Princesses of the Ironbound Boxset: Books 1 - 3 (Barbarian Outcast, Barbarian Assassin, Barbarian Alchemist)

by Aaron Crash

  He put the ring in Lillee’s hand. “It’s dangerous. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s dangerous. Don’t let me put it on again, not for awhile. And we might have to rethink this Akkiric Rings business. The Amora Xoca is a lot safer.”

  He still wore the Black Ice Ring, and he wouldn’t take it off until the night’s work was done. It did act as a Focus ring—it focused his power, gave him additional magical stores, and protected his dusza. He was still an imprudens scholar and needed the protection. The other imprudens wouldn’t be getting their rings for another few weeks.

  Ymir set his satchel down. “I’m going upstairs, into the Princept’s Chamber, and I’m going to kill Hayleesia Heenn. Don’t let the professors up there. Do whatever you have to do to stop them.” He then told her, briefly, the high points of what he’d seen and the fifth-floor secret door he would use to gain access to the Princept’s Chamber.

  From the satchel he took his hatchet and slipped the sheath into his belt. He also had the two knives, the silver dagger Jenny had given him along with the Sapphire Fang.

  He put the hatchet on his left side and the two daggers on his right. He planned on slitting Haylee’s throat while she slept, in Della’s bed, and they could wrap her up in the sheets. He’d show the Princept the mark on her hand, the same mark where Haylee had touched her with the ashes from the Lover’s Knot.

  Della would understand. She’d killed before, or so she’d said, and she’d understand this murder. It would be just like in the poem about the murdered groom, only shorter and more secret.

  Lillee nodded. She understood that they couldn’t get any of the other professors involved. At this fucking school, they’d want to discuss the pros and cons of the assassination. Ymir wasn’t going to sit around and let these southerners muck up his vengeance with their laws and due process.

  He was going to remove the threat, and then he was going to send a message back to Josentown. No one would ever hurt his Jenny. No one. And if Auntie Jia didn’t fully understand that, then she might need to be removed from the world.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  YMIR JOGGED UP THE worn stairs to get to his table, and there, he slipped off his boots and socks. The stone was cold under his feet, but it also felt good. He could move quieter barefoot. He left his satchel at the table, as well as his shirt. He could wash the blood off his skin easily enough. He’d already ruined one leather shirt that night. He didn’t want to ruin another.

  He moved silently, up through the Coruscation Shelves. Lightning crackled across the shelves, giving him light. The noise also helped hide his footsteps.

  He thought of Gatha, which wasn’t all that strange since he was near her beloved books. She’d talked about her honor. What would she think of Ymir? Would she think he had no honor? Probably. Who cared? What was she to him? Gatha had given them some pleasure, she’d given them access to the Scrollery, and then she’d made it clear that she didn’t want them in her life. Fine.

  As for honor? Grandfather Bear had told Ymir a story about honor. Bear had been a young man when the bad king Yllgar reigned over the Red Elk Clan. Yllgar was a madman, a cruel tyrant, and his people nearly broke under his rule. The Red Elk wise women asked the Black Wolf Clan for help, though they didn’t want war between the people. They wanted outsiders to come and slit the madman’s throat while he slept. They would make arrangements.

  Grandfather Bear and his battle brothers played a game of stone, stick, moss, and mud to see who would be given the job of murdering the king. Bear had lost. He and his brothers, naked, smeared with mud, slipped into the camp. The other warriors went with Bear to protect him in case he was discovered. In the end, though, Bear would be the one to murder the sleeping king.

  And he did. Silently. The Black Wolf warriors vanished into the night with the Red Elk Clan none the wiser.

  Grandfather Bear wasn’t proud of the murder, but he didn’t hide it, and he talked about it as an example of how the world gives us tasks that are beyond the notions of honor and fair play. Yes, he killed the bad king Yllgar. How many more would’ve died if Bear had lost his nerve? Good men would’ve died in battle. Good women would’ve been widowed. No. Sometimes murder was justified. That was a reality of the world, especially up north where the weather didn’t care about your fucking morality.

  Ymir was going to cut the cancer out of Old Ironbound. Della would either understand or she wouldn’t.

