Weapon of Flesh (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy)

by Jackson, Chris A.

  Chapter XXIII

  Blood and shadow flowed through the barracks of the Royal Guard.

  A second floor window with squeaky bronze hinges yielded, and two guards died before they were fully awake.

  One... Two..., he thought. Wives, sons, daughters, friends...

  Outside the door a guard walked by, his boots thumping on the stone floor. The door opened. The guard turned and died before his hand could touch his sword. He was lowered gently to the floor, his last breath escaping from between his killer’s fingers.

  Three...

  He put the body with the others. Ten minutes would pass until the guard was missed.

  The stairs took him down to the main mess. Four guards sat at a table chatting and drinking blackbrew. Their conversation was predictable; they were talking about him. He could not take four silently, he knew. Others would come. He could hear the shuffling feet of two more as they stood outside the doors to the mess. His goal lay beyond this room, and there was no way around. He might be able to skirt the shadows of the room and remain unseen, but that would mean taking a risk that his orders forbade: Kill anyone who sees you.

  Wives, children, friends...

  He lunged from hiding, and two men died before the others could even react. One of the others managed a truncated shout before he was deprived of the ability to breathe. The other drew steel, and spent his last moments fighting for his life. The result was the same.

  Sorry...so sorry...

  The noise brought the other guards. One died with a short sword thrown through his chest. The other raised a crossbow and fired, but before she even lowered the bow, the bolt came back upon the path it had flown. Her puzzled expression lay frozen, transfixed by the shaft. He closed her eyes with two blood-slicked fingers and moved on.

  Husbands, children, mothers, fathers.... Eight... Nine.

  The door to the lower level and the holding cells was locked, but the guards had lost their keys along with their lives. He descended the stairs, listening to the breathing of the two guards standing at the bottom.

  Ten... The edge of his hand met with one guard’s throat, and the gasp of alarm turned into a strangled cry. The other swung a loaded crossbow, a poor weapon. It left his grasp, flipped and fired point blank into the man’s heart.

  Eleven...

  They both fell with a clatter of weapons and keys.

  Daughters... Sons... Wives... Husbands...

  He saw all their faces as he lifted the ring of brass keys from the lifeless fingers of someone’s loved one.

  I’m sorry...

  Wiggen snapped awake, wondering what had suddenly broken her sleep. Her cell was quiet, the bunk warm and, if not cozy, at least comfortable. Orange torchlight flickered outside, casting fluttering shadows of the bars against the opposite wall. She knew there were two guards just down the long hall; she’d fallen asleep to the sound of their whispered conversations and the occasional jingle of keys.

  Now they were quiet.

  She fluffed her lumpy pillow and let her eyes sag closed.

  Keys clinked faintly. One of the guards must have sneezed or something and woken her up. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed, and the image of the flickering shadows on the wall of her cell settled into her mind, the bars, and the silhouette of a man...

  “Who—”

  She jerked awake, bolting upright, but it was not one of the guards who stood outside the bars of her cell.

  “Lad!” She lunged out of bed, flinging the blankets aside. Her hands gripped the bars with hysterical strength, her voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Lad! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come! There are guards all over the—”

  Something was wrong.

  His face was pale, eyes staring at her blankly. He was dressed not in the homespun clothes she’d seen him in, but in fine black silks, his feet bare. Flecks of blood stood out on his hands and neck, and there were more on the dark material; she could smell the sweet tang of it on him. The guard’s keys jingled faintly as he lifted them. Blood dripped from his fingers as he put one into the lock of her cell. Her gaze slid off of him and took in the two crumpled bodies lying at the end of the hall.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled through slack lips.

  “Oh, no, Lad. You shouldn’t have. They weren’t hurting me; they were just keeping me here until Father told them about you.” The key turned with a click, and the iron padlock fell open.

  “That’s not why I’m here, Wiggen,” he said, lifting the lock from the ring and pulling the cell door open slowly.

