The Marechal Chronicles: Volume VI, The Crucible: A Dark Fantasy Tale

by Aimelie Aames

  The mercenaries were quick to decide that the narrow street would hinder them now that their target was in their midst, even if, to all appearances, he was already a dead man.

  Alexandre slammed without stopping into the weapon that had speared him through and through. Wide eyes met his own as he slumped against the man who wielded it.

  Then he ripped his arm up, the mercenary’s own short sword in his grasp, as he arced himself backward.

  The short heavy blade was well honed and cut through the pike shaft buried at his waistline cleanly. The sword continued upward as Alexandre bellowed with pain tearing through his body and it collided with the mercenary’s face from under the chin, hardly slowing as it plowed through bone and cartilage.

  Blood sprayed as the swordsman pulled the sword from where it had mired somewhere behind the dead soldier’s eyes and in an unbroken motion, he swung it down hard to his right, taking the other left-handed soldier through the neck.

  In some small part of his mind, Alexandre had the wild thought that they might have been brothers.

  And now they were but ashes and dust because after all the battles they had seen, they could not have guessed that their adversary would seek his own ruin and spear himself.

  The scarred man twisted around, groaning as the broken pike twisted with him. Then, overbalanced by its own weight, it seesawed in his flesh before falling from his back to join the others on the ground.

  Pain raged through him as his legs grew steadier.

  Blood stopped running from the corners of his mouth as he hammered blows left and right, forcing his way through the less experienced guardsmen once most of the mercenary force had been dealt with. He struck them down as fear gripped their faces and made them hesitate.

  None of them had ever seen anything like it. And it was with shocked amazement at the swordsman who would not die that they themselves tasted their own blood filling their mouths … as impenetrable darkness fell upon them as sure as the sun rises in the east.

  Alexandre staggered away, dropping the short sword he had taken from the first mercenary to fall.

  He had wanted to warn them. He had wanted to tell them they would not survive him.

  But it was too late.

  It was but one more thing to lay at the feet of Modest Klees.

  And if that served the scarred man to ease his doubts, then it was just as well … for he had been proclaimed a murderer in cold blood.

  In short order, he would be one in truth.

  He had only been there once before, but the way was engraved in his memory. Dark cobblestones streaked by as he strode with a wide gait meant to carry him forward with no hesitation. His path was straighter than it had been with Modest Klees that first time as he did not bother with all the narrow side streets that the assassin had chosen for them. His effort at hiding the exact location from Alexandre had been a useless gesture.

  It did not take long until he was marching steadily up the wide stepped entrance of the large demesne to which nearly every illicit activity in the environs could be traced. Within, he was sure, he would find who and what he sought.

  The silence of a late night burgeoning into an early day was broken with the battle drum sound of his fist upon the heavy entrance doors. The wood structure trembled with each strike upon it, yet it gave no sign that it would yield as easily as that.

  At eye level, a wooden panel suddenly slid to one side.

  It was the opportunity the scarred man had hoped for.

  When necessary, he could move as quickly as a striking snake. His blade hissed and metal gleamed as the point of his main-gauche dug into the lower eyelid of the man peering back at him through the panel in the door.

  “Don’t move,” the scarred man breathed. “I won’t just take your eye, but I’ll have your brains as well if you so much as lift a finger of warning.”

  A red ribbon unfurled to run down the guardian’s face as he nodded ever so slightly.

  “Good. Now tell your associate to unlock the door.”

  Alexandre had not forgotten that there had been two guardians at the door the night Klees had brought him.

  There was no need for other words as the sound of the door’s lock turning came to the swordsman’s ears.

  He readied himself. The battle with the city guard had been horrendously painful. If he could, he preferred that no one else spear him this night.

  Surprise is, as ever, my advantage, he said to himself, repeating words that drifted across centuries, so long ago it was from a time when he knew nothing of swordplay.

  The guardians at the door were big men with big weapons. And they were expecting him.

  So he did what they would not expect.

  In a flash, he withdrew his shortsword from the guardian’s face and instead of hammering the doors open with his shoulder, thus coming in low and hard, Alexandre flipped his weapon into its sheath then leaped for the spare edge of the door’s lintel overhead.

  His teeth gritted as his fingertips held tight, then he pulled himself up high and kicked with all his might.

  The doors slammed inward just as a curved scimitar came whistling down to strike the flagstone floor with sparks flying.

  Instead of meeting his destiny at the end of the second guard’s blade, the scarred swordsman appeared at head height, his feet and legs coming first as he scissored his body inward from above, leaping over the scimitar as it swept down.

  In mid air, he drew his knees inward, then hit the ground, rolling just once before springing to his feet, both his swords appearing in his hands as if they had been conjured there.

  Alexandre faced the guards then shook his head slowly.

  “Are you sure?”

  They had turned to face him, their eyes wide and the fists holding their swords white-knuckled.

  Alexandre knew without a doubt that the bright sheen of sweat on each of their foreheads meant that their palms were moist and their blades too heavy and slow to stop him.

  One risked a glance at the other, then he shrugged and let his weapon fall.

