“Inquisition!” Kam said. “You jest!”
“No, I’m quite serious.” Ruut rubbed an amulet on his chest.
The hair on Fogle’s neck prickled. “This is a matter for the City Watch, not an inquisition.”
“Kam’s father disagrees,” Ruut said. “And the City Watch is busy these days, dealing with other things.”
“Call them underlings,” Fogle said.
“There are many matters at play that I am sure you are unaware of.”
Fogle’s hands formed white-knuckled fists. The arrogance of the Royals in the towers infuriated him. Their buildings could be toppling from the sky and they would still deny it before they acted.
“But,” Ruut continued, “I’m not here to discuss other matters. I’m here to find out what happened to Jaen. And if you don’t tell me, there will be an inquisition.”
Fogle’s eyes searched for Kam’s, but she wasn’t looking at him. He followed her stare out the window.
Troops were coming, a dozen soldiers on horses with an accompaniment of foot soldiers. There were magi, too, wearing purple robes streaked in blue.
“Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong place,” Fogle said. “It wouldn’t be the first time the Order was wrong. I seem to remember a few cases where many innocent people died.”
“Let’s not be coy, Fogle. Though it’s good to know that you still have some banter within you.” Ruut passed through the sofa and stood in the middle of the coffee table. “I’d advise you not to say anything that could be put on the record.”
“Oh, I’m on trial, am I?”
“You will be soon enough. And not just you, as I mentioned before, but all of you.”
“You can’t just make an accusation off of an assumption—”
“Fogle, stop,” Kam said. She got up out of her rocker, still staring out the window. Her eyes widened.
Fogle looked. The Magi Roost was surrounded.
Kam sighed. Tears streamed down her face. “It’s me you want.”
“Pardon?” Ruut said, drifting closer.
Kam turned to face him and opened her mouth to speak.
“Don’t,” Fogle said. His words had no effect.
She said, “I know where Jaen is.”
Ruut lifted a brown eyebrow. “And that would be where?”
“Where she belongs. In the ground. Dead.”
Ruut’s bright eyes shone big as moons. “And you killed her?”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER 32
Venir ground his teeth. Kam came down the steps with Erin in her arms. Fogle was by her side, and the shade of a man glided behind them. At the bottom of the steps, Joline waited.
Kam handed her the baby and spoke soft words. “You’ll be safe. Take care of her until I return.”
“But,” Joline sobbed. She mopped her eyes with a rag. “You can’t—”
Kam and Fogle walked by, side by side, chins down.
The envoy for the Order had a satisfied look on his face. He said to the rest of the room, “I’ll be back, so don’t leave town until this is over.”
“Kam,” Venir said, blocking the exit. “What is the meaning of this? What is going on?”
She didn’t look up at him. Instead, she tried to go around him.
He laid his hands on her shoulders and stopped her.
“Let go,” she said, firmly but softly.
“She goes to suffer the inquisition,” Fogle said, “It’s for all our good. She’ll clear it up—”
“Be silent, you scrawny toad,” Venir said. “Kam has a tongue of her own.” He wanted to shake her. “Talk to me!”
She looked up into his eyes and said, “Just get out of my way and let me do this.”
The venom in her voice made him angry. He didn’t understand what he’d done that was so horrible. He couldn’t fight off the feeling that he might not ever see her again.
“Kam,” he said, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“It feels good leaving you for a change and not the other way around.” She brushed by him. “And don’t feel a need to stick around. I’m certain I’ll be gone awhile.”
Two soldiers pulled the double doors open and another stepped up with shackles. Armored in chain hauberks, the soldier locked up her wrists and shoved her forward.
Venir exploded into movement.
Kam’s ear-shattering voice stopped him in his tracks. “BE STILL, YOU FOOL!”
Rattled and dismayed, Venir let his arms fall limp at his sides.
Seconds later, Kam, Ruut, and the entourage of soldiers were gone. Joline sobbed, and Erin started to cry. Venir picked up a table and slung it across the room. After that, everyone fell silent until Fogle spoke again.
