Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse)

by James Maxey

  The man began to shiver violently.

  “Is he cold?” asked Bigsby, looking over her shoulder.

  “He’s hot as a furnace,” said Sorrow, placing her hand on the man’s brow.

  “We should feed him,” said Bigsby.

  “What?” Sorrow asked.

  “If he has a fever,” said Bigsby. “Feed a fever, starve a cold.”

  Sorrow started to point out that the man was bleeding to death, not fighting the flu, but pressed her lips tightly together, determined not to get drawn into the dwarf’s madness.

  “It’s starve a fever, feed a cold,” said Brand.

  Bigsby crossed his arms. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Which is it, Sorrow?” asked Brand.

  “How should I know?” she asked.

  “Women learn that kind of stuff from their mothers,” said Brand.

  “My mother died in childbirth,” said Sorrow. Fortunately, this left her companions silent, allowing her to focus on the task at hand.

  “I think we’ve got the worst of his limbs,” Sorrow said to Brand. “See if you can lift him so I can work on his ribs.” Brand shifted around, placing both hands beneath the man’s shoulders. The man groaned as he was lifted. His eyes fluttered open, but were unfocused.

  “Can you understand me?” Sorrow asked. “We’re trying to help.”

  The man’s eyes fixed on her. Perhaps it was her imagination, but the faintest hint of a brave smile flashed across his lips. Then he fainted once more.

  She wrapped his chest and ribs with the longest strips of the shirt, putting as much pressure as possible to close the wounds. The dragon’s claws had been sharp as razors, resulting in wounds that meshed together quite nicely with a little pressure. A cut with a duller instrument would have left torn and ragged edges that would have resisted her hurried attempts to close them.

  “Bigs—I mean, your highness, run to my tent and bring us blankets,” said Sorrow, as she helped Brand lay the warrior back down.

  “I’m not some common servant,” said Bigsby.

  “I’ll go get them,” Brand said wearily. He glanced at Sorrow and gave an apologetic shrug.

  Dusk dimmed into night as she continued working on the fallen warrior’s wounds. Brand built a fire and boiled water, then constructed an impromptu shelter of blankets, since Sorrow didn’t want to risk transporting the man to her tent. As she carefully cleaned each wound, she stitched them using fine silver wires no thicker than a hair. The man’s fever abated as she worked. Indeed, he was now cold and clammy to the touch. Despite their best efforts, he’d lost a lot of blood.

  The man slept through most of her treatment, though from time to time his eyes would flicker open. Once, he arched his back, gritting his teeth as he sucked in air. She’d grabbed his hand and he’d squeezed until she was certain her fingers would snap, before his spasm passed and he lapsed into stillness once more.

  “You’re good at this,” Brand said as he inspected the zig-zag stitches along the man’s ribs.

  “I wish I were better,” Sorrow said. “If I was a bone-weaver, I could manipulate bodies as if they were clay. Alas, I’ve never tracked down a living bone-weaver to learn the art. Still, I’ve learned a great deal about human anatomy. I was fortunate enough to study with Mama Knuckle, who has no peer as a necromancer.”

  “You studied necromancy?” She could tell from Brand’s tone that he equated necromancy with evil.

  Sorrow shrugged. “If she hadn’t taught me the art of soul catching, I couldn’t animate my golems.”

  Brand leaned over to the fire and poked at the logs with a stick. “Trapping the spirits of the dead seems, um, not nice.”

  “You were about to use a stronger word.”

  “I like to be diplomatic.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion. The souls I capture are doomed spirits who would eventually fade from existence. It’s not as if I’m snatching souls off clouds in heaven.”

  “You believe in heaven?”

  “How can you not? You’ve been to the Sea of Wine. You have the evidence of your own senses to know that our world is surrounded by numerous abstract realms where the dead dwell for a time. Why shouldn’t heaven be among them?”

  “I didn’t think you believed in the teachings of the Church of the Book.”

