Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  Irreor pulled her back. "Let me handle this."

  For an instant, her heart stopped. The respect he'd shown her—imagined or wished—vanished. Her anger, a seething lump in the center of her chest, pulsed in its place.

  The bastard wanted her to sit and watch.

  "What did you bring me for?" she hissed.

  He winked. "To watch my back."

  "You're allowed to kill them, but not me?"

  For a heartbeat, his confidence melted away. Rain dripped from his chin, sparkling in the firelight as it fell to splatter against the cobblestones. In the distance, someone wailed.

  "They don't deserve this," he murmured.

  Then he sprinted at the guards, now a mere fifteen paces away, and she bit back a curse as she followed at his heels. He moved with fluid and sure steps. With a blinding-quick motion he tore his dagger across the first man's throat, rolled his shoulder, and lanced his sword into the second man's eye.

  Both corpses twitched as they thudded against the ground.

  Silence. The streets remained clear.

  She'd watched Bran cut men down, but the blacksmith had killed from raw, seething emotion. This was different. As when he'd ordered Gell killed, Ark retained full control. Collected. Cold-blooded. He'd murdered them without even sparing a glance for their corpses.

  Blood pooled, painting the cobblestones red.

  She could've spilled it, couldn't she? The lump in her chest pulsed—furious and betrayed, yearning to finally mete out justice to the men who'd leered at her for so long.

  Anyone would do.

  Ark gripped the door handle.

  She snatched his wrist and yanked him to face her. "I'm not here to watch you do everything. Somehow, you know about my mother and sister. I don't know how, and I don't care, but Kleni helped Crest do this. She helped put us here—"

  "It's not that—"

  "I'm not going to stand aside and watch someone else stop them."

  "I trust you," he said gently, and plucked her fingers from his wrist. "But you're wrong. That's not why you want to kill. You want to kill because you hate."

  "No! You ignorant cock, that's not—"

  "You'll watch me," he snapped, and again he gripped the door handle. "We don't have time for this, and it's certainly not the place. Watch my back. Do what I trust you to do."

  He was right. They stood over murdered men, hovered at the brink of more violence to come. This was hardly the time to discuss demons. More than that, he truly trusted her, respected her. She couldn't fail him.

  The door creaked as he edged it open and peered inside. He flashed up three fingers to indicate the number of men, then whipped open the door.

  Startled shouts boomed from the house.

  Kipra struggled to follow, but he shot forward faster than she believed possible. In a flash, she took in the room—a wide and long hallway, a twisting staircase at the far end, and three bearded men in iron breastplates to guard the steps. They struggled to free their weapons as Ark pounced on them.

  It ended in an instant.

  Like a grim cloud of death, Ark flowed amongst them. His blades lifted, twirled, slashed. Blood sprayed from the first man's throat. Entrails spilled from beneath the second man's armor, and Ark lopped the third man's head from his shoulders.

  Kipra's stomach churned at the smell of spilled bowels. She'd never seen such brutality or such frigid fury. This man she considered a friend, one of the very few people she'd ever admired, he stood drenched in the blood of their enemies.

  Her skin tingled.

  In the seconds between Ark's blades rising and falling, it hadn't mattered that she didn't kill those men, only that they'd died. Ark was taking back their city. He advanced against Kleni and Crest.

  It was enough.

  Shouts rang out from upstairs, and she moved to the base of the staircase as Ark, his face set in determination, mounted the steps. Two men emerged from a door and descended to meet him. Each clenched a heavy axe, but they hesitated as they spied the crumpled bodies of their comrades.

  Despite their fear, they lifted their axes to smash the intruder.

  Ark skipped to the side, sliced his dagger through the back of one man's ankle, and thrust his sword through the second's groin. Two axes bounced down the staircase as the guards struggled to stand. They unleashed horrid wails that clawed high into the house, and Ark plunged his blades into their chests. They gasped, and their gurgles became whispers.

  Their whispers became silence.

  Void take me, he's so fast.

  Kipra's weapons drooped in her fists, useless and inconsequential compared to what Ark had done. He hadn't needed her. This man had killed seven others without a scratch to prove it. Either he'd let her win in the warehouse, or he'd been too distracted to notice her feints..

