City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1)

by Steven Montano

  No, if things go bad down here, I probably won’t make it out alive. Nice work, Azander.

  “Dane!” Sammeus called. He and Cronak stood leaning against one of the walls. Dane turned to face them.

  “What?” he said.

  They approached slowly. Sammeus smiled, and the long scars on his cheeks seemed to puff up with blood. “We were wondering something…how old were the girls? You know…the young girls? The ones who hadn’t even blossomed a proper chest yet?”

  Dane watched him, unblinking. Memories of what had happened in the Razortooth Mountains burned at the edge of his thoughts.

  Sammeus seemed pleased with himself. Cronak’s stony face betrayed no such amusement, but his eyes stayed locked on Dane. “Because it would have been a terrible shame,” Sammeus continued, his words playfully drawn out as he and Cronak drew close, “if you killed those ripe little fawns without even tasting their meat.” They stood right in front of Dane. Sammeus folded his arms. “You know, maybe that was the problem with you Dawn Knights. You should’ve just had your way with a few of those eager little bitches before you killed them – relaxed a little, if you take my meaning. Then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out so badly for you.”

  Cronak ran his scarred tongue along the flat side of his axe blade.

  “I suggest you shut the hell up before you get hurt,” Dane said quietly.

  Sammeus laughed. “I heard you had a female knight among your ranks…maybe you were all too busy fucking her to notice the other little cunts, eh?”

  Dane slammed his palm into Sammeus’s nose. Blood spurted out as Sammeus shouted and doubled over in pain. Cronak raised his axe, and Dane had one hand on the hilt of his vra’taar when one of the chamber doors burst open.

  A tiny man stood in the doorway. The Drage couldn’t have been four feet tall. Tattoos circled every inch of his skin, from the tip of his shaved scalp down to the fleshy lines beneath his solid black eyes. He wore black breeches and a leather vest which left his muscular arms and chest exposed. A small troop of Tuscars followed on the Drage’s heels with a group of shackled slaves. At the sight of the Drage Cronak stepped back and lowered his axe.

  “What’s going on here?” the Drage demanded. His voice was unusually deep and powerful despite his small size. “Cronak?”

  “Nothing,” Cronak grunted. Sammeus still grasped his bleeding and broken nose, so Cronak pulled him aside. Dane stood his ground.

  “I advise you move,” the Drage growled. “Gullax has a schedule to keep.” He directed Dane to the edge of the room. Dane waited a moment before he stepped aside.

  “Who the hell is Gullax?” he asked.

  “Gullax has killed for stupid questions like that,” the Drage said.

  “Gullax has quite a temper,” Dane smiled.

  “Gullax does.”

  The Drage walked to a door and unlocked it with one of the many keys dangling from his belt. The Tuscars dragged the manacled slaves across the room. Each prisoner was bound neck, wrist, and ankle to both their jailors and each other.

  Dane breathed deeply. Don’t even think about it, he told himself. There’s nothing you can do.

  He watched as eleven women, six men and five children were brought through the chamber, each as bare as the day they’d been born. They were dirty and bloodied and had obviously been abused. Their skin rubbed raw beneath the shackles. Judging by their bony frames they hadn’t been properly fed for some time, and most of them left bloody footprints on the iron floor. One of the men’s faces had been so severely beaten both of his eyes were swollen shut.

  In any sane world slaves in such poor condition would have been useless for sale or trade…but the world had stopped being sane a long time ago, and Dane knew it. Even slaves of the worst stock could be sold as food to the Tuscar tribes, as victims for the gladiator games in Kaldrak Iyres or as test subjects for use by the Enclave on their cursed island in the Moon Sea. Where there was flesh there was money.

  “Help us!” a woman cried out. Her hair was greasy with old blood, and she was so thin Dane thought a strong wind could knock her down. Wild desperation danced behind her eyes. “You’re a Jlantrian Knight!” she screamed. “Help us!”

  Dane was almost ready to step forward when a Tuscar struck the woman a backhanded blow across the face. Blood ran from between her broken teeth, and she spoke no more.

