by David Benem
“Stay down, bastard!” The voice was close, almost upon him.
At last Lannick scrambled to his feet and grabbed from a pocket the wine he’d stolen from Brugan’s cellar. The Scarlet Swordsman was no more than ten feet away, blade brandished and eyes agleam with fury. But he was alone.
Lannick directed the lamp’s glare at the soldier, hoping the bright light in the utter dark would disorient him. With his other hand he threw the bottle. It struck the Swordsman square in the face, not hard enough to break the bottle but enough to make the man misstep and lose his footing on the same rubble which had toppled Lannick. He skidded to a stop at Lannick’s feet, and Lannick dashed his lamp across the Swordsman’s skull. Flames engulfed his head and shot across his red cloak. His screams told of horrific pain.
Lannick looked frantically about for the man’s sword, and finally spotted its point protruding from beneath a flailing arm. He couldn’t chance trying to pry the thing away, nor could he wait for the flames to sputter and die. If there were other Swordsmen in the catacombs, they were certain to hear the cries of their comrade. Lannick turned his back to the burning body and tried to outrun the light of the blaze. The screams followed him for a long while, but that was well enough. His heart held a special hatred for Fane’s Scarlet Swords, those awful thugs retained by the general to do his darkest work.
Like what they did to my family.
After a time, the cries fell silent. Lannick fumbled through many turns and twists in the dark, and then the corridor came to an abrupt end at a door of moldy wood. Lannick grimaced as he neared it, for the air carried a gut-turning stench. He pulled an arm to his face, burying his nose in the crease of his elbow, then tugged at the door.
The door opened to a sewer bathed in light from iron grates above, a brown and yellow stream of waste. Putrid lumps floated amidst eddies of oily liquids, and Lannick swallowed hard to keep his stomach from emptying. Perhaps one thing smells worse than I do today.
He cursed and forged ahead in knee-high muck, thinking this to be a suitable place for him after his actions. His boots would be more difficult to replace than his shirt had been, but such was his fate. He thought of Brugan, and knew he owed his friend far more than coin.
He located a grate he was able to shake loose, although its weight was not easily moved. With some effort he worked it far enough to a side, and pulled himself from the sewer.
He found himself in the middle of a livestock tent, surrounded by more than a dozen lowing cows. Lannick looked at their wide, confused eyes and felt a strange kinship. They were all destined for slaughter.
“I know the feeling,” he said, patting them gently as he passed.
He emerged from the tent and into the midst of Ironmoor’s Old Market. It was a vast square crowded with tents of every color and patrons from every corner of the world. Bejeweled Khaldisian merchants jabbered with thick-faced highlanders from near the Waters of World’s End over the proper price of wool, while tall, dark-skinned warmasters from Harkane tested swords and bows with skeptical frowns. All mentioned the coming war as either a reason to inflate or decrease the price, and Lannick guessed both merchants and patrons saw their game approaching an end.
He walked slowly as he moved among them, figuring the crowd would swallow him and that running would only draw attention. He was close to his quarters, where he kept another sword and a few other possessions. From there he could make the docks. Perhaps he could manage a long journey as a stowaway or even a stint as a deckhand if there was work to be had. By the time he returned, maybe his indiscretions would be forgotten or he’d be presumed long dead.
The colorful tents of the Old Market gave way to storehouses and then to rough industry, with filth-covered roads separating slaughterhouses from rendering mills. Lannick’s already-sullied boots squelched through what seemed a mix of entrails and mud, and his nose burned from the hot stink.
Beyond lay the Hollows, the roughest, bleakest corner of Ironmoor. A maze of alleyways weaved amidst dilapidated shanties and unsavory establishments, all crowded against Ironmoor’s outer wall like garbage swept into a corner. The city guard had long ago abandoned any notion of enforcing the High King’s Law in the Hollows, so it provided a welcome home for every manner of burglar, prostitute, and panhandler in the city.