  “We was just supposed to slow you down,” the first guard mumbled, then backed out the now open doors.

  His fellow followed suit, leaving his blade to clatter to the ground with the other, then slipped out and away from certain doom.

  Despite the gravity of all that had passed, Alexandre permitted himself a crooked smile still tinged with blood from the battle in the streets of Haccia.

  “Now there go the two wisest men I’ve met thus far this evening,” he said to no one.

  His lurid red smile faded.

  He knew what remained for him to do would be far more difficult and far more deadly for everyone concerned.

  Corridor after corridor, up flights of stairs, each turning counted as he had carefully catalogued the way the one time he had been to see the Eel. Yet again, Klees’ efforts at confounding an apparently drunken man even further had truly been a wasted effort.

  A ruse within a ruse, he thought.

  His sense of direction infallible, Alexandre plunged forward, intent on delivering justice.

  Strangely, he crossed paths with no one.

  Each time he rounded a corner, he was prepared to draw steel and dispatch any obstacle standing in his way.

  Yet, there was nothing barring the path forward.

  Nothing, until he had come to the last long corridor that would carry him, first to a pair of great doors, then beyond them, a series of cavernous rooms each more grandiose than the last.

  That was where he would find the Eel and his Dagger. That was where he would mete out justice at last.

  The paired guardians at the doors leading to the Eel, like those of the manor’s entrance, were nowhere to be found. In their place, however, stood a woman looking intently back at the swordsman as he advanced on her.

  He recognized her, and the hands that itched to reach down and pull steel quieted.

  “Moira?”

  There could be no doubt. She w
as the woman Klees had charged with sobering Alexandre prior to meeting the Eel. Instead they had passed the time in heated intimacy that appeared to do nothing to unmuddle the seemingly drunken man.

  Her eyes pleaded with him as she trembled while keeping one hand hidden behind her back.

  The scarred man’s own eyes narrowed as he readied himself for the improbable and perfectly unforeseeable menace that threatened him then.

  Her voice cracked as she spoke.

  “Forgive me.”

  Alexandre froze as she brought her hand into view. In her grasp she held a cowbell.

  No. It’s too small. For sheep, perhaps.

  Then its sound pealed out as she rang it, as her own tears ran down her face.

  Just as suddenly as it began, the sound was silenced as she threw the bell against the wall.

  Instead of turning tail and running from him, she did the opposite until she was so close he could see how her eyelashes sparkled with the remnants of her tears just like morning dew.

  “Flee. Right now. Go.”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the doors awaiting him.

  “That way lies a trap, Monsieur.”

  He shook his head as he took a step backward from the woman.

  “Sadly, my greatest weakness has always been that I do not know how to turn my back on injustice, no matter the circumstances.”

  “Then you are lost,” she whispered.

  “Aye, that I am and have been for more years than you would believe,” he replied, his tone grim as he continued.

  “Now heed your own counsel. Go before it is too late.”

  She did not nod nor make an effort to say anything more. The look in his eyes told her that nothing she said would change the mind of the man before her.

  She turned and ran away, and it was only then that Alexandre noticed her feet were bare.

  He found there was something touching about that. It gave the fleeing woman an aspect of childlike innocence. In his heart he wished her well and hoped that she might one day be spared the role of plaything for paying men devoid of the tenderness she rightly deserved.

  He sighed, then drew his resolve tight as he pushed open both doors at once.

  They were not locked. They were not guarded.

  Alexandre’s instincts prickled.

  However, his choice had been made and as he had just explained, he knew of no other way than the one that led forward.

  Quickly, he traversed each chamber until he came to the last.

  Closed doors stood between him and his quarry.

  He drew a deep breath, then slowly eased one of the doors open just enough to let him pass.

  Someone chuckled, then a voice the swordsman recognized spoke.

  “At last. We’re delighted you have decided to join us, Alexandre.”

  He stepped through the door then closed it behind him as he glanced up at the walls surrounding him. They were covered entirely with tapestries, and he remembered very well the danger they represented if any attempt were to be made at harming the Eel.

  Modest Klees stood next to his employer, one hand on his shoulder.

  The Eel, whose real name Alexandre had not deigned to discover, was seated at a table, a wine cup before him and a small hour glass that appeared to have been turned over only moments earlier.

  Fine black sand sifted down to the empty bottom half.

  The swordsman had seen sand like that only once before, but it was long ago, on a distant seashore where the mountains spat fire and smoke like the dragons of old.

  Alexandre frowned at the sight of the thing.

  Too small to measure the hour, he thought, then dismissed it as irrelevant.

  “The time has come for a reckoning, Klees,” he said as he strode over to face the two men.

  The fury that had roared in his veins until then cooled, then frosted over. The swordsman felt the beginnings of the glacial wind that would blow through him when sharp steel would ring out and words would go silent.

  Klees simply shrugged while keeping his hand where it was. The Eel reached forward for the jewel-studded wine cup.

  Alexandre barely registered just how sluggish the man’s fingers were. He only had eyes for the assassin standing before him.

  “House Keld had become a problem that was not going to be easily resolved,” Klees said. “Occasionally, despite our very best efforts to do otherwise, one must sever the sickened branch to save the tree.”

