The Sangrook Saga

by Steve Thomas

  Hale grunted. “Research. You mean torture and interrogation. That means Inquisitors. You think you can trust them?”

  Claren shook his head. “No, which is why the True Faith employs so many spies. We’ve had honest, loyal agents infiltrate these tunnels before.”

  Hale looked at Dypha for her opinion. She shrugged and asked, “Will it be defended?”

  “There is a nominal guard duty,” said Claren. “These tunnels are very much an exit. They are flooded in the rainy season, but the water should be low this time of year.”

  Dypha shrugged again and tilted her head to Hale. “It’s the best idea so far.”

  Hale considered it. The tunnel offered cover and stealth, but if Claren was wrong about the guard, it would be their death. It would be trivial for Caeva to defend a tunnel against three invaders, and just as trivial to block their escape. On the other hand, with all Caeva’s servants surrounding the manor, there was no sneaking in above ground. They would be seen. They would be intercepted. They would be captured. It was a certainty.

  “Cavern it is,” he said. “Lead the way, Claren.”

  The priest resumed the hike along the river bank, taking them north into the cover of a pine forest. Dypha lagged behind, and Hale fell back to meet her. Claren either didn’t notice or had the tact to give them their privacy.

  Dypha rested a hand on Hale’s arm as they walked. Her touch electrified him in ways he had thought lost and forgotten. He felt foolish for the rush of excitement that hit him. He told himself she meant nothing by it and looked slightly away to hide his face.

  Dypha broke the silence. “I missed working with you.”

  “So did I,” he said. “We were a good team.”

  “For a while, anyway. Until we got so afraid of losing each other that it stopped us from thinking straight.”

  “Ironic, that,” said Hale. How long had it been? Three years ago? Four? So much for not losing each other.

  They walked in a silence for a while, but Dypha’s hand never released him. She finally asked, “Are you serious about retiring?”

  Hale watched as Claren marched resolutely ahead. The river trickled through stone and roots. The earth was getting rockier, and the sun was dipping. “Retiring?” he asked. “This is my last job. We’re storming fucking Sangrook Manor. Where do I go from there? You saw what we’re getting into, and if the legends about this place are even one quarter true, we’ve seen nothing. If we can kill Caeva and escape, yes, I’m retiring. I’m done either way.”

  “Why did you ask me to come?”

  “Because we used to be a good team.”

  She laughed, softly. “I’ve made a decision,” she said after another long silence. “I’ve been thinking about where I’ll go after this, if there is an after this. I can’t go back to Vestige, let alone the ashes of my apartment. Do you think you’d still have space for me on that farm?”

  Hale stopped. His heart swelled at those words, even though it was a fantasy. Claren had been quick to accept his terms. He probably would have agreed to any terms, considering how unlikely it was that Hale would be alive to collect. “Of course,” he said. “Anything you want.”

  Dypha leaned into his embrace.

  She kissed him.

  ***

  Dypha lit the way with a spirit lantern, casting a cool green glow over the limestone cave. The Dead Man’s River had cut a wide tunnel, and now that the summer rains were over, there was space to walk alongside the water. The riverbed was moist and slick, but traversable, stone. The ceiling stretched higher than the light of the lantern, but here and there a stalactite dipped into view like a star in the night sky. Under better circumstances, Hale would have loved to stroll through and enjoy the beauty of the caves, but now he couldn’t afford the distraction. He fixed his gaze at the edge of the light for a glimpse of a guard and honed his hearing to catch any hint of movement other than his group’s.

  They walked slowly, quietly, always on edge and ready for an attack. Hale kept a hand on the hilt of his sword and Claren’s finger clicked along a string of prayer beads as he begged for his god’s protection.

  As one, they stopped when something stirred in the water. It drifted with the current, slowly bobbing toward them. In the dim light, it appeared to be a body, swollen from the water, with blood-stained clothes and limp, broken limbs. It wasn’t full grown.

  Hale drew his sword as it came close, but the current took the body away. It was not a threat, but a victim, some poor child that Caeva had abducted, tortured, and discarded.

  He shared a glance with Dypha. She let out a long-held breath and nodded at him, then continued forward. Claren patted Hale’s shoulder as he passed, and the demon hunter caught the rear.

