Barclay, J [2008] Vault of Deeds

by James Barclay

  ‘Two things you did wrong there. One, you didn’t listen to me about belief. You didn’t believe you could beat me. I knew I would beat you because you’re just a blubbering mass of acidic soup in a sac. Second, I know you will have a new limb in place before this lesson is done so threats about disability lawsuits just won’t wash. I am, however, impressed, nay, amazed, that you have a father, let alone one who is apparently as rich as you claim, and willing to admit you are his offspring.’

  There was sniggering among the students and Grincheux couldn’t help but smile at the parallels he saw in the Academy above and the memories he carried with him.

  ‘Right, now we are done with mathematics, let us go quickly through the four. Four, Coagula. Four key strategies for defeating a hero of Goedterre.’

  Grincheux heard Cassandra’s sharply indrawn breath. He’d have done the same but his jaw had just dropped lower than it had ever dropped before and he was having difficulty believing that Alderion, obviously a traitor, was about to do what he said. It answered many questions, mind you. With his throat as dry as the skin-grating thing he’d seen in the pit, Grincheux swallowed and listened to many things he didn’t want to hear.

  ‘First and most important is this. If you look back through the annals of…what is it, Prince de Capello? And the rest of you, stop sniggering behind your hands.’

  The snake-headed demon snorted out some venom while trying to suppress a cough. Alderion watched it smoulder on his armour.

  ‘Sorry, master,’ he said in a voice both beautiful and beguiling. ‘But you said a rude word.’

  Alderion closed his eyes briefly and sighed. ‘Annals are narrative events, historical records. Anals, if there could be such a plural, are what you are and they are also those things that you clearly do not know from your elbows. Those of you that have elbows. Or arses for that matter. Shut up and listen. Say nothing until I ask it of you. Understand?’

  The confused silence was apparently enough.

  ‘I rather miss him,’ said Grincheux to himself.

  Alderion cleared his throat. ‘Take a glance back through your historical records of battle and you will see one thing besides the long litany of defeat upon defeat until recent times. Recent times, I flatter myself I have had more than a little influence upon.

  ‘That one thing is that no self-respecting hero of Goedterre will ever kill his enemy without pause. This is because he needs pause, often a very long one.’ Alderion paused. ‘Why I hear you ask? Or I would if you could speak. It is thus. He needs a pause to tell the vanquished evil one exactly who he is, what he has done, what he is about to do and what this means for the opposing factions. He is also likely to embellish these facts with irrelevant details about the holiness of his armour, the god-blessed sharpness of his blade and certain individuals among the fine folk he claims to be representing and who will sleep more soundly etcetera, etcetera.

  ‘He may also wish to relate what he plans to do next to whoever his next intended victim is and will then doubtless regale his evil foe that there is nothing that he, the evil one, can do to stop him. Normally, he will then either laugh or pray and quite possibly both. Seem familiar to any of you?’

  A variety of assenting grunts and squelches issued from the students.

  ‘Good. Now, the point of all this is that it all takes a very long time. Heroes, as Lord Orgascz pointed out on first using the upcoming strategy, talk too much. So, should you have the presence of mind to do this when under attack, simply act as if you are beaten, vanquished, defeated. And then, when your enemy is in full flow, pick your moment and slit his gizzard. Simple, eh?’

  The roars and hoots of the demons echoed about the quadrangle, a counterpoint to the tear that slipped down Grincheux’s face. Vittore. Undone by a traitor. A more inappropriate way to go, he could not imagine. In the alcove nearby, Cassandra had just about bitten down on a declamation. Grincheux heard metal screech on stone. Fortunately, the cacophony from the quadrangle covered it from enemy ears.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ he hissed.

  ‘This cannot go unchallenged,’ came the answering hiss.

  ‘Just wait a little longer. I’m just wondering…’

  ‘Quiet!’ thundered Alderion. ‘Thank you. Getting over-excited about one strategy is going to get you nowhere. Hark unto me, my students. I am about to reveal the three never-fail…until now…attack modes of the classic hero of Goedterre. They are, in order of impressiveness…and forget you not, demon-kind that while HERO stands for “Hideous Evil Routinely Overcome”, the –ism of heroism stands for “In a Stylish Manner”. Watch for ridiculous flourishes in all the strategies I am about to demonstrate. These are your clues that a break in the strike is yours to exploit. So, these attack modes are, one, the—’

  Actually, Grincheux would quite like to have known at least one of them so he could look out for it. The trouble was that Cassandra’s patience, a gossamer thread at the best of times, had torn asunder. Spectacularly, as it happened.