  “What I believe is of no importance. The abstract realms are shaped from human collective consciousness. Hundreds of thousands of people believe in heaven, so they’ve no doubt created it by now.”

  “By that logic, shouldn’t the Divine Author exist as well? The same number of people believe in him.”

  “Perhaps he does exist.”

  “And you’d wage war against a god not noted for his tolerance of sinners?”

  “If there is a Divine Author, he’s the creation of men, reflecting all their flaws and weaknesses. He’s the embodiment of hatred and fear and injustice, and I shall fight to my dying breath to oppose him. If I have the courage to overthrow earthly kings, I can muster the will to battle a heavenly one.”

  Brand chuckled and said, “Wow.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “I just haven’t met many people, male or female, ballsy enough to take on gods.”

  Sorrow kept quiet as she finished stitching the last wound on the warrior. She was determined not to respond to Brand’s choice of words, but in the end, she couldn’t hold her tongue. “I’m decidedly not ‘ballsy.’ Courage isn’t dependent on male anatomy.”

  “All I’m saying is that you’re bold. I meant it as a compliment.”

  “Yet you managed to turn it into a slight against the entire female sex.”

  “In addition to being bold, you’re also more than a little brittle,” Brand said with a frown.

  “I’m paying you to dig graves, not judge me.”

  “That I’ll do for free,” he said, grinning. “Ever since I learned the art of reading people’s hidden natures, I’ve been unable to turn it off.”

  “Nothing about my nature is hidden,” said Sorrow. “I pride myself on being open in my goals and motives.”

  Brand laughed.

  Sorrow scowled at him.

  “You honestly believe that?” Brand asked.

  “You’ve no reason to doubt my word.”

  “Maybe you should try a little doubt. I would say there’s a very good chance you’ve been deceiving yourself.”

  “By what right do you think that you know me better than I do?”

  “Let’s put it to a test. I’ll ask you three questions. You answer me as honestly as you can, and I’ll tell you what you truly mean.”

  “I won’t engage in such an absurd exercise,” she said, with a dismissive wave.

  “You just said you were proud to be open. I think we’ve exposed the first false notion you have about yourself.”

  She fixed her eyes upon him with a fierce glare. She didn’t like having her own words thrown back in her face. Worse, he was smirking. He regarded this conversation as an amusing way to pass the time, while she found it to be an unwelcome intrusion. She owed him no answers.

  On the other hand, what did she have to hide? She felt certain she could wipe that smug expression from his face.

  “Fine,” she said, crossing her arms. “You may ask what you wish.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But don’t make it so easy.”

  “I assure you, it will be easy to disprove your delusions.”

  “Not with such transparent body language,” said Brand. “Crossing your arms like that is like trying to build a little wall between the two of us. You’re entering into this as a hostile witness, rather than an open-minded seeker of truth.”

  “Just ask your first question.”

  “Why did you tell us your mother died in childbirth?”

  “It’s factual,” she said. “It explained why I didn’t feel like answering Bigsby’s insane babbling.”

  “But if you’ve studied healing well enoug
h to stitch this man back together, I’m guessing you probably know how to treat a fever.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But he was bleeding to death. The fact he was hot was the least of his problems.”

  “You could have said that. Instead, you played the dead mother card.”

  She frowned. “This wasn’t a poker hand. My mother’s death is not a card.”

  “That’s no doubt true, but you brought it up at a very odd time for no other reason than to shock us.”

  She shrugged. “It brought that ridiculous discussion to a halt.”

  “True. But it also revealed to me your mother’s death has left you feeling entitled.”

  “Entitled?” she scoffed.

  “Perhaps your father overcompensated for your mother’s death. Doted on you a bit more than he should have. You could probably play upon his sense of guilt to get your way by invoking your dead mother. As an adult, in times of tension, you still resort to pleading that your loss in childhood should give you special privileges.”

  Sorrow shook her head and laughed ruefully. “That’s your analysis? It’s so pathetically wrong I don’t know where to begin. No one who knows my father thinks of him as doting. Our family name is Stern. He’s the living embodiment of the word.”

