The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  Pounding footfalls approached Harric from up the trail, and he turned to see Father Kogan running toward him, smothercoat flapping, with the enormous Phyros axe in one hand. Breezing by Harric, he skidded to a halt some ten paces from Bannus, axe held high. “Will!”

  Without breaking gaze with Bannus, Willard waved it off. “See to Brolli.”

  Kogan faltered. He looked at the bloody Kwendi, then back to Willard. For a moment, it seemed as if he’d toss Willard the axe, but Willard’s attention was on Bannus, who had stopped only a couple strides from Brolli to gather up Holly’s lead.

  “Wait! Not yet!” Harric said, though the priest gave no sign of hearing him. Harric pulled a spitfire from the pack and tried to move to the uphill side of the trail for an angle where he wouldn’t risk hitting the priest instead of Bannus, but the corridor of open space between the trees was narrow, and moving didn’t improve his chances. “Father—”

  But Kogan let out a snort, lowered the axe, and strode to Brolli. Keeping himself to the side farthest from Bannus, he scooped up the ambassador in one arm and then whirled to retreat up the trail.

  Harric tried to find an angle on Bannus for a shot, but Kogan was too big and the spitfire too inaccurate to risk it. And then it was too late.

  Bannus struck like a snake, and blood fanned from Kogan’s neck.

  The immortal had made a simple fencer’s lunge, a move impossible for any mortal in plate armor. He’d shot out to full extension over one knee, sword forward and Holly’s lead in the hand behind him. The black blade had whipped under Kogan’s beard and rung out on something iron. Then he recovered the lunge as fast as he’d struck.

  Kogan’s eyes flew wide. He did not drop Brolli. He turned and rushed him up the trail.

  A pained cry died in Harric’s throat. He was dimly aware of immortal swords clashing below, but his eyes were on the blood spurting from Kogan’s beard. Blood. There was so much blood. On Brolli. On Kogan. On the trail. As the priest labored past, he shifted the Kwendi’s limp body into the crook of the arm with the axe, and pressed his free hand to the wound. Eyes intent on the trail before him, he did not appear to see Harric at all.

  Frantic, Harric whirled toward the foot of the trail and raised the spitfire to keep Bannus from following, but the immortal was sidestepping away toward the gap at the foot of the pan, with the terrified Holly as a shield. Hands trembling, Harric took aim, then lowered his weapon with a curse as he realized that now a shot was just as likely to hit Willard or Holly.

  “Stand, Sir Bannus,” Willard said. “And only one of us shall leave this place.”

  A drunkard’s grin split Bannus’s scars. Coupled with the wreckage of burns and facial amputations, the sight drained the blood from Harric’s legs.

  “Do you think I’ve come for you, Abominator? Indeed, these many days, that was my aim. But today the god spoke to me. He reminded me you and I have eternity to embrace, and that today our prize is much greater. Lord Krato sends his thanks for her foaling, and I thank you for your arrogance, which was the bait for my trap.”

  Willard’s eyes blazed violet, but to Harric it seemed his face grew pale. With a wordless roar, he launched Molly at Bannus. Belle flashed and clashed against Bannus’s parry. The black blade countered and struck home under Willard’s arm. Violet blood flew. Molly drove into Holly, but Bannus appeared to anticipate the attack and moved with immortal speed, retreating and retreating as she pressed, and keeping Holly always between himself and his attackers.

  Harric matched their movement by advancing to the foot of the trail, but abandoned hope for a clear shot unless Bannus somehow got clear of the others.

  Molly attacked with the ferocity of a mother protecting her offspring, but her iron shoes slipped and scrabbled on the smooth stone, and Bannus outraced her. It wasn’t until they approached the gap at the foot of the pan that she grew desperate. She slammed into Holly from behind in an effort to topple and stand over her. And in normal circumstances it would have worked, but Bannus anticipated her again and buttressed Holly with his own great strength, keeping them both upright, and the impact slid both Holly and Bannus backward, speeding their retreat to the path.

