by David Benem
The stockade of Crook’s Hole was a deep, wide pit in the ground, its walls all black soil held back by wooden planks. Fencress entered it from the ramp dug out of one of its corners and regarded the prisoner shackled to a post in the center. She walked round the man, still blindfolded and gagged, and noticed blood dripping from a dozen fresh wounds. The fellow shuddered with frantic breaths, and his blindfold was damp with tears. Old Crook’s lads know their business.
Fencress moved behind the man and began untying his gag. The prisoner recoiled and whimpered, seeming to fear another beating. “Hush,” Fencress said. “There will be no need for violence so long as we understand each other.”
The man settled back against the post, his breathing becoming more even. After a moment he nodded.
“Very well,” said Fencress, removing the man’s blindfold and walking to stand before him. She bowed politely. “I am Fencress Fallcrow, and I am equally willing to serve as your executioner as I am your liberator. The choice, friend, is yours. And you are?”
“Merek,” he answered, his voice ragged and hoarse. His nose was flattened and blood trickled from both nostrils and through his greasy beard.
“Let me apologize, Merek, for the circumstances of our first encounter, and this, our second. However, I do not take kindly to being spied upon, nor do I fancy seeing one of my friends nearly murdered in his sleep.”
“I intended no harm.”
Fencress twirled a strand of black hair that had fallen from her cowl. “A convenient explanation to make, now that you find yourself in this predicament. The way I saw things—and I have very sharp eyes—you were crouched over him as he slept, your hands ready to wrap around his throat.” She waggled a gloved finger at him, scolding. “Friends don’t treat each other so, do they?”
“If I’d thought to kill your friend I’d have gutted him with my blade while he slept.”
Fencress measured the man’s eyes, searching for the tics of a liar. The fellow’s gaze was unwavering. Fencress was certain the man was hiding something, but he wasn’t lying about this. “Perhaps you’re no murderer, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t hold ill intent. You practice witchcraft, do you not?”
“I am no witch,” Merek said, his eyes narrowing.
“Not a witch, eh? Does the term insult you? Tell me, then, what you are? I recognize sorcery when I see it.”
The man looked away, his bloody chin held high.
“Do we no longer understand each other, friend?” Fencress tucked her hand into one of the pockets of her cloak and retrieved the iron bracelet they’d taken from the man. It was an odd thing, etched with strange writing and its surface seemed to reflect no light. “I’ve fenced my fair share of jewelry, and this strikes me as much more than a mere bauble.”
Merek looked hungrily at the object, momentarily struggling against the heavy chains that bound him.
“Ah,” said Fencress, moving closer. “You want this?”
Merek cast his eyes downward and was still. “Yes,” he said quietly. “You must let me go. There are things afoot, great forces at work. You must set me free!”
Fencress drew one of her blades and pressed the point against the fellow’s forehead, easing his head upward. “You are in no position to make demands upon me, friend. I do not trust sorcerers, which means I do not trust you. I will ask my questions only once, and if you have any desire to leave this place with your head, you will answer them earnestly. Do we understand each other?”
Merek’s eyes sharpened, and Fencress felt herself being appraised. She met the gaze with her hardest stare and pressed the blade more firmly against the man’s forehead, drawing blood.
Oh, I am not bluffing.
“We understand each other,” said Merek.
“Tell me why you followed us, all the way from Raven’s Roost.”
“You were there to collect the bounty for killing the Lector of the Sanctum.”
Fencress said nothing.
“But your companion had already done so. I met him, and I met your patron. Do you know who it was who retained you? Do you know you were hired by a Necrist?”
Fencress gave an impassive look. The term was only dimly familiar, and Karnag had never said who’d retained them. “I did not.”
Merek grimaced. “You have no idea what you’ve done. Your actions have shifted the balance in a great and secret war. The Lector was… Suffice it to say the Lector was a man possessed of tremendous power. For his life to be forfeit for mere coin!” He blinked hard, his eyes suddenly wet. “Your leader. The highlander. He was the one who slit the Lector’s throat, wasn’t he?”
