Lady Of Regret (Book 2)

by James A. West

  Rathe looked to the long table running between two rows of pillars. The high-backed chairs guarding its flanks stood empty. Table and chairs had been polished to a low gleam. Farther on, a smaller table sat atop a broad dais spanning the breadth of the hall. The table’s gilded legs glowed with a dreamlike quality, but those who clambered over the top of it were creatures of nightmare.

  “Gods and demons,” Loro gasped, as Tulfa joined what could only be his relations at the high table.

  Tulfa looked around. “Come, friends! Come and feast!”

  Rathe did not move. The folk gathered about Tulfa, a dozen at least, wore filthy rags, or nothing at all. Forgoing chairs, they squatted on the tabletop. Hunched over, growling amongst themselves, they made busy rending strips of meat snatched from heaped platters. One of the shadowkin looked up—a woman, Rathe thought, but would not have wagered on it. Her twisted fingers paused halfway to her mouth. Grease mingled with dirt on her cheeks and chin, giving her a gruesome aspect. She made a series of throaty noises, and Tulfa hooted laughter, as if hearing a fine jest.

  About to decline Tulfa’s offer, Rathe’s teeth clicked together when two bent figures moved through a doorway, carrying between them a tarnished bronze serving tray near as large as a palanquin. Tulfa danced amongst the shadowkin, waving his staff overhead. “Another course! Yes! Yes! Meat on the bone!”

  “Is that a….” Loro trailed off before he could finish putting a name to the roasted horror laid out on the tray.

  “It is,” Rathe answered, throat burning with bile. His sword flashed from the scabbard.

  Tulfa noted the bared steel, and his kindly nature vanished. He scuttled to the end of the table, perched there, a humpbacked fiend with white-blue eyes and too many teeth, all streaked black and sharp. His tongue, grossly long and pointed, licked over his bottom lip. “Come, friends, and feast with Tulfa!” This time his was no reedy invitation, but a growled command.

  The two men carrying the serving tray placed it on the table at Tulfa’s feet, their movements reverent.

  “We are leaving,” Rathe said, voice edged with warning. In case that was not enough, he added, “Follow us, and I will carve your bowels.””

  Tulfa cackled merrily. “’Tis giblets you crave?” His gnarled fingers danced lightly over the crispy brown belly of the man’s torso on the serving tray, then stabbed into that obscene flesh, rooted about, and tugged free gray-pink loops of steaming entrails. “Then ‘tis giblets you shall have! Feast, my friends! Feast!”

  At that shout, the shadowkin bounded off the table, their swift movements sending laden platters spinning off the table. Eyes wild and eager, they raced along on all fours as if born to it, spreading across the hall, jabbering in some uncouth, hateful tongue.

  Rathe and Loro ran.

  Chapter 5

  Despite their twisted arms and legs, the shadowkin moved far quicker than Rathe would have believed, and with more agility. Before he and Loro reached the first turn on the way back to the horses, the shadowkin burst from the great hall and sprinted after them.

  Rathe kept one hand on Loro’s back, urging him along, the other wrapped around his sword hilt. As they skidded round the second corner, he looked over his shoulder and found the shadowkin bounding closer.

  “Faster!” Rathe warned. “They’re catching up.”

  Loro did not waste a breath to answer, but ducked his head and stretched his legs. He was not a man built for running at speed, but he did so now. Still, the shadowkin gained three steps for every one Rathe and Loro took.

  “Faster,” Rathe urged again, not sure how much faster he could have run, even if not impeded by Loro’s bulk.

  Torches flashed by, followed by stretches of darkness. They careened off walls in their haste to navigate corners. The shadowkin narrowed the gap, wildly cascading down the corridor.

  Knowing they would never make it back to their horses before being overtaken, Rathe slowed to tip a heavy marble bust. It crashed against the floor in a spray of rubble. Each time they passed something he could use as an obstacle, he knocked it over. His efforts slowed the shadowkin but a little. They came on, leaping over all in their path, howling rage.

  He needed something larger. He found her, headless and waiting where she had stood for unknown years. After dumping the statue of the naked woman Loro had tried to molest, Rathe sprinted away. The first shadowkin to reach the toppled statue lost his footing and fell in a sliding sprawl. All who came after became entangled in his flailing limbs.

