City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1)

by Steven Montano

  Kleiderhorn walked down wide underground streets between tall and twisted buildings, bladed dark structures made of grey rock and black iron. Smooth archways and bridges ran between the jagged towers and serrated columns. The cavernous ceiling and walls were as dark as a starless sky.

  The mercenaries at Kleiderhorn’s disposal were camped in what he’d guessed was a former warehouse for Vossian automatons. Large rusted machines could be found around almost every corner, and both Kleiderhorn’s men and the men of Wolf Brigade avoided the metal debris like it was diseased.

  Kleiderhorn navigated the dark streets. The air was stale and frozen, and the diminutive criminal was winded after he’d walked only a short distance. Kleiderhorn sometimes caught sight of a pale skull mounted on an iron pole or a petrified husk dangling from a frozen chain.

  Eventually he and his bodyguards arrived at the arena, an eighty-foot tall structure laced with darkened portals large enough for giants to pass through with ease. More skulls lined the top edge of the structure, most of them covered with ice-crusted blood. Kleiderhorn recoiled from the prevalent stench in the arena, a wholly unpleasant blend of sweat, hide and malodorous dung. Even from a distance he heard the ring of steel and heavy crates being moved about. Thick plumes of smoke carried the smell of overcooked meat.

  He navigated a throng of unwashed mercenary soldiers, gruff men who unhappily cleaned their swords and strung their bows and separated boxes of arrows and bolts. The wide entrance to the arena was made smaller by all of the activity. Hot braziers bathed the black-mortared stone with flickering light, and heavy bags filled with dirt and sand had spilled onto the floor. The thugs from Wolf Brigade spoke in muted tones about the coming battle. They seemed uninterested in the wondrousness of Black Sun, save to question how many women and casks of ale they could fit in the coliseum.

  Kleiderhorn was tired of Black Sun. He looked forward to burying Harrick there, and he wasn’t going to spend one more second in that tomb than he needed to. It made him feel smaller than he already was.

  A massive orange bonfire burned at the center of the coliseum floor. Tonas Jeel, the wiry and wild-eyed leader of Wolf Brigade, stood at the far end of the arena, his arms folded and his unshaven face twisted in a grim smile as he watched a pair of tolls battle one other with enormous claymores. Jeel had nothing to signify his authority except for a gleaming sword longer than he was tall, which he kept strapped diagonally across his back. He wore black armor, just like his men, nonstandard colors to signify that while they were a part of the White Dragon Army they were also entirely separate from it.

  “Jeel!” Kleiderhorn shouted as he and his bodyguards crossed the arena floor. “What’s going on?” Jeel waved back at him dismissively. “Don’t wave at me, you jackass, tell me what’s going on!”

  Jeel turned from the spectacle of the dueling giants with a bored expression on his face. “What do you want, Kleiderhorn? I’m busy.”

  Kleiderhorn stared up at the tall man. “You heard me just fine – tell me what’s going on!”

  “Two trolls are fighting,” Jeel said.

  “Not in here, you disease…what’s going on with those intruders?!”

  “Would you stop yelling?” Jeel said calmly. “I don’t like it when people yell. It makes me…uncomfortable.”

  Kleiderhorn wanted to strangle the Jlantrian bastard. For a so-called killer Jeel had an annoyingly serene disposition.

  “Fine,” Kleiderhorn said, as calm as he could. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “There are only three intruders left,” Jeel said. “And don’t you worry your little self about it – my men can handle them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Two humans and a Voss.”

  “A VOSS?!” Kleiderhorn exploded.

  “Calm,” Jeel reminded him. “We have them pinned down in the west halls. My men and one of the trolls are ferreting them out right now.”

  Kleiderhorn couldn’t take it anymore. “You told me they were locked inside one of the towers…now they’re running around in the west halls?!” Kleiderhorn ignored Jeel’s idiot sighs and hastily pulled a map from the bundle Kyrin held in his arms. He rolled it out and jabbed a finger at it. “Show me!” Jeel sighed again, then knelt down to where Bordrec had spread the map on the dirt floor and pointed to a large cluster of halls near the central corridors. It was the entrance to Black Sun from the northern city docks. “That’s practically on top of where Harrick is going to come in!” Kleiderhorn shouted. “How are we supposed to stage an ambush when half of your men are running around the west halls chasing a giant?!”

