by Mike Truk
“Perhaps. But there’s a condition.”
Hugh gaped at her. “Negotiations?”
“Of course. Three years I’ve waited for a moment like this. We’ll assist you. But in exchange, you must do better than the oath you swore Birandillo. If we help you out of this predicament, you must swear to take your life the moment your friends are safe.”
Hugh stared at her, mind numb. Saw again the bloody fingers slipping around his glistening femur, and his whole body convulsed. “Yes. I swear it.”
Jacinia’s eyes narrowed. “I witness your oath. And declare myself pleased. But to escape, you will need more than strength. Think, Hugh. Are your captors capable of reviving the dead?”
“No,” he said automatically. “That’s impossible.”
“Then?”
He stared at her, feeling as much the callow recruit as he’d been on his first day with the Reavers. Inadequate, cloddish, a fool who’d not earned his way into that hallowed company, whose connections and gold had opened doors that should have been barred to him. And oh, how he’d regretted that favor once he’d finally stepped into the tower.
Once he’d been forced to sit down for the first time across from Jacinia, captain of the Lost Reavers, and gaze into those merciless eyes.
“Then… then I’m not really dying. They’re healing me just before I die.”
“No. Think harder.”
Hugh wanted to break her gaze. Look away. But he couldn’t. Never could. He felt like a mouse pinned by a golden serpent’s stare. Forced himself to think. To move beyond the pain. The sheer, world-eclipsing enormity of the pain.
“Even a wealthy man like Aleksandr wouldn’t use so many healing potions on me. It must be magic. They’ve put me under some kind of spell.”
“Better. For what reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then you will break.”
Hugh blinked. Jacinia was gone. He was back in the stone room. Bound to the chair. Chained. The torch burned. Footsteps. Unhurried. The sound itself now so dreaded that he writhed horror.
Think. Why do they want to break you?
What do they want?
The scrape of a key in the lock.
Eye-Patch lay next to you. Katharzina put her hand on your brow. Why? What do they want?
Sweat was pouring off him. He stared at the door with mute horror. He’d never feared pain in battle. Wounds. Death. But this. This unending cycle of anguish.
The bolt clanged back.
I don’t know. I don’t know why they want to break me. But I can’t free myself. I can’t fight back. I can’t summon the Reavers’ strength. I’m trapped. I can’t do anything.
The door swung open. The brute lowered his head as he stepped in.
Hugh began to shake. Can’t fight. Can’t escape. They want to break me. Why? I don’t know, I don’t know!
The brute straightened and stared at him with his idiotic eyes.
Hugh inhaled, chest stretching, drank in as much air as he could.
They want to break me. I can’t stop them. Only one thing I can do. Only one way to beat them.
He screamed. Thrashed. Allowed his fear and terror to flood forth. Gave full vent to his basest instincts and screamed, shrieked at the brute as it stared down at him.
Finally, he subsided. Allowed his head to hang as he stared at the floor. His voice too hoarse for more screams. And instead allowed himself to weep. Tears of fury. Tears of horror. Tears of helpless rage. But weep regardless, and not move when the brute took a step forward.
Not move when the brute reached out to touch his shoulder, not scream until the moment of contact at which he began to scream again.
The brute turned and left the room.
Hugh subsided once more.
Waited.
Footsteps again. Two pairs. Purposeful.
The door stood open. Two people entered.
Even here, he scented leather and magnolia.
He didn’t look up.
Closed his eyes tight and pressed his cheek against the chair.
“Looks ready,” Eye-Patch.
“What a waste. A man this fine. Strong in body and mind. Now… look at him.” Katharzina’s voice, bitter and angry.
“A casualty of war. But at least we can put his suffering to an end. Ready?”
“Yes. I’ll render him immobile, but you must act fast. You’ll be in his very core. There’s no knowing what strange urges or monsters his fear and pain may have created at those depths.”
Clear distaste in Eye-Patch’s voice. “This is all so barbaric. Very well. I’m ready.”
“I’ll await you here. I’ll empower you as best I can so you can resist the dark tides of his mind. But don’t pause to gloat. In, eat his heart, and be done.”
