by Eli Steele
And then, realization struck. “Kass!” he shouted, rattling the bars. “Kass, are you in here!?”
“There is none but you and I,” a voice replied, his words ending with a hint of a question. The accent was thick and songlike, in the same way a winter tempest howls with its own damning inflection.
Pressing his cheek against the splintered wood, the thief searched the adjoining cell for a glimpse of the man. As he stared through the narrow gap, he found blue eyes staring back at him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Rowan V-“ he remembered Iseult’s words. “Just Rowan...”
“Well, Just Rowan, I am Byard... Well met.”
“Why are we here?”
“Why else? Silva’.”
“Silver?”
“They mean to sell us, of course.”
“Slavers?” Rowan’s heart sank. “Kassina!”
“She is not here, my lord. They’ve brought no one in but you. There are other cells, though, so I have heard.”
“How long have you been here?”
Byard mused the thought. “A week, perhaps? It is hard to say. Time is a liar when you’re without bearing.”
Sliding down the timbers to the cold stone floor, a splinter pricked Rowan’s arm.
“What is it that you do, Just Rowan?”
Turning, the thief saw the sliver of wood, so he peeled it off and fingered it. It was long and sharp.
Long as a rake...
“Just Rowan?”
“I am nobody...” he replied, considering his thoughts.
Byard chuckled. “Nobody is nobody, that much I’ve learned... Hard lessons…”
The thief eyed the lock on the door. It was an iron box, with workings far too heavy for the splinter.
And yet...
Closing his eyes, he stretched his arm out through the timbers and brought it in at the elbow towards the lock. Rowan pushed the sliver of wood through the plug and searched the device, feeling for the pins, remembering their locations, and drawing them with his mind’s eye.
It was crude, a brute of a lock, but it served its purpose — keeping most captives in.
Most...
One by one, he willed the pins up, before spinning the cylinder with his mind. Duped, the lock responded with a soft click.
Leaning against the door, it creaked outward. The thief stepped into the narrow hall.
“Just Rowan!” Byard stood mouth agape. “You are a rogue master?”
Though half starved, Byard’s strength was apparent still. Skin stretched over sinew hard earned. He looked to be at least a decade older than Rowan, with brown hair and a beard streaked with gray. His face was sharp, like a sudden blizzard in a mountain pass, with eyes that pierced like daggers of ice.
The thief turned to pass him.
“Wait!” Byard urged. “If you free me, I am bound to you. Your will shall be mine, and my steel, yours.”
“I have not the time,” the thief said, “I am sorry...”
“Two is stronger than one, Just Rowan. I beseech you, do this. Leave not a man bound when you can release him.” Honor and regret tinged his voice.
Closing his eyes, Rowan cursed to himself as he dropped to one knee. Peeling back a splinter, he searched the lock like before. In but moments, the door groaned open.
Stepping forward, Byard embraced him with strong arms. “My word is my bond, and one not given lightly. Neither blood nor silva’ may sunder us now. Only by iron may we be cleaved.” The intensity in the man’s eyes was nigh unnerving.
“There is a woman-“
“Kassina,” Byard interrupted. “I heard… Come, we will find her.”
Together, they crept down the stone hall unarmed, moving between the shadows, walls pressing in on them, breathing damp air into their lungs.
Around the corner, Rowan peered with half an eye. “There’s a ladder leading up. Beyond it, the hall continues.”
“We should stay down below, m’lord,” Byard whispered, “If there are more cells, they will not be up there.”
Muffled voices reverberated down the laddered shaft as the pair stalked past it with tempered footfalls. Around a second corner was a row of cells, much like their own. Daydreaming but very much awake, a guard leaned back against the wall in a chair, short sword hanging from his belt.
“There’s no way we can get past him,” Rowan whispered.
Removing his shirt, Byard wrapped it around his forearm. Ribs pressed against his skin, threatening to tear through. “Like a draugar damned, he is dead and knows it not.” The prisoner stepped out from the shadows and into the hall.