  As the twisted cannibals yowled and fought to gain their feet, Rathe darted ahead, scrambled around a turn, and discovered Loro had vanished. Rathe ran headlong, and nearly missed the branching corridor. As he slid past, he saw a flash of movement. Loro, far down the second passage, and gaining speed.

  “Not that way!” he cried. His warning came too late, and Loro wheeled out of sight down another passage.

  Rathe ducked into the corridor a heartbeat before the shadowkin rejoined the hunt. Holding his breath, Rathe hunkered in deep shadow a few paces from the opening. Sword held before him, he watched them flash by. He tried to count them, but they were too bunched up, and their bestial gait tricked his eye. It seemed as if the dozen gathered in the hall had become a hundred.

  When he was as sure as he could be that all of them had moved on, he followed after Loro, every few steps looking back to make sure one of the shadowkin had not discovered the deceit.

  All lay dark around the corner where Loro had gone, but the clamor of a ferocious struggle far ahead was unmistakable. Rathe tore into the murk. Low curses, pained groans, and the sound of heavy fists battering ribs guided him. He came to one turn, then another, and the sounds of fighting grew louder. A faint light now lit the way, and he ran faster.

  After a few more turns, he burst into an open chamber. At the same moment, Loro hefted a writhing shadowkin overhead and speared him into a wall. The crunch of the man’s skull cut off his enraged screech. Cursing to shame ten demons, Loro continued to batter the limp figure against the stonework, until Rathe laid a cautious hand on his shoulder.

  At his touch, Loro whirled, teeth bared, eyes blazing. He held the broken corpse in his powerful grip like a crude weapon. For a moment he did not recognize Rathe as a friend, and looked ready to bludgeon him with the dead shadowkin. By heartbeats, the red rage fled his eyes. He tossed the corpse to the floor, spat on it with a disgusted grimace, then collected is sword from the throat of another shadowkin.

  “Gods and demons,” Loro snarled when he straightened. “Where did you get off to?”

  “You went the wrong way.” Rathe looked back. The corridor lay quiet, but he chose not to trust their luck to endure. Tulfa and his spawn must know this fortress far better than he and Loro.

  “You’re mad,” Loro panted. “Why, the way out is just——” He cut off as he took in the pile of rolled up rugs staked against the chamber’s farthest wall, a dismantled bed, and a listing wardrobe, none of which they had seen when following Tulfa.

  “There might be a way out from here,” Rathe said, thinking of all the entrances they had ridden past after entering Deepreach. He pointed to a well-lit doorway across the chamber. “That corridor must lead somewhere.”

  “How can you know?”

  “If not,” Rathe said, “then why waste torches lighting it?”

  “I suppose,” Loro said. “This time, brother, you lead.”

  Moving with caution, Rathe stepped into the passage. The troubling smell of roasting meat grew sharper in this direction.

  “From the cook pot into the fire, and back again,” Loro said. “Don’t we just make a fine pair of fools? Gods and demons, why did we have to come into these accursed mountains?”

  “Because Nabar’s men were hard on our heels,” Rathe snapped. “Had we not come into the Gyntors, we’d have been shot full of arrows, and our heads sent back to Onareth.”

  “And now we are to be eaten by a brood of godless imps!” Loro retorted.

/>   “Alive or dead, captured or free, I do not mean to be eaten.”

  “What do you intend?”

  Rathe shot a hard look at Loro. “We escape unseen, or we bring the slaughter.”

  Chapter 6

  Rathe led them through a long and winding stretch of many connecting passages. That savory fragrance of cooking meat twisted his guts, washed his tongue in bile, for now he knew the source. And where he saw niches filled with ornaments and bits of armor, he realized they had nothing to do with honoring past rulers or heroes. Rather, they were trophies taken from those poor fools Tulfa had lured to their doom. Just before he and his horde cooked and ate them.

  Long before reaching the kitchen, the familiar clamor of a pots and pans told of its presence. At the entrance, Rathe peeked round a corner, eyes flicking, marking. An open fire pit dominated the chamber, its smoke rising to a hole built into the vaulted ceiling. To one side, a bent shadowkin busily cranked a long iron spit. Some unfortunate had lost a leg to Tulfa, and the spit-boy had crisped it to perfection.

