Chains of the Heretic

by Jeff Salyards

  The woman started to reply but I heard a voice behind her. The bronze Memoridon stepped away from the panel, there was some muffled arguing, and then a minute later she appeared again. “You may enter, Skeelana. Just remember—Cynead is famous for changing favorites. You won’t be a pet for very long.”

  “I guess I will take the belly rubs while I can get them, then.”

  The panel slid shut, and for that moment, my hatred of Skeelana was at odds with my reluctant appreciation—what she lacked in power, she made up for in deviousness, guile, plucky charm, and verve.

  The soldiers all tensed as we listened to lock tumblers clink and clack and a large beam being drawn back on the other side.

  The door started to swing in and Skeelana pushed Soffjian through first, holding tight to Nustenzia’s thin wrist as she followed.

  The bronze woman’s eyes widened in surprise, clearly not recognizing or expecting the older woman, and when Braylar ran in behind the trio, she called out, “Breached!” and started to raise her arms.

  Braylar was too quick, snapping her arm out of the way with his buckler and bringing the flail heads around, both of them striking her squarely in the side of the head.

  I was glad I didn’t have time to see the extent of the wound as she fell and the rest of us stormed into the room.

  Skeelana had one hand out, maintaining whatever illusion she worked for as long as she could, drawing on Nustenzia to solidify it. Guards and war Memoridons inside the room all turned to face the door, and it was clear they couldn’t see those of us behind Skeelana, as they focused on Braylar and the Syldoon immediately behind him.

  He ran towards the next Memoridon, a tall woman with tempestuous gray hair and a copper scale cuirass who stretched her arms out, face intense as she splayed her fingers, and accomplished absolutely nothing.

  Whatever she hoped to fell Braylar with failed, which she recognized too late, trying to draw her sword as he advanced but only getting it halfway out of the scabbard before the bloody flail heads came down. She tried blocking them with her arm, which proved a mistake as it wasn’t armored and the flail broke her forearm. As the Memoridon fell back, broken arm still up, he brought the flail heads around again, and she didn’t manage to get anything between them and her face, which erupted in red.

  A Leopard stumbled and grunted behind them, an arrow sticking through his bicep just below the mail sleeve, and he dropped his spear. When he bent over and broke the shaft off, another arrow plunged into his neck, and he toppled over.

  Like the battle with the Hornmen in the predawn streets of Alespell and the skirmish with the Brunesmen as we captured Henlester, this was a wild melee with pockets of combatants fighting each other all over the crowded circular room. While the Syldoon understood the benefit of forming up and fighting in units better than any soldiers alive, there simply wasn’t much time, as Eagles, Jackals, and Leopards engaged each other as best they could, though we at least had the element of surprise. Judging by the looks on the Leopards’ faces, we must have seemingly emerged from nowhere as we stepped out of the fabric of Skeelana’s illusion and attacked.

  I heard more arrows whizzing past as I followed close to Mulldoos and Rudgi as they moved towards a pair of Leopards who saw us and had locked the edges of their shields together, spears angling over the tops as they advanced on us.

  Mulldoos raised his shield and had his falchion up, the blade resting on the embattled “merlon” as he called out in his slurry growl, “Behind me, scribbler, you dumb whoreson!”

  I kept directly behind the pair—the spears had range on us and we would have to close to eliminate that advantage. I kept my own shield up high, just below eye level, and positioned my curved sword across the top, for all the good it would do.

  Both Leopards sent their spearheads flying—one slammed into Rudgi’s shield with a thud and the Leopard pulled it out just as fast, while the other went between Mulldoos and Rudgi and right at my head. I managed to duck just enough that it clanged off the top of my helm.

  Mulldoos and Rudgi moved forward together, deflecting the spears as the two Leopards retreated to try and maintain their range. One Leopard feinted a thrust at Rudgi’s head, trying to draw her shield up, and then directed the real attack at her legs, but she didn’t bite on the thrust, slapping the spear head away as she came in fast, and Mulldoos followed her lead, keeping pace as they closed.

