Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1)

by Matt Howerter

  Kinsey, he thought, rage replacing the queasy unease in his gut. All of my misery comes from that cur of a man. The chancellor savored the memory of the vision of his enemy, flat on his back, Kesh’s knife protruding from his ribs. Oh, the satisfaction it had brought him, after the months in forced company, the indignity in Pelos, and the taunts of the half dwarf and his insipid “father.” The memory of cutting into those hated braids and watching his spit roll down Kinsey’s helpless cheeks brought the first true smile in weeks ghosting across his face.

  It was truly a tragedy that the scalp had not had a chance to cure. He had been forced to dispose of all but a single braid after mere days. The stink from his foe’s rotting flesh had overwhelmed even the stink of Jagger’s motley band.

  The more time that separated him from the night at the fort, the more he was certain the beast’s appearance must have been coincidental. It couldn’t possibly have been hunting me, he thought, scrubbing vigorously at his face with a towel, reveling in the fresh tingle as he removed the layers of dead skin and filth.

  Finally satisfied that he could no longer sense the cloying filth of his travels, he dropped the towel on top of the many that had already joined the pile of clothes lying in the corner of the room. He made a mental note to have the entire pile burned when he reengaged the staff that normally served his home. His long absence had required that he put them all on a leave of absence, rather than pay them for indolence while he was away. The empty home had forced him to bathe with cold water and find his own way to the bathing supplies he had become used to having laid out for him. Another cursed inconvenience to lay at the foot of that insufferable half-man. He cursed Kinsey’s memory as he searched for suitable clothes for his meeting with Banlor and his attempt to explain what had happened. It is his fault, after all... he thought as he tried on article after article, his mind racing through different explanations his master might find acceptable.

  He reviewed every angle of the problems they had endured and how it was likely to have appeared to Banlor when the embassy arrived. He once again found himself returning to thoughts of how his misery could be laid at the feet of Kinsey, Erik, and possibly Jagger. Suddenly, he knew exactly what he was going to say.

  Kesh hadn’t expected Banlor to be pleased to see him, given the debacle his errand had devolved into. Nonetheless, the disregard he was being shown struck him as out of proportion to the crime of failure.

  It had taken some effort to convince the housemaid who greeted him at the door to allow him into the house at all. When he was admitted, it was to the smallest parlor in the most remote corner of the home. Since then, servants had moved him twice, ultimately leaving him in this wine cellar, several feet below the street.

  For an uncomfortable moment, Kesh was concerned that any cries for help probably could not be heard outside the home.

  Shaking his head, he reminded himself of the inestimable value he actually represented. He comforted himself by thinking that nothing they might say to each other could be heard by others here in the cellar, and this was preferable, with the likely nature of their discussion in mind.

  He reached with one hand to examine a dusty bottle that rested quietly amongst its fellows on the racks around him. Looking over the label, he did his best to settle and wait for his master to make time for him.

  A soft noise lifted his eyes from puzzling out the script on the label, which must have been elvish. He found himself staring at a beautiful young woman. She sat on the stairs, perhaps a third of the way down from the door above. One leg swung idly off of the side, and her hands draped loosely from the rail above. The fingers of her right hand were scratching along the wooden surface, and it was the sound of this movement that had captured his attention.

  Kesh drew himself to his full height, replacing the bottle on its dusty rack and brushing his hands, one against the other. “Ah,” he began. “How long have you been there, my lovely?” He allowed the tones of his voice to melt to an almost sultry tone. This woman could assuredly suit his primal needs. It had been quite some time since he had had a woman. His situation was already looking up.

  Oddly, the only indication she gave of hearing him at all was an unnerving side to side twitch of her head as she considered him in a birdlike fashion.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked.

  No response.

  “Perhaps you know who I am, and that is why you are here.”

  Her head twitched again, and the brown hair fell about her shoulders, but still, no response.

  Kesh looked at the woman skeptically. Perhaps she’s a half-wit. He considered her for a moment. “I see.”

