The Blackest Heart

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “What . . . do they . . . mean?” he asked, speech slurred and watery.

  “They are death symbols,” Squireck Van Hester’s crystal-clear voice answered from somewhere. “It means someone is about to die here, in this very spot.”

  Hawkwood reached out a tentative hand, a desire to feel the texture of the red-glowing carvings consuming him. A sharp burst of wind nearly toppled him down the slope. He grabbed the cliff for balance. As soon as his hands made contact with stone, it was like a lance of lightning shot downward through his arm and into his body. He recoiled, stunned. A sensation of slow dizziness, as if he were about to pass out, consumed him. Then he realized the carvings before him had changed. He could see the prints of his hands outlined in bright red over the symbols. The prints held for a moment, and then slowly vanished, as if drawn down into the depths of the cliff.

  A terrible, hopeless shudder twisted though Hawkwood. Something had just transferred from the carvings into him . . .

  . . . and he’d felt it.

  A familiar presence . . .

  . . . yes . . . a familiar presence, Jondralyn thought.

  Is it real . . . the lights within the stone? The shapes? The crosses? The stars?

  Hawkwood?

  I can feel him . . . his presence . . . his scent.

  He is outside the stone . . . I am within . . .

  She placed her cheek against the rock wall and drank in the feel of Hawkwood emanating from the stone before her, his very presence soothing in comparison to the blazing-hot pain that consumed her entire face.

  He’s finally found me in the cave!

  Hawkwood is coming. . . .

  These little red symbols warming her flesh were meant for her. She could feel Hawkwood’s essence in them. But then her heart fluttered as she watched them slowly fade and vanish. Close to panic, she wished them back.

  Her face was a sudden mass of agony and stiff, cramped muscle, the pain surging and subsiding in a random, rhythmless dance of torture. Her forehead hurt the worst, a constant stinging, like a festering disease. And it wouldn’t stop bleeding. It was a slow and plodding flow of blood that just sort of oozed out, so slowly she questioned whether she wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death.

  Although death would be a joyful release from the pain she now felt.

  If I’m not already dead . . .

  It was as if the air she breathed had been injected with some foul witchcraft, its sole purpose to keep the wound on her face and forehead vibrant with pain. And when she’d try to swipe the stinging agony away, her hands would return slick with blood. Blood that would just crust over and dry on her skin, and she had no way to wash herself.

  But Hawkwood is venturing into the stone to save me. . . .

  She could feel herself suffocating. Are my eyes open, or closed? Either way, deep down somewhere below in the darkness of whatever bleak, cold cave she was in, she saw something foggy, wavering in the distance.

  She saw herself—riding atop a magnificent white stallion underneath a large burning tree. She was a glorious silver-eyed knight with a glowing white shield, horned helm, and a curious bone-hilted white sword, the cross-hilt curved and graceful, in the shape of a crescent moon. A blond girl was perched on the saddle before her; the girl’s hand was a metal claw . . . bright red blood pumping through veins in the scaled metal. And the girl had green glowing eyes! “All the weapons and stones will be gathered in Savon,” the girl whispered.

  Jondralyn’s hands trembled against the reins of her mount, her face a scorching lump of pain she couldn’t ignore under the incredible suffocating weight of the horned helm on her head.

  Then it was gone and she was in a cave again. She looked back at the stone wall in front of her, and the light and shapes came back. Circles within circles at first, like they were laid over the rock with a red paintbrush. Squares followed, then crosses, so many crosses, crescent moons, and what looked like falling stars, all of them faint, barely perceptible, swirling with a soft orange-red glow that flickered and danced as if the rock wall before her was hollow and flame was licking around inside, trying to escape.

  The shapes were warm to the touch and she soaked in the heat, the comfort.

  Hawkwood sends the stars . . . the crosses . . . the moons . . .

  But still, her face was an expanding globe of searing, inescapable agony—agony and torture surrounded by a silent, stifling loneliness. It was a hot and humid and suffocating cave and she lived alone in a darkness so black and penetrating she sometimes wondered if she still had eyes.