  “What do you see?” Loro whispered.

  “You do not want to know.” Even as Rathe spoke, the spit-boy cast a furtive glance at his fellows, men and women bearing platters, pots, and pans, then snuck a chunk of meat into his mouth and gobbled it down.

  The apparent head cook, if such an atrocious creature could bear the title, stood on a footstool at the edge of the kitchen, stirring a ladle through a kettle hung over the ruddy coals of a massive fireplace.

  Rathe was trying to decide if they should retreat or attack, when he noticed a man trussed in a far corner. The scrawny fellow noticed him at the same instant, and immediately started thrashing about, mewling behind the rag stuffed into his gaping mouth. Rathe gestured for the man to be still, but his eyes widened in panic, and he redoubled his efforts.

  All the shadowkin stopped what they were doing and looked to the bound man. All, that was, save the head cook. She followed the captive’s gaze, and Rathe ducked behind cover.

  “What is it?” Loro asked again. His face went stony when he saw Rathe’s hand tighten on the hilt of his sword. “Battle? Well, let’s be about it.”

  With a fierce cry, Rathe rushed into the kitchen. The gawping spit-boy whirled, his screech spraying half-chewed flesh. Rathe ended him, a single cut splitting his skull to the hollow of his throat. Rathe kicked the jittering corpse off his blade, set his feet.

  Shock held but a moment, then all shifted into leaping, shrieking chaos.

  Loro lumbered past, sword swinging like an axe to take off a shadowkin’s raised hand. The reverse stroke cleaved the howling shadowkin from groin to sternum. The man dropped into his own splashing vitals. With a bearlike roar, Loro pivoted to deliver a flat chop into the chest of another twisted man, shredding meat and ribs, leaving him to bumble away clutching at the viscera slithering from the gaping wound. Loro swung round again, blade slicing down the side of a shadowkin’s face and into the joining of neck and shoulder, ripping through flesh and bone. The screaming man tumbled away. Where he had stood, an ear attached to a flap of cheek joined a spasming arm on the blood-slicked floor.

  Some few shadowkin continued to dare Loro and his murderous blade. The bulk of them sought Rathe, seeming to think he would make easier prey.

  He caught the greasy hair of one, sawed his sword through the man’s belly, shoved him howling away. Rathe spun, his sword a flash of silver-red death tearing through a face, a neck, bowels. More shadowkin darted close. Rathe stove in the skull of one with the pommel of his sword, then gouged the tip deep through the eye of another. Yet another he spitted to the hilt, crossguard slapping against his squalling foe’s belly.

  Powerful hands tugged at Rathe’s legs, cloak, and arms. He fought clear, once and again, face and neck running with the blood of enemies. His boots slid in the accumulating gore underfoot, and he went to one knee. Growling, he lunged up and pierced the skinny, naked cheeks of a bent-backed horror. Rathe saw only a monster that meant to devour him this night.

  The dirty creature slashed with its clawed fingers, trying to tug the steel thorn from its flesh. With its arse poked through, its legs buckled at the knees. Rathe brutally levered his sword free, giving the bent-one four cheeks.

  A handful of shadowkin landed on him at once, climbing him like blood-hungry squirrels. He slashed wildly with his sword, and lashed out with his fist. He felt mouths on him, then teeth, gnawing through the sleeves of his cloak, more at his belly, gnashing through his leather jerkin. Cloth ripped, skin ripped. Rough fingernails tore at his eyes and hair. More wrenched his sword away.

  Rathe rolled to his belly, curled into a ball to protect his neck and face, and reached for his dagger. He bit back a scream when a rude hand clutched greedily at his groin, as if at a handful of sweetmeats. Risking castration, he stabbed his dagger into the hand, and the ripping pressure eased. But only a moment. More hands followed, more claws, all seeking to tear him apart one bloody piece at a time.

  Loro roared somewhere beyond the frenzied mass piling on Rathe, and a great weight added to that of the writhing shadowkin, crushing Rathe against the tiles.

  Hot breath gusted into his face, a lapping tongue followed, swabbing his chin and lips, leaving a trail of stinking spit. Teeth snapped together where his nose had been an instant before. A hungry babbling voice filled one ear. The other was jammed against the floor, and in it his blood pounded like a kettle drum. More spittle dribbled over his cheek, into one bulging eye.

