by Mike Wild
“LOVE SPHERES!” PETE Two-Ties bawled, his voice cracking into a hoarse wheeze as he used a dirty handkerchief to wipe tears from his eyes. “The man was a buffoon!”
“Flashing his arse!” Fester Grimlock cried.
“He didn’t realise you knew who he was!” Red Deadnettle joined in. He took a deep slug from his jug. “The bit about the macalorum!”
“No, Red, that bit was true,” Aldrededor said, eyeing him steadily across the bar.
“It was?” Red said, shrugging. “Well, it’s never done me any harm.”
“Whatta makes a man like heem think we would like to be in his stupeed guide,” Dolorosa said. “‘Madam, do you know who I am?’” she mimicked. “Pah!”
“Perhaps you should have keeled him,” Jurgen Pike mimed, “lika thees.” His hand stabbed down repeatedly, as if holding a knife.
Dolorosa suddenly loomed over him as she had over Jeckle, arms folded tightly across her chest, fingers drumming. “What issa thees stupeed accent in whicha you speak?”
Hetty Scrubb splurted out the cocktail from which she had been attempting a quivering sip, and once more giggled uncontrollably. But the giggle faded a moment later as the surface of her drink was unexpectedly covered by a fall of dust from between the skewed wooden beams of the ceiling. The Flagons being so old it was normal practice to cover drinks against the possibility of such falls, but only on the occasions there was someone upstairs.
Hetty’s eyes moved suspiciously upwards, one slightly slower than the other, and just as the two levelled out the fall of dust was followed by a low creak of the timbers. From behind the bar, Aldrededor looked over at Dolorosa and shook his head at the slight look of hope in her eyes. They were all aware of the circumstances that dogged Kali and neither of them had seen her for over two months, and when she did return to say hello and dump her washing, their adopted offspring always used a different means of entering the Flagons, in case she had been compromised.
The last time she had come, she had come from upstairs.
“My ’usband,” Dolorosa hissed. “I theenk we havva the uninvited guests.”
“Then, my darling wife,” Aldrededor responded, with a twinkle. “I suggest we prepare to repel boarders...”
Aldrededor moved to the chest by the Captain’s Table, heaved it open and drew out a crackstaff – one of the few still working that had been left behind by one of Jengo Pim’s men – and flicked it on. It crackled softly, like hand-held lightning. Dolorosa, meanwhile, plucked her kitchen knife from where it remained embedded in the wooden beam, and from her garter produced another, far more deadly looking blade, which she proceeded to toss full circle in her palm. The two of them looked towards the base of the stairs.
“Stay where you are,” Dolorosa whispered to Hetty Scrubb and Pete Two-Ties. “Red and Ronin will look after you.”
“Give ’em one for me,” the diminutive herbalist requested. She rose and hopped from leg to leg, punching the air before her. “In the nuts. Yes, yes, in the nuts.”
“The only place she can reach,” Pete Two-Ties sighed.
As Dolorosa and Aldrededor approached the first two risers, Red Deadnettle slid from his stool, far more gently and quietly than might be expected from such a giant of a man, and, from beneath, withdrew a large wooden club. Ronin Larson, the blacksmith, joined him in standing guard, his weapon a molding hammer he kept perpetually slung on his broad leather toolbelt and which he now pounded into his open palm. From his grin, it seemed he was looking forward to molding a few Final Faith faces rather than metal for a change.
Unfortunately, neither he nor the others were prepared for the type of attack that was to come. The ground floor of the Flagons was thrown into chaos as three of the whorled glass windows were smashed in a series of determined blows from sword hilts, and through them came three canisters that spewed a green fog across the bar area.
“Swamp gas!” Dolorosa hissed, and began to cough uncontrollably. As did the others. A few seconds later they were all on their knees, weapons dropped. The gas began to dissipate and, as it did, the door to the tavern was kicked open. Swords of Dawn flooded the room, each placing a weapon at the throats of those who were incapacitated.
But other than stand guard, they made no further move.
They were waiting for something.