  Ark stalked on.

  The axemen had locked the room at the top of the staircase with a sturdy iron bolt, but a single kick shattered the frame. Ark thrust the wreckage aside and strode into the room.

  Kipra followed.

  Nekaron Rellik knelt in the far corner. He wore a silk robe that ended at the elbows, fur slippers, and silver and gold rings twinkled on his fingers. A stinking puddle of piss oozed from underneath his robe. Ark stepped closer, and Rellik covered his eyes as if to block the sight of a nightmare.

  Kipra couldn't hold back a smirk at the man's fear. Rellik had supported Crest this past year. He’d used people, forced them to his will, cast a blind eye to the sickness and poverty and degradation of the city.

  Now he'd die.

  Ark marched closer, towering over the merchant.

  Rellik reached out a trembling hand, fumbling to grip Ark's shin. "Please don't kill me. Please. Don't. I've got gold, more than I can ever spen—"

  "More than Kylen Crest can ever spend, too." Ark kicked away the man's hand. "Now you'll lose it all. But first, you'll tell me—"

  "Let me do it," Kipra demanded.

  The lump in her chest pulsed, angry and betrayed. Goosebumps tickled her skin at the thought of ending this merchant's life, sliding her blade into his windpipe, watching the light fade from his eyes. Only Crest and Kleni deserved it more.

  "No." Ark gripped his dagger's hilt in both hands as if testing its weight, as if it meant something, perhaps an unknown memory or a fear. He frowned and whispered, "I can't let you."

  Rellik peeked up at them, eyebrows slanted in hope.

  "Why?" she asked.

  "You'll understand soon enough."

  Kipra clamped her mouth shut. Sink into the void, you arrogant ass.

  "Please," Rellik said. "Please take the coins and go. I'll leave the city and you'll never see me again. I'll sail to the Inner Empire. I'll find a village and vanish. For the love of mercy—"

  "There will be no mercy," Irreor snapped, and his voice cracked as he continued. "My general will do what he must. What he must." He kept his attention on the merchant, but lifted his voice to say, "Kipra, watch the door. Listen for anyone coming into the house."

  They didn't have much time.

  Something in his face halted her retort, spilling her anger to the floor just as Ark had spilled so much blood. Sadness, resignation, self-loathing—all had dwelled in his demand. He clearly hated what he was about to do, but he couldn't stop it.

  No one could.

  "Kipra," he whispered. "We need to find where Crest lives. Trust me."

  She did.

  Nekaron Rellik's screams lasted seconds, minutes, hours. An eternal shriek, high and mighty, then feeble. As the merchant wheezed his last breath, Kipra forced herself not to vomit. Her stomach rocked like a boiling pot. The room reeked of copper and bile. Her armor clung to her flesh, warm and wet and slick, like the blood that poured from the merchant's feet, hands, and scalp.

  They'd found their answers.

  Her blades hung from her hips, trivial in the face of what Ark had done.

  He knelt amongst fingernails, clumps of hair, and the mangled toes of the
merchant's left foot. Crimson gore coated his arms. It speckled his cheeks.

  He stood and peered down at the corpse. "I didn't want to do that."

  And she understood why he hadn't let her do this. Void bloody void, I wouldn't have wanted it. Not that. It was so much blood, so much screaming. I wouldn't have been able to. But that, what he did... void take me.

  "You had to do it," she said. "There wasn't any other way. You were right, he didn't deserve it, but we don't deserve to be choked beneath Crest's thumb. We had to find where he hides."

  "I wish I could hide. He'll hide. Oh, how he'll hide."

  Kipra shivered at his deadened tone, hugged her arms to her chest. This man who spoke with such gentleness, who respected her and trusted her with his life... his chin dropped to his chest. In two weeks, he'd done more against Kylen Crest than she'd accomplished in an entire year, more than she'd ever thought of.

  Blood dripped from his fingers and splattered against the wooden floor.

  "Ark?"

  He lifted his gaze.