  Grincheux saw a blur flow across the passage that ran around the quadrangle. She dived through one of the arches set atop low walls and smashed straight into Alderion who hadn’t seen her at all. The next thing Grincheux could see clearly was Alderion stretched out flat and moaning quietly and Cassandra facing the four demon students.

  ‘Who’s first to test their teaching on me?’ A hand went up, rather taking her aback. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is this part of the lesson?’ asked Coagula.

  Cassandra shrugged.

  ‘Sure, if you like.’ She squared up. ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’

  Grincheux winced. She might have been top of her hero speak class but she still had a great deal to learn. No matter, he’d apply the correct verbiage. If he got the chance.

  Prince de Capello stepped forward. It was a swaggering step and admittedly very confident. The rapier thin flaming blade in his hand was brought to the ready and he struck a passable heroic pose.

  ‘I believe I can beat you, Hero of Goedterre,’ he announced.

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Cassandra.

  She feinted left and moved right, striking with snake-like speed. De Capello’s blade clattered to the ground still clutched in his hand. The demon barely had time to register his surprise and hiss a little pain before Cassandra had skewered him through the throat, making a real mess of his frilly shirt. De Capello fell gurgling.

  Cassandra stepped back. The other three demons stared at their fallen classmate. Behind her, Alderion had stopped moaning and had begun to lever himself up on one arm. Cassandra stepped back another place and stamped a foot down. Sharply indrawn breaths all round. Alderion whimpered.

  Grincheux saw a chance for a little investigation. He could see what looked like a notice board through one of the arches out the back of the quadrangle, behind Cassandra. Feeling strangely confident about Cassandra’s ability, Grincheux looked left and right before trotting hurriedly out of his hiding place. The arched passage that ran along the side of the quadrangle headed away towards a shockingly red and flickering destination ahead and turned right to run along the back of the quadrangle.

  ‘You…talk too much,’ said an uncertain demon voice.

  ‘Ridiculous. I’ve hardly said a word.’

  There was a wet thud and the sound of a brief sticky flood. Grincheux glanced round. Coagula’s head was subsiding into its body while its tentacles tried desperately to press the slashed open flaps of its flesh together while the ooze continued to bubble out and add to the spreading steaming pool. It smelled nearly as bad as an Academy lunch.

  It didn’t appear to Grincheux, that Cassandra had moved at all though the evidence suggested that she must have done. The smile broadened on Grincheux’s face but it was short lived. Two things happened. Well three. Grincheux remembered where he was and began to hurry to the notice board once more. He heard footsteps again, coming from every direction. And in the quadrangle, synapses in the brains of the two surv
iving demons had finally closed. Komodos hissed impressively. The Raven-headed beast growled. Dust was shaken from stone. Both took a pace towards the unarmoured Cassandra who took a quick step backwards. Alderion’s hand grasped one of her ankles.

  ‘Look out, Alderion’s got you!’ shouted Grincheux and immediately wished he hadn’t been so selflessly brave.

  Not only because the hoots of advancing demons got louder and more excited as they heard their quarry, but Cassandra turned a face of total ingratitude on him.

  ‘Oh really?’ she snapped and in the next moment, she’d dropped to her haunches and smashed a fist into the open visor of Alderion’s helmet. The tutor’s grip slackened. ‘Be sure and tell me if an evil one puts a sword in my eye, won’t you?’

  Grincheux pointed at the currently attacking demons.

  ‘You should—’

  Cassandra’s expression was unrepeatable in polite circles. She turned, surged to her feet and blocked a massive hammer blow to her right hand side. She followed the momentum of the blow and rolled across the gravel of the quadrangle.

  ‘Just get whatever you need and do it quickly. I’ll be fine.’

