Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse)

by James Maxey

  “Get to the wheel,” Mako said. “Sage says we need to get to open water.”

  Rigger sighed. “Let me get some clothes on.”

  “We may not have time,” Mako said, grabbing his brother by the arm and yanking him bodily down the hall. Sorrow followed, blinking as she emerged into full sunlight. She left most of her serpentine form below deck to avoid drawing attention.

  Her efforts at caution were perhaps unnecessary. Despite the activity aboard the Circus, it quickly became apparent that most people along the docks had their eyes turned toward a commotion at the main gate in the wall leading into the Silver City. Though the gate was at least a hundred yards away, the shouting could be heard from here.

  Suddenly, three uniformed guards went flying from the gate. A second later, Slate leapt over their limp bodies with Bigsby slung over his shoulders. Brand followed close on his heels, running as if an army were chasing him.

  And, indeed, an instant later a sizeable force of guards surged through the gate only a few yards behind the fleeing men. Slate and Brand had their eyes fixed upon the Circus, which already had sails rattling up the pulleys.

  As they neared the ship, a score of archers appeared on the city walls. Sage cried, “Incoming!” as the volley of arrows rained down.

  Fortunately, the three men avoided injury as strong winds suddenly whipped over their heads, deflecting the missiles. Brand outpaced Slate and leapt onto the ship. Slate threw Bigsby onto the deck, then spun around, fists clenched, and growled at the onrushing squadron of guards.

  Though he was unarmed and they were outfitted with mail and armed with spears, the guards slid to a halt. Sorrow noticed that Slate’s knuckles and sleeves were spattered with blood.

  A barrel shot past Slate and smashed into the legs of the closest guards, upending them. Slate spun and leapt for the Circus as Poppy readied another barrel.

  “Stay alert!” Gale shouted as wind filled the sails with a thunderous WHUMPH! The ship lurched as arrows began to pepper the deck. “I can’t deflect arrows while I’m pushing the ship.”

  Poppy launched another barrel, but missed the bravest of the guards who ran along the dock and leapt for the Circus. His heroic efforts came to naught as Mako leapt to the railing and caught the man square in the face with a punch, dropping him into the water. Mako leapt back as an arrow jutted from the wood where he’d just stood.

  “We’re sitting ducks,” Mako grumbled.

  “Only if you’re idiot enough to be a target,” Sage called down. “Take cover!”

  Mako looked around to find that all of his family, as well as Brand and the others, were crouching behind cover. Only Sage was exposed, but she swayed her body back and forth, avoiding the barrage of arrows with ease. Mako jumped to Sorrow’s side, pressing his back to the crate that sheltered her.

  Bigsby made a dash from his hiding place, shouting, “Out of the way!” as he charged toward Sorrow, whose body was still stretched down the stairs into the hold.

  Sorrow retreated below deck as Bigsby tumbled down the steps. Mako swiftly followed. The sound of arrows biting into wood, thunk thunk thunk, echoed in the confined hall.

  “I didn’t ask for this!” Bigsby screamed, rising to his feet with a clatter of metal on metal. It was only now that Sorrow noticed the dwarf’s wrists were bound with manacles. “I was happy in my old life! Happy!”

  “I take it things didn’t go well with your father?” Sorrow asked, snipping the iron links with her fingers.

  “He’s dead!” Bigsby said. “And apparently our mom is a real bitch!”

  Brand bounded down the steps. “She’s not our mother. She’s a step-mother, and not one I’ve met before.”

  “She’s an evil witch!” growled Bigsby. He looked sheepish as he glanced toward Sorrow. “Metaphorically. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “I may have mentioned that my father had outlived several wives,” said Brand, looking at Sorrow. “Apparently, before he died, he married wife number five. She’s younger than me!”

  “You disapprove of such age differences between couples?” Mako asked, sounding smug.

  “I don’t give a damn about the age difference,” said Brand.

  “Why bring it up?” asked Mako.

  Brand shook his head, then said, “It’s not important. What is important is that she accused me of being an imposter, and ordered the town guard to arrest us.”