  “No, Kesh. I doubt that you do see,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. Where the entrance of the young peculiar woman had been utterly silent, Banlor’s well-polished shoes made a clap-thud as he descended, and his walking stick made a counterpoint click as it touched each wooden tread.

  The pretty face that had so intently regarded Kesh instants before turned up to regard the older man as he made his way down the stairs. In the soft brown eyes, he could see an expression he had trouble putting a name to. Adoration wasn’t quite right. Eagerness, perhaps?

  One hand rose from the rail to trail along Banlor’s thigh as he made his way past her. Unexpectedly, his master shied away from the fingers that stroked him. The motion was subtle, but it was there, and it gave Kesh pause as he wondered anew about who the woman was and why she was here.

  Banlor came to a halt on a small landing just above the final two steps into the cellar. Folding his hands atop his cane, he regarded Kesh with pursed lips and brows drawn together, shadowing his deep-set eyes.

  Kesh held his breath in anticipation of his mentor’s next words.

  Silence stretched as the older man just stood there, his gaze boring into the chancellor like a bird of prey focusing in on a field mouse.

  Sweat began to bead on the backs of Kesh’s hands, and he gulped in an attempt to moisten his drying throat.

  “Your presence here is unexpected,” Banlor said finally. “I am given to understand that you charged into the wilderness, following the trail of Princess Sacha, and no one has heard tell of you since.” His head tilted to one side, mirroring the position of the young woman, who had recommenced her avian inspection of Kesh from her perch on the stair. “Whatever in the world possessed you to do such a thing?” His master gave a disbelieving shake of his head.

  Kesh felt the twin stare keenly, and his recently returning confidence abandoned him. “I—” he began.

  Banlor interrupted his stuttering start. “No, perhaps I shouldn’t ask why you vanished into the woods after a woman you knew would be dead, but ask instead why she was kidnapped rather than simply killed.” His chin twisted and thrust forward slightly as his expression distorted further in agitation. “Why the attempted kidnapping at all, when a simple knife in the dark should have been sufficient?” Banlor seemed to be talking to himself at this point, with no need for Kesh’s interjections. “Why—” He stopped suddenly and turned to face the young woman. “Walina, my dear,” he said softly.

  The young woman’s head once again snapped up to regard Banlor intently.

  “Take him.”

  A hungry look graced her chiseled features as she slid bonelessly through the widely spaced balusters and dropped to the floor with the agility of a prowling cat. Liquid brown eyes were fixed once more on Kesh, and she made her way along the rough stone on bare feet, with her hips thrust slightly forward.

  Kesh licked his lips as she drew near. Walina Clearglass, daughter of Popin Clearglass, he suddenly realized. She had been just a girl the last time he had seen her, and it was delightful to witness the promise of the young woman who had been hidden in the child’s body revealed and slinking across the floor toward him.

  Rich chestnut hair fell in a swinging river past her shoulders and behind her back. She was wearing a white linen dress that clung to her firm breasts, and was cut low enough to generously
display her cleavage. Her stroll accentuated her rolling hips and his eyes focused on the slim legs that appeared and disappeared behind the strategic cuts in the fabric as she approached.

  Upon reaching him, she began to slink around Kesh with one hand raised to touch his shoulders, arms, back, and chest in turn. A delicate pink tongue appeared and moved along her upper lip as she walked, appraising him from all angles.

  Kesh was glad he had taken the time to bathe. His heart beat more rapidly as he watched the remarkable woman make her way around him, and his loins began to rouse. “My Lord, I am most—”

  His comment was cut short by an impossibly strong hand, which had seized him by the throat and jaw.

  He gagged at the sudden pressure, but that response was ended abruptly as the lithe Walina lifted him, one-handed, to dangle above the floor. He desperately tried to twist out of the vice-like grip that held him, but Walina never wavered, even when his desperate fingers cut furrows into the delicate skin of her slim forearm.

  “Kesh,” Banlor began as the hapless chancellor struggled for breath, “I cannot adequately convey my disappointment in you.”

