by J. W. Webb
“Graan!” he snapped a finger and vainly waved his other hand in an attempt to banish the lingering odor.
“My lord?” The grizzled bodyguard was there.
“Summon my captains,” Rael ordered. “Have the thralls slay some beasts and prepare a feast for tonight. We will have guests later, with royalty among them. They will be providing the entertainment!” He laughed, picturing the scene.
“Very good, my lord,” growled the shaggy guard.
“Oh, and Graan,” Rael added. “Bring me a flagon of expensive wine, and have my retainer run a scented bath. And get some incense sticks lit in here to dispel this fucking stench.”
Graan withdrew. Rael Hakkenon ran a jeweled hand through his silvery hair, reflective again. There was much to contemplate. He would wait and see what followed. It should prove recreational. But first he would have that bath.
Chapter 24: Kranek Castle
Barin led the way up the steep cobbled street. High above, the Assassin’s keep frowned down on them with foreboding. The night was moonless; clouds hung low, and no shadows followed in their wake.
They quickened their pace, feeling the tension fused all around. Corin stroked Biter’s hilt and fingered the wolf brooch on his cloak. After half an hour’s steady climb they left the hub of the town below, entering a more open, tree-strewn region.
The streets were wider up here, the houses wealthier, constructed of stone and not the wattle and daub of the cheaper harborside establishments. Up here was where the moneylenders dwelt, the Assassin’s current favorites, and the people of rank, all of whom chose not to mix with the filthy rabble below.
Despite the chill, the companions were hot and breathless when they finally reached the top of the last tortuous lane. The harbor lights flickered far beneath them. The Starlight Wanderer was hidden in the gloom, somewhere beyond the empty streets. Corin wondered where all the people had gone.
He thought of Kashorn and scowled. Were they entering another trap? It wouldn’t surprise him in the least. He steeled his nerves. They’d won through at Kashorn, and they would win through here. They had to.
A watchful silence cloaked the city. Only the faint flickering of the newly lit torches showed any sign of life. At last the street opened out to a wider space. They’d gained the hill marking the end of the town.
Ahead reared the castle walls, looming like cliffs out of the murk. They stood on a large plateau of rock, a wide square flagged with marble slabs many-shaped and interlocking. To either side leaned tall stones, dim shapes that monitored their progress in silence.
A creepy place, sinister and silent. The plateau was smooth as though it had been scooped clean with a giant spoon. They made for the distant gates, keeping their profiles as low as they could. They stopped half way and scanned ahead, relieved that the gloom hid them from any prying eyes. All about, the marble slabs shimmered faintly in the dark.
Barin muttered something obscene into his beard. They were all getting edgy. Heavy cloud clung to the walls ahead, occluding the Assassin’s keep from view. It had started to drizzle.
Barin regretted leaving his axe behind. He chewed his beard and grumbled to himself. Beside him Ariane’s pale hands worked furiously beneath her cloak. Corin and Roman said nothing, but their eyes were fired with tension.
The marble plateau stretched into murky nothingness on either side. There was no growth of any kind here, just stone cut sheer and clean. Ariane glanced at the tall shapes to their right and left. She shuddered, recalling how this place had scared her as a child.
On closer inspection, she remembered the strange stones were baroque statues of beasts. Here was a snarling dragon, there a hideous griffin. All were mythical creatures from the ancient world fashioned by skills of long ago. This place was old. Older than the Four Kingdoms certainly, and no records shed light on the rulers back then. A cruel people they must have been.
The statues seemed almost sentient, appearing suddenly out of the gloom, watching silently as the four hurried by. Corin glanced at the statues in morbid fascination. There had to be at least thirty dark shapes, the bulk of which loomed close to the gates and would provide them with some cover should they need it.
Barin led them toward the gates, past the last statue, a thing with a fox’s head—its granite eyes glared down on them as they passed.
The gates came full into view, their iron struts glistening in the wet night. These were fifteen foot high, comprised of dark oak banded with iron. They looked strong. Corin spotted the guards. Two figures huddled in stone portals either side of the heavy archway surmounting the castle entrance.
