BRUTAL: An Epic Grimdark Fantasy

by James Alderdice

  “But,” she stumbled and he finally stopped for her. She took off her shoe and pulled a pebble from it. “It’s ruined.” She put a finger through the toe of her slipper.

  He turned and walked on.

  Nicene rushed to catch up again. “Where do you want me?”

  “Somewhere safe. That probably won’t be with me.”

  She stopped in the street, and he stopped again too. “I told you. I daren’t go home. There are enchantments there.” She shook her head violently.

  “Is there any other safe place in the city for you?” She shook her head. “Perhaps I can find one.”

  “No, I want to be with you. That’s where I’ll be safe from the Marquis and Varlak.”

  He pondered a moment. “Your villa is a fortress. What if we threw all the statues of Boha-Annu out? Got rid of them?”

  Her mind wandered and inspiration flashed behind her eyes. “Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course. We throw them out and break them!”

  “Well, what if they are still worth coin?” he argued.

  “No! We destroy them!”

  He reluctantly nodded. “I could throw them into your empty moat.”

  She nodded vigorously and clapped her hands.

  “Let’s go to your villa then.”

  ***

  The doorman with the withered, melted-looking face greeted them. “Madam, we have been so worried. The Marquis sent the captain of the guard to look for you.”

  “We met them,” said the Sellsword, but the doorman ignored him.

  Passing through the threshold, Nicene wheeled on the man. “And who told him I was missing at all?”

  “Well, I did,” he said, sheepishly. “I was under strict orders to—”

  She slapped him across the face. His mottled skin almost stuck to her fingers with the strike. “Who does he think he is to give my servants orders?”

  The doorman rubbed his face and angrily retorted, “He is the Marquis and he is the one who pays my salary! He shall hear of this.”

  “Fine! You are through here! Get out!”

  The doorman still rubbed his cheek and opened his mouth like he might argue further but, looking at the Sellsword, he thought better of it and left.

  “Do you see what I have had to endure?” plead Nicene. “Not a moment’s peace! And those terrible spies!” She fell upon a divan, breathing hard.

  The Sellsword looked around. “Does anyone else live here? Servants? I mean.”

  “I have a cook, a housekeeper, a secretary, and a boy? Why?”

  “If you’re concerned with spies.”

  She bolted upright. “You’re right! I have to get rid of all of them. They all must serve the Marquis.”

  “I didn’t say that. I was just wondering.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t take that chance. This place is affecting my mind. I’m becoming unhinged. You must get rid of those statues now!” She swooned and fell into the silken pillows on the divan.

  He looked her over. She was breathing fine, but muttered softly, with fluttering eyes. “Visions. Demons. They surround me.” He offered her a sip of wine, but she was unconscious.

  He thought about ordering the servants to leave for the night, but he didn’t need too. He saw them hurrying away once they heard the Duchess’s tirade.

  Without any other course of action open to him, the Sellsword strode to the parlor and hefted one of the black statues of Boha-Annu. It was heavy, fifty to seventy-five stone at least. But, he took it to the front door, managed to get the door open, then cast the statue into the moat. It cracked into a dozen large pieces and innumerable tiny ones upon landing.

  He didn’t notice any difference in the aura of the place after that. No sign of malevolent spirit exorcised at his wanton destruction of rotund art. He removed and similarly destroyed a half dozen more pieces before Nicene awoke and stopped him.

  “I think I’m actually feeling better. Like a curse is being lifted,” she said, with a cool cloth over her forehead. “But please, continue, continue.”

  The Sellsword nodded and kept at his work, but every time he stepped out of doors he was mindful of the setting sun. It was late afternoon and evening was coming.

  ***

  Dusk was swiftly overtaking the valley, and here and there cries erupted from inside the city walls. Pain and agony accompanied by wicked laughter haunted the streets like specters, while doe-eyed vixens and lusty roustabouts hid in vacant dens. Windows were boarded shut and doors were barred. Men gathered their families into cellars while clutching their pitchforks and butcher knives. Aldreth was preparing for a siege from within. The peace would soon be over.

