Blood Royal

by Will McDermott

  ‘And grapes, right?’ asked Kal. ‘Lots and lots of grapes.’

  ‘What the hell was that?’ asked Captain Katerin. He had paced back and forth in his office for almost an hour after the Jerico meeting waiting for Kauderer. Sweat streamed down his bare head in every direction. His handkerchief practically dripped in his hand. ‘We’ve lost all control. And that bounty hunter – I’ve never seen such insolence.’

  ‘Patience, captain,’ said Kauderer. He pulled out a tox stick and placed it between his lips. ‘We must endure some trials if we are to triumph.’

  ‘Trials?’ asked Katerin, his voice almost on the edge of hysteria. ‘That was agony. Keeping my mouth shut in that ludicrous meeting was absolute torture. If that man is ever added to the line of succession, it will be my last day in this house.’

  ‘You may very well be looking for a job sooner than that, my dear captain,’ purred Kauderer. He paused to light his tox stick and take a long drag. Katerin was practically vibrating by the time the intrigue master continued. ‘House Helmawr is at a critical juncture. Our lord’s mind is failing. That much is obvious. I do not know how much longer we can hold his leadership together. And when he falls, he may well take the entire house down with him.’

  Katerin sat on the edge of his desk and mopped his brow with the wet cloth. ‘This much I know,’ he said. ‘There are simply too many heirs. After two hundred years, the old man is still siring possible successors. The power struggle will make the last House war look like a gang brawl. But what can we do about it?’

  ‘I believe we must find the “rightful” heir and make sure he takes the throne when the time comes.’ Kauderer puffed on his tox stick and smiled.

  Katerin’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to fathom the meaning of the oft obtuse spymaster. ‘But who is the rightful heir?’ he asked. ‘I doubt even the old man remembers, even on his good days.’

  ‘The rightful heir is whomever we can control once we place him on the throne.’ Kauderer’s smile widened even further, which on his face was an even scarier sight than the hawkish scowl he usually wore.

  ‘But what of the others?’ asked Katerin. The military man was not used to all of this cloak and dagger work. He preferred a simple, stand-up fight. ‘There will still be opposition voiced from all sides when the old man passes.’

  ‘We will have to eliminate all the opposition before it can be voiced, starting with that murderous Armand and that smug, self-important bounty hunter. Our Spyrers will make sure of that, and bring the item back to us for a little insurance when the time comes.’

  Nemo was waiting for a call. It was long overdue. He was not a patient man. He was a slave to no one’s schedule or whim. Normally he would remove an employee who made him wait so much as a minute for a report, but this was a special informant, who could not be so easily replaced and thus Nemo allowed him some tardiness.

  So, he had kept busy watching the antics of Yolanda, Scabbs, and poor Derindi. What an oaf. Nemo almost felt like keeping the weasel around after all this was done, just for the entertainment value the little man provided. But he could not be seen as going soft, so Derindi would have to be removed along with Kal Jerico and his cohorts once the item was safe in the spymaster’s hands.

  The light from the numerous monitors glinted off Nemo’s glassy mask as he turned his head this way and that to watch the various spycams he had in place throughout the Underhive. Every once in a while he would flip a switch and cock his head as he listened in on a whispered conversation or some nefarious business transaction. Then he would make notes for his less devious employees, like the twins, about whom to shake down for tribute or purloined items.

  Time passed quickly. Nemo truly enjoyed his work and he had almost forgotten about the call when a light blinked on a special panel and an alarm buzzed within his visor. The spymaster touched a switch next to the blinking light, which completed the connection and began the decryption process. A moment later, he heard the voice in the ear jack inside his helmet.

  The voice sounded mechanical, a by-product of the encryption and decryption necessary to get vocal information out of the Spire without detection. But Nemo knew who was on the other end. Nobody else had access to this particular circuit.

  ‘He’s left the Spire,’ said the voice in Nemo’s ear.

  ‘Is he alone?’ asked the spymaster.

  ‘No. He travels with a royal guard in disguise.’

  ‘Will there be any repercussions if this guard should not return?’

  ‘None that I cannot handle.’

