BRUTAL: An Epic Grimdark Fantasy

by James Alderdice

  “Back into the Marquis’ pocket.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance and said, “We’ll see about that too.”

  “You’re a very self-righteous mercenary. What gives you the right to judge anyone?”

  “Divine right—of knowing what is right and wrong. These wizards feeding off the people like maggots in carrion, that’s enough for me to know.”

  She went silent and returned to watching the players on the ground. They had been shouting at one another, but she had lost any sense of what had been said.

  Then a few shafts and stones were sent back and forth and all the caterwauling of hell foamed together like a dam had burst. Men charged one another with swords, axes, polearms, and maces. The crunch of metal being dented, torn, and pierced, clanged together in demonic symphony. Just as suddenly it stopped.

  “Truce, truce,” someone called.

  Each side withdrew gradually back to their own lines. They even grabbed their wounded or dead and moved them back without being molested.

  “I never would have thought. How?”

  Nicene took delight in the Sellsword being at a loss for words. “See there? Both masters have called it off.”

  “But why? It was just getting good.”

  A town crier rang a bell thrice, strode into the center of the court and rang three times again before calling out, “Envoys from the king will be here by noon. We have just received word.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We have the raven,” answered the crier.

  Varlak and Anaias both stepped to the fore of their gangs and someone shouted, “A truce is called between all parties and there is to be no disturbances of the peace under penalty of death!”

  Anaias added, “We are to look like a city at peace with itself. Everything open and at ease.”

  The crier repeated the message from the wizards, moved on a hundred yards and repeated the message yet again. It seemed the wizards would be at peace so long as they lived in fear of the king’s envoys.

  “Interesting,” remarked the Sellsword. “But if there is peace and they wait, things will only fester and rot until it all boils over and erupt again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want the king’s envoys to leave more than they do. It’s the only way to finish this quick.”

  Nicene shook her head. “I’ll never understand your bloodthirsty nature. ‘Don’t harm children,” she mocked impersonating his husky voice, “‘but kill everyone I don’t like.’”

  “Are you done? We can climb down now.”

  “I’m done.”

  ***

  Reaching the bottom, the Sellsword dropped down and gestured for Nicene to jump. She did and he caught her. He held her a long moment until her eyes grew wide, looking over his shoulder.

  “You must be the infamous Sellsword,” said a haughty man’s voice in little more than a whisper. “I suppose I should be thanking you.”

  “Thank me, for what?” His hand was on his hilt as he put Nicene down. He glared at the wizard and his troop of a dozen men with fierce intensity.

  “You saved me from having to pay those rogues. You brought fear back into their hearts so they will be more cautious when they next face Varlak’s dogs.” The man grinned with dazzling white teeth over his spade-like red goatee but there was cruel mischief in his eyes.

  “You must be Anaias, the rival.”

  “That’s a refreshing way to put it, but I will be in control of Aldreth soon enough. No more rivals, no more dukes, no more anyone who think they can do as they please.” The last remark seemed especially directed at Nicene.

  The Sellsword snorted, and he pushed Nicene behind him.

  “I’m not going to kill you, yet,” threatened Anaias.

  “Try. You know what I did to the others.” The Sellsword shifted his feet and released the tab holding his bastard sword’s hilt.

  “Poor word choice on my part,” said Anaias, ushering his men to back up. “Wait, what others?”

  Nicene peeked from behind the Sellsword.

  “Those you and Bearcoat sent after me.”

  Anaias held his hands aloft. “No, you misunderstand. I did not send any cretins of Bearcoat after you. That was the fat, greedy imbecile’s own doing. I only told him, that you and the lady were together and I wanted to talk to you myself. If he sent killers to waylay you, that was not, I repeat not my doing. I swear it on the teats of Boha-Annu.”

  The Sellsword snorted. “Many men swear by the goddess. It means nothing to me.”

  Anaias ignored the remark and moved on. “I understand you do not work for Varlak any longer, yes?”

  “I do not.”

  “Are you employed by the Lady Nicene?”

  “No.”

  Nicene fidgeted behind his back and gave him a shove.

  “Then perhaps you would work for me? I have already heard from my spies on your exorbitant price for Varlak. I could match it and then some.”

  “Spies like that winged monkey?”

  Anaias grinned wider, revealing sharp teeth. “He is one. Will you consider it?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “Good. Then I will bid you a good day. It will be quiet around here so long as the envoys stay. I hope it is brief. Our business must wait until they are gone, but it should not wait long.” He walked away, followed by his swordsmen who eyed the Sellsword warily. It was plain they wanted to fight him, but they respected their master more than any anger or desire for glory against the foe.

  “Do you think he means that?”

  “Probably. Better to have my sword on his side than against him.”

  “But you won’t, will you?”

  He shook his head. “I might need too. Depends on how this all plays out.”

  “You’re impossible. A feather in the wind flies with more reason than you.”

  He laughed at her.

  “Why won’t you serve me then?”

  “I serve none, but they think I do,” he said, turning and walking away.

  She frowned, but followed after.

