With each turn of the cart’s wheels, the surrounding houses regressed further from prosperity. The cobblestone soon gave way to gravel, and gravel to mud. After a time, the gaps between the houses increased until I passed little but the occasional shack, hidden in the dense shrub and the dark of night, with only narrow paths giving hint to their existence. A wheel slipped into a rut, and the cart lurched forward. I thought I heard a grunt, so I spun around and looked behind me for several moments, but I was alone.
It took another few minutes to reach the end of the track, which stopped just short of the swamp. Few followed the path to its end. Swamps were unpleasant things, and this one had somewhat of a reputation.
I unhitched the cart and looked up at the sky. The rain had settled down to a drizzle, and stars were breaking through patches of cloud. Through such a gap, I saw the ever-watchful Eye of Svyn, bright against the black of night. The oval shape, formed by a multitude of pinprick lights, watched me. The spiral Eye of Svyn, the watcher in the night. He and I scanned the area, but I was alone. I sighed, leaving a mist floating in front of me, and got on with the first part of my plan.
It was a struggle to untie the cloth, and I looked up at the sky again as my cold fingers fumbled with the stubborn knots. “Are you pleased with me?” I asked. I was sure the god of death smiled on me. I did good work for him, after all, and I’d brought quite the offering this night. When I finally defeated the knots, I threw the cloth open and was assaulted by the overpowering stench of rotting corpses. Stiffened limbs stuck out from bloated bodies. I instinctively turned my head to the side but slowly returned it to observe my handiwork. I had done this.
CHAPTER THREE
Risen
Most men would be strung up, or worse—probably worse—for filling a cart with corpses. But I was an apprentice torturer. Apprentice… shit on that. My so-called master, Angus, had done no real work since I was enslaved. The fat drunk had a fair crack at torturing me at times, but no longer bothered with the prisoners. Nonetheless, I was to have been an apprentice for the rest of my days, and even that was a lofty title for a slave.
I took the thick gloves from my satchel and pulled them on. These hands, once taught to heal, instead had murdered more people than I could recall. At first I’d tried to remember them, to let them live on as ghosts in my memory, to be my conscience. But I’d become dead to it all, and in less than a year, I had found it hard to care about the lives I took, though at times I still felt guilty for not feeling guilty. I’d been trained as a surgeon when I was young. My people’s knowledge of the human body, and science in general, far surpassed those of other kingdoms. But those skills had been put to a darker purpose. Frankly, I was very good at my job. Some said I was the best torturer in the empire. None but my brother ever spoke as highly of my skills as a surgeon. Besides, these skills had saved me from most of my master’s darker perversions.
With a sigh, I pulled the gloves tight and reached for an arm that stuck out near the edge of the cart. Placing a foot to the side of the wheel, I put my weight behind it as I pulled. I crashed to the mud with a splash. “Seven hells,” I cursed as cold water seeped through my clothes, and my shoulder throbbed from the impact. Still in my hands was an arm with elaborate tattoos around the wrist. It was somewhat detached from the body. “Oralo,” I said as I stood to my feet. Oralo had been a jester of sorts, an entertainer of the drunk. He’d fallen sharply in the emperor’s esteem when he’d tried to grab the princess’s arse. He’d had to be tortured, not for information, but simply as a lesson to others. Or, more likely, because the princess wished for it to be so. That cold-hearted witch was more than capable of looking after herself, and I was surprised she had not tortured the man personally. Still, it was hard to feel sorry for a man that stupid.
I tossed the arm down the bank as I looked Svyn in the eye—so to speak. I would hate to know how many bodies I had thrown down there as offerings. The pile of bones had not escaped the attention of the locals, who swore that the swamp was filled with large reptiles that snatched people from their homes and dragged them into the swamp. There were a few nasty creatures down there, that was true; but I was the one responsible for their deaths. Many had been removed from their homes in the dead of night not by reptiles, but rather by the emperor’s Dark Legion.