  “You’re too short to bear this much hostility,” Jeel said dryly. Before Kleiderhorn could order Hask to disembowel the man the Wolf Brigade leader added: “I’ve got it under control, Kleiderhorn. We only need to keep them contained, and we’ve managed to do just that. I’d like to try and drive them straight into Harrick when he arrives.” Jeel stood up and folded his arms. He had a bemused smirk on his face. “How’s that?”

  Kleiderhorn smiled in spite of himself. It was a notion he hadn’t considered, and in its own simple way was a brilliant idea. “You’re not as dumb as you look,” Kleiderhorn said with a smile. “So your men are ready?”

  “First: watch yourself,” Jeel said calmly. “Second: they will be. But then, that’s my concern, and not yours.” Jeel yawned and turned back to the dueling trolls. Kleiderhorn watched them. They were hideous beasts, with bloody red skin and gaping teeth, inhuman eyes and terrifying size. The trolls were Empress Azaean’s handiwork, a misguided and not entirely successful attempt at crossbreeding Tuscars with Voss. The ghastly results of those experiments served as near-mindless siege-weapons in the ever-growing White Dragon Army, but Kleiderhorn had never realized how many trolls there really were until Jeel had told him. Wolf Bridage had over a dozen in their ranks.

  “Can you keep those things in line?” Kleiderhorn asked.

  Jeel laughed. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.” It was hardly a reassuring answer.

  “Well…good,” Kleiderhorn said acidly. “Be ready.”

  Kleiderhorn stormed off, his mind clouded with anger. He was tired all over. Ijanna, Gess, Harrick, Jeel, these intruders…he was about to go mad. He tried to remind himself how much he stood to gain from this endeavor, but by the time he left the arena floor all Bordrec Kleiderhorn really wanted to do was go home.

  Fifty-Three

  Ebonmark’s southeast district was a relatively serene area populated with quiet shops and quiet homes. Businesses like Rathran’s Rugs, The Angel’s Tear and The Marrow had small but loyal customer bases, people who enjoyed the peaceful part of town as much as the specialized selection of goods. There were more homes than shops in the district, most of them simple one-story structures largely unremarkable from one another. All in all the southeast side of the city was clean and relatively safe, and while there one could almost imagine Ebonmark was a normal and happy place.

  But as was always the case with the City of Scars, not everything was as it seemed. A small group of militant volunteers called The Regulators patrolled the area to keep it free of crime, for every family in the area had lost someone or knew somebody who’d lost someone to the ongoing crime war between the Black Guild and the Phage. Few people in the district knew much about the crime cartels, and basically none knew that the leader of the Phage’s cell in Ebonmark made his expensive but largely ordinary home right in that very part of the city. An only child, he’d never revealed his surname to anyone – he was known only as Harrick.

  Harrick lived in a two-story structure made of mortared stone. He and his wife Erys often threw enjoyable but exclusive dinner parties for their neighbors. Those engagements came whenever they were most needed by the community. Harrick, known as a successful imports merchant, also seemed to take the loss of life in Ebonmark rather personally, and he always offered up gifts and condolences to families who’d lost loved ones. Sometimes he even helped cover funeral costs.
He and his wife were both soft-spoken Den’nari who no one in the neighborhood actually knew much about, but the couple was well-liked and respected nevertheless.

  Harrick liked that. He enjoyed the feeling of normalcy. It was refreshing.

  He sat in his den, a small room on the second floor of his well-furnished home. The chamber was packed tight with bookshelves and a long mahogany desk. A single large window on the west wall faced the middle of the city and the setting sun, and as he looked out over a desk covered in shipping documents and charter agreements Harrick saw the city cast in a deep red glow the color of burning embers. A large silver mirror on the wall behind him refracted the room’s light and showed him his sleek and slender wife where she lay in the sun.

