by Andy Remic
She was tall and athletic, a natural warrior by her catlike movements. Her hair was bobbed and brown, her eyes dark in this gloomy subterranean vault. She glanced at Ember, but no emotion passed across her face.
Ember felt her soul fall away into darkness.
The woman approached Zastarte, then stopped. When she spoke, her words were low and gentle. “Prince? You have fallen a long way, my friend.”
Zastarte chuckled and his head snapped up fast. So much for him being weary, or asleep. His eyes met those of the woman and for a long, long time they both remained silent. Then the woman’s head turned and she surveyed the handiwork of the ruined cadaver chained to the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Righting wrongs.”
“I’d like to believe that. But what about her?” She gestured backwards with her thumb. Emba’s heart fluttered in panic.
“Don’t judge me, Kiki. That was always the problem with you; you were a fucking judgemental bitch who had far too much to say.” He stood, and pushed past her to drop the glowing coal into the sizzling brazier. Then he turned to a bowl of water and washed his hands, then splashed water into his face. Taking a towel, he dried his skin before glancing at Ember, then looking sideways at Kiki.
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“Dalgoran is reforming the Iron Wolves. Vagandrak is about to be invaded by mud-orcs and terrible creatures. But obviously, you are far too busy here with your…” she glanced around, face wrinkled in distaste, “playthings, to be worried about the good of the fucking people. What happened to you, Zastarte? You were a noble man, once.”
“Noble men grow tired, and bitter, and cynical,” he said, throwing the towel to one side.
“You can walk away from this. From this kind of life.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “You think so? You think I don’t have a commitment here?”
“A commitment? What, to torture?”
“To putting things right,” he said, dark eyes hooded. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I wouldn’t expect any of you bastards to understand. Heroes. Ha! They called us heroes because we were good, we were fast, we were hard; putting a blade into the eyes or throat of a living creature doesn’t make you a hero; slicing somebody’s throat, cutting open their bowels, hacking off arms and fucking legs. What’s heroic about that? War is justification for inhuman slaughter.”
“The mud-orcs were inhuman.”
He flapped a hand. “Just a formality. It wouldn’t have mattered to the politicians and the King if it had been men instead of scary beasts. Whoooo! Stories to frighten small children with. Murder to achieve votes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Tarek engineered the whole fucking incident, had Morkagoth on his fucking payroll, set the whole thing up to secure his throne against insurgency. After all, it was good old Tarek who saved the people, saved Vagandrak; without him, the people would be enslaved, or dead in their beds. They had a lot to thank him for. No wonder they showered us with jewels! But then, there never could have been a doubt. It was all a sham.”
“Is that what you really believe? Then you’re more twisted than the cancer eating my soul.”
“Oh, cancer is it, now? Don’t be trying to pluck at my heart strings. All my strings snapped a long time ago. Left them entwined on a distant battlefield with a dead sorcerer and my honour pissed out through my boots.”
“You took the money, the jewels, the lands, Prince.”
“Oh yes,” he said, and moved closer.
Kiki tensed. Zastarte had always been an unpredictable son of a bitch.
She could smell his sweat, smell his perfume, smell his pleasure. Her eyes narrowed. If he tried anything, she’d kill him.
Well. She’d try…
He circled her, like a predator. Then took a step back.
“What’s Dalgoran offering?”
“A chance to redeem your soul,” said Kiki, softly.
“Done!” Zastarte clapped his hands suddenly, and laughed. “I was getting bored, anyway. There’s only so many ways to torture a person. Only so many platitudes they can wail and scream and bubble.” He moved behind the trembling Ember, and grabbed a fresh silk shirt, pulling it over his head. The lace ruffs at neck and collar were pristine white. He dabbed a touch of perfume on his skin, then moved in front of Ember. He looked down at her. “What am I going to do with you, my pretty?”
“P… p… p…” she managed.
Zastarte glanced back at Kiki. “You think I should release her?”
“You do what you think is right,” said Kiki, eyes hard.