  Did she? She did! But the white sword with the crescent-moon-shaped hilt was coming at her, to pluck out her eyes one by one. And with every silvery-white flash of the sword, she would jerk her hands up in defense . . . and feel for her eyes. Sure enough, they were there. One of them anyway. But to what end really? She could close them both, clench them tight, and open them again. The blackness and pain were still the same. And how horribly black this cave was. For all she knew, light might’ve never penetrated such a dark and deep and agonizing hole. She couldn’t see the walls or the ceiling, but she knew they were there, sensed them, on all sides, spreading out and around her, then constricting, like a jagged, suffocating womb. Everything was suffocating. She could scarcely breathe, it was so suffocating. It felt like she hadn’t taken a solid breath in moons. And within this suffocation, there weren’t even any shadows to keep her company.

  She knew that shadows could live only if there was light.

  But there was no light here. Only flashing white swords followed by pain. Is this the underworld . . . ?

  Long ago, she recalled, she had slept on a fluffy mattress stacked with pillows and quilts. She could spread her arms and legs and the silky fabric would caress her skin.

  No more.

  She screamed and screamed and screamed and kept screaming until her lungs burned. Will I ever escape this pain? She pulled the chains. Yanked them. Nothing. She would never escape. Suffocating iron chains constricting everywhere . . .

  Where did the chains come from . . . ? Blood dribbled from her forehead and into her eyes. Her eye . . .

  She wiped the blood away and the stinging continued.

  I am dead. . . . I am in the underworld. . . .

  Once, as a young girl, she’d had the notion that there was no Laijon and certainly no heaven or underworld. She’d theorized that when a person died, their physical body was laid to rest, but their mind—their conscience—lived on in a perpetual dream state, and this eternal dream state was either joyful or nightmarish, depending on how you’d lived your life. Death was not the end of being. One’s spirit became a virtually powerless entity suspended in a dimensionless emptiness of agony or joy.

  I am rotting in a stone tomb. A cross-shaped tomb!

  Her face was a lump of agony. An insect of some kind began crawling over it. She wiped it away. Her hand met nothing. There was no insect. But I can hear them. Rats! Spiders! Spiders! On the floor all around me, eyeing me, wanting to nibble at my face.

  There was another bug. A beetle. She felt it scurrying around, its little feet dancing on her face. She kept swatting at herself.

  Get off, get off, get off, bugs! Painful bugs! Biting and biting and biting and . . .

  And then a bearded man with daggers for hands was wiping the bugs away for her. Yes . . . he will take care of me. . . .

  The bearded man, so familiar. Yet his arms were sheared off above the elbows, black tar covering the stumps. And like a nightmare, two silver daggers protruded from those stumps. But so familiar. Broad brows and a broad forehead sloping back to graying hair and deep-squinting eyes. Fearsome in a way . . .

  “I know.” His voice was gruff and scratchy. “They asked if I wanted the daggers removed. but I prefer to keep them.” A deep pain was hidden behind his eyes. “So I can use them to kill the horrid woman who placed them there.”

  Who? Jondralyn tried to ask, grimacing at the dryness of her throat. It seemed her mouth barely wor
ked, as if something muffled the sound of it, as if only half of it was even functional. Something was blocking her nose, forcing her to breathe through her mouth—or at least the corner of her mouth that worked.

  She tried speaking again. “Who?”

  “Was Enna Spades who did this to me.”

  She looked around. She wasn’t in a cave at all. Almost familiar . . .

  She was lying on her back in a warm room, looking up at a clay-mottled roof, rafters of dark timber stretching across. She tried to sit up. “No, no, no,” the bearded man admonished. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness all night. The Vallè sawbones has been watching over you. Cleaned you up mostly. Wrapped all them bandages about your face anyway. But he ain’t here right now. It’s just me and you.”

  Jondralyn reached up, straining, feeling with her fingers. Half her head, including one eye, was covered in cloth, and her neck was wrapped too. One eye! No wonder everything looked so strange and warped. And it all smelled of some type of sterilizing ointment too. “The grand vicar came in earlier,” the bearded man said. “Pronounced some kind of blessing over you. Said he’d be back soon. Said you would need privacy. They’ll more than likely move me out of here soon. I’m pretty much healed anyway.”

  She could see the bearded man only from the chest up. That was all that was visible of him above the blankets that had been piled over her. Everything still seemed skewed, distorted, and fuzzy.