  She was a gorgeous creature. Her hair was long and dark, braided at the end, and when she stood it hung down past the back of her knees. Her skin was darker than her husband’s, and along her bare back and well-toned legs were a number of serpentine tattoos, the story of her family line buried in the intertwined scales.

  Erys lay on a cushion of burgundy silk as she read a thin book. Harrick and Erys often spent time together like this, proximate but silent. He didn’t like to bother her while she read, and she knew he needed to be alone with his thoughts.

  That was especially true this day.

  Marran, Harrick’s house servant and personal aid, had brought Harrick the news from Tydith over an hour ago. Erys, who knew next to nothing of her husband’s criminal enterprises (aside from their existence) thought Harrick had taken the news of the Jlantrians betrayal to their agreement rather well, and she’d told him so. She, of course, had not been there when he’d rammed a dagger in and out of the wall a dozen times, imagining it was Aaric Blackhall’s face. He’d covered up the holes with an old painting of a sunset, and he’d have Marran fix it before his wife found out what he’d done.

  They’d given the thar’koon to Bordrec Kleiderhorn. That sniveling little smuggler was nobody, but now in addition to the artifact blades he suddenly had a secret lair under the city. Harrick was so furious he could hardly see straight. To be fair, he’d betrayed the Jlantrians first, but their turning against him was still infuriating. He was sick of them. They no longer had anything he wanted…but he still had something they wanted. Azaean’s precious amulet.

  Harrick was young, too young, some in the Phage thought, to handle the responsibilities of running such an important cell as that in Ebonmark. He’d advanced quickly through the ranks of the Phage, moving from smuggler to assassin to negotiator to his current position all since his twenty-second birthday, and he was now only twenty-eight. His immediate superior in the Phage, Cranos Thane, tested Harrick by demanding near impossible results or else by refusing to send aid even when it was needed. Thane’s equal and opposite in the organization, Mez’zah Chorg, was somewhat more amiable than Thane, but working with Chorg ran the risk of incurring Thane’s wrath, which only a fool would do. Besides, Chorg was even more stringent about what kind of assistance she’d provide to lower-ranking Phage members. It was survival of the fittest in the cartel, and there was no room in their ranks for the weak. One had to be ruthless in order to advance.

  Harrick’s duties and the many threats he faced sometimes seemed overwhelming. Lately he’d had difficulty sleeping or making love to his wife.

  You’re getting weak. Pull yourself together.

  He looked longingly at Erys. He’d spent barely two hours with her all week, and when they were alone his thoughts constantly strayed to Phage business. He’d been taking more than his usual number of nightly drinks in an effort to forget his troubles, but it wasn’t working.

  Chorg had made her desire to possess the Dream Witch clear, and the thar’koon were the only thing which could make locating the woman possible. It seemed strange for Chorg and Thane to behave so obsessively – they wanted this woman, and they were willing to go to extreme lengths to get her. Yes, the Dream Witch would fetch an incredible price from an undisclosed Jlantrian buyer, but Harrick had also heard rumors that the leaders of the Phage both had personal reasons for chasing Ijanna, though nobody could begin to guess what they were.

  In the end it didn’t matter, because the means to capturing the half-Allaji Bloodspeaker was within Harrick’s reach. His superiors both knew it, and if he wanted to maintain his position in the Phage he had to make acquiring the thar’koon his top priority. What the Phage had given they could just as easily take away.

  “My love,” he whispered. Erys rolled onto her back and smiled at him. It wasn’t a seductive smile, or even a loving one, just friendly.

  “Yes, husband,” she said. Her voice was as dark as wine. Harrick knew that tone, and it told him all he needed to know: work had kept him away from her for too long, and she wasn’t interested in speaking with him or touching him right now.

  “I have to go,” he said. He crossed the room and planted a small kiss on her forehead. He loved the smell of her skin. He lingered for a moment, then took his leave.

  Harrick ran his hand along the polished banister and looked out the large circular windows. He’d spent a great deal of money on his home – there were expensive sculptures and paintings, fireglass dishes and specially treated ironwood, finely-woven rugs and silken sheets. But try as he did, Harrick couldn’t find solace there. His mind was ever in other places.