  The Sellsword wrote out a letter. He did not sign it but fashioned a sigil of a sword thrust through a coin. He put it in an envelope and sealed it with wax from the Duchess’s parlor. He then called to a boy walking past the villa.

  The boy gingerly approached. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’ve two silver coins here. One for you to deliver this letter to Varlak’s tower precisely at midnight tonight and another when it is done.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide as saucers at the silver coin in the Sellsword’s hand. He snatched for it but the Sellsword was quicker, closing his hand.

  “It must be midnight.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy, taking the letter and the silver and running off.

  “What was that about?” asked Nicene.

  “Just stirring the pot.”

  ***

  It was back-breaking work, but the Sellsword managed to raise the residence drawbridge. Rusted chains groaned at the weight and caked dirt fell from the bottom into the dry moat. Rats from beneath scrambled for new hiding places. Nicene said she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen it raised. The shutters were drawn and lights dimmed to a minimum within the great villa. It now seemed a big empty house filled with lurking shadows and ominous creaking.

  Sounds came from without too. Something was thrown against one of the shutter windows on the west side and Nicene shrieked in surprise.

  Checking the back where another small drawbridge led to the stables, the Sellsword found he could not raise it. It had been secured down with new concrete.

  “I’ll just have to bar this door and strengthen it as much as I can. A good ram will get through it, if it comes to that. Unfortunately, folk may think this home worth looting if chaos breaks out bad enough.”

  “Do you think it will?”

  “People can become a mob easy enough, anything is possible. All we can do is plan accordingly.”

  “What happens when things don’t go according to your plans?”

  “That’s what this is for,” he said, touching his bastard sword.

  They came back inside, and he set to securing the door as best he could, by barring it, then moving the iron cook stove behind the door, and then stacking the kitchen furnishing against that.

  “Let’s go up to the roof and see what we can,” he suggested. But they missed a large bat, flying about.

  She led the way with a tiny oil lamp, lit by her magic ring. They went up two flights of stairs and then to an attic access that was locked. Unfastening the catches, they went up to a wide flat roof with a low parapet surrounding. They could see the entire city from the vantage point. But they missed a large bat, flying about.

  Flames roared in a dozen places throughout the city, belching black smoke into the already dark air. Shouts and cries came from near every direction as gangs of men moved through the streets like packs of wild dogs. It was not clear where any direct gang warfare between the wizards was taking place. Chaos reigned throughout.

  “It seems all you have done is make things much worse.”

  “I see people looting and arguing, but no real confrontation between the wizards yet.”

  “Why not?”

  He shook his head, but answered, “They agreed to a truce for a full day once the king’s guard left. They are likely looking for a way to get the drop on one ano
ther, perhaps probing for a weakness as soon as the truce is over.” He scanned the dimly lit city and pointed toward Anaias’s tower. “See there, the torches burn out front and from the top of the tower. He isn’t moving or even signaling his men. He is waiting for the right time to strike. Maybe he just wants to make Varlak sweat.”

  “I hope it’s working.”

  They stayed up on the roof a long time watching the roving chaos in the streets below. Several times small gangs of robbers attempted to batter on the back door, but a dropped brick or two, quickly made the robbers change their minds and move on.

  A crowd of perhaps twenty rabble-rousers threw bottles and stones at the front of the house hoping for a reaction, but Nicene and the Sellsword gave them none. The crowd didn’t even bother going around the backside of the villa, and it remained undisturbed the rest of the night.

  The Sellsword examined some of the lines and wires that crisscrossed the city. These were used to send relay messages between the mines and smelting stations by means of a tapped code. One such cable passed over the villa and on. It was affixed to the roof with a stout grommet to the stone parapet.

