The Far Far Better Thing

by Auston Habershaw

  “No room!” The bartender was a fat, sweaty bald man with only three fingers on his right hand. He pointed this mutilated hand at them and waved them out. “Go somewhere else!”

  Hool looked over the tables of dour faces, wondering which two Damon could throw out on their ear to make room for themselves. Damon bowed at the bartender. “Not looking for lodging, sir—I’m looking for a veterinarian.”

  The bartender grunted. “No room for that, either. Go away.”

  Hool growled. She didn’t like that man.

  Damon was pulling out his lute for some reason. “Surely, sir, you have space for someone who can cheer up your guests?” He strummed a chord and looked across the tables. “Well, gents? Anyone for ‘The Rose of Amberlee’? ‘Skoggin Bridge’? ‘The Ballad of Saint Ezeliar’?”

  The bearded men stared at them long enough to confirm that Damon had said nothing of interest and then went back to their drinks. The bartender flipped a rag over one shoulder. “Do you know ‘The Girls of Ihyn’?”

  At the mention of that particular song, a number of men’s heads popped up, their eyes suddenly alight. “Yes! Yes—‘The Girls of Ihyn’! Play it!”

  Damon’s expression curdled. “Ummm . . . well . . .”

  Hool nudged him with a paw from underneath the blanket. “Play the stupid song!”

  Damon whispered under his breath so that only she could hear. “I’m not very good at it.”

  “You said you learned all the songs to impress ladies.”

  “‘The Girls of Ihyn’ does not impress the ladies.” The knight’s cheeks reddened.

  The calls for the song had spread throughout the room, now. Men were banging on tables. “Girls! Of! Ihyn! Girls! Of! Ihyn! Girls! Of! Ihyn!”

  “Fine,” Hool said, “then I will die in this wheelbarrow.”

  Damon winced. “No! Very well . . . you win. But forgive me—this song isn’t suited for noble company.”

  “I’m not noble company.”

  Plastering a winning smile on his face, Damon hopped up on a table and began to strum his lute very fast. As he began to sing, the men at the bar and at the tables joined in:

  “Her name was Mazie, she’s cute as a daisy,

  With tits that could feed a whole army.

  I bedded her twice, got me some lice,

  But she drove my lancer so barmy!

  The Girls of Ihyn, best that you’ve seen,

  And all of them willing and purty,

  And if you would dare, you’ll have any pair,

  So long’s you don’t mind that they’re dirty!”

  The song went on like that, and for a long time. For a man who claimed not to know it well, Damon knew an awful lot of the verses.

  The men were all clapping and slamming their tankards on the tables and stomping their feet—frank discussions of human female anatomy seemed to have an extreme effect on them. Had she not been so gravely injured, she might have found it amusing. As it stood, she felt as though she were being deliberately tortured by a room full of loud drunks.

  At some point during the song, however, the bartender came close. Hool held very still, uncertain what she should do. The plan to find a veterinarian, she realized, didn’t include what to do when they actually came upon a veterinarian. What if he was a spy for Sahand? Surely, even if he wasn’t, Sahand would grant an obscene reward to someone who turned her in. Her immediate instinct was to bite off the rest of the man’s fingers if he reached for the blanket, but of course that would only make things worse.

  So she held still and played dead and hoped she had enough left in her to escape if things got ugly.

  The bartender reached for the blanket cautiously, making soothing shh-shhh noises as he did so. With a gentle flip, he pulled back a corner of the blanket and got a good look at her.

  His eyebrows shot up so suddenly they seemed to be on the top of his head. He immediately replaced the blanket, his face pale. He walked off quickly, looking left and right. He smelled quite suddenly of fear.

  He’s going to get a guard!

  Hool tried to signal Damon, but he was still singing—something about some woman named Cassie and the various dimensions of her buttocks. She wanted to shout to him—she tried gathering the air to do it, but coughed instead. Blood ran down her chin; despite Damon’s best efforts to bandage her, her fur was still caked red. The effort to yell made her dizzy. Hool closed her eyes and tried to stop the world from spinning. She needed to stay conscious.

  The bartender returned with two big men who had his exact same jawline but much more hair—they had to be his sons. He told them to take her “in back.” One of them took the handles of the wheelbarrow. The other cleared a way through the crowd. They began to move.

  Hool’s heart rate doubled. Why didn’t Damon see this happening? How long was this stupid song, anyway? “Help!” she whimpered. She felt dizzy again, and among the thousand clashing smells of the men and the beer and the sawdust and the tree and the river, she felt as though she were falling. She had never felt so weak in her life. Damon, she thought, Damon, save me.

  Damon kept on singing. He had the whole inn on its feet now. The Dragon boomed with the raised voices of two hundred lumberjacks.

  A door closed, blotting out much of the noise. She heard the bartender say, “Quick, bar that door.”

  Hool bared her teeth, preparing herself.

  The bartender came to stand over her. “I know you aren’t unconscious. I’m going to pull back the blanket now and get a look at you. Please don’t attack me—I’m unarmed.”

  Hool growled.

  One of the sons took a step back. “Da, are you sure about this?”

  The fat man took a deep breath. “Never been so sure about anything in my whole life.” He pulled off the blanket.