“She has a plan, Venir.”
“And she shared it with you, not me?”
“I was there.”
“A funny thing, you being there, Fogle,” Venir said, coming forward. He glared down into Fogle’s eyes.
Fogle was tall but still shorter by several inches. He didn’t back down. There was no fear in him.
“Care to explain?” Venir said.
“We’re men. I don’t need to explain anything.”
Venir closed his fist.
“You might be fast, Venir, but you aren’t faster than my thoughts.” He paused. “I’m not the enemy. They are. Why don’t we talk about what is going on, what we’ll do next? How we can help her through this madness?”
Venir stepped closer. He could feel a force around Fogle. A shield of some sort, keeping him at bay. The wizard’s words were suggestive as well. Almost soothing. Venir felt his temper begin to cool.
“Let’s sit,” Fogle suggested. “And eat. And I’m even willing to confess my side of things.”
Venir looked away and started to turn. “I’ll grab some chairs.”
“I’ll snatch a bottle from the—”
Venir struck.
Whop!
His fist collided with Fogle’s chest, knocking the man off his feet and into the newly reconstructed bar.
The wizard clutched his chest, sucking for air.
“Don’t toy with me, Fogle. I won’t hold back next time.” He sat his big frame down at a table with two chairs near the fireplace. “And I don’t want wine. I want ale.”
Fogle dragged himself over to Venir’s table, chest sore and hot with anger. Even with a protective spell up, he had felt every bit of that jarring punch. “You didn’t have to do that,” he wheezed. “I was being reasonable.”
“Were you being reasonable when you moved in on Kam?”
Fogle sat down across from him, looked into his eyes, and said with sincerity, “She moved in on me.”
“I see.” Venir sat broad and stone faced.
Fogle couldn’t read him. “She riles the blood with a single look. I’d be lying …”
Venir held his palm out. “Don’t say anything else I don’t want to hear you say. Let’s talk about this inquisition, shall we?”
Nearby, Brak and Jubilee sat long faced and quiet.
Jasper brought a pitcher of ale and placed it on the table and took a seat.
Fogle eyed her.
“I’ve heard things,” she said. “I’d just never had them confirmed before. Have you witnessed an Inquisition?”
Fogle’s heart became heavy. He had. And he had enjoyed it. “I watched an older man be picked apart by a jury of peers. His mind melded to theirs. His grey matter twisted like entrails. All because he had a disagreement with a higher member in the Order. Accusations followed. It went on for weeks. One interrogation after the other with little rest. The man was never the same after that, but he wasn’t found guilty, either. He departed, body intact, mind desecrated. I can’t remember the man’s name, but he didn’t confess. He just shivered, mumbled, and walked away.”
“She didn’t do it,” Jubilee spoke up. “I did.”
“I know,” Fogle said, “but that doesn’t matter now. They want to make an example out of some
body, not nobody.”
“Excuse me?” Jubilee said.
“Don’t pout,” Fogle said, “unless you misinterpret my meaning.”
Jubilee scrunched her eyebrows.
“Consider yourself fortunate, for the moment,” Fogle added. “They’ll be coming back at some point, I imagine.”
“Do you think they’ll come back for us?” Jasper said.
“Possibly.”
“Great,” Jasper said. “I knew I should have gotten out of this place.”
***
Venir spun a coin on the table. Jubilee and Jasper bickered with Fogle. Brak shuffled out to the stables, where he could be heard splitting small logs into kindling. Venir had never seen the Magi Roost like this. Cold. Quiet. It was just them. He tried to pluck the coin off the table, and it splashed into his tankard of ale.
“Humph,” he grunted.
A warm fire on his back and a pitcher of ale couldn’t soothe his restlessness. Inside, he burned. The Royals here were just as callous as the Royals in Bone, it seemed. Turning a blind eye to the evil that manifested in the city. Making examples of citizens and not the enemy.
Disgusting.
