“I’m pretty impressed myself,” she replied, pulling her cloak off and returning it to Raegith. Her armor looked a bit old and didn’t fit correctly, a mix of leather and metal plating for the torso and a leather skirt with strips of metal attached in loose lines dangling nearly to her knees. It looked as if she had sheared the top of the breastplate off and bent it outward to accommodate her massive bosom, as the armor was clearly meant for a man. She had leather boots and gauntlets as well. “I didn’t even have to fuck or kill anyone to save your ass.”
“Well, your debt is paid,” Raegith replied. “You can return to… whatever you were doing before being chained to a rock in the desert.”
“You were a Stone Worshipper?” Brimgor asked Helkree, laughing. “Did this one free you? Raegith of the Grass-Hair, I know your tale was mostly bullshit and something else entirely brought you here, but if this one here worshipped the stone, then she isn’t worth your time.”
“Says the traitor whose name no one dare speak for fear of their stomach heaving!” Helkree shot back.
“I appreciate your concern, Brimgor, but I take no one’s word on who is worthy but my own,” Raegith said, cutting into the argument. “Plenty have thought me unworthy as well.”
“Raegith, these people who think you unworthy, they caused you to be here?” Brimgor asked. Raegith nodded. “And you killed them for mocking you?”
“No,” Raegith said. “My enemy is powerful and influential in my nation. It would take an army to reach him.”
“You don’t need an army to kill one man!” Brimgor laughed. “You need only to find your target. Set no burial grounds and dig no grave for yourself… make no room for dying.”
“Does the Empire need a burned out, drunken jester to win a war?” Helkree asked. “What does that even mean?”
Brimgor looked at the sack of Kafkal juice in his hand as if it were a mate leaving him. Then his expression soured and he scowled at the drug that he had sold his allegiance to. His arm swung out and the sack of juice hit Helkree in the chest and she fumbled to catch it before it hit the ground and spilled.
“War is on the wind. I can smell it!” Brimgor growled, his wide lips curling into a grin. “This war will not see Brimgor in such a wretched state. This axe needs its rust broken off!”
The large Rathgar gave Raegith a final nod and turned back down the trail, off to some distant place to reclaim his lethal skills. As he strolled away from the two, he raised his massive arms to the sky and roared with excitement.
“Greimere! You will have war once again… and Brimgor shall feed you blood by the barrels!”
“That may have been your dumbest move yet,” Helkree said to Raegith as they watched the Agillean disappear down the trail. “He may have been a warrior once, but now he’s a drunk… an old drunk. And the idiot got so excited that he gave back his payment!”
“I think I just gave him something better than a quick buzz,” Raegith replied. “What was he like before he became… like this?”
“Brimgor in his prime?” Helkree asked. She looked down and to the side and smiled, some joyful memory coming back to her as they started back out towards the Citadel. “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t kill.”
“He was that good?”
“The Shield of Agilles is a medal bestowed on a Rathgar warrior of unparalleled courage and skill,” Helkree explained, somberly. “It is the highest honor a Rathgar can attain aside from being born into royalty. The honor is not given out lightly and rarely in times of peace. Only ninety-eight have been bestowed in our entire history, the last one being given to Allstay, the 98th Agillean, who resides at the Citadel. The others are all dead, save Brimgor the Exile.”
“He said that he was the 93rd Agillean,” Raegith said. “You must have given this honor out more readily in the past few years, huh?”
“Not so,” she replied. “Brimgor discovered his talent for carnage at a young age, killing his first beast four years after his birth. He grew to manhood in the Lurches, a hell hole worse than anywhere else in this land. The world knew nothing of him until he emerged from that death pit at fourteen, not even a mature Rathgar, and joined the ranks of the Imperial Army. He attained the honor of Agillean at the unprecedented age of twenty-six, after being the lone survivor at the Last Stand of Gundumm. I’m pretty sure he’s in his late seventies.”
“If he is such a great warrior, then what happened to him?”