  “But you’re his true son,” said Sorrow. “As much as I hate to say this, couldn’t a truthspeaker vouch for your identity?”

  “She had a truthspeaker present. But he never got around to testing me. He started off on Bigsby, accusing him of murdering the carnival ringleader who’d once employed him. And Bigsby confessed!”

  “Once owned me, you mean,” said Bigsby. “I was nothing but property to him! I’d stab the bastard again if I had the chance.”

  “But we were outnumbered ten to one. Why did you attack the guards?”

  “They were shackling me!” Bigsby shouted, rattling the links still cuffed to his forearms. “I swore I’d die rather than wear chains again!”

  “You almost got to do both,” said Brand.

  At this point, Slate walked down the stairs. He was covered in an alarming amount of blood, but didn’t seem to be in any pain. “Things may have gotten out of hand,” he said.

  “You tore that guard’s head off,” Brand said, sounding mournful as he ran his hands through his hair.

  “In my defense, he had an unusually skinny neck,” said Slate.

  “You fought the city guard?” Sorrow asked. “Even though there was a truthspeaker present?”

  “He bashed out the truthspeaker’s teeth!” said Brand.

  “I was put off by the way he was shrieking as I approached him,” said Slate. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant. The situation quickly grew out of control. Bigsby’s life was in danger. I grabbed him and ran, laying low anyone who stood in my way.”

  “Why?” asked Sorrow. “If he’s a confessed criminal and you’re a knight, shouldn’t you have sided with the guards?”

  Slate shrugged. “If I’d thought about it, perhaps. But for most of the life I remember, the people aboard this ship have been my companions. When Bigsby believed he was a princess, he was playmate of Cinnamon and Poppy. A knight is loyal. In my heart, this ship is the kingdom I serve.”

  The ship lurched hard to starboard. Sorrow glanced at Mako.

  “You seem calm.”

  “We’ve done this before. Things happened so fast they won’t have time to blockade the harbor. We’ll escape.”

  “Back to Commonground?” asked Bigsby.

  “To the Spittles,” said Sorrow.

  “The what?” asked Bigsby.

  “It’s a chain of damp pebbles dead in the center of nowhere,” said Brand. “Why there?”

  “It’s where Zetetic the Deceiver hangs his hat these days. He might be able to answer our questions about the painting.”

  Before Brand could ask any further questions, Cinnamon bounded down the steps and said, “You can come out now. We’re out of arrow range and none of the navy has even hoisted sails yet.”

  Brand and Bigsby followed Mako back above deck. Sorrow placed her hand on Slate’s shoulder before he could leave. He turned to her with a quizzical look in his eyes.

  “You’re not going anywhere until I tend your wounds.”

  “I believe I’m uninjured,” he said.

  “You’re covered in blood.”

  “I’m confident little of it is mine.”

  “Humor me. Let’s at least get you washed up.”

  She led him back into the master cabin. A porcelain pitcher of fresh water sat next to a small white basin. She poured water into the basin, then grabbed a towel and moistened the tip of it.

  “Wash your hands,” she said.

  Slate did so, and Sorrow pushed the door shut with her tail. She dabbed away the flecks of blood on his face
. He certainly had no injuries there.

  His hands were not as pristine. His knuckles were bleeding and bruised. She examined them closely, then said, “I don’t think I’ll need to stitch you up again. Take off your shirt.”

  She washed away the blood that had soaked through his sleeves. She inspected his old wounds, the ones he’d suffered from the dragon, and saw that they were still healing well.

  She didn’t look at his face as she said, softly, “I may know why you found it easy to attack a truthspeaker.”

  “I acted in the heat of the moment.”

  “Perhaps. But perhaps you acted as you were meant to act.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pressed her lips together, certain that what she was about to say was a mistake.

  And then she told him everything. Told him about the mysterious man-weapon referenced in the letter. Told him about the pygmy ghost who’d left hell to witness the birth of the Destroyer. Finally, she revealed the information that she most wanted to hide from him.

  “You have no aura,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know for certain. But I want to be honest with you. It’s possible that you aren’t human. You might be some elaborate magical construction, created to defend witches, not kill them.”

