Crown (The Manhunters Book 3)

by Jesse Teller

  “You knew to pay a toll to get us free of the Bone Collector.”

  “A being like that only works in bribes. That was a guess,” Tate said with a light laugh. It hit the air wrong, sounding again like manipulation.

  “You are leading us in a perfect line,” Roth said. “Do not say you are not.”

  “I am just wandering here. I’m waiting for the sale of the sword, for a new owner so we can track it. Until then, I just decided to keep moving.”

  Roth shoved Tate and roared. “You’re lying!” Roth’s anger fueled his mind. He seemed to breathe easier, to see clearer. Rage made the world weigh on him to a lesser degree.

  Tate took the shove and let it move him back. He smiled at the ground. When he looked back up, Roth’s skin crawled. Tate seemed ready to carve Roth’s heart out.

  “Again,” Tate said, waving Roth forward. “Touch me again.” Tate looked up and flexed his fingers in his bone white gloves. “Please.”

  Roth stared at his brother with bladed eyes. The two other men grunted something to each other before Arcturus stepped in front of Roth. He saw the warrior’s shoulder dip, saw a flash of bright light, and woke up on the ground with a cape folded up and set under his head.

  The sun above them grew dimmer, but the heat issuing from it seemed to be intensifying. Roth looked up to see Arcturus sitting beside him.

  “He is awake,” the grizzled warrior said. He spat something and stood, walking away.

  When Roth sat up, his head screamed. His vision wavered before his eyes settled on a man sitting before them.

  He wore his black hair long and shaggy. It was filthy with oil and crust. The black was shot through with white, and Roth had no way of knowing for sure what age this man was. He carried a sword on his back that seemed smaller than it should be. He wore boiled leather armor and chain pants with holes ripped through them patched with wire and sinew. His eyes were haunted like nothing Roth had ever seen, and his hands gave off a slight tremble.

  His skin was dark chestnut brown as if from the sun, and beside him sat a satchel mended with patches of what could have been demon hide or worse. His lips were black as his teeth when he smiled.

  “Good evening, Roth Callden. It is good to make your acquaintance. I am Byron, Byron Pollax. I am hoping you will let me help.”

  Roth rubbed his jaw, feeling horrid pain, and he looked at Arcturus. The warrior nodded and winked.

  “I think us kin,” Roth said.

  “You have Pollax blood?” Byron said. The words seemed to hurt him more than a little to say, as if they were in some way terrible to think on.

  “My mother was born a Pollax.” Roth thought about the coincidences that needed to occur in order for this man to be kin to him, and though the idea was shocking and unbelievable, he was far too tired to react as he should.

  “I have been here for generations beyond count, I’m sure. I will not know your mother’s name, but tell it to me anyway. Hearing the name of another Pollax would soothe me, I think.”

  “Her name was Meredith,” Tate said as he sat up. “She married the Mestlven line. The world knew her best as Sob.”

  The man hung his head. He heaved a great sigh and wiped his face slowly with both hands. “I do not know her.” The words carried with them some pain Roth could not name. “But I will aid her sons in any way I can.

  “I need my tarps back. And we need to get moving. We have to make it to the edge of the Brittle Wastes before that sun goes dark,” Byron said.

  Roth looked at the man before glancing down and seeing he was laying on a sheet of leather. Though thin, it had the ability to shield him against the spikes rising out of the ground.

  Roth stood, his head railing as he did, and he rolled the tarp up. He handed it back to Byron, who unfurled it, folded it and rolled it in a particular way. He took Tate’s tarp as well and tucked it into his sack.

  “What all do you have in there?” Tate asked. He seemed to be asking what it would take to make a survival pack for the wastes of Hell. Roth did not like the question.

  “A little bit of luck and a pinch of wonder.” Byron did not look at Tate when he rose. “You have the Pollax jawline,” Byron said as he seemed to be fighting back tears. Roth wondered at that, but said nothing.

  “We have to keep moving. We need to be across a skin bridge by nightfall,” the man said. “Turn your backs to the horizon and walk backwards.” Byron turned around and headed the direction Tate had been going.