Lannick slowed as he entered the Hollows, looking for any suspicious eyes. A couple of ruffians sat fingering their blades on a bench outside a tavern. Lannick guessed they were looking for someone with coin, such as a wealthy merchant seeking a discrete dalliance in one of the local establishments. They merely glanced at Lannick, and for the first time this day he was glad to be covered in shit. He had nothing to give them, of course, but it would have been a painful explanation.
Many of the other denizens appeared far less ambitious, shuffling tiredly through the tight streets. Historians instructed that the Hollows were used as a quarantine during a plague long ago, and the name derived from the gaunt look of its residents. Lannick felt the place still reeked of sickness, and that its residents still wore the haggard masks of the nearly dead.
At last, a reason to flee this place.
He pressed ahead through the narrow streets, shouldering between prostitutes and their patrons and ignoring their complaints. He hoped against hope that General Fane’s men were still blundering through the catacombs. He rounded a corner, passed a brothel, then bounded up a set of rickety steps lining the side of a pawnshop. He fumbled frantically through his pockets, searching for the key.
“Ho there, Lannick!” called a scratchy voice from the bottom of the stairs.
Lannick froze for an instant but breathed a bit easier when he saw it was Silas, the pawnbroker who served as his landlord and occasional employer. Silas was a measly man with a patch for one eye, and was owed money by virtually every resident of the Hollows.
“You’re well past due on your rent, lad,” Silas said slowly, his face as eerily calm as ever. “Not to mention the three silver crowns I loaned you last week. I have a few jobs you could do if you don’t have the coin on hand. They may be a bit bloody, but that’s nothing you’re not used to, eh?”
“It’ll have to wait,” said Lannick. He abandoned his search of his clothing and set about looking for the duplicate key he kept stashed in a knot of wood.
“It’d be best for you if I didn’t have to wait overlong,” said Silas, almost sadly. “I’d hate to have to ask one of my other lads to pay you a visit.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lannick said brusquely as he found the key and turned the lock. “I’ll have it for you this week.”
“You’d better,” Silas said, turning away toward his pawnshop. “Life can be too short for waiting.”
Lannick shook his head and entered his squalid room, slamming the door behind him. He picked his way between piles of refuse buzzing with flies, then stepped atop his soiled sleeping pallet. Above the pallet, behind a plank in the ceiling, he found it: an embroidered green cloak bundled about his most valued possessions, the last tangible connections to his past.
His pulled free a decorative longsword, an elegant blade etched with runic marks and still honed to a deadly precision despite years of disuse. The locket, which held hairs plucked from the heads of his dead children. And the box of richly lacquered wood, adorned with the script of the elder tongue and containing a bracelet of black iron. He thought of taking it with him, but knew it would be safer in its place. He wrapped the cloak about the box and returned it to the nook in the ceiling. He would return for them, someday.
He pulled the locket around his neck, sheathed his sword and slung it on his hips, and departed.
A new life awaits. Perhaps something more akin to my old one.
He opened the door only to be met by a gauntleted fist to the face. He reeled, then was jerked from his quarters and shoved. He tumbled down the stairway and smacked his head on the street. He staggered to his feet, hand finding the hilt of his sword.
“Take him!” crie
d General Thalius Fane, his burned face as grotesque as Lannick remembered. The general smiled smugly. “Wound him only, though, for I’d like to finish things myself.”
Flanking General Fane were six of his Scarlet Swords, hard-eyed men draped in ebony chainmail and crimson cloaks. A seventh was descending from the stairway, wiping Lannick’s spittle from his fist. They were the general’s personal attachment. Not Rune’s finest soldiers, but certainly its most vicious.
Lannick drew his sword, backing away from the soldiers toward the dead end of the street. The odds were against him, but he would never surrender to this man. At last, he had a chance to exact real vengeance for what wickedness the general had visited upon him those many years before.
The soldier from the stairs was the first to charge him. He held a broad-bladed axe in massive hands. Lannick noticed the man moved clumsily, so he crouched low. The oaf broke into a run. When he came close, Lannick lunged sideways, just beneath the swing of the axe. Lannick took a sharp, backhanded swipe with his sword as the man hurtled past. His blade cleaved into the soldier’s hamstring, just below the hang of the chainmail tunic. The oaf crumbled to a heap, wailing like a baby.