  He kept his eyes on the floor until the slaves were gone.

  Goddess…what have I become?

  Sammeus and Cronak left Dane alone.

  Good. There isn’t much that would stop me from killing both of you right now.

  He stood against the wall, arms crossed and head down, weighed by memories that were more like nightmares.

  How long had it been? Three years? Sometimes it felt longer. He’d never faced the truth of what had happened. He’d just run. They all had. Everyone who’d survived had disappeared, and he hadn’t seen a trace of them since. Sometimes he wondered if he shouldn’t find the others, but he didn’t think any good could come of it.

  There’s no longer any bond between you. Everything you’d once stood for died in those mountains.

  “Azander.”

  Dane hadn’t heard Vellexa’s approach. Her stern look told him she knew of Sammeus’s broken nose.

  “I’m still here,” he said.

  You don’t get to go back, he told himself. This is where you belong now…down here with the scum.

  “He’s ready,” Vellexa said. “It’s time for you to meet the Iron Count.”

  Vellexa led Dane to the narrow bridge. It looked sturdy, but the iron plank was barely two feet wide and almost thirty paces across, and Dane saw nothing but a yawning black void below. Cold subterranean wind blew up from the depths of the chasm. A pair of shuttered lanterns flanked the recessed door on the far side, but neither the lanterns nor the torches provided much illumination, and the surface of the walkway was drenched in shadows.

  With nothing to hold onto each gust of wind made Dane’s feet slide closer to the edge of the bridge. He felt empty air all around him, and his knees turned to liquid. Vellexa, on the other hand, strode across with confidence, and if the wind bothered her in the slightest she didn’t show it.

  Dane took slow and even steps and held his hands out to his sides for balance. Vellexa stood impatiently at the door – Dane half expected her to push him off the bridge when he finally got across just for making her wait so long. There wasn’t much room on the landing, so Dane and Vellexa stood almost toe-to-toe.

  “Don’t move,” she said. She spun around, and her body brushed up against Dane’s. He closed his eyes and smiled as her long hair tickled his face.

  Life’s little pleasures, he told himself.

  Vellexa placed a key in the wall and the bridge slowly retracted, moving as loud and slow as it had before. The two of them were left standing on the narrow ledge; if Dane slipped he’d fall headlong into the void. Freezing wind scraped against them. His footing was uncertain, and fear churned in his gut.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. “How are we supposed to get back across?!”

  “We’re not,” Vellexa said over her shoulder. “Not today, at least. The Count wants you to stay as our guest through the night.”

  Dane bit his tongue. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  The door opened into a richly decorated foyer with black and blue silks and an elegant chair. A pair of tall yellow candles provided dim illumination. There were three more doors, each made of lacquered black wood set with stark white handles. The air smelled of fruit and wine.

  “Your weapon,” Vellexa said. She held out her hand.

  “Like hell,” Dane said politely.

  “Are you stupid?” she replied with an equally polite tone. “Just because you don’t see any Tuscars doesn’t mean this place isn’t heavily guarded.” She narrowed her eyes. “And I’m not as defenseless as I might look.”

  “Appreciate my position,” he said.
“You haven’t dropped so much as a hint as to what this job is about. You’ve brought me down here, which I’m guessing isn’t something you do for every hired hand. You’ve shown me a hell of a lot more than I ever wanted to see.”

  “Are you getting nervous, Azander?” she asked.

  He watched her carefully. “What happens if I decide I don’t want the job?”

  “Good question. I guess you’d better take the job if you don’t want to find out.”

  “Enough of this.” The voice echoed through the chamber, oddly distorted and metallic. It was impossible to tell what direction it came from or how far away the speaker was. “Let him keep his weapon, Vellexa,” the voice said. “Attend to your business. Dane…come inside.”

  One of the doors cracked open to reveal a room filled with silver mist. Dane exchanged looks with Vellexa.

  “Nice knowing you,” he said with a nervous laugh. Vellexa just smiled.