Next, I dragged out a large fellow who’d gone by the name of Brutus. Brutus was a “big fellow” name, and he had a “big fellow” attitude to boot. He had not been particularly cooperative. I’d told him what I told all my victims—that all he had to do was to tell me what I needed to hear and to sign the acknowledgment of guilt. That I would give him an easy death if he did so. Brutus had finally spoken when his second eyeball was teased from its socket, and it had taken entirely too long to reach that point. Much wasted pain on his part and wasted effort on mine. The big fellow made a big splash as he slid into a pool below.
A moaning came from the cart behind me. I peered in. “Which one of you has more to say?” I asked. It was not uncommon for corpses to moan. Especially when fresh, and when recently moved. Gasses escaped from one of two likely orifices.
I avoided a particularly bloated torso and instead took hold of a wrist that protruded beside it. Panic filled me as the fingers closed around my wrist and yanked me forward. Only my free hand on the side of the cart stopped me from being pulled into the foul mess. I tried to twist my wrist free, but even with the adrenaline pumping through me, I was inching ever closer.
A head shot out, nearly smashing me in the face. I screamed. Wild eyes stared up at me. Long, braided hair was plastered to the dark face, covered with blood and shit. The eyes slowly focused on mine, and a toothy smile appeared from within the beard, like a crescent moon on the darkest of nights.
“Gods, help me up,” the man said. I punched him in the nose instead and freed myself. The man laughed. He pulled himself up out of the mess and jumped down with a splash, covering me in mud. He stretched and rotated his arms. I was still clutching my burning shoulder when I found myself in the large filthy man’s embrace. “Gods above, you took your damn time,” he said, squeezing me. My face pressed into his disgusting beard, covered in all manner of shit, and his chin rested on top of my head. I could feel some vile liquid running down my neck. “I was starting to wonder if our plan was going to work,” he said as he let me go.
“Our plan, Marcus? I don’t recall this being any part of our Gods-damned plan,” I shouted, pointing at the cart. I tried to wipe off the bits of human from my coat but only managed to smear them in. “The plan, if I might remind you, was for you to make your own way here after I broke you out.”
“And so I did,” Marcus said. “Hitching a ride is kind of my thing.”
“Your thing… I see. Care to remind me how you ended up in that dungeon?”
“Well,” Marcus said. “You win some, you lose some. Got what we need?”
I reached into the back of the cart and brought out a large oilskin bag, handing it over to him. “Clean clothes for both of us. I have Angus’s money purse in my satchel, and it’s heavy with gold. Your weapons are strapped to the bottom of the cart.”
“And Angus?”
“Oh, Angus is quite dead, and colder than a fish’s tits,” I said with a smile.
Marcus frowned at me. “I didn’t think you actually took pleasure in that sort of thing.”
I shrugged and snatched the bag back. “This was different.” I stuck the bag between two wheel spokes. I did not generally enjoy my job, but it did not bother me overly much either. “Give me a hand, will you?” I grabbed the legs, he took the arms, and we lifted out the body, covered down to the hips by a large sack. We lowered it against a tree stump, and I grabbed the sack and yanked it off. “Tada…”
“By the Gods,” Marcus said. “If he’s not the spitting image.” The man was in his thirties, had a shaved head and a black goatee, and, as Marcus pointed out, he looked a great deal like me. There were subtle differences, of course, but I counted on the
bloating and the brand on his forehead to distract anyone who could pick them out.
“This your work?” Marcus asked, pointing at tooth marks that covered the man’s neck and arms. I nodded. “And this?” He gestured at a large gash across the man’s abdomen, his entrails sliding out as we watched. I nodded again.
“And things that can do this are down there?” he asked, tipping his head to the swamp.
“Yeah—balaur. But they usually keep their distance.”
“Balaur?” Marcus asked.