  As they walked, the wail of a mourning woman echoed through the cavern. Hale raised his weapon and shouldered his way to the front. Dypha stayed close behind with her lantern held high. The wailing continued, growing as they closed in, joined by rustling chains. Hale crept forward, sword at the ready until he saw, just for a moment, a face pop into view some ten feet away. It was a child, torn and bloody. His hair was ripped out in patches, taking scalp with it to expose gleaming spots of bald skull. His eyes were crusted over with dried blood, and his lips had been cut away to reveal a mouth full of chipped and sharpened teeth. The ghoul hissed and gnashed its teeth.

  Hale took a step back into a fighting stance, bumping into Dypha, and heard Claren grunt with surprise. The ghoul went silent. Behind him, Claren was casting an incantation and Dypha was rifling through her satchel. She preferred to fight from a distance and would be readying an attack.

  “Firebomb,” she whispered into his ear.

  Hale ducked as the flaming artifact arced toward the ghoul. Instead of finding its mark, the red light barreling through the tunnel illuminated the demon as it pounced forward, with a chain leash trailing it. It screamed through its mutilated mouth and Hale flinched just long enough for it to cross over his shoulder. He heard Claren grunt. But Hale didn’t spin around to help, because when the firebomb exploded, the flames revealed another ghoul. She was an obese woman, naked and partially flayed, her skin rippling as she wept. The flesh had been ripped off her face and her left side from shoulder to thigh, revealing the muscle and sinews beneath. Her remaining breast dripped a steaming, green fluid that pitted the floor at her feet. Tears flowed from her eyes as her wailing continued. But she stepped forward to engage Hale.

  Claren and Dypha would have to handle her child.

  Hale advanced cautiously. The ghoul spat corrosive bile at him, but the Heart protected him from harm. He slashed with his blade, but she ducked beneath it and swiped at him. Hale stepped back and to his left. He swung again, and this time, she shielded the blow with her arm. His sword sunk into her wrist, but did not sever it. Before he could extract it, she lunged and bit at him. Hale released his grip on his weapon, then punched her in the jaw. Her teeth smashed together and cracked as she reeled back with pain.

  Hale grabbed at his sword and yanked it free, leaving a gash across her right arm. He swung again, this time at her leg. This attack, too, caught its target, and she sunk to a knee. Hale stepped to the left once more, and now his back was against the wall with the woman hunched between him and the river.

  Her tears continued to flow and her sobbing grew louder. Slowly, she stood up, hopping a bit when she tried to put her weight on the injured leg. She snarled and charged at Hale. He dropped to his knees and heard her face and arms bash into the stone wall. He cut at her leg again, this time dismembering her foot at the ankle, then dropped his sword, grabbed hold of the woman’s waist, braced one leg against the wall, and pushed forward as hard as he could.

  He caught her off balance. His shoulder sank deep into her putrid flesh. The stench nearly forced him to vomit, even after all these years of fighting demons, but he rallied all the strength he could muster. Slowly, she began to move backward, then more quickly as she lost her footing on the smooth limestone floor. At las
t Hale toppled her. She fell on her back into the flowing river.

  With one foot severed and one leg injured, she couldn’t fight the current. Still weeping and wailing, the fat ghoul drifted away along the lazy river, as a thousand corpses had before.

  Hale didn’t spare so much as a second to catch his breath before spinning to check on his companions. The young ghoul was dead. Claren stood behind a wall of blue light, clutching his bloodied shoulder and panting. Dypha stood with her boot on the young ghoul’s neck and her dagger in its skull, putting something back into her satchel.

  “How bad are you hurt?” Hale asked Claren.

  Claren took a deep breath to compose himself. “It is superficial,” he said. “The Converged God will heal my flesh as well as my mind.” He began whispering those same words in a fevered chant and blue light seeped through his fingers where he pressed on the wound.

  “Good. Dypha?”

  “I’m running out of tricks,” she said. “I didn’t exactly get a chance to pack.”

  “Then I’d better not let another one slip past me,” said Hale.

