“Possibly the largest stroke of lightning ever seen by a living being.” Harper’s lips were pursed into a small o as he spoke. He whistled softly between his teeth.
“That couldn’t have been lightning.” Sallos’s tone said what they must surely all have believed.
Harper shrugged again, his face worried. “‘And the world was born as it will end, in a great storm that forged mountains from islands and lifted the land from the seas.’ I believe that is what the gods wrote once upon a time.”
“Fuck the gods.” Brogan spoke clearly. “They’ve nothing they can say that I want to hear. They’re vile things that take instead of give. I do not want them. I do not need them.”
Brogan looked at the area where the fearsome white-blue barrage had finally settled down, and shook his head. “South. We go south. It’s as good a direction as any for the present time.”
Instead of heading down into the plains immediately, however, they stayed in the mountains and wove their way across the paths that existed there. For the present. Brogan’s mind would not leave alone the notion that they had gotten away too easily and it would be a great sight harder for anyone to follow them through the mountains and foothills than it would to follow them on open ground.
The winds picked up from the east and it sounded like the sky was roaring in the distance. Part of him wondered if the turmoil in the air was caused by the electrical storm. He suspected it was, and that notion left him cold. Or maybe it was winter’s teeth sinking in. They were due for bad weather and it looked like they’d have it one way or another.
* * *
Beron’s house was a small castle. That was the truth of the matter. He had a score of men working for him, each well trained and well paid. They were the ones who made sure every man coming in for the meeting was on his best behavior.
The Slavers Guild had five people in charge of it. The head of them was Beron. He earned the most and he demanded the strictest rules. All were tied together by mutual need, the need to keep the slave trade alive in a time when many countries frowned upon it.
The good news was that people always needed slaves. The better news was that those who mattered in making decisions could always be bought or threatened. Mostly they were bought. When Lord Harrington of Adimone – who publicly condemned slavery and pushed for the end of the trade – was found tied to a post, his body cut deeply in a hundred and seventeen places and then flayed as a message, the hint was received by nearly everyone in the Five Kingdoms. Better to deal with the slavers than to risk their ire. More profitable, too.
Ellis sat to the right of Beron at the small table. His face was long and dour, his hair was longer still, even drawn into hard braids, but he was a shrewd man who understood that strength was heightened by joining forces rather than arguing. Ellis was by far the most adept “breaker” they had. Currently the fifty most stubborn women among the new slaves were in his stables being softened. In time they’d come around or they’d die. Long before the time came for death they’d wish for the caress of the Taker.
Levarre sat on Beron’s left. He was a businessman first and often offered advice on how best to stay ahead in a market that changed as often as the moons. Levarre was also the man who’d suggested handling Lord Harrington as a method of making a statement. He was not to be trifled with. As thin as Ellis was, Levarre was thick. Most of him was muscle but not all. He had a belly that shook when he walked. He also had four wives to keep him satisfied, all of them slaves he formally owned.
Lexx was the fourth of the guild leaders, a lean, seasoned warrior who’d run the wagons to the south for fifteen years and never once lost a slave on the arduous rides. A few people claimed that was not true, that he replaced the slaves who died along the way, but no one could say for certain and Beron didn’t question the matter as long as the money showed up when it was supposed to. Lexx had scars on his face from a few personal duels. He’d won them of course, else he would not have been at the table.
Lastly there was Stanna, who was easily the scariest woman that Beron had ever met. She shaved most of her dark hair away and what was left fell in a wave across the top of her head and then down into a braided mass. She was as tall as he was and heavily muscled. She likely weighed half as much as he did but she made up for that in ferocity and her skills in general. She carried a sword she affectionately called “the bitch.” It was well used and according to some it actually screamed when in combat.
Beron had no desire to find out for certain.
“Let’s get to business, shall we?” Stanna leaned back in her chair and planted her booted feet on the top of his table. It was not a very fancy table and he didn’t mind. Even if he had, he’d not have mentioned it to her or anyone else. Stanna was one of his best allies. Why ruin that over a little mud on the wooden table?
Beron smiled and nodded. “On to business, then. It’s been three days and the Grakhul are losing patience.”
“How go the plans?” Lexx leaned over the table and planted his elbows. “How many are away?”
Levarre answered that one. “The most valued of the lot are already gone. We’ve trains to send the rest of them out in the next two nights, all except those that Ellis deems unbreakable.”
“They’ll break. For now they are hidden in the cellars. They won’t be found.” No one doubted Ellis’s word.
“So.” Lexx leaned back and crossed his arms. “We do this tonight?”
Beron spread his arms. “No choice in the matter. We’ve all seen what is going on outside. The storms are only getting stronger.”
