Crypt of the Violator

by K. J. Coble

  Afternoon brought throbbing heat and a limp breeze out of the wastes that, nevertheless, carried the grit of dust with it, turned the horizon to the west into a yellowy-brown blur. Into that rode a spray of the pezenek outriders, howling as they kicked their small horses into a gallop. The Vothans sent jeers after them, no small number of pointed insults about how quickly they’d run away this time.

  “Good riddance,” Aelren mumbled from Strayden’s side, as they watched the mercenaries ride into the haze. He’d come to check on the stitches in Strayden’s shoulder, from the savran spear thrust. “Not that they’ll do any good out there, but at least we won’t have to watch for them stealing from our supplies.”

  Strayden grimaced as the younger man picked at his flesh. “Watch that, will ya?” He wanted to get his tunic back on, could feel the sun scorching his skin. His face itched and peeled from the punishment already done to it. Strayden reached for a bowl of water-down wine and sipped. “We actually catch any of the devils in the act?” he asked.

  “One,” Aelren replied, giving up on his ministrations. “Ivar drove the bastard out of the camp, kicking him the whole way. Was trying to get into our salted pork.” The younger Vothan shivered. “Nasty-looking critters. They file their teeth to points, do you know that?”

  Strayden shrugged back into his tunic and smirked over his shoulder Aelren. “Not everyone can be as pretty as you, lad.”

  “That’s true enough,” he replied without a hint of irony.

  “We had a pezenek in the Guard once. Shortest man I’ve ever seen. Useless in a shield wall, but as good with a bow as you.”

  “I don’t see how that could be.” Aelren sniffed, as proud of his archery as his looks. With another man, the arrogance would be grating, but with him it was almost endearing. He took a small carved-bone comb from the little pack at his belt and a lovingly-crafted looking glass he’d procured in the Scintallos High Market and began scraping at his whiskers. He’d let his beard grow out a bit, probably after tiring of the jibes about his youth. He paused after a bit, eyed his reflection. His eyes wandered briefly to the ruins on the escarpment. “Surprised we haven’t seen the Ybbassid since last night.”

  Strayden grunted in agreement. “I suspect we still will.” He hoped, anyway. He’d felt a little bad about stringing her on and then turning around and accepting Harald’s offer.

  “She’d be damned useful, where we’re going.”

  Strayden elbowed him. “No need to be saying that so loud.” He glanced around. “And, yeah, I’d welcome her skills. But if she’s not here, she’s not here.”

  Aelren combed his beard thoughtfully for another few moments. “We sure it’s a good idea, then?”

  “We’re going to be up there, anyway. What’s the problem with looking around?” Strayden spat in the dirt. “And since when did your guts turn to mush?”

  He held up his hands submissively. “Hey, if the lads are in, I’m in.”

  “Cohort’s gone to hell,” Strayden snarled, loud enough that some of the others, loitering about, heard and looked up. “Gruzh’s Throbbing Hangover, it’s like the whole lot of you have had your balls fall off!”

  The younger Vothan’s eyes flared hot blue at that. Tucking his comb and mirror away, he said, “Another dead city, Captain. Seems a thing we’re doing a lot.”

  “Everyone’s got to be good at something.”

  Aelren gave up on him after that, left him alone, muttering. Strayden’s gaze went again to the ruins. Glitter of steel gave away the picket lines already established up there, members of the Third Cohort of the Guard, if he didn’t miss his guess. Also, if he had to guess, they had to be bored out of their minds. It all seemed so mundane, the rubble, the rocks, the sand.

  Another dead city.

  Afternoon trudged into evening, the watch shift changing on the escarpment, the cooking fires starting, the sun dipping low to the west. Dusk lit the wastes yellow and then a deepening red, colored the wreck of the battlefield a bloody hue. The sandstorm had mercifully hidden much of the carnage. But clouds of carrion birds still wheeled and cawed, scrounging, picking, their voices mocking the living.

  The pezeneks didn’t return from their scouting foray and Strayden wondered if that was a problem.

  Night fell abruptly, as it always seemed to in Xyxia, an axe-fall of darkness. Strayden let the lads cook dinner and get some food in them before ordering them to get their kits on. He set sentries to watch the camp, mostly the walking wounded. And he had someone tap the wine barrel before grumbling began and a line formed to consume the dregs of what they hadn’t finished the night before.

