Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  “Do you think my people do not have patience? We have suffered under the highlords in ways you cannot imagine. We have waited almost a thousand years. The Thuum are warriors, every man, woman, and child. We know warfare like no others. We know when to strike and when to hold our blades until the perfect moment arises. Tell me what to do and my people will do it to the letter if it means our freedom. This is the only way you will get your weapons into Thuum.”

  Jareen sighed and rubbed his hands down the sides of his face, feeling the bristly hairs sprouting beneath them. “All right, but this requires a great deal of coordination.”

  “Instruct me, and I will see it happen,” Bacchus promised.

  “I can give you the weapons I have on board. That’s roughly one hundred and fifty muskets and six field cannons. The rest are needed elsewhere. We burned through half of our powder fighting the devils, but we will split that as well.”

  Bacchus grimaced. “As powerful as they are, that does not seem to be nearly enough for what you have planned.”

  “It is just the start. I had intended to find a supply ship with a crew loyal to our cause to travel between Thuum and where we are producing the weapons and powder. I cannot act as the courier. This is all too big, and I have other things I must attend to.”

  “I can do this. I can crew a ship with my people from the city. Maybe not the pilot. Our magic does not often travel down that path, but I will make it happen. What else?”

  “Obviously, I will have to train your people so they may instruct others.”

  Irna butted in, “And we need gold.”

  Bacchus frowned, a great look of distaste creasing his visage. “He speaks of freedom and you dare contaminate his words with something so meaningless as gold?”

  “We need it to repair the ship. The bull destroyed several runic engravings, and we aren’t going to get off the ground until those are fixed, and that requires gold we don’t have.”

  Bacchus’ face softened. “I see. Good, I thought I was going to have to kill you. I will get you gold. You can fix your ship while Jareen and his men teach my men how to use these weapons.”

  The war leader waved his hand over his head and let out a whoop. All along the bluff above the Voulge and from every crag and shadow, scores of dark-garbed warriors emerged.

  “Come, Jareen Velarius, show us this new way of killing the highborn.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “Half of our meeting houses are shut down as well as a score of businesses because of bullshit ordinance violations, and we just sit here and do nothing about it!” Travis seethed.

  Gill shot the man a stern look. “We do nothing because Jareen told us to do nothing.”

  “So, what, we’re taking orders from a glorified butler now?”

  “We’re doing the smart thing and playing the long game. Jareen is the one who brought us these new weapons, and you’ve all seen what they can do. So, yeah, we’re taking orders from him—for now.”

  Travis was not going to relent, and the few looks of support he received from around the table encouraged him to plow on. “Yeah, we’ve seen what they can do, so let’s use them while we can. We haven’t seen or heard from Jareen in over a month. For all we know, he’s dead and his little rebellion along with it. Meanwhile, our people are suffering and losing their businesses while we sit around drinking beer with our pricks in our hands.”

  “Are you really too stupid to see that the gendarmes are purposely trying to bait us into doing something foolish? Jareen had to fly clear to Glisteran, a trip that takes nearly a fortnight to make each way, and that’s with good winds and no problems. So we wait and keep our heads down. We’ll hit them when they aren’t expecting it at a time and place it will do the most damage, maybe deliver a fatal blow to the empire. That’s the plan, and we’re sticking to it.”

  “Sure, we’ll stick to the plan while the gendarmes continue sticking it to our people,” Travis said bitterly.

  A young man burst into the room, sweat pouring from his brow and his face crimson from exertion.

  “What is it, Kelsey?” Gill asked, forcing the tension from his body that Kelsey’s abrupt entrance elicited.

  Kelsey swallowed and took a deep breath. “Raylene; Errol and Edwige’s girl,” he gasped.

  “What of her? What happened?” Gill asked.

  “Those boys, the ones who like to race their coaches down the street, they lured her to one of their parties, passed her around, and left her in the gutter.”

  A hush fell over the group, the calm before an inevitable storm. Gill saw the fury brewing and knew it was about to erupt.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s alive but in a bad way. It wasn’t enough just to violate her. They hurt her pretty bad.”

  Travis turned his anger toward Gill. “You still want to sit it out, stick to the plan? What if it was your girl?”

  Gill was a man of foul temper and violent action, always had been, but he was not stupid. He might not be smart in the way Jareen was, not many were, but he wasn’t a fool. He was at a crossroads. One path had him leading his men out and enacting their own form of justice, just as they had in the past, the result of which would almost certainly be their arrest, execution, and the discovery of their secret weapons. The other had him ordering his men to do nothing, like Jareen said, but at the cost of his cell falling apart and its members splintering off and doing something stupid that would end with the same result as the first option. Not to mention, it was likely that his group would not be the only one to hear about Raylene’s assault. His best estimate at their total numbers thus far was somewhere near a thousand. He could not know for sure due to the secrecy surrounding each cell, but it was certain that someone in one or more of those groups would do something…unless he did it first.

  “I’ll handle it,” Gill declared.

  “By yourself?” Travis asked. “Let’s all go; do it right.”