“Bipedal reptiles. Nasty little buggers. I’ve only seen them on a handful of occasions. It’s probably a small pack. They have a claw on top of each foot, which they use to… well, do that,” I said, pointing at the opened stomach of my double.
“Is that how he died?” Marcus asked.
“Nah, I poisoned him and added the embellishments later.” It had taken a lot longer than I’d thought it would to get it to look authentic. It’s not often that I would call a corpse a work of art, but the man at my feet most certainly was. I walked back to the cart and retrieved my clothes from the oilskin bag before handing it over to Marcus.
“The hells happened to you?” Marcus asked as I pulled off my tunic.
Blood had soaked the bandage on my shoulder. I decided to leave it as it was for the time being, as we needed to get away from that place. Fortunately, the wound was on my left shoulder; my right had a tattoo that was precious to me. A spiral image in the shape of an eye. When the wound healed, it could join the rest of the scars that covered my body—some caused by Angus, some I’d added myself. Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t some sick-minded person who took pleasure in self-mutilation. It was just that pain fueled my naming, giving me some power over others.
“What happened?” Marcus asked again.
“I was interrupted by a sorcerer,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Gods… I assume you killed him?”
I nodded.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Marcus said. “You are deceptively dangerous. I doubt I would have fared as well.”
When I was changed, I walked back to the cart. Marcus fastened his belt and attached a short sword, dagger, and a number of small knives while looking out over the swamp. I held a hand out, feeling only the occasional raindrop.
“Ready?” I asked.
Marcus nodded at the swamp. “I think we should cross here,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“You said you’ve only seen those creatures a few times, right? We should be safe enough. Still easier than walking down the road, I reckon. A bigger-than-average Prylean fellow such as myself, black as the night, and a bald Ubraian with a slave brand between the eyes…—we don’t exactly blend into the populace, now, do we?”
“I suppose not,” I muttered.
Marcus smiled, grabbed onto some tree roots hanging over the bank and started climbing down. “Stay here. I’ll scout ahead,” he said as he dropped out of sight. Within a few seconds, he was at the bottom. He moved fast for a big bastard. “Gods!” I heard from below. “You have been busy.”
I walked back to my double and dragged him closer to the bank, arranging the body to make it look as though he—or rather I—had crawled up from the bottom. Standing back, I looked at the arrangement. Satisfied, I made my way to the edge and peered down. From my position I could see little more than the tops of trees. The stench of rotting corpses sat thick in the air, but the fresh arrivals were by far the worst.
The sound of a breaking branch and a muttered curse came from the swamp. I turned an ear in that direction and heard a high-pitched squeal, a short series of splashes, and then nothing. Raindrops hit leaves, frogs croaked, and a lone owl hooted off in the distance. The horse snorted to my side and tossed her head, flicking water from her skin. I stared at the beast, willing her to be quiet. A bird took flight from a tree nearby, and I ducked as it flapped close overhead.
“Yeah…” Marcus said from behind. I jumped, nearly slid down the bank, and waved my arms to keep on my feet. “We should probably go the other way,” Marcus said, wiping a blade on his sleeve. “Those balaur things aren’t very big, but there sure are a lot of them. Thought you said it was a small pack?” I shrugged. Marcus walked to the horse and stroked her neck. “Taking the road would still be a bad idea, at least until we’ve put some distance between us and this place. I suggest we cross that ridge,” Marcus said, gesturing behind me. “We can’t take the horse,” he said as he patted her side. “She’d have a hard time crossing the ridge and leave tracks that any idiot could follow.”
“She can find her own way back,” I said.
“Up the ridge we go, then,” Marcus said. Castralavi sat on a peninsula. We stood on one side, the brackish swamp separating us from the mainland. On the other was the South Sea, with near vertical cliffs falling to the ocean. The ridge ran down the center of the peninsula.