There were three severed heads hanging from the arch, tied by their hair. One still dripped blood on the marble stones. Ariane gagged at the sight, but Corin ignored the trophies. Instead he studied the guards. Each cloaked soldier carried a long spear. Their faces were hidden behind heavy helms.
Barin crouched low and watched for a time.
“Well, here we are,” he whispered to the others. “Very inviting it is, too. I suppose we had better do something about our friends over there.” He motioned to the guards. Roman nodded. He carefully began sliding his sword free until Ariane’s pale hand stopped him.
“I can handle those with your help, Barin,” said the Queen, her voice clear despite a slight tremor. A bead of blood showed she’d been biting her lip. “You will need to stay hidden close by,” she added to the Northman, and then she signaled the other two wait.”
“Be careful,” muttered Corin.
She flashed him a quick grin. “Come on.” She beckoned Barin follow.
***
The two guards leapt up in alarm when they saw the muffled figure of the young woman approaching them from the drizzly night. Eyes wary, they barred her way with crossed spears.
“None is permitted entrance here after dark by orders of the Lord Protector!” spoke the larger of the two. “Show yourself!”
Ariane smiled to herself. She pulled back her hood, allowing her sable locks to bounce free and caress her pale, elfin features. Her eyes were cold as she appraised the spearmen.
“I am a High Priestess of Elanion of the Forests. I would speak with your master on a matter both urgent and pressing. He has blasphemed, and the Goddess marked him as heretic.” Her voice was cold and authoritative. “If you are wise you will open these gates and lead me to Rael Hakkenon immediately!” Though her manner was haughty, the guards were unmoved.
“I see no need to trouble himself with you, sweetness. It might prove hazardous at this hour, for you and us alike, what with his temper and all,” chuckled the bigger man, who was clearly the leader of the two.
“Himself has no need of any goddess, nor does he care about any alleged friggin’ heresy.” The man flicked his head back in the direction of the castle behind. “He relies on cunning and the strength of his own sword arm, that alone.” He smiled an ugly toothless smile. “So, it seems that you are out of luck, witchy-wenchy.” His grin deepened. “You look comely, though. Methinks we’ll keep you here instead, so you can entertain us two rough lads through the night. It’s so quiet out here no one need know.” He reached toward her with a gloved hand.
“Aye, take her, Gorrig!” hissed the other guard, his eyes squinting between the helmet slits like lusty currents.
Gorrig grinned. He grabbed the Queen’s robe, then froze in horror as the hulking figure of Barin emerged from the night and towered above him.
“Shit!” Gorrig raised his spear, but Barin split his skull with the pommel of his short sword. The guard crumpled to the ground, dark blood smearing the already stained gateway. His accomplice reached for his own shaft. He was too late. Biter slid across his throat. Scarlet billowed and he fell across the body of his comrade. Corin grinned up at Barin.
“I hate missing out,” he said and Ariane flashed him an angry glance.
They dragged the dead guards beneath one of the portals, though it was so dark they probably could have left them put. But b
est not leave anything to chance.
Roman reached down and snapped the chain that hung around Gorrig’s neck. He carefully placed the heavy key in the gate lock and turned it slowly until the latch snapped back with a metallic clunk. A loud noise, that, in the silent mizzly dark.
They waited. Nothing. They exchanged hesitant glances. No one was looking forward to this. Roman shook the heavy drizzle from his cloak.
Time to get moving.
“Come on!” he urged them, between clenched teeth. Together with Barin and Corin, he launched a shoulder into the right gate and pushed hard. Corin winced as the gate rocked and groaned on its hinges, but it opened just enough for them to slip inside.
Bloody thing needs oiling.
Four grim, silent ghosts, they stole into Kranek Castle. It was even gloomier inside the walls, but once their eyes adjusted they found themselves in a cobbled courtyard, square in shape, perhaps forty feet across.
They took their bearings before moving forward. The rain was heavier now. Barin smothered a sneeze with his meaty palm. The courtyard glistened as water dripped on stone. Ariane shivered, once again recalling her earlier visit. Like the square outside, the courtyard was flagged with polished black marble.