“I’ll release her,” said Zastarte, and undid the shackles with an iron key.
Ember climbed up from the bench, rubbing her wrists, eyes darting from Zastarte to Kiki and back again, as if this was all some cruel joke. She licked her lips and took an experimental step sideways.
“Go on, my chicken. Off you cluck.” He pointed. “That way. Down the tunnel. Can’t have you using the front door.”
“Wh… where does it lead?”
“Don’t worry, it leads out to another cellar and there are steps up to a different street. But… and this is a promise… don’t tell anybody what happened here.” He grinned, and stroked his chin. “Or I’ll come and find you. So, hush. Yes? Now go. Before I change my mind.”
Ember ran into the gloom, and quickly vanished.
Kiki looked at him. “That was the truth, wasn’t it? You’ve not sent her off into some terrible trap?”
Zastarte spread his hands, eyes sparkling, mouth a wide smile, face the humorous mask of an astonished nobleman; in an instant he was transformed from evil to joy, from torturer to regent. Kiki frowned, annoyed at how easily he could switch on his charisma. It made him a dangerous individual.
“Would I lie to you?” he purred.
Kiki led the way, stepping out onto the cobbled road slick with ice. A wind whipped down the street, bringing little flurries of snow. Kiki looked up and down the street, eyes narrowing, hand on sword hilt, as Zastarte came out behind her. He lifted his hand to his carriage, parked a little way down the street, and the driver flicked reins. Wheels rattled on cobbles and the carriage approached, pulling alongside.
Kiki and Zastarte found themselves looking at the tensioned points of three crossbows, in front of three grinning faces wearing helms of the City Watch. Boots thudded on cobbles and more men poured around the corner, and from a doorway across the street. Moonlight gleamed on steel.
“See what you’ve done?” muttered Kiki.
“Damn! They must have been onto me! Either that, or you led them here with your big flapping boots and loud vulgar peasant voice.”
“Don’t tar me with your twisted perversion,” snapped Kiki.
“OK, my pretties, put down your weapons, real slow like,” came a careful, authoritative voice from behind the dark gleam of a full face helm.
Kiki glanced at Zastarte, who gave the faintest of smiles as they… connected.
They kicked apart as three clicks and whines hummed and three crossbow bolts ricocheted from the building behind in a shower of sudden sparks. Swords erupted in smooth arcs, Kiki’s trusty iron short sword, Zastarte’s too-delicate rapier that looked as if a decent strike would see it shattered into a thousand brittle pieces.
The rapier jabbed through the window, taking out a guard’s eye, who squealed as Kiki charged the gathering of surprised guards; they had expected submissive captives under the threat of three crossbow bolts, now Kiki was amongst them, sword slashing left and right. The guards were grouped too tight, a huddle, and Kiki waded right into the middle moving like a whirlwind, blade slamming out, cutting necks and faces, arms and thighs and jabbing between the joints of armour at groin and armpit. Zastarte spun around the back of the carriage, leapt up the iron-rung ladder and thrust his rapier up into the spine of the driver, withdrawing it fast. The man cried out and toppled from the seat, and Zastarte leapt to take his position, sheathing his weapon and grabbing the reins.<
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“Yah!” he screamed, and the horses whinnied and charged the melee, slamming guards out of the way with their sheer weight and bulk.
“Get him!” yelled the captain, and there came a whine and a smash of wood as a bolt appeared between Zastarte’s legs and hissed up into the flurries of snow falling vertically.
The prince paled, and kneeling, stabbed down with his rapier once, twice, and on the third strike hit flesh. He grabbed the reins and drew them hard. The two lead horses reared up, hooves clattering on armour as a guard went down.
“Kiki!”
She was fighting in a frenzy, but his words came through to her and he flicked the reins once more. The horses powered forward, knocking two more guards from their feet and as the carriage accelerated Kiki whirled and leapt, catching the ladder. Her eyes were glowing. She laughed a maniac laugh as they slammed down the street, iron-rimmed wheels thundering on cobbles, the guards milling behind her – with eight men down, dead or injured, their blood in the gutters.