“I’m not an idiot. Summon me a chair.”
A strange sound, almost a scrape. The sound of Eye-Patch sitting. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes. Very well.” Resignation? Hugh didn’t have the presence of mind to parse it. He focused on being little more than the wreckage he was presenting. The shattered remnant of a man.
“Here we go. May Fortuna bless you,” said Katharzina.
Darkness. The chair, the room, the light of the torch - all of it fell away and was gone.
Hugh lay on a wet stone floor. No walls. Endless night all around. A flickering light from somewhere above illuminating where he lay. No obvious source. And the pain.
The pain was tremendous. All encompassing.
The wounds the brute had dealt him were back.
Hugh couldn’t breathe. Forced himself upright with his one good arm. Stared down at the wreckage of his body. The open wounds. The blood. The torn viscera. The gleaming bone. Wounds that should have killed him a dozen times over.
But which now assailed the very walls of his sanity.
Footsteps.
Eye-Patch appeared at the edge of the light. He was enhanced somehow down here; seemed grander, more heroic, his physique ennobled, his eyes burning with command. He gazed down at Hugh with glittering eyes.
“This will all be over soon. I’m sorry. If there were any other way. But there isn’t. This pain, this torture - it sickens me. Sickens me more than you know. But we all have our commands, Zina no less than I. We all have our role to play.
Eye-Patch drew his blade. It gleamed like living silver. “And yours, moving forward, shall be mine.”
Hugh couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do more than sit there, holding his torn and flayed and shattered body together by sheer force of will.
Eye-Patch stepped forward and pressed the tip of his sword to Hugh’s crimson chest. “It’s almost over. May the Hanged God speed you to his Ashen Garden.”
A sound. A footstep from beyond the edge of light. Eye-Patch whirled about to stare imperiously into the gloom.
Silence.
He turned back. Raised his sword -
Another footstep.
Hugh stared up at his captor. Saw the man’s jaw clench, his eyes narrow with determination, the second before the thrust - and then a dagger blossomed in his chest.
Eye-Patch stepped back, stared down at the weapon with complete incomprehension.
Black Evec stepped into the light, his battered hat casting his face into shadow, hands on his broad belt. “Hello, fuck-face.”
Eye-Patch pulled the dagger free, tossed it aside. The wound in his chest sealed over. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Me? I’m a right bastard. Always have been, always will be. Name’s Black Evec.”
“Black… whatever. A manifestation of something or other. That’s all you are. Never mind. Begone.”
“Begone?” Black Evec looked down to Hugh with a grin. “He really just say that to me? Down here? In my fucking home?”
Eye-Patch glowered. “Then I’ll dispatch you.” His blade gleamed with white fire.
“You know, when I w
as alive, I could’ve eaten you for breakfast. Without pulling my cock out of the whore I’d slept in. Little shit like you wouldn’t have even warranted getting out of bed for.”
Eye-Patch growled and strode toward him, blade raised - and then stopped.
More figures emerged from the darkness.
Hugh could only turn his head, rendered mute by the agony, and watch as Foughtash, Dragoslav, Blind Igocha and others appeared.
A wall of armed men.
A dozen of the Lost Reavers.
Their dead eyes trained on Eye-Patch.
“What was that, fuck-face?” Black Evec reached into his pants to scratch at something. “You were saying something?”
“Katharzina,” barked Eye-Patch. “Bring me out.”
“Oh no,” said a voice from behind him. A lazy drawl. Eye-Patch turned slowly, eyes growing wide with nascent horror. “You aren’t leaving us that easily. Not after you’ve worked so hard to force your way down here.”
Jacinia, hands on her hips, flanked by the other Lost Reavers. More than Hugh could count. They walked out to close the circle. Sweet Severin, Terey and Old Wladimir, Birandillo and Evassier, Acipa with her broken great sword, Sidorko shuffling his deck of cards. Kevanir, focused and silent; Chavaun, face somber with pity; Maska and Orefa, Hrynco and Bolek, and all the others.
The entire company of the Lost Reavers.