  Loro roared again, and the pile shifted, lessened just enough for Rathe to tuck his chin to his chest. Teeth flashed and nipped, and Rathe rammed his head sideways. The crunch of a breaking nose gave him joy. The ensuing patter of hot blood that washed over his face, into his mouth, and across his tongue stole that pleasure.

  Loro cut loose with another bellow, and the weight pressing Rathe down let up a bit more, enough so he could move. By inches, he dragged the dagger closer to his face, meaning to stick it into the next mouth that thought to taste him.

  Through the shifting mass of bodies and filthy limbs, he saw a naked foot, the toenails long and yellowed. He stabbed the arch of that foot, digging the blade deep. A ragged scream ripped through the kitchen, and the foot jerked out of sight. Rathe saw a straining tendon above the heel of another foot. He slashed it. Steel cleaved skin and gristle, grated over bone. Blood splashed, and the second foot leaped away.

  He continued to stab and slash whatever target presented itself. Fists and kicks rained down, but he absorbed the punishment with a grim smile, for where his enemies bruised him, he crippled them. He kept on striking toes and heels and calves where he could, moment by moment gaining more freedom, moment by moment more convinced that no historian would dare jot down an account of such bloody, brutal fuckery, for fear of tainting the glory of war and victory.

  The weight pinning him down suddenly lifted. A flapping shadowkin soared across the kitchen to land headfirst in the huge kettle hung above the hearth. Scalding broth splashed over the coals, steam billowed thick and foul. The scalded shadowkin reared back with a face blistered and red. As the wailing figure thrashed, Loro ended his cries with a ruthless slash to the back of the neck. Head bobbling loosely, the last foe fell.

  “Gods damn me!” Loro raged, spinning in search of enemies who no longer stood.

  Rathe clambered to his feet, spitting blood. Spread across the kitchen floor, some few shadowkin still clung to life, their cleaved appendages and spilled innards swimming though a spreading scarlet tide. They showed no signs of rejoining the fight, or living into the next minute.

  “What do we do with him?” Loro asked, pointing his bloody sword at the bound fellow.

  “Cut him loose,” Rathe ordered, using his sleeve to scrub his face clean. All he managed was to smear the sticky red mess around. “He might be able to lead us out of here.”

  “What if he’s one of them?”

  Rathe paused in his search for another way out of the kitchen. The man’s
patchwork tunic was at least as tattered as anything worn by the shadowkin, his black hair hung lank and oily around a slender, bladelike face. But his straight limbs set him apart from the shadowkin. That, and being tied up. All he lacked was a pinch of seasoning sprinkled over his sweat-damp skin.

  After pointing that out to Loro, Rathe said, “I expect he’s a luckless traveler, much the same as us. Cut him loose.”

  Loro grumbled under his breath about the ills sure to befall warriors-turned-nursemaid, but he severed the man’s bindings. “Up with you,” he said, hauling the man to his feet.

  “What’s your name, friend?” Rathe asked, trying to put the ratlike fellow at ease with a kind tone.

  “H-Horge.” The man’s whiny voice matched his short, spindly stature. “Gods be blessed, thank you! Thank you!”

  Before Horge could start blubbering in earnest, Rathe stopped him. “Master Horge, can you lead us out?”

  Horge bobbed his head. “Aye, I think so.”

  “You can, or you cannot. Which is it?”

  “So many turns,” Horge whispered, closing his eyes in concentration, one finger sketching a winding path in the air before his nose. “Aye!” he said, nodding eagerly. “ I know the way.” He took a bundle off a nearby table, shook it out to reveal a cloak of coarse dark hair, and wrapped it around his shoulders. “Follow me.”

  “What of this lot?” Loro asked, gesturing to the downed shadowkin. Many of those who had been groaning had gone still, eyes glazed over, waxen skin pale next to the blood pooling around them. Some still writhed and groaned, but not much longer, Rathe guessed.

  “Leave them. If our luck holds, Tulfa will find the flesh of his kindred as palatable as ours.”

  Loro’s face blanched. “It’s a foul blasphemy, folk eating folk.”

  At the moment, Rathe was beyond counting blasphemies. “Lead on,” he instructed Horge.