A fountain chimed to their right, a welcoming sound were it anywhere else; here it just added to her trepidation. Grinning at them from dark corners were more of the gruesome statues. This time they were prowling beasts and cruelly beaked alien birds. Carved on the granite walls were hideous leering gargoyle faces from the realms of nightmare. Their dead stone eyes followed the Queen with hungry malice.
Ariane recalled the grim baron that had ruled here ten years earlier. He had paid reluctant scot to his overlord Kelsalion. Crenna was part of the Four Kingdoms then, it being a year before cruel Rael Hakkenon seized control of the island. She had been a girl of thirteen summers, high spirited and willful. Despite that, the castle and its forbidding statues had haunted her dreams often in later days.
Ariane thought of her father and steeled herself. She turned to the others. “This is where we must separate,” Ariane told them.
“There are stairs on either side of the far wall. I remember a guard informing me that the one on the left leads down beneath the Great Keep to the dungeons far below.” Ariane suppressed a shudder. “He hinted of what went on down there even in those days. Down there in the filthy stink is where Tarin will be held captive.”
“Where does that other staircase lead to?” Corin enquired of her. He had spied it through the murk, a faint ruddy gleam of steps leading up to a torch-lit passage.
“That way is the great feasting hall of the Keep. It’s where our enemy feasts his warriors throughout the long wintry nights. That way we do not go!”
They approached the other stair. Corin heard the crackling of flame and hiss of smoke exuding from dripping candles. The entrance yawned at them, revealing worn steps descending into torchy murk under another gothic arch. This too was carved with garish gargoyles, whose stony gaze dared they enter. Ariane stopped beneath the arch, her face pale and resolute. To Corin she looked very beautiful in that eerie forbidding place.
“Barin and I will stay here and keep watch on this passageway and the gate,” she said. “Roman, you and Corin will seek out my royal cousin in the catacombs below.”
Ariane paused to appraise the two warriors, her heart heavy. They were both so precious to her. Roman had always been by her side, a constant tower of strength and resolve, but Corin—this wild-eyed man of contradictions—had somehow crept inside her, stirring her blood in a way that she didn’t understand. Ariane almost trembled as she looked up at his brooding features.
Enough nonsense.
“Be on your guard you two and don’t piss about,” she told them. “They say the Assassin never sleeps!”
Roman nodded. Her champion was not happy about leaving his Queen. “You must take care also,” he answered. “At some point they’ll discover those two guards are missing.”
“Take care of her, Barin,” added Corin, looking up at his giant friend. “It will be a black day if we lose a Queen to gain a Prince!” He looked hard at them both for a moment. Ariane looked so tiny next to Barin’s bulk Corin’s heart lurched. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment, and Corin caught a glint of moisture streaking her left cheek.
I hate this.
Corin turned briskly on his heels and vanished in the gloom beyond the archway. Roman followed stone faced without further ado.
***
Barin listened to their fading footfalls. He turned to Ariane. “I think ours is the harder job, Your Highness,” he said. “Sitting here and waiting.”
“Yes,” she replied, her thoughts far away. Barin marked how afraid she looked beneath her courage, how alone. He thought of his daughters her age back home. He wished he’d brought Wyrmfang with him. Something inside warned him he’d need it soon. He suppressed a fart—any noise could betray them. Time passed leaden slow. The fountain chimed, and the grinning gargoyles watched them from the walls.
***
Night deepened. Far below, beyond grim castle, past labyrinthine twists of street and low, thatched roofs, the harbor too was quiet. A light breeze drifted in from the sea. It buffeted the multitude of craft moored around the quayside, bobbing their hulls gently in slow rhythm.
The Starlight Wanderer’s rain-slippery decks creaked and groaned. The bowline sploshed as it lapped water, and the wooden jetty dripped weed-covered slime. The earlier drizzle had lifted. A pale moon spilled out from dark cloud. Below deck the crew were tense and restless. Only the boy Cale was sleeping.