  On the fifth floor, he tracked the titles to the north side of the tower. The lightning sizzled past him, and he let it go. In his vision, he’d seen where the entrance of the secret door lay. But how to open it? He didn’t know.

  However, there was an Obanathy cantrip for that. It could reveal a secret door or a trap. You had to be close. And you had to be clever.

  “Jelu jelarum.” Four volumes glowed on the shelf in front of him. He saw they were a collection of the works of Octovato, his four volumes on mathematics. Ymir felt the ice on his spine. How had Octovato known about the Veil Tear Ring? And might his biography point to the truth of the Akkiric Rings? It was a clue that Ymir might be able to follow.

  Octovato had a strange love of the number eight, saying it was perfection, even, easily divisible, and twice the number of both the elements and the Studiae Magica. He espoused the idea that one man should have seven wives, and that was the perfect family. Maybe it wasn’t so odd that there were eight Akkiric Rings.

  Ymir could read more about the eight-obsessed sorcerer later. His volumes on math, The Divine Perfection, were out of order. They numbered one, three, two, and four.

  The clansman switched the third volume and the second. He was careful not to touch the shelves, but the books were safe to touch—they were bound in leather, not iron. They were meant to be moved to open the passage.

  The minute he slid the third volume in the correct slot, he heard a click, and the section of shelves swung out. He stepped inside and closed the shelves behind him just as the lightning came crackling past. The radiance seeped through cracks in the bookcase, giving him light. A ladder rose upward. He saw where he could lift a latch to push out the secret door. He’d closed it, but it wasn’t locked. Shifting the volumes would do that.

  If all went well, he could cut Haylee Heenn’s throat and then slip away undetected. That might be for the best. Then he could leave a note for Della to tell her about the Lover’s Knot and the half-elven professor’s love of demonology. It did make Ymir wonder about Linnylynn Albatross because the Scatter Islands woman had the same interest.

  He climbed up the ladder and came to a rectangle of glass glowing with light from the inside. It was the mirror in the Princept’s bathroom. He pushed it open. He got lucky. The hinges didn’t squeak. If it were him, he would’ve made sure they were rusty to give him some warning. He turned, put a foot on the sink, and then lowered himself out of the rectangle in the wall and onto the floor.

  He crouched, waiting to see what he heard. A few Sunfire candles burned in the other room. That would give him light. He heard nothing else. He unsheathed Jenny’s dagger.

  Ymir crept noiselessly off the tiles of the privy and onto the wood floor. There, in the bed, Della and Haylee slept. Neither moved. Della lay on her back. Haylee lay across her.

  Ymir snuck across the room to the far side. He ignored the half-elf’s beauty and the scent of her perfume, tinged with their lovemaking. He focused on her throat. It would be a quick kill. She was laying on her right side. The left side of her neck was exposed.

  Ymir readied his left hand to hold her head down. His right hand would do the slashing.

  He felt his heart pounding, and he felt the revulsion, and he didn’t want to do this, but he had to. She was evil. She wouldn’t have thought twice about killing Jenny or destroying the Princept’s life. Ymir knew that for certain—he’d been inside her life.

  He pushed her head down, and he cut into her neck. Something behind him circled rubbery flesh around his arm, tugging him backwards.

  He spun an
d saw the demon, a ball of tentacles, clinging in the shadows to where the wall met the ceiling. A black tendril curled around his abdomen and caught his left hand. He was pulled off the floor, and then the thing’s scent, hidden somehow, burst forth. He gagged on the stink. It was like any squid or octopus, only this one hadn’t swum through the ocean in its wretched life. It was a creature of darkness, summoned from the abyss, a gash in the veil. Most of its tentacles held it to the wall, where it had waited like a nightmare watchdog. The other tentacles struck.

  Before they could seize him, Ymir used his magic. “Jelu jelarum!” The Black Ice Ring flashed with a dark light. Pointing the dagger with his right hand, Ymir iced over two of the tendrils. The temperature in the room plummeted.

  Other coils reached for him, and he froze them as well.

  Lastly, he cast an armatus spell over him, covering his skin with ice. The demon squealed, tossing Ymir around, shaking him and trying to throw him loose. That wasn’t going to happen—the clansman was glued to the thing with ice.