  The Leopards realized too late they had backed into the curved wall of the tower, and before they could fight for more space, Mulldoos and Rudgi were on top of them. The lieutenant caught the spear haft on the merlon of his shield, trapped the spearhead with his falchion as the Leopard tried pulling it back, then stepped in, the thick blade whipping out in a horizontal blow. The Leopard blocked it, but Mulldoos threw his weight behind his shield and slammed it into the other man’s shield face, knocking him into the wall, pinning long enough for the falchion to come down low, driving into the Leopard’s exposed knee. The man cried out, crumpling, and Mulldoos rained more blows on him, blasting his defenses aside and surely breaking bones under the mail byrnie with one wicked blow before the next caught the soldier in the neck and finished him. Whatever Mulldoos had lost in balance or coordination he made up for in being more vicious than ever.

  Once the pair of Leopards was divided, Rudgi relied on her quickness, blocking a final spear thrust, then delivering a flurry of blows of her own, her sword a blur from high to low, left to right, back up, as she hooked the overwhelmed Leopard’s shield with hers, pulled it aside just enough, and dropped down, driving her sword up into the inside of the soldier’s thigh.

  The Leopard threw his head back to yell, and Mulldoos’s blade came into the opening, striking the mail coif but crushing the windpipe underneath as the man fell over bleeding profusely from his leg, choking and gurgling as he writhed on the floor.

  Rudgi yelled at Mulldoos, “I plaguing had him!”

  Mulldoos yelled back, “You’re plaguing welcome, Sergeant! Now shut your—”

  “Look out!” I cried.

  Another spearhead shot out, striking Mulldoos in the meaty part of the shoulder just outside the lamellar cuirass, driving it into the mail byrnie.

  Without thinking, I was already charging forward as the Leopard drew the spear back to thrust again, and I rammed my shield into his arm, swinging my curved sword wildly, striking nothing. But I’d knocked the soldier off balance, and as he started to recover, Rudgi was there, blocking his spear away, slicing the Leopard’s hand just below his bazuband.

  He dropped his spear, and I pressed forward against his shield, pinning it against his body just long enough for Rudgi to step in, thrusting into his thigh just below the hem of his scale cuirass, then bringing the blade around in a tight circle and hitting him in the side of his exposed neck, and another to the front for good measure. The scale aventail prevented his throat being cut, and she didn’t strike him hard enough to break his windpipe, but he was stunned, gagging, and she stepped behind him, dropped to a knee, and drove her sword between his legs. The Leopard collapsed immediately, rolling on the ground, and I swallowed hard, stepping back and forcing myself not to look at the blood pooling underneath him.

  Mulldoos spun me around by my shoulder. “You dumb shit! I told you—”

  “You’re plaguing welcome,” I said.

  There was blood around the broken links of mail, seeping through his gambeson, but not a huge amount.

  He pivoted his head around, trying to assess who to take out next, and I looked around the room as well. The Eagles and Jackals had made good use of the initial confusion, occupying the Leopards so Braylar was free to advance and take out the other three war Memoridons. Well, two of them. Arrows from the Eagles brought down the third.

  Thumaar was standing above a dead Leopard, his longsword in both hands, blood dripping off the last few inches of the blade, surveying the room as well.

  We’d done it. We’d taken the tower. There was only one dead Eagle that I sa
w. I looked over at Nustenzia and Skeelana. We probably couldn’t have even bluffed our way into the tower if it hadn’t been for her, but even if we had, we surely would have lost most or all the men if she hadn’t assisted us here.

  After feeding a hate fire ever since Skeelana used me and betrayed us, it was hard to imagine putting the fuel down and letting it die out.

  As Eagles walked around the room killing the wounded Leopards, Thumaar called out to Braylar, “Well done, Captain. Well done. Now it is your sister’s turn.”

  Braylar was walking towards Mulldoos, the spikes on the twin Deserter heads hanging from the haft at his side, swaying as he moved, tiny drops of blood leaving a trail on the floor behind him.

  The deposed emperor turned to Soffjian. “Are you ready, Memoridon?”

