He sensed the attack moments before it landed, but he wasn’t able to move in time. Razor sharp pain burned down his back, forcing him to the ground. His bones jarred in his armor. Dane rolled away as blades struck the stone where he’d fallen.
Dane saw his attacker, a massive wolf-headed man with shaggy grey fur and enormous claws. It must have been one of Targo’s thugs. Dane reached for his sword, but his motions were sluggish, almost dreamlike. He saw the claws honing in and knew he wouldn’t be able to react before it was too late.
Thunderous booms echoed through the chamber. A massive shadow moved over them, and Kruje buried the blade of his great axe in the wolf’s torso. The creature howled and crumpled to the ground, but before Kruje could take another step the wolf-beast sprang to its feet and dashed down the corridor with blinding speed.
Maddox stood over Kleiderhorn. His arcane stone was tethered around his wrist with a leather cord as he aimed his crossbow at the Drage’s unconscious head. Kruje held out his huge hand and hauled Dane to his feet. After a few moments of dizziness he was able to move again without falling over.
“Damn wolves,” Maddox spat. “Targo’s work.”
“I know,” Dane coughed. The gashes on his back stung. The claws had cut clean through his armor like it was made of paper.
“Kleiderhorn,” Maddox smiled. His eyes burned with murderous glee. “Good job, Dawn Knight…now we can get out of here!” Maddox kicked Kleiderhorn hard in the ribs. “Wake up, you little toad!”
Kleiderhorn winced at the blow. Blood seeped from his nose where Dane had struck him. The Drage’s eyes flickered open, and a look of utter disgust spread across his face.
“Maddox!” he spat. “What are you doing here, you ugly bastard?!”
“I always knew I’d get to see you go down, you worm,” Maddox said with a smile.
Dane pushed Maddox out of the way. The wounds on his back flared with pain, but he bent down and hauled Bordrec to his feet. Kleiderhorn kicked at him, but Dane shoved him against the wall.
“Go to hell!” Kleiderhorn shouted.
“Probably,” Dane said. “But I’m taking you with me if you don’t help us.”
“You’re after Ijanna,” Kleiderhorn said. He spat at Dane. “Just leave her alone, you son of a bitch,” he growled. “Why can’t you Jlantrians just leave the Bloodspeakers alone?”
“You don’t know anything about it,” Dane said. “Nothing at all.”
“We’ll kill you, you little swine!” Maddox laughed.
“Shut up!” Dane said.
“I know everything about it,” Kleiderhorn snarled. “Even if Ijanna hadn’t told me, I had friends who died in those camps…”
Dane’s heart caught in his throat. “What?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know…”
“What did you say?!” Dane shouted into Kleiderhorn’s face. “You said Ijanna ‘told you’…what does that mean?! Told you what?”
The color drained from the Drage’s face. He bit his lip in a scowl. Dane pulled him back and threw him against the wall, harder this time, and the dwarf grunted in pain.
“Answer me!” Dane shouted.
“She was there!” Kleiderhorn yelled back. “All right? She was in the camps…”
Dane’s grip slacked, and he dropped Bordrec to the ground. His arms went weak.
It wasn’t possible. None of the Bloodspeakers had left the Razortooth death camps alive. Dane stared down at the dwarf. His chest heaved from the force of his ragged breaths.
Could it be true? Was it possible that after all of the blood and screams and madness, after all of the nightmares and fear and unkept promises to end his own life for what he’d done…could it be true that one of those poor souls had actually survived?
It is, Dane realized. Somehow, I think I’ve known it all along. Dane’s hands trembled. His skull pounded. Kruje shouted something, but Dane hardly heard him. He took a deep breath. Goddess, there’s hope.
He dove at Kleiderhorn and seized him by the collar. “We’re getting out of here,” he said. “And you’re going to help us, either by showing us the way or because we’re using you as a shield. It’s your choice.”
A deafening blast ripped through the air. Flashes of bloody light came from the direction of the ambush.
The battle had begun.
Sixty-Three
The Phage had its own private entrance to Black Sun, a wide tunnel which ran from the cellar of an old watchtower straight to the central Vossian temple. Not only did the tunnel allow the Phage to enter and exit the underground realm in secret, but numerous side passages had also led Harrick to hidden vaults filled with Veilcrafted war machines.