Kiki clambered to the top. Zastarte met her gaze.
“I’m wondering if Dalgoran can even pay me enough,” he said, tossing back his curls.
“I just saved you from the City Watch!”
“No no, sweet Kiki; I believe I just saved you from your madman rage. Yes? Surely not?”
There came another click and whine, and a bolt smashed thoguh wood, passing between them in close proximity and cutting the cloth and lace ruff of Zastarte’s sleeve, before whining off into the night.
“There’s still a guard in the carriage?”
“Sorry, I did mean to mention it.”
“Zas!”
“Have you seen my shirt? Do you know how hard it is to get a good tailor around here?”
Kiki sheathed her sword, grabbed the rim of the carriage and leapt, body spinning over, twisting, boots slamming through the door and into the carriage. There came several thumps, then the door opened and the unconscious guard was tossed to the icy cobbles where he rolled over fast, breaking bones.
“I could have pulled over, you know,” said Zastarte, talking down through the crosbow quarrel’s hole in the roof.
Kiki’s curses were unintelligible through her snarls.
Trista was tall, elegant, and incredibly beautiful. She wore the richest of pink silk ballgowns, a magnificent dress which billowed out from her waist in a huge globe of shiny loveliness, glittering with stitched sequins. Her shoes were a glossy pink, expensive exclusive items made to measure by Hitchkins of Drakerath. She wore a gold watch on one wrist, which glittered with inset precious stones, and a diamond bracelet on the other, which sparkled as it caught the light. Her face had high cheekbones and a natural nobility, her cheeks flushed with just the right level of pinkness, her lips painted with just the right pastel shade of red, her earrings glittered with yet more diamonds set in molten tears of gold, shown off ably by a hairstyle that piled atop her head, luscious blonde curls stacked and skilfully interwoven to add at least a foot in height to her already tall frame. She was smiling, her teeth perfect and white and even, and her eyes sparkled as brightly as the diamonds at wrist and ear and throat.
In the distance, music played, a slow-beat rhythm of strings and piano. Behind her, the banquet was nearly over, the large banquet hall with trestle tables covered in white and gold linen, decimated after the two hundred or so guests had taken their greedy fill. Red wine traced patterns on the linen like droplets of blood.
Trista sipped pink wine from a tall crystal flute, which glittered and sparkled, reflecting the light from a hundred glowing candles. She was stood at the top of a wide set of stairs in the largest, most fabulous, most expensive tavern in Timanta, music like a rolling, grumbling ocean filling the space behind her.
It had been a fine wedding. The bride in white, the groom in black. They were both beautiful people, sparkling people, his laugh a soldierly rumble without much humour, her laugh like that of a castrated donkey (or a donkey being castrated). They made a perfect couple. A beautiful couple. The service had been immaculate, a triumph of decoration, good dress-sense, perfect timing, “ooh”s and “ahhh”s and “isn’t she beautiful”s. They had walked down the red carpet of the Church of the Seven Sisters as independent, isolated, singular people who completely believed in love and in one another; and walked out, hand in hand, her face and eyes glowing, his cheeks flushed red with stress and anxiety, but both smiling, content in the knowledge they had become one, united in a holy place, setting off on the biggest adventure of their lives together!
Trista wiped away a tear and took another sip from her pink bubbly wine.
“So sad, so terrible,” she muttered, and started forward down the carpeted corridor, her pink shoes silent against the thick pile. She passed several broad oak doors, each one a portal into another realm of wealth and luxury. This really was a fabulous place. A palace, almost! No expense had been spared in making every detail exquisite.
Trista stopped, and stooping awkwardly in her gown, placed the fluted crystal on the carpet by the wall. Her painted lips had left smears, marking the crystal. She stood. She wiped away another tear. Moved again down the corridor, stopping finally at the very end door. The wedding suite. The most fabulous of all the fabulous rooms in this most opulent of buildings.
