Blood & Stone: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 3

by J. V. Roberts

  “It’s just this…thing…I can’t describe it.” Byron pounded at his chest.

  “The knife? You feel it turning, right? Eating you up from the inside?”

  Byron nodded, feeling an immediate kinship with the description.

  “Yeah, I’ve felt it before too,” Draxus said as he continued to scoop the slop up with his three, middle fingers. “It can be useful if you let it; you just gotta learn to direct it.”

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “It is things left undone.”

  “What things?”

  Draxus shrugged. “Paths not taken. Bridges not crossed. In your case, justice that has yet to be served. Even if you can’t put it into words, your fucking spirit knows. And it’s crying out. Telling you to get up off your ass and go handle business. But that’s where it gets tricky; you’ve got to know when to step forward and when to step back. Go rushing in, all caught up in your feelings, and you’ll rush yourself right into an early grave.”

  “What was it for you…the knife?” Byron asked, staring intently as Draxus sucked his fingers clean.

  “These people, my people,” Draxus said as he wiped his fingers dry on his shirt. “Seeing them down here every goddamned day without a land to call home because your people took it from them, knowing what your people did to their parents and their grandparents when they came and forced them out, that’s my knife.”

  “I’m sorry, truly. I didn’t know the true nature of my people until very recently.”

  “I reckon I accept. You were an itch in your daddy’s balls when that shit went down. You just need to know that the blade isn’t going anywhere. You just gotta learn to control when it turns and then learn to direct the pain.” Draxus pushed the bowl aside.

  “How…how do I control it?”

  “Look at us, bonding like a couple of regular motherfuckers.” He laughed and continued to smile even though Byron never smiled back. “Do you remember smashing Sully’s head in?”

  Byron’s bowels growled a little at the thought. “Of course I remember it.”

  “That’s how you control it.” Draxus turned a palm up on the table as if it held the answer.

  “Smashing defenseless people’s heads in?”

  “No, you fool.” Draxus went to push away from the table. “Maybe you’re not ready to stand beside us after all.”

  “No! Wait!” Byron reached across and caught his wrist. “I want to understand.”

  “Take that hand away before you lose it.”

  “I’m sorry. Please, tell me.”

  Draxus settled back into his seat. “It’s not about the man you kill or don’t kill. It’s not about him being armed or unarmed. Hell, it’s not even about him being a man. It’s about you. It’s about what you feel when you drop that hammer. It’s also about what you don’t feel. If I’d acted on the feelings I have toward you Anthenian fucks—the deep, burning hatred I have for you motherfuckers—you’d have taken my head long ago. But I don’t act off of feelings. I push that shit down and I consider my moves. I plan. I strategize. Feelings never enter into it. I had you smash Sully’s head in because I wanted to see where you stood. But I also wanted you to learn to push your feelings down. That was your first kill, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you really want that revenge for your lady, you’re gonna have a lot more bodies in your future; some might be armed, some might be unarmed and begging for their miserable lives. You’re going to have to strike fast; no feeling, no hesitation. Just cold steel through warm flesh. Otherwise, you won’t make it.” Draxus stood, this time for good, but right before he exited the dining room he paused as if remembering something. “We’re planning something, something I think you’re going to like; call it a first strike. Get some sleep. I’ll brief you tomorrow.”

  Draxus was right, there was much more blood to be shed before the journey would reach its end.

  Byron suddenly felt a slight pang of hunger.

  23

  Dominic was stirred to life by the pounding coming from the front door.

  “What the hell?” Lerah was beside him, naked and lying on her stomach atop the covers, her face resting comfortably in the crook of his elbow.

  “Some asshole at the door.”

  “Go tell them to fuck off.”

  “Right away, dear.” Dominic slid from beneath her limp body and stood from the foot of the bed, pulling on his pants before trudging to the door. He pulled the door back, creating a yellow crack of light. An old man with leather skin stood on the other side. He wore a dirty tunic with sprigs of bristly, white hair curling up from underneath the front collar. On his hip was a large club with rusty nails hammered into the end.

  “Should I be worried?” Dominic asked with a yawn.

  “What? This?” The man dropped his hand to the crude bludgeoning device. “No, it’s all for looks. Need something besides the skin on my hands if the Eval come around again. Besides, I heard what you did to Eirik. Word is he was wearing a full set of plate and wielding a sword. Don’t wanna test your mettle, no sir.”

  “Word seems to travel fast around here.”

  “Aye, that it does.”

  “What else are folks sayin’?”

  The crusty old man shrugged. “Usual stuff they say when strangers roll in.”

  “You get many strangers?”

  “Not many that stay. Most are just passing through, selling their goods and services.”

  “I see.”

  “Anyway, I just came to get you for your shift.”

  “Shift?”

  “At the mine. That’s where the Queen assigned you, isn’t it?”

  Dominic snapped his fingers. “Gotcha. Yeah, she did. Been drifting for so long, forgot what it’s like to keep another man’s hours.”

  “Been keepin’ them all my life.”

  “Yeah…well, give me a second to throw the rest of my clothes on.”

  “Take your time,” the old man said as he bowed away from the door.