  She gulped and forced her shaking fingers deep into her armpits. Her words quivered like a leaf on a stormy sea. "Thank you."

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Saltwater misted Villeen's cheek as she gripped Wave Spider's figurehead.

  Raindrops sprinkled Skuven Bay, light and pleasant, as though the next day weren't about to happen. The captain's boots clomped across the deck as he growled at his men, and his ship bobbed amongst the waves. Little wind gusted to fill the sails, and sailors grunted as they tugged their oars through the water.

  The ship sped onward to Targ, to the people she'd kill.

  It filled the horizon—a sandy beach, docks jutting from land, houses and businesses and streets. A low hill rose behind the village, and the instrument's cottage stood halfway up that slope.

  Villeen wiped the water from her brow, knowing it would splash again within moments. She ducked her head, partly to avoid another wave, partly to avoid the sight of the instrument's cottage. It mocked what she'd done these last years, what she'd have to do.

  No one could change it.

  At her back, a man's salt-worn voice rumbled. "Ye've got yourself a few hours to do what you need to. After that? Hah! After that we'll start the pillaging."

  She spun to the captain's grinning face—scarred from brow to chin, missing teeth, and putrid breath. He winked and slipped his tongue through cracked lips, swirling it as if he wished to somehow wet the dried, disgusting flesh.

  "Them garls are gonna squea—"

  "You know what I expect of you." Her stomach felt as if a jagged lump of steel dwelled within it, but she forced the uneasiness aside. This captain had amassed a fortune raiding the Inner Empire, and she couldn't show any weakness. "Do what you will with the village, but the man I mentioned is mine."

  Her father's notes said, 'My instrument will embrace his power, and raiders will fall to his fury. Following his wife's death, he'll mourn. A day? A week? Ah, I wish I could touch him, console him, and let him know everything will end well.'

  "Fine," the captain said. "Then we'll take 'em and kill 'em all."

  It won't happen like you want it. I can't let it.

  The captain and his men would raze the village. They'd leave nothing but a singed patch of dirt, smoldering buildings, and barren streets. Just as her father had planned it.

  However, she'd alter his plans.

  Her target was her father's instrument, a man named Helt, and the man intended to bring Abennak low. Her father planned to drive Helt into a sorrow, one so deep that he'd be forced to give up everything that made him human. In her father's twisted mind, he believed that only a sadness of such depth could defeat Abennak.

  The bastard.

  She'd taken frequent trips to Targ over these past days, using her gentahl to deposit her in the weeds beneath Helt's windowsil. She hadn't told Fier of her travels, knowing what her brother would think, but she'd needed to see what she was about to do. She needed to understand it.

  And now she did.

  If only I didn't.

  A handful of days wasn't enough to discover much, but she'd forced herself to learn everything she could of Helt. Sandy blonde hair covered his head, with strong shoulders to support it. His eyes were the shade of a cloudless midday, all hues of gold and blue, and his smile was the shade of happiness.

  Yet those weren't the things that defined him.

  What defined him... ah, that was much more painful.

  He lived for his wife. They spent their time together in relative seclusion, high above the village below, and moments of tenderness bloomed with every touch.

  She was pregnant, only four weeks from birth. They'd even named their child, whispering to it as a silent darkness fell across their village. Ghilean. At that, Villeen had fled. She'd twisted a thread of gentahl, altered her perception, and leapt from those weeds to the stones of Rippon's castle.

  Her father meant for wife and unborn child to die.

  But Villeen... she would stop her father, dash his plans on an ashheap.

  Torden would be avenged.

  A cheer rose from the sailors, and Villeen turned to peer at the village. Placed on the northernmost peninsula in Alkar, its docks were filled with ships. Men and women fished from the beaches, munching apples on the docks. They wore simple brown tunics, little more than dyed wool. Love lived in the homes, in the glow of a midday candle and the pine scent of a fireplace.

  They wouldn't expect death.

  "There's something else, Vill," Fier had said before she'd boarded the ship. "Can't you feel it? What you're doing is wrong! This is exactly what Father wants. Demon-damn, you'll never believe me, will you?"

