Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens)

by Heath Pfaff

  "How many of the tasks set to you by the blade turn out to be pleasant experiences?" Xandrith asked, well aware that he was pushing his luck with the kid.

  Crow frowned and looked away. "Not every single task ends badly."

  Xandrith nodded. "Of course, but if you get any impulses that involve hurting me or my companions, this one will end badly for you. So let's try and be friends for as long as that's possible, alright?"

  The young man looked back at Xandrith and smiled again. "Friends? This world doesn't have room to spare for friends, but I'm all for staying on good terms for as long as possible." With that he sat down on the ground across from where Kassa and Haley slept and the entire world seemed to wake up again as he did. The normal sounds of the night resumed.

  Little Crow was a dangerous one, despite his age. Xandrith was suddenly quite certain that he wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. The young blade wielder, for his part, curled up in his cloak and seemed to drift off to sleep almost immediately. It was a dangerous thing to do in a camp full of enemies, but obviously Crow felt he didn't have anything to worry about. Either he trusted Xan not to dispatch him in the night, or he was confident enough in his own abilities not to be afraid. In the first case he was a fool, and in the latter he was a cocky fool. Xan grumbled quietly to himself as he leaned against a tree, keeping his eyes on the newcomer. It was going to be a damn long night.

  Xandrith woke Kassa up shortly before dawn. "Kas, we should talk." He whispered into her ear as he gently shook her shoulder. Kassa snapped awake instantly, her eyes alert and her hand falling towards the place on her hip where Xan would have kept his knives. She looked at Xan for a moment and then sat up.

  "What's wrong?" She asked, automatically picking up on the urgency in Xan's quiet tones. She drew herself to her feet, though it only took her a second to see the extra figure in their camp. "Who?"

  "He's our new travel companion. He has a cursed blade and it sent him here to keep tabs on us." Xandrith explained quickly.

  "And you're just going to let him go with us? Xan, that's stupid." Kassa didn't seem particularly amused.

  "We're not being given a choice. He'll follow us if I try to send him away, and if I kill him, the cursed blades will send more. They won’t be as friendly, and we won't know when or where they'll come from. I'm choosing the enemy we can see over the enemy we can't."

  Kassa sighed deeply and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. "This doesn't make things any easier. Is this going to interfere with our plans?" She paused for a moment as confusion set in upon her before adding. "What are our plans?"

  Xandrith looked over at the apparently sleeping figure of Little Crow and then back at Kassa in a meaningful way before saying in a clear voice. "I don't know."

  The former guard nodded her head in understanding, though the expression on her face told Xan that she wasn't particularly happy to be on the outside of whatever plan Xandrith was cooking up. Haley chose the following moment to get up. She stretched and got to her feet, the fox mask somehow perfectly conveying her expression of groggy resignation. Xandrith moved quickly to intercept her before she noticed the newcomer, but he didn't make it in time. Little Crow hopped from the place he had been apparently sleeping and came to his feet lightly. He stood up and dusted himself off as Haley watched in apparent horror from a few feet away. Xandrith saw her reaching for her knives.

  "Haley!" Xan called out. "This is Little Crow. He'll be traveling with us." He was looking to quickly head-off any hostilities before they broke out.

  Haley looked back and forth between Xan and the interloper as if trying to decide whether she was still asleep or simply losing her mind. She was probably wondering where a newcomer would appear from in the middle of the night. Xandrith debated how much he should tell the impulsive young woman. It wasn't that he didn't trust Haley, but she was young and rash, and she might do something without thinking the consequences through. Xan decided quickly to leave off the part about him being a spy.

  "He's a blade wielder, like us, and he has business in the direction we're traveling. There is safety in numbers." Xandrith said as way of explanation. He watched Haley's face for a change of expression. She'd let go of her knife, but he could tell she was still tense.

