Master of Chains

by Jess Lebow

  Holding himself sideways, parallel to the floor, he let his legs drop toward the ground, and the chain around the guard tightened. The entire weight of Ryder’s body hung from his neck. There was a terrific popping sound, and the man managed to let out a low gurgle before his face turned purple and blood began to ooze from the corners of his eyes.

  Not waiting for the guard to fully expire, Ryder lifted himself off the ground again.

  Captain Phinneous, the grin gone from his ugly face, went for his sword, but Ryder was too fast. In one swift move, his right hand shot out, wrapped the chain around Phinneous’s arm and knocked the long sword from his grip. It went clattering to the floor.

  Twisting the captain’s arm, Ryder turned the man sideways, giving Ryder enough room to reach the veteran guardsman’s belt.

  “I’ll take those,” said Ryder, grabbing the keys to unlock his chains.

  “Help,” shouted Phinneous. “Guards!”

  Without letting up on Phinneous, Ryder released the locks on his right arm. Leaning forward, he spoke directly into the captain’s ear.

  “Time to pay for your crimes, Phinneous.”

  He unwrapped the chain from the captain’s arm and looped it around the man’s neck. Pulling it tight, he locked it down, leaving the guardsman gasping for air and standing on his tiptoes to keep the chain from strangling him.

  Captain Phinneous’s eyes grew wide, and he clawed at his neck, trying to get his fingers between his flesh and the steel of the chain. The more he struggled, the more panicked he looked. His face grew red, and every few breaths he let out a high-pitched whistling sound.

  Ryder finished unlocking himself from the other chains and stepped up to stare into the face of the slowly suffocating Captain Phinneous.

  “I’d love to hang around with you, Phinneous,” said Ryder, “but I’ve still got to kill your boss.”

  Putting both of his hands on the captain’s chest, Ryder shoved the man. Phinneous struggled to keep his footing, but his boots slipped on the slick stone floor. As the chain grew short, Ryder continued to push. Captain Phinneous kicked, but it was no use. He was lifted off the ground, hanging from his neck.

  Ryder gave one last hard shove, and Phinneous swung once. When he came back down, his feet touched the ground. His head listed sideways on his shoulder, his neck broken and limp.

  Turning away from the two dead men in his cell, Ryder crossed to a table near the windows where a large pile of chains and locks sat.

  A pair of guards came running through the door and skidded to a stop. They took one look at the slowly swaying frame of Captain Phinneous and the bloodied guard at his feet and turned their attention to Ryder.

  “Looking for me?” Ryder calmly selected a length of chain from the table. Turning, he walked toward the two stunned guardsmen. As he moved, he shook the chain, making the links rattle.

  The guards looked at each other then back at Ryder, fear apparent in their eyes.

  “That’s right,” he said, shaking the chains again. “I’m going to do to you what I did to them.”

  Both men turned and bolted back out the door.

  Ryder sneered. “That’s what I thought.”

  CHAPTER 25

  In her glamoured disguise as Montauk, Shyressa stood before the Crimson Awl. She didn’t maintain her enchantment for their benefit. It wouldn’t have mattered to any of them. They all knew what she was. They all belonged to her now—every last one.

  There were some things about her work that she truly enjoyed. Turning an entire band of gung-ho revolutionaries into her able-bodied spawn was one of them. Another was watching one of her long-term plans finally come to fruition. Today just happened to allow her the pleasure of both.

  Behind the Awl, the rest of Shyressa’s vampires and spawn waited for her orders. Tonight would be one of the largest blood baths in the history of Ahlarkham. The peasants would suffer. The royalty would suffer. The only ones who wouldn’t suffer would be the vampires as they swooped in from the southern shores of the Deepwash.

  When King Korox and his Magistrates arrived, the countryside would be crawling with undead. So too would Zerith Hold. But the king wouldn’t see that part. All he would see would be Shyressa, appearing to be Montauk helping his majesty clean up the mess. Then he would be forced to put her in charge of the barony, and phase one would be complete.