  "I wish I could, but we're too deep. He's sunk us too deep."

  Fier had jerked his head to the side. "You're sinking us too deep. We've precious few decisions left before we drown. Think about that, sister, as you watch those children slaughtered—"

  "I—"

  "Think about it as their lives burn. Remember what I said as you cut his throat. The tears in his eyes, the agony of his screams—I can't begin to imagine what it will be like. You'll bury yourself today. "

  Like a sack of bricks, she'd hung her head.

  Weight and pain and desperation had hung from her since the day she'd killed Torden. It never relented. It wrenched her down, deeper and deeper, and the only way to escape was to stop her father.

  Now, as briny waves crested and fell, as the village grew larger, as these cutthroats readied their blades, she'd finally draw her father out. She'd force him to show himself.

  Then she'd kill him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Rays of dawn sliced through the windows.

  Irreor and his friends sat at the makeshift table, examining maps and plans as a low-burning torch sputtered behind them. Smoke and tar and dust filled the air, heavy and acrid and gritty. Timber cots lined the walls, blankets piled high atop sleeping bodies, and snores rumbled across the warehouse.

  Five days—far too much time—had lurched past since he and Kipra invaded Nekaron Rellik's house, but blood still stained his hands. It clung to his fingernails, a constant reminder of what he'd done.

  What he'd still do.

  -Oh, how those deaths will weigh. He'll begin to understand why my world needs love and caring and understanding. It'll be to end pain. End. End. No, he'll never realize how much I've given him.-

  Void take me, this world has those things!

  Yet he questioned himself. The starving children, the threat of Abennak's armies, Kylen Crest's stranglehold on Farren—how were those things loving or caring or understanding?

  -They're not.-

  Irreor kneaded his temples, but the voice rambled on. It hadn't quieted for days. It clawed his shoulders, gouged his neck—taunting, planning, tormenting. It stammered in frenzied bursts, like a man awaiting something terrible.

  Kipra crossed her arms and glared at the map. Three blobs of red wax marred th
e parchment—the places Crest moved between. Two blue marks indicated the healer, Jozles Sengin's, and the Council's High Seat, Lerik Benn's, homes.

  "Wait another week, Ark," Pernik said. "Crest has turned the city into a whirlwind, and—"

  Irreor cut the man off with a sudden shake of his head. "My father once said, 'An enemy who predicts your next move isn't an enemy at all. That's the man who kills you.'" He pointed to Jozles Sengin's house on the map. "We'll try to hit her again tomorrow night. We've a greater chance if we can keep Crest off guard."

  "I'm not trying to argue with you, but the healer isn't as important as you think—"

  "If you've got a better suggestion, then say it. Otherwise, keep your tongue in your mouth."

  Kipra nodded.

  Two nights earlier, Irreor had intended to kill the healer. However, beneath the light of a grinning moon, he'd discovered nearly one hundred men camped outside the woman's house—an impossible task.

  "Demon-damn, I didn't expect him to react so quickly," he muttered.

  Crest had placed entire regiments to protect his loyalists. He'd even ordered the city closed to wagons of food and supplies. More people begged for scraps of bread. More and more starved. Prices soared ever higher.

  Not exactly what Irreor had intended.

  Through it all, Crest slithered beyond their reach. Was he in the sewers or flitting between his luxurious homes? Perhaps he burrowed in his brothels. It didn't matter. They couldn't have moved against him even if they knew where to find him. His men swarmed like angry hornets anxious to defend the hive.

  -Ah, my general.-

  And so Irreor continued to wallow in this warehouse, helpless as Crest moved against him.

  "It doesn't matter how fast he's reacted," Kipra said. "He's done it, and now we react to him, or we're stuck. We need to take advantage of anything we can think of. I don't think—"

  Irreor smashed his fist against the table, and a cup of watery ale drenched the maps. "What do we take advantage of?"

  "Did we think it would be this easy?" Bran whispered.

  The large man's knuckles whitened as he clenched the table's edge. He peered down at the plans they'd so carefully crafted, the bowls of soup his mother had so lovingly prepared. Ale dripped onto his leggings, and he brushed it away.