  Four

  The door swung shut behind him with a reverberating crash. Dane walked into dark air thick with glacial mist, and he had to move slowly across the frost-slicked floor. He focused his thoughts and found the burning presence of the Veil. While it was tempting to use magic to keep himself warm Dane knew such an effort would be taxing, so instead he maintained just enough of a hold on the energy to be ready in case of trouble.

  Never use a weapon until you have no other choice. It was a lesson he’d learned in the White Dragon Army, but it doubly applied to using magic. Many more experienced Veilwardens had inadvertently triggered their own deaths by overextending their abilities, and Dane didn’t intend to be counted among them.

  The only sounds to be heard were his own labored breaths and the scrape of his boots on the icy stone. Dane couldn’t discern the depths of the chamber on account of the bone-colored mist, so he kept moving forward, deeper into the fold.

  He remembered walking through another mist, in another time. He’d approached a ring of twisted black trees and watched the trail, and his blood ran cold when he’d found the boy lying there on the scorched path. It wasn’t the first child whose death he’d been responsible for.

  What have I become?

  Dane pulled himself back to the present. There was no sense in going down that road, not now.

  The chamber grew colder the deeper he went. His face was frozen and his throat was raw. Dane’s feet ached from the brittle chill. His weak connection to the Veil was all that kept the blood flowing through his algid hands.

  A mirror took shape in the sea of darkness and fog. The ebon glass was taller than Dane and plainly fashioned in a black iron frame marred by hammer blows and blade marks. Dane cautiously stepped closer.

  He saw his reflection. In spite of his height and broad shoulders, Dane looked at least a decade older than his twenty-six years. His unkempt hair was short and blonde, and stubble had grown over the old scar running down one side of his lean face. His cheekbones were angular and his lips were fine and small, a woman’s mouth, as his father used to say. His emerald eyes might as well have been made of glass.

  You aren’t what you used to be.

  “Admiring yourself?” It was the same hollow and metallic voice Dane had heard in the foyer. There was still no way to determine where the speaker was.

  “Not exactly,” he called out to the darkness. “Where are you?”

  “Beyond your reach,” the Count replied. The face of the mirror shifted, and Dane’s reflection faded. The mirror transformed into a sort of window. Dane saw a rounded chamber on the other side filled with jagged implements and black smoke. The vague silhouette of an enormous male figure wearing field plate stood back-lit by a haze of pale blue light. The man’s armor had a high collar but no helmet. Dane couldn’t make out the man’s face, but two dots of crimson light floated where the eyes should have been.

  “I am the Iron Count.” Dane’s head filled with the sound of grating steel. “I trust you understand the need for me to keep my distance, yes?”

  “Whatever you say,” Dane said.

  “Good. Let’s get down to business, then.”

  “Let’s,” Dane said sharply. “I’ve been trying to do that for about two days.”

  “Watch your tone,” the voice warned. “I don’t possess a sense of humor, Azander, so it would be in your best interests to curtail your sarcasm.”

  Dane tried to focus on the figure in the mirror, but it was difficult. The darkness pained his eyes, and the longer he looked the more disoriented he felt. What stood on the other side could have been anywhere – the Count might have been twenty paces away, or he might have been in the middle of the Moon Sea.

  “I need you to find someone for me,” the Count said. “Someone very important. I want this individual brought to me alive and relatively unharmed. You have an excellent reputation for carrying out this sort of assignment, doubtless due to the skills you acquired in your service to the Jlantrian Empire. Do this for me and you’ll be amply rewarded.”

  “Who is it?” Dane asked.

  “A half-Allaji woman named Ijanna Taivorkan, better known as the Dream Witch. Have you heard of her?”

  Dane had to think for a moment. “Yes.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “She’s a Bloodspeaker who got herself into trouble with Mez’zah Chorg and the Phage. She’s powerful, and she has prophetic dreams.”

  “That she does. There are many who’d like to get their hands on Ijanna, but so far she’s managed to elude them all. That’s where you come in.”