Lannick flashed a grin as an old feeling rose within him. He’d been an exceptional swordsman, long ago, but since then he’d done little more than Silas’s dirty work. It’d been years since he’d fought a man capable of defending himself. Yet, the movements of real combat were readily remembered, and he was invigorated. With a little luck he could best these dogs, even hung-over. Then he’d take the general, slowly and painfully.
He fell back into the street’s dead end and readied his blade, eying the Swordsmen. Two drew steel and began walking toward him, wary looks in their eyes. One was a giant of a man with a wild beard, the other short and swarthy. Lannick decided to rush at them as well, and closed the distance in an instant. When he was nearly upon them he dodged to the side of the street. Their mail was heavy and slowed them. Lannick redirected a blow from the bearded giant and spun about the giant’s back. He whirled to the swarthy man and found his throat with his blade. The Swordsman fell to his knees and clutched at the spewing wound. Lannick kicked him, yanking free the sword and sending the man into the giant’s legs. The giant toppled forward and Lannick separated the crown of his head from the bottom.
Lannick felt a slight step slower than he’d been years before, but reckoned he was still fast enough when faced with armored men. He grinned again. I just need to keep from being hit.
He turned to the remaining men, his sword dancing dangerously. General Fane wore a look of abject madness, his dark eyes nearly crossing. But then, abruptly, his features relaxed to an easy grin.
Lannick’s head nearly exploded from the blow, his vision going white and his ears clanging from the concussion. The pain was immense and he collapsed. His head swam and his world started fading to darkness, and he struggled to retain consciousness.
Dark, painful moments followed. He felt something under him, a boot perhaps, forcing him to his side and onto his back. Damn my wine-addled brain! It had to have been the one he’d hamstrung but hadn’t killed. He eased open his eyes to the sight of General Fane caressing his sword with black-gloved hands, mad eyes inspecting the markings on the blade.
“This is no pauper’s weapon,” Fane said, his voice no longer a shriek but a whisper. “Nor is it that of a worthless drunk. If I’d not seen you use it, I would have accused you of stealing it. This is a rare thing, a hero’s prize. Who are you to wield such a thing? Do I know you?”
Blood pooled in Lannick’s mouth and he coughed wetly. “No,” he lied. “But your daughter does.”
Lannick’s head exploded again. He felt broken teeth with his tongue. Opening his eyes proved difficult, and even in the shade of the leaning buildings the light seared his sockets.
“You fool!” Fane said, the shrillness returning to his voice. As his face slowly came into focus, Lannick noticed the general’s lips trembling. “Do you think I care that much for my daughter? Do you?”
Lannick tried to muster a clever retort, but just then the general drove a boot in his gut, driving the wind from his lungs.
Fane’s eyes flared and he thrust Lannick’s sword into the ground. “Under other circumstances I would have let my soldiers ravage her, one after another after another, if I thought it would buy me an advantage. But you… You have ruined things in a way you cannot comprehend.”
Fane crouched low, pulling Lannick up by the throat until their faces nearly touched. It was not the striated, stretched burns covering the man’s face that disturbed Lannick, but the eyes. The general was a madman, and there was not an ounce of goodness in his soul. He felt his blood run cold, certain this moment was his very last.
“She was to be a virgin,” the general spat in Lannick’s ear. “The Necrist said no other sacrifice would do…”
The general shoved Lannick back to the ground, stood and smoothed his crimson surcoat. “Keln?” he said, gesturing to one of his Scarlet Swords.
“Shall I kill him, sir?” came a coarse voice.
“No,” said Fane. “I believe I know this loathsome cur, and have a use for him. Take him to the brig. Tell them he’s there on my direct order, and let the guards know he’s not to be harmed. By them, anyway.” He chuckled grimly. “The rest of you can clean up these bodies.”