Fencress nodded. “And how is it you know this?”
Merek breathed deeply. “I saw what happened in Raven’s Roost, with the merchant. I also witnessed the killing of your companion in Hargrave. The highlander has become possessed by something. Something much greater than himself. And he has neither the discipline nor the desire to contain it. My order deals with such things. The old powers. The dead gods.”
“You can help him?” Fencress asked, easing her sword from the man’s head.
“I can.”
Fencress returned her sword to its sheath but held his gaze. “You stray even once, friend, and I will run you through.”
“I will help your friend.”
Fencress knew trusting this man meant playing the short odds, but then the only player who’d never win was the one refused to throw the dice.
Karnag Mak Ragg moved through the night, slowly and with dark intent. He’d lost count of the number of men he’d slain, of the times they’d begged him to spare their lives, of the times he’d denied their pleas. He looked at his thick arms, so stained with blood he wondered whether they could ever be washed clean. Or whether he’d ever want them to be.
The Arranese had come to Rune seeking death, and he would grant it to them. He would slay Arranan’s soldiers, and he would draw to him their king. He would take the lives of many men, and would ascend to the heavens atop a mountain of corpses.
He no longer slept, but the dreams remained. He needed to but shut his eyes and still himself to hear the voice, that seductive call which spoke to him of things that once were, and of things yet to come. When he alighted from such a trance he could read the fates of men in their faces and could see their actions long before they occurred. It was as though their thoughts and their futures lay open to him, and their lives were his to conclude. There was a righteousness, a certainty of purpose, in being the end of men.
There was an encampment ahead, seven Arranese warriors sent to harry Rune’s army. They had built no fire, but Karnag could see them all the same. Tall and lean with angular features, almond-shaped eyes, and ears peaked nearly to a point. They sat in a tight circle, calloused hands close to their weapons.
“The Gravemaker,” one of them said in an accent, drawing the word out and sharply annunciating its sounds.
Karnag smiled. He’d heard the Arranese utter this word before, after he’d shouted the name of his sword when they’d fled before it. They’d taken it to be his name, which was just as well. He and the blade were one.
“He stalks this wilderness,” the man continued. “My brother Bashka saw him, two days ago when his war band stopped to water their horses. He came suddenly upon them. A demon. A devil. Bashka said he beheaded every member of his war band, all except for him. He drank their blood and laughed as Bashka ran away.” He sighed heavily. “I fear him more than all the armies of Rune.”
Another man laughed. “Do you fear this Gravemaker more than you fear our Spider King or his sorcerers?” asked another.
“Yes.”
“Then you are a fool, Aleki,” said the other. “There is no such thing as this Gravemaker. Your brother was afraid, and his eyes deceived him.”
“You insult my tribe, Jelan,” said Aleki, moving to stand. “My brother is no coward.”
Coward. Karnag snarled at the mention of the word. He recalled his own clan’s chieftain l
eveling the same accusation against his dead father, many years before. He remembered the chieftain uttering the word as he spat upon the funeral pyre, just before raping and slaughtering Karnag’s mother and sisters and then casting him and his brothers from the highlands. The word rang in his skull, and Karnag turned his eyes to the accuser. You have cast your fate. You will die this night.
“I did not call him a coward,” said Jelan, defensively. “Fear plays tricks on the eyes. Now sit down and be quiet, before a real enemy hears you.”
“My brother is no coward,” repeated Aleki, sitting. “If he says he saw the Gravemaker, then I trust him as though I’d seen him myself.”
“I too have heard of this demon,” said an older man. “Eight days ago, when we first marched upon the road, we sent a vanguard of seven men ahead of us. We came upon a village and there they were, all seven of them dead. But it wasn’t the work of soldiers. They’d had their heads and arms ripped from their bodies. I looked for tracks, and there was only one set of footprints trailing away from the bodies.”