  Little Crow gave an exaggerated bow and a flirtatious smirk. "Haley, it is a pleasure to meet a sister of the blades. I hope we'll have occasion to become much closer as we travel together." He paused for a moment before adding. "You know you don't need to wear a plague mask, right? The infestation won't go after black blades."

  Haley took a step back and reached for her mask, not to remove it, but as if to hold it in place. "I prefer to be safe." She replied quietly. It was only too obvious to Xan why she would refuse an offer to take off her mask. Safe or not from the plague, the mask allowed her to hide her scars.

  Little Crow shrugged. "Then it is the world's loss. A beautiful young lady shouldn't go around hiding her face."

  This earned a frown from Haley. She turned her back on Crow and stalked off into the woods to take care of her morning business. Xandrith shook his head sadly.

  "You had better watch your tongue, Little Crow. Haley is sensitive about her looks." Xandrith said quietly so as not to be heard by his recently departed apprentice.

  "Young women are always sensitive about their looks, but they're never as bad as they think." Crow answered with a smile that was a little too confident and cocky.

  Xandrith took a step towards the interloper. "Most young women weren't held down and mutilated with red hot brands by a rapist leaving them badly scarred for the rest of their life." Perhaps he shouldn't have said it with such a threatening overtone, but Xan couldn't help himself. He wanted to knock the cocky little bastard on his ass. It took a great deal of restraint not to do it physically.

  Crow's smile faltered and fell off his face. "I'm sorry." He said quickly. Xan couldn't tell whether he was sincere or merely a good actor. "I had no way of knowing. I'll apologize when she ..."

  Xandrith shook his head quickly. "Don't apologize. Just leave it be. Haley is a capable young woman and there is a lot to respect and admire about her. Judge her on what she has made of herself and you may eventually remove your foot from your mouth. If you try to apologize she'll just know that I told you what happened to her, and then she'll resent you for knowing. Assuming you're around long enough, she will tell you what she wants you to know."

  Crow gave a single nod and then slunk off to the other side of the camp looking like a kid who'd just been scolded by his parents. Xandrith sighed in frustration. Young people could be a pain in the ass. They were too impulsive and emotionally volatile. Xandrith felt like a nanny.

  ***

  Haley trudged angrily through the woods, Crow's stupid attempt at flattery burning through her mind like a ball of molten metal. "Beautiful young lady." What did he know? She should have taken her mask off right then and shown him exactly how beautiful she really was. It would have been satisfying to see the look of horror on his face when he saw the pink and red scar running down over her eye, through her cheek, and destroying the soft pink flesh of her lips. Satisfying and heartbreaking. Haley had never quite hardened her heart to those looks. Xandrith never seemed to see her scars when he looked at her face, and Kassa didn't seem to notice them anymore either, but strangers always looked and their eyes had nothing kind to say.

  Beauty isn't as important as strength. The axe spoke smoothly in her own voice. If all you want is for men to use you and women to hate you, then beauty is fine. If you want respect, power, and the ability to carve your own path through the world, strength is what you really need.

  "What good is being strong if you have to stand alone all the time?" Haley asked aloud, her voice sounding weak in her ears. "I just want to smile at someone and not have them turn away from me. I want to be normal."

  Do you think Xandrith would like you more if you were normal? He is a man who understands strength. If you really want to win hi
s heart, that is the way to do it. Prove that you can be as strong as he is.

  Haley frowned. "Just stop it. I'm not going to win his heart. He has Kassa, and he'll love her until his heart stops in his chest. I'm just a kid to him. I'm happy to just be his friend."

  Liar. I know your heart, Haley, better than even you do. The voice, so much like her own, was dark and whispery. I have seen your dreams, the sweetest and the most depraved. You want him. You want him to want you. You love him.

  "It doesn't matter what I ..." Haley began, but she didn't get anything else out before the voice of the axe broke in. I'm telling you it does! With me you can get what you want. We could make Xandrith grovel at our feet and beg for a moment of our touch!

