Dagger 2 - Blood Brothers - A Dark Fantasy Adventure (Born to Be Free series)

by Walt Popester

  Warren grabbed Ianka by the collar, without even looking at him. “There’s a boundary no one should cross, not even you,” he growled. “Don’t talk about my father. You don’t know what it means to walk in these boots!” He let him go.

  Erin put a hand on his shoulder and the son of Pendracon Hammoth kept silent, staring into the void.

  “Above all,” Ianka resumed, as if nothing had happened. “Don’t ever pummel him, even though that is the greatest temptation of all those you see around here, including me! Do you think I’m crazy? Of course I’m crazy, but not so crazy to hit him.”

  “What can you know…son of a stonecutter,” Warren murmured.

  Ian whistled a merry tune and began to mimic a stone-breaker with a pick in his hand. “Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho!” he hummed.

  Dag imagined it was a familiar song among stonecutters.

  “You two can be really stupid when you put yourself to it,” Erin said. “Is it so important for you to hurt each other?”

  “Words can hurt only those who’ve never felt the icy whisper of a blade.” Warren raised his glass to Ian. “Accept my apologies, brother I never had.”

  Schizo drank with little conviction. “You already have a brother, War.” He looked toward the stairs. Ash, the boy who had come from outside, was coming down again. Now he wore warm, white woolen garments, and had a decent look unlike his half-drunk and disheveled brother.

  “Nay…that’s just my sweet sister,” the white blood loudly replied, to be heard by everyone. “The little princess must have broken a fingernail in the ruins of Adramelech, this is why she’s so mad at me. Or maybe she just had her first period and she’s all scared because no one had explained to her what were those blood stains on her panties!”

  “What the fuck, War!” Erin exclaimed. “That’s too much even for us!”

  Ash grabbed a tray of grilled meat, prepared for him by the waitress behind the bar, and sat down with them. He did not even raise his eyes as he slipped his fingers into the meat dripping with fat. He held a piece of it in mid-air, looked at it with trembling lips, and shoved it into his mouth, swallowing it whole. His face was crossed by an expression of total surrender to the pleasure of the senses.

  “You could at least say hello,” Warren said.

  “Kids,” Ianka said. “Today’s been a good day for a lot of reasons: no one has died, the Fortress is still standing and I had a decent bowel movement. Why mess it up?”

  “Who’s the guy?” Ash asked, opening his eyes again after the intense pleasure.

  “Guess who…” the eldest son of Hammoth said. “He’s Dagger, Dagger Nightfall, the son of Pendracon Crowley: the one they gutted like a rabbit in the ruins of Adramelech. Remember the story our father used to tell when he wanted to scare us, as kids? That’s him, in the flesh.”

  “Is your brother always such an asshole, or every now and then he takes a break?” asked Dag.

  “Every now and then he takes a break.”

  “When he shits and when he sleeps,” Ianka explained. “And this does explain a lot of things.”

  Erin let out a laugh, bringing her mug to her mouth.

  Ash introduced himself. “I’m nobody. Don’t try to befriend me; it won’t be of any use. I’m the unnecessary second-born of a suicide Pendracon, chipped tile of a mosaic too, too much bigger than me. Always—”

  “Stop it,” Warren said.

  “—always and forever condemned to live in the shadow of my brother: the brave, true and only Warren Korpiklan, who’s made up his mind to discover the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about his father’s death. As if he were the only fucking person in the world who cared for him!” He practically yelled the last words.

  “You’d better calm down, both of you,” Erin said. “They’re watching us. You always make me feel ashamed.”

  “I only obeyed my orders, what’s the big wonder?” War continued. “Do you know whom these orders came from, Ash?”

  “Here they go again…” Ianka muttered.

  “From Araya?”

  “Of COURSE they came from your dear Araya!”

  “I don’t believe it one bit,” Ash answered. “He can’t have ordered you to disappear into thin air in the middle of Adramelech, together with all the food and weapons! For Ktisis sake, you brought me one step from Tankars’ territories. That was not a Test, that was just the stupid attempt to kill me once and for all!”