Startled, the guard bolted upright. “Who let you out?”
“The gods, my lord. And they’ve spoken to me just this day... They wait for you as we speak...”
“I will carve you up, fool,” the guard replied, sliding loose his sword, singing steel on leather as he did.
Byard met the man’s blade with his wrapped arm, grimacing as it bit his flesh still. Grabbing both of the guard’s wrists, he reared back growling, before slamming his head forward.
The man’s knees buckled and his eyes rolled back. Before the prisoner let him fall, he leaned in and tore off the man’s nose with his teeth.
Spitting it out, he dropped the jarred man. “The gods would not want such a wretched face,” Byard said, retrieving the sword. “The nine await you.” With that, he slit the man’s throat. Blood pooled around the prisoner’s bare feet.
Unlocking the cell, Rowan stepped through and embraced Kassina, still stunned by the brutal exchange. Purple and yellow marred her swollen face. Brushing back her hair, he examined her in horror and whispered, “What did they do?”
“They beat me,” she replied through cracked lips. “Nothing more…”
“Who?” he asked, motioning to the floor, “him?”
She shook her head. “The man with the crossbow.”
“Give me the sword,” he said to Byard. Receiving it, he pressed it into her hands. “Wait here.” Turning back to the prisoner, he added, “Guard her with your life.”
“No harm will come to her,” Byard replied with confidence unflagged.
“N-no,” she stammered, grabbing his arm. Take me with you, I’m owed a fight.”
“I cannot,” Rowan replied, pulling away. “We don’t know what lies above, and I must use the shadows.” Kneeling beside the dead guard, he searched until he pulled back a dagger.
“Do not come until I call for you,” the thief whispered, before disappearing around the corner.
Up the ladder he climbed, hand over hand. At the top, he listened in silence. After a time, laughter echoed down, muffled twice over.
Easing the hatch up, Rowan found a darkened closet. Dull lamplight betrayed a nearby door. Cautiously, he eased out of the shaft and lowered the hatch behind him.
Pressing himself into a corner, the thief found darkness complete in his mind and fell into it. He stepped forward, ensconced in the gloom, and peered through the gap between the door and its threshold. Two men, their backs to him, leaned over a table casting lots and laughing and bickering. An empty pitcher of piss pale ale lay on the floor beside them. On a nearby shelf was the crossbow from before with its quiver of bolts.
Grant me speed, and let my aim be true…
Easing open the door, he slipped around its edge and inched closer.
Now!
Leaping from the shadows like a wight returned, he drove his dagger in the nearest man’s neck, yanking it to the side as he did. Flesh flayed forward while blood burbled out, followed by a labored rasp.
Startled, the second man fell backwards over his chair. Before he could move, the thief was upon him. Eyes locked, Rowan snarled, “It was you…”
“Take anything you want,” the man pleaded.
“Anything… I… want?” the thief snorted. “Where’s the sword?”
“Behind that door, over there...”
“Who else is here?”
/> “No one, m’lord, no one but you and I.”
“Good…” Flipping the dagger around, he raged against the man’s visage with its pommel, Kassina’s battered face in his mind, until nothing but a bloody pulp remained. With labored breathing, Rowan rolled from off top of the man.
“End me,” he begged with garbled words through lips torn to slivers, “I am undone…”
Standing, the thief grabbed a bolt and tossed it at the man. “End yourself, before she does…” Stepping into the closet, he opened the hatch and called down, “Hurry!” Turning back, Rowan entered the side room and retrieved their gear.
As Kassina and Byard emerged, he handed them their belongings. She stopped at the bloody wreck of a man, dropped to one knee, and buried the guard’s short sword in his chest without offering a word. The body tremored, before going still.
Standing, she whispered, “Thank you… we may go now.”