  “What? I don’t understand.” She took a step back without knowing why. He was acting strangely, his eyes fixed on her as if something drew them like a magnet.

  “I have a new master, Wiggen.” He took a step, leaving the cell door open. “He sent me here.”

  “But...” Realization hit her like a blow: there was just one reason Lad would be sent here. “Then you’ve come to…”

  “I’ve come to kill you, Wiggen.”

  The room spun in her vision for a heartbeat, then steadied. It was as if the world had just disappeared out from under her feet, and she was falling. There was nothing she could do; if he were here to kill her, he would kill her. It was that simple. Her hammering heart steadied, and she felt a strange peace settle over her. Perhaps it was resolve, or perhaps it was the hand of some beneficent deity readying to take her soul when it was over.

  She knew not from where her strength came, but it came to her then, and as Lad took another shuffling step toward her, she did not back away.

  “Do you want to kill me, Lad?”

  “No.”

  “Then why? Why do as your master tells you?” She had little hope that he would listen to reason; she knew something was wrong with him. This was not the innocent boy she’d fallen in love with. This was someone else.

  “The magic.” He took another step, and she stayed unmoving. His chest was now only inches from hers, and she could feel the warmth of him. “The magic has made me his slave, Wiggen. I cannot disobey him.”

  One of his hands rose slowly. She did not shy from it as his palm brushed her cheek and ear. He cupped the back of her head, his fingers spread out in her hair, and she felt her breath come up short with it. So like the caress of a lover, yet so deadly. His other hand rose, and she knew the end was coming.

  “Before you kill me, Lad,” she said, surprised that her words stopped him, "tell me that you feel nothing for me. Tell me that you hate me. Tell me that you want to kill me." She looked deeply into his eyes, and through the blank stare, the unfeeling stoicism, she could see the pain in him.

  "I...I do feel...something. You are my friend. I do not hate you, Wiggen," he said, his voice cracking. His mouth twitched at the corners, and his eyes fairly sang with strain. She could feel the heat of the magic in him now like a furnace through the thin silk of his shirt. "I feel...something...”

  "It is your heart, Lad!" she said, bringing one hand to his chest. She could feel the trip-hammer blows against her palm, like a beast trying to escape a cage beating itself against the bars. She smiled at him then, and saw the surprise in his face. "It's love.”

  “Love?” His head tilted and she almost laughed out loud at that quizzical gesture that had melted her heart the first time she’d seen it. “What is love?”

  “Love is when you feel more for someone else than you do for yourself. When you’d rather hurt yourself than see that one hurt,” she said, pressing both hands against him, clawing at the warmth of him, feeling the tremor of his struggle against the magic. “It’s what I feel for you, Lad. I love you.”

  “You...love...me?” Tiny droplets of sweat broke out on his lip and brow, and she could feel the hand cupping her head begin to quiver. “But I must...” He now laid his other hand upon her face. The touch was gentle, but she could feel both hands quaking with the strain of unreleased violence.

  “No, Lad!” She raised her own hands to his face, grasping him despera
tely. “No, you don’t have to do it!”

  “I must obey....”

  Spider webs of green light began to glow beneath his skin. Waves of incandescence showed through, layers of glowing letters that she could not read. Runes of power exerted their force against him, and Lad strained to combat their will. But the pressure of his grasp was increasing.

  “No!” Wiggen grasped his wrists and pulled frantically, her strength impotent against his. Heat seared her palms, as if his skin were on fire. “Fight it, Lad!”

  “I can’t... I...must...” Tendons stood out upon the glowing flesh of his neck, his face contorting with the strain. Tears streamed from his eyes in rivulets.

  “Love me, Lad!” she screamed, not knowing where the thought came from. She released his wrists and grabbed him, pulling him closer. “Love me!”

  “I...love...”