  ‘Where are they headed?’

  ‘That I do not know,’ replied the mechanical voice. ‘They are being taken to the cargo entrance in Hive City. They should arrive within the hour.’

  ‘That’s not a lot of time.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. I could not contact you earlier. I was not alone.’

  There was a pause. For his part, Nemo was done with the conversation and had already flipped several switches to put plans into motion to follow Kal Jerico, but he knew the informant had one final question. ‘Is there anything else?’ he finally asked.

  ‘Y-Yes,’ came the tentative response. ‘About my payment…’

  ‘Believe me,’ said the spymaster. ‘When this is over, you will be able to buy and sell Gerontius Helmawr.’

  Grunn and Thag trudged across the White Wastes on their way toward Hive City. Both Goliaths carried twin hundred gallon cisterns of slime that swayed back and forth on great yokes slung across their shoulders. The slime, harvested from beneath the dust that coated the floor of the Wastes and gave the area its name, would fetch a high price in the City markets.

  Each thundering step Grunn and Thag took drove their broad feet deep into the dust. The Wastes were a huge void inside the Hive between countless different domes. Dust had accumulated for centuries, blown into the void along with ventilation exhaust from the surrounding domes. Beneath the dust could be found deposits of the valuable green slime. A few hardy individuals, like the Goliaths, lived in the Wastes as slime farmers.

  Goliaths were seen as barbaric, even amongst the residents of Hive City who toiled amidst harmful chemicals, dirty water, and poorly recycled air. The Goliaths survived on the periphery of this harsh world, in the deepest and most toxic regions, performing gruelling tasks no other Hivers could or wished to perform.

  For all this, they had grown larger, stronger and meaner. The toxins in the air and the sludge they harvested had killed all but the hardiest amongst them and today they were giants, and practically revelled in their role as the grunt workers upon whose backs the mighty Hive had been built.

  Grunn and Thag, though, were an oddity even amongst House Goliath. They had turned their backs on the mines and slag pits to live and work in the Wastes as slime farmers. Thag, a large brute of a ganger in his youth, had risen quickly in the ranks of the Sligan gang. Using his heavy stubber, he’d demolished entire raiding parties, turning Sligan’s gang into the one of the most feared in the Underhive, and winning him a position of respect and power, as well as the enmity of Uglar, another heavy fighter in the gang, who coveted the power of leadership.

  Through Uglar’s treachery, Thag found himself with a bounty on his head and was sold into the pits where he was forced to fight for his freedom. There he met and fell in love with Grunn. They fought side-by-side for two years to earn back the price on their heads. Thag vowed he would never again work for anyone but himself, so he and Grunn left the pits and made a home in the White Wastes.

  Thag and Grunn had been walking the Wastes half the night and most of the day without rest when a shadow passed over them. Light in the wastes came from fungus growing amongst the gridwork and pipes lining the voids between domes. Warmed by power coursing through the conduits, the fungus phosphoresced, giving the Wastes an eerie bluish-white daytime all its own.

  Nothing lived in the Wastes except the few lone farmers like Thag and Grunn and bands of roaming scavvies. Thag would have welcomed the di
version of a good scavvy battle, but knew of nothing in the Wastes that could fly. He glanced up in time to see a large black shape dropping on them from a hole in the metal sky. Warrior instincts launched the Goliath into action.

  Thag whipped his shoulders around to launch one of the cisterns off the end of the yoke into the air toward the descending attacker. A chainsword whined to life above him, and Thag saw the cistern explode in a torrent of shards and slime. A moment later, the dark shape splashed through the green cloud, the chainsword still blazing in its hand.

  Thag sloughed off the yoke and drew his own weapon; a massive, two-headed axe with spikes extending out between the twin blades. Beside him, Grunn dropped her cisterns onto the white dust, ripped the inch-thick chain from the yoke, and began swinging it over her head.

  As their assailant hit the ground, it rolled forward and came back up before Thag could react. Not quite as broad as Thag, the incoming attacker was nearly as tall as the Goliath and powerfully built. It appeared to be scaled or perhaps covered in strange, black-plated armour. Tubular vessels snaked their way up from its arms and chest to the base of its hideous head. Glowing, red eyes looked out from a featureless, black face with no mouth.