  “Do all of these cables have such anchors?” he asked.

  “I’ve never paid them much attention but I think so. Why?”

  He pressed his weight upon the cable, then gingerly leapt up and balanced on it a moment before falling back to the roof. “Just thinking is all. If this could hold, I could travel the rooftops and examine more of the city covertly.”

  “I don’t think that is a very good idea. What if you fell, or the cable broke? What if someone saw you?”

  “Who’s to see at night? How many other homes do these suspend from?”

  “Many, they are all over the city. But I don’t believe any go to either of the wizard’s towers if that’s what you are wondering. Just between the mines, the smelters, and the iron furnaces.”

  He pulled and strained at the cable, testing its resolve. “But those are near the towers are they not?”

  “They are,” she said, starting to catch his meaning. “But what good is that?”

  “I can move quickly through the city via rooftop, without their men on the ground noticing I am there. I have more twists to do with them.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  He smirked and took off one of his leather belts, slinging it over the cable on the outside of the villa. “Mind yourself,” he said. “I’ll be back by dawn.”

  “Don’t go,” she said, shaking her head, allowing blonde curls to bounce.

  He turned away and went over the side, grasping the belt and sliding down the cable to the next roofline over forty feet away. Touching down on the tiles, he scrambled up the roof, knocking a few loose. He waved to Nicene before disappearing over the side.

  14. The Roof

  The city was a gray ocean with peaks and swells of tall pitched roofs, broken by random flats. Since half the city was on a slanting mountainside getting down could be done very quickly, up was another matter entire. But the Sellsword guessed that if he could get in close and swift, he could stir up trouble and retreat without being caught in the maelstrom of the two opposing parties.

  There were several points where the roofs were flat enough that there was no angle to the cable, and he was forced to go hand over hand across the divide. This was a time he was grateful for the narrow alleyways and streets of Aldreth.

  He had seen few enough people on his over roof travel and none had seen him so far as he knew. He crouched along a peaked roof and made his way to the last building away from Anaia’s tower. It appeared to be an abandoned smelter with a final cable stretching down the far side.

  Movement at the corner of his eye, made him turn. Standing only a foot high, the homunculus sat with its wings folded across its slick brown body. How long had it been watching him? He had no idea if it had followed him or he had just come upon one of its aeries.

  It screeched once long and loud and took to wing. This time however the Sellsword was swift as lightning He threw his knife and caught the thing in the belly. It cried out once and fell back to the roof, dead. The Sellsword retrieved his knife and picked the tiny body up and tossed it down a chimney.

  Pondering the best place to come down, he was startled when men’s voices called him on a balcony just behind.

  “Who goes there? What are you doing up here?”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s that two-bit Sellsword!”

  “Shoot him!”

  There were five of them, four had flatbows. They had the twisted demons cross on their tabards, the sign of Anaias.

  Rather than wait for them to close, the Sellsword swung his belt over the last cable and leapt. He heard the skittering of bolts as they flew near him and smacked against the building ahead. Something chopped at the line. A sword stroke? The cable dropped a pace, almost jerking his hold free. He slid closer. Another chop. The line went slack and he fell.

  The Sellsword let go of the belt and grasped the cable with one hand. Holding on like death’s inexorable grip, he swung through the air straight into a wide glass window and crashed through. His fall was broken by not only the voluminous draperies but also by a soft body, wrapped head to toe in crimson.

  He was dazed, but unhurt, save for a few lightly bleeding scratches on his face. It took a bare moment to get his bearings as he stood.

  Surrounding him were a dozen figures in red cowls with masks over their faces. Only their penetrating eyes were visible. Eerie greenish candles lit the room and esoteric sigils were plastered with an ominous red ooze on the pillars and walls.

  Clearly, he had interrupted some type of sorcerous rite at work, though not being a mage, he had no idea what type it was.

  “Sorry,” he said, stumbling back toward the window and stepping away from the unconscious figure at his feet.