  Alexandre gritted his teeth, then forced his anger back before responding.

  “You know very well that I speak of other matters. As for the death of Lady Keld, I promise you that it was the last murder you will ever commit.”

  “I think your propensity for, shall we call it ‘exaggeration,’ has gotten the best of you. Furthermore, her demise is far from being my last,” Klees replied.

  The swordsman’s voice dropped to deadly tones.

  “You have never understood just who you are dealing with.”

  The Eel’s henchman pursed his lips before he answered.

  “Oh, I think that I have. You are a man who sought my attention, brawling whenever you could while taking care to employ the most showmanship possible each time you brought your sword to bear.

  “Naturally, I knew you couldn’t be trusted no matter what came next. Yet, my curiosity was piqued.”

  “Even now, you have missed the mark,” Alexandre replied, moving to one side while never taking his eyes off Modest Klees, who in his turn never took his hand off the shoulder of the Eel.

  The assassin smiled, then glanced down to the hourglass of black sand.

  “None of it really matters now that your time is about to run out.”

  The game of mirrors continued between them as the scarred swordsman smiled.

  “You’re a fool if you think my time is spent. On the contrary, the time I have spent tracking you down is done.”

  Sand grains trickled without relenting, the top half nearing emptiness with each passing second.

  “Whatever that means, I will share one thing with you, Alexandre,” Klees replied, then hooked his finger in the air.

  “Come closer, for it is a secret that should be kept between men such as me and you.”

  Alexandre felt the air tightening in the room. The clock springs of evil machination afoot wound tighter, yet the mission that had borne him to this moment across centuries was all the confidence he required and he made no effort to sidestep the impending danger.

  He closed the distance between them, until the table would have touched his thighs with one more step. Yet he did not advance further, allowing himself room to draw his blades in an instant.

  Alexandre spared a glance at the Eel, who had not yet spoken. His eyes were hooded, but from what he could see, they were bloodshot seemingly weary unto death. The crime lord’s hand clung loosely to his wine cup, however he still had not drunk from it.

  He saw Klees watching him as he looked back up, the assassin’s eyes as dark and unfathomable as ever. Klees glanced down again at the hourglass then looked back at him with a wide grin.

  “Are you ready to be the best swordsman in the room?” he asked with a whisper while leaning forward toward the scarred man. “Because the secret is that everything hinges on it.”

  It made no sense to Alexandre. His mind searched the phrase, scrabbling for some hint of meaning.

  Then, without prelude, the time for thinking was done as everything burst into sound and motion.

  Modest Klees lifted his hand at last from the shoulder of the Eel, and it was only then that Alexandre’s widening eyes saw that the palm and fingers of the assassin had sunk in past the Eel’s doublet and into his very flesh, the perfect trace of a hand blazed in a bloody weal.

  The Eel’s body slewed forward, the dead man’s head striking the table top, and Alexandre was already spinning, his swords appearing to leap into his hands as he drew them.

  He continued his pirouette while Klees shouted, for the
swordsman had understood the most imminent danger was not the assassin himself.

  “Archers! Strike this man down, for he has murdered your master.”

  Alexandre’s secondary weapon, his main-gauche, was the first to clear its scabbard in the same moment that the air filled with the sudden hiss of serpents. It was a sound that came to an abrupt end as Alexandre spun with his blade, barely in time to deflect the arrows destined for his chest and face.

  Pain lanced through him and he staggered backward to feel the table digging in to the back of his legs.

  He looked down to see three arrows transpiercing his right thigh and a fourth was buried in his left shin, having sliced neatly through the high leather of his boot.

  Pain whiplashed through him and his vision blurred.

  Then, he shuddered and instead of lifting his sword, Alexandre fell to his knees.

  Surprise opened his eyes wide, then something appeared that looked so terribly out of place upon his scarred face.

  It was a look of fear.

  His shoulders slumped as agony twisted his mouth, then the swordsman, after pursuing his quarry across the centuries without ceasing, found himself falling over headlong and facedown, as defeated as any soldier that lay dying on the battlefield.

  "Aye," said Klees, the triumph in his voice clear. "Arrows alone, perhaps, would not bring you to heel. But a poison from hell itself …"

  He stepped around Cuixart Bleu's table and the body slumped upon it before coming to the fallen swordsman and nudging him with the toe of his boot.

  "… is really quite another matter."

  His entire body spasmed and the fist of an unseen giant slammed down upon him, pinning him where he had fallen.

  A fist that then opened to seize him in its gargantuan grasp before setting to squeezing the very life from him.

  Poison.

  The word sifted through the haze of agony wracking him, its precise meaning never more clear while the rest of his thoughts quivered then broke like so many fragile baubles.

  “Yes … poison,” Klees said, as if he were agreeing with the swordsman writhing on the floor before him.

  “If you only knew to what extravagant lengths I have gone, Alexandre, and all of it for your benefit, I might add. Happily, my faith in your skill with a blade has been rewarded and you have avoided being snuffed out by one of these poisoned arrows going somewhere more vital like your heart or lungs.”