The Sangrook Saga

by Steve Thomas

  She ignored the comment. She always did when he overstepped, but the playfulness in her demeanor vanished. “What makes this job special?”

  He leaned in and whispered. “We’re going to kill Caeva Sangrook.”

  Dypha stopped, frozen in her tracks. “You’re going to…” She pressed a hand against her forehead. “Hale, you can’t…Okay. I’ll help you, but we’re going to have to renegotiate that payment.”

  Hale sighed in relief. If he was going to sneak into Sangrook Manor, he needed her. Despite their history, he trusted Dypha, and no one else, with his life.

  She started walking again, but kept her distance. “Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?” Hale shook his head. “You can stay at my place. We’ll talk about the job, and we’ll sleep. Nothing more.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have a chaperon.” She raised an eyebrow at this. Hale continued. “Our client. I told him to wait outside your door.”

  Dypha reached back and pulled a pin out of her hair, letting the braid fall down her back. “So he could negotiate the price if I agreed to join, or try to convince me if I didn’t. You always have a trick ready.”

  “Speaking of tricks, how did you win, anyway?”

  “Bear essence. I increased my weight until I could barely feel the alcohol.”

  Hale nodded at this. “So he was right about the witchcraft.” Dypha laughed, and they continued their walk.

  ***

  Claren was waiting for them outside Dypha’s apartment in an insula near the city wall. She had changed back into her usual clothes before allowing Hale in. Now she was clad in soft leather pants and a matching vest, both bulging with pockets. She wore a satchel over her shoulder to carry heavier tools and items. Spread around the apartment was a layer of tools, vials, and scraps of wood and metal strewn over her bed and table.

  They sat at the table over a hastily-arranged platter of fruit and cheese. Hale had watched them negotiate long past the point at which he’d lost interest. Finally, Dypha held out a hand. “Done. I’ll work with you and Hale to assassinate Caeva, and you’ll provide me with a copy of of Habrien Sangrook’s forbidden texts. If we find any other rare books during the expedition, they will be my property.”

  “After the True Faith has transcribed our own copies,” said Claren. Dypha’s hand didn’t budge, so Claren clasped and shook it. “Good,” he said. “I will set an acolyte to work on your copy of Habrien.”

  He rested his arms on the table and closed his eyes as he entered a trance. Hale took the silence as an excuse to get up and relieve himself in a chamber pot by the window. Someone was shouting outside, but that was Vestige. Someone was always shouting about something, especially in these slums. As he lifted the pot and tipped it out the window, he thought he smelled smoke. He hoped it wasn’t coming from a lower floor.

  He heard a wooden thump and spun to see Claren standing. He had knocked over his chair and was wildly gesturing toward the window. “We need to go. Now!” he shouted, taking on a blue aura.

  Hale looked back quizzically. “What’s wrong?”

  As if to answer his question, two heavy knocks shook the door. “Open up!” came a voice with a rough, urban accent. “Inquisition business.”

  “Shit,” said Dypha, then called through the door. “Wrong apartment, sir.”

  Another thud. It sounded like he’d kicked it this time. “Dypha, you are accused of unsanctioned artifice. You are scheduled for execution in one week’s time.”

  “Well, I’m not opening the door for that,” said Dypha. She started grabbing things seemingly at random and shoving them into her satchel.

  Hale craned his neck through the window. Beneath the layers of clay shingles was an alley full of nothing but refuse and stray dogs. “My side looks clear. Is there a way down?”

  “Other than a three story drop?” asked Dypha. “I’d rather not hang with broken legs.”

  Claren crossed the room to Hale’s side. “Jump. I’ll soften the landing.”

  “You expect me to trust Convergence magic?” Hale asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “You can trust that my magic works, or you can hope that the Inquisitor’s doesn’t. Your choice, Hale.”

  Hale clasped the Heart with one hand. It would protect him from the attacker’s magic, but it would do nothing to help Claren or Dypha. Besides, he wasn’t sure it would allow Claren’s magic to aid him; he’d never had a soulbound mage as an ally before.