  Claren ceased his chanting and released the wall surrounding him. “We’ve been letting the Sangrooks slip past us for too long,” he said. “The Convergence was formed specifically to fight the Sangrooks, and centuries later, Caeva Sangrook has restored her family and just sent a tortured and mutilated family after us. The Convergence always knew that the Sangrooks survived the Purge, and we tolerated them. We tolerated them! ‘Oh,’ we said. ‘There are so few of them. They are so weak. They’ll never be a threat again.’ Meanwhile, they managed to sneak into the Convergence itself and destroy my faith from within. How did we let this go on?”

  Hale could only shrug at this. He’d asked those same questions. Why hire demon hunters instead of Templars? Why not invade Sangrook lands and burn down this mansion?

  Dypha interceded, “Because the Sangrooks have always been in control. The legends say they can’t be snuffed out because they grow more powerful the fewer they are. Their magic is based on taking over people’s minds and using them as pawns. The only way to defeat them is to sever their connection to the Despot, and killing Caeva will be a start.”

  Claren clenched his fist. “And who will continue that work when we’ve died? How far do you really think we’ll get?”

  Hale grabbed hold of the man’s shoulder. “You hired us to kill Caeva Sangrook. We will. We wouldn’t have signed up if we didn’t think we could. Everything that’s going through your head right now, we’ve been there. We have been fighting back against the Sangrooks since before you thought it was possible. Caeva will die. We’ve made it this far. Maybe we’ll die in the process, but Caeva will die.”

  Claren nodded and tried to bring back his smile. It wasn’t convincing. “Thank you, Hale. I’m sorry. I’ve never been in a fight before. I’m used to letting the Templars handle the violence, and this…” he pointed at the young ghoul with its chain dangling into the river. “I wasn’t ready.”

  “Use the Convergence, then,” said Dypha. “That’s how it works, isn’t it? Link your mind to someone who has fought the ghouls. Draw on his strength and experience. You’ll help yourself and the mission.”

  Claren nodded. “Link my mind to the Templars…” An odd expression crossed his face, as if he had found more meaning in Dypha’s words than she could have intended. “Yes. That’s good advice, Dypha. Thank you. I will do just that.” His eyes paused for a moment on Habrien, then he cleared his throat. “I think I’ve slowed us down long enough. Shall we continue?”

  ***

  The tunnel opened up into a wide cavern. The rush of a waterfall assaulted their ears and great heaps of dead men and women glowed with a red light in a cruel parody of spirit lamps.

  “This is the bone yard,” said Claren. “We should be able to find a path up into the manor from here. Keep your eyes open for doors.”

  Above the roar of the waterfall, Hale heard a rhythmic thumping. Hale harbored no optimism for what that could mean. “Be on guard,” he said. “There’s something big up ahead.”

  “We should keep close to the wall and stay quiet,” said Dypha. “It’s dark and loud in there, which should make it easy for us to move around without being noticed.”

  Hale nodded and led them into the bone yard. They hugged the wall, passing by mound after glowing mound. Whatever was stomping about, it had stopped. That did not put Hale at ease. Eventually, painstakingly, an iron gate came into view. Hale nudged his companions and pointed at it. They both nodded. The stairs must be behind that one last defense.

  But as they crossed that gap, one of the mounds stood up. Dozens of corpses rose, fused together into the shape of a man. Its legs were each made of three dismembered bodies with the heads and arms ripped off. A twisted mass of entangled dead writhed in the shape of its chest and waist, with a belt of disembodied heads and a ring of hair and beards acting as a skirt. Each arm was a body with its head severed and with five full arms grafted by the necks to form fingers. At the very top was a mournful body, covered in bony plates, standing within the mass of corpses. He glared down and snarled.

  The Grellok had found them.

  It charged forward. At first six pairs of legs propelled it forward, but as it picked up speed, it began to raise and lower those amalgamated legs as if each were a single limb. “Run,” said Hale. He had never faced a demon like this. He had never realized how true the rumors were. Against Grellok, there could be no victory, only escape.