“How is it that little cloaked men can hold back a storm?” Stanna shook her head. The Grakhul had said the city could only be spared if the white skins were returned. To make their point they’d gestured to the window of Frankel’s castle and shown the approaching storms. With a gesture the one in charge – Dowru-Thist – had stopped the storms from approaching the city’s perimeter. Now, three days later, there was a half circle of area around the town where the clouds and storms were held at bay. The rest of the system stretched out on both sides, winds raging and lightning clashing constantly, but Saramond was unmolested. Around the city waters rushed and washed away trees and bushes and even a few huts from near the edge of the city, places where the poorest tried to eke out a living on farms they built for themselves. Those farms were gone, washed away with their owners in most cases. Plantations where the slavers grew the crops to feed themselves and their charges were out there, too, and many of them were already ruined by the storms.
Beron shook his head. “They say they do the will of the gods. I have seen no gods in Saramond. They are likely sorcerers. When we are finished with them they will not be able to cast any spells.”
“They are called the Undying.” Levarre’s tone was conversational.
Beron spoke softly. “They are not called unimprisoned. We are slavers. If anyone can wrap a living thing in chains and hold it forever, it is us.” He too leaned back from the table. “We have a plan. We have discussed it long enough. We have to act, or we will lose all that we have fought to make ours. I do not intend to leave this world a poor man or a prisoner.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at each of his companions. “I have been both in my time and I found the experience unpleasant.”
“So we start now?” Stanna took her heels off the table then rose from her seat. The chair sighed with relief. “Then let us do this thing.”
“Are your people in place?”
“They will be in twenty minutes.”
Beron nodded. “Let’s do this thing, indeed.”
* * *
The false king sat on his throne and gulped nervously at his red wine. A hundred tempests raged nearby and he must have known how close he was to those storms tearing his kingdom apart.
“Why are they not here yet?” Dowru-Thist spoke softly. It seldom needed to raise its voice.
Frankel looked toward him and took another quick sip of wine.
“I. That is. They
said they would be here before the sun set.”
“The sun has already set.” It pointed to the window facing west, where the storms were not yet hiding away the world beyond. The sun had indeed set, leaving only a thin line of light on the horizon. In minutes the stars would show themselves.
“Perhaps I should have them brought here?” The man managed to flinch with his voice.
“I wonder how it is that you have remained king for so long?” Dowru-Thist’s words remained soft, but the false king twitched as if slapped across the face.
“I was born into my position. It was the gods who appointed my family.”
“Which gods, I wonder. Most certainly not the ones that I obey.”
“See here now...” the king started. His voice fell off when Dowru-Thist looked in his direction.
“It does not matter. They have not come to us. We will go to them. When we are finished dealing with your slavers we will come back to you and… complete our discussions.”
A gesture and the others moved before him, leaving a foolish king on his gilded throne to drink his too sweet wine.
Dowru-Thist heard Frankel break into soft sobs and felt grim satisfaction. The gods were angry. Someone would pay. If the He-Kisshi could avoid the world being destroyed they would, but time was dwindling.
They would act. They had waited long enough.
Once through the gates of Frankel’s stronghold and in the streets, they sought out the scent of the slavers and headed for the one called Beron’s place.
Dowru-Thist was only moderately surprised by the men who faced off against them. In all cases the desperate tended toward foolishness.
* * *
One hundred slavers with weapons and chains. That was the agreed upon number. Twenty from each house of the guild. Those men were seasoned and brave and had been informed that should they succeed they would have their weight in gold. The offer was a very large fortune, but those chosen also understood that no one expected all of them to succeed.
So they moved in fast and hard, determined not to become victims of the Undying.
The eleven figures moved slowly into the road, each looking around, moving their heads or sometimes their whole bodies as they studied their surroundings.
One of them spoke clearly, his voice loud enough for all to hear despite the winds that whipped and howled around the city.
“If you walk away all will be forgiven. If you stay you will be punished.”
Lexx was the one who walked forward, his lean arm around the waist of a woman bound with her elbows behind her back and her legs tied at the knees. She was one of those who had been held at Ellis’s and was a fighter through and through. She was wearing little beyond a rough cloth dress. He was dressed in armor, his cloak slapping in the sudden winds. Comely as the woman was – pale, but attractive – he’d have never considered being with her or even taking her by force until after she was bathed and perfumed. She stank of her own sweat and piss and waste.
She looked at the Undying across the way from her and sighed.
Lexx regarded them and smiled thinly, doing his very best to hide the way his guts were shivering. These things were nightmares in appearance. Seen from a distant they were cloaked and hooded men. Studied up close as he had seen them they were abominations that should not have existed. Most of the men with him had never seen one up close and the darkness hid the worst of them.
Several of the men held torches. Others stood near the braziers they brought with them for the purpose of handling these He-Kisshi. They were large braziers borrowed from Frankel’s stores. Getting them in place had been a harsh task but worth it.
Lexx nudged the woman forward. “Turns out we have a few of your pale-skinned wenches. If you’d like them back you’ll have to leave the city peacefully. You can gather them on your way out.”
The one that spoke most often tilted its cowled head – if it were truly a head. Lexx could not decide. “There is a misunderstanding. We are not here to negotiate. Give all of our people to us, or suffer.”