  Sure, some of her minions were going to be destroyed by the king’s men. A paltry price. After she had control of Ahlarkham, she would put the next part of her plan into action. It wouldn’t be long before she controlled all of Erlkazar.

  She smiled. The thought of turning the King’s Magistrates into her own personal spawn sounded absolutely delicious. She might have to make it last for a few days. No sense in shortening her fun. She could have them all locked up—and could feed on their iron-rich blood at her leisure.

  Shyressa licked her lips.

  Shaking herself out of her daydream, she looked out at her little army. With a wave of her arm, her older spawn took off into the night, spreading out to ravage Duhlnarim and the surrounding areas.

  The converted Crimson Awl, however, stayed put. They were all from local stock, and their appearance wouldn’t immediately give them away as outsiders or undead. That was the way Shyressa wanted it. There was still some value in this game for deception.

  “To Zerith Hold,” she said in Montauk’s voice. “Time to pay Lord Purdun a visit.”

  “There is an entrance to the back of Zerith Hold that does not have the same protections as the front gate,” explained Giselle. “But that does not mean that it is an easier way in.” She looked out at the brave men and women of the Broken Spear. She had stories about each of them, many of them tales of heroics that had helped save her own life. “There will be at least a host of guardsmen, and perhaps more. We will without a doubt be outnumbered.”

  “That’s never stopped us before,” said a warrior in the back of the tightly grouped Broken Spear.

  Everyone nodded.

  Giselle smiled. “These are trained soldiers,” continued the leader. “And the potential exists that many of us may not be coming back.”

  The Broken Spear nodded at this as well.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “We’re not doing this just for riches or glory. This time it’s personal.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not ordering you to do anything. I’m asking you, as a favor to me, to help me go in there and get Ryder back out. But if any one of you decide that you don’t want to go, then …” Her voice trailed off. “Then you are free to go your own way,” she said finally. “There will be no shame, no ill will.” She looked up at the people she had thought of as her family for the past several years. “You all know what this means. If we break up, it will be the end. The Broken Spear will be no more.” She paused a moment to let what she had just said sink in. “All I ask is that if you want to go, that you go now. I do not want to part with any of you, in this life or in death, but if I must, please be merciful and make it swift.”

  Giselle stood silently, her speech given and her plea finished.

  No one moved.

  “This is your last chance,” Giselle warned.

  Jase stood up, glancing to his left and right, seeming to take in all of the members of the Broken Spear.

  Giselle looked at the young man, sadness in her heart. She smiled and offered him her hand. “May the world treat you well,” she said. “No matter where your travels take you.”

  But Jase waved her off. “We’re going with you,” he said. “All of us. So you can save your speeches for after the battle has been won.”

  Giselle pulled her hand back. “Fair enough.” She scanned the group for a particular face. “Curtis,” she called.

  The skinny man’s face popped up between a pair of warriors. “Yes? That’s me.”

  “You think you can get us up to the gates without being seen?”

  The illusionist put his hand to his face, grabbing hold of his chi
n and scanning the sky. He changed hands, continuing to think. He seemed to be looking for something among the stars.

  Giselle looked up, following his gaze. She didn’t see anything but the early evening sky.

  Finally Curtis nodded. “Yes. I think I have just the thing,” he said, taking his hand from his chin and putting it inside his shirt. When his hand came out again it clutched a wrinkled, folded piece of paper. “Might hurt a bit,” he said. He reached up and grabbed hold of his eyelid. Yanking out several of his eyelashes, he squinted, his eye watering. “But it’ll work.”

  Giselle cringed. “Well then,” she said, addressing the whole group. “You all know I’m not much for long drawn-out plans. If the guards open the doors for any reason, we hit them hard and fast. Agreed?”

  As a group the Broken Spear nodded.

  “All right. Let’s go.” Giselle stood up and led her warriors off toward the back entrance to Zerith Hold.

  As they had so many times in the past few days, the double doors to the baron’s sitting room burst open. Captain Beetlestone, accompanied by four elite guardsmen, came running in.

