” Serris fished out her purse and set two silver coins freshly minted with the mark of Tar Vangr on the table. “This enough?”

  The woman looked down at the proffered silver with widening eyes, then swept them up with a flick of her wrist. “More than,” she said as she set out the stew. “Rooms are all full.”

  “Food and a place by the fire. And these.” Serris fumbled a weathered bit of paper out of her belt pouch and plunked down two more coins atop it. “Supplies for the road for my master and me.”

  The ale-bearer unfolded the paper and scrutinized it, then shook her head. She looked embarrassed. “I cannot read.”

  That made Serris smile despite herself. “I couldn’t either,” she said.

  The woman returned the smile, and the expression made her face lovely. She smelled strongly of lilac rather than the dull, false lavender scent that filled the room. Serris found it refreshing.

  “I’ll give this to the quartermaster.” Hastily, she tucked the note and the coins into her bodice. She glanced about the hall, visibly uneasy.

  Serris caught the woman by the wrist. “What?”

  “Naught. Only . . .” The woman looked down at Serris’s hand on her wrist, cool fingers pressed against her veins, and Serris could feel the woman’s heartbeat quicken at the unexpected intimacy. Years of hard work had roughened the woman’s skin, and she felt strong. “Pass wary.” She hurried away.

  The ale-bearer had glanced twice at a group of men sitting a few paces distant, who had not taken their eyes from Serris since her arrival. Not that she blamed them—she was an outsider, and she saw no one else in the room with hair the color of fresh straw. Their gaze made Serris acutely aware of the scar that ran from her cheek down to her jaw, making her stand out even more. One of the men cast a greasy smile in Serris’s direction and made a lewd gesture with his pipe. Shame rose up, but she throttled it down. Fear belonged to the old life she had left behind. Instead, she let her anxiety become anger.

  Serris felt Regel stir across the table, but he merely went back to spooning his stew into his mouth with the regularity of an automaton. Serris sniffed at her own food and scowled. She hadn’t eaten in more than a day, but she could not make herself do so now. Her stomach churned under the scr
utiny.

  Two of the men approached, as she had known they would. They wore hunting leathers etched with the mark of a fist clutching three arrows. Local soldiers, she thought. One of them took up a stance just to her right and behind, while the other slid his fleshy form onto the bench at her side. He had the face of a man firmly convinced of his own strength and charm but the eyes of a coward.

  “Not invited,” she said. “Leave.”

  “What’s a matter, beautiful?” The local breathed sour wine and pipe smoke in her face. “Too long without a sword in your sheath?”

  Smoothly, Serris retrieved her tankard and took a long pull, using the gesture to conceal the dagger she drew from her belt and clutched in one white-knuckled hand. The old blade had become well worn, but she kept it honed and polished. Two years before, Regel had given her the dagger—the first weapon she had ever possessed, and the only one she would ever need. “Do not touch me,” she said.

  Coward-Eyes ignored the warning. “You’re a whore, right? I can smell it. Lots of men touched you.” He traced the air just above her scar. “Looks like one missed. Mayhap I should try—”

  Serris splashed the contents of her tankard into his face and jammed her dagger through his hand into the table. At first, the man’s face scrunched in confusion, then opened in a flurry of agony. Blood welled around the fine steel, and the man screamed in shock and horror. Reflexively, he wrenched away, but the dagger held fast and his pain only worsened. With a certain fascination, Serris heard the rattle of bones and saw flesh sawing itself against the blade. She tried to pull the dagger free, but she’d nailed it into the table too firmly and it resisted.

  The man behind Serris lunged and she felt him touch her shoulder.

  Then Regel moved, almost too fast to see, and the air parted around the right side of Serris’s face. The man who had grabbed for her staggered back, clutching at his hand. His fingers sailed through the air to plunk against the ceiling, then rained down onto the table around them. One struck Coward-Eyes in the face, and his screaming redoubled. Serris looked at one that had fallen near her, and marveled at its seared stump, which squeezed out not a single drop of blood.

  Regel paused for a moment—half-standing, half-sitting—with his blue-bladed sword gleaming in his hands. Then he set the deadly blade on the table beside its scabbard and returned to his stew without a word. At this distance, Serris could feel the weapon, called Frostburn, like a shard of ice, hungrily drinking in the warmth of the fire and nearby bodies.

  Serris looked at her initial assailant, whose hand had become a seeping fountain of blood and pus on the table. Wordlessly, she laid her second hand on the handle of her dagger and wrenched the blade free. Coward-Eyes staggered back, jostling another table and showering blood all over. He stumbled and cursed and fled, as did his maimed companion. She made sure to wipe her dagger in full view of the hall.

  Conversations faltered into silence and all eyes fell on Serris, but she ignored them in favor of Regel. Her heart raced. She had seen it for just a moment—that same fire that had woke a walking dead girl and turned her to an angel.

  “The Winterblood knew respect, once,” Regel said. “All unravels…”

  “All falls to ruin.” Serris touched him on the wrist. “Come with me.”

  His icy eyes burned into hers. She saw anger there—rage against the injustice of his imprisonment—but he could not come with her. Not yet.

  “You’ll come with us,” a voice said.

  Two soldiers in ringmail emblazoned with the fistful of arrows sigil stood at her sides, both pointing casters that crackled with full thaumaturgical charges. Lightning raced along the bow of the weapon on her left, while the murderpiece on her right smoked with fire magic. Each soldier wore a leather hauberk etched with the same arms as the two who had assaulted Serris. Wrath scripted the contours of the soldiers’ faces, and murder shone in their eyes. The woman was badly burned all along her face, and the man wore a crimson beard shot through with gray patches, like bones floating in blood.