  He shook his head. He held up his bruised fists. “I bruise. I bleed. I breathe. I laugh when I play with Poppy. I’m a living man. I’ve no doubt.”

  “I have to admit there are many holes in my theory,” she said. “But I heard you on the deck. Talking about how you would like to have a purpose. It may be that you already have one. You’ve been created to make the world a better place by helping me fight the church.”

  Slate shook his head. “I refuse to believe that I’ve been created solely as a weapon. I must have a past. It’s only my memory that’s missing, not my humanity.”

  Sorrow nodded. “You don’t have to be only a weapon. Try to think of your lack of yesterdays as a gift. You’ve no shackles chaining you to the way things are. You’ve the freedom to make the world anew. Not having a past gives you an open path to the future.”

  Slate stared at his bruised hands, lost in thought.

  At last, he rose and walked for the door.

  “Thank you for telling me this,” he said.

  As he was halfway out the door, she said, softly, “And thank you.”

  She was surprised when he turned back and asked, “For what?”

  She blushed. But honesty had worked out pretty well over the last few moments. “I heard you compliment my eyes.” She looked down at her serpentine body. “I wake up most mornings feeling inhuman. It was... welcome... to discover that someone could still see past this. It’s not such a bad thing, to be human.”

  “Aye,” said Slate.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE MUNDANE DESTRUCTION

  OF ORDINARY LIFE

  SORROW’S NOSE WRINKLED as she slithered from the rowboat onto a gray pebble beach filthy with bird droppings. Her body felt stiff as she slid along the cold earth. The Spittles were a decidedly bleak stretch of real estate, cloaked this morning with clouds. Her breath came out in a fog, amidst a drizzle that was half rain, half snow.

  Sorrow pulled her cape more tightly about her. She’d left Commonground with little in the way of a wardrobe beyond her glass armor, and was grateful to have a cloak to protect her from the elements. Since regaining his sanity, Bigsby had avoided outright depression by keeping himself busy with constant sewing. Bolts of cloth had been among the booty of the Seahorse, and Bigsby had been somewhat obsessive in attacking the raw fabric with scissors, needle, and thread. Sorrow’s cloak had been cut large enough that when standing still, it was just barely possible for her to coil her tail beneath her and have it completely hidden by the fabric. Of course, this left her much taller than an ordinary person, so it wasn’t as if she was inconspicuous. Further drawing attention was the fact that Bigsby had crafted the hood in such a fashion that, in profile, her head now resembled that of a cobra. She was certain the dwarf had meant well.

  She surveyed the cliff of jagged rock that ran the length of the beach. She saw no obvious way to climb it. She looked back to the boat. Slate was pulling the small vessel further up the stony strand, overturning it so it wouldn’t fill with rain. Brand was struggling to find a convenient way of holding the canvas-wrapped painting he carried. Bigsby didn’t offer to help, but instead stood with his hands in the pockets, looking sullen.

  “This doesn’t seem like the sort of place a king would build a palace,” Bigsby said as he contemplated the inhospitable scenery.

  “This isn’t a palace,” said Brand. “It’s a fortress. For centuries the Silver Kingdom and the Isle of Storm fought wars over who would control these islands.”

  “What’s so valuable about them?” Bigsby asked.

  “Damn near nothing,” said Brand. “After the last war firmly established the land as belonging to the Brightmoon family, there were a few feeble attempts to colonize the place, but the settlements kept dying off. Eventually, the Silver Kingdom abandoned the islands entirely. It was expected that the Isle of Storm would try to claim them, but, apparently, the only reason they ever wanted them was to keep the Brightmoons from having them. Now, all that’s left is a few ghost towns and the graveyards of all the soldiers who died trying to hold on to the place.”

  Sorrow rose up on her tail as high as she could and strained to see over the cliff tops. “Are we certain this is the right island?”

  “Sage assures me there’s a fortress up there,” said Brand. “We couldn’t see it from the ship because of the mist, but I’ve learned to trust what she tells me.”