  The clansman was spun back around, jerked this way and that. He caught a glimpse of Haylee.

  The half-elf assassin was sitting up, her hand on her throat. Blood poured down her chest, covering her left breast.

  Della was awake as well, but only for a moment. “Caelum caelarum!” A Focus ring glowed on Haylee’s left hand, and it gleamed with a crimson light. That light was reflected in Della’s eyes. She sank back down, slapped back into an unnatural sleep. Ymir wondered what Moons spell that was. It would’ve been very handy.

  The demon squid paused in shaking him loose. The slimy ropes holding him stank despite the ice, but he had the idea that the thing had gotten too cold to move.

  Haylee gazed on him, fear in her eyes, and tears as well. “Why would you try to kill me? I’m not even sure I know who you are.” It was clear that speaking hurt, which would slow her spellcasting down.

  For an instant, Ymir thought she might be telling the truth. Had the Veil Tear Ring tricked him? With fucking magic in the mix, it certainly was possible. Then he saw the malice gleaming in her eye. “You’re an assassin,” he spat. “You were hired by Jiabelle Josen to kill my Jenny. You didn’t have the courage to do it yourself, so you summoned your orishas.”

  The woman got out of bed, still holding the wound closed on her neck. The gore dripped off her tit, down her belly, and onto her left thigh.

  “No, you’re mistaken. I came here because I love Della Pennez. I wanted to become the Moons Studia Dux. And someday? Maybe, if I am worthy, I’ll become the Princept. Yes, I know Jennybelle, and I’ve met her Auntie Jia, but I wouldn’t take money to kill anyone. Please, I’m cut badly. I need help. I need a healing spell. Please.” Even though tearstains marked her face, the woman smiled. For a moment, Ymir had doubted, but no more. She could have asked her lover for help instead of putting her to sleep, and there was cold murder in her eyes. This performance was for the Flow magic the professors would cast. The half-elf assassin was covering her tracks.

  The squid came alive. One of the tentacles, encrusted in frost, tried to capture his right arm. If he lost his weapon hand, he’d die. Once it got warm enough, the demon would crush him like its serpentine cousin had crushed Jenny.

  He stabbed into the tentacle holding his left arm, and it recoiled out of reflex. He then stabbed into the tentacle around his waist, but it held, so he swept his left hand behind him, caught the tendril of rubbery, stinking flesh in his elbow, and pulled. Twisting, he sawed the blade down through the icy coils, and the thing let out a squeal followed by a shriek.

  Ymir stabbed, slashed, sawed until the thing dropped him.

  He landed on the floor, crouched and ready. Some of the demon squid’s tentacles were still frozen. Others had been hacked to pieces. One was a stump. It flung out all its arms, screaming and showing Ymir its center. Like both the bear and the snake, it had white needle-like fangs, gnashing and chomping in a puckered central mouth surrounded by lead-dead eyes—eight of them. Octovato would’ve loved to have this thing as a pet.

  Ymir was trapped—the demon was on his left, and the half-elf assassin was on his right. She had her hands raised. Her Focus ring glowed. Her throat was damaged, but she was going to try to use her magic anyway. She was a fully trained sorceress, with any number of spells at her command. She could electrocute him with Moons, or freeze him in place with Flow, or conjure boulders to come crashing down on him using Form. Or she could simply burn him to death with Sunfire, though that would make such a mess.

  Haylee, however, would be alive to make up any story she wanted. Della would be at her mercy because of their inappropriate relationship.

  Lastly, with those tears on her face, she would be convincing. Or maybe that was how she lived the life of an assassin—by believing the tears she cried for the many she’d killed.

  Lillee appeared as if out of nowhere. The elf girl grabbed the woman’s arm, cranking it down.

  Jenny was there, on her feet, and she slipped Lillee’s essess onto the assassin’s left arm. The golden spirals glowed, and the woman howled. She sank to her knees, crying, laughing, and her hand went to the wound on her neck. She wasn’t trying to close it. She was rending her own flesh and screaming in what might have been grisly delight.

