Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Montrose carried his crossbow in his left hand. The fingers of his right opened and closed repeatedly. He imagined he could feel the hilt of his saber inside them. Soon, he knew, he'd draw the weapon from his scabbard and cut Louise to pieces.

  He would have attacked her already, except for one consideration. Back in Grand Gulf, he'd realized he didn't dare torture her, richly as she deserved it. He couldn't succumb to the temptation without strengthening his Shadow to an intolerable degree. Which left him only one way to prolong and savor his revenge: skulk along beside her through the dark streets and claustrophobic alleys as if he truly had accepted her as an ally. Feast his eyes on her slim form and honey-blond hair until the lust to slay her became irresistible.

  As they neared an intersection, a column of silvery fire shot up above the row of gray gable-and-valley roofs on the buildings to their right, like a response to the multicolored lightning flashing in the storm clouds overhead. The boom came two seconds later, shivering the grimy, uneven cobbles beneath their feet.

  Her mace cocked over her shoulder, Louise studied the pillar of flame. "I wonder which Deathlord's agents blew what up," she said, "and whether the saboteurs were disguised as Spectres, too."

  Her voice was dulcet even when she whispered. At the sound, Montrose suppressed a fresh shiver of loathing. "It's not important," he replied. "What matters is that the explosion wasn't particularly close. With a modicum of luck, we shouldn't encounter anyone fleeing or rushing to the scene."

  They peered both ways before crossing the avenue. No one else was in sight. Off to the left, however, stood a barracoon, its high walls capped with coils of razor wire and its iron gates decorated with complex designs of woven chain. With his preternaturally sharp hearing, Montrose caught the sound of a few voices murmuring inside, proof that, appearances to the contrary, the area wasn't actually deserted. He supposed most people realized there were raiders about, and were prudently keeping indoors.

  Louise gazed at the fortress-like enclosure. "I wish we could liberate those poor souls," she said.

  Montrose's mouth tightened. "I don't," he said, with rather more fervor than he'd intended. "And even if I shared your sentiments, we have more important matters to attend to." Or rather, he did. She was only minutes from Oblivion.

  The fugitives prowled on, past factories and warehouses, many of them drab stone boxes, but others encrusted with statuary, gargoyles, and carved facades, sometimes jumbled together in a jarring clash of periods and styles. At one point Montrose spotted a small, round keep overlooking the road ahead, with riflemen standing watch along the battlements. He and Louise detoured to avoid it.

  Eventually the ground began to slope downward, and Montrose caught the sound and scent of the Sea of Souls. The monotonous roar of the surf coupled with a noise that at first resembled the screeching of gulls, but on further hearing blurred into the muffled wailing and lamentations of countless human tongues. The odor of salt water uncontaminated with seaweed or algae, as much like the smell of tears as that of any Earthly ocean.

  Evidently realizing what she was about to see for the first time in her afterlife, Louise began to recite some prayer or meditation under her breath. Meanwhile, Montrose wondered what would happen if he decapitated her. Would sentience linger for an instant afterward? Would her severed head stare up at him in anguish? Would he have time to blow her a mocking kiss before she melted away?

  They rounded a bend, and the narrow street terminated abruptly on a stretch of rocky beach. Despite her efforts to steel herself, Louise gasped.

  At certain moments, the gray waves with their foaming crests looked like water and nothing more. But when the lightning flickered, one noticed the myriad human forms, elongated, constantly changing shape, tumbling and streaming over one another, trapped inside the surf. Or perhaps the captive souls were the water. Montrose had never been quite sure. Either way, he was surprised to discover that the sight of the Weeping Bay made him slightly uneasy himself.

  "Dear God," said Louise. "It's even worse than the Artificers' pit. There we at least knew our torment would eventually come to an end. James, how could you bear to dwell in sight of this, decade after decade, century after century?"

  For some reason, the question made the Scot even more uncomfortable. Scowling, he pointed across the channel, at Stygia. At the docks, where Viking longships, biremes, clipper ships, and aircraft carriers floated at their moorings. The ornately carved stone buildings, climbing level on level up the flanks of the island to the labyrinthine splendors of the palace. The Onyx Tower proper, jutting high above the surrounding structures like a darksteel dagger extending from a fist. "For the sake of that. The greatest city—and the capital of the greatest empire—that ever existed or ever will. A treasure that must be defended, no matter what the cost."