  Swords flashed and clashed again as Bannus backed onto the path, his boots ankle-deep in rushing water. As he pulled Holly into the gap, behind him, Willard feinted as if he’d slash Holly’s lead line, and when Bannus moved to parry, he twisted his wrist to cut at Bannus’s throat. Unable to block it, Bannus shrugged a shoulder and lowered his head so his pauldron deflected the blade up and into his jaw. Bone split. Teeth and blood flew. But Bannus kept his feet. Jaw hanging, he retreated into the gap until both he and Holly stood in the rushing water on the path.

  “She is not for you!” Willard roared. “She is not for you!”

  Molly pranced in the gap, snarling in rage for her lost foal, but Willard held her back. The path was too low and narrow to follow while still upon her back. He would have to dismount and lead her on the treacherous path, single file.

  Well out of range of Belle or Molly, Sir Bannus held his jaw together with one hand, and violet blood streamed down his arm and from his elbow. When he dropped his hand a moment later, the blood had stopped, and a new rope of livid scar shone on his jaw line. He let out a clattering laugh.

  “How do you reckon things now, Sir Willard?” His voice slurred slightly from his injury. “You thought me incapable of craft? A fool is he who learns naught from his foe, and I learned from the craftiest of foes. Yet I fear you have smoked so much ragleaf and your wits have grown dull, for it seems much too easy.”

  Harric could not see Willard’s face from his angle. But it was clear that Sir Bannus had won. Willard could not follow or engage Sir Bannus without dismounting, and if he left Molly on her own, she might as well leap in the river after Gygon, and then Bannus would have two Phyros mares.

  “See, brothers!” Bannus shouted to the sky. “Already it has begun. Already Molly restores the herd. Now shall Krato sire Phyros in Arkendia, and new brothers shall ride them—yea, and the first shall be my shield bearer, Titus. I name this foal Trochus, bearer of Titus, and mother of herds.”

  Harric stared as comprehension dawned upon him that Holly was a Phyros and that Molly was her dam. She had neither the violet eyes of her dam, nor the blood tooth, nor any other outward sign, but Bannus clearly recognized her, and Willard’s reaction confirmed it. Molly had foaled Holly in Arkendia, and far from Willard reducing the number of Phyros, as he’d done in the Cleansing, he had just given the Old Ones the means to sire more.

  A horn sounded deep in the canyon. A long, silvery note, trailing away. The sound sent a quill of dread up Harric’s spine. Bannus’s men. The Faceless One and the other strange Phyros-rider were coming. They might be a mile away. And once Gygon washed out of the roaring canyon, the Phyros stallion would be no more than a half-day behind.

  Without a word, Willard turned Molly and rode back up the pan. Harric saw something he’d never seen, and it nearly unstrung his courage. It was only there a moment before it was masked in that grim, controlled rage, but Harric recognized it as despair.

  Molly’s iron shoes struck a hollow clatter against the stone. When she climbed the trail, Harric dodged into the trees to make way. It wasn’t until he’d passed that he realized Willard wasn’t stopping, and Harric now stood alone in the canyon.

  A spear of panic hit him full in the chest. If Bannus wanted to add a skewered bastard to his triumphs, here was one within easy reach.

  Hands trembling, Harric raised the spitfire and knelt in the path to sight the mouth of the narrows. Bannus had retreated around the bend in the path, but his laughter echoed in the canyon. Snatches of triumphant shouts reached Harric’s ears, and in them he caught the words “Krato” and “glory.”

  What the Black Moon are you doing, Harric? Think you’ll stop him by yourself? He licked a bead of sweat from his lip. Then he lowered the spitfire.

  “Cob this,” he muttered, and fled after the
others.

  The wise will be shocked to learn that explorations of the northern fastness, long held to be the sole abode of the god Arkus, yield no sign of the reclusive god. Arkus has not appeared to frighten our usurping settlers back down the river, nor to toss them back over the Godswall. Neither do we find reports of him stealing knights or sturdy peasants to make more of his pestilent priests. For this, at least, we can be thankful, for the Wandering Fathers already swarm the Free Lands as thick as the fleas in the rags of the rabbles they lead…

  —From News of the Free Lands, gossip rag printed and released in Kingsport

  65

  Priest Of Arkus

  Harric pounded up the trail, spitfire in hand, the weight of the resin in his pack bouncing on his back. The trail climbed steeply, winding between the half-dead pines. As his boots crunched silver twigs and needles, every step took him past new splashes of blood. Red blood painted the roots. Red blood colored the stones. It looked as if someone had run up the trail with sloshing buckets of the stuff, and it made Harric’s heart squeeze in on itself.