And that something was the creaking of the tavern’s stairs as they signalled the arrival of a figure descending them. Their uninvited guest, it seemed, knew how to make an entrance.
“My name,” he said, “is Gregory Morg.”
Dolorosa squinted at him through stinging eyes, a man dressed in robes and armour that identified him as neither Swords of Dawn or Faith, but somewhere in between. He was likely one of those damned mercenaries Jakub Freel had conscripted. “This tavern is now commandeered, and you are in the custody of the Final Faith.”
From their prone positions on the floor, Dolorosa and Aldrededor cast worried glances at each other, knowing full well what this was about. The bastards were finally coming after those near and dear to Kali, presumably in an attempt to flush her out. It wasn’t for themselves they looked worried, however, but for the innocents in the bar – Peter, Hetty and the rest – whose only connection to Kali was to provide her with a cheery welcome home after one of her adventures. They didn’t deserve to be treated this way.
“The old man and woman, these others,” Aldrededor pointed out, “know nothing. Let them go.”
Morg smiled coldly and stepped off the stairs so that he towered over the Sarcrean.
“If I let one old man go, then I would have to let another go, too,” he said, clearly referring to Aldrededor. He sneered. “Along with his ancient crone of a wife.”
Dolorosa spat on his feet.
“Calm, my darling,” Aldrededor soothed. He stared up at their captor, touching the sword held at his throat. “Do you intend to execute us, is that it? Send a message to Kali Hooper?”
“Then you do not deny your association with the outlaw?”
“Would there be much point?”
“Not really.”
Two other Swords of Dawn entered the tavern. “The perimeter of the property is secure, sir. No sign of further insurgents.”
“You have checked all of the outbuildings?”
“All apart from the stables, sir. They seem to be locked.”
“Then unlock them, man!”
“We tried, sir, but the lock is strange. Inscribed with patterns.”
Morg’s eyes narrowed and he grabbed Aldrededor’s chin and forced it up. “Runes. What do you keep in the stables?”
“What do you normally keep in stables, Gregory Morg?”
“Behind a rune-inscribed lock?”
Aldrededor grinned widely. “We stable some rare breeds.”
“The bamfcat. If it’s here, the girl may be close by. Shatter that lock and slay anything within.”
“Horse isn’t here,” Aldrededor said. “Neither is Kali Hooper.”
“We shall see. As for our captives,” Morg said, “bring the wagons.”
“Wagons?” Aldrededor repeated.
Morg smiled. “You’ll all be taking a little trip. Relocated, as it were.”
“Interesting,” Aldrededor commented. “I hope somewhere sunny.”
“My ’usband,” Dolorosa whispered urgently in his ear, “we cannot allow ourselves to be taken, and we cannot allow them into the stables.”
“I know this, my lovepeach,” Aldrededor responded through still grinning teeth. “Be patient.”
Dolorosa looked about herself, confused. What was her husband on about, patient? They all of them had swords at their throats and as far as she could see there was no immediate way out of this predicament. Then her eyes caught sight of what Aldrededor had obviously been referring to. While the rest of them had simply dropped their weapons her husband had managed to conceal his. The crackstaff was perched at an angle between the flaps of the bar and, what was more, remained charged, crackl
ing softly to itself, out of sight. Dolorosa did not fully understand these strange devices but one thing she did know was that, if left idle like this, the crackstaff would eventually purge itself of pent-up energy.
There was going to be a bang.
“Everybody,” she said, meaning her own people, “I suggest you sticka your heads between your knees.”
Regulars and Swords alike looked at Dolorosa questioningly, but it was already too late.
From the tip of the crackstaff erupted a bolt of darting, twisting blue energy that blew the flaps off the bar and struck a Sword who had the bad luck to be standing in its way. The energy bolt tore through his body armour into his chest, exposing the white bone of his sternum. He was punched into the air, slamming into and smashing another of the tavern’s windows. The flaps, meanwhile, both solid chunks of wood the size of sewer grates, blew to the left and the right in an explosion of splinters, hitting two more of the Swords, decapitating one and shattering the sword arm of another. These men, or what remained of them, flailed into their own, and in the chaos that ensued Aldrededor and the others made their moves.