  Baron Purdun, who had been eating his supper, leaped to his feet.

  Liam and Knoblauch were already standing.

  “My lord,” started Beetlestone. He was out of breath. “The Crimson Awl is attacking the front gate.”

  Liam was gripped with a sudden fear. He was going to have to face those men—many of whom he had grown up with—in battle.

  “There are also reports,” continued Beetlestone, “that the villages surrounding Duhlnarim are under attack as well.”

  “By the Awl?” blurted Liam out of turn. Knoblauch put his hand on Liam’s shoulder, trying to calm him.

  If Baron Purdun was upset by the outburst, he didn’t show it. “By whom?” he asked.

  “Undead, my lord,” said Beetlestone. “Vampires are attacking the citizens of Ahlarkham.”

  The baron turned to Liam and Knoblauch. “I’m about to put both of you in harm’s way,” he said very matter-of-factly. Then he turned and headed for the door. “Captain Beetlestone, collect your men. Take them out of the rear gate and circle around to the front of Zerith Hold. I want you and your men to flank the Awl.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The captain and his entourage left the room.

  When Lord Purdun got to the double doors, he drew his saber from his hip. “We’re going to the aid of the citizens,” he said, looking back at Liam and Knoblauch. Then he turned and headed down the stairs. “And we’re going out the front gate.”

  The half-giant bodyguards leaped up from their positions in the corners, striding quickly across the room and down the stairs after their lord.

  Liam looked to Knoblauch.

  “Guess that’s it,” Liam said.

  Knoblauch sighed. “Yeah.”

  Then both men took off after the baron.

  Lord Purdun knew the corridors of Zerith Hold so well that Liam and Knoblauch didn’t catch up with him until he was walking out into the open air of the courtyard.

  Liam stopped and looked out on the chaos before him. Everywhere there was shouting. Hundreds of flaming arrows sat lodged in the gravel at extreme angles, their shafts still flickering. More came zipping over the stone wall.

  On top, behind the crenellations, men ran back and forth, firing down on the drawbridge, trading arrows with the archers outside the Hold. But it was what Liam saw inside the wall that made his jaw drop.

  On the raised archer platform above the courtyard walked a beast of a man. He strode not around the soldiers between him and the front gate, but through them. This creature was more than a mere man, he was a force of darkness, and his very presence cast a pall over Zerith Hold.

  Though he was no taller than a regular man, he was nearly twice as wide. But it wasn’t his flesh that gave him this girth. It was a collection of jangling chains. They hung from his head and shoulders like matted, tangled dreadlocks. They wound around his chest like a cross-bowman’s bandoleer. They dangled below his knees like an overlong chain mail tunic—but these were not links from an armorer’s anvil. These were the chains meant to imprison criminals. And they were being used now to protect the man who had come to kill Baron Purdun.

  “Ryder,” whispered Liam, recognizing his brother.

  As Liam, Knoblauch, and Baron Purdun watched, the chain-covered man rattled his way along the archer’s platform, knocking soldiers off its edge with little more than the flick of his wrist.

  Archers took aim at him and let fly, but their arrows seemed useless against such a man. The chains on his body danced and writhed like serpents. When an arrow approached, it was simply batted away or deflected by the shaking mass of dangling metal. Those men not defeated by the master of chains fled before him, as if they had seen an apparition or been ensorcelled with fear.

  Ryder made his way to the mechanism that operated the portcullis and the big wooden door. Grabbing hold of the crank, he turned it. The portcullis began to lift, and the huge wooden doors swung partially open. The rain of flaming arrows showering the courtyard stopped, and from outside the men and women of the Crimson Awl squeezed through the now-breached front gate.

  With the way open, Ryder turned from the crank and stood on the edge of the archer’s platform, looking down into the courtyard. He raised his arms over his head, the links of his chains clanking together, seeming to move with his body as if they obeyed his thoughts.