  The iron grip that suspended Kesh from the floor did not slacken in the slightest as Walina’s other hand began to tear away his clothing.

  “Your failure has proven most... inconvenient for me.” The older man’s steely glare held strong.

  Kesh’s vision started to blur, and bright spots of light sparked before him. His body swung helpless as Walina’s free hand continued to rip his clothes from his suspended frame.

  “Both of the women were supposed to die, Kesh,” Banlor said, shaking his head sadly. At the word “die,” Walina’s fingers began to dig into his flesh.

  Kesh groaned, barely able to bring enough air into his lungs to avoid blacking out. Though he could not see the hand that was clawing him, it felt as if she had produced several knives and was using them to slice into his body.

  “They were not supposed to be rescued heroically,” Banlor continued. “They were not to reach Basinia, and they were most certainly not supposed to be accepted enthusiastically and crowned as Basinia’s future queen just days ago!” the Minister’s voice rose until he was veritably screaming.

  Kesh had not realized that Lord Banlor had come down from the landing until the last words were being shouted into his ears and the cane the old man carried was pounding on Kesh’s exposed back.

  The arm that held him thrust violently against his throat and Kesh felt weightless for a brief moment as he sailed across the room to crash against a rack of fine wines. He fell to the floor amidst breaking glass and a ruby cascade of liquor.

  Kesh struggled to push himself from the ground. Broken glass sliced into the palms of his hands, and the flood of wine stung as it seeped into the cuts. The chancellor rose a hand covered in blood and wine toward his master as he croaked, “P-please! It was Kinsey and Erik. They are to blame! I tried, My Lord, I tried! Jagger! He—”

  Once again, Kesh was hauled aloft by Walina Clearglass, this time by his arm.

  True fear took hold of him—a grim reminder of the panic he had felt in the ruins as the demonic beast sought his end. He watched as Walina’s rich brown eyes seeped away to become flat black orbs that regarded him with horrible curiosity, threatening his sanity. The hand that had previously tormented his stomach rose into view. The smooth, olive skin from her mid-forearm had been replaced with a white, chitinous surface, and the rounded nails were now jet-black, jagged points that glistened in the dim light.

  One ragged digit drew across his cheek, and he could feel his skin open.

  Kesh tried to twist free once more. “Jagger, My Lord!” he screamed as he thrashed and clawed at the arm that held him. “He, he defied my orders and thought to win a ransom for himself, My Lord! Kinsey and Erik, they knew him, My Lord! It was a plot, and it’s only through my work that Sacha is no more!” He was gabbling now, and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of his mouth. “Kinsey, My Lord! And Erik! It was them, My Lord! Kinsey!”

  The flat black eyes felt like a vacuum on his soul and he spoke to them, even though the words were meant for Lord Banlor.

  “A moment, my dear,” Banlor said.

  If the black pools Walina used as eyes moved to regard the old minister of trade, Kesh couldn’t tell. There was no white, nor differentiation of any sort to show movement. Regardless, he felt the attention of the mind behind those terrible eyes had shifted to listen to the minister’s words.

  “Walina!” Banlor snapped, when nothing changed. “Put him down!”

  The pressure around Kesh’s arm released instantly and he crashed to the sodden floor, feeling new daggers of pain erupt in his buttocks and back as the curls of glass sliced into his exposed flesh. Stabbing pins marched down the arm that had been released.

  The tilted face regarded him with dispassionate curiosity as he scrambled to put distance between himself and those horrible eyes.

  “One of your most valuable talents, Kesh,” Banlor began again, “is your ability to lie convincingly.” Wine splashed as the older man stepped closer to squat down and peer into Kesh’s face. “Now is not a time at which that particular skill is welcome.” Banlor’s cold eyes searched Kesh’s, delving for the truth.

  Kesh shivered as he attempted to school his countenance to confidence despite his nudity, injury, and the unnerving alien creature that regarded him from behind Banlor’s shoulder. He repeatedly forced his eyes away from the thing that looked like Walina Clearglass, but his gaze continually slid back to the deformities that had replaced her supple flesh.