  Dane cursed to himself. He was completely out of touch with the flow of information through Ebonmark, so finding reliable leads wouldn’t be easy. And Ijanna wouldn’t be easy prey: from what he’d heard she didn’t just elude bounty hunters but sent pieces of them back to their employers.

  “Where was she last seen?” Dane asked. He’d have to go digging in the seedier parts of the city. Vellexa would be of some use, if she didn’t stick a knife in him first. If he could get enough first-hand information about Ijanna he might be able to track her with the Veil, in which case he wouldn’t need Vellexa’s help at all…but he knew things wouldn’t be that easy. They never were.

  “You know where she was last seen,” the Count said. “Because you were the last one who saw her.”

  Dane hesitated. “The Chul…that woman I saved from the Chul.”

  “Good to see you’re not a complete simpleton,” the Count said mockingly. “The Chul, Empress Azaean and the Phage are all searching for Ijanna, but I don’t want anyone to get their hands on her before I do. Time is short.”

  “It always is,” Dane said with a bitter laugh. “So what’s this all about? Why is this woman on the top of everyone’s wish list?”

  For a moment the air was silent. Dane felt his heart pounding in his chest.

  “You disappoint me,” the Count said at last. “According to your reputation you don’t ask questions so likely to get you killed.”

  “Usually that’s true,” Dane said. “But I get the sense you want to tell me. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me to the Cauldron, not when Vellexa or those other two idiots could have told me this back at the Red Witch. I think you want me to be impressed, maybe even intimidated, but above all I think you want me to know exactly why she’s so important to you.”

  Dane didn’t bother focusing on the Veil or keeping a hand close to his weapon. If the Count had wanted to kill him he would’ve done it already.

  “You’re smart, Azander,” the Count said in a slow and calculating tone. “Maybe too smart for your own good. You’re correct, of course. I’m the leader of the Black Guild. You know of our power, so I don’t need to bother trying to intimidate you. The facts are simple: you’ll be sufficiently rewarded if you succeed, and most violently disposed of should you fail.”

  Dane had dealt with the Guild before, and he knew the cartel was ridiculously powerful and influential in both Empires. “Why me?” he asked. “You must have the resources of a city-state at
your disposal…what do you need me for?”

  “The fact that I do should illustrate how desperate I am,” the Count said. “I need someone with your special talents. I cannot broker failure.”

  “Go on,” Dane said with a nod.

  “Ijanna – the Dream Witch – is much more than she seems. She’s the rarest sort of Bloodspeaker, born with a near limitless reservoir of the Veil in her blood. She is most precious.”

  Dane had never heard of such a thing, and part of him didn’t even believe it was possible. Nature was rife with checks and balances. A Bloodspeaker’s own life force fueled their magic, and every effect they created brought them closer to the grave. Veilwardens, who drew on the Veil from its source, had fewer restrictions, but they required years of training to produce even moderate magical effects. The thought of a Bloodspeaker with limitless power chilled his blood.

  “What will you do with her?” Dane asked.

  “I’ll sell her to the highest bidder,” the Count said. “I don’t care if that’s the White Dragon, the Chul, or a blacksmith in Tarek Non. But no one will get their hands on her without the Guild making the sale.”

  Dane laughed. “So it’s about money?”

  “Don’t act surprised,” the Count said. “Yes, Dawn Knight, it’s about money. It always is. The Black Guild is a profitable coalition. But the Phage has become a problem. They’ve gobbled up much of what used to be the Galladorian criminal empire. They’re ruthless cunts, much more resourceful than I’d given them credit for. Recently they’ve cut into the Guild’s slave and narcotics trade, and that, as they say, is the last straw.

  “The two organizations are at war. The conflict has been bloody and exhaustive, and it’s taken its toll on both sides. And it’s not over…far from it. I recently learned the Phage has arranged to sell the Dream Witch, and the transaction can give them enough magical resources to strengthen their organization to the point where they could crush us. I won’t let that happen.”

  Dane felt like someone had pushed a knife to his throat. So much for this being a simple job. “This is a lot to place on one person,” he said. “What if I can’t find her?”