  Gill stood and stared balefully into Travis’ eyes. “You don’t think I’ll do it right? My way, going alone, is the only right way to get it done. You know how that gods-be-damned inquisitor can find folks. Better he gets his hands on me and me alone than the lot of us. Whatever happens, this is the end of it until Jareen returns. Get messages out to all the other cells that they are to do nothing until they hear from Jareen. Got it?”

  Travis nodded. “I got it.”

  “Now, tell me where I can find these highborn bastards.”

  ***

  Gill left the tavern through the back way, making certain no one saw him depart. He stuck to the shadows and alleyways as he crossed through the lower quarters until he reached the location of their secret armory. Stairs led beneath an abandoned warehouse that was once part of the old airship repair yard before the city grew too large and they moved it farther to the outside edge near the wall.

  The building’s thick stone construction and additional sound baffle allowed them to practice live fire training with light powder loads without fear of being heard by those outside. The armory itself was beneath it in a sub-basement carved into the sandstone. Gill passed by several sentries as he made his way down, the guards allowing him by when they recognized him.

  He stopped at a heavy iron door and rapped on the metal with the hilt of a dagger. A small window opened in the door at eye level.

  “What?” Flynn, one of Jareen’s crew who came with him on the Voulge, said from behind the door.

  “I need to draw some pistols and powder,” Gill answered.

  “Not happening unless Jareen makes the request in person. His orders.”

  Gill sighed and sheathed his blade. “The daughter of friends of the movement was just assaulted by a group of highborn who we’ve had trouble with in the past.”

  “Doesn’t matter. No weapons, powder, or shot leaves the armory unless Jareen orders it. No exceptions.”

  “Yeah, I get it, and I made the same argument less than an hour ago, but then this happened. Look, you can stop me, but if you
do, you’re going to have dozens, maybe hundreds of men storming in here in the next few hours, depending on how fast word travels, and you aren’t going to stop them all. What do you think is going to happen then? These idiots think they are invincible since seeing the muskets in action, but we both know that’s far from true, at least for now. Later, maybe we will be, but if I don’t squash this thing now, there won’t be a later.”

  Flynn took a moment to consider his options before throwing the bolts and opening the door. “What do you need?”

  “Load me up half a dozen pistols, heavy powder,” Gill said. “I don’t think I’m going to have time to reload, and I don’t want to have anything on me when—if I’m caught. As soon as it’s done, I’m going to stash the pistols under the Scarborough Bridge. I can’t risk coming back here.”

  “We won’t be here if you try. This armory and every trace of our existence is going to be gone before dawn. I’ll get word to Jareen when he returns, no one else. This little act of vengeance threatens the entire operation, and I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “Good man. I wouldn’t be here if I thought there was any other way.”

  “I wouldn’t have opened the damn door if I thought otherwise.”

  Gill slung several belts over his shoulders and tucked the pistols into the bandoleers. He borrowed several knives from the men guarding the armory and a sword, arranging them on his hips until he struck a decent balance. Seeing that Gill was not going to make it across the city with an entire platoon’s worth of weapons hanging off him without drawing attention, Flynn gave him his overcoat to conceal the arsenal.

  “Good hunting,” Flynn said.

  “It ain’t the hunt I’m worried about. It’s what comes next that’s going to be the problem.”

  Flynn nodded, locked the door behind Gill, and ordered his crew to start packing up the room. It was time for them and the weapons to vanish.

  ***

  Gill hired a cabriolet to ferry him across the lowborn district and into the city’s highborn interior. He had the cab drop him off a few blocks from the park where Kelsey said the attack had taken place. When he arrived, the young men were gone, but a quick survey of the area showed him they had been there. Empty wine bottles littered the area and numerous wagon tracks scarred the small areas of grass cultivated for the highborn’s pleasure. Given the direction in which the ruts lay, it was not hard for him to deduce where they had gone.

  He picked up a torn and bloodied blouse lying not far from the largest pile of empty bottles. Raylene was a pretty girl who thought her looks could get her an elevation in status. All she had to do was catch the eye of the right man. Sadly, she had caught many eyes, all of them very wrong.

  Gill dropped the blouse back onto the street and headed for the dry gulch cutting through much of Velaroth like a gaping wound. Scholars said that a great river once flowed through the city all year long, but now it only carried water during the brief but intense rains that came once a year like clockwork. Where so much water went was beyond him.

  It was not important. He was not a scholarly man. He was a killer, something few people knew about him. He used to be an enforcer in his younger days for the criminal element that the highborn liked to pretend did not exist. They were there, deeply entrenched in the shadows, controlling what they could through fear and violence. As long as they remained subtle and kept most of their illicit activities confined to the lowborn districts, the gendarmes and upper class could pretend it was simply the routine behavior of lesser men.

  Gill tried to walk a straight path after meeting his wife, and he did, until she died. The city’s competent physicians were for highborn citizens, not lowborn riffraff, and they turned her away when they sought help after she became sick. The healers and herbalists in the lower quarters lacked the knowledge and medicine to treat her, and so she died. That’s when Gill joined the other men and women who had had enough and struck out at the highborn whenever they perceived an injustice had occurred.

