The Last Benediction in Steel

by Wright, Kevin

  “Ain’t about ‘start,’ little brother.” I gripped my blade, watching his back, head on a swivel.

  Eventine’s chest glistened with drool and vomit. Bone protruded from his left forearm, a shard of white biting through like the beak of a baby bird. “Who…?” Eventine’s eyes were distant, far-seeing, his voice an unearthly warbling peal, “Dietrick … please … no.”

  “This ain’t your thing,” I said.

  “No, I … I’ll do it.” Stephan stood there, his one hand out toward me, open, waiting.

  We stared at each other a moment, insanity swirling.

  “Fuck off.” I shouldered past, cause even if it were the right thing to do, the only sensible thing to do, it still didn’t make it the easy thing. “Where’s Lady Mary?” I hissed in Eventine’s ear.

  “Phff…” Eventine’s eyes bulged as blackguards slashed past. He struggled to speak, “For…”

  “Is she alive?!”

  “For…” His eyes rolled as he sneered in pain, lips working, “…get.”

  Karl set his feet and turned, his grim demeanor as much as his axe an immovable stone cleaving the current amid the river of surging flesh.

  “Get what? You little prick!?” I grabbed a fistful of Eventine’s hair, shook him, screaming, squealing, bleeding. “Is she fucking dead? Huh? What about the others?”

  “Stop … please.”

  “Brother—” Stephan grabbed my shoulder.

  “Fuck off!” I shrugged off his paw and ducked as a cadre of bodies flashed past, the spark of steel on steel, Karl haranguing them off. “What of the others? Ruth? The children? Did you kill them?”

  “Dietrick, please … no,” Eventine flinched, swallowed, blinking, his tongue working sluggish and imprecise, grey lips contorting, “It was Palatine. To … to forget…”

  A mercenary blasted past, hunted down by a trio of Jesuses latched onto him, bearing him to the mud astride his back, one throttling as the others flogged him rotten.

  “You what?!” I forced my blade against his throat.

  Eventine mouthed the words again, “Forget…”

  Eventine never finished, and never thanked me, but I didn’t ask for either. I didn’t care. I just offered him one last benediction in steel, then shoved Stephan stumbling numb before me, wiping my blade clean on my pant leg.

  The Schloss loomed ahead.

  …though the younger is a beauty much in line with Lady Catherine, the eldest is staid, strong of body and mind, and thus more apt to withstand the rigors of…

  —Haesken Family Treatise: King Eckhardt Haesken III

  Chapter 59.

  A MAD HOWL erupted within the Schloss. Somewhere distant. Somewhere deep. A mad howl? Nay. Madness indicates some modicum of humanity, however twisted. But this? Shorn completely. I skidded to a halt, freezing as I stared up at the mad tapestry, the demon-king monstrosity crucified across it. “C’mon.” I hustled onward, forced open a door to the stairwell as another howl erupted.

  “What the fuck was that?” Karl white-knuckled his thane-axe.

  “Your mother in town?” I quipped. But I was just talking tough.

  “Shhh—” Stephan held up a hand.

  Something was pounding below. On metal. Clanging. Hammering. Squealing. Dust drizzled from the ceiling with each stroke. Vibration shivered through the soles of my feet, reverberating up my legs, through my guts, fluttering in my heart.

  “The dungeon?” Stephan asked.

  “Don’t know.” I shook my head and loped up the stairs. “Don’t want to know.”

  We found Ruth in her room, splayed across the floor. She hadn’t gone quietly. Dried blood smeared from the hearth, across the room to the bed. Scorch marks soiled her dress. Her back’d been broken.

  Karl craned his neck past me, offered a growl, which about summed up my thoughts.

  “Jesus…” I swallowed. “And we left them.”

  “Don’t have the time,” Karl rumbled.

  Stephan wiped a tear from his eye then lifted Ruth like a child, setting her in bed next to Abraham.

  The hearth was cold, nothing but ashes shifting on the grate. A bowl of cold stew sat on the table.

  Stephan laid Ruth’s hand in Abraham’s, clasped them both, then covered them with a blanket.

  “You ready yet?” I asked.

  Stephan just gave me a look.

  Karl sniffed the old stew, slurped it down, wiped his mouth.