Trista reached out, long fingers touching the oak. They are in there, newly wedded, their lives perfect. They are lucky beyond belief. They have a long bright sparkling future ahead of them. They have already consummated the marriage, maybe even now she carries his seed and will be with child. They’ll have a plump bouncing baby boy, soon followed by a golden haired utterly perfect beautiful little sister. And the world will be so right for them. Their future will be an everlasting dream.
Trista frowned, beautiful face scrunching up a little.
But…
But maybe their future won’t be so perfect after all. Maybe he’ll be out soldiering, on a raid or a mission, and get stabbed through the throat by a short sword, his blood bubbling along the blade as he watches his own reflected face twisted in horror in the sharpened steel. Or maybe she will be out in the market, basket on her arm filled with a selection of vegetables, and some nobleman’s carriage comes thundering past, the horses spook at something, a screaming child maybe, the way horses often do, and change direction suddenly and she panics and before you know it, she’s under the flailing hooves, then tangled around the axles of the carriage to become a bloody rag doll. She lies unconscious in bed for two days with broken legs and ribs and spine, mumbling incoherently, until finally her heart stops and she dies from her injuries, or from shock, or from long lost love. Or maybe their first child will have a terrible deformity that drives him to drink, and her slowly mad with the pressure, and slowly everything falls apart like an old dress at the seam. Falls apart. That’s the key. Everything always falls apart.
She turned the door handle. Opened the heavy oak portal. Stepped through. Closed it behind her.
The room was dominated by a massive four-poster bed, each post ornately carved in ancient dark wood.
A single candle sat on a low table in the corner, burning with a steady flame. It threw long shadows around the room and gave just enough light to highlight the two entwined lovers, man and wife, holding one another beneath white silk sheets.
So sweet.
So loving.
So adorable.
I wish it could go on forever.
Well, maybe it can…
She pulled free a long, slender dagger. It gleamed black in the candlelight. Trista wiped away another tear from her beautiful cheek and advanced on the bed. Both newlyweds, man and wife, were breathing deep; no doubt after a wild couple of hours consummating their marriage in the obvious way. Her arm was across his chest: slender, pretty, pale white, like a long thin worm.
Trista moved around the bed, staring at them, dagger in one hand, the other trailing across the light, gauzy curtains that hung from the top of the bed. Silently, carefully, she reache
d out and lifted one of the gauze curtains, pulling it over her head so that she was inside that special domain; an intruder, within the new nest. A scorpion amongst the chicks.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” she murmured, and lifted the dagger.
Candlelight gleamed from cold hard iron.
The groom’s eyes flickered open and met hers, and for long seconds she could read the confusion there. He recognised her, but did not realise where he was, did not understand why he was awakening to see her face. His mouth opened forming a question, but the dagger swept down, cracking through his breast bone and skewering the heart beneath. Blood fountained, covering the bride, Trista’s pink gown, the gauzy curtains and the wood of the ornate four-poster.
The groom thrashed, hands clawing silk, then died swiftly on the bed.
The bride came awake. She was worse the wear for wine, eyes bloodshot, face scrunched in confusion. She felt the warm blood on her and saw Trista first, drenched in blood, and opened her mouth in a silent scream. But nothing would come out. Then she glanced at her new husband and put both her hands to her mouth, blood-stained breasts bobbing.
“I’m sorry,” said Trista.
“Why… oh why? Why do this?”
Trista leant forward, the blade lifting again. The bride read her intention and tried to back away, head shaking. Trista climbed onto the bed, eyes narrowed.
“Come here. I am saving you. I am purifying you. I am making sure your love remains pure; that it lasts forever…”
The bride began to scream.
The blade slashed left to right, a back-hand horizontal stroke that opened the woman’s throat with medical precision. She toppled to her side, hands scrabbling at the gaping second mouth, blood flushing down her breasts and belly. Her legs thrashed for a while and Trista sat down, watching her die, watching the light fade from her eyes, studying the confusion and the shock and the questions.
Her leg kicked, and then the bride was still.