  The three of them sprinted for the gate and Grellok gave chase, the heads around his waist breathing out a dense fog that swirled around and engulfed them. Though he looked like a cumbersome abomination, Grellok was fast, and reached out with five arms to grab and entangle Hale. They groped and grabbed and clutched and choked at him. They tore his armor away and tossed it aside. They raised him to the body on top, the original Grellok, who roared in his face and reached out to throttle Hale with his own hands.

  Hale heard an explosion and felt a blazing heat, then Grellok dropped him. Hale climbed to his feet and frantically searched for the gate. Dypha was standing along the way with another firebomb in hand. Claren was behind her, chanting and gesticulating. Hale ran. Dypha launched another firebomb and Claren raised a wall of energy.

  Neither stopped Grellok. Even though Dypha had scorched one of the bodies that made up his twisted being, Grellok simply writhed like a mass of worms, shedding the useless husk and replacing it with another.

  They were halfway to the gate when Claren screamed. Grellok held the old priest with a dozen hands, but couldn’t seem to crush him. He was glowing a bright blue now, filling the chamber with the light of the Convergence, no doubt calling upon his strongest magic to protect himself. Grellok’s main body ignored Claren and pointed threateningly at Hale and Dypha.

  “Go!” shouted Claren. “I have a few tricks left.”

  Hale hesitated.

  “Forget me,” shouted Claren.

  And Hale ran with Dypha at his side.

  Just before they reached the gate, a ball of bones crashed onto the ground in front of them, spraying shrapnel made of human parts. Hale covered his eyes with a forearm and charged through, then rolled through a gap in the gate, vaulted over a sarcophagus, and kicked open a wooden door. He’d found stairs. He climbed them, taking solace in the sound of Dypha’s footfalls behind him. Stone steps gave way to painted wood as they climbed. The doors became more ornate with each floor. They were in Sangrook Manor now. They were in Caeva’s home.

  They stopped together at the top of a stairwell, panting and coughing with exertion. They were both bleeding, Hale from his forearm and Dypha from a gash in her side.

  “We lost Claren,” Dypha said. She slumped against the wall. Hale only nodded. It didn’t seem right to say anything. “What do we do?”

  Hale rubbed his aching forehead. “We have to find a way to finish this. We’re close. We can end Caeva.”

  Dypha had collapsed onto he
r side with her eyes closed. “Yes, we have to…rest. We need to rest.”

  The fog. Grellok must have poisoned them when he spat the fog. He was growing so weary. But that would only explain Dypha’s fatigue, not his. He should have been protected by the Heart. Hale’s hand reached up to clutch the Heart, to feel its presence.

  It wasn’t there. The Grellok must have snatched it away during the fight. He’d be defenseless against Caeva, and his legs were already growing weak. He wouldn’t be able to stand much longer.

  “No!” he shouted. “Dypha, wake up. We have to go back. The Heart…”

  Without the Heart, there was no hope. But Dypha was asleep. Claren was captured or dead. Caeva was somewhere in this house surrounded by her guards. The mission was doomed and all Hale wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

  ***

  “Wake up, assassins.”

  Hale Haberson was already standing when his eyes opened. He was in a great hall. The carpets were a plush red with the Despot’s symbol, a thrice-underlined circle, repeating within a pattern of diamonds. The wall was coated with portraits of what could only be past members of the Sangrook clan, each of them bearing pale skin, black hair, and a morose face. The ceiling was painted with a scene of gods, demons, ravens, and men locked in a chaotic melee.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Dypha was next to him, taking in the room.

  They were surrounded by a ring of people, all bearing the raven-black hair and pale skin of the Sangrook clan. They were of all ages, from babes at the breast to shriveled crones. Their clothing ranged from simple wool tunics to fine dresses and doublets embroidered with intricate swirling patterns. They filled the hall like a throng of courtiers, each one of them, even the children, silent and attentive.

  Their eyes were locked on an old woman seated on a throne adorned with skulls, human and otherwise. Cold blue eyes sunk into her wrinkled face, framed by black hair that stretched down to her waist. She wore an elegant black dress, tight over her crossed legs and leaving exposed the web of scars across her arms. This could only be Caeva Sangrook, the Sangrook matriarch who had enthralled half the world with her forbidden blood-rites. A wry smile crossed her face when Hale’s gaze landed upon her.