  Serris looked across at Regel, who focused again on his stew. He showed no sign of aiding her. She had no allies in this place. She stood and walked away, spine erect, between the two soldiers.

  #

  As the soldiers led Serris up a creaking spiral staircase, growing hotter as they rose, she noted which boards made the most noise. Ultimately, they reached a balcony above the main area dimly lit with two smoking braziers that burned the same alchemical incense as below. The lavender aroma became a cloying morass at this height, and Serris felt swelteringly hot in her winter clothes, and she tried to ignore her discomfort by looking out over the heads of the patrons.

  From this perspective, Serris saw so much more than she had from the entrance. Some patrons played at bone cards, and she could pick out those who cheated and hid cards behind their backs or up their sleeves. More than a few patrons subtly enjoyed each other with their hands below the table, and she saw a few ready weapons in case a situation turned violent. Had the soldiers not stopped her, Serris might have faced an entire hall of foes.

  “Remarkable,” a man said behind her. “The difference a small change in elevation makes.”

  The ruler of the Victorious Hunter stood from a throne-like seat that was the finest she’d seen outside Tar Vangr: a wide, padded throne of red leather and feather pillows. He wore threadbare robes that seemed nonetheless more extravagant than anything else worn in the common hall. He had graying raven hair and a network of riverbed-like wrinkles that made his unreadable eyes into pits of pitch. Serris saw immediately the man was no warrior, but in her experience that made him no less dangerous.

  “I am Jeht, Defender of Gardh.” He bowed. “Be welcome in my hall, Serris, Angel of Tears.”

  Serris met his courtesy with indifference. “You know me?”

  He smiled. “Your master has told me often of you.”

  She understood. “Lord of Gardh, then.”

  His mouth curled into an expression halfway between bemusement and curiosity. He waved the soldiers to lower their weapons, which they did with only a touch of hesitation.

  “Gardh has no ruler and never will,” he said. “I am its protector. I deal with threats to its safety, as you have so eloquently proved yourself.” He draped himself back into his throne. “Please. Sit.”

  He gestured to a cushioned divan positioned two paces away and lower than his own throne. Serris saw, in the flickering firelight, that others had clustered behind Jeht’s seat: beautiful men and women, clad in silks and chains, the eldest no older than she. Serris recognized the desperation in their faces mingled with a growing resignation to their awful fate. She had lived with the same dying hope for years until Regel had saved her, and to see it now made her teeth stand on edge. She remained standing.

  “You seem ill at ease, Serris,” Jeht said. “You have not yet eaten of my food, yes? Please, accept my hospitality, so we can sit as friends rather than enemies.”

  He gestured one of his slaves to bring her a platter of sweet flatbread, and she took a piece. The ancient forms craved respect, after all. When she had tasted it, the soldiers relaxed their guard.

  “You call my master one of your servants,” Serris said. “I would persuade you to release him.”

  “A true opening thrust, one without hesitation or guile. This, I like.” Jeht grinned. “He is of great value to me. If you compensate me for his loss, I will free him.”

  Serris had started to dislike his smiles. She would not bother to ask how Jeht controlled the greatest assassin Tar Vangr had ever known. She gritted her teeth. “Speak your price.”

  Jeht held out a hand to the male guard, who handed him a yellowed, much-read scroll. Serris noted the broken seal, which made her breath catch. She knew the fiery mark of Blood Ravalis. “This arrived two years ago, only days after the fall of the Winter King. It states that the conspirators who overthrew him had fled the city. It offers a description of your master and his fabulous sword, and—”<
br />
  “Liar.” Serris half-drew her dagger, prompting the soldiers to aim their casters at her. “Regel loved the Winter King. Had nothing to do with his murder. That was Ovelia the Bloodbreaker.”

  “As you say.” Unconcerned with her, the so-called Defender of Gardh spread out the scroll. “In any case, the Ravalis offer a prescription prize for his return, or a lesser reward for that of his corpse. I suspect they would pay a prize for you as well.”

  “That a threat?” Serris glanced at the soldier to her left, whose fingers had gone white around the haft of her caster. The woman’s blue eyes burned with a building rage, and Serris knew she awaited a single gesture to strike. She smiled up at her. “I could simply take him.”

  Jeht waved his hand to indicate the hall and its many grizzled occupants. “Over the last fifteen years, Gardh has accumulated a goodly number of hardened soldiers—outcasts, brigands, exiles disaffected with the rise of the Ravalis in Tar Vangr. None of them have read this scroll, but do you think they would treat with you any better than I? And while you may excel with a blade, do you truly believe you can slay every man or woman with a blade in this place? Would you?”

  Serris saw the futility of her position. She understood the knife Jeht held over Regel, and now over her. She pointedly sheathed her dagger, and the soldiers relaxed. The tension eased in everyone but her. At the edge of her vision, she thought she saw someone watching from the stairs. She caught a flash of dark hair and eyes against a pale face.

  “Now that we understand each other,” Jeht said. “I shall think on what service you might provide me to discharge your master from my debt. In the meantime, you will eat and drink and sleep in this hall, my guests and under my protection. And tomorrow, we shall discuss the first of your tasks for me.” He grinned that same infuriating grin. “I'm sure I can find a use for you, despite the scar.”

  Serris nodded, rose without a word, and headed down the stairs.