“The Curse of Prodigy,” Helkree said. “A child becomes gifted at something and that’s all they’re allowed to know. Society saw a boy who was absolutely peerless in battle, who could kill like none alive, no matter who or what enemy he faced. Brimgor pursued his talent from the time he could walk to the age that most were allowed to retire, but it was never enough for an Agillean prodigy. After a lifetime of being prized as nothing but an immortal weapon, Brimgor snapped. There is an unwritten rule that Agilleans serve until death, but luckily for Brimgor, there was a written rule that there must always be a living Agillean. So when the Emperor at the time forbid Brimgor from retiring, he used the only option he had: he killed the 94th Agillean in single combat and walked out of the Citadel forever.”
“And they let him?” Raegith asked.
“What could they do?” Helkree responded. “He was the only living Agillean, so they couldn’t execute him. None of the others had the stomach to try and apprehend the man who just bested another Agillean half his age. The Emperor quickly gave the Shield to his greatest warrior, Imnar, and sent him after Brimgor. Inmar was killed by Brimgor in open combat and his death was completely justified because Inmar started the duel. It was another decade before a new Agillean was presented.”
“And he too fell to Brimgor?”
“No, we were all done with Brimgor,” Helkree said. “I was not born in the time of Lethnil, the 96th Agillean, but before he was given his honor Brimgor had been deemed an exile and was forgotten by most. Lethnil was killed by the Gold-Bearded Prince during the last invasion. The 97th Agillean succumbed to illness when I was young. It was a bad way to go for such as he, but it happens, I guess. Allstay became the 98th Agillean shortly after his predecessor became ill.”
“It sounds like you know a lot about him,” Raegith said, flinching at the mention of his father. “If it weren’t for the awful way you treated him, I would think you even admire him.”
“I did… once,” Helkree said. “That was a long time ago, when I was younger… and dumber. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s three days to the Citadel and the Gimlets are waiting for us up the trail.”
“The Gimlets? What the hell happened to them?” Raegith asked.
“Gimlets are weaklings. They did what they always do when they think they’re doomed for: they got the fuck out of there. Probably why the little bastards live so long.”
Chapter 16
The three from Rellizbix stood in a darkly-painted hall lit by braziers hanging from the ceiling that held green flames. The black walls and deep purple drapes and rugs were much different than what he had imagined of royalty. The decorations were grim and macabre and all of the colors were dark. They were flanked by guards in full armor and carrying long, barbed pikes. Statues of warriors and demons lined the walls and a large, decorative throne sat before them. Just hours ago they were sitting a mile outside the Citadel, waiting on Fibbitch to return.
Fibbitch and the rest of the Gimlets took them the rest of the way to the Citadel without much incident, although Zakk and Ebriz were concerned about how quickly the Gimlets vanished once trouble arose in the Outpost. Fibbitch tried to explain that he was trying to go get help from the Empress, but even if he was telling the truth, Raegith was willing to bet that he wouldn’t have survived that long had Brimgor not saved them. Helkree did not elaborate on how she knew the exiled warrior or how she managed to bribe him into intervening… or when.
Just as the Citadel came into view, Fibbitch took them off the trail and hid them near a rocky formation.
“Cannot bring Pasties into the city like this,” he explained. “Fibbitch go into Citadel, inform Empress first. If not, Rathgar maybe kill you all on sight. So stay here and be quiet.”
“I was beginning to wonder what that little turd’s plan was for getting you into the Citadel,” Helkree replied after the Gimlets left. “So you really do have an audience with the Empress? Are we taking in rejects from the North or something now?”
“I just have a message for her, that’s all. We’re in a time of peace, so it should not be so odd for a message to be sent to the Empress, right?” Raegith asked.
“Yes, it is odd… and peace? Are you kidding me? Maybe in your land there is peace, but never in the Greimere. There is always fighting here; fighting over resources, land, trinkets. Then when things look the worst, every male who is not too old, too young or too noble gets rounded up and sent to die in the north, all to ransack a few villages and bring back enough goods for the survivors to live off for another few years.”