  Why had the Jlantrians given the blades to Bordrec Kleiderhorn? It just didn’t make any sense! And now Kleiderhorn, the toad, had moved into Black Sun and commanded a considerable military force. For what? What was he doing down there?

  The entire situation reeked of some sort of trick, but Harrick couldn’t put his finger on what it might be.

  Why would the Jlantrians turn on me? Did they learn of my involvement in the arena explosion?

  No – that was next to impossible. They didn’t trust him, surely…so perhaps they’d simply put the blades somewhere they thought they’d be safe.

  But Kleiderhorn?! The blades would be safer with a street urchin than with that impotent dwarf. Perhaps Kleiderhorn was all the Jlantrians had left. The Black Guild had battered them from the moment they’d arrived in Ebonmark, and Blackhall obviously felt he couldn’t trust the Phage. Bordrec Kleiderhorn was the most powerful unassociated criminal in the city and, unlike Harrick, he’d easily bend under the Jlantrian’s empty threats.

  Well, Harrick decided, that’s the last mistake they’ll ever make.

  Marran waited for him in the drawing room, a richly appointed chamber filled with couches and items suiting Harrick’s expensive tastes – globes carved from mahogany, silver hourglasses filled with golden dust, trophies of exotic beasts. Harrick’s sandaled feet pressed down on the thick burgundy carpet as his silk robe swept over a model globe filled with diamond crystals. His servant was a tall and broad-shoulder man with pale skin and thick black hair he kept tied back. Like his master, Marran dressed in fine silks, and his tunic and pants were the color of blood. He stood unmoving, a patient and statuesque figure, but as Harrick gestured he glided to his lord’s side.

  “Sire.”

  “We have blood to spill, my friend,” Harrick said carefully. “We must take the blades back from Kleiderhorn and teach him a lesson in the process.”

  “Sire,” Marran nodded cautiously, “it may be a trap.”

  “I’ve considered that,” Harrick said. “Tell Tydith and Narr to be ready. Narr can make the necessary arrangements for our soldiers. We’ll show the Jlantrians we know a great deal about Black Sun, and that we even kept some souvenirs from our last visit there.” Harrick smiled. “I want as many men as we can muster. We have to retrieve those blades, or else we’re finished. Do you understand?” Marran nodded. Of course he understood – he’d been with the Phage even longer than Harrick, and he’d seen how hungry power and position could make its agents, and just how quickly it could eat them alive. “Prepare my weapons,” Harrick added. “And my armor.”

  “You’re going, Sire?”

  �
��Yes,” Harrick said. His stomach twisted with worry, but he’d been in combat before. The stakes were too high for him not to go. “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Marran nodded and left without another word. Harrick stood alone in the room for a time, wondering if he’d find some way to warm Erys to him before he had to leave. How he missed her.

  Fifty-Four

  Deep inside the place called the Cauldron – most believed it was located somewhere beneath Ebonmark, but in reality the fortress of magically enhanced iron stood hundreds of miles away at the edge of the Grey Sea – the alchemists were hard at work.

  At the Iron Count’s behest, Aram Keyes had ordered the creation of gallons of Serpentheart. Dozens of fist-sized metal canisters were filled with the vile purplish fluid and stuffed into iron-rimmed boxes, which in turn would be transported to the abandoned Voss city of Black Sun.

  Keyes stood on a pedestal of stone. His scarred flesh was wrapped in bandages, and a heavy hood was drawn over his scarred pate. Dark goggles covered his inhuman eyes.

  He and his subordinates had labored for a year perfecting Serpentheart, and though they’d lost much in the process – their skin, their hair, their sanity and their souls – it was all finally drawing to a close. Keyes smiled as his subordinates stirred large vats of blue-black goo and dipped pots hanging from iron chains to capture batches of the substance. Serpentheart ate away at the body and poisoned the blood stream with a substance carefully designed to dissolve internal organs and tissue. It turned people into bile from the inside out, so it had to be handled carefully.