“Lead on,” I said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rest in the Mud
Our walk across the ridge turned out to be a long one, and several hours later, when Marcus gestured to a rock overhang to rest under till dawn, I could still make out the few lights of Castralavi like glowworms behind me. I had a good view of it from beneath the overhang, high up on the ridge. The term “overhang” was perhaps a bit generous. A slight protrusion? Whatever you called it, it offered little shelter, and if the rain returned we would be soaked. Marcus tossed aside a few loose stones and made himself comfortable.
You might think that, having spent a decade in a dungeon, I would have few qualms about sleeping in a bit of mud. You’d be wrong. I did not sleep in the mud like some peasant. Even a forgotten prince did not sleep in the dirt. Alas, as I looked around me, not a single inn leapt into existence. I made do with a bed of leaves I fashioned with fronds from a tree fern, and while it was far from comfortable, at least it wasn’t mud.
I removed my coat and shirt and sat down on my bed. My eyes were squeezed tight against the pain as I peeled the bandage off. It was stuck to the raw skin beneath, and a gasp escaped through my clenched teeth when it peeled free. The night sky above was black as ink, the stars blurry circles through the tears in my eyes. I blinked them clear and went to work stitching the cut. Marcus winced and turned his eyes to the stars instead.
I smiled, glad to have him by my side. A master with the blade, he would come in handy on the difficult road ahead. But quite apart from that, he was a genuinely good man, the first I had met in a great long time, and I felt a better man myself for being in his company. My journey would not be an easy one, and I hoped to reach the end with him still beside me.
I’d learned a great many things in my time as a torturer, but it was not the dirty secrets of nobles that had spurred me to take on this monumental task. It was news of my people’s suffering. When I was taken as a slave, I did not realize how many of my people would share my fate. And even those who still lived free were mostly considered second-class citizens.
This knowledge was like a lion; it could not be gently embraced. Instead, a fiery passion grew within me, a determination to see my people free and Ubrain restored to glory, free of its shackles to the empire.
But I was no king. My brother, Shakir, was the rightful heir, and my ultimate goal was to find him and put him on the throne. First, though, I needed to track down the Ubraian crown. In Ubrain, it has always been the custom that he who wore the crown ruled the land. Without it, our claim would be empty, especially as it was widely believed that we were dead—burned in the palace along with my parents.
For years, I’d asked those I put to the question about the crown, but none had even heard rumors. A week ago, I’d finally given up on finding it and decided to go in search of my brother. This very night, I’d tortured the man I was sure knew his location. Angus. Turns out, he did not; but at long last, I found out about the crown’s whereabouts instead. “Often, you only find what you are looking for after you stop searching for it.” My mothe
r had taught me that, and time and time again, life had shown her to be right.
As I tied off the thread, my wound stitched closed, Marcus looked back my way. Funny; I hadn’t taken him to be the squeamish type. I smiled, and we stared up at the stars together. The sounds of the night were strange. Not unpleasant, but not what I was used to. Most nights in the torture chamber were deathly quiet, only broken by the occasional sobs of the men and women in the adjoining cells. I hate to admit this, but sometimes I cried too. Then Marcus arrived. I was warned that he was the bloodthirsty leader of the rebel movement. A cunning man, I was told, who would stop at nothing, spare no life to bring down the empire. It turned out that he was none of those things. A leader, perhaps, but none of the rest. Over the weeks that preceded our escape, we struck up an odd friendship through the bars—a friendship based in a mutually beneficial arrangement. I got a man who knew his way around in a fight; he got an escape from certain death and the promise of gold.
“So what’s the plan?” Marcus asked. “Where is that brother of yours?”
“Would that I knew,” I said as I put away the needle and thread and re-dressed the wound.
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Thought you said Angus knew where to find him?”
I sighed. “Well, he didn’t. But I did not leave empty-handed. I finally learned the whereabouts of the crown. And another thing, too—the Ring of the Lion. I’d thought it a story, but Angus assured me it’s real enough.”
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