In the far corner of the cabin the gloomy figure of Galed could just be seen, huddled miserably beneath a blanket, trying to sleep but to no avail. He felt useless again. The ship’s crew ignored him, and the taciturn Bleyne was difficult as always.
Cale was a better companion, although Galed failed to see why his Queen was so fond of the lad. He envied the boy’s ability to sleep. Cale never seemed to worry about anything. He was almost as bad as Bleyne. Galed worried enough for both of them. He looked around for the archer, couldn’t see him anywhere, and assumed Bleyne must have gone aloft. That one never seemed to sleep.
Galed was deeply worried. He knew the others saw him as a liability, a cumbrance to be endured. Nonetheless, here he was stuck on board this creaking tub, surrounded by enemies, fearfully awaiting the return of his beloved Queen, and desperately hoping she had not met her doom in that terrible fortress above. The hours dragged. Galed fretted and tossed before finally being rewarded by a restless sleep.
He woke cold and strangely alert. It was very dark, and the air in the cabin was thick with the flatulence of Barin’s snoring men. A noise above startled him. Fassof’s freckly image showed through the hatch, his red mane sparkling in the moonlight.
“What is it?” hissed Galed, his face creased with worry.
“The archer,” responded the mate. “Bleyne…gone!”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
***
Bleyne had felt the tension build as the night deepened. Suspense surrounded the harbor; menace lurked in the twisted streets beyond. His hunter’s soul knew something was amiss. He could almost smell the deception carried on the breeze. His sharp black eyes pierced the night’s gloom, scanning for movement.
Suddenly he tensed. There were shapes moving at the edge of the town. Soldiers. Bleyne looked closer, saw four shadowy figures on the quayside, the wind whipping their bulky cloaks. They brandished spears that glinted silver in the moonlight. The city guard had returned to watch them.
Bleyne studied them in silence. He strung his bow and placed four arrows on the deck rail beside him. They were too far at the moment, but should they approach… He prayed Elanion will them forward, but they just stood silently as if awaiting orders from someone still hidden by the night.
Bleyne watched for at least an hour. Beneath him the deck timbers c
reaked, and the ship rolled gently from side to side. To his right the mooring lines tautened and slackened with the movement of water against the trader’s hull. The wrongness in the air was almost tangible.
Silence. Bleyne watched and listened.
Then he heard it. A deep penetrating voice booming a defiant challenge from somewhere high above the town. That could only be Barin. Trumpets answered from the castle. Suddenly the night was full of shouts. They were in trouble up there! The time had come for him to act.
Bleyne quickly knelt and scooped up his arrows. He slung his bow and sack of shafts over his back, then straddled the guardrail. Clinging to the clinkered hull, the archer lowered himself silently into the water.
Bleyne ignored the icy kiss of the Sea God’s daughters. He kicked out, swimming otter-lithe and swift toward the torch-lit quay, a score of yards beyond the waiting spearmen. Bleyne emerged silent and dripping. In moments, he vanished into the labyrinth of streets beyond.
***
Barin lurked beneath the gateway like a soggy bear. He fretted and cursed, fingered his short sword, and stomped to and fro. “It’s too bloody quiet,” he muttered under his breath. He glanced out at the silent square, grumbled again, and then rejoined the Queen, who sat waiting pale faced in the courtyard.
“It is very calm out there tonight,” Barin said, risking a bluff smile that failed to conceal the worry in his eyes. “Perhaps the Assassin is abroad.”
Ariane shook her head. “I do not think so,” she answered, poking at a tooth that was troubling her again. She wished she had her flask. She could so use a cup of strong tea.
“Something is wrong here, Barin. I can sense it. They should be back by now.” The Queen peered into the darkness beyond the arch, willing Corin and Roman to reappear. “I begin to doubt our wisdom in coming to this island. I pray the Goddess is watching.”
Barin sat down beside her. He unsheathed his sword, fumbled for his whetstone, and then slowly worked along its already razored edge, keeping the noise to minimum. After a while he spoke, his voice quiet, consoling.