* * * * *
Down the streets of Falasport they raced, the wind in their faces. On the harborwalk, they were a spectacle with Byard’s bare chest, Kassina’s blackened face, and the spray of blood that stained Rowan’s. Passersby stopped and gawked without words at their swords drawn and faces hardened.
At the causeway, two guards stepped into their path. “Halt!” they demanded.
Rowan roared with eyes blackened, parting his arms like one might morning curtains. The men flung to the side, off the docks, and plunged into the water. From deep within him, a coughed forced its way out and his eyes watered.
“What in the nine was that?” Byard gasped.
Up ahead, Sutton leaned against a crate and puffed his pipe. On seeing them, he shouted, “What did I say? Where have you been? I would’ve left this morn had Ortun not staged a mutiny! Gone are the days when a crew valued their captain-“ he paused as he saw their condition. “Kass, what happened!? And who is this?”
“He is with me,” Rowan replied, boarding the Cormorant without another word.
Howland turned to chase after the thief, but Kassina caught his arm. Her eyes were bloodshot. Tears streamed down her face. “In time, we will explain everything. But right now, please, take us from this place and never bring us back…”
Sutton sighed, “Elekhoi?”
She nodded, mustering the faintest of smiles.
“As you wish.” Turning, he followed her aboard.
Epilogue I
Byron Dhane
Meronian Camp
Kingdom of Beyorn
From the shadows atop Hell’s Gate, drawn back from the others, Byron and Havar watched the black paladin sit in silence in a far corner of the courtyard. Before him, the fire crackled and popped and sent gray smoke up into the night. The lighted danced and played with his features, adding to his menace. His face was the shape of torture, and his hair, gray mottled with grim death. Beside him, the breeze swayed the body as it hung from the makeshift gallows.
“Some say he is the warrior Riordan, born anew,” whispered Weston, approaching from behind, “Others still say he is wrath wrought in the form of man, as the old words foretell, sent to avenge Meronia and unify the Four Kingdoms under the black cross.”
Dhane spat. “What do you say?”
Volf mused the thought for a time, before saying, “Whatever he may be, he is not one that I will fight beside, not much longer. A corrupting air follows him, blackening all.”
Havar added, “He draws the swords of Beyorn into his ranks. What manner of witchcraft could move a man to raise a sword against his brother?”
“And even I feel him on the battlefield within me,” replied The Bear, “whispering to my soul, tamping down my honor…”
“It is Lothe and his dark magic,” said Byron.
Eyeing the body, Havar added after a time, “Traitors you hang or unhead, but not men surrendered.”
“King Bathild would not stand for this,” whispered Byron. “If that he knew…”
“You mean to desert your men?” asked Weston.
“They are no longer mine, Wes, you have said it yourself. This is now the army of the mage and his Raven Knight.”
“Dhane or not,” said Volf, “a commander does not abandon his men, no matter the reason. Take back what is yours from Lothe.”
Drawn back from the others, in the shadows of the Brae, Byron warred with himself, not knowing what to do.
Epilogue II
Eldrick D’Eldar
Braewood Keep
The sound of the heavy shelves crashing against the stone floor roused Eldrick from his sleep. He lay in the same cell in which he had prattled Creedon, and the irony had not been lost on him. Standing, he pressed his face against the bars and waited in silent anticipation.
Through the gap in the wall stepped Bo and Jarin, groaning as they did, the young Alexander slung limp between their arms.
“Is he dead?” Eldrick whispered.
Startled, they turned.
“He is not,” replied Jarin, “though he may yet pass. His breathing is faint, and it grows fainter by the hour.”
“What are you doing in there?” Bo asked.
D’Eldar hung his head. “The Brae has fallen. And I have graver news still, but I shall not share it with you… only him, for it is his to hear. Now, help me out.”
“But how?” asked Bo.
“In his coat or on his belt should be a skeleton key, I hope… And be quick about it, before the guard returns…”
A Note from the Author
I hope you enjoyed Part 3 of my serial!
Part 4 of B&I is due for release in December of 2019!
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