  “Wait... you wouldn’t happen to be the daughter of Judge Adamant Stern?”

  “I am. Was that your second question?”

  “Is it true your father hung his own mother for being a witch?”

  “Is that your third question?”

  Brand looked lost in thought. “So, I’m guessing you think you hate your father?”

  “I don’t think I hate him. I know I hate him with every fiber of my being. His sins against mankind, all women, and his own family are beyond forgiveness.”

  “He’s a captain in the king’s Judgment Fleet. He has a duty to be tough.”

  “Did he have a duty to hang his own mother? I was ten years old when my housekeeper snuck me into the public square to witness the execution. As they pulled the hood over her head, my grandmother shouted, ‘How can you betray your mother?’” She shook her head, as the memory burned fresh within her. “My father answered, ‘How could you betray your god?’ And then he gave the command to open the gallows door. I tried to scream, but my housekeeper clamped her hand over my mouth. That unborn scream... it’s still inside me. It drives me to this day. All that I do, I do to destroy the institutions and laws that gave birth to a monster so vile as my father.”

  Brand rubbed his chin. He opened his mouth, about to speak, then fell silent.

  “Is there something you wish to say?”

  “I suspect I’d deeply regret saying it. I don’t know how open you’d be to understanding your true motives.”

  “I won’t be bothered by anything you say. Your supposed insights are merely part of a circus act. The pattern so far is that I tell you something in perfect honesty, then you tell me I meant the opposite of what I just said. Now that I’ve explained how much I hate my father, I imagine you’ll tell me that means I truly love him.”

  “Oh, it’s something much more powerful than love,” said Brand. “Don’t you see? Your father has provided your template for adulthood. Your whole life has been a quest to become him.”

  Sorrow rolled her eyes. “You’re as insane as Bigsby.”

  “Your father’s a judge. His daily life is devoted to deciding who’s right and who’s wrong. Now, you’ve fashioned yourself into a judge. But you’ve gone one step further. Your father pronounces witches and heretics and common criminals worthy of death. You’ve decided that all of civilization is guilty and must be destroyed.”

  “All people are judges,” said Sorrow. “To say I’m like my father in this respect is unremarkable. We both eat bread and drink water. It’s too trivial to be noteworthy.”

  “It’s not just that you’re both judgmental,” said Brand. “You’re both so certain of your cause it pushes you to do the unthinkable. Your father hanged his own mother. You’ve hammered nails into your brain.”

  “I do what I must,” said Sorrow. “I’ve witnessed the true source of evil. Now that I can see what’s wrong with the world, I cannot shut my eyes. My father’s blind belief in the law has turned him into a monster.”

  “An interesting choice of words from someone whose legs are covered in dragon scales,” said Brand.

  His voice was calm as he said this, but Sorrow felt as if he’d grabbed her by the throat and shouted into her face. She rose. “I’m tired. It’s late. This conversation is over.”

  “I haven’t asked my third question.”

  “Your senseless speculations following your previous questions haven’t left me eager to continue speaking. Besides, it’s absurd talking to you about truth when you so openly live a lie. Bigsby isn’t the missing Princess Innocent. The king has no son named Brand. I wouldn’t believe you were brothers at all, if it weren’t for your eyes.”

  Brand nodded. “They are similar, aren’t they? I’m certain that Bigsby truly is my brother. But you’re right. I’m no prince. I’m Brand Cooper, son of Grand Cooper.”

  “Of the Cooper Barrelworks?”

  “The same.”

  “Forgive me for being dubious. Grand Cooper is one of the wealthiest men alive. Why would his children be wandering the world as coinless vagabonds?”

  Brand chuckled. “That’s kind of a long story. But who needs coins when we have dragon bones?” He held up a blackened rib.

  Sorrow’s eyes opened wide. She hadn’t even thought of the fortune scattered around them. Dragon bones were worth their weight in gold at blood houses. Even bones burnt black would bring a good price.

  “Since we all worked together to kill this dragon, I assume we split this treasure three ways?” he asked.