  It had been a long time since Gill had needed to employ this level of violence, as his aching knees attested, but the weight of the steel hanging from his body and the cold determination in his heart was like the return of an old friend or lover, one touch and the time they had spent apart vanished in an instant.

  Gill watched the young men racing their cabriolets down the dry gulch, its surface smooth and hard from months of baking beneath the unrelenting sun. The sport harkened back to centuries past when soldiers once rode chariots into battle and put on public displays of driving skill and marksmanship.

  Horses were incredibly expensive to own, and only the wealthy could afford one of any quality. The ones used by the taxi services within the cities were almost always older animals, no longer desirable to their highborn owners who sold them. It gave Gill a rare feeling of empathy for the creatures. He was old, past his prime, and undesirable as well, but he too still had a use.

  He strolled out of the alley toward the group when they paused their racing to drink. There was close to a hundred yards of open ground between the buildings where he had lain in wait and the gulch, but torches and even magical lights lit up much of the area in which they were gathered and the long stretch of raceway.

  Gill had barely covered half the distance to his targets when the youngsters took notice of his arrival. It was a large group, perhaps as many as ten boys, most in their late teens, and half as many girls. They sat atop their carriages or leaned against them, passing around bottles of wine and probably stronger spirits.

  One of the young men pushed himself off his cabriolet to confront him. Perhaps Gill’s gait or garb, or maybe his grim demeanor, gave him away. Whatever the reason, they quickly marked him as lowborn and therefore a viable target for harassment.

  “What are you doing out here, trash?” the young man asked with a smirk on his face.

  Gill did not respond or change his pace. He kept walking toward them.

  Another boy stood near the first and laughed. “He looks pissed, Dedrick. You think he’s that whore’s father?”

  “You might be right, Caiden.” Dedrick called out to Gill, “Are you that girl’s daddy, trash? Why so mad? You might be the grandfather of a highborn bastard soon, although whose is anybody’s guess. Still, it has to be quite a step up for the old bloodline.”

  Gill continued stalking forward, not even blinking. Ten yards away from the boys, he shrugged off his overcoat and let it drop to the ground.

  Dedrick and his friends began laughing and Dedrick asked, “Did you seriously come here to fight us all, old man?”

  Gill finally broke his silence. “Nope, didn’t come to fight. I come to kill every last one of you little sonsabitches.”

  The boys thought the proclamation hilarious. Some of them were sorcerers of varying talent, although none particularly powerful. They were being groomed to take over the family business and increase their wealth, not achieve power through arcane arts. Dedrick opened his mouth wide in a loud guffaw, a laugh that turned into a gurgling choke when Gill’s throwing knife seemed to sprout from the back of his throat.

  Dedrick’s friends watched in stunned horror as he fell to the ground, thrashing and gagging on his own blood. Several broke free of their shock and grabbed for swords hanging at their hips. Surprise filled them once more when Gill raised a strange device at arm’s length and smoke burst forth from the end in a loud explosion.

  The back of Caiden’s head blew out and splattered the girl standing behind him with blood, brains, and chunks of skull. Her screams shattered the spell of uncertainty that had fallen over the group. Girls ran every which way as Gill took cover behind one of the small carriages. He slipped his discharged pistol into his belt and drew another along with a throwing knife.

  One of the boys darted around the cabriolet as the horse harnessed to it bucked and danced about. Gill blocked the young man’s hasty slash with the barrel of his pistol and rammed his throwing knife into his guts. He shoved the boy down and
raised his pistol at another form sprinting past the carriage but lowered it when he saw that it was one of the girls.

  His eyes took in her expensive dress and he immediately understood what had happened. Raylene might have been a foolish girl, but she was not stupid. She would not have trusted these spoiled boys enough to follow them out to their little party. One or more of the girls must have acted to befriend her, probably telling her that one of the boys was keen on her, and lured her here. Maybe they thought they would just humiliate her before chasing her away. It’s possible they didn’t know to what level the spoiled highborn young men would stoop. He no longer cared. Gill raised the pistol, the girl too far for a clean knife throw, and shot her in the back.

  Pulling out another pistol, he rounded the cabriolet, slapped the spooked horse on the rump with his blade, and sent it careening into a knot of youths. Gill hurled his knife and struck a boy in the chest. He raised the pistol and shot another in the face. One of the girls tried to run away, but a flick of his wrist put a knife in her kidney, dropping her to the ground, wailing.

  Several of the young men recovered their wits, dodged the speeding carriage, and faced their assassin. One raised his hands and Gill felt an invisible blow strike him hard enough to lift him from his feet and toss him onto his back. He sat up, pistols in each hand, and shot two of the teens who had rushed forward with swords drawn hoping to take advantage of his fall.

  Gill rolled aside as another boy’s sword flashed down and struck where he had just been. He twisted back, trapped the sword beneath his bulk, and clobbered the youth’s knee with the butt of the pistol, knocking him to the ground. Gill raised the gun twice more, letting it fall with sickening crunches of splintering bone. He sprang to his feet at the approach of another boy and pointed his pistol between the lad’s eyes. He squeezed the trigger and shouted “bang” when the hammer struck. Gill laughed when the boy flinched and fouled whatever spell he was about to unleash.