2
ANOTHER EXORCISM
THE DUST MADE Zandrachus Bale sneeze, and the sneeze stirred up more dust. The depths of the ancient library were rife with the stuff; a thick glaze coated every shelf, every table, and every book. Bale dragged his tongue upon his forefinger and then trailed the finger across the spine of his tome. The brown paste rendered looked quite revolting. He waggled the finger and flicked it toward the floor, recalling a scientific treatise postulating that dust was comprised largely of human parts. Hair, skin, and who knows what else.
Perhaps little bits of my sneezes.
For a moment he studied the misshapen globule on the floor. The shadows of the flickering candlelight danced about it, making it seem almost alive, and all the more unsightly. Bale had a weak stomach, yet often found himself enraptured by the grotesque. Certain smells, sights and textures delighted him as much as they repelled. He thought for a moment of retrieving the pasty blob for further inspection, but then remembered he had a book to read. Faultain’s Study of Anatomic Anomalies. He’d left off with the chapter concerning superfluous teats. He rubbed away a dribble of snot from a nose he’d always felt to be several sizes too large, then settled in to read.
“Bale!” The voice echoed through the cavernous hall for long, irritating moments.
Bale shrunk low in his chair and drew the brown hood of his robes over his head of long, graying hair. He knew any attempt at disguise was ridiculous, for rare was the day he couldn’t be found in the library, dodging his duties in favor of studying old tomes on history, spellcraft, and minor perversions. Nevertheless, he resolved to ignore the summons and play the part of an insolent child as long as it suited him. He’d long grown weary of people and the mundane cycle of their days.
Of course, it wasn’t long before he was found. It was Prefect Kreer, as always. The tall man, at least three decades Bale’s senior, preened over him, jaundiced eyes staring down the long drip of his nose. “Acolyte Bale,” he said tiredly. “A member of His Majesty’s staff has requested an exorcism.”
“You mean another exorcism.”
Prefect Kreer raised a bushy brow. “The Faith has become an object of mockery to you, has it?”
Oh, not the Faith. Just those who practice it. “Of course not, Prefect. It’s just the High King and the residents of the castle seem to have grown overly zealous of late.”
“Our Sanctum has served the Crown for centuries, even in matters of seemingly small import. The Faith instructs that the High King carries the blessing of the goddess Illienne, and it is this blessing that ensures the well-being of Rune. Are you refusing an act of service to our div
inely blessed High King? To Rune?”
“Of course not, Prefect. I live to serve.” He bowed his head low, his big nose pressing upon a diagram of a third nipple in his book. He had to admire the artist’s hand. All in the name of science, of course.
“Your tone is one of mockery, Acolyte Bale, and the Sanctum does not look kindly upon jesters or blasphemers. Do you have further complaints? Something I should address with the Dictorian?”
Bale straightened in his chair, doing his best to appear reverent. Crossing Prefect Kreer would only mean assignments to foolish tasks, and upsetting the head of their order, Dictorian Theal, could mean expulsion.
I’d never survive outside this place.
“Nothing at all, Prefect,” he said. “I apologize for any perceived insolence. May I inquire as to the nature of the possession?”
“One of the scullery maids fears the castle’s kitchens are haunted by a demon. Her description leads me to believe the interloper is a rodent.” His purple lips wrinkled to a smile. “But one can never be certain.”
Torches lit the stonework corridors of the Abbey, and windows were small and infrequent. The design made for poor ventilation and a haze of foul smoke, but one of the Sanctum’s precepts was that the less distracted one was with the outside world, the more focused one’s pursuit of truth could be. It was one of the few precepts Bale had never found cause to question. The outside world seemed a frightening place full of violence, hardship, and, worst of all, people.
It was a tedious walk from the library to the apothecary, with the latter situated deep within the Abbey’s halls. Mishaps with reagents and potions were not infrequent, so the location had been chosen to prevent catastrophe. A wise choice, Bane reckoned, but it meant passing by several of his brethren in the hallways and exchanging feigned pleasantries. How I hate people.