  I trudged around the room, searching for something. A clue. A message. A something. An anything that might point to what happened to Lady Mary and the kids. All’s I found was Avar, slumped in the corner, cold and grey and full of holes.

  I closed his dull eyes.

  “He stayed by their side.” Stephan crossed himself. “He didn’t run.”

  “Bloody well should have,” Karl spat on the floor.

  “What of the Queen-Mother?” Stephan asked. “And Palatine?”

  “Who gives a shit?” Karl growled.

  “Lady Mary?”

  “I don’t know.” I stalked the room, flipped over a table. “She probably took off. She ain’t stupid. Took off and hunkered down … I don’t know … somewhere.” I hoped. Or she was dead. Probably, they were all dead. Slain. Hacked to pieces. Tortured…

  Stephan glared out the window at the flames rolling in the courtyard. They’d set the stables afire, and the horses inside were screaming. A few of the mob hammered at the door to no avail.

  “What now?” Karl stood grimacing by the door. He wanted to be gone.

  I felt his pain. Intensely.

  “We stick to the plan,” I said. “We get the hell out of here. And we don’t look back.”

  “We can’t.” Stephan was crawling out of his skin. “We — We can’t just fold.”

  I squared up on him.

  Stephan met my glare pound for pound and, being honest, outweighed me on that score by some ten stone of righteous might. But he didn’t know what else to do. Where to go. How to find them. If finding them was even an option.

  Stephan rose up straight. “We cannot abandon them.”

  “Forget them, brother,” I spat the sour bile taste from my mouth, “just like Eventine said.”

  “Rose of Sharon—” Stephan’s eyes lit up as though he’d seen the Holy Ghost.

  …cannot include my father-by-law in the rigors and travails of this ignoble business. And thus, it falls to lesser men to accompany me upon this venture. I know of two such candidates…

  —Haesken Family Treatise: King Eckhardt Haesken III

  Chapter 60.

  SCOURGER AND BLACKGUARD hurled themselves against one another in the great hall, a mad grapple, blades singing, thudding, hammer-fists rising, falling, men screaming, fingers digging into eye sockets, teeth biting, breaking. Amid the madness of slaughter and chant, like a musician conducting an distorted orchestra, the Nazarene towered, whirling a huge flail overhead, striking friend and foe alike. “Come to me, brothers!”

  Scourgers poured in.

  Karl and Stephan hunkered at my back, the three of us huddled behind a cracked door.

  The Nazarene grasped one of von Madbury’s blackguards — no. Grasp’s the wrong word. He reached into one of von Madbury’s blackguards, his hand gliding into the blackguard’s chest as effortlessly as if it were a pool of tepid gruel. The blackguard’s teeth shattered as the Nazarene throttled the life from him, pulverizing a fistful of organ and sinew.

  “A foul horror doth dwell within!” The Nazarene ripped his hand free, a wet splattering arc, the corpse falling to the ground, just another lump of meat. “And it is we who must eradicate it!” The Nazarene’s gaze swept the hall, falling my way as he cast innards aside like ripped fish-guts. “Brother!”

  “Back up—” I hissed, pushing back, shoving, tensing, preparing to do what I did best. Turn tail. Beat feet. Trample Stephan and Karl if need be.

  “Krait!” The Nazarene pointed. “Go!”

  A crossbow bolt thudded into his throat
, blasting matter backward. Unperturbed, the Nazarene lurched toward the shooter.

  “Cut the monstrosity down!” von Madbury tore in, tulwar slashing.

  “Fucker—” I lunged forth, but Karl yanked me back, growling, “Stifle it, ya bloody fool!”

  Lazarus descended upon von Madbury, all gangling like some stick insect, swinging a two-fisted scourge. The knotted wrap of leather and iron spike whipped past von Madbury’s head as he ducked forth, whipping his blade out. It arced too fast to follow and cut Lazarus’s leg off below the knee, felling him screaming.

  The Nazarene and Jesuses whipped around.

  Gideon Felmarsh entered the fray, two-handing a broad-blade and crucifying a Jesus with a single swing.

  “We gotta move,” I grunted.

  “No shit,” Karl scowled.