  "Why? To provide luxury and privilege for the Marquess of Montrose?"

  He glared at her. "Yes, as a matter of fact. But also because it's the pinnacle of human achievement. And because it represents the only hope for anyone to have a tolerable afterlife, no matter what rubbish you Heretics babble about the Far Shores and Transcendence. If not for the Legions, the Void would devour us all. Not even the Quick would be spared. I explained as much in the rail yard, and you claimed you understood. Why are you baiting me about it now?"

  Crimson lightning flared, thunder boomed, and a gust of breeze stirred her hair. "I imagine I'm trying to wake the kindly, gallant poet I once knew. I have faith that he's sleeping inside the cold and merciless Stygian lord who stands before me. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of him—"

  "How dare you judge me?" Montrose snarled. "You, who betrayed me. Who made me whatever I am today." He whipped out his sword. The blade hissed as it cleared the scabbard. The waves sobbed like a mother weeping over the corpse of her child.

  Louise recoiled a step. The trained reflexes of a warrior swung her mace into a guard position. "Stop!" she said. "I apologize. You're right, I don't have the right to criticize you, and I won't do it again."

  He glided forward. "How very generous of you."

  She continued to back away. "Remember, we have a quest, to keep the Deathlords from making war on one another. You agreed to let me help you."

  "Only to lure you away from your fellow subversives, my love. Only to entice you to the killing ground." Seeking to disarm her, he cut at her wrist.

  She parried the blow, the spikes of her mace clashing against his blade. "This is mad," she said, still retreating. "Someone will hear. A patrol will come. Your Shadow is controlling you!"

  "Why are you so dismayed?" he asked, feinting a slash at her head, then cutting at her forearm. Jumping backward, she avoided the real attack, but only barely. "Don't you like the setting I chose for your demise? I know you don't have a crowd looking on, the way I did in Edinburgh, but the view is picturesque."

  "Please," said Louise, her face full of despair, "I beg you, don't let it end like this."

  "Fight back," he told her. "Fight or die like a sheep." Lunging, he thrust at her stomach. She parried the stroke, then, finally, lashed out at him, snapping a kick at his groin. He twisted and caught the blow on his thigh. Grinning, delighted she'd decided to give him some sport, he returned to the attack.

  As they battled back and forth, striking, parrying, and dodging, occasionally kicking, grunting with effort, the sand crunching and slipping beneath their feet, he waited for her to make a grab for her gun. Exultant with hatred, he had no fear of the firearm, and when she finally snatched it from its holster, he simply shot the crossbow one-handed, without taking conscious aim.

  The quarrel plunged into the elbow of her pistol arm, the gleaming black head punching out the other side. Her mouth twisted, ripples of darkness streamed up and down her arm, and the gun tumbled from her grip.

  "I won the silver arrow at St. Andrews two years mnning," Montrose said, flinging the crossbow at her. "Did I ever tell you that?" The stock of his makeshift missile struck the shoulder of her wo
unded arm, staggering her. Springing forward, he hacked at the long haft of the mace, chopping it in two.

  She backpedaled frantically, but judging from her expression, she was bracing for the death blow. Instead of delivering it, he halted his advance. "You mustn't lose hope," he said, his voice dripping mock encouragement. "You still have your knife."

  "James, please—" she panted, reeling, a band of shadow flowing across her face.

  "Draw your knife!" he snapped.

  She dropped what remained of the mace and fumbled for the hilt of the dagger. He stalked forward.

  Her eyes narrowed in concentration. Montrose realized she wasn't as weary and weak with pain as she was pretending, but the insight came too late to do him any good.

  Energized by the power of her Arcanos, a cloud of sand and pebbles lurched up from the beach and hurtled at him, blinding him and knocking him off balance. The stones rang against his sword and silver mask.