He sat and drank for another hour, itching for a fight. He wanted to head to the Outland. Tear into the underlings. He wanted to climb the towers and toss the Royals out on their heads. He’d had his fill of the both of them. It seemed the entire world was against him.
Heavy knocks came at the door.
Knock knock knock knock!
“Should I get it?” Jubilee said, popping out of her chair. She rushed to the window. “I see some men, but it’s pretty dark outside. Why’s the lantern sign out, anyway? Brak, isn’t that your job? Oh, never mind.”
The pounding became harder.
“Let us in!”
Knock knock knock knock!
Hand on the hilt of his knife, Venir lumbered over. “I’ll handle it.” He lifted the bar from the doors and swung one inward.
A roughly cut bunch spilled inside.
“He said to bring him here,” one said. He was a half orc, pit faced and scarred. Bandages covered several wounds.
“I stopped the bleeding, but he’s still unsettled,” another man said. He wore the insignia of a Royal soldier and carried Melegal’s limp form in his arms. “But I don’t know if he has much time left in him. He lost a lot of blood. He’s almost gone.”
CHAPTER 33
“How do you like the view?” Pall said, puffing on a cigar.
From the lip of a crevice, Lefty gazed over the scorched Outland and swallowed. The heat of the blinding suns was exhilarating. Tears formed in his eyes. He had been in the mist and darkness so long that he’d almost forgotten the feeling of true light.
“It’s as beautiful as I ever saw.”
“Beautiful, this wasteland? Har. Hot, sandy, and no water for miles, leagues maybe. Days longer than nights. You’ve a funny way of interpreting things, halfling.”
“Perhaps,” Lefty said. He lengthened his stride and headed down into the cactus-filled valley. “But at least it’s full of light. Thanks for taking me out of there.” He didn’t glance back at the fog that covered Hohm’s marsh. Scorch had put him there, and he wouldn’t go there again. He wanted to be as far away as he could get from Hohm, the dreary city. And he hoped he never saw another wart again. “Thanks for the water,” he said, waving back and patting the skin that Pall had given him.
“Har! Where are you going? You can’t traverse the Outland alone.” He caught up with Lefty. “Fool of a half person, slow your pace. Reckon with me where yer going.”
Lefty pointed southeast and said, “That way.”
“And what is that way?”
Lefty shrugged. “I’ll find out when I get there.”
“Har!” Pall said, squinting his bushy brows and surveying the landscape. It was nothing but miles of mirages, sand, and thickets of bone-dry trees. “Looks to be as good a place to go as any. May I join you?”
“Sure,” Lefty said, resuming his pace. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Hee hee.
***
Sniff. Sniff.
Eep filled his beak with air and rummaged through the cave. A soft green glow illuminated the cavern that rested along the water of the Current.
Find something? Trinos asked.
“Possibly.”
He hopped up on a large crimson velvet sofa and sniffed it. Oran’s scent still lingered on it. Verbard’s did as well, and some others. He hopped over to a large wooden table where several vials and jars rested. A halfling’s head was pickled in a jar on one end. A pair of orc hands was in another. He picked up the jar with the halfling head, shook it, and cackled.
Put that down and move on.
He checked the shelves full of many jars and faces. The cells in the caves, where he had killed and tormented so many, lay undisturbed and open. The smell of rotting flesh lingered in the air. Cave bugs, some as big as his clawed feet, picked the skeletons clean of flesh.
“Ah!” he said, walking over, picking up a squirming bug that screeched, and swallowing it down. He patted his hard belly and licked his mouth. “Mmmm—uuuurp!”
Disgusting. Move on, Eep.
“Yes. Yes, Mistress.”
Wringing his clawed hands, he buzzed out of the cell. He missed all the things he had done with Oran. All the torture and mutilation. The underling cleric had turned him loose on so many things and let him do what he was designed to do: tear flesh asunder.
He landed on the sandy shore and lay his claw down in some footprints. Another underling’s scent lingered, and someone else’s as well. He could feel power and see a lingering yellow outline of magic that passed through Bish into another dimension.
I can see it.
“You can?”