  “Door’s across the hall,” Stephan gasped. “There’s no other way.”

  “You sure about this?” I hissed.

  “Flee then, brother,” Stephan stood poised to dash, “I’ll find the path,” and took off through the fray.

  “Fuck—” I grunted, charging after, Karl hounding fast at my heels.

  The chanting Jesuses fell swiftly under the blackguards’ onslaught, but the Nazarene yet held court, front and center to it all. His cowl fell back, the caved-in ruin of his head revealed horrible in the rippling gloom. Gripping a blackguard by the throat, he bellowed — “Go, brother!” — his fingers melting through liquid flesh.

  “Surround him!” Von Madbury slashed at the Nazarene’s tree-trunk legs. “Hack him down!”

  Gideon Felmarsh and Brother Miles spread out as more Jesuses poured like a wave through the front door. Von Madbury formed a shield wall with four others and turned to face them.

  “Come to me, brothers, sing of the glory of God!” the Nazarene screamed as von Madbury’s cohorts descended upon him. “Descend to the depths! Burn free the horror that has taken hold!”

  I had no idea what the fucker was jawing about. Was barely listening, but it was working its way into my brain to the sound of steel hacking into flesh.

  “The light!” the Nazarene bellowed, “Yes. The light!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” someone screamed.

  “The light!”

  I hurtled out the door behind Stephan, turned and slammed it behind Karl. My last glimpse? The Nazarene borne to the ground, a legion of sword blades thrust into him. Through him. Upon his knees, one arm hacked clean of his body and lying by his side, he bellowed, “The light, brother! The light!”

  …Catherine must have somehow escaped from the blasted horror, for she harangues the populace during the time of the new moon, spreading discord and terror in much the same manner as the Half-King…

  —Haesken Family Treatise: King Eckhardt Haesken III

  Chapter 61.

  EVENTINE WAS BABBLING,” I snarled. “He didn’t know where the hell he was. What was going on. All’s he knew? His ride was over.”

  The sound of feet pounding, weapons clanging, bastards screaming, were all but distant echoes muffled above. It was small comfort, though, for now it was the unearthly keen below that froze my step. My blood. My soul. The howls and pounding that above had been thunderheads on a distant horizon down here were a raucous storm.

  “Eventine said, ‘forget them,’” Stephan huffed. “And you’re right, he was nearly gone. Nearly dead. Driven mad by torture. Anguish. Despair. But, what if in his muddled mind by saying ‘forget them,’ he was alluding to the oubliette?”

  “Oobli-what?” Karl slunk along behind.

  “Just shut up and follow along. Literally, if not figuratively.”

  “F-Figure…? Eh…? What?” Karl grunted.

  “Jesus Christ.” I paused at the bottom of the stairs and waited. Listened. Swallowed. The wine cellar lay at the far end of the hall. All beyond lay quiet. I rounded on Stephan. “We’re risking our necks down here on word of that dying shit?”

  “Where do you put someone you want to forget?” Stephan crept along behind.

  “In the ground,” Karl rumbled low.

  “He ain’t wrong,” I said.

  “Well, yes, I suppose.” Stephan nodded in half-hearted agreement. “Or … the oubliette.”

  “Huh?” Karl hefted his axe.

  “A kind of dungeon,” I said. “Shaped like a bottle. Entrance and exit through a thin neck up top. A wider chamber below.” Not a place for someone you wished to release. To interrogate. To ever see again. And the poor bastards whose job it was to muck it out every century or so…

  “So, why’re we going to the oobli … oobli…” Karl shook his shaggy head. “Bloody bottle dungeon?”

  “Cause my idiot brother thinks a dying man was spouting riddles with his last breath.” And we were both all-in right beside him. Footsteps pounded, dim and distant. I held up a hand as we reached the heavy wine cellar door. Taking a breath, I turned the door handle and burst in, blade drawn.

  Within, the wine racks stood as empty as the room. Empty, a beautiful word for once. “Let’s be quick.”

  “Not riddles per se.” Stephan followed me in. “But he was confused. Begging for his life. He thought you were von Madbury at first. And at last? I … I don’t know. He was having difficulty gathering the strength even to speak.” Stephan fixed me an eye. “At the very least, he seemed to genuinely care for Lady Mary, yes?”