  Afraid she'd stab him before he could recover, he invoked his own powers and flew upward, trying to climb beyond her reach. She didn't attack again. When he had rubbed and blinked the grit out of his blurry, stinging eyes, he glimpsed her dashing back toward the street.

  He flew over her head and landed in front of her. "I almost forgot your Spook tricks," he said. "Not that it matters. Allez-" He cut at her shoulder. She blocked the blow and leaped at him, aiming a flying kick at his head. He dodged and gashed her calf as she flashed by.

  When she landed, she staggered. For a moment it looked as if her wounded leg could no longer support her weight. He sprang forward in a balestra, thrust, and she floundered frantically backwards. His point missed her breast by a hair.

  He kept attacking without pause, never allowing her the split-second required to activate her Arcanos. She fought well but, now limping, unable to kick, one arm disabled and her one remaining weapon considerably shorter than his own, was unable to seize the initiative. He realized he could kill her whenever he liked.

  Seeking to draw out the moment, he made sure she knew it too, flicking the saber past her guard, inflicting one superficial cut after another. "How do you like knowing you're going to die?" he asked. "I grew quite familiar with the sensation after you tossed me into Argyll's clutches. I didn't much care for it."

  As she fought, she began to recite the creed of the Sisterhood of Athena. "I am dead, and death is a journey. Spirit clothed in light, risen and sundered—" Suddenly her eyes widened. "James! Behind you!"

  Montrose laughed. "The oldest trick in the book, my darling. You can hardly expect me to fall for that one." His blade nicked her shoulder.

  She threw the knife. Her aim was off, it wouldn't hit him, but he swatted it out of the air anyway, just for fun. Arms outstretched, she lunged forward.

  All he had to do was extend his saber in a stop thrust and she'd impale herself. And he supposed he'd hurt and humiliated her sufficiently; it was time to consummate his vengeance. He began to straighten his arm, then perceived that she wasn't coming straight at him, any more than her knife had. She was attempting to scramble around him.

  Halting his attack, he whirled, an instant too late to defend himself from the immense claw poised to snap shut around his neck. But Louise managed to grab the creature's arm and hinder the attack. Hissing, the thing thrashed and flung her aside.

  The monster somewhat resembled an immense, chitinous serpent with a body as thick as a man's torso. But it had jagged-edged pincers like a crab, and with its antennae, mandibles, and round, compound eyes, its head, reared eight feet above the ground, was more ant-like than reptilian. Its sharp, acidic smell stung Montrose's nose.

  Evidently the thing was a Spectre or some other hostile spirit, emerged from the Tempest in search of prey. Lacking a natural moat to protect it, the Iron Hills complex was far more vulnerable to such incursions than the Isle of Sorrows. As Montrose cut at the beast, he marveled that it had slithered so close unnoticed. Perhaps it too had some ability to become invisible. Or perhaps he and Louise had been so utterly intent on one another that even a gigantic horror like this one had had difficulty capturing their attention.

  The saber crunched through dun-colored chitin into the wet, black flesh beneath. The creature screamed, a thin, high-pitched sound like the wail of a terrified child, and struck at him with its chelae.

  Montrose jerked his weapon out of the monster's breast and sprang backward. Pincers clacked shut just in front of him, at eye and knee level. He dived between them, rolled, scrambled to his feet, and drove his point at the wound he'd opened before.

  With no chitin blunting the force of the thrust, the saber plunged deep into the snake-thing's chest. The monster shrieked, its arms flailed, and then its upper body collapsed toward the ground. Montrose sprang aside just in time to avoid being pinned beneath it.

  He watched the carcass until it began to dissolve, making sure it was really dead, then turned toward Louise. She still lay where the monster had hurled her, evidently too spent to rise.

  Montrose retrieved the saber from the last wispy remains of the monster's body, then advanced on her.

  She looked up at him calmly. "I warned you that if we fought, the noise would bring something," she said.

  "You said it would bring Legionnaires," he replied. He lifted the sword, then drove it down into the sand, just missing her. She twitched, but only slightly. The movement scarcely qualified as a flinch. It was, he reflected bitterly, a most unsatisfactory finale to his grand revenge.

  "I gather," said Louise, "that you've decided to let me live."