  Sorrow looked at Slate and said, “Toss me the rope. My snake half can climb almost anything. I’ll go up and throw you a line down.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said a voice from above. If Sorrow had been forced to guess, she would have said the voice belonged to an old man. “If you journey a quarter mile to the west, there are steps carved into the rock. They lead to one of the entrances of our modest little shelter.”

  “Who are you?” Slate shouted.

  “An excellent question,” the unseen voice answered. “It’s perhaps the sole topic I find of interest these days. But we need not stand in the rain and debate my identity. I’m certain it will be a topic of conversation at dinner. It usually is.”

  “You’re inviting us to dinner?” Brand asked.

  “Everyone on this island is invited to dinner,” said the voice. “Whether they wish to be or not.”

  Bigsby shook his head. “I should have stayed on the ship.”

  “Excuse me,” Sorrow called out. “But we’ve come looking for Equity Tremblepoint. Do you –”

  “Equity will join us at dinner,” said the voice.

  “How about Zetetic?” Brand called up. “Will he be there? There’s a painting we’re wanting him to look at.”

  The voice didn’t answer.

  “Hello?” Brand asked.

  “Let’s go find the stairs,” said Sorrow.

  They did so, though the steps didn’t lead to the top of the cliff. Instead, they led to the mid-point of the rock face, where they opened into a tunnel. Large oak doors stood ajar, their iron hinges locked with rust. Slate took the lead, advancing a few yards into the opening before turning quickly. He leapt back out into the drizzle, coughing violently.

  “Sorry,” he gasped. “I wasn’t prepared for the smell.”

  Now that he’d stirred the dank air of the guano filled tunnel, ammonia-laden fumes rolled out in eye-stinging waves.

  They fashioned makeshift masks from the silk handkerchiefs Brand and Bigsby had in their pockets and pressed ahead in silence. No one dared breathe deeply enough to initiate conversation. A few yards beyond the door, the tunnel became too dark for Sorrow to see her hand before her face. There was a soft click at her back and shadows were cast as Brand opened his glorystone locket. As Sor
row slithered forward, she found she would have preferred the tunnel to remain dark. The roof was black with sleeping bats. The floor was covered with a carpet of thick white filth, fuzzy with mold. Sorrow wouldn’t have wanted to walk through this with boots on, let alone crawl across it on her belly. Footprints in the muck showed that they weren’t the only ones to pass this way in recent days, though it didn’t seem that Zetetic had very many guests. Breathing as shallowly as possible, she followed Slate.

  At the end of the tunnel they found another oak door. Tacked to it was a hand-painted wooden sign that read, ‘Welcome to the Inquisition.’

  “It’s not too late to turn back,” Bigsby whispered.

  “I believe it is,” Slate said, pressing his shoulder against the heavy door, his feet slipping in the mire.

  The door opened into a vast room filled with casks and crates. Brand’s light did little to illuminate the outlines of the space, save for rows of stone columns rising to a vaulted ceiling twenty feet above. The play of light and dark created by the glorystone left Sorrow imagining she was seeing movements in every shadow.

  Slate closed the door behind them.

  Bigsby lowered his handkerchief. After a few breaths, he said, “It’s just as bad in here.”

  “We’ve got gunk all over our boots,” said Brand. “You’d think they’d at least have a door mat.”

  “Feel free to wash your feet with the contents of the casks,” said the same unseen voice who’d greeted them from the cliffs. “The wine’s long since turned to vinegar, but it does rather cut through the smell.”

  Sorrow’s ears pin-pointed the patch of darkness where the voice originated. Whoever the speaker was, he seemed to be clinging to the ceiling.

  “Come into the light,” Sorrow said.

  “It’s best that I don’t,” came the answer. “My appearance can be somewhat alarming.”

  Sorrow pulled back her cloak, revealing her nail-studded scalp. She coiled up on her tail and said, “We may be more open-minded than you give us credit for.”

  “Some of you are indeed open-minded.” Sorrow heard a faint rustling as the voice spoke. The speaker seemed to be moving. “Once, all minds were open to me. It was as if I was surrounded by men shouting their most sacred secrets. Now I hear barely intelligible murmurs, save for the dwarf. His mind sounds like an old, familiar song.”