Machines you wish you had now, Kleiderhorn.
Harrick had just over a hundred men, half of which still waited near the secret entrance, ready to pour into the complex at his command. Harrick’s Phage soldiers were a mix of mercenary Blood Knights out of Kaldrak Iyres and his own men from there in Ebonmark. He’d quietly spent months amassing his forces ever since he’d gotten word of Jlantria’s impending takeover of the city. Waiting on standby in the watchtower and other secret hovels around the city hadn’t done much for his men’s mood, but that would actually work to Harrick’s advantage, for it meant they were pent up, angry and ready to strike out, and having the Iron Eggs on their side made them feel invincible.
Harrick had only been that deep into Black Sun once before. The hall was wide and vast, made from thick blocks of smooth stone covered with sheets of white frost. The red-cloaked Phage mercenaries walked in loose formation, their scimitars and bows ready. The massive corridor led to a stunning chamber filled with twisted pillars and raised plinths surrounding an enormous statue of seductive black-winged women. The Iron Eggs sent up blinding sparks as they rumbled across the floor, and the thundering echo of their movement drowned out all other sound.
Harrick had his curved bow in hand as he surveyed the area, especially the unstable walls. Chances were Kleiderhorn’s troops were stationed on the other sides of those walls, so he signaled Tydith and Narr to alert their squads.
The inevitable trap sprung while Harrick was watching the statue. A pair of massive red-skinned brutes stepped out of the shadows. They were ten-feet tall with rune-cast muscles and misshapen skulls, armed with ballistae they held like crossbows and massive swords strapped to their backs. The lead Egg pilot, nestled deep in a cockpit in the metal sphere, had obviously seen the beasts, for the vehicle shifted its course and rolled towards the creatures.
An arrow whistled past Harrick’s head. He saw movement beyond the shattered walls, and realized Kleiderhorn had them in a cross-fire. Quarrels and arrows rained down, and in moments a dozen men lay dead. A two-foot long bolt pierced the man next to Narr and sent him flying backwards.
The air filled with wood and blood. Globes of steel flew from holes in the walls and exploded into blasts of scalding liquid. There was no good position from which the Phage could effectively fire back. A few men moved towards the broken walls and ducked under the archer’s field of fire, but that only left them exposed to arrows from the opposite end of the chamber.
Tydith, Narr and a group of Phage backed out of the hall and took cover with Harrick among the pillars. More of Kleiderhorn’s scruffy mercenaries swarmed them from behind the shadowy plinths. Harrick took aim with his bow and shot a man in the eye, then took down one of the red beasts with an arrow to the throat.
Steam blasted from the nearest Egg. A trio of red beasts and a squad of mercenaries rolled a ballista out of the shadows and onto a landing at the top of a stone staircase. A swelling sound rose from the Egg, building like water in a boiling pot. Harrick dropped to one knee and threw his hands over his ears. A thirty-foot blast of flame launched from the Egg and smelted the landing with a thunderous boom. Soldiers fell to the ground in charred heaps, their flesh melted away, but the red-skinned beasts were still alive, flailing and charging down the steps even though they’d been immolated.
Harrick and his men followed the nearest Egg as it rolled down the hall, tearing up the stone and ice in its path.
Kleiderhorn’s troops closed in from the dark corridors. There were more crimson brutes and crossbowmen than Harrick could count.
Large spinning blades launched from the upper rims of the Eggs and sliced the flaming red beasts to ribbons. Arrows brought down more Phage soldiers.
Men ran in every direction. Blood and steel flashed before Harrick’s eyes. Something warm splashed across his face. His men moved to repel the attack, and the Iron Eggs crushed Kleiderhron’s troops in sickening blasts of blood and bone.
Harrick fought his way across the chamber. A mighty sword crushed a pair of Phage and splattered their remains against the wall. Narr sliced a man open groin to neck with his powerful axe. Tydith wrestled two soldiers to the ground and skewered them both with one thrust of her long blade.