  "Yes," he said. "You could have let the serpent snip my head off. I daresay you could have made your escape while it occupied itself with me. Instead you risked your own existence to save me. And in consequence I don't have the stomach to destroy you anymore."

  Teeth clenched, she drew the crossbow bolt from her elbow. "I wonder if you ever really did," she said. "When we fought, you could have killed me many times over. But you held back—"

  "Don't flatter yourself," he spat. "I'm no longer fond of you, madam. I'll never forgive you for what you did to me in Holland. But honor compels me to concede that your actions today must be considered an atonement."

  She smiled wanly. "'Honor.' You used to speak of it all the time, but I think this is the first time I've heard you use the word since we encountered one another in Grand Gulf."

  The observation irked him. "Because it's a useless, archaic notion. But I was saddled with it as a youth, and once in a while I still feel obliged to indulge it. Thank your Heretic gods for my foibles as you make your way back to the Shadowlands."

  Her gashed, bloodless hand trembling, Louise brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "I'm not going back. I'm going to the Onyx Tower with you."

  He stared at her in amazement. "You're joking."

  "Not at all. I said I'd help you and I will."

  "But I just tried to kill you."

  "And then you relented."

  Montrose shook his head. "Even so, I can't believe that you still want to accompany me."

  She looked at him for what seemed a long time, until her stare began to make him uncomfortable. "Let's just say that I don't feel I've atoned," she said at last. "And that I accept your thesis that open war among the Deathlords would be disastrous for Hierarchs, Renegades, and Heretics alike."

  "That may be," said the Scot. "But I never actually meant to take anyone with—

  She scowled. "Don't start that again! I've proved I'm trustworthy, and you need me. I just saved your neck!"

  He could have retorted that if he hadn't been drunk with the hatred her presence inspired, the monster could never have sneaked up on him. But now that the feeling had subsided to a dull loathing, and he'd abandoned his intent to destroy her, he supposed it was time to focus on his mission. And the truth was that she had demonstrated her reliability, and her talents might indeed prove essential. Moreover, it wasn't as if he'd never fought alongside a comrade he detested before. For a Legionnaire d
etermined to rise through the ranks, surrounded by rivals with similar ambitions, such situations were more the rule than the exception.

  "All right," he said grudgingly, "we'll do it together."

  "Such enthusiasm," she said, smiling crookedly. "You certainly know how to make a lady feel welcome." She attempted to clamber to her feet, but her knees buckled.

  He gripped her forearm and held her up. "What's wrong?" he asked.

  Slumped drunkenly against him, Louise chuckled. "He cuts me to ribbons with darksteel, then wonders why I'm so weak. I'm sorry, James, but I need to Slumber. It's the only way I'll heal."

  "All right," he said. He pulled the saber from the sand, returned it to its scabbard, then lifted her in his arms. "Go ahead. Sleep. I'll take care of you."

  Her golden head lolled on his shoulder. She snored, the same faint buzz he remembered from their nights together in The Hague.

  Peering warily about, he carried her down the strand, past iron towers and long stone warehouses. The surf muttered and whimpered; once it almost seemed to call his name. Before long, turquoise lightning flared, illuminating a dismasted sloop beached in the gloom ahead.

  He approached the vessel cautiously, but no one was about. He laid Louise on deck, where the topsides hid her, then trotted back down the beach to retrieve the pistol, knife, and crossbow. Once that was accomplished, there was nothing to do but sit down beside his companion and keep watch.

  The surf moaned and the thunder rumbled, but he didn't hear any more shots, outcries, or explosions. Perhaps the internecine raids had ended for now. Sheet lightning wavered in the clouds, staining Louise's ivory face with a succession of colors; violet, amber, chartreuse...

  One by one, her wounds closed. Then her eyes began to roll behind their lids, and her limbs to twitch. The trouble with Slumber was that a wraith's Shadow invariably seized the opportunity to torture him or her with nightmares.

  Remembering the ghastly visions he'd suffered in similar circumstances, Montrose felt a twinge of pity. He reached out to stroke her tousled hair, then snatched his hand back with a grimace.