  Roth obeyed, as did Tate and Burke. Arcturus scoffed and kept walking forward. Soon he began to slip away. In a brief moment, he was nearly gone. He spun quickly, running to them backwards.

  Roth turned to look back, and Byron touched his cheek with two fingers and brought his eyes around.

  “Do not look back,” the man said. “The Brittle Wastes is arrogant. If it sees you looking away, it will grasp you. You have to stare at it as you leave, or it will not let you walk away. You have to trick the Brittle Wastes into letting you leave.”

  “You talk about it like it is a man,” Arcturus said.

  “Not a man, a monster. It is hungry, and its mouth opens when night falls. It devours anything that stands upon it.”

  Roth looked up at the sky. The sun was dimming quite a bit. Fear rioted in his chest at the idea of its setting. “How long until the sun is out?” Roth asked.

  “No idea. A day. An hour. Maybe a few more minutes.” Byron shook his head. “There is no time here and the sun is not consistent. The days are years or the blink of an eye. It is impossible to predict. I advise you ignore it. I have seen men go mad fighting to make sense of it. There are many other things to fight here. Take the battles you can win.”

  Soon Roth heard a high whistling. “Stop,” Byron said. “Turn around carefully. Slowly.”

  Roth turned to see a dizzying drop at his feet. The wind rushed up, urgent and hideous, with the stench of rotting meat and blood. He looked down to see a river running below the drop, across the expanse, land on the other side. It was in every way the same as what he was standing on now. It seemed the land had been rent in two and below them raged a strange reddish river. The cliffs they stood upon now were brown streaked through with veins of red.

  “We are safe from the Brittle Wastes when we get across. We need to find a bridge. And hope we can time it just right.”

  Byron walked up the side of the cliff, following the edge to the left.

  “We should run,” Arcturus said. “I cannot see a bridge. We need to make good time.”

  “Run?” Byron chuckled. “You don’t run in Hell unless you absolutely must. The body is drained of energy many times faster than in your world. If we were to run, within twenty minutes, you would collapse.”

  “I do not get winded easily,” the warrior said.

  “Here you do,” the guardian said. He kept quiet after that, but he did speed up his walk.

  Frantically he kept looking up at the sun and out at the Brittle Wastes behind him. “It’s gonna be tight,” he said. “We need a bridge about now.”

  Roth kept walking.

  He heard a low groan and looked over the side of the cliff. On the far wall below him, a great being was nailed to the opposing cliff face. Roth stopped and cried out, pointing. “Look there. She needs our help.”

  Tate stopped and stared down at the figure, who looked up with a dazed expression and moaned.

  “We can’t help her,” Byron said. “We can’t help any of the gods here. If we try, we will anger those that captured them. We have to keep moving.” He grabbed Roth’s arm and pulled him away.

  The skin had been flayed from the goddess’s body, and her head seemed half caved in. Her eyes looked up pleadingly. She opened her mouth to speak, but could only manage a sigh. “Who is she?” Roth said.

  “That is Demean, goddess of weathered and worn. It is her domain to wear away the edifices of man. She cracks the stone over time and grinds away the features of the statues over the years. She was a warri
or of darkness during the god war and ended up here.” Byron shook his head. “Now the structures of man erode so slowly in your world, it is as if they are immortal. If we freed her, the empires of man would topple and crumble to dust. Castles that have stood since the time of the First King would fall in days. We need to keep moving. We have to be at a bridge before the sun sets and before the crack closes.”

  Tate could not pry his eyes away from the suffering of the goddess.

  “Before the crack closes?” Arcturus said.

  “Yes, soon this crevasse will close and grind the gods bound between them to bone and tissue. They are immortal, so they will heal slowly. Before they can heal completely, they will be pulverized again, but that is not our concern. When the cliff begins to close, the bridges go slack. We will not be able to make it across them in time, and the sun will go dark. The Brittle Wastes will open its jaws, and we all will be devoured and gnawed.”

  Fear coiled around Roth and froze his blood.