The swarthy Sarcrean pushed his captor from him, leapt and rolled back over the bar, then snatched the crackstaff from where it now lay on the floor. He discharged it into the face of a Sword who tried to follow. Dolorosa used far more primitive but no less effective weapons, snatching her twin blades from beneath her and simultaneously thrusting them back and up, hissing in satisfaction as she felt them puncture flesh. As she rolled from beneath the Sword’s collapsing body, she booted Red’s club over to where the giant poacher could grab it. As he bent to do so, a Sword who tried to stop him found himself with a new and unique perspective on life as Red’s club swung round solidly, knocking his head permanently sideways.
Dolorosa snatched a glance at Morg, whom she noticed had retreated a few risers back up the stairs from where he watched the battle with narrowed eyes, and then at her husband, who was sweating and grinning as much as she.
“Justa like the old days on the sheep!” she declared and, though it showed her skull and crossbone bloomers for all to see, couldn’t resist bounding onto and from a table, using a curtain as she might a sail to swing out across the room and boot two more of their captors in the face and off their feet. She landed on the bar and from there urged on Red and Ronin. The giant first swung his nailed club up between the legs of another Sword, and then grabbed the poor unfortunate by the neck, racing him across the tavern to ram his head into the bragging box, where he collapsed twitching and screaming, stung by whatever was inside. Ronin, for his part, moved through the Swords with his hammer swinging in a blur, forcing all before him to dodge or duck the momentum of the heavy blacksmithing tool. Even Hetty Scrubb and Pete Two-Ties helped out, the former reducing one Sword to a spasming heap by blowing him a faceful of her latest herbal concoction, while Pete confounded another by more intellectual means.
“Stop!” he shouted, as the Sword was about to bring the hilt of his weapon down on him. The Sword was surprised enough to do so. “I half faint, sorting out these idiots!”
“What?” the Sword said, bemused.
“Anagram!” Pete emphasised, punching a finger at the cryptosquare in the newssheet he held. “Five, five...”
“What the fark are you talking about, old man?”
Pete rammed the rolled up newssheet into the Sword’s eye, causing a cry of pain. “The answer’s ‘Final Faith’ you moron,” he announced.
It wasn’t the deadliest of attacks but it served its purpose. Pete slipped by him while the Sword stumbled against the wall clutching his face.
Slowly, he and the others fought their way to the exit, Aldrededor providing covering fire with the crackstaff as they moved. Furniture, glassware and ornaments were shattered or sent flying from the blasts, and Aldrededor comforted Dolorosa as she watched the inside of her beloved tavern blown apart. Both knew there was no choice in the matter, however, as their first priority was to protect what was within the stables, to say nothing of their friends. But as they, the last to back out, emerged from the door of the Flagons, they noticed an unexpected quiet in the courtyard behind them.
Both ex-pirates turned slowly. Their friends were lined up before more Swords, weapons once more at their throats. Behind the line of prisoners two barred prison carriages stood waiting.
The regulars of the Flagons stared at them apologetically.
“Sheet,” Dolorosa said.
A slow crunching from the doorway of the tavern heralded the reappearance of Gregory Morg as he walked slowly out to them. He took the knives and crackstaff from their hands.
“What do you think this is?” he said. “A game?”
For the first time, Morg hefted his own weapon, a cruel looking battleaxe that had been slung on his back. He walked to the line of prisoners, considering each but then choosing one seemingly at random. He nodded to the Sword holding Fester Grimlock and, as he moved away, span with a roar and sliced the battleaxe up through Fester’s torso. The merchant was thrown off his feet, twisting in the air with the force of the impact, and when his already dead body landed with a thud, his innards were forcefully spewed from his body in a glistening, steaming heap.
Hetty gagged, while the rest of the regulars railed ineffectually against their captors.
“Bastardo,” Dolorosa said slowly.
“Any further resistance and I kill another of you,” Morg said, reslinging his weapon. The murder of Fester Grimlock had meant nothing to him.