  Grincheux, his heart hammering in his chest, turned from Cassandra, the sight of her advancing on the two demons etched on his mind. He heard the crack of a whip and caught the very end of a dismissive comment. Weapons collided.

  The scribe hurried to the notice board. It was a mass of sketches and script. Numbers, arrows, notes. All in common script. Grincheux scanned them all for the draft and one or two in more detail. He gasped and felt his shoulders sag.

  ‘Oh no. Oh, dear Gods of Light, no.’

  Every piece of parchment was an instruction booklet on how to kill a hero monotype. Bind them together and they were the manual on destroying Goedterre. Grincheux saw items on how to use a slingshot against a far taller opponent. How to counter strength, intelligence, God-blessed weaponry and armour, prayer combat and magic.

  There were pamphlets stacked in neat piles on a table beneath the notice-board. They had titles like “Reality check: what if it doesn’t have tentacles?”, and “Corrosive blood? Five ways to keep your armour free of holes”, and “Overwhelming bloodlust: ignore the signs and become a better servant of evil”.

  ‘This is diabolical,’ whispered Grincheux.

  ‘Hardly surprising,’ said a voice from far too close by.

  Grincheux saw into the courtyard as he swung round to look at the speaker. Cassandra was blurring around the quadrangle. The raven-headed demon, bleeding green ooze from a cut across its beak, cycled its hammer about its head and slammed it down. Cassandra leapt aside. The weapon cracked a flagstone with a sound like a cannon. Grincheux flinched. And then gurgled and pointed.

  ‘Oh, Principal Kettifer,’ he said, injecting a light tone into his tremulous and strangely high-pitched voice. ‘Fancy seeing you down here.’

  ‘Yes. Fancy.’ Kettifer spared the quadrangle the briefest of glances. ‘She had potential. A shame in some ways but better this way, I think.’

  Grincheux’s last lingering hope that he had misjudged Kettifer hissed away like the final breath from a broken body. It wasn’t merely the barely suppressed glee with which he watched Cassandra but also the lumbering hulks of monsters that came to his shoulders in a bodyguard, and not jailer, kind of way.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Grincheux.

  ‘What’s the use of light, love and a clear conscience if they lead to a penniless dotage, eh?’

  ‘I’m not with you,’ said Grincheux.

  ‘Naturally not.’ Kettifer looked almost apologetic. ‘You were a good scribe, Grincheux.’

  ‘Am.’

  ‘Hmmm. My mistake. Temporarily, anyway. The point is that I do rather wish you weren’t so inquisitive. You aren’t trained to think. Just to record events. But recording down here is something I really can’t let you do now, is it?’

  ‘A bit late for that,’ said Grincheux, finding a vestige of courage. ‘My book, Cassandra’s book, has enough in draft to damn you ten times over.’

  ‘Dear, oh, dear, you do have a lot to learn. Who do you think really controls the books? The magickers? The Academy council? Great gods of light, please don’t add naivety to your crimes.’

  Cassandra leapt at least six feet straight up from a standing start. Komodos’s whip cracked into the empty space and his net, complete with razor-edged weights, whooshed by right after it. Cassandra landed, slashed a hole in the net and sprinted for the far end of the quadrangle. There was sweat on her face and blood on her cheek.

  ‘Does it matter who is in charge? The transfer of drafts is automatic.’

  ‘Yes, Grincheux but not immediate, eh?’ Grincheux’s heart fell even further. Beyond his boots, it seemed. Kettifer patted his shoulder. ‘But let’s not worry about that now. Let’s see the last moments of your hero. And I’ll see the draft is maintained though your book be sealed for eternity. That is some small comfort, no?’

  ‘No,’ said Grincheux.

  ‘Demons!’ called Kettifer. ‘Special moves at will.’

  ‘Spe—’ Grincheux swallowed. ‘But that’s not fair. That’s…’

  ‘Evil? Not really. Merely the new way of things. Believe me, you’ll be better off dead.’

  ‘What a stupid thing to say,’ muttered Grincheux.