  Thag swung his axe across and down as the attacker moved in, trying to cut off the beast’s angle of attack, but it simply ploughed through the Goliath’s weapon, taking the curved edge of the axe against its chest. Thag’s arms quivered as the axe bounced off the armoured plates and he barely had enough time to fall backward onto the dust to avoid the buzzing chainsword.

  The beast stood above him. The chainsword plunged down again from the top of its arc, but Grunn’s chain flashed over his head, wrapping around the creature’s wrist and pulling it aside. Thag rolled out from under the attacker, right into the slime from his dropped cistern. He tried to rise, but slipped to his knees, just as the black beast grabbed Grunn’s chain and gave a mighty yank.

  Grunn tried to hold her ground but the huge creature pulled her off balance. As she stumbled forward, it spun around, sweeping the chainsword around in an arc at chest height. Grunn fell to the dust, cut in half by the powerful swing. Thag, finally back on his feet again, rushed forward in a blind rage and right into the rounded tip of the still-buzzing chainsword.

  The Goliath could feel his organs shredding inside of him as the chain ripped through his body. He fell to his knees once again and then toppled over onto the white dust next to his beloved. Unable to move with his bowels turned into so much ground meat, Thag was helpless to stop the beast as it bent over Grunn’s sliced body and plunged the fingers of one hand into her throat.

  The last thing Thag saw before the darkness took him was blood-red liquid coursing through the tubes up toward the beast’s mouthless, black head.

  4: THE GANG’S ALL HERE

  Valtin stared out the window. He hadn’t said a word since they left the Palace in the two-seat transport. They were currently circling the top of the Spire on autopilot, their pod bathed in sunshine, as they waited for clearance to descend into the perpetual grey cloud cover some five miles below.

  ‘Never been outside the Spire, eh?’ asked Kal.

  ‘It’s just so incredible!’ said Valtin.

  ‘Well enjoy the view now,’ he said, ‘because once we get into the clouds, your world will disappear, and then we’ll step out into a whole new world that’s not quite so incredible.’

  ‘You’ve been out here before?’

  ‘Outside the Hive?’ asked Kal. ‘Once or twice.’ He saw Valtin forming the obvious next question and cut him off. ‘I don’t like to talk about it. Ever!’

  But Kal had to admit the view was amazing. It was one thing to bask in the sun’s rays with the walls of the Palace around you and the entire Spire beneath your feet. It was an entirely different matter to be in the sunshine looking back at the ten-mile tall conical Hive; to know that there was nothing between you and the ground but air, clouds, and a three-mile thick layer of noxious fumes.

  The Hive wasn’t exactly beautiful, though. It was simply impressive. Some effort had been made to make the exterior visually pleasing, certainly. Towers were attached here and there, complete with ramparts. Huge balconies stretched around the cone in places, overlooking the clouds. But the sheer size of the Hive itself dwarfed such architectural embellishments. They might have been impressive up close, perhaps even beautiful, but the ten-mile-high cone that seemed to float on a sea of clouds simply dominated the scene.

  Valtin looked as though he wanted to push the question of Jerico’s previous excursions outside the Spire, but instead turned back to the window. Kal took another look at the guard’s outfit and snorted. He had changed out of his uniform into what he must have thought was Underhive casual attire. This consisted of a leather coat with silver buckles down the front and silver chains hanging over each shoulder, black leather chaps with red silk piping running down the seams, and a pair of knee-high, floppy leather boots with silver buckles that matched those on the coat.

  ‘We’ll have to do something about that before we get too far,’ Kal said to himself. It wasn’t so much the garish ornamentation – which would have to go – it was the fact that the leather practically glistened in its newness. Valtin would stand out like a bright red target the moment they set foot in Hive City.