Helkree leaned her head back against the rock she was sitting beside.
“Peace has no meaning here, Raegith,” she said.
After a few hours, a covered carriage in all black and purple came down the trail flanked by heavily armed guards. It pulled off the road and Raegith saw that Fibbitch was leading it to them. Helkree became very nervous and cursed under her breath as they drew closer.
“Well, I guess this is it, then?” Ebriz asked, rubbing his hands together with anxiousness. “They’re either going to take us to the Empress or take us to a dungeon, I suppose.”
“These things are cowards,” Zakk said. “They would not harm envoys from Rellizbix. We are their lifeline and killing us would be a declaration of war… real war. They won’t do that.”
“But would Rellizbix really annihilate them?” Ebriz countered. “We would not be in this situation if the king were not in need of these people, either.”
“We have the king’s son with us,” Zakk replied. “We’re not expendable assets.”
“Bastard son, you mean,” Raegith laughed.
The assembly pulled up to their hiding spot and a guard came out to see them into the carriage. The armored Rathgar stopped as they came out and became very upset.
“Take that off!” the guard bellowed, pointing at Helkree with his spear. Helkree stood unmoving. “Take it off or I will rip it from you!”
“It’s going to take more than you,” Helkree replied, flatly.
“Brakken, teach this wench the law!” the guard said, waving one of the others forward.
The guard named Brakken eagerly approached Helkree and swung his spear down at her head. Raegith yelled at him to stop, but Helkree ducked under the blow, stepped into the guard and drove a knife she had hidden on her deep into the underside of his chin and up into his brain. The guard twitched and dropped the spear, crumpling to the ground as blood pooled underneath him. The lead guard roared and the other three circled around her.
Raegith pulled his dagger free and stood in front of Helkree, causing Zakk to arm herself as well.
“Stop,” he said to the guard, anxiously looking from him to Helkree and back. “Soldier, we are the envoy expected by the Empress! Is she so understanding a ruler that she will forgive you for shedding the blood of her guests?”
“You… uh, what?” the guard asked, completely perplexed. “You speak like we do? It does not matter! We are quite familiar with this whelp.”
“Are you familiar with me?” Raegith asked. He pointed at Zakk. “What about her? I’ll introduce you, then. We are three from the North who are no stranger to death and if you push this fight, we will make you work for it… and then you will return home, whoever is left, to explain yourselves before the Empress. Now I ask you… is it worth it?”
The guard seemed genuinely perplexed by the whole situation and his hesitation was already spreading to the men.
Finally he acted. “Flee while you can, Whore of Edge. I will find you soon enough and bend your iron. You three… into the carriage. And no more words from you in our tongue. It’s too strange.”
The guards lowered their weapons and the leader barked at the ones from Rellizbix to hurry and enter the carriage. Helkree came up behind Raegith and whispered into his ear.
“Take the same route back from the Citadel and I will find you. I have a feeling you’ll need me before you’re through with this place.”
“I appreciate it,” Raegith replied, smiling back at her. There was moment where Helkree just looked at him, hesitating as if she might say something else. In the next instant she was gone, sprinting off into the distance before the guards could change their mind.
Now the three of them were standing inside the palace of the Empress, awaiting her appearance so that they could present the scroll that would reignite the habitual war between his people and hers. Despite the anxiety that Ebriz expressed the entire way in to the Citadel, it seemed as if everything were going to be alright. When the guard backed down at Raegith’s words, he felt a surge of power inside himself. He had some bit of authority in this place. As Zakk put it, the Greimere needed his arrival and they were never in any harm once the Empress’ people had them. Raegith wondered why the carriage was not sent all the way to the Hell Cliffs to ensure their arrival, but that was all hindsight, now. Raegith reasoned that he would not have any of the knowledge he now possessed had his escort been stricter.