  “Are we ready to start walking again, or should we stand here and talk for a while yet?” Byron said.

  “Why not wait until the crack closes and jump across?” Burke asked.

  “It never closes enough for that. Always the bodies of the immortals keep it from closing entirely. We really must go.”

  Roth nodded and turned his back to the goddess of weathered and worn. He knew he would never stop thinking about her being crushed over and over again.

  Byron sighed when he saw the bridge. They came up on it as fast as they could, and he looked over the edge. “One at a time. You go over as fast as you can,” he said.

  Roth looked at what lay before him. The sight of it almost unmanned him.

  A thin piece of skin had been pulled taut across the drop. It was ten feet wide and over a mile long. It had been nailed to the ground with great spikes and was made of many pelts all sewn together.

  Demon skin, devil skin, the skin of man, and Roth could see with dawning horror the skin of children had been sewn into a grisly quilt they would have to walk across.

  “We go now!” Byron said.

  “Prince first,” Arcturus said, pulling his weapons. “He goes before any of the rest of you. Then Pollax, then you can come over after me.”

  “Why would you want me to go over second? I have faced the jaws of the Brittle Wastes before.”

  “If the worst happens, Burke will need you to guide him further.” Arcturus grinned a humorless grin that made him look like a maniac. “Get moving, my prince.”

  Tate grabbed Arcturus’s arm. “If he makes it over he will need one of us with him. He has no ring to portal him home without one of us.”

  Arcturus nodded. “Fine. Burke, then you, then Pollax, then me and your brother.”

  Burke seemed terribly unhappy, but he nodded. He stepped onto the skin bridge and walked as fast as he could go. The bridge bowed down as he walked. It swayed back and forth, and with no handholds or railings, it seemed always about to throw Burke over the edge. The prince made excellent time and soon was over.

  “Let the bridge come to rest before you go over,” Byron said.

  Tate wrapped an arm around Roth’s shoulders. “You’re next.”

  Roth froze. “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to go across with Burke. If I can’t make it, then you go on. Find Harloc, get Burke back, and free the Thorn Brothers.”

  “I won’t do it. You go first or it’s no deal,” Roth said.

  “You’re smarter than that,” Tate said. “You’re vital here, not me. I’ll be right behind you, but I can’t stand the idea of you being trapped here.”

  The bridge stilled. Tate wrapped a hand around the back of Roth’s neck and pulled him close. He kissed Roth on the forehead and shoved him away. “I love you,” Tate said. “Now go.”

  Roth stepped on the bridge and it sagged under him. He felt as if he was slipping off the slick bridge that seemed to sweat as it hung. Roth moved as fast as he could, the bridge pitching under him. He went faster, at times confident he would slide right off the flesh bridge and fall to his death. The stitches were popping under his feet and sections of the bridge spread. Holes were developing. Roth stared at them, longing to stop and not let them stretch any further, but knowing if he did, the thread would only snap faster.

  When he reached the far side of the bridge, he fell to the ground and clutched the brown stone. He did not care that the spikes dug into his arms and body. He kissed the ground and his mouth came away with acid stinging his lips.

  He turned his head to the other side and saw Byron running across the bridge without a moment’s pause. When Byron was halfway across, Roth heard a great cracking sound and distant screams of horror.

  Burke looked around him in terror. Roth had to fight the urge to grab the prince and cling to him. When Byron reached their side of the drop, he cursed and wiped sweat from his brow. “This is bad,” he said. The cracking sound intensified. “The gap is closing. The bridge will go slack.”

  Roth watched with horror as Tate and Arcturus broke out in a run side-by-side. Roth could only stare and pray.

  Cable

  It would be the mayor’s mansion. It had to be. No other place would work. Rayph had thought of taking Cable to a hospital, or even a healing church, but Ty would not have it. They had been banished from those places for their line of work, and Ty respected those establishments too much to ignore their desire. When all was said and done, and the issue had been talked about, they had to bring her into the mayor’s mansion for Rayph to work on her. He commanded the mayor herself to her room and isolated her to a wing of the ziggurat far from him.