I have a discerning eye. I know what I’m looking for. Well done, Eep.
“Yesss, can I kill something now?”
Now that you’ve found the trail, can you find it again?
“Once I have it,” he said, wringing his hands, “I’ll never lose it.”
Hmmm … I need to see his face first. Once I’m convinced, I’ll turn you loose on a new enemy.
Eep’s wings buzzed to life. He zipped over the still water, creating ripples. Claws bared and tongue hanging out, he said, “I can’t wait to see him, myself.”
***
Scorch stared up at a towering onyx statue of an underling mage holding up severed heads from all the races but its own. Blood dripped from the necks, filling a red death pool below, and the heads were still screaming. The garden was filled with statues of this sort, some far more grotesque, others absolutely beautiful, but dark.
“Beauty is in the eye of the holder, I suppose,” Scorch said, walking away. He locked his arms behind his back and eyed the details of everything. “Your kind certainly has a very devilish way of looking at things. It leaves me … conflicted.”
“I see nothing conflicting about any of this.”
“Oh, I’m not conflicted about your kind. I’m conflicted about something else.”
“I see.”
Sidebor and Scorch had spent hours in the gardens now, talking about many things among handfuls of urchlings that tended to the gardens.
“Allies, Sidebor. I think it’s time we sought any you may have.”
“I’m certain they are all dead.”
“Perhaps, but the Underland is abandoned, the forces divided. Not all can be happy about this?”
“The underlings are united in their conquest. They’ll see things through, conquer, and begin the bickering later.”
“I see. So have the underlings ever conquered the surface before? After all, you have been around a long time.”
“We’ve had our moments.”
“But you couldn’t sustain them?”
Sidebor’s ruby eyes narrowed, and his claws dug into his palms. “Victory on Bish has never been sustainable.”
“How entertaining,” Scorch said, staring up at a s
tatue of a great troll stuffing two muscular human warriors into its mouth. “It seems my grasp of things has been enlightened.”
“How so?” Sidebor took his gaze away from the statue and searched for Scorch, but Scorch was gone. Movement caught his eye. Underling soldiers in dark plate armor came his way. Underling magi in dark, velvety robes hemmed him in from above.
Inside his head, he heard Scorch laughing. “Ishfuhn!”
It was an underling curse.
A ring of silver fire dropped from above and encircled him with lightning-like bonds. He howled and screamed. The more he fought, the stronger the force became.
“Ishfuhn!”
Sidebor submitted and with a heavy head was marched to Sinway’s castle.
CHAPTER 34
Melegal lay flat on the tavern floor, bruised and bloody. His scrawny chest rose and fell. His fingers twitched, and his lips were curled up on one side.
“The bleeding stopped,” Joline said. She’d rubbed a magic salve on his neck that sealed the gaping wound. She adjusted the stained white bandage around his neck. “He’ll survive just fine, but we need to get that bolt out of his leg, too.”
“I’ll do it,” Venir said, stepping forward and kneeling alongside his friend. He’d hardly seen a scratch on Melegal before, not even when they were children. Now the resilient but bony man looked half dead. It disturbed him.
Joline rested her hands on his shoulders. “I’ll handle this. You men cause damage. Leave it to us women to stitch the wounds.” She shook her head. “Just scoot.”
Venir rose up and scowled at the men who had carried Melegal in. They had wounds of their own.
One man unbuckled his plate armor. He was well knit with the mannerisms of a soldier. The half orc was taller than Venir, but leaner. He’d shaven most of his face, unlike most orcs. He wrapped clothes around a gash in his hairy arm and tore it with his teeth. The other two were mintaurs. Scuffed up and bloody, they didn’t say a word or attempt to patch their wounds.
“What happened?”
The soldier stepped forward, extending his hand. “I’m Zurth. Your comrade hired me from Palzor.” He paused when Venir didn’t accept his hand. “Sort of.”
The Darkslayer: Bish and Bone Series Collector's Edition (Books 1-10): Sword and Sorcery Masterpieces Page 42