Blood sprayed on the walls. Flesh fell onto steel. Harrick ducked and hacked a leg off at the knee as he climbed a short set of stairs to gain a better vantage. Noise filled his head, blades and fire and screams. Kleiderhorn’s men swarmed in from the broken walls. Harrick’s men were everywhere, holding ground wherever they could.
The Eggs rolled straight ahead and smashed into Kleiderhorn’s forces with terrifying speed. One Egg crashed into a pillar and tore away most of the base, and large chunks of shattered stone rained down from the ceiling and smeared bodies across the floor.
Arrows and swords bounced uselessly off the Iron Eggs. The machines sprouted long blades from their sides and mowed through men in a bloody rain of gory limbs.
Harrick crippled a fat-faced mercenary with a knee to the groin before he shoved his scimitar through the man’s eye. He looked down the hall with a smile on his face.
You underestimated the Phage, Kleiderhorn. It will be your last mistake.
Sixty-Four
“This is madness!” Maddox shouted. “If we go out there we’ll be cut to pieces!”
Kruje held Kleiderhorn up by the back of his shirt like he was some sort of rag doll. The sounds of battle and the powerful booms of the Iron Eggs echoed through the network of halls.
They stopped a few corridors away from the crumbling wall where the fighting took place. Dane knelt down and took a breath. A tangle of emotions and fears washed through him like a poisonous tide, and it was a struggle to keep his memories at bay. The skin on his back still stung from the wolf’s talons, and blood seeped around his waist.
“You’re all dead,” Kleiderhorn said as he dangled from the giant’s grip. “If my men don’t kill you, the Phage will.”
Maddox pointed his crossbow at Kleiderhorn’s face. “I told you to shut up!”
“Maddox,” Dane growled. “I’m not going to warn you again. Be quiet.” He fixed his eyes on Kleiderhorn. “Where is she?”
“Go to hell.”
“I can have Kruje throw you out into the middle of the battle,” Dane said coldly. “How long do you think you’ll last?”
Kleiderhorn narrowed his gaze, but Dane knew the dwarf’s aggression was an act. He was as terrified by the notion of going out there as Dane was.
“If I tell you you’ll just hunt her down…like everyone hunts her!” The dwarf’s anger was gone, replaced by something like regret. “I could have helped her…”
“Goddess, shut up!” Maddox roared, and he turned his crossbow on Dane. “We’re not going anywhere! If we step out there we’re going to die, so we’re going to be nice and patient and wait this whole thing out.”
Dane stood up, drew his vra’taar, and took a step towards Maddox. “If we wait, whoever wins will come and kill us, too,” he said. “Our only chance of escaping is to go now. We can slip past everyone in the confusion.”
“No!” Maddox spat.
“Fine. Stay here.”
Maddox lowered his crossbow and brandished the control stone in one hand. “You go,” he smiled. “But the giant stays with me, or he dies.”
Dane was as surprised as Maddox when Kruje lunged for the stone. Maddox ducked beneath the giant’s huge fist, but the distraction was all Dane needed to close the distance between them and slice Maddox’s arm off. The bloody limb fell to the ground with a thud, and the stone stayed clenched in the severed hand. Maddox screamed. Dane turned the short end of his weapon forward and cut through the slaver’s heart with a sharp twist, then crushed the stone beneath his heel without a second thought.
“Now,” he said as he turned back to Kleiderhorn, who still dangled from Kruje’s grip, “maybe we can have a moment of quiet. Kleiderhorn, I need to know where she is. I’m not going to give her to the Guild, or the Phage, or anyone else. I…” He had to take a deep breath before he said it, because saying it would make it real, and then there was no turning back. “I want to help her. No…I need to help her.” Blood on the ground. The boy’s body. That smiling black face. “Please. I need to make things right.”
Kleiderhorn stared at Dane like he’d grown an extra head. Dane held his gaze unflinching – if there had been any way to shed his skin and bare his soul, he’d have done so then.
Clanging steel and explosive blasts echoed from the battle. Dane heard screams and fire.
“Please,” he said.
After what seemed an eternity, Kleiderhorn finally nodded. “I’ll tell you.”
And he did – he told Dane everything he knew of where Ijanna had gone, and how the Jlantrians planned to find her.