  The outfit was simply outlandish, made with the Spire mindset that everything looked better shined to a bright sheen, with a few baubles attached. It reminded him of the spear Valtin had presented to him before they left. It looked like a decent weapon, and in fact it was a fine piece of real wood, which itself was worth at least ten times the bounty on Svend they’d tossed down the incinerator, but the craftsman had ruined the weapon by encrusting the shaft with gems, and inlaying graceful swirls of gold along the entire length. He could sell the various parts for a fortune, but as a weapon it was worthless. All that extra weight threw off the balance. Unfortunately, he would have to carry it with him until he could sell off the valuable bits and pieces.

  Kal glanced at Valtin again. He didn’t really seem a bad sort. The kick to the groin had been all but forgotten. The guard hadn’t even brought it up, and he seemed genuinely enthusiastic about accompanying Jerico on the hunt, but there was something oddly familiar about the palace guard. He had a certain air of confidence, a slight twinkle in the eye, and a particular sharpness of the chin that Kal suddenly recognised.

  ‘Are we related?’ he asked. Kal often found that bluntness cut through people’s defences, but the question hardly phased Valtin a bit.

  ‘My father was Major Geraint Lee Helmawr, a former commander in the House Guard, and son of our lord Gerontius Helmawr.’

  ‘That would make you my…’

  ‘Nephew, yes,’ replied Valtin.

  ‘Well half-nephew, probably,’ said Kal with a laugh. ‘Dear old dad has never been a one-woman man.’ He turned to face his new-found relative. ‘So, what happened to your father?’

  ‘That bastard Armand killed him.’

  ‘Ahh, so this is family business for you, is it?’ Kal asked. ‘I had thought that little bureaucrat Clein had simply ordered you to go.’

  Valtin’s eyes flickered away from Kal for a moment before he answered. ‘I have my orders,’ he said. ‘But I volunteered for the mission, as did several others.’

  ‘All relatives, I assume,’ said Kal.

  Valtin simply nodded, and Kal noticed the same introspective look in the guard’s eyes again. The look passed and Valtin smiled. ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  ‘What about me, what?’ replied Kal, not willing to make anything easy on his nephew.

  ‘Why are you doing this if not out of family obligation?’

  Now it was Kal’s turn to smile. ‘Ahh, I see I have a lot to teach you, nephew,’ he said, wagging a finger at Valtin. ‘I don’t do anything except for love or money, and the only person I love is Kal Jerico.’

  ‘You mean to say you have no interest in the family?’ asked Valtin. ‘Don’t you w
ant to return to the Spire?’

  ‘Only so far as it impacts me,’ said Kal. ‘I’ve lived in the Spire before. It’s boring and it’s political – two things I can easily live without. Sure, I’ll take Dad’s money, and if that means I have to live up there for a year, so be it, but I can then take that hundred grand stipend and live out the rest of my life where you know who your enemies are because they’re pointing a gun at your head.’

  ‘Sounds lonely.’

  ‘No. I’ve got friends, and I can always buy love, or at least rent it,’ said Kal with a smirk. He stopped and shook his head. ‘No. Lonely is sitting in a dark room surrounded by advisors you can’t trust and family who all want you dead.’

  ‘I don’t want Grandfather dead,’ said Valtin, and Kal could tell the kid actually meant it.

  ‘Then you may be the only one,’ he said. ‘Look, it’s obvious that the only thing holding the house together right now are Father’s advisors and the power of Gerontius Helmawr as a figurehead. They need him and he needs them, but as soon as a suitable replacement shows up or anyone gets evidence that Helmawr is a house of cards, it’ll all be over for dear old Dad, and maybe the house. At that point, the safest place for any Helmawr will be the Underhive, thank you very much. So, I’ll take my reward for turning on my brother, and then turn tail and do what I always do when the going gets tough…’

  Valtin gave him a blank look.

  ‘Hide, nephew, hide.’

  Valtin fell silent for a time and eventually turned to look back out the window. The transport had finally begun its descent and they were now surrounded by roiling grey clouds. ‘You know those scribes you saw behind Grandfather, back in the safe room?’

  Kal wasn’t sure what this had to do with anything, but bit on the question anyway. ‘The ones that wrote down everything the old man said?’

  ‘Yes.’ Valtin didn’t even look at Kal as he spoke. ‘When he’s… not quite himself, they write down everything that happens around him, and then read it back to him later.’