  They were as shocked as he was, but it took only a moment for them to cry out, “Death to the interloper!” and draw their curved daggers.

  They flew at him from all directions, but the length of his bastard sword was a decided one versus their short blades. He cleaved through a pair of them with one stroke and charged about the room keeping them on the defensive.

  Launching multiple thrusts, they came on baying like hounds treeing a great cat.

  He roared back and took arms and heads as his own blade swept them asunder.

  One toward the back loosed darts at him from a blowgun. He might not have seen the threat except the sniper missed, and he heard the twang of the dart as it hit the wall beside him and vibrated menacingly. Taking out his throwing knife, he returned the flying missile and took the blowgun sniper in the head with a loud thwack.

  The red cloaked adepts shouted and charged together, and then stained the walls in great gouts of their own blood as his blade sheared through the cowls and beyond.

  Half of them were down and any left were breathing heavily from exertions of charging and retreating. Everyone paused a moment. The sounds of crunching, heavy footfalls upon the stairway outside the doors thumped like so many heartbeats. The Sellsword expected it was reinforcements for these cultists, but the screams of men coming from behind the door didn’t make that likely. He pondered his options of escape. He was far too high to leap out the window. He would have to wade through and chop them all to pieces.

  The chaos increased as the armored guardsmen, who had hounded him upon the roof, entered the fray, crashing through the door to the rear. At least they had blades out instead of flatbows.

  The men of Anaias were as stupefied as he at finding the adepts in conference, and they fell to slashing their way through the remaining dark cultists in their quest to take the Sellsword.

  Armed with inferior weapons and fighting on two fronts, the adepts were dispatched by both the Sellsword and the attacking roof guardians in a melee of shrieks and cries to their goddess.

  Then there was silence as five men stared across the gore strewn floor at one. Six
blades smeared with crimson dripped.

  “I’ve no quarrel with you. I don’t even know who they were,” said the Sellsword, gesturing at the red robed corpses.

  “Scum worshippers of Boha-Annu, who thought they could send bad juju toward our master,” said one.

  “Shuddup,” ordered the presumed leader.

  “Are you going to let me walk out of here?” asked the Sellsword.

  “Not likely,” said the leader. “Anyone who thinks they can traipse across the rooftops to come at our master deserves death.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked the Sellsword, cocking his head and giving them a bloody grin that was anything but disarming.

  “Why else?”

  “If you were of noble intent, you wouldn’t have been sneaking,” said another, swinging his sword in his right hand then tossing it to his left, illustrating his expertise.

  “All right then, if that’s how you want it.”

  “We do,” said the leader, with a savage grin.

  They charged together and steel slammed and clamored. The blow sent the sword hilts vibrating, like to shatter, but the Sellsword drew back and came in again with a deadly strike. The first man to the Sellsword’s left lost his arm and face. Pushed back to the brink, another was run through before being tossed out the broken window behind. He released a wild scream before his lips—and everything else—were pulped by the cobbles below.

  Crying in a rage, the leader of the guardians swung feverishly, hoping to batter aside the Sellsword’s defenses enough that his two remaining brothers could thrust on either side and take down the ferocious giant.

  Even as the Sellsword retreated a step, the guardian’s leader lost his momentum on the splayed corpse of a fallen adept. The Sellsword used every terrain to his advantage.

  In the space of half a heartbeat that his battering was slowed, the guardians’ leader found the Sellsword’s blade snaking straight through his attack and opening his neck. Blood showered, filling his cuirass. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees, grasping at the shower exploding from his neck with armored gauntlets.

  The final two guardsmen bellowed with as much hatred as they could muster at the Sellsword, leaping at him as if demons pushed them through the air. They hacked like madmen possessed, and the Sellsword knew some form of sorcery was present, but what? Had the dying cultists summoned something that manifested here in their enemies, a force animating whatever was at hand?