Karnag smiled once more. He remembered this. He walked closer to the circle of men, easing his great sword from its sheath.
The Arranese continued speaking, oblivious to Karnag’s presence. He was close enough to smell them, the strange oils they used upon their skin.
He closed his eyes and stilled himself, listening for the call. After an instant he heard it, a warm whisper which filled his mind and expanded him. He reached out with his thoughts and among the shifting scape of futures he discerned the deaths of these men.
He sharpened his mind and could see it. He would leap into their circle and would cleave away the heads and shoulders of three of them in one sweep of his sword. The others would tremble with shock, stammering and stumbling as they fled from him but they would struggle in vain. He would hack apart and mangle three of those who remained, seizing their lives before they could give voice to their agony. He would be a black storm of fury among them, and he would shower the earth with their blood.
It happened thus.
The last he let live. He stood over him, his bones still humming with rage. He breathed deeply, suppressing the call which yet sounded in his head and then sheathed his mighty sword.
“Flee, Aleki,” Karnag said, “and tell your brother he is no coward. All men are wise to fear me.”
Aleki ran without a word.
18
REQUIEM
LANNICK STOOD BENEATH the leafy eaves of the old oak, solemnly regarding the desecration at his feet. It was here, on this hill once part of his father’s farm, where he’d married his wife on a midsummer’s morning. And where he’d buried her and their children in the dead of a winter’s night.
The ground before him was upturned, a deep hole torn in the earth. Within the hole were four corpses, ripped from their linen wrappings and discarded in a haphazard pile. Their faces had been shorn from their skulls, leaving masks of ruined, grinning bones.
Lannick descended into the grave and pulled aside the first corpse, that of his elder son. He’d given the bodies ancient Variden rites which preserved the flesh and protected the soul, and thus they felt just as they had that night nine years before. Cold, stiff, but still horribly familiar.
He retrieved an armful of the shredded linens and took the body upon his lap. He looked skyward as he wrapped the bands of cloth about the boy’s face and neck, not daring to look upon the eyes still resting in their sockets.
As he did this he did not weep. His eyes burned but there were no tears. Instead, he moaned. Softly at first, but soon it was a throaty howl. To his ears it was pain given sound, a dirge of despair so profound it could not be bound by words.
He did this again and again, and again once more. His young twins, his beloved wife. As he wrapped their bodies his hands found their wounds almost of their own accord, those hollows in the flesh left by the weapons of General Fane’s Scarlet Swords. His hands shook as they crossed over those damaged parts, but he continued his grim work until the four bodies were once again laid in order, with reverence.
He then dug at the dirt and threw it in clumps upon them, clawing and scraping until his nails cracked and his fingers bled and his arms felt ready to fall from their sockets.
At last he stood. The day had given way to evening, and there was a chill upon the air. He pulled his cloak about him and kept a silent vigil until the moon rose over the land, bathing the gravesite in a ghostly light.
He straightened his shoulders and recited his loving farewells in his head. His hand found the locket about his neck, and he retrieved it from beneath his shirt and detached it. He then knelt and pressed the locket deep into the dirt. He held his hand there for a moment, thinking of the horrors suffered by these who he’d loved most.
He arose, and with one last, silent goodbye he turned and left the place.
My revenge will be their requiem.
It was midmorning when Lannick caught sight of Ironmoor, a great mass of gray stone crowded against the edge of the sea. He’d spent so much time within its walls he’d nearly forgotten how imposing the city appeared from without. It was surrounded by a wall four times as tall as a man, and the steel of soldiers pacing its battlements glinted in the sun. Beyond those walls the city rose, higher and higher upon a broad hill before coming to a crest at the Bastion. Thereupon, the Bastion’s majestic Tower of Lords stretched to the sky, the statue of a gold dragon shining upon its peak.
Home. Lannick’s expression twisted, not quite a smile and not quite a frown, but whether this was due to mixed emotions or the crookedness of his face even he wasn’t sure. He’d long desired a new beginning, a new start for his life, and now he had it. But at such a dear price.