  When he finally crested the hill above the waterfall, his lungs and legs burned and the empty trail stretched before him with no sign of Snapper or anyone else. Cursing, he stumbled onward, following the dwindling track of blood.

  The trail traversed the wooded hillside about fifteen fathoms above the rushing water. Through occasional gaps in the trees, he glimpsed the opposite side, which was just as steep and choked with pines. But farther ahead, the canyon’s ridges appeared to dwindle, and no more than a mile ahead, it seemed to open into a valley.

  Forcing his nerveless legs to run, Harric followed the dwindling blood track, and as he rounded each bend, he dreaded what he might find on the other side.

  Hunting horns sounded again, and he guessed from their volume that they couldn’t be far below the falls. Moons, I need a horse. He would never escape on foot. Where in the Black Moon was Snapper? Had no one thought to catch him and bring him back to Harric, or had the beast run wild?

  A harsh, graveled horn blast ripped through the canyon behind him. Bannus’s horn. There was no mistaking it. And it was much louder and nearer than the others.

  But how can that be? Bannus’s gear had been lost with Gygon in the river. The only explanation, of course, was that the stallion had not only escaped the roaring waters much sooner than Harric thought possible, but that he’d found his way back to Bannus with equally improbable speed.

  We’re cobbed. Sir Bannus would catch Harric before he got far in the valley.

  Stopping at a gap in the trees, he looked up at the ridge above the opposite side of the canyon. The western sky was still bright, but the sun had disappeared behind the mountain, which meant it was officially night where he stood…

  A spark of hope sprang to life in his chest as he fumbled for his nexus and tried to gauge whether he was far enough from the river to enter the Unseen. Was this trail higher than the one on the previous night? He couldn’t tell. But he had to try. As soon as the glassy stone cooled the palm of his hand, he closed his eyes and relaxed his oculus just enough to open it a crack.

  Bright strands erupted through his oculus like lashes of fire. He cried out, blinded, and clapped his hands to his forehead, but the strands continued to sting like hot needles. His oculus went numb with pain, unresponsive to his efforts to close it.

  His knees hit the trail. He fell forward and pressed his forehead to the ground, wishing he could bury his head…and the light and pain faded. He gasped in relief. The earth, it seemed, blocked the river strands. A few still flicked in around the edges, but by comparison it was no worse than the stinging sunburn he’d felt in the Kwendi reservoir.

  Bannus’s horn ripped through the air somewhere down the trail, and Harric nearly jumped, but he dared not lift his forehead. If his oculus didn’t recover and close, Bannus would find him with his face in the trail and his arse in the air, just waiting for a swift kick or a lance. Hurry up and close! he willed it. Hurry! Blood slammed in his temples as he strained against its numbness, but it barely closed.

  With every passing moment, sensation returned, he closed it a little more, and Bannus rode nearer. When it seemed Harric’d had his arse in the air for hours, his oculus finally sealed tight.

  Panting and blinking away tears, he staggered to his feet and glanced back to be sure his enemies weren’t right there, holding their laughter till he turned. But the trail behind him remained empty.

  He whirled and ran, once again following the blood trail, and he must have run another half-mile before it looked as if the final bend approached. By then his lungs felt like he’d been breathing flame, and his legs felt like jelly. But now the wide valley beckoned through the trees, and in the absence of a good creek bed to hide in, he ran for it. If he reached the valley before Bannus caught him, he could leave the trail and cut away from the river until he was far enough to enter the Unseen.

  What he found around the last bend was what he’d hoped to find, and what he dreaded. Only a hundred paces hence, the canyon walls fell away and the trees descended into a meadowy valley flanked by more distant ridges. At the north end, the valley ended at the Godswall, whose icy peaks still shone in the last light of day.

  And only ten paces hence lay Father Kogan.

  Harric stopped at the priest’s feet and stared in dismay. Geraldine, who stood watch at Kogan’s side, looked up at Harric through wooly locks and let out a mournful groan.

  “Kogan,” Harric whispered, afraid to wake him.