  I considered, offered a shrug. “Yeah. Sure. In his own shitty way, maybe. He mentioned Palatine, too. Muddled, but—”

  “Perhaps they sought to protect her?” Stephan offered. “And perhaps amid all the fight and furor Eventine sought in his own broken way, fighting through fugue and pain, to relay what little he was left privy to.”

  “So you think he said it in a way that only us educated assholes would have the wherewithal to work it out?” I scowled.

  “Hrrm,” Karl thumbed Stephan’s way, “think it was only this educated asshole.”

  “That remains yet to be seen,” I said.

  Stephan crept past one of the racks, toward the dungeon-door, “Let’s just hope it’s so.”

  Cause if it wasn’t, we were sticking out necks out for a bunch of corpses, I didn’t say.

  “Jesus—” I froze.

  A mighty crash resounded beyond the dungeon-door, accompanied by the sound of metal squealing in protest, rock shifting, mortar cracking. Then howling. Like some idiot child deprived of its favorite toy.

  Stephan grabbed at a rack to steady himself.

  “Think I just pissed myself,” I breathed.

  “I’ll etch it on yer tombstone,” Karl said.

  “And I’ll piss on yours.”

  Stephan paused by the dungeon-door. “Can you feel it?” His hand hovered, trembling above the latch. “What is it?”

  “Don’t know, brother, but I can feel it, too.” I looked to Karl. “Feel something, anyways.”

  The air was dense. With a palpable greasiness to it, a weight, as if the Schloss above were compressing it somehow, making it thicker, heavier, denser. And there was a reek. A rotten sweetness I couldn’t quite place but knew was wrong. All wrong.

  The pounding reverberated, waning back to silence.

  None of us said anything and despite every intuition, every feeling in my body, my gut, my bones, I started forth.

  “Odin’s eye,” Karl spat. “The Half-King…”

  “Shit.” I straightened, froze. “Yeah.” The feel. The smell. The same as the crypt of the Half-King. The same but … different. A rawer. Heavier. Muskier stench. Like fresh-spawned death. I glared at Karl and he at me. His eyes blared, We could still just fucking bolt! And mine were undoubtedly agreeing in full. Signed in triplicate. Notarized — Stephan gripped the latch, tore open the dungeon-door and strode through like Ulysses into the underworld.

  “Fuck—” Tail between my legs, head down, I scurried after him like someone less.

  Four grated cell doors stood off to either side. Each lay empty. Condensed damp dripped from the ceil
ing, forming shallow pools across uneven floor. A prerequisite, no doubt, for any proper dungeon. I imagined Queen Elona and von Madbury down here, breathing hoarse, whispering, rutting hard in the fetid dark.

  “Over here,” Karl pointed low with his thane-axe, “two of ‘em.”

  Stephan lifted his lantern.

  Two iron trapdoors set into the floor. Both were closed, locked, though the further of the two had seen better days. Its corners were knurled up, bent, as though hammered from within by some mighty force.

  “Hrrm…” Karl gripped his thane-axe. “Don’t like the looks.”

  “Yeah.” I stepped back. “Me neither. How’s that one?”

  Stephan set his lantern down. “Looks intact.”

  “Okay, let’s try that one first.” And the second one? Never.

  “Karl,” Stephan held out a hand, “your hand-axe, please.”

  “Yar. Here.” Karl dug it from his belt and tossed it.

  Stephan caught it on the fly and hacked at the hasp, wincing at each blow.

  I hefted Yolanda. Swallowed. Sweat beaded round my eyes. I nodded down at the deformed trap at Karl’s foot. “Be ready to run.”

  Karl stood over it with his thane-axe raised for a killing blow. He made no smart-ass comment, no grumble, he just adjusted his grip and waited.

  Stephan hacked and hacked, grimacing as sparks flew.

  “Any progress?”

  “Almost…” Stephan brushed hair from his eyes and kept at it.

  “Hrm…” Karl shifted his feet. “Something below’s pissed.”

  I glared out the dungeon-door. “Put your back into it.”

  “Almost…” Stephan grunted, hacked, then hacked again. The rusted hasp finally gave and Stephan slid aside, gripping a ring set in the trapdoor.