  “Where you off to, love?” Lerah was sitting up on her elbows.

  “Love has to go to work. I’m an honest man now.” He sat on the end of the bed and slid his feet into his boots.

  She crawled up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest, perching her chin on his shoulder. “Who woulda thought? Dominic, the Saboteur, swinging a hammer while his lady goes off to play soldier.”

  “First off, little lady, you’re not playing soldier, you’re playing bodyguard.” He exchanged a kiss with her before uncoiling her arms and standing. “Second, I quite welcome the change of pace. See these hands?” He showed her his scarred, calloused palms. “If all they ever hack at for the rest of their days is stone and steak, they’ll be content.”

  She smiled. “I love you.”

  “Love you too, woman.”

  ***

  The mine shaft went deep. Dominic often found himself bending low and sucking his chest and stomach in as he followed the old man—whose name was Niall—down into the bowels of the earth.

  “You ever done any mining?” Niall asked, his face lit by the torches lining the walls along either side of their narrow path.

  “Can’t say that I have.” Dominic ducked low to avoid stone jutting down from the ceiling.

  “You’ll pick it up quick. There’s not much to it. You swing and you hit; you can do both of those, am I right?” Niall laughed.

  “How many of y’all are there?”

  “A good bit. More than a handful. We’re the anti-social bastards of Anthena. No good with people, so we got no skills for the market. No love for the water, so casting nets was out of the question. We’re good at two things; drinking and hitting things really hard. They don’t know what to do with our lot, so they hide us away down here; though, much of the original crew is dwindling.”

  They came to a steep slope; damp and slick. There was a frayed rope tied around a wooden post to help them with their descent.

  “Dwindlin
g?” Dominic wrapped the rope around one arm, bent forward at the waist, and planted his feet out front; moving one step for every two Niall took.

  “Suppose they didn’t tell you about the recent attacks. Figures. Wouldn’t want to scare off potential assets.”

  “We don’t scare easy.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you do. Still, it’d be nice to know what you’re getting yourself into. Nothing like stepping barefoot into a pile of manure.”

  “That happen often around here?”

  “Humor. That’s good. Make sure you hold onto that, you may end up needing it sooner than you think.” They finished the descent unscathed, aside from a little rope burn. “So you wanna hear about it?”

  “Might as well pass the time.”

  The passages were starting to widen as the temperature continued to fall.

  “It’s been happening since I was a young man; all this is nothing new. They attack. Maybe they kill some of us. Usually, we kill more of them. It’s a back and forth, a give and take.”

  “A never-ending war.”

  “War might be overstating it. The Eval don’t usually send in more than a dozen or so guys. They hit us in the knees; try to interrupt the flow of ore to market. They got real lucky one time decades back and killed our Queen; our sitting Queen’s mother. King Shalewind lost—”

  “Where is he?”

  “King Shalewind? Died shortly before your arrival; nothing sinister, he was just an old man, taken by sickness. But he lost it after she was murdered. Cut himself off from the people.”

  “Why not take the fight out to them? Hit them before they can hit you?”

  Niall shook his head. “They own those lands beyond the wall. In truth, they owned these lands before we took them. But they’re embedded out there; it’s all hills and caves where they are. They’d slaughter any army that dared to pursue them into that death trap. You ask me, I think that’s their endgame: stir us to the point where we do something stupid and drastic.”

  “The two usually go hand-in-hand. Your Queen seems to have a pretty level head. I reckon she coulda tossed me back to the sea after my disagreement with Eirik.”

  “Aye, that she does; much cooler head than her father ever had. Truth is she’s been playing this game for a while. When her mother was murdered and her father took to locking himself in the castle, she became the face of Anthena for many, including myself. You had a request, a dispute, you went to Queen Roserine. I’m glad it’s her on the throne and not that lackey brother of hers.”

  “Brother?”

  “Afraid that’s a story for another day. We’re here.”

  They rounded a bend, ducked under a low hanging, waterlogged rafter, and entered a large chamber. A group of men—Dominic counted fifteen—stood in the center of the chamber surrounded by wheelbarrows, lengths of thick rope, swaying lanterns, and craggy walls of rock. They appeared to be waiting for the boss-man to tell them to get to work.

  “What took ya? Thought you were gonna leave us standing around here all day?”

  “Isn’t that what you do regardless of whether I’m here?” Niall slapped the man on the back as he approached the group. “I had to fetch our newcomer. Dominic, get over here and meet the boys; I know some of them better than the rest, but I’ll do my best to get the names right on my first go around.”

  Dominic listened and shook hands as Niall introduced the group.

  “You done this sorta work before?” a man named Conleth asked; he was missing a tooth and had two long scars on his right arm.

  “No, but I can swing and hit a target.”

  “Aye, I’ve heard.”

  “We all have,” another man—Deaglan—said with a devilish grin. “It’s not a bad gig. You just take that pointy end, smash it into the wall, and pull out any loose rock you come by with the flat end.” Deaglan mimicked the movement with his own pick.

  “Doesn’t sound too bad at all.” Dominic turned the pick over in his hands.