  ***

  All was still in the city thereafter. Close to noon, the town crier could again be heard reminding the folk of the orders for peace and quiet.

  The Sellsword awoke and rolled Nicene off himself. She blinked awake.

  “They should be here soon,” he said.

  “Why does it matter? They won’t fight while the king’s men are here. We can relax some more. Just me and you.”

  He gave her the lop-sided grin again and put on his shirt. “I want them to leave more than the wizards do.”

  “Your intellect on such matters is dizzying. Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Oh, of course so you can kill them all. Blahhh!” She imitated swinging a sword and cutting a man’s throat, and then the gushing of blood from said wound. “Honestly, why do I attach myself to the mad?”

  “Mad? You’re the one talking to yourself.”

  “Talking to oneself is often the best way to work through problems.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re so rude. Snapping fingers at me, like a dog!”

  “You take insult where none was meant. Go or stay I won’t make you do anything.” He held the door.

  “I’m coming,” she pouted. “Where are we going anyway?”

  “To meet the envoys and see about getting them to leave.”

  She scoffed as they went down the stairs of the King’s Crown and into the main bar. “You can’t talk uppity men like the king’s guard into doing anything. I have seen Owain try many times when he asked for help and he got nowhere. No one lifted a finger. They’re just here to make sure they keep collecting taxes.”

  “Well that was him and I’m me.”

  The old bartender saw the two of them together and wagged his scolding finger at the Sellsword.

  The Sellsword just raised his chin to the old man and kept moving. “With the Duke
gone, who would the envoys turn to now to collect their due?”

  “I’m not sure. They might seek out either Varlak or more likely the Marquis.”

  Outside on the street, the town moved with more bustle than usual. People were actually cleaning and picking up garbage. Drunks and vagabonds were not to be seen. Windows were thrown open and doors left ajar as if this were the homiest city there ever was without a trouble in the world. The Sellsword gawked at the incredible turnaround.

  “It gets like this every time. It lasts for about a week. That’s how long they usually stay, perhaps once or twice every couple years.”

  “And you think I’m difficult to fathom.”

  They walked to the city gates, keeping pace with the new-found fervor all about them. A tavern beside the gate house was called, for lack of imagination, the Gate House. The Sellsword took a table outside the doors and had a wench bring a crock pitcher of mead while listening to Nicene speak of the land she grew up in far across the sea, an exotic locale named Avaris.

  “Then my father, always wishing I had been a son, burdened me with adjoining our families with the Peninsular Confederacy. I expected a similar climate, that’s what I was told it was like in Tolburn, but no, I’m shipped off like chattel up to the farthest corner of the northernmost waste of a city called Aldreth. I have never left since.”

  “Do you want to now?”

  She looked sad. “I don’t know. I was fifteen when I came, that seems so long ago. I don’t know anything else now. Do I even look twenty-seven? Goddess, I feel a hundred years old.”

  The Sellsword sipped his mead and nodded.

  “That’s odd,” Nicene said. “I count at least twenty; usually there are no more than five.” She pointed at the king’s envoys as they passed through the gates.

  “Wait,” he said. “They’re here?” He stood from the table and marched himself to the majestic looking horseman now paused in front of the gates. Their bridles and cloaks were of the same magnificent blue he wore, though not nearly so worn and faded as the Sellsword’s own. The horses were of the best breed and each man looked like a paragon of knighthood.

  The man in front was younger, perhaps thirty-years-old with sandy brown hair and a mustache. He was the only one of the envoy’s not wearing a gleaming helm. He had the insignia of captain across his shoulders, and the Sellsword approached him, like an old friend.

  “Ho there, Niels!” he called out in a friendly tone.

  The captain looked at him in utter surprise.

  “Don’t speak my name,” said the Sellsword.

  The captain furrowed his brow but nodded.

  “You owe me a blood debt, Niels. And I’m calling it in.” The captain nodded, but with a quizzical look upon his face. “I will need you to act as if you are here on the king’s business and will be staying for days.” The captain tried to get a word in edgewise, but the Sellsword cut him off. “When I ask though, I need you to leave and go away. Camp in the mountains or something, but don’t come back for at least a week. We will not speak again, until I come and ask you to leave.”

  “Good to see you alive, too,” retorted the captain.

  The Sellsword swung about and saluted him, but turned back to Nicene, still waiting at the table. “Now, we go bargain with the wizards for as much blood money as we can squeeze from them.”

  “How do you propose to go about that kind of miracle?”

  “It’s not so hard. Where is the best neutral location to ask these parties to meet?”

  She thought for a moment, then said, “The temple of Dyzan is considered a middle ground of sorts.”

  “Could we parlay there?”

  “Yes, especially with the ones you seek to invite, they’ll usher all the priests and those covered in sack-cloth and ashes out.”

  “Perfect.”

  As they walked along, the Sellsword paid several boys to run his message to each of the differing camps.

  “Even the Marquis?” asked Nicene.

  “Why not? He wants the city to return to his order too and it’s in his interest that these gang wars stop.”