Sixty-Five
The battlefield had become an abattoir. Kleiderhorn had a great many soldiers, and those red-fleshed beasts were fierce, but Harrick knew his reinforcements had taken the enemy off guard. The Iron Eggs relentlessly brought men down with flames, blades and acid, and what few lucky souls survived the artillery were mauled and crushed.
Debris littered the chamber like fallen leaves. An Egg smashed another pillar, which teetered and groaned as large chunks of stone fell and buried more of Kleiderhorn’s mercenaries.
The fight was far from over. Kleiderhorn’s forces were dug in tight behind the crumbling walls, launching arrows and bolts with utter disregard for their own men. The Phage soldiers had taken up position directly on the other sides of each wall and stabbed through the gaps with long blades or sent through arrows of their own. Harrick’s reinforcements swarmed into the main chamber, where they sandwiched in those of Kleiderhorn’s men who’d charged out from behind their cover.
An Egg fired blades which tore through crimson beasts and soldiers and turned them to bloody mist. One of the creatures impaled a man on its blade and used his body to bludgeon other Phage, but Narr cut off its leg with his mighty axe. Bombs filled with hot oil splashed into the hall and brought men down screaming, but one of the Eggs launched a canister of acid through a gap, and sickly green fumes billowed from the hole.
Harrick blocked a sword thrust with his bow and shoved an arrow into his attacker’s stomach. His bow was smashed, so he picked a crossbow up from the ground and drove the loaded bolt into a man’s back. He was barely able to recover his sword before yet another mercenary came at him.
His heart pounded. He still had no idea where the thar’koon were. He wanted to send Bordec Kleiderhorn to hell, but not if doing so would prove to be suicidal. The thought of not seeing Erys again filled his heart with dread, so he drowned out the image of her face by skewing another man on his blade.
A head flew through the air from the top of the steps, compliments of Tydith. Her face was covered with blood, and she bore a hideous cut on one arm. She chopped her way through two more men with her powerful sword before she came halfway down the steps to Harrick.
“We’ve been duped!” she shouted.
“What?!”
Tydith grabbed the body of one of Kleiderhorn’s men, tore open the cloak and separated the armor plate with her blade, exposing the corpse’s bare shoulder. There, beneath a mass of blood, Harrick saw a dark tattoo in the shape of a snarling wolf.
It wa
s the mark of Wolf Brigade. Imperial mercenaries.
“Damn,” Harrick muttered. Blackhall found us out, after all. “Let’s get out of here!” he shouted.
Harrick looked around desperately and saw an Iron Egg near the middle of the room, spraying fire and setting men ablaze. Arrows whisked past his face as he ran down the steps. The sound of combat rang through his ears, and the blur of motion all around him was dizzying.
He signaled the Egg. Something sloppy and wet landed on his back. It was Tydith, or part of her, as her head had been crushed beneath one of those red monster’s giant hammers and her body clung to the haft of the weapon like meat to a fork. The creature smiled and started down the steps. Harrick frantically reached for his blade.
A roaring jet of fire seared around him. His body was eclipsed with pain. He fell. His vision went white for long and dreadful moments until giants bled into view, tall and dark shapes with scaly wings on their backs, and he knew he was in hell.
No. Not yet.
He lifted his head. He couldn’t hear a thing, but every motion was agony. Harrick had landed near the base of the statues. He couldn’t feel his hand, but it was covered with black blisters. He pulled himself over a corpse with no legs and fell face first into a bowl-like depression at the statue’s feet, where the demonic women stared down at him.
Harrick’s good hand fell on something sharp. Twin swords had been left in the stone bowl. He laughed, because he’d finally found the thar’koon.
Sixty-Six
Dane and Kruje followed as Kleiderhorn led them down the corridor. There was no longer any need to restrain him, since it seemed he’d taken Dane at his word. He was going to help them get out of Black Sun.
The only means of escape lie through the damaged iron door Dane had spied earlier, right at the edge of the battle. As they drew close Dane saw men with their faces melted away and bodies riddled with arrows. The mercenaries waged desperate battle with opponents just out of reach on the other side of the crumbling wall. According to Kleiderhorn, many of the combatants were Jlantrian soldiers from the infamous Wolf Brigade. Dane’s own countrymen.
City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) Page 28