  To help his attention, Grincheux felt the mighty hands of demons clamping onto his upper arms. So he stood and watched, praying to any god who happened to be passing that Cassandra was better than Kettifer assumed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cassandra was tiring. She ducked a blow from the hammer and stepped sharply right. The whip cracked against her hip, opening up her clothing and skin. She backed away, keeping them both in view. Komodos was looking a little sluggish. His whip had proved ineffective and his net was cut. The demon himself had a rake across the sail fin on his back, his tail was half-severed and his bear’s chest torn in at least five places. But he was not downed.

  Raven-head had barely broken into a sweat. The hammer in his hands was like a twig in hers. His reach was long and the serrated rows of teeth glistened and snapped as he struck. His arms were hugely muscled and the power in his legs gave him speed and surprising agility. A demon barely in need of tutelage from the still prone Alderion, surely.

  Kettifer’s voice had caused her to start. She glanced round, saw Grincheux standing between two large minions and felt the fatigue drain from her legs and arms, replaced by righteous strength.

  ‘Special moves?’ she muttered, turning back to her foes both of whom advanced with something akin to glee. ‘I’ll give you special effing moves.’

  Komodos and Raven-head were only five yards from her. The net and whip were discarded. The ball hammer slapped into an open palm. Cassandra circled her shoulders, glad at last that she had no armour on. No encumbrance, no barrier to the cards up her well-fitting sleeve. She gripped her blade in both hands and held it before her.

  ‘So, pathetic minions of evil, let’s see what you’ve got besides bad breath, shall we?’

  Komodos’s neck extended. His head arrowed in and his snout cracked into Cassandra’s chest. She was hurled backwards into the wall of one of the viewing arches, wind forced from her lungs. She landed in a heap, opened her eyes and found Raven-head above her, wings beating lazily. Her sword was gone.

  Raven-head lined up a strike. Cassandra opened her left palm, splayed her fingers and made a chopping gesture. Fire scorched from her fingertips, slicing through the demon’s right wing. The beast fell from the air. Cassandra rolled, rose and dived forwards. Raven-head screamed its frustration and brief pain.

  ‘Ha!’ She heard Grincheux say. And then, ‘Oww!’

  ‘See,’ she said, grabbing her sword from the ground on the run. ‘I’ve got one too. Good, isn’t it?’

  Kettifer was shouting something that she couldn’t grasp. She stood up and shook her head. Raven-head was climbing to its feet. Komodos ran at her. His arms spira
lled out, trying to grab her. She darted, ducked, dodged and defended. In came the head again. Cassandra ran towards the onrushing jaws, leaped into a roll and as she unwound, chopped down with Susurro. Komodos’s jaws snapped at the space she had just vacated. Cassandra’s sword severed his neck. Body and head thudded to the ground.

  Cassandra landed. The quadrangle was ringed with demons, most slack-jawed though it was impossible to say whether this was in amazement at her skill or merely their natural expressions. She ignored them. She ignored Kettifer who appeared to be praying. And she tried to ignore Grincheux who was nursing a bloodied nose. Again.

  Instead, she ran hard at Raven-head, on him in less than a heartbeat. His remaining wing was folded against his back and his hammer was gripped in shaking hands.

  ‘Got anything else to show me?’ asked Cassandra.

  Their eyes met. The demon’s smouldered. Literally. He struck out. The ball of the hammer flashed towards her face. She blocked it aside, hacked down on the exposed arm and moved inside his guard.

  ‘I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then.’

  Raven-head managed a bloodied grin. ‘Now you tell me of my defeat. At length.’

  ‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’

  Cassandra drove her blade into the beast’s chest, feeling it split skin, grind off bone and skewer what passed for one vital organ or another. The glint in the demon’s eyes faded. From around the quadrangle, minions howled, quickly stifling her thoughts of victory. She stepped back and away towards the centre of the quadrangle. Over by the notice board, Grincheux was staring at her while blood dripped on to his shirt. A shame it looked as if her deeds would reach nothing but draft status.

  A quick look told her that a good thirty minions were at the arches of the quadrangle. But none of them moved in. Instead, Kettifer stepped across the threshold. His hands were held about a foot apart and in between his palms, a malevolent red light glowed.

  ‘Bravo, Cassandra. What a fine hero you would have made. But the time of the Goedterre Hero, man or woman, is gone. Evil will rule.’