From an entryway in the back of the room, a girl appeared that was unlike anything Raegith had ever seen. She was short and slender, like a Twileen, but her skin was dark blue and instead of hair, her head was engulfed in green flames that flickered up from her skull. Her green eyes burned with the same ferocity and she had a tail that flipped back and forth behind her, with a tip that resembled a spearhead. She was dressed in tribal-like clothing that was little more than a pair of wide strips hanging from her waist in the front and back and a triangular strip over her bird-like chest. She walked so lightly that it appeared as if she stepped on the air just above the ground.
“Envoys from the North, welcome,” she said in the Rellizbix tongue. “I am Beretta, the Empress Kalystra of Black Talon’s vassal and interpreter. Please bow deeply as you receive the Empress of Greimere.”
Raegith bent forward to match the actions of the guards to his side. Ebriz and Zakk imitated him, although Zakk hesitated for an uncomfortable amount of time. Paladins only bowed before the King, from what Hemmil had told him and Zakk surely still felt herself bound by that rule, despite her chance at becoming one being forever lost.
Empress Kalystra was a Rathgar female, but she was much daintier than Helkree. She did not have the muscle definition or rugged stature as the outlaw girl. The Empress was more like the Saban women who worked alongside his mother, at least what he could remember of them before he was taken away. Her body was made up of soft curves and pampered skin that was lighter than other Rathgar he had seen. She wore make-up that darkened her eyes and her black hair was pulled up into an intricate design that resembled a splayed eagle’s claw curling out around her face. Unlike her vassal, she wore silky robes that were so thin they revealed the bare skin beneath each time they grazed her body. Her immodest attire was more suitable for preparing a bath than accepting guests, but she walked to her throne and sat before them nonetheless.
“I was expecting there to be more of you,” she said in a voice that was full of boredom. “I was also expecting goods. My father said they always bring goods when they come. I don’t see any goods.”
The girl named Beretta interpreted for her and Ebriz looked up at Raegith as they rose from their bow. He handed the scroll off to the prince and nodded to the Empress.
“Your highness, if that’s what you prefer to be called, I am afraid we do not have much…” Raegith began before the Empress straightened up in her chair and looked at him with renewed interest. She held up her hand for him to stop talking and looked over at Beretta.
“What is this, Beretta?�
� she squawked, her voice losing the tedium it had before. “This one with the green hair speaks our tongue?”
Beretta shrugged her shoulders, apparently much less excited by the surprise than the Empress. The Empress turned back to Raegith.
“You speak as we do? How? Is this normal?”
“I, uh… I was gifted with the knowledge from… uh, someone powerful… here in the Greimere,” Raegith stuttered, thrown off by her change in demeanor. She had instantly gone from an exotic and mysterious ruler to what felt like a giddy teenage girl in seconds.
“Who? Who taught you to speak like me? Us, I mean. How long have you been practicing? You’re pretty good!”
“Empress…” Beretta whispered, giving her a puzzled look. The Empress gathered herself and leaned back in her chair, dropping back into the bored version he had first seen.
“Not that it matters, much. You’re here for a purpose and nothing more. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” she said, looking Raegith over with barely contained curiosity. “You’ve got something for me there? I’m not one for extravagant ceremonies or anything, so let’s just get down to business. My father prepared me for this day, you know.”
“I’m sure he did, your highness,” Raegith replied, smiling at her. She, in turn, frowned in confusion. “Here is the declaration from King Helfrick Caelum. If your father has prepared you for this, then I can assume you know what’s in here.”
“You can,” the Empress replied, letting Beretta take the scroll from Raegith and present it to her.
The Empress lazily unscrewed the top of the tube and dumped the parchment out onto her lap unceremoniously. Beretta hissed at her, but the ruler waved her off with annoyance and unrolled the scroll, looking over it. For a few moments she remained unexcited, but suddenly she sat up and studied a part of the scroll earnestly. She shook her head and reread the part that was giving her trouble, then called Beretta over to look at it. The vassal read the entire scroll and looked up at the three from Rellizbix. Ebriz shuffled nervously and even Zakk looked anxious.
Beyond the Hell Cliffs Page 17