  The room was full of hanging sheets and had a large window on the far end, streaming in sunlight. One wall was lined with a handful of beds and cots. The other was covered in an array of medical implements, saws and other horrid-looking tools she imagined were for cutting and poking and prodding. What looked like an old stone bread oven sat smack in the middle of the room. Glass jars of herbs and poultices and what appeared to be animal grease lined the shelves near the doorway. Cisterns and pots were under the shelves. She knew she was in the infirmary. Still, she asked the obvious, “Where am I?” But with the pain and stiffness of her face and mouth, it came out as “Wha ah I?” She tried again, enunciating slowly. “Where. Ham. Hi.” That didn’t sound right either.

  The man seemed to understand. “Infirmary. Amadon Castle. Do you even know what’s happened to you, Jondralyn?”

  The silver flash of a sword. She flinched.

  Imaginary hands flying up to block the imaginary blow. An oxcart.

  Hawkwood’s soothing touch. Fancy delusion. Leif Chaparral. She remembered him being there. And Culpa Barra. Her head was slowly clearing. Gault Aulbrek! “So foolsh,” she slurred. Her throat burned with thirst.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” the bearded man said. “They are all savages. Everyone in Aeros Raijael’s army is pure evil.” That haunted look was still fixed in the man’s eyes, as if he too had seen that same evil face-to-face. Daggers for arms! She focused on the man watching over her. Baron Jubal Bruk! That’s who he is!

  She remembered Leif Chaparral bringing the baron to Amadon in a wooden box, arms and legs chopped off by the enemy. He has a son in Gallows Haven. Sadness engulfed her, realizing the man had lost more than just his limbs. He had a son . . .

  “Jhuubal Brhuk?” She reached out a hand and latched on to his arm above the dagger, frustrated that her mouth wouldn’t work quite right. “Bharon Brhuk.”

  “Aye, you’re getting better. You woke up two hours ago and had no idea who I was. Val-Gianni’s medicines seem to be doing their job. The Vallè heal fast, and no wonder. Their medicines are a miracle. But you’ll likely be laid up awhile.”

  Things were becoming clearer now. She had some recollection of some events. She vaguely remembered Val-Gianni giving her a potion of some herbal concoction, mixed in with a draught of wine that he forced down her throat.

  She spied the white lumps of quickening lime for disinfecting surfaces on a stout wooden table between her bed and the wall. There was also a stone basin full of some sort of caustic chemical. She’d smelled it before as a child. The chemical was for ridding the infirmary of human blood and waste smells. Herbs and spices were bunched and piled on the table too: pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, poppy, and heather. They were fragrant.

  To rid the place of my stink?

  She feared what she must look like, what injuries she’d suffered at the hands of Gault Aulbrek. She could feel her arms and legs just fine. Everything seemed intact, but sore. She was horrified that the bulk of her face was covered in bandages. She wanted out of this place. Wanted her own bedchamber. There were guards outside the door of the infirmary, no doubt. I can order them to take me away. . . .

  There were two copper tankards and a ceramic pitcher of water on the table near her bed. She propped herself up carefully on one elbow and gingerly poured herself a drink. The water soothed her flaming throat.

  “Hawkwood,” she murmured once she set down the tankard, the vowels coming to her a bit easier now, her voice less slurred. “The dwarwf. Needs to know I’m okay. Roguemoore needs to know what’s happened.”

  “Hawkwood,” Jubal Bruk said. “He’s in Purgatory with the Sør Sevier knight who chopped your face—” He clamped his mouth shut, as if embarrassed he’d so callously used the word “chopped,” then went on. “And they say Roguemoore ain’t been seen in moons.”

  Does Roguemoore know what has happened to me? Does he know what happened to Hawkwood? Squireck Van Hester was not here, and she had no way of reaching him on Rockliegh Isles. Who could she trust? She placed her hand on the baron’s arm above the stump. “Find . . . Find . . .” She was losing focus.

  “Find your brother?”

  She shook her head. Pain flooded her body. “Vawl-Draekin. Find Vawl-Draekin for me. Bring him here.” She just couldn’t pronounce anyone’s name right.