  Horsa came scampering through camp as the mugs circulated and voices brightened with the alcohol. “Captain,” he called, changing course when he saw him.

  “Get over here, lad,” Strayden answered. He was having trouble worming into his mail, the damned shoulder throbbing in protest. “Give me a hand!”

  The kid rushed to his side and helped him finish the task with a tug that was not at all gentle. “We got visitors, Captain.”

  Working the shoulder and wriggling a little to settle the hauberk, Strayden raised an eyebrow at him. “That’d be Commander Hegruum, yeah?”

  The kid nodded. “And a woman.”

  Strayden frowned at that. But Harald hadn’t really said a whole lot about his client. He shrugged. “Bring them here, then.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Something caught Strayden’s eye as the kid rushed off again. He swore to himself and scanned the Vothans, drinking and milling about, met Ivar’s gaze finally and waved him over. “Uh...take that down now.” He pointed to the trophy—the head on the stake—at the edge of camp, somehow still standing after the storm and the not infrequent attention of crows since.

  Ivar frowned. “Gruzh won’t like that.”

  “Gruzh will cut us some slack.” A glance showed Strayden Horsa leading Harald and a cloaked figure through curious Vothans. “Now, get it down, quick.”

  The man went, grumbling.

  Harald strode to the center of camp with what Stradyen assumed was his client in tow. The other wore a cloak of fine velvet, probably Xyxian make, dyed to a deep purple that shifted like a dark flame with every motion, almost black. The face wasn’t visible under a heavy, drooping cowl, but the movements, the curves were a woman’s, a short one, standing barely at Harald’s chest.

  “Good evening, Commander,” Strayden called with false cheer. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Ivar yanking the pole out of the ground.

  “Captain,” Harald replied brusquely. “I don’t have a lot of time. You’ve got your men sorted out?”

  “Just about. You’re earlier than I expected.”

  “I want you to relieve the Fourth now.”

  Strayden blinked. “Probably about an hour till midnight, still.”

  “Those are your orders,” Harald growled back. Strayden’s blood prickled at the tone, but the other man seemed more than impatient or annoyed; he seemed agitated. “You will be relieved at the regular hour.” He stepped a little closer and pitched his voice low. “That will give you more time, should you need it.”

  Strayden nodded. A noise from the edge of camp pricked his ear. He glanced and had to hide a grimace as he saw Ivar struggling with the pole and a couple other Vothans wandering to his side, chuckling.

  Harald didn’t seem to notice, was turning to his companion. “It’s as we discussed. They’ll accompany you and provide whatever cover and protection you require.”

  The cloaked figure nodded.

  Ivar cursed at the camp’s edge and Strayden heard the pole crack. More laughter. Another glance showed him kicking something through the dirt, laughing, the other Vothans joining in, booting the object across the sand and out of sight.

  Harald saw them and it now and his features darkened with rage. He met Strayden’s gaze with fury roiling his eyes, followed that with a fearful glance at his companion as a faint glitter of sweat gathered on his brow. B
ut the cloaked figure didn’t seem to have noticed. Strayden could feel eyes upon him, though he could not see them.

  “I’ll go,” Harald said hastily and shot Strayden a final look of warning and loathing.

  Strayden watched the huge Vothan stride off before regarding his new charge. A few of the other Vothans were eyeing the exchange curiously, leaning on shields or weapons, waiting and sweating in the dark in their traps.

  The cloaked figure gestured for his tent and moved by him, through its flaps, inside. Strayden glanced to see if Ivar had finished with his gruesome business—he had; or, at least, the post was down and he didn’t see the trophy. Shooting the gawkers nearby a look, Strayden ducked into the tent after their guest.

  A single lantern, allowed to guttered down, provided the only illumination to the cramped space inside. The tent was Scintallan-issue, in theory enough to fit two men. With his gear and other odds and ends of Cohort minutiae, it was a tight fit for him, alone. With the pair of them crouched in its dark, it was nearly oppressive.