  She looked over at Nustenzia. The older woman stepped away from Skeelana and joined her, and Soffjian said, “Yes, my lord. Let’s do this while I’m still able.”

  Now that the chaos of combat was over, I finally had a chance to look around the room at the top of the tower. It was spare and simple, and not designed to be lived in. There were two small round windows letting in shafts of light, some tables and chairs along the wall, and that was essentially it.

  Except for the large frame in the middle of the room on the small dais. I’d barely even registered it before, my heart in my throat, wondering if I was about to die. But now I was able to take it in, and it, too, was simple, but awe-inspiring as well. The frame itself was a charcoal-colored stone, inlaid with threads of white. At first glance I thought it was marble, but the pattern was unlike anything I’d seen before, wild whorls amid whorls. But what was so striking was of course what was in the frame itself—a rectangle composed of the same stuff as the Godveil and the dome around Roxtiniak—pulsing, shifting, waves flowing into themselves like a square taken from a turbulent mystic sea. But unlike the Godveil and dome, I felt no draw, smelled no vinegar, heard only the faintest hint of the thrum. The patch of pulsating energy was confined to such a relatively small space that it didn’t produce the same effect.

  Soffjian told Thumaar to accompany her and walked towards the frame with the lean Nustenzia alongside her. As the trio passed, I heard the Focus say, “The Deserters, as you call them, are the unquestioned masters of memory magic. But this . . . this is something even they did not fashion. It is . . . beautiful.”

  Soffjian replied, “That is not the word I would have chosen.”

  The three of them stopped in front of the middle of the frame, a few feet away. Soffjian took Nustenzia’s hand in her own while the rest of us watched, then she looked over her shoulder and said, “Skeelana. Come.”

  The smaller Memoridon looked uncertain. “As I told you, this isn’t my realm of . . . expertise. I don’t think I can help you with this, Soffjian. In fact, I might actually impede you or get in your way. I—”

  Without turning around, Soffjian said, “Skeelana, attend me now. My strength is not your strength, but I am attempting something it took multiple sisters to accomplish. Even with Nustenzia’s consult and her considerable aid now, I will be not snuffed out because you neglected to help. Come.”

  Skeelana looked hesitant until Thumaar spun around. “Do it, girl. Quickly. Regaining control will be pointless if we are trapped in this tower because you dawdled.”

  Where before he’d always been lean and hungry, now that he was on the cusp of retaking the empire, his intensity seemed a raging fever.

  Skeelana said, “Yes, Your Grace,” and walked forward, and for once he didn’t object to the usage.

  She stood on Soffjian’s other side, the three women holding hands, and they all raised their arms up. Soffjian had to keep her right lower to accommodate the shorter Skeelana, and she grunted once as she tried to extend her left, her wound clearly burning, but then said nothing else.

  The two Memoridons and the Focus stood like that for a long time, frozen in front of the frame, a frieze of their own, three women so very different from one another but united in this one effort. They remained unmoving, except for some slight trembling in Soffjian’s left arm, while the rest of us watched. Two Eagles checked the stairs for any signs that the Leopards were rushing up for us, though if they were, that meant Azmorgon and the others were dead and we were likely next.

  Finally, Soffjian lowered both arms, and the other two women let go of her. She staggered briefly, reached out to steady herself on the stone frame, and then stood tall again. When she turned around, her face was as pale as Mulldoos’s, almost as ashen as a Deserter’s even, and her eyes were wet with tears.

  There was a moment then as the Memoridons, Focus, and emperor stood on the edge of the dais, a tableau that felt momentous, the fate of the empire changing before our very eyes.

  Soffjian said, “It is done.”

  Skeelana looked at her, smiling, tears streaming down her face as well. “You did it. You really did it.”

  “We did,” Soffjian corrected.

  But Thumaar reached up slowly towards the pulsing field in the frame. “What . . . I don’t . . .” He looked at Soffjian, one finger pointing towards the frame as if in accusation. “Nothing feels different. It is not even as before, when I had my own Memoridons. I feel nothing.”