“Katharzina!” Fear in Eye-Patch’s voice now. “Get me out!”
“You’re ours, fuck-face,” rasped Black Evec.
“You hurt one of our own,” rumbled Dragoslav. The monster of a man loomed out of the dark, face as forbidding as a granite cliff. “Much as we despise this fox-fucking coward, he’s still one of us.”
“A fucking Lost Reaver,” said Black Evec, grinning so that all his yellowed teeth showed.
“Katharzina!” Eye-Patch’s bellow rang in the darkness. “Katharzina!”
“Lost Reavers,” whispered Jacinia, eyes narrowing to slits. “Cut him down.”
Eye-Patch lashed out with his blade of fire, but he didn’t stand a chance. The Lost Reavers swarmed him from all sides. He didn’t even have a chance to scream.
Jacinia stepped up to where Hugh yet sat. “Stand.”
“I… can’t,” rasped Hugh.
“You’re in your own damn mind,” said Kevanir, voice quiet with disgust. “Do you think those wounds are real?”
Hugh looked down at his entrails and shattered bones. The pain - what pain? Kevanir was right. With fierce concentration he pushed the agony away. His body became his own.
Hugh stood.
The Lost Reavers stared at him.
No friendship there. Glittering animosity on all sides.
“Thank you,” said Hugh.
“We don’t want your thanks,” said Jacinia, voice as hard as flint. “You may be many things, Hugh of Stasiek, but you are and always will be a Lost Reaver. Unlike you, we don’t forget that easily. Nor shall you forget your oath to me.”
Shame. But after what he’d just been through, he was too drained to drink deep from that poisoned well. Hugh pushed his shoulders back. “No, I won’t.” He turned to where Eye-Patch lay, hacked to pieces across the black floor. “What happens now?”
Jacinia gave him her infamous, merciless grin. “That’s up to you. Better think fast though.”
The darkness began to shimmer, as if invisible curtains were rippling.
“Here she comes,” said one of the Reavers from the back. Maska?
“Jacinia,” Hugh cried out as his captain began to turn away.
She looked back at him, over her shoulder, gaze as pitiless as the sun. “Actions, Hugh. Not words. Remember your oath.”
What he’d about to say died in his chest.
The shimmering grew more intense, and the darkness and the Lost Reavers fell away.
He awoke.
Back in the crude hut.
Looking up at the leafy ceiling, his body at ease, his pulse steady, his mind crystal clear and composed.
Katharzina’s face appeared above him, brows raised, a look of uncharacteristic nervousness flickering across her brow.
“Demian?” she asked. “Demian, is that you?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Demian?” Katharzina’s voice was tense, her face pale. Flickers of power danced about her raised fingers like slivers of a shattered rainbow.
“It’s me, Zina,” said Hugh, closing his eyes and relaxing. Mind spinning in a maelstrom of thoughts. Lash out at her? Grasp her by the throat, demand to know where his companions were, make her pay for - no.
One wrong move and she’d freeze him again.
“Thank Fortuna.” Footsteps as she moved away. “We’ve little time. This process has already taken far too long. Can you move?”
Demian. Hugh summoned Eye-Patch to mind. His mannerisms, his careful self-control. His stiff dignity and command.
“Of course I can move,” he growled, opening his eyes and swinging his legs down over the side of the bed. His body felt fine, his energy rampant, his breathing deep and slow. No sign of the endless wounds he’d suffered in the depths of his mind. No scars, no trace of the agony. Just his body, resilient and hale.
An idea, and he turned his hands about, pretending to examine them, then extended his arms as he studied his musculature. “An incredible body. I’ve never seen the like.”
“You’re telling me.” Katharzina’s purr was affected; she spoke as if filling an expected role. “Perhaps when this is over we can explore it with greater leisure. But for now: up!”
Hugh complied. She had her back turned to him, was going through the contents of a velvet sack. To strike at her now? Cross the small chamber and seize her by the neck?
Even as he inhaled, preparing to lunge, she glanced over at him. “Collect his blade. It’s against the wall there. I’ll have the spell ready in moments.”