  “I have to admit, my lady,” Strayden said to the feminine figure before him, “I was told to expect—”

  The other flung back its cloak. “You were told to expect me.”

  Strayden blinked. He looked into the face of a man—dark, effete Xyxian features marked with eyeliner, framed by blue-black hair oiled and scraped back into a short ponytail; but a man’s features, nonetheless. And as the man shifted to get more comfortable in the space, he seemed to grow, the cloak sliding back from taller, more muscular shoulders and chest, like a snake bulging free of its old skin.

  He smiled at Strayden’s obvious discomfiture. “An illusion, my barbarian friend.” He wagged a beringed finger and a ruby still glowed with a fading, but clearly eldritch light. “I thought it wise my visit here not be so obvious.”

  “You’re a wizard?”

  “I am Xyxian,” he replied, as though that should explain it. And maybe, it did. He held out a hand. “I am Xass Kham.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Strayden regarded the other’s extended palm as he would a basket of scorpions before accepting it. The man’s grip was cool, but normal enough. “Prince,” he added.

  “And it is exactly because of that, I needed the disguise. This camp swarms with gossips and my business would not stand up to scrutiny.”

  “Business up there.” Strayden nodded vaguely in the direction of the ruins.

  “That’s right.” Kham released his hand, but leaned a little closer, eyes sparkling in the dark. “Many of the stories of the place are true, if blown out of proportion. There are traps and...other things still up there. You have men for this?”

  “I have a few experienced in this sort of thing,” Strayden replied.

  “I doubt that.” Kham sniffed. “But if they are brave and strong, they will do.”

  The way he said sent a prickle of anger through Strayden’s blood. “Well, they are those things. And they’ll want to be paid.”

  Kham smiled, a slow skinning of his ivory rows of teeth. “Oh, your payment will be found in the same place where I seek, I assure you.”

  “Good. You know we won’t have a lot of time.”

  “I know right where to look. The layout of Zadam is familiar to me, passed down through my line for generations.” He leaned even closer and a little shimmer went across his dark eyes. “No matter what happens once we’re in there, you must protect me.”

  Strayden snorted quietly. “You’re the meal chit. Yeah, I got it.”

  “Then we should go.” Kham threw the cloak back over his head and the weird transmogrification occurred again, his whole figure shrinking into itself again. “Quickly. As you say; our time is short.”

  Strayden held the flap back for him and let him pass. “I think I like you better this way,” he grumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  The Fifth shook itself out at Strayden’s growled orders. He had the lads fall in around Kham, effectively hiding her—him—inside their column of fours. Without fanfare, he led them out of camp and along the perimeter towards the escarpment. A decapitated head, half-buried leered at them as they trudged by. Strayden grimaced at Ivar’s botched clean-up but didn’t dare glance over his shoulder to see if Kham noticed.

  The moons were well up, each of them waning but still days from new, leaking their milky radiance across the wastes and the cliffs rising above them. Through that weird light, the Vothans prowled, passing entrenchments, picket posts, a few stinking remnants of the previous day’s fighting. The ground grew rocky, and then began to climb, an obvious path crumbling under their feet as guide, but the route not exactly easy.

  “This had been the Way of the Undying,” Kham spoke from his spot in the procession behind Strayden. Some of the Vothans arched their eyebrows at the obviously male voice coming from the cowl. In his distraction, Horsa tripped on a chunk of brick. “The road once stretched all the way to the coast, in my forefathers’ forefathers’ time.”

  “Great,” Strayden drawled with heavy disinterest.

  Rocks poking out of the sand took on the consistency of craft, chunks of fallen mortar, the scraps of what must have been outer walls. A jag of an obelisk protruded off to one side and the ages and elements had not quite scraped weird script from it. Strayden had no idea what the ancient, hateful cross-hatched figures meant, but had seen such in wizards’ grimoires—on Lyssa’s trinkets—and scowled.

  He couldn’t say why, but he had the sense the words were a warning.

  Calls sounded from above, gruff and a little slurred. With a smile, Strayden barked in reply. They were nearing the Vothan perimeter. In the moon’s light, he made out a widely-dispersed line of men arrayed across the width of the escarpment, paired, in most cases, individual posts within easy calling distance of one another. A couple of fires had been lit and larger groups clumped around these, some men rolled up in blankets, having already stood their watch, others drearily prodding embers or gnawing at food scraps. They looked bored, but vaguely uneasy.