  “Maybe you should reconsider the affection you believe he has for you,” his brother said. “Maybe even the fucking lizard doesn’t view highly the way you forgot so fast about your real father.”

  Silence fell on those words. Even Ianka became serious.

  “Go soak your shit-face in Skyrgal’s intestines,” Ash replied, with absolute calm. “I could have died in there, do you know what it means? I could be dead, just dead, all dead. You can’t wait to see me dead, or what?”

  “If you want to become a Guardian, losing your head is an eventuality you must take in consideration, you know?”

  “Oh, the philosopher! It was full of Tankars and you left me without so much as a fucking knife!”

  Warren stood up and slammed his fist on the table. “For the sake of that slut of Dagger’s mother! What the Ktisis did you expect for your Test, a walk in the woods taking blackberries and cocks in the ass?”

  “Now, that is a subtle allegory,” Ianka said.

  Ash stood up too. “When I didn’t find you, I thought you were dead! Nine days, dammit. I wasted nine days looking for you before returning to the Fortress. Now Araya will think it took me this long to find my way home, instead I—”

  “Shove it in that little head that by mistake you have on your shoulders!” Warren interrupted, looking at him straight into his eyes. “I don’t need your help—I never did and never will. You know it was your Test. Five days and not one more to come back home, with or without me.”

  “This can’t be Dad’s order!” Ash closed his eyes, realizing his terrible misstep.

  “Now you call Araya Dad?” War said in disbelief. “Now tell me I’m wrong. You’ve already forgotten about him, haven’t you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “You forgot about the same father who took us on his shoulders and—”

  “Hammoth carried you on his shoulders,” the younger brother pointed out. “I followed on foot. You were the first-born, I was the one who…” He didn’t finish.

  Silence fell between them.

  “Yes, you were the mama’s boy,” Warren remembered, grinning. “The same mama you killed.”

  “No. I didn’t…” Ash’s eyes were lost. “It was just an accident,” he whispered as if he were suddenly far from there. “An accident. Nothing more.”

  Ianka took him under his arm. “Stop it, War! Can’t you see the effect it has on him? Shit! Family’s only purpose is to rub in the same crap for years. I’m happy not to have one.”

  “You still need someone who considers you special, don’t you, Ash?” the older brother continued. “That need is so great that you easily forget about your blood, too. Don’t be angry at me. I just wanted to give you a lesson: you’re just a wimp, one of those who get always left behind. The greatest strength is in solitude, when you know you don’t need anyone, but this you don’t know and you’ll never learn. You hide behind the skirt of Araya just like, as a child, you did with your mother. The same you made…stumble.”

  Ash brought his hands to his face. “It was just an accident, just an accident,” he kept on muttering as if lost in a recurring nightmare.

  Warren grinned with satisfaction. Dagger punched him in the face.

  The whole room fell into silence. All those who, until then, had pretended to pay no attention to what was happening stopped chatting and turned toward their table.

  “War, what the fuck.” Erin threw her fork into her plate, resting her head on her hands.

  “He started it.” Warren rubbed his cheekbone as if he hadn’t even noticed Dagger’s
fist.

  “You’re fighting for dead people’s affection, holding the past against each other,” she summed up. “Shit. Sometimes you make me so angry.”

  “Go to Ktisis, all of you. I’m done.” Warren murmured. “I’m fucking done.” He drained his mug. He took a few steps away before turning, to add, “I didn’t leave you alone in those ruins. I was watching from a distance but you couldn’t see me, blinded by wind and anger as you were. I’m always one step ahead of you. You’re my sweet little sister, what do you think? That I want you dead? Bah, fuck you. I’m done.”

  They watched Warren get out of the front door, then silence fell on them. No one was joking anymore, and many of the other novices were staring.

  “How much did he drink?” Ianka asked.

  “Not enough,” the girl replied. “Warren is one of those who should never stop drinking, because then he starts talking—though, as long as he speaks, it’s a good sign. The real problem is when he doesn’t want to talk anymore.”