  The priest lay on his back, head propped against a boulder, his smothercoat dark with blood. One hand remained at his throat as if to keep the blood in, though Harric doubted much could be left inside. The great Phyros axe lay abandoned on the trail.

  Like the yoab that took a spear to the heart and ran a mile before expiring, Kogan had carried Brolli until he collapsed on the trail. Someone—Willard or Caris—had taken Brolli.

  Harric saw a glimmer through Kogan’s narrowed lids. His mouth moved.

  Dropping to his knees at Kogan’s side, Harric took up the giant’s heavy hand in both of his.

  “Moons, I have plasters!” he said with a start. “Willard gave them to me!” As he plunged his fingers in to grab one of the dried-up scabs, Kogan laid the giant hand on his.

  The glassy eyes gleamed. “Blood of Krato…” he murmured. “Never.”

  Harric’s heart sank. Willard had probably already offered, but of course Kogan wouldn’t take it. Just as he must have refused Mudfruffle’s healing. “I understand,” Harric said.

  Kogan drew him closer. His voice came faint, with pause for shallow breaths between words. “Will come. Took…Brolli…body.”

  “Body?” The word struck Harric like a slap.

  The priest’s gaze drifted up to Harric’s. “Limp…as a…chimpey doll. Bled out.” His cracked teeth showed for a moment. “Bannus…done it. Like…he got me.”

  “Didn’t they try to heal him? Will must have tried plasters. And Mudruffle—”

  Kogan nodded, a movement so small it was barely noticeable. “Too late. Will took him. Must’ve…forgot the axe.” He held Harric’s gaze for a moment. “Take it to him.”

  “Yes, I will, father.”

  “Tell him keep it. Use it. Make…him promise.”

  “I will.”

  A dribble of blood leaked from beneath the hand Kogan held to his throat. With his other hand, he reached under his beard and, with some effort, pulled something away. His head fell back and his eyes closed as if he’d lost consciousness. Then the eyes opened a crack, and from the bloody wool of his beard he drew forth a double bend of thick iron, and after a moment’s confusion, Harric recognized it as Kogan’s priest collar. It was the iron ring said to be placed on every wandering priest by the hand of Arkus himself.

  The band had been cloven, and Kogan had bent it open to remove it. Now he laid the twist of bloody metal in Harric’s hands. “Mustn’t let…” His voice hitched on a weak co
ugh.

  “…let Bannus capture this?” Harric said. “I won’t.”

  Kogan’s mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile.

  “Yeah. I’m a Maker,” Harric said. “You don’t have to say it.”

  A silent har died on Kogan’s lips, but his eyes glittered.

  Bannus’s horn rattled in the distance, sending a jolt through Harric.

  Kogan groped Harric’s arm. A stab of panic hit Harric as he imagined the priest knew of Witch’s Teat under the bandage, but the hand found the stock of the spitfire jutting from the pack and drew it toward Kogan. Brown eyes glistening, he laid it in his lap as if he’d keep it to fight off Bannus when the immortal arrived.

  “You keep it,” Harric said.

  Kogan gripped it like a pistol and directed its pipe at a tree that leaned out over the trail by his feet. “Bannus don’t…get my head neither.”

  The flint wheel sparked, and the weapon belched a wad of flaming resin into the tree, transforming it into a giant torch.

  When Harric flinched in surprise, the great mound of Kogan’s belly shook with silent laughter. His eyes widened and he dropped the empty spitfire to grasp Harric’s hand.

  “Tell…Widda Larkin…” His eyes glistened, and he fell still.

  Harric’s throat constricted. “I will,” he said.

  Geraldine stirred. Her huge head had hovered near them through the whole exchange. Now she set her huge pink tongue to Kogan’s bloodied face and cleaned it like she would a newborn calf.

  Therefore, bury your dead upon islands in rivers that run the year round, for running water is purifying fire to an unquiet spirit. And since no specter will dare it, ye shall sleep untroubled… You must beware those who say “bury me at the end of the lane,” or “bury me in the yard,” for they surely be witches, and these shall ye hang over water and leave them for the crows.

  —Town Ordinance VIII “Regarding Burying of the Dead,” Arditch-on-the-Spyre