“Very well.” Hugh focused on keeping his voice clipped, his tone severe. Strode over to where his scabbarded sword leaned against the hut’s wall. Felt some measure of satisfaction as he buckled it around his hips.
Too many questions. But asking would betray his ignorance, an ignorance Eye-Patch - no, Demian - wouldn’t have. So Hugh kept his mouth shut. Luckily, Demian hadn’t been the garrulous type.
“There,” said Katharzina, cinching the neck of the sack tightly closed. “Ready.” A complex smile; overtones of bitterness, fatigue, regret, and determination. “You?”
“Of course.” Hugh rested his hand on his pommel, tried and discarded a half dozen different lines of inquiry as to what they were about. Opted, in the end, for the simplest approach. “Let us proceed.”
“Very well. I’ll look for you in Vuk tomorrow at dusk. I’ll update you there on whatever refinements Aleksandr will have undoubtedly made to the plan.”
Hugh attempted a wry smile, something close to a sneer. “Aleksandr and his refinements. Very well.” Could he risk asking about Morwyn? The others? The words were choking him, forcing themselves forth. But no. Demian wouldn’t ask that right now. Concern would only arouse suspicion. Which would lead to his needing to justify himself, which would no doubt make matters worse.
Hugh swallowed the questions down. “I’ll see you in Vuk.”
“Don’t look so grim!” Katharzina forced a smile that didn’t reach her dark eyes. “This is all for the best. An unexpected bounty. The game grows more complex, the stakes higher.”
“What happened… in here.” Hugh tapped his temple. “That was distasteful.” He didn’t have to feign the disgust in his voice.
“Yes.” Katharzina lowered her gaze, studied her gloved hands. Still too far for him to reach. Could he move toward her? Seek an embrace? Were Katharzina and Demian lovers? No. Friends, companions, but there was a distance, an emotional remove…
“Yes,” said Katharzina again, voice brisk. “Distasteful is one way to put it. But necessary. And done. We shouldn’t dwell on it. Step over the rune, Demian.”
> Rune. Hugh searched the dirt floor, saw that there was indeed some complex diagram carved into the ground. Careful to not smudge any of the lines, he moved forward, stomach growing taut with tension. What manner of spell was this? Something to solidify Demian’s supposed hold on Hugh’s body? Something to - what? This was no chirography.
“May Fortuna smile on you always,” said Katharzina, raising the black bag to the torch that burned in a sconce by her side.
“She always does,” said Hugh, unable to resist himself. To keep the note of grinding malice out of his tone.
Katharzina frowned, but the bag was already aflame. In moments it was being consumed, and Katharzina tossed it down onto the rune. “Breathe in the smoke. Quickly now.”
To resist? Make the spell fail? But why would Demian do such a thing? To attack now? No, still too far. She’d freeze him mid-lunge!
Panic, uncertainty, and then Hugh inhaled and the thick, cottony smoke flowed into him, tasting of evergreens and mint, of burning hair and meat.
“Vuk, tomorrow,” said Katharzina, taking a step back.
“Tomorrow,” said Hugh. He looked down at himself. What was happening? The room around him shimmered, the walls undulating as if painted on canvas. Katharzina herself darkened into a shadow until only her eyes shone like stars, and then she was gone.
Smoke was boiling out of the burning bag, obscuring everything. Too much smoke. Hugh felt the world about him spin, felt a strange lurch in his stomach as if the floor had fallen out from under him, bent his knees, reached out for something - anything. Smoke everywhere. A rushing, roaring sound.
Hugh drew his blade just as a fresh breeze blew the smoke away, causing it to thin and wreath about his limbs. Trees emerged from the gloom.
Dawn lighting. The air chill. Silence all about him. Conifers rising all around, old, hoary trees. The ground quilted with fallen needles.
Hugh turned in a circle, bewildered, heart hammering. Where - ? And why to this place? And how to get back?
There were runes carved into the trunks around him. He was encircled by them. Complex runes akin to that on which he’d stood.
A transportation circle of some kind.
So this was how Katharzina moved so quickly about the valley.