  “The Vallè? That fellow who’s friends with Val-Korin’s daughter?”

  She dipped her head in affirmation.

  “I’m not in any condition to go wandering about the castle,” He held up the stumps of his arms and the daggers sticking from the tar, a hollow look entering his eyes. “More useless than a dwarf.” Then he smiled. “Oh, I reckon I’ve learned to move about some, but—”

  She patted his arm. It was a struggle talking, her mouth dry and hoarse from heavy breathing. “Please,” she rasped. “Please, for me.”

  “Aye, for you, Jondralyn.” He sat back, determination visible in his eyes. “I’ll get Val-Draekin here. Just might take a while.”

  †  †  †  †  †

  Baron Bruk’s search for Val-Draekin had taken most of the day; in the intervening time, Val-Gianni had tended to her. She’d asked the doctor to describe her injuries. But he had been hesitant to say, informing her that the grand vicar would come later and answer any questions she had.

  When Val-Draekin arrived, he explained everything, describing her wounds using his own face as example, drawing a line with his finger stretched from his forehead just above his right eye straight down to the left side of his chin. “The wound had been crudely sewn shut. My best guess is that Hawkwood did what he could to keep you alive.”

  She cleared her throat self-consciously, breathing heavily. She had no idea a person could miss breathing through their nose so much. Her mouth was bone dry from the strain of making up the difference. Horrified by the description of her injury, she wanted to block the image from her mind. “Baron Bruk mentioned Hawkwood was in Purgatory?”

  Val-Draekin’s eyes were shadowed with concern. “Hawkwood was paraded through the angry streets of Amadon straight to the Hall of the Dayknights and thrown into the dungeons with Gault Aulbrek. I’m afraid he won’t escape this time.”

  “Purgatory cannot hold Hawkwood.”

  “Leif has posted two Dayknight guards right outside his cell both day and night.”

  Her heart ached thinking of her beloved in Purgatory. He only stayed onboard the oxcart for my benefit. Now he suffers for my failures.

  So many failures. She again thought of Val-Draekin’s description
of her face. The visual wouldn’t leave her mind. How does one handle such disfigurement? She’d seen people grow old, knew it was hard for many to come to terms with aging and illness and injury or anything that changed their appearance. And her beauty had always been an intrinsic part of her life. What have I done to make the great One and Only forsake me so? Is it my own pride I am being punished for? Gul Kana was a prosperous realm, and she’d only wanted to protect that prosperity and way of life. She’d only wanted to usurp her brother in the arena to defend her kingdom from invasion, to fight off the oghul raids in the north and Aeros from the west. She’d only journeyed west with Leif to challenge the White Prince to hasten those goals. And also to attain my own glory as the Harbinger of Absolution as one of the Five Warrior Angels returned.

  Was it truly my own pride that caused this?

  She recalled the time she met Val-Draekin—his entrance into the Filthy Horse Saloon. Hawkwood claimed the Vallè had pickpocketed the sailors. She had defended his right to be in the saloon, even when the victims of his crime had insisted he leave. Yet they’d wanted him to leave based on his race, not because of his crimes. And that hadn’t seemed fair to her. But what was fairness anyway?

  She tried her utmost to focus on Val-Draekin with her one eye. “I need ask a great f-favor of you.” Her speech was still shaky. Still she met his calm gaze, unblinking. “You must go to Lord’s Point for me. You must go and find Roguemoore. The dwarf. The Thurn—the Turn Key Saloon was to be their rhendevue . . . rend . . . the place they were to meet up . . .” She inwardly cursed her inability to make sense. “The dwarf must know what has happened to me and Hawkwood. That we both still live.”

  “Lord’s Point,” the Vallè stated. “Are you sure that is where he will be?”

  She nodded. “You are the only one I dare ashk . . . dare ask. And you must go alone. Nobody must know where you have gone. Use the King’s Highway. Four days at most to get there. I will get you enough coin for the tolls.” She grabbed his arm.

  He sat back, brows sharp with contemplation. “You must understand, I can’t just leave Seita and her father without an explanation.” She could see his mind pondering the request, mulling over the implications. After a moment, he stood and bowed at the waist. “I will do this for you. I will find the dwarf and let him know of your fate.”