  The door shook and a wedge of iron poked through. They were chopping it down. Blue light leaked inside through the new hole.

  “Don’t be stupid,” shouted the inquisitor. “I have three Templars with me.”

  Hale jumped. He hurtled through the window and slid down the awning, kicking up shingles as he fell over the edge. The fall was just long enough to make him doubt Claren, but he landed on his feet as if he’d only hopped out of bed. Dypha and Claren touched ground beside him.

  Hale turned to Dypha. “Which way?”

  Dypha turned left and ran, leading them through the alley. They didn’t get far before the way was blocked by three of the men from the bar.

  The one in front cast a cruel grin. “Where are you off to so fast, witch?” Breman stepped forward, twirling a wood axe in one hand and a carpenter’s hammer in the other. He was wearing his leather apron and gloves as makeshift armor. His companions were similarly armed with carpentry tools.

  The Inquisition squad was shouting up above, and Hale could hear wood shattering as they broke through the door and searched the room. It wouldn’t be long before they surmised how Dypha had escaped.

  Dypha slid a hand into her satchel. “Breman, I do not have time for you right now. You gambled and lost. Go home to your wife.”

  Breman leveled his axe at her. “You cheated, which means you stole from me.”

  “There is an inquisitor in the building behind us. Do you want him to see you threatening me?”

  Breman took a step forward. “Who do you think turned you in for witchcraft?”

  Hale caught the scent of smoke and drew his sword. “He’s stalling. He doesn’t want to fight us himself. Just trying to keep us cornered until the Templars catch up.”

  “Why makes you think that, asshole?” Breman crouched into what he must have thought was a fighting stance.

  Hale stepped forward and stabbed Breman in the gut. “Because I’m a demon hunter and you’re a bunch of carpenters.” Breman fell to the ground, screaming in a growing pool of blood. “Well?” Hale said to the other two as he brought up his sword for the next strike. They looked at Breman, then at each other, and ran.

  “You left two witnesses,” said Dypha.

  Hale shrugged. “They already wanted to execute you.”

  “We need to run,” said Claren. His eyes were watering. If Hale had any doubt that Claren was one of the good priests, the ones unaccustomed to murder in the streets and frivolous charges of heresy, those tears washed them away. The Convergence may be corrupt, but perhaps there was still some good left.

  Together, they fled Vestige.

  ***

  Hours later, they took shelter in an abandoned mill in the forest in the outskirts of the city. The roof had long ago rotted away, but the walls were still standing and the Inquisition wouldn’t chase them this far. They’d find an easier target to sate their blood-lust and claim that when they hanged her, they had hanged a witch named Dypha.

  The mill was large enough to house a small family, but centuries of decay and looting had left nothing inside but dust and debris. Hale sat on the floor, leaning against a pile of stone that had once been a hearth. Dypha was feverishly pacing around the perimeter. She had been since they arrived. Claren sat in a corner, meditating. No one had spoken since Hale suggested stopping here.

  They weren’t equipped for the hike to Sangrook Manor. It would take weeks, and they hadn’t been afforded time to pack food or supplies. “We’re going to have to hunt until we make it to Farnhem.” No one responded. He too
k that as an agreement.

  The silence broken, Dypha stopped in front of Claren. “How did you know?” she asked. “How did you know they were coming?”

  Claren cracked open an eye. “I was reporting our deal back to my brothers. They alerted me.”

  “So you’ve been working with the Inquisition after all?”

  “No, but our best minds are devoted to allowing us to operate within the Convergence without being corrupted by the Despot. We have spies among the Templars.”

  “So you overheard their plans, but they weren’t aware of you?”

  “There are multiple layers of separation,” Claren answered patiently. “I was not exposed.”

  “Except those two men who saw your face,” said Hale.

  Claren closed his eyes again and leaned back into his meditation. “Both were part of the Convergence. We have someone altering their memories as we speak.”