  His lips curled back in a grimace of strain as his grip on her tightened inexorably. But as she felt the pain begin to throb between her ears, as the smell of burning flesh reached her nostrils, he also began to draw her closer. The runes flared so brightly that Wiggen thought the light would blind her as she watched his skin blister, and heal, and blister again. Hysteria strengthened her as she raked her fingernails into the glowing flesh of his neck and pulled him to her.

  Their lips met in a painful, desperate kiss, her hands clenching him closer. She screamed into their parted lips, eyes closed tightly against the pain, kissing him more strongly, grasping him desperately. Her fingernails gouged his glowing flesh, blood slicking her grip, but the pain in her skull was too much. Her struggles weakened.

  Suddenly, light erupted through her closed lids, and a wave of heat lashed against her.

  Lad’s arms flew apart, and with the sudden release of pain and pressure Wiggen fell back onto the cold stone floor. When she opened her eyes, she beheld something that made all the pain, all the fear, vanish in a rush of warmth.

  Lad stood like a statue, his eyes flung open in shock and his face alight, not from the magic, but from something within him. He looked through her as if blind, eyes wide and staring, pupils dilated as if something were broken within his mind.

  “Lad?” she said, pushing herself up. He still stood unmoving, arms out straight, eyes fixed upon her, but unseeing. “Lad, you did it! You’re free!”

  “Free?” His voice was faint, distant. The runes glowed no more, but she could see where they had been, for in their wake blisters had risen on his skin.

  “Yes, free. Your love freed you. My love.” She reached out to him, brushing the blistered skin with her fingertips. “You broke the magic.”

  “Ahh!” He drew back from her touch, his eyes wide with surprise. He touched the blistered skin gingerly, flinching. “Love hurts!”

  “You were able to love me.” She cupped his face in her hands, the only flesh she could see that was free of burns, and drew him close again. “Do you feel it?”

  “I feel many things.” He looked at her with eyes she barely recognized. “Pain. And the burns are not healing.” He touched a blister and winced. “The magic is gone!”

  “All of it?” she asked, hearing the fear in his voice. He’d never felt pain before, and it scared him.

  “I don’t know. I feel…different. Strange. I feel like killing my master. I feel…all the people I have killed. I feel their deaths inside me; it makes me want to cry out, and....” Tears resumed their tracks down his cheeks. “All those people… But at the same time I want to hold you and touch you. I feel warm and weak at the same time. Is that love?”

  “Oh, yes.” She drew him closer. “But that’s just part of it.” She kissed him again, this time with tenderness instead of desperation, and when she felt him kiss her back, it was as if the heavens had taken her heart.

  Suddenly he broke away, his eyes wide with panic.

  “The guards!” he hissed, grabbing her hand and pulling her from the cell, fear plain on his face. “We’ve got to go!”

  “No, Lad. Just you!” She stopped him, not by force, for he seemed as strong as ever, but her words brought him up short. “You go. They’re not after me. I’ll just slow you down. I’ll tell them something, and you can find me later.”

  “There may be no later, Wiggen!” He waved a hand at the dead guards. “How can you explain this? They’ll kill you if you don’t tell them who did this.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “You can, and you will, Wiggen!” He dragged her out of the cell, snatching the keys from the lock in passing. She saw the stark desperation in him. Not only was he scared, he was scared of feeling scared. All the emotions that the magic had blocked—the emotions that had been denied him his whole life—were rushing down on him, and he didn’t know what to feel. “We must go!”

  “All right!” It was impossible for her to fight him, she realized, although she had no idea how the two of them would get out of this place.

  “This way.” He snatched a torch from the wall and handed it to her, then pulled her along at a run, keeping the keys quiet in his free hand. They stepped over the bodies of the guards and lunged up the stairs. At the top there were two doors. Wiggen could hear faint cries of alarm; more guards were coming.

  Lad slipped a key into the lock of the door to the left and broke it off, then unlocked the right-hand door and pulled her through. On the other side he locked the door and again broke the key off in the lock. They stood in a store room a dozen strides long and half as wide. There were shelves holding everything from manacles to rope to blankets, but there was no way out.