Dolorosa studied the mercenary, and Aldrededor smiled as she spoke. His beloved had always possessed a keen tactical mind. “It is my guess that we are being taken as some kind offa insurance, yes?” she said, nodding at the wagons. “A deterrent against our Kali acting against Jakuba Freel. If that issa the case, I doubt he woulda be very pleased if he discovered you had keeled any of us, hmm? Or arra you going to prove me wrong?”
Morg’s eyes narrowed and he sighed.
“Put them in the wagons,” he said to his men. “I’m going to take a look at this mysterious locked stable of theirs.”
Again, Aldrededor and Dolorosa shot each other a glance, trying, and failing, to work out a way of stopping him. It was obvious that what they needed was some kind of diversion but what was not so obvious was who provided it.
Hetty Scrubb nodded at them, then mouthed for them to be ready to get the hells out of there. The ex-pirates’ eyebrows rose – neither had been aware that the perpetually high herbalist even knew they had something to protect.
Puzzled, they watched as Ronin, Red, Jurgen, Pete and finally Hetty were bundled into one of the wagons, its barred door slammed shut behind them. They shot a glance at Morg, who was fiddling with the rune lock on the stable door, and then were themselves ushered to a wagon. Whatever it was Hetty had in mind, they hoped she would do it quickly.
She did.
Just as Aldrededor and Dolorosa were about to be bundled into darkness, the rear of Hetty’s wagon began to pour smoke, a cloud so thick and cloying it immediately threw the Swords surrounding it into confusion.
“Fire!” one yelled, but Dolorosa knew better than that. This was Hetty’s special pipe in action, the one she’d been forced to ban from the Flagons, and if anything was going to take the Swords’ minds off things, this was it.
Aldrededor and Dolorosa took their cue, racing through the black hallucinogenic cloud of while the Swords battled to re-open the wagon and extinguish the pipe. They met Morg half way. The mercenary made an immediate angry dash for the two of them and, while Aldrededor steeled himself for a confrontation, Dolorosa shoved him on, rolling up her own sleeves instead.
“I will ’andle thees. You do what you ’ave to do.”
“My wife,” Aldrededor protested, “this is not some errant customer you are dealing with, Morg is a dangerous man.”
“And it is a long time since I have had the pleasure of keeling one. Now, do as I say, ’usband!”
The Sarcrean
was about to protest further but it was too late, battle joined.
Before Morg could make a move on him, Dolorosa pivoted on her right leg, skirt flying, and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the mercenary staggering back, snarling at a bloodied lip. It took Morg only a moment to recover and come at her, but Dolorosa was ready once more, meeting him with a flying kick that again sent the man staggering, this time flat on his back. As his wife roared and raced in with the intention of keeping Morg down, Aldrededor made the sign of the Gods and left her to it, heading for the locked stable door. Where it had proven problematic for Morg and his men, however, it was nothing for the ex-pirate. As the sounds of confrontation continued behind him the lock fell away before a series of rapid and deft gestures. The stable door creaked open and Aldrededor span back to face Dolorosa.
“Hurry, my darling. We have –”
The Sarcrean’s words dwindled into silence as he saw Morg had proven himself the better after all. He held Dolorosa in a neck lock, her back pressed against his front. The love of his life no longer looked furious or determined, only ashamed and defeated – and somehow old. Older than she had ever looked to him before.
Time, he reflected, was indeed catching up with them.
“Dolorosa...” he breathed, and then, to Morg, hoping that his wife had been right. “You will not kill her.”
Morg smiled coldy. “Perhaps not, Sarcrean. But if you do not surrender, I can and I will do almost as much...”
“Aldrededor,” Dolorosa hissed. “You must go.”
“Not without you, my wife.”
“My ’usband,” Dolorosa insisted, eyeing the shadows beyond the stable door. “You know what is at stake – go.”
Morg’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“What exactly is at stake, old man? I warn you, don’t make a move.”
Aldrededor’s eyes flicked from Morg to Dolorosa, lingering long and hard over his wife’s distressed face. But as their eyes met and he held her gaze he knew she was right. What he should have known, after Fester’s death, what that Morg would not hesitate to act.