  “And what about us?” asked Dypha. “The Inquisition just burned down my home. Can you alter that?” Claren sighed and shook his head. For Hale and Dypha, there would be no return to Vestige.

  ***

  They traveled to Farnhem along the old roads, winding through forests and ruins and the rare small town. They subsisted on what food they could hunt and forage, and twice they pillaged farmland. Both times, Claren insisted on leaving a coin where the farmer would happen across it to pay for the food. They spent their days chatting, which mostly consisted of Hale and Dypha reuniting and trading stories of their time apart while Claren looked indulgently on.

  They reached Farnhem on a windy afternoon and resupplied in the market, filling Hale’s pack with dried fruit and meat. Claren paid for everything, then arranged for lodging at an inn near the Divide River that marked the boundary between the Convergence lands and Sangrook territory.

  They sat together at a small table in the shadowed corner of the common room. Hale and Dypha kept their backs to the crowd—Dypha was sitting a little closer to him every day, Hale noticed—while Claren sat in the corner to face the room. Hale hated having his back exposed, but it helped reduce the chances of being recognized as a fugitive by someone who would report them through the Convergence. People like him and Dypha, who had never taken on a soulbinding, were rare. Even in the borderlands, the Convergence kept a tight grip on towns and cities. The Holy Dukes were puppets and thugs of the Inquisition. The standings armies were puppets and thugs of the Holy Dukes, and so it went down to the town criers and cobblers. Members of the Convergence would deny this, of course; they’d say they were all part of an egalitarian fellowship that spanned the world, but so would a Sangrook thrall.

  Farnhem had been the northernmost Convergence city for centuries. Legend had it that there had once been a great bridge spanning the Divide, but a Sangrook witch summoned a demon to collapse it and taint the river with her evil. Now no one would touch the water. They wouldn’t even eat the fish, for fear that those fish themselves had fed on the souls of the damned.

  “We need a way across the river,” said Hale between mouthfuls of soup. It was mostly broth with a few mushy carrot slices floating about. “Can you swim?”

  Claren shook his head, and Dypha said, “We just filled our packs with food. Let’s try to keep it dry.”

  “So we steal a boat.”

  “From who?” asked Dypha. “The locals are all convinced that the river is cursed.”

  “Any artifact tricks?” asked Hale, running through the usual list.

  “Ha,” said Dypha. “I’ll just dig out my falcon essence and fly us across.”

  “Convergence magic, then?”

  Claren thought for a moment. “I suppose I could make an ice bridge. It would mean moving a lot of heat, which could draw attention, but if I spread it out enough…”

  “Good,” said Hale, then considered a bit further. “Why hasn’t that been done before? What’s the danger?”

  Claren stroked his beard. “After the bridge was destroyed, we decided that the river made a fine natural border. We focused on winning territory south of the Divide for decades.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Once the Grand Inquisitor took over, well, why fight a war when you command both sides? Keeping the Sangrook territory separate created a convincing show for the common people.”

  Hale nodded. “Good. Then it’s decided. We’ll leave in the morning and cross a few miles downstream, out of sight.”

  Claren and Dypha agreed and left for their rooms, but Hale lingered. He’d neglected his soup during the conversation. As he ate, he overheard some men talking at a nearby table.

  “You’re crazy,” said one. “The Grellok would never come this far south.”

  The Grellok. If there were one word that could seize Hale Haberson’s attention, it was “Grellok.” Every demon hunter wanted to be the one to slay it, and its body was composed of those who had tried. It was Caeva’s most powerful and depraved creation, a demon fused with her former lover, who protected her with a mindless fury. They say he kept a piece of every man he killed in battle and sewed it on to his own body, becoming a writhing amalgam of the undead.

  “My cousin saw him!” said a second man. “He said he looked across the river and there was a man’s head poking up over the trees.”

  “You couldn’t see a man’s head from that far away.”

  “And the Grellok isn’t taller than a tree.”

  “He’s fifty men stacked on top of each other. Of course he’s taller than a tree.”

  “No, you idiot, they’re in a more of a ball.”