  “Make yourself a little less obvious,” Strayden rumbled over his shoulder at Kham. The Xyxian ducked back further into the column. “Fifth Cohort!” Strayden called out.

  “You’re early,” a large, leather-armored Vothan called back.

  “We can come back later, if you’re having so much fun,” Strayden said, climbing the last few steps of the slope to stand before the picket post and its commander.

  The Vothan captain—Thorfin, if he recalled correctly—grinned back, showing gapped teeth and bad gums. “Not a bit. We’ve only had a little trouble, some grubbers trying to sneak up for a look. Nothing we couldn’t handle.” He stepped a little closer. “Creepy up here, y’know? It’s quiet, so damned quiet. But still...you think you hear things.”

  Strayden sniffed the other Vothan’s breath, rank with wine and half-digested food. “I’ll bet you do.”

  “Be glad to clear out, is all I’m saying,” Thorfin said. He gestured to one of his comrades and calls started to go out. Slowly, in the moon’s hard brilliance, the pickets starting scrambling in, like beetles across the bleached bones of the dead city. “Makes me glad for the Favor of Gruzh on a night like this,” Thorfin went on. “These Xyxians can keep their devil-cursed lands.”

  “It’s a strange place for the Mighty to trod,” Strayden agreed, half-glancing to see that Kham was still out of sight.

  The Fourth Cohort formed up into its column and Thorfin offered Strayden a final nod before leading them downhill, a motley collection of whiskers and axes and horned helms glinting in the moons’ gleam. The light threw hard shadows that seemed to squirm as the unit trundled downhill and it was hard to miss the haste in their step.

  Strayden ignored the cooling of his blood as he gestured for one of his sergeants-at-arms. “Get this lot set, Hama,” he said. “I’m going to be taking a detachment uphill.”

  The sergeant was one of the old hands, not a particularly smart or skilled man, but lucky
in a fight, and—more importantly—literate enough to keep the rolls and records that the Scintallan scolds always insisted upon. “Uphill?” he asked with a knowing smirk missing most of its teeth. His words whistled. “Worried about trespassers, Captain?”

  “Dreadfully,” Strayden replied with a glower. “Just get them set. Double the guard.” Someone overheard that and groaned till Strayden glared. “Make sure no one finds their way past you. We’ll be back.”

  “Aye,” Hama said, but touched his arm. “You, ah, sure it’s a good idea?” He shot a look up into the sky. “The heavens look angry, Captain.”

  “You keep pissing yourself like an old woman and I’ll show you angry.”

  Muttering, Hama moved on. Strayden turned to his picked group. Durrak and Aelren stood to either side of Kham. Ivar, Vidar, and Horsa joined those, along with another four troublemakers Strayden recognized—picks of Durrak’s, no doubt, solid in a fight, but stupid enough to be neither scared nor particularly curious.

  Strayden shouldered his shield, tucked his axe behind it—his old favorite, because he felt the need for its luck tonight—and checked his armor and sword belt. Durrak and Aelren had unlit torches handy, he noticed. Kham looked—well, he looked like a greasy Xyxian serpent—but he looked ready, even impatient to go.

  “It’s your show, friend,” Strayden said to the Xyxian noble with no particular friendliness.

  Kham seemed to straighten in his cloak, growing taller as he flung back the cowl. The weird transformation was no less disconcerting for Strayden having seen it once already. The prince gave himself a shake, like a carrion bird fattened on rotten meat. The others began mumbling. Aelren pressed a clenched fist to his lips, beseeching Gruzh’s protection, and even Durrak threw Strayden a glittering-eyed look.

  “Do as I tell you, nothing more,” Kham said imperiously. He glanced over the small entourage. “No questions. Don’t touch anything. There will be things here that should not be disturbed, not by one of you.”

  Strayden shrugged. “After you, Prince.”

  The Xyxian started uphill. Strayden heard mumbling from the guards left behind. Someone called out, but a growl from Durrak silenced the questioner. Whistling shouts from Hama would ensure no one else wondered after things they shouldn’t.