  While the Memoridons looked triumphant and the deposed emperor looked confused, Nustenzia alone seemed shocked, stricken, horrified even. She turned to Soffjian very slowly and quietly said, “You are . . . free. And you are doomed.”

  The field of warping weaving energy in the frame flickered, vibrating, the tang of vinegar emanating strongly, producing a thrum even louder than that of the Godveil, and for a moment I thought it might explode or flood the room, but then everything abruptly stopped.

  The Veil energy and stench and noise disappeared as if it had never been captured at all. All that was left was an empty stone frame.

  Thumaar started to draw his longs word as Braylar reached for Blood sounder. “Soff. What have you—”

  “What needed doing, brother,” she said. “I will only tell you this once. You should run.”

  Then she grabbed Nustenzia’s wrist again, faced Thumaar, and her other arm shot up like a weapon, fingers splayed. The deposed emperor flew back away from her, dropping his longsword, and unlike the other times she had used memory craft to drive a man mad, shredding his veils and assaulting him with too many sensations for his mind to withstand, Thumaar didn’t flail or shriek or tear at his eyes or face—he simply staggered back and then fell to the stone floor like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly severed.

  Skeelana grabbed Nustenzia’s other wrist, and it was as if the trio disappeared completely. While I’d always seen trace hints that my mind was being fooled when Skeelana had done this before, a warping as she moved, the illusion was flawless this time as she drew on the Focus for power.

  They were completely invisible.

  That didn’t stop the Eagles with their bows from drawing arrows and loosing them. Two shafts flew through the air where the women had been a few moments before but only bounced off the curved wall behind the frame, one shattering.

  The rest of the Syldoon drew their weapons but had no idea what to do next. Braylar called out, “Block the door, you fools!” as he started running for it himself.

  Two more arrows flew but again only ricocheted off the wall, clattering to the floor in broken pieces.

  One of the bowmen shot the next arrow more slowly, not blindly loosing, but gauging the distance from where the women disappeared and where the other arrows had missed, and then released. This arrow bounced off the wall, sparking, but it must have nicked Nustenzia or Skeelana first, as the illusion was spoiled for a moment and the three women were visible right before the door.

  Both Eagles by the door were startled the trio were so close, and that moment of inaction was too much. Soffjian drew on Nustenzia again, arm outstretched, and the pair of Syldoon flew back as if physically struck, slamming into the wall as if buffeted by an invisible De
serter.

  Skeelana must have thought they were clear and reached for the door instead of reestablishing connection with the Focus. Mulldoos pulled his throwing axe off the back of his belt, cocked his arm, and let fly—the weapon spun three times and struck Skeelana in the upper back. She cried out, letting go of the door, falling to her knees.

  Soffjian stepped past her, looking down at Skeelana as she pulled Nustenzia after her through the opening, as two more arrows thunked into the heavy wooden door.

  Braylar called out, “Rudgi, check Thumaar,” but it sounded as if he knew the effort was pointless, and then ordered, “Eagles, Jackals, after them, you shrunken cocks! Run them down! Alive if possible!”

  Several soldiers ran out of the room, their stolen Leopard gear jingling and rattling as they pursued Soffjian and Nustenzia down the stairs.

  Rudgi looked up as she knelt next to Thumaar, slowly running her fingers over his still-open eyes, shaking her head. The exiled emperor had returned, but the empire would forever elude him.

  I heard a scraping and looked over and saw that Skeelana was still alive, sitting up as she leaned her shoulder against the wall, breathing heavily, coughing a little, red spittle on her lips. The throwing axe was lying next to her in a small puddle of blood.

  Mulldoos stalked towards her, wobbling slightly, falchion in hand, and Braylar called out, “Mulldoos, no! I want to question her.”

  The pale boar looked back at the captain as if he were mad. “She just helped your bitch sister kill the rightful emperor and fuck us all in the arse. What’s to plaguing question?”

  Braylar ignored him and squatted down in front of the wounded Memoridon. “I have to say, Skeelana, while I have done my share of betraying and been betrayed in turn, this is a first. I have never been betrayed twice by the same person.”