  Haley's cheeks blushed as vivid images flooded through her mind, scenes from dreams she'd have never dared speak of and fragments of imagery she didn't even fully understand. "That's not what I ..." She began to protest, but the images intensified and she suddenly felt light headed and warm. "Please, stop." The words came out softly, barely a breath, and then the images were gone and Haley found herself standing on shaking legs and leaning against a tree.

  Those are not lies, Haley. You could have all of that and more. I can help you reach your full potential.

  Haley used a sleeve to wipe sweat from her brow and forced herself to stand up straight, though her legs were still shaking. "Leave me alone!" She snapped, putting as much strength into the words as she could muster. It wasn't easy to deny the axe. The promises it made tugged at her heart and drove a fierce craving through her body that felt almost beyond control. Everything it offered was so enticing, but she couldn't allow herself to submit to the will of the cursed weapon.

  "Leave me alone!" She shouted again, and with that the pressure in her mind seemed to lift and drift away. The axe was gone again.

  ***

  A week on the road did little to ease Xan's discomfort about their new companion. Little Crow seemed only too happy to shatter every silence and to pry into every conversation that started in his vicinity. He was never rude and he never intentionally sought hostility, but Xan found his mere presence something of an irritation. Perhaps it was the easy way that Kassa seemed to take to the young man, or the equally easy way even Haley seemed to have in conversing with the newcomer. It rankled the assassin. He was spying on them for the trolls, but he laughed and joked around with the women as though they'd long been friends. That level of association hadn't been nearly as easy for Xandrith to achieve. It had taken him years to learn how to be charismatic, and it still felt like a farce every time he attempted it. The brat was really good with people, and in Xandrith's opinion it didn't seem like just an act.

  "Don't you agree?" Crow's voice broke his circle of rage and brought Xan's attention back to the present.

  "What? No. Shut up." Xan snapped back, unsure of what he'd just disagreed with, but positive it had seemed as irrational as it had sounded when he'd said it. "Maybe." He added a moment later, and then to change the subject he latched on to something else. "The roads have been too quiet lately. Has anyone else noticed that?"

  The fox and the wolf, Haley and Kassa, were looking at him as though he'd lost his mind, but his oh-so-great friend Crow was ready to back him up. "Yes, we haven't seen another person in four days. I was wondering about that as well."

  Xandrith tried not to frown. "With Spring well onto us, there really should be more travelers on these roads. Tradesman should be heading out to the small towns in the area and delivering seed to local farms."

  "Maybe it's because we're so far north." Kassa offered.

  Xandrith shook his head. "No, this is unnatural even for this far north. This is either the plague or the trolls. It might be both." He wasn't sure whether he was really happy with the direction his change of subject had taken them.

  "We are drawing near Yillan Reach as well, if I'm not mistaken. I've heard that area has become a dead zone." Little Crow said in an off-handed way, as though his statement was just a subtle curiosity.

  The assassin had neatly glossed over that fact. He had, in fact, gone out of his way to keep the exact destination of their journey completely secret. He suspected that Little Crow already knew where they were headed, or was at least was suspicious, but he wasn't about to give the spy any additional hints.

  "Are we?" Xan replied evenly. "I'd thought we were still well north of the Reach."

  "Yes, we are about three days north of Yillan Reach, but we've been traveling due south for the last few hours. I'm certain you have no intention of taking us any closer to the city, though. It would be quite dangerous. In fact, we might already be a little too close for comfort's sake." Crow kept up his guise of concerned impartiality.

  Kassa and Haley had gone stubbornly quiet. They no doubt suspected what Xandrith had in mind, but there hadn't exactly been an opportunity to discuss the details of his plans with Little Crow hovering about constantly. As far as Xandrith was concerned, he only had one remaining responsibility in the coming war. He needed to retrieve the Great Vault and to free the creature sleeping within. Whatever it was that slept within the vault, it was the only possible force that could resist the chaotic god-thing that the trolls were helping rise to power.