  Yesterday, she would have argued. Their verbal contract said that anything they dug up would belong to her. But Brand had delivered the final killing blow. The division seemed fair. She nodded in agreement.

  “This will buy us passage back to the Silver City,” he said. “Hell, it will buy our own ship.”

  “If you’re Grand Cooper’s son, I’m surprised you don’t already own a whole fleet.”

  Brand shrugged. “I do, technically. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been back home to enjoy any of the trappings of my wealth. My father... he’s something of a perfectionist. When Bigsby was born, he couldn’t bear the thought of his first son having stunted, malformed limbs. So he commanded the midwife to take the baby away and kill it. He buried the body in a closed coffin so no one could see the freak he’d produced, and told the world the child had been stillborn.”

  “That’s awful,” said Sorrow.

  “Fortunately, the midwife didn’t kill the baby. Freaks are a valuable commodity. She sold the child to a circus.”

  Sorrow shook her head. “It’s a sign of this world’s corruption that such things can happen. How did you learn of his fate?”

  Brand fed a new log into the fire, coughing at the smoke it stirred up. When he caught his breath, he said, “The midwife spent her money a bit too freely. My father thought she was stealing from him, but soon learned the truth of what had happened. He kept the secret for almost thirty years. During this time, I was born.” He sighed. “I tried to be a good son, but sometimes he just seemed so unhappy. I didn’t know that every time he looked at me he was almost paralyzed with guilt.”

  “He deserved his guilt,” said Sorrow. “Though he failed, he’d conspired to commit infanticide. I can only imagine how much you hate him.”

  “No. I don’t hate him. He made a mistake, but he’s not evil. Four years ago, he suffered a stroke. His body was half-paralyzed. On his sick bed, he confessed everything to me. Said he’d been a fool to expect perfection from mere human flesh. He begged me to find his lost son and bring him home.”

  He looked at the sparks that rose from the fire. “The ensuing years have been a pretty wild adventure. I’m a different person from the naïv
e kid who left home. It’s going to be strange going back. Stranger still when I tell Dad that his long lost son isn’t only a dwarf, but also completely flipping insane.”

  “You could...” Sorrow shook her head.

  “What?”

  Sorrow ground her teeth together. “It causes me almost physical pain to say this, but a truthspeaker might be able to help you.”

  Brand’s face brightened. “You’re right. They could command Bigsby to remember who he truly was. It’s an excellent idea.”

  He rose, picking up a branch from the fire. He used his makeshift torch to aid him as he gathered up dragon bones into a pile next to the warrior. “Maybe we’ll run into a truthspeaker on the journey home who’ll be amenable to a bribe.”

  “I think they prefer their compensation to be referred to as offerings.”

  As Brand turned his back to her, Sorrow allowed herself the luxury of scratching her itching thighs. Her stomach tightened as she felt how hard and stiff her skin was beneath the fabric of her britches.

  Brand wound up near the pit the dragon had first erupted from. He crouched down, and held out his torch.

  “Look at this,” he said, sounding excited.

  Sorrow welcomed the distraction and walked to the pit. To her surprise, Brand doused his torch on the broken ground as she neared. She held her hands before her as her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness.

  Now she saw what Brand saw. The pit was glowing faintly. She carefully crept across the uneven ground to gaze into it. Thin beams of pale light seeped up through cracks in the slate lining the bottom of the grave.

  “I got so swept up in the fight and saving the mystery man’s life that I never stopped to think there might be something else in the hole,” said Brand. “I mean, I glanced in here while I was gathering firewood, and all I saw was rock. But what if that thing was meant to guard something?”

  Sorrow slid down the dirt wall into the pit. She grunted as she pushed one of the large flat stones aside. More light seeped up from below. She kept moving stones until she nearly fell through the widening gap. Carefully removing more stones, she revealed the opening to a set of spiral stairs. She was looking down the center of the spiral, and though this was the source of the glow, she couldn’t make out anything beyond the stairs.