“Some of them are already gone. Heading away from here to be sold as playthings and good laborers.” Lexx shrugged and slid a dagger from the sheath at his hip, placing the blade along the pretty woman’s muddied face. “We’ll kill the rest if you don’t take the offer. Leave here with them or stay and find out how much pain we can cause you.”
A long pause and then, “We are Undying. We are He-Kisshi, the Living Word of the Gods. We are their Divine Punishment upon the world.”
It made a gesture. Small, insignificant, really, but just large enough for Lexx to notice.
It spoke softly in a tongue that Lexx did not know.
The girl he held onto turned her head slightly then jammed her temple into the tip of his blade. Lexx had learned long ago that the only way to carry a weapon was as if you meant to use it. To that end, he had had a solid grip on his dagger. The tip of his blade drove through her temple and into her brain with surprising ease.
She fell dead, her body shuddering as it crashed to the dirty road.
The thing that had spoken reached out toward him and leather slashed the night. Lexx had not seen the whip, but he felt it. The tip of the creature’s whip was a sharpened stone that took Lexx’s eye with an audible snap.
Any chance of posturing dropped away. The pain was all that mattered. Lexx fell back, covering the laceration on his face and feeling what was left of his eye bleed from the socket. He dared not try to open it. He could barely stand through the fire that was trying to eat that part of his face.
“There will be no mercy!” The thing hissed the words and as it did the rains began to fall. The winds that had been touching the areas around the city slipped in through the alleys and places where walls did not meet. “Give us our people or die!”
To make its point the thing slashed again and the whip skittered up Lexx’s arm and shattered the bones in his hand.
Around him the hundred warriors shifted uncomfortably. The pain was a wave that was drowning him, but if he wanted to survive or even have a chance he needed only give the order.
“Take them! Take them now!” His voice cracked as he gave the command.
A second later the whip came again and shattered his teeth, ripped the side of his face into so much bloodied meat, Lexx fell to the ground in the rain and whimpered. But with his one good eye he saw so very much.
The archers came first. Despite the winds and the rain they were good at their craft. Twenty arrows thrummed down from the rooftops and drove into the dark cloaks. The screams that came from them were proof enough that they were not human. The sounds were closer to howls than anything else.
The Undying reacted, moving into a tight circle, their backs to each other as they looked around. The next volley of arrows came almost as quickly as the first but the Grakhul were not surprised a second time.
The one with the whip turned his attentions to the first man coming closer and despite himself Lexx thanked the gods. The man was dressed in hard leather armor and carried twin blades. He was skilled and came prepared to defend against the weapon. Instead of attacking with the whip the nightmare opened its wings and flapped them in a frenzy. Standing on its toes, the thing directed rainwater and wind at the approaching man until he was obligated to squint and try to block the waters.
The thing moved forward at that moment, wings falling back and whip snapping forward in the same motion. The slashing stone carved through the man’s thigh and into his groin. Blood flowed and the first of one hundred men was down.
The archers were not done. More arrows fell and drove into the creatures. Two of them rose into the air, their cloaks opening like the sails of a ship and snapping on the hard breeze.
The weighted nets came down on them and drove them back into the mud, screaming their outrage as they fell.
The one with the whip started to say something before an arrow drove into its shoulder and pierced clean through to the other side.
The whip fell
from its hand and it spun toward Lexx. “Call them off before it is too late!”
Lexx managed to shake his head. He did not try to speak again. There was too much ruin where his handsome face had been.
The nets dropped from above and more came from street level, thrown by men who had chased down more than one runaway slave in their time. They were here for a reason, experts at what they did.
That didn’t mean the fight was over. The Undying moved despite the nets, grabbing the men who tried to capture them, dragging the nets as if they weighed nothing instead of being enough to drop even a man the size of Beron. Some of them grabbed the nets and swept the heavy weights into the air, slashing them at their enemies and tangling them into the thick mesh.
Once they captured anyone, they dragged them in close enough to tear them limb from limb.
The chaos was too much for the archers. They could not fire without hurting their own, and so they left the heights and came down, bringing their pole arms and bludgeons with them.
The netted men were broken with ease. The He-Kisshi were not so easily broken. Making matters worse the winds came harder and the rains slammed down, extinguishing fires and pelting every form in the street with hard rain and hail as well.
Lexx managed to make it to his knees and then his feet, despite the downpour, and stumbled to the closest wall watching on as the fight continued.
The spears came next. None of the weapons were used to strike fatal injuries. Instead He-Kisshi arms and legs were impaled, and the men wielding the weapons backed away hastily as the Undying continued on. Twenty spearmen learned the hard way that striking did not guarantee victory. Most tried to retreat only to be met with more of the weighted nets. The weights were substantial, they had to be and they were hard. Being hit by them was painful under most circumstances but in the claws of the unholy things the force was enough to break bones.
They had known the damned things would be hard to kill or capture. They were not called Undying for nothing and the stories they’d heard of how brutal the beasts were could only be called plentiful.
The Last Sacrifice Page 12