  There was a possibility that years of imprisonment in the Great Vault had driven the once peaceful inhabitant mad, but the assassin was working with limited resources. He could try to kill the god-like being the trolls were raising on his own, a task which was beyond impossible when the creature could literally rip him from the fabric of creation. Or he could free the only creature of equal power that might be able to protect the world it had created, assuming it wasn't too insane to do so. Of course, retrieving the Great Vault meant walking directly into the center of Yillan Reach.

  The Reach had been overrun by the mechanna monsters. These were created from the fusing of maddened drayid, a race imprisoned in darkness and desolation by the mages, with the poor masters of metal and flesh who had once been peaceful craftsmen in their own right. The resulting creatures were mixtures of dead flesh and metal and insane from the suffering of their imprisonment. They sought only to devour more flesh and free more of their kind from the prison of the Great Vault. They were impossible to negotiate with. Anything they wanted they took by force. They could steal knowledge by possessing those with the information they needed, and they only had to tie a small amount of mechanna craftsmanship to a body to allow them to gain control. Leading his friends back towards Yillan Reach was dangerous. Last time Xandrith had entered the city he'd lost Kassa, and here he was leading her and now Haley back to that cursed place.

  Xandrith stopped in his tracks and turned to face Little Crow. "Let's stop playing this game, Crow. You know what is happening here. Speak your mind."

  Crow met Xan's gaze for a second and then shrugged. "I know you plan on looking for something called the Great Vault, and that if you find it you're going to summon an insane god from his slumber. In the process of doing this, you're going to lead all of our friends into a situation in which they could suffer a fate far worse than death."

  Every word of it was truth, damn him. "We are hardly your friends, and none of you need to go to the Reach with me. I left by myself so that I wouldn't risk anyone's life in my endeavor but my own. You can all turn back if you want."

  Haley was the first to speak up. There was a fierceness in her voice. "We've come this far, Xandrith. I won't turn around now. I don't know if what you're doing is right, but you're my friend and I'm going to fight by your side."

  Kassa was next, and her voice was quieter, calmer, but equally steadfast. "I know only too well what happened last time we went to the Reach, but that isn't stopping me. I believe in you, Xan, and I believe in what you're trying to do. I'm afraid, but only a fool wouldn't be."

  All eyes fell on Crow. He held up his hands, palms open. "I didn't say I wanted to turn back, but I felt like we needed to get that out in the open. So all of you are really alright with this waking a mad
god idea? No second thoughts from anyone?" Crow's eyes went from one to the other of the companions, the gray pupils a familiar echo of Xan's and Haley's, though Xan was short one gray eye these days. Xandrith noted that Haley looked away as Crow looked in her direction. She had doubts. Xan didn't begrudge her those doubts, and didn't believe for a second that she would turn her back on him, but he did take mental note of it.

  The only one of his companions that he really didn't trust was Crow, and that was for obvious reasons. Little Crow would try and stop him at some point. What Xan was doing was in direct opposition to the trolls, and it was only a matter of time before their agent would have to make a move. The assassin would need to be watchful.

  "The alternative to waking a mad god is letting the world succumb to the chaos that the trolls and their god will bring about, Crow. Is that something you want?" It was a question that Xan had asked himself on several occasions.

  "I'm simply advising that we choose the enemy we can see over the enemy we cannot." Crow said with a knowing smile and a wink, echoing Xan's words from the day after he'd first joined the group. Those were words that Crow shouldn't have been able to hear, and yet he repeated them with a confidence that told Xandrith he wasn't simply pulling them from thin air. He was letting Xan know that he was always listening.

  "You're choosing the overwhelming enemy that we know is coming, over the only possible ally we might have, baby bird. It is a difference you desperately need to understand. The trolls and their god will destroy us all. At least with the creature in the Vault we can hope he might show some mercy towards us." Xan's voice had gone flat as he fought with a desire to lay Crow out cold. The boy was a fool, and he was dangerous, and as Xan became agitated Crow only seemed more dangerous in his eyes.