  One of the monstrous hands that had taken the place of her lovely limbs fell to drape softly against Banlor’s back. Again, the old man barely controlled a flinch. With visible effort, Banlor composed himself and said, “Tell me what really happened out there.”

  Kesh tore his eyes away from the monster lurking behind his master and focused every fiber of his being on the weave of fiction and reality he would spin together to create one truth. “My contact, Jagger, disobeyed my orders to kill the princesses,” he began. His telling proceeded to cover each event as he remembered, with slight modification to shift the blame from himself to Kinsey, Erik, and the rogue, Jagger. He spun his tale, accusing Kinsey and Erik of being in league with Jagger from the beginning. The trio stood to gain much from a ransom for the princesses.

  He changed the raging beast attack at the ruins to a Wildman offensive that crippled Jagger’s forces beyond repair. Not only did he find it impossible to describe the events in a way that didn’t sound ridiculous, Kesh’s voice had broken every time he had tried to describe the scene when he was rehearsing his tale to himself earlier. He explained that the Wildmen had given him the distraction he needed to slip past Jagger’s guards to kill Princess Sacha himself. “She is dead, My Lord. I swear it on my very soul. She is dead.”

  Kesh omitted Kinsey’s death, believing that Banlor would scoff at the idea that Kesh had bested the burly warrior. Instead, he said only that the half-dwarf went missing after the skirmish along with the fool’s adopted elven father.

  He continued to relate the events of the past week in the jungles of the Tanglevine. Only in this telling, he had been alone and on the run from the very brigand who had escorted him to Waterfall Citadel. He told of the way Jagger and his company had caught up with him on the very cusp of the Citadel’s bowl. Jagger had forced Kesh to gain them access to the city so he could attempt to extort more money for the knowledge of the plans to kill the royals.

  Kesh relayed the encounter with Micount as it had actually happened, dropping a large hint about the moneys owed for the man’s services, but Banlor’s expression remained stoic, so Kesh hurried on. To sum up his fabrication, he surmised that Jagger was still at large and presumably hunting him, while Kinsey and Erik roamed the wilds or had met their demise at the hands of the Wildmen.

  Kesh shivered as Banlor continued to stare at him, lost in thought. So lost, in
fact, that he did not react to the touch of the Walina creature as it stepped closer and lay one ridged hand upon his rounded shoulder. He stared so long that Kesh began to wonder if the old man had died on the very spot. Shifting painfully on the shards of glass, he opened his mouth to speak. “Master?”

  Banlor blinked, and finding the blackened nails of his minion softly caressing his back and neck, cursed and stood. He stepped away from Walina and glared down at Kesh. “You’re lying.” The old man laughed despite his apparent anger. “A good lie, I’ll give you that, but a lie all the same.”

  Kesh attempted to get to his knees as he spoke, “I swear to you—”

  “Silence!” Banlor interrupted, smashing his cane into the chancellor’s face.

  Pain burned like fire across Kesh’s cheek. He fell back to the ground in a heap, numb to the shards of glass that bit into his body.

  “I’ve heard enough out of you!” Banlor panted in his fury. “The only reason you still draw breath is that I find amusement in your groveling. Do not insult my intelligence further, or by Eos, I’ll let this demon skin you alive!” His hand waved toward Walina, who in turn crouched and hissed savagely at Kesh.

  Kesh’s mind finally rebelled entirely, retreating from the persistent horror. All he found himself able to do was curl in a protective ball and whimper, “Forgive.”

  Banlor straightened his emerald-colored vest and sniffed. “That’s better.”

  Kesh stayed huddled on the floor, peeking through his sheltering arms.

  The aged minister ran his hand through his grey hair while walking to the stairs. Ascending the first step, Banlor stopped and stared at the door above. “I am curious about your accusations regarding the man who laid hands on me and the supposed actions of his surrogate father. One can never tell what truly lies within another man’s soul, but I do not believe those two capable of such acts of treason, and neither will others. You will have to be more convincing.”