  He had Cable laid out on a table. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes and a bit of revulsion. She loathed to be touched by him, and he knew what that meant.

  Rayph had not heard from Trysliana, so he called on the only one he could think of. “Sisalyyon, I need your touch to a delicate situation. Is Cosmo in a position you can leave him in?”

  Silence.

  Then Rayph heard her beautiful voice through the fetish. “I can come for a while.”

  “Good. Please hurry,” Rayph said. A portal opened beside him and Sisalyyon stepped out of it. Rayph took her away and looked her in the eye.

  “She has been savaged by a man. She flinches at everything I do. She can’t stand the feel of my touch. I need to be able to heal her, or at least try, but I can’t make contact with her. I need her calm if I’m going to do what I need to do here. Can you help?"

  Sisalyyon looked at Cable laid out on the table and shook her head. “You’re the stupidest genius I have ever met, Rayph Ivoryfist,” Sisalyyon said. Rayph was sure she was right, but could not see how.

  “Please help,” he said.

  Sisalyyon walked to the table and looked at Ty. “You are leaving, as are you,” she said, pointing at Smear.

  “I am not leaving my sister’s side,” Ty began. “I don’t know who you are but—”

  Sisalyyon looked away from Ty and over to Smear. She lifted an eyebrow and Smear nodded.

  “Let us go talk and wait. It’s better this way. We can trust them. She is safe and in good hands,” Smear said.

  “I don’t even know this woman,” Ty said.

  “But you know Rayph. Trust him. We are not helping here,” Smear said.

  After a few more minutes of arguing, Ty and Smear left them to the room and the mess that was Cable’s body.

  Sisalyyon brushed her hair aside and Rayph saw a cherry stem bud from behind her ear. She closed her eyes until the bud grew to a blossom. She pulled it from her head, handed it to Cable and held it to her nose.

  “You don’t know me, but I love you and will help if you will let me,” Sisa said.

  Cable could say nothing. She smelled the flower as she leaked soft tears.

  “My name is Sisalyyon. I’m a half-dryad. My people are a people of love and I want to soothe you. If you want me to. Rayph here wants to heal you. If you don’t want him
to, he can leave, too. I will keep you with me, and you will be safe from harm. I can promise you that. These are your decisions to make and no one is going to make them for you. Decide now, or take as much time as you want to come to a decision. I am patient.”

  Rayph whispered into the fetish. “We don’t have time to be patient.” Sisalyyon looked at him and took the fetish off. She placed it on Cable and smiled. Sisalyyon was crying when Cable’s broken voice chimed into Rayph’s ears.

  “He hurt me,” Cable said, and Rayph knew he was not supposed to be hearing this. He handed his fetish to Sisalyyon and walked to the other end of the room. The two women talked for a long time before Sisalyyon walked over to where Rayph stood.

  “She will let you look at her, but Rayph, you have to be discreet. If she sees your eyes crawling her body, she will be hurt again. You have to look at her with discipline.”

  “What does that even mean?” Rayph asked.

  “It means keep a tight rein on your eyes. Don’t make her feel like a display or a victim. She is neither. If I see her getting upset, I will pull you away.”

  “That’s fine. I agree. Just please let me help her.”

  “So you can use her,” Sisalyyon said.

  “So she can fight her attacker and get some justice.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to do that,” Sisa said to him.

  He didn’t understand. Cable would want vengeance. She would want to kill those that had hurt her.

  “Of course she does.”

  “Dammit, Rayph, you can’t understand her. Stop trying. Stop trying to decide for her what she is going to do and what she is going to want. She makes the decisions. Period. If you can’t agree to that, I will take her away and you will never see her again.”

  “Fine, Sisalyyon. What do I do?”

  “Try to help her back to herself. I will be right here. I won’t let you do any further damage to her. But remember this. Her body, her life, her decision.”

  “Good. Can we get started?”

  Rayph let Sisalyyon undress her. Sisa stepped in front of Rayph and blocked Cable’s view of him. She sang and Cable wept.