  “Have you thought anymore about what I told you? That he is dealing with demonic rites? The dark goddess.”

  “One thing at a time,” he said.

  “It’s just as well. When we are at the temple of Dyzan, I can speak freely of such things without summoning Her. The opposing god creates a safe space.”

  “Safe space?” scoffed the Sellsword with a shrug. Nicene rapped him across the arm. “You are a testy one,” he said, without mirth.

  Nicene turned and stepped in front of him, bringing both a halt and a scowl. She frowned back and said, “I want you to listen and believe me when I say—dark rites. These are things that should be of more concern than the alchemists.”

  “I see the damage done by them but not the other, let men worship what gods they will,” he said. “If there is anything relevant to your concerns about this dark goddess you’ll have to convince me, til then I’m only dealing with flesh and blood.”

  They walked on silently for a few more blocks until they arrived in front of the King’s Crown. The Sellsword was halfway up the steps when Nicene asked, “What’s here? More mead? Let’s go.”

  “Yes, besides more mead, I need to give those I summoned some time to gather.”

  “Then that is time I could be telling you about, you know what.”

  “Right—a safe space. I’ll give you a life lesson, there is no such place in this world,” he said with dripping disdain.

  Nicene held her ground. “I didn’t say it was perfect, just that it was safe, as in better than other places.”

  “Fine. Lead the way,” he answered, coming down the steps.

  12. The Bribe

  They only had to march a few blocks down crisscrossing streets to reach the temple of Dyzan. It was a big, squat building made with pale limestone, one of the only buildings in the city that wasn’t a flat grey. The roof was a ribbed dome of copper long since corroded pale green with age. Birds cawed obnoxiously from the eaves and more were scattered about the temple courtyard. They were black and white—magpies. One was in a tug of war with a rat over a piece of unnamable refuse.

  Nicene caught the Sellsword looking at the animals and said, “Magpies are the only birds left in Aldreth. Any others have long since been killed and eaten by hungry citizens.”

  “No, vultures eh?”

  “Too cold,” she said. “Even the eagles that used to soar over these mountains were hunted down for their eggs or feathers.”

  “What is left?”

  “Vermin. There are a few horses. Some of the farmers have chickens and cows. Pigs too, because they can eat slop. I’d say the wildest thing I’ve seen in years, would be you.” She teased a coy smile over her shoulder.

  He grunted, and turned to see if they had been followed. No one yet.

  She led him up the stairs and between a façade of pillars beside the great copper and iron doors. Within the vast chamber were six rows of pews with long, red carpets running between them. It was not dim inside, a multitude of small windows about the dome let in sunlight from every direction. Candles and incense were lit here and there as well, giving a not unpleasant scent of some kind that the Sellsword could not readily identify. Toward the rear was a dais lined with a gaudy pulpit and a dozen dark wooden chairs covered with faded red velvet.

  “Are we to meet in this chapel?”

  “No, they’ll know we are meant to go to the chamber rooms in the back. Many of the neutrally held meetings are there,” she said. “I have gone a few times, but have not been welcome for the last couple years.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Owain said I was distracting. Especially to Varlak.”

  “You mentioned that before. Something I should know?”

  She dropped herself down on a pew and lay back facing him with a come-hither expression. “Just that he wants me, madly.”

  “You keep telling me.”r />
  “It’s a fact.” She pursed her lips and ran her tongue over them before sticking a finger in her mouth.

  He rolled his eyes grating, “Enough games.”

  “I’m trying to prove a point,” she snapped, sitting up suddenly. A few of her blonde curls flew over the top of her head and hit her in the face. She huffed them out of the way.

  “You are desirable, but I have other, more pressing matters.”

  “Pressing? Hmmm?”

  He gave her a stern look and changed the subject. “Tell me about this goddess, if this is the only place you can speak of her.” His tone and sarcasm were thick as honey.

  “Not if you won’t at least try to believe me.”

  “I said I needed evidence.”

  “Will you listen?”

  “I’ll listen.”

  “Fine.” She offered a hand for him to help pull her up from the pew. She straightened her gown and then led him to the far corner of the temple. A small spiral staircase wound its way up like a corkscrew. It was tight, he could barely make it up without going sideways to fit his ample frame. Nicene delighted in racing up the stone staircase out of sight. The Sellsword could only move so fast without hitting his head on the stairs twisting above him. She would then peek around the corner and taunt him to hurry.

  “Act your age,” he grumbled.

  “I don’t want to.” She stuck her tongue out, laughed, and disappeared again.

  The stairwell abruptly ended in a circular chamber not more than twelve feet wide. It had a pair of couches along the walls. Nicene planted herself in one. Light entered through slits in the walls almost ten feet up. In the center of the room was a grey marble statue of a man. He had horns like a goat and held a set of four scrolls in one hand while pointing accusingly with his right hand.

  “Dyzan, I presume?”

  “I think it’s just one of his messengers,” answered Nicene.

  “But you feel comfortable enough to tell me about this dark goddess here instead of the tavern?”

  She frowned. “Dyzan holds sway over this place. Even she cannot create discord here.”