  Ian shook Ash by the shoulders. “Warren only did what your adoptive father ordered him. It was your Test and it didn’t go too well. Shit happens.”

  “It was just an accident,” the white blood whispered. “Just an accident.”

  “Where is he now?” Schizo asked.

  The girl answered, “Away from here. He won’t listen.”

  “It was just an accident.”

  “Then we must go to Araya,” Ianka said. “Maybe he can play a song for him.”

  “His room is already full of catchy songs. Maybe it’s time to give it a break. You’re leading him down a bad road, Ian.”

  Slowly, Ash left the protective embrace of his friend. He stood still, then he began to eat in an automatic movement. Some time passed before he raised his eyes from his plate to look at them.

  “Don’t be angry with him,” Erin said, when she managed to re-establish eye contact.

  “He knows how it feels when it comes to our mother,” the white-eyed boy whispered. “He knows, and he does it on purpose.”

  “Warren is one of the few on whom we can rely.”

  “Erin. In the night, you touch yourself thinking about him.”

  “Ha…Ktisis. Sometimes I wonder if Warren is right about you, after all. Do you think it’s easy for him? Do you think it’s easy to have on your shoulders a—?”

  “Don’t start again with the stone on your back when you shit! I know what you two think about it.” Ash turned to Dagger. “I want to hear a new voice. You, what sense did you get of this? And don’t tell me shit like I do not get no ideas. I am son of Crowley. I kill wolves in the desert with great sword of my father!”

  The other two turned to Dagger, too, waiting for him to say the right thing, or at least something. Anything.

  “He could leave you a dagger,” Dagger said after a short reflection. “Where I come from, a dagger is never denied to anyone. For any reason.”

  Ash looked at him, trying to figure out if Dag was kidding him. Then, slowly, a grin appeared on his lips. “A dagger,” he repeated. “Yeah. You heard him, right? A dagger!”

  “Okay, this joke about Dagger saying dagger is so poor that I’ll just try to forget it.” Ianka placed yet another empty mug on the table, rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and took the white blood under his arm again. “I Ssaw fthings that you Ffoools cannot—hic!—cannot eeven Immagin,” he said, mimicking the hissing and facial expressions of Araya. Even Dagger found something to laugh about it when Schizo closed his hands over his eyes, mimicking the movement of two membranes. “I saw Tankars buggering the corpses of their sisters on the tombs of the ancient gods. I’ve seen Gorgors’ big fat, acid snots used as projectiles against the enemy. I saw the titanic enemas of the Mastodons—”

  “Get to the point!” Ash interrupted, trying not to laugh. “Damn, you do it better and better every day.”

  “Warren is desperate, in the true meaning of the word,” Ian replied, serious again. “He can’t resign himself to the death of your father. He’s a pragmatist.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “That he considers two parents fallen from the same window a bit too much for one lifetime,” Schizo dryly joked. “And now he sees something vile everywhere—I think it’s understandable. You are his little brother, that is to say his relief valve by divine right.”

  “Ian?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know what it means to come across a pack of Tankars, among those ruins?”

  Ianka froze. Dagger was struck again; he had never seen light disappear so quickly from a face, leaving such a deep and disruptive void in its place.

  Ash closed his eyes, and sighed.

  Erin stared at him with hatred and whispered, “I’ll kill you, the next time you say something like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” the white blood tried to say. “I didn’t want to say that. Ktisisdamn, words only do harm, can’t you see? Enjoy the silence.”

  Ianka’s eyes filled with tears, getting lost. “Don’t kill them,” he whispered. “Don’t kill them, please. I’ve got no one else in the world.”

  “Ian?”

  “It was just an accident…”

  “IAN!” Ash turned to Erin. “You see? He does it on purpose!”

  Schizo suddenly reawakened and patted Ash on the shoulder, causing him nearly to collapse on the table, “Tankars, huh? And what did you guys talk about?”