  “It is time the people got back that which has been taken from them,” shouted Ryder. “In the name of the Crimson Awl and the innocent victims of Baron Purdun, I now claim Zerith Hold.”

  “The hell he does,” said Purdun. “To the gate!”

  A battle cry went up from the elite guards on the wall, and they followed their baron into the teeth of the monster.

  Lord Purdun charged across the open ground, his hands lighting up like miniature balls of lightning. His half-giant guards paced right along beside him, silently following the baron into the fray.

  Liam watched as one of them reached under its cloak and produced a pair of wicked-looking greataxes. The steel of their blades was so dark it looked black in the flickering glow of the torches and flaming arrows. Each axe would have easily taken a normal man both hands to handle, but the half-giant wielded one in each.

  As they closed in on the first of the Crimson Awl, the other half-giants followed suit, pulling out axes of their own. The four of them shifted side to side, cutting down the incoming invaders as if they were shafts of wheat.

  Liam took a deep breath, steeled himself, and charged into the fight as well, Knoblauch beside him. They came down the steps, only a step behind their lord. And in a moment they were embroiled in the largest battle ever to take place inside the walls of Zerith Hold.

  The soldiers stationed on the wall and along the archers’ perch dropped into the courtyard. The Crimson Awl filed in through the barely open gate, and the two sides clashed. Metal clanged on metal, axes split skulls, and the brutal sounds of men being torn apart echoed off the stone walls.

  In the first few moments, it felt as if the Crimson Awl would fold. The elite guards had the rebels surrounded. The half-giants worked like clockwork golems, tirelessly chopping down those who ventured close enough to be reached by their blades. Archers shot into the group with deadly accuracy. And Lord Purdun filled the courtyard with crackling orange flames.

  But every time it appeared as though one of the Awl had taken a mortal wound, he seemed to shrug it off, continuing to come on despite taking massive damage. The rush of adrenaline and the furious battle around him was enough to drive Liam to action despite his reservations. He stepped up and crossed blades with the first of the Crimson Awl.

  Bashing aside the man’s sword, he came up and across, catching his opponent across the shoulder and slicing a deep wound. Returning to his guard, Liam looked up into the face of his opponent—Kharl.

  The young man whose life Liam had saved the day they had attacked Lord Pu
rdun’s carriage now stood across from him, hatred in his eyes. The look on his face chilled Liam to the bone. But there was something else there too. His flesh was pale and sickly, almost transparent, and the veins under his skin were plainly visible. They stuck out in stark contrast, a dark blue-purple against the clear white of the rest of his face.

  Kharl didn’t even bother to bring his sword up; he just reached out and punched Liam with his closed fist. Liam was knocked back a step. The young man who had nearly wet himself when they had ambushed the carriage had somehow gotten much, much stronger.

  As Liam staggered back to his footing, Kharl opened his mouth, hissing and exposing a pair of long, thin fangs.

  “Vampires,” whispered Liam. Somehow speaking the word made the situation they faced that much more palpable.

  The Crimson Awl had been taken over by vampires. Lord Purdun had been right. Shyressa had been manipulating them all along. Had Liam not gotten out when he did, he too would be among the walking dead.

  Liam scanned the crowd and the swirling melee. He recognized the faces of everyone in the Crimson Awl. He had fought beside them. He had been to their homes for stew. But what he saw before him—the beasts that had burst into Zerith Hold—these were not his one-time friends. These creatures were no longer even human.

  Kharl leaped, landing on Liam’s chest and knocking him off his feet. The two men tumbled to the ground, rolling around on the flagstones. When they finally came to a stop, Liam found himself pinned down, looking up into Kharl’s gaping mouth.

  Liam struggled to get free, but the vampire spawn held him down. He had the strength of an elephant.

  “I’ve come to pry your sword from your cold dead hand,” hissed Kharl, and he lunged for Liam’s neck.

  Liam flinched, and in the next moment, his face was splashed with a thick liquid. Blinking it out of his eyes, Liam watched Kharl’s head roll off his shoulders and fall to the bricks.