  At the back were barrels full of torches, one of long iron bars, and a rack of short, wooden batons. He took two of the batons and handed her one.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Can you see in the dark?”

  “What? No, of course I can’t.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He moved to the corner and tipped the barrel of iron bar stock, wheeling it out of his way. “It will be dark, and I don’t think the torch will stay lit. You can use the baton to feel your way. Just run it along the wall in front of you.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The river.” He retrieved one bar from the barrel and came back to look at the floor.

  “The river?” Now it was her turn to be frightened. “But Lad! I can’t swim!”

  “Swim?” He jammed the iron bar into a small hole in the floor and pried. To Wiggen’s astonishment, a large flagstone tilted up. He was certainly as strong as ever. Under it was an iron-bound wooden door with a thick padlock. One of the keys clicked in the lock, and he heaved the portal open. “We won’t need to swim, Wiggen. We’re going under the river.”

  “Under it?” She stared in astonishment as he took the torch from her and dropped it through the hole. It landed many feet below with a hiss and a splash. The room was plunged into darkness, the only light a faint yellow wedge from beneath the door.

  “Uh, I’m not so sure about this, Lad.” Wiggen peered down into the dark hole dubiously.

  A sharp crash sounded behind them. The guards were breaking through the first door.

  “No time,” Lad whispered in her ear. “Hang on to me.”

  He gripped her tightly and stepped into the dark hole. It was all Wiggen could do to refrain from screaming as they plunged into the darkness.

  Mya woke to the stunning shock of a backhand slap across the face. She rolled off the bench, her mind reeling from the blow. For an instant she thought she was home again, a young girl fending off the blows of an abusive mother. Her arms came up defensively and she curled into a ball on the floor, expecting the first kick.

  Then she remembered. And the present was almost as frightening as the past.

  “Where is my weapon, dear Mya?” the Grandfather asked, his tone deadly sweet as he stepped around the stone bench.

  “What?” She rolled to her feet, her mind still waking up, disoriented from the shock of the slap and the surprise that she was still in the interrogation chamber.
She’d been waiting for Lad’s return and must have fallen asleep. She fingered her stinging cheek. She tasted blood, but the blow had not been as hard as she’d thought, not as hard as she’d felt as a child. None of her teeth were loose anyway. She fought the urge to fill her hand with the hilt of a weapon and answered, “Probably still out killing royalty. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nearly morning, dear Mya.” He stepped closer, and she suppressed the urge to back away. That was when she noticed the gleam of rage in the Grandfather’s face. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a rictus smile, like a dog ready to bite, and his eyes... She shuddered.

  “He hasn’t returned, and my spies inform me that his latter two targets are still breathing. What do you suppose happened to him?”

  Sarcasm dripped from his question, and Mya realized the source of his anger—he thought she had something to do with this!

  “I don’t know, Grandfather.” She kept her voice level, vowing not to show fear. She knew what happened when you showed a dog, or an abusive parent, that you were scared. “Did he kill the girl?”

  “I have not yet received a report from my spy with the Royal Guard. Perhaps you would like to discover that little tidbit of information for me.” His stance shifted slightly under his robes, settling, returning to a resting posture from one ready to strike. “Perhaps you were correct, and my weapon has been over-taxed.”

  “I will find out, Grandfather.” She turned to go, but was brought up short by his voice.

  “Please, do so, my dear. And do remember to come back, especially if you don’t find my weapon.” He followed her slowly up the steps, silently, as if he was stalking her. “I would hate to lose both of my best young weapons in one night.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Grandfather,” she said tightly, bristling at the implied threat. “I’ll be careful.”

  At the top of the stairs she opened the door and stepped through, but as she held it open for her master, she realized with a start that he was no longer behind her. He had vanished without a word or sound, as invisible and intangible as death itself. She hurried to her chambers and changed quickly into the clothes she used for reconnaissance. She left by the main gate, hitching up her skirts and breaking into an easy jog, heedless of the shadows that deepened in her wake.