The pain of the previous night had left him empty. He felt as though he’d buried more than his family in that grave, and knew now he would no longer measure his love for his family by the depth of his anguish. He would measure it by his deeds.
For the first time in a long while he felt his stride driven by a hint of purpose. He thought of the years he’d spent grieving, then of the years he’d wasted thereafter using that grief as an excuse. He’d shed those chains, now, he hoped. His was not the hand that had murdered his family. He’d betrayed no one. And his purpose now was to give proof to these truths and deliver justice to those who were guilty.
When he arrived at the city gates he found them shut. A massive portcullis blocked his entry and the two soldiers manning it eyed him suspiciously as he neared.
“We’re at war, stranger,” said the shorter soldier. “Identify yourself and your business in Ironmoor.”
“Ironmoor is my home,” said Lannick, straightening to his full height. “And I am no stranger. I am Captain Lannick deVeers, Protector of Ironmoor.”
This drew a hearty laugh from the guards, but the shorter one moved to open the gate. “Well, judging by the look of you, you’re no Arranese warlord, and that’s good enough for me.”
Lannick went first to the Hollows, the city’s hardest quarter. It was a weave of squalid streets crowded by shanties, and seemed rougher than Lannick remembered. The place was filthy and the air carried the reek of rot, refuse, and unwashed flesh. The folk trudging through the streets looked a sight more desperate than before, and seemed as ready to exchange pleasantries as knife a fellow in the back.
He looked upward, squinting at the sun high overhead. Midday, just as he’d planned. He reckoned the shadows would be at their slimmest, giving him the best chance to retrieve what he needed.
He did not see many familiar faces, and those folk he did recognize didn’t seem to recognize him. Perhaps it was the short haircut or the clean clothes. Or the fact that I’m not stone, stumbling drunk. In any case, anonymity was a welcome thing.
At last he rounded a corner and came upon a dead-end street where sat a brothel, a pawnshop, and above the shop his dwelling. A few tired-eyed prostitutes called out as he passed, asking if he was new to town and whether he was up for a ta
ngle between the sheets. One even called him pretty. He politely waved and shook his head as they displayed their wares, and continued across the street. If they’d lavished me with such flattery a month ago perhaps I wouldn’t be in this mess.
He ascended the rickety staircase alongside the pawnshop and found his door covered with notes from the pawnbroker, Silas, threatening eviction and demanding payment. He looked sideways down the stairs, half expecting Silas to come charging out of his shop, but remembered that at midday Silas generally took his “lunch” at one of the nearby brothels.
He swept the notes aside and tried the knob. The door was locked, so there was some measure of chance his possessions hadn’t been stolen. Beside the door was a knot in the wood, and within the knot was his key. He turned the lock and paused for an instant, feeling for once a stranger to the place rather than its resident.
The sordid chamber still carried the sour stink of a bad drunk. It was littered with empty bottles, loaves of moldy bread, and no fewer than a score of skittering cockroaches. There was a washbasin of stagnant water, a mattress covered with stains, and a chamber pot in dire need of emptying.
A sardonic grin slipped across his face. No wonder I lived like such a sorry sot for so long. Comfort is ever the enemy of ambition.
Lannick set across the room with apprehensive steps, each stride slower than the last. It had been nine years. Nine awful years filled with guilt and misery. He stopped, uncertain. Then he spat and clenched his crooked jaw, ignoring the grinding sensation and cursing his self-doubt. He thought about his family. I buried my failures with them. It will do no honor to their memory if I keep running away.
He moved to the room’s opposite side with an inspired urgency, not daring to give his doubts another chance to gnaw at him. He stepped atop the mattress and stretched upward, pressing free the loose board in the ceiling and reaching his hand inside the hole. And there it was, the bundled cloth of his old cloak. He pulled it free and then stooped to sit on the edge of his mattress, holding it upon his lap with timid hands. A cloak wrapped about a box. To the eye, such modest things.