  The son of the late Pendracon looked sorry for a little longer, before smiling. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but you’re really a jerk.” He stood up. “Now, will you please excuse me. Wandering in the desert, fasting, wouldn’t put anyone in a good mood.”

  “Think about what we said,” Erin told him.

  Ash shrugged. “You didn’t said anything. You’re just my friends. If it weren’t for you, I…” He didn’t finish. He smirked and got out using the front door.

  “Will they ever get along?”

  “Little sister, Guardians have a soft spot for civil war, can’t you see?”

  She smiled bitterly. “I can’t see. I’ve always been alone.”

  “Oh, poor child…” Ian took her in his arms and held her head against his chest. “What’s the matter, I’m not enough for you anymore?” He seemed about to kiss her, then rubbed his knuckles on her scalp, hard enough to make her laugh and cry out in pain at the same time.

  “Stop it, please please please!”

  Schizo let her go and took the final, long sip from his last mug of draug. The hall began to empty and the waitress started to clear the tables, scowling at those who lingered.

  Ianka smiled to her, winking and mimicking her big tits with his hands. “If tomorrow Olem sees that you’re still alive, he will pile it on,” he said to Dagger. “There’s nothing that pisses him off more than someone claiming to be still alive after his first day of training.”

  “To die, to be alive…” Dag murmured, lost in thoughts. He looked at the two, remembering the Dracons’ warnings a bit too late.

  “Be careful,” Erin said. “Olem can be a bitch when he means to. Many think he does it for your own good, to train you, but I think he’s just a sadistic bastard. Once he hit my brother until he lost his consciousness…and his reason too, as you can see.”

  Schizo shrugged, tapping his temple.

  “You two are brother and sister?”

  “Not really,” Ian answered. “But our eyes have the same color. This is enough to be called brother and sister around here.”

  Dagger fought not to show how those simple words had hurt him.

  “Of course, it’s something you can’t understand,” Ianka continued, turning the red-hot knife in his wound. “Your eyes have a strange color: red! Do you have some kind of illness?”

  “Some albinos,” Dag pointed out. “Some albinos have eyes this color.”

  “Eye color has nothing to do with it,” Erin stepped in. “Don’t listen to him. It’s the way they reflect truth that says everything.”r />
  The two exchanged a fleeting glance, then Erin landed a slap on the nape of his brother.

  Dagger bowed his face.

  “Oh, don’t look like that. Olem will think about you,” Ianka said without sarcasm.

  Dagger answered, “Olem picked me just to get his vengeance.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. But he wants to kick my ass and now he has all the time and the excuses to do it.”

  “Yes, every now and then he gives that impression. In truth, Holly—”

  “Talk about your Dracon as little as possible, Ian,” Erin interrupted him. “You never know who may be listening.”

  They looked around. It seemed that some Hammer novices, sitting a little further, had looked away just then.

  Schizo continued to stare at them, twisting one of the empty mugs in his fingers, until they got up and left. “She’s right,” he went on. “Get used to the idea that everyone watches and listens to everyone, in here. You are the son of the last Warrior King worthy of the name. The Sword Dracon will never allow you to be at more than a spit’s distance from his ass, this is why he decided to take you with him. Not everybody admired your father…and with not everybody I mean those jerks of the Hammer that gave Hammoth his last marching orders.”

  “How can you be so sure about it?”

  “It may not be the official version, but it was pretty hard to understand what had really happened once Dacron Varg became Pendracon. Dug a hole, recited the ritual phrases…bye bye, dear Hammoth! The cockroaches are too many, this is the problem, someone should have realized something was going to happen sooner or later. After the Guardians of the Sword and Delta won—or believed they had won—their war against Gorgors, all we needed was an army of black Guardians to patrol those damn ruins infested by Tankars. Of every ten novices who got out alive of the training, six wielded a hammer. Now we are in the minority, as you can see. So okay, there are laws, commandments and institutions…but a lot of people who wield a hammer, too. Sometimes, this can be a problem for laws and institutions.”