  Conleth shook his head. “Nah, it ain’t. It’s our blacksmith that gets the dull end of the spear. He’s gotta melt all of it down and try to pull the good bits out. Poor bastard has had the bloomer burning all night as of late.”

  “It’s all the damned attacks; orders are running behind and now he’s trying to play catch-up,” Niall said sympathetically.

  “It’s a wonder he hasn’t just up and quit,” Conleth said.

  “He’s a man of the Tenets, through-and-through.”

  “Tenets?” Dominic felt he’d missed something important.

  “Don’t you worry yourself about that just yet, my boy.” Niall placed a hand on Dominic’s back and started guiding him away from the group. “That’s a conversation for another time.”

  “A long conversation,” Conleth warned.

  “Ah, don’t listen to that one,” Niall said once they were further away, “The Tenets help us work together as a community. They keep everyone pointed in the same direction.”

  Dominic tried not to think of Reeman, of Mother, of her blood-soaked book and the brutal doctrine she’d created from it; her Tenets.

  “So it’s a…rules of the road sorta thing,” Dominic spoke hesitantly.

  “Yeah. It’s something like that.”

  They turned left down a tunnel at the back of the chamber. They didn’t get very far; it ended as suddenly as it began. A wall of boulders and old wood blocked their path. It was packed in tight, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.

  “You fellas have an accident?” Dominic pushed on a boulder; it didn’t budge.

  “It was intentional. Did it years back. This tunnel leads under the wall and comes out above ground far north of here.”

  “Someone dig it?”

  “Don’t know. Probably not. It was here when we broke through into this chamber; we think it just formed naturally along with everything else. Still, it was a safety risk, for obvious reasons, so we sealed it up.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, just wanted to show you so you don’t come trying to dig around it. Believe it or not, we’ve had some dumb ones try to do just that.”

  “This job doesn’t attract the best and brightest, I take it.”

  “It’s like anything else; some flames are just dimmer than others. It doesn’t take a smart man to swing a pick, but it doesn’t take a dumb one either.”

  “How’d they get y’all last time if you don’t mind my asking? You’re pretty far down from the surface.”

  Niall sighed with regret. “Wrong place, wrong time. Our carts were full up, so we were pulling them out of here, working on getting the haul down to the smithy—”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but how do you get all this shit down those steps?”

  Niall laughed. “We don’t. We use ropes and buckets…big buckets. We lower it over the cliff onto a boat. They ship it on around to the docks, unload it, and carry it up. It’s damned inconvenient, but it keeps the gears turning.” Niall fished around in a torn pocket and pulled out a packet of crooked cigarettes; they were loosely rolled, tobacco poking out from either end. “Smoke?”

  “It’s been a long time, but I’m sure I still do.” Dominic accepted a cigarette and a light from a half-used matchbook.

  “But yeah, that’s where they caught us; our pants around our ankles.” Niall exhaled a plume of smoke and took another pull, the cherry burned bright in the darkness. “Some of us ran. Some of us tried to stand and fight.”

  “Which group did you belong to?”

  “Trying to see if I’m some coward?”

  Dominic shook his head. “Living to fight another day is as good a strategy as any.”

  “Yeah, well, I did what I could. There were arrows flying, men holding their guts in, our livelihood was going up in flames; it was chaos. I’ve seen it a few times, but it’s not something you get used to.”

  “You’re talking about a battlefield. I’m not sure that’s something you ever really get used to.”

  “You soun
d like you’re speaking from experience, merchant.”

  “Nah. It’s just something I heard from a man once while sharing a cigarette.”

  “Well, in that case, what do you say we get to work?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  24

  Emily caught Coen near the outer bailey; he was soaked through with sweat and adjusting the armor on his chest.

  “Do you have a minute to speak?” she walked up behind him and cradled one of his elbows.

  “Just one; I’ve still got to get to the market and report for duty.” He turned; there was a fresh cut above his right eyebrow, still glistening with blood.

  “Coen! What happened?”

  He pushed her hands away as she reached for his face. “I’m fine, really. I’ve just got to work a bit harder on the high guard.”

  “Eirik better watch himself with you or I’ll pummel him next.”

  “No, please don’t. I think that’s what’s got him all riled up in the first place.”

  “He did ask for it.”

  “That’s what I hear. Speaking of which, why aren’t you with the Queen?”

  Emily felt a swell of leftover frustration. “Apparently my services are no longer needed in the capacity they once were. She’d rather have some perfect stranger at her side than her oldest friend.”

  “The merchant woman?”

  “Lerah.”

  “Perhaps she sees something in her.”

  “Oh yeah, she definitely sees something in her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” Emily sighed.

  Coen rubbed the tops of her arms reassuringly. “You know Roserine loves you. She’s your best friend. No one can take your place. She’s doing what’s best for you and giving you a break. You need it.”

  “You’re going on duty. I don’t have any other friends. What am I supposed to do with myself?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Lay in the sun? Take up sewing? Get drunk?”

  She couldn’t help but smile, not when it came to him. “Is that what you would do?”

  “Aye, I’ve been known to do a bit of sewing when I’m drunk.”