  Ymir pivoted and reached out his left hand. “Jelu jelarum!” Once again, the Black Ice Ring flashed, and he froze as many tentacles as he could. He then waded in, driving his dagger into one of the eyes of the demon squid. He pulled out the dagger and was sprayed with blood. And he’d just cleaned his face from the last demon he killed. He stabbed out each eye, and the tentacles slowed from his fucking magic, which proved to be so useful in battle. Over and over, the Sapphire Fang found a home in the flesh of the demon.

  It let out a final shriek before coughing out a death rattle. Its coils began to shake spasmodically in death. The demon slipped from the wall, its skin already dripping, sizzling, smoking into a foul puddle of stinking fluid. The thing didn’t have bones, only flesh, teeth, and eyes.

  Ymir turned to see Hayleesia Heenn tearing at her wound, driven insane by the essess on her arm.

  Walking behind her, he finished the job of cutting her throat. She slumped forward, dead.

  Ymir took a section of sheet, cleaned the dagger, and put it back into his sheath. He worked his arm in the shoulder. It hurt, and he’d have bruises from where the demon squid had grabbed him, but he was alive. His enemy was dead.

  The Honored Princept slept on.

  Lillee bent and removed her forearm cuff from Haylee’s arm. The elf girl put it back in place, though the metal was now bloody. She was pale and shaking.

  As for Jenny, she was barely on her feet. He crossed quickly and caught her before she fell. She turned her head, looking into his face, and though she didn’t look good, she’d looked far worse recently.

  “That’s two crazy professors I’ve killed for you,” she said, a little drunkenly. Had Doctor Naymer given her something for the pain?

  Ymir wouldn’t squabble with Jenny. He’d let her have the kill because putting the essess on the assassin had been ingenious.

  The Josentown princess laughed. “Second time is easier. When I heard you found my assassin, I wasn’t going to let you kill her alone. I wanted to see that bitch bleed. Guess I got that.”

  “We need to go,” Lillee said quietly. “Tori is only going to be able to stall the professors for so long.”

  Jenny giggled. “With how that dwab can talk? We have some fucking time.”

  “Language,” the elf girl complained. “The professors might be on their way up here now. We can leave through the secret entrance to avoid them. We found it.”

  “I found it,” Jenny insisted. “And fine. We’ll go.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Ymir said. He had one little errand to run while the Princept slept. He might not get another chance to see the Illuminates Spire.

  Ymir left the Princept’s chamber fifteen minutes later. He cast a
n Obanathy cantrip to cover his tracks, and to remove the presence of his friends. He went through the mirror in the bathroom, replacing it perfectly before climbing down the ladder. Out the secret door he went, replacing the books so the entrance was once again locked. Jenny and Lillee were waiting. They hid in shadows as they watched a collection of professors tromp up to the sixth floor. When Professor Slurp started pounding on the door, Ymir, Jenny, and Lillee crept away. They had to get back to the infirmary so they’d have an alibi. From what Lillee said, they’d been able to slip by Doctor Naymer without her seeing them.

  Getting Jenny back into the hospital room was easy.

  Lillee was the perfect distraction. All the elf girl had to do was ask Doctor Naymer about a lock for her essess. The Ohlyrran doctor then went into a long lecture on the evils of sex, and how an artist needed a clear head, and how could the doctor do her job if she was obsessed about the procreative act? No, an essess was needed, and if one couldn’t control themselves, they should be Locked. Jenny slipped past the lecturing doctor and back into the room, where Tori waited for her.

  Ymir hadn’t been there, and so he was free to walk outside, to the entryway. Lights glowed from the top of the Librarium Citadel. He could only imagine what the professors would see once they stormed the room. Della sleeping. Haylee dead. The puddle of the demon corpse would already be ruining the Princept’s fine carpet.

  The clansman watched the rain fill the night. He inhaled. The air smelled sweet. He was alive. Others weren’t. They’d tried to hurt his friends, and he’d killed them, and if he had any doubts, he could find honor in that.

  There were a couple of things that niggled at him and he couldn’t shake either of them.

  For one, he had the idea that Hayleesia Heenn might not be the only assassin at Old Ironbound.

  Secondly, it was exam week, and by the Axman’s sharp blade, he hoped he wasn’t scheduled to take his Third Exam later that Monday. It had been a long night.