  “A ball? So it rolls around the forest looking for victims to trample?”

  “Yes, and my cousin heard him crashing into trees. He said it was going on for hours yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? I was outside all day yesterday and I didn’t see any rolling monsters or crashing trees. Tell your cousin to stop drinking when he should be harvesting.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  Hale stopped listening as they continued to squabble. The one man was right. The Grellok wouldn’t be this far south. It rarely left Caeva’s side. His one obsession was defending her.

  On top of everything else, if he wanted to come face to face with Caeva, Hale would have to be the man to slay the Grellok.

  ***

  To the chorus of owls and crickets, Claren drew the Three Points in the mud on the riverbed, his ritual illuminated by the night stars and Dypha’s spirit lantern. He fell prostrate and whispered his prayer to the Converged God.

  His god heard him.

  As he prayed, frost formed around his lips, spreading across his beard to his cheeks and brow and moving ever outward until the whole of his body was coated in a thin layer of ice. He reached forward and dipped a finger into the river. Claren exhaled. The frost fled his body and crackled along the surface of the water, freezing a thick path of ice as it ran into the darkness.

  Hale helped the old priest up to his feet. “How long will it last?”

  “Not so long that I should be answering questions on the shore,” said Claren.

  Dypha was already ahead of them, testing out the ice bridge by stomping on the edge. It held. They crawled single-file on their hands and knees over the slick ice, huddled together to stay within the light of Dypha’s lantern. Hale was grateful for his gloves, but saw Dypha pausing now and then to dip her hands into the river water to take the chill off.

  As they crossed, Hale leaned over the edge of the ice bridge and peered into the water. By the cool green glow of the spirit lamp, Hale saw why the locals feared this river. Beneath the surface, he saw phantoms. Men clad in the armor and livery of Convergence Templars drifted about moaning and praying and singing hymns to the Converged God. Some turned to face him as they swam about, but they paid him no heed. Through it all, two girls danced hand in hand, swirling through the murky deep.

  When he realized he had fallen behind, Hale fixed his gaze on Claren’s boots and followed his companions to the shore.

  ***

  Having
crossed the river, they traced it for two weeks until they reached the sea. They stayed near the shore, avoiding villages and dodging gangs of demons, crossing through marshes and beaches alike until they reached the mouth of the Dead Man’s River. The river was so-named because it ran near Sangrook Manor, and it was all too common to see discarded corpses floating downstream. Here they turned north, then followed the river into the mountains until at last the manor came into view.

  There was a certain beauty to the sprawling estate. A garden maze dominated the grounds to the front, with a forbidding statue of Maldaeron Sangrook, the first vessel of the Despot, towering in the center on a raised pedestal. The mansion was freshly painted with crimson and black, and its balconies glittered with brass railings. Glowering gargoyles perched atop each gable—and Hale hoped they were statues rather than live demons. From a distance, the manor could be the home of any reclusive wealthy family. Hale knew, however, that the closer he got, the more he’d see that it was crawling with demons and thralls, guarding and maintaining this palatial home. Any beauty the Sangrooks presented was a lie and a trick. The house looked inviting to trap weary travelers, and the garden maze would slow both their approach and their escape. Caeva may have restored her ancestral home, but it was still an ancient den of demon-worship.

  “We’ll need a way in,” said Hale.

  “Wait until dark and break a window?” Dypha said with a smirk.

  Hale elected to treat her suggestion as serious. “This place will be swarming with ghouls at night. We’d still be fighting, and they have the advantage in the dark. May as well charge the hill at noon.”

  “And get stuck in that maze. It’s probably booby-trapped with all sorts of witchcraft.”

  “That’s why we brought a priest.”

  “Can we at least go around the back?”

  “We could, but…”

  Claren cleared his throat, and they paused.

  “According to our research,” said Claren in the tone of an exasperated lecturer, “the Dead Man’s River doesn’t flow past Sangrook Manor as is commonly believed. If flows directly underneath, and there are stairwells leading up to the mansion.”