  The two sons gasped.

  Hool had her teeth bared. “If you touch me, I will kill you.”

  “Boys,” the bartender said. “Meet Lady Hool, the Beast of Freegate. And she’s not joking—she could kill all three of us, even as hurt as that.”

  The sons—Hool could now see that they were barely men, the eldest just slightly older than Artus—looked terrified, as though they might jump out a window and fall to their deaths rather than remain in this room with her. “Please don’t kill us!” the younger one said. “Our da’s a good man! We don’t mean you no harm—honest!”

  The bartender crouched down next to the wheelbarrow. “He’s right. I don’t mean you any harm at all. Quite the opposite.” He spread his hands. “Okay?”

  “How do I know you’re not lying?” Hool said, letting her teeth drop back below her lips. “How do I know you won’t just give me to Sahand?”

  The bartender smiled. “Because you’d have to go a pretty long way in this country to find somebody who hates the Mad Prince more than I do. And that’s saying something.”

  There was a banging on the door. Outside, Hool heard Damon yelling. “Let me in at once! If you’ve harmed her, so help me!”

  One of the bartender’s sons opened the door. Damon burst in, sword drawn. The bartender and his sons put up their hands.

  “Put your sword away,” Hool snarled. “These men are our friends.”

  Damon blinked. “They . . . they are? So . . . so our plan worked?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” Hool said. She coughed then, and more blood leaked from her nose.

  The bartender looked grave. “My name is Harleck. I’ll care for her—if she hasn’t died yet, that means she won’t die from blood loss. We have infection to worry about, though. Her wounds need to be cleaned, and thoroughly.”

  Damon paled. “How can I help?”

  Harleck put a hand on his shoulder. “You, sir, need to go out there and entertain everyone so damned much that nobody realizes I’m back here with her for the next two hours or so. My sons will tend the bar. With any luck, Sahand will have no idea she is here.”

  Damon gave Hool a wink. “And you thought this lute would be usel
ess, eh?”

  Hool couldn’t help but let her tongue pop out in a grin. “You’re an idiot. Stop wasting time.”

  Damon bowed. “As the lady wishes.”

  He left, along with Harleck’s boys. Harleck barred the door behind them and wiped his hands off with a damp cloth. “This is going to hurt.”

  Hool grunted. “What doesn’t?”

  Chapter 23

  Another Damsel, Another Tower

  Sahand stumbled backward through the anygate into a fortified courtyard of the Citadel of Dellor. He had the Lady Michelle clutched under one arm like a piece of luggage, and his fur cape smoldered and rotted on his shoulders. “Close the door! Close it!”

  His men obeyed instantly, slamming the door shut and dropping a heavy warded bar over it. Their eyes were wide at the sight of their ruler. The captain of the guard stepped forward and bowed. “Your Highness, we were not expecting you so soon. Your table is not yet—”

  “Hang that!” Sahand yelled, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He threw the girl to the ground at the captain’s feet. “Clean this up and bring her to my chambers. Then send for the necromancer.”

  He took a deep breath and looked around at the soldiers still crowding the courtyard. Many of them had made it through just moments before he did. They were sitting or lying on their backs, panting and trembling. That wouldn’t do—not for Dellorans in his colors. “Get up!” he roared at them. “Stand, you dogs, or you’ll never stand again!”

  Their terror at what they had just seen was eclipsed by their terror at him. They stumbled to their feet, some of them nursing withered limbs and missing fingers or ears or eyes. Gods, he thought, walking past them in review. What in all hells was that?

  Again, he swallowed his fear and let it bubble there, seeking that old alchemy that transmuted terror into rage. He got to the end of the line of soldiers and turned on his heel. They were still standing at attention, though barely. Sahand understood how they felt—his own knees felt like jelly and he wanted to vomit. He wanted to check his body all over for any mark that . . . that thing had left. “You are men of Dellor,” he said, throwing out his barrel chest. “You are not some weak, mewling Eretherian peasants. Remember that—always remember what you are!”

  He threw off his half-disintegrated cape and strode out of the courtyard, taking care to keep his steps even and brisk—the stride of a man with purpose, not one who had just fled for his life from some brand of Etheric sorcery he’d never heard of. The broad halls of the Citadel echoed with his steps as he passed rows of triangular alcoves like the teeth of a saw. They were designed to give cover to defenders while denying it to attackers—you could travel in one direction down this hall, but not the other. Not if the defenders wanted to keep you out. His fortress was full of defenses like this. And every one of them would have been useless against that . . . that thing, whatever it was.

  He had often wondered why the Warlock Kings needed so massive a fortress as this built in so remote a place. Perhaps, after Ayventry, he had part of an answer.

  The black . . . smoke? Shadow? Whatever the hell it was, it had eaten through Almor Castle’s wards like a mouse through a slice of cheese. He had scarcely realized what was happening before his men started disintegrating on the walls, in the courtyard, up the stairs and through the corridors. Nothing seemed to stop it—not doors, not walls, not sorcery. Sahand had only made it out alive by throwing a pile of his own men against the last door keeping it from the outlet for the anygate. Even then, it had eaten through their bodies so fast it had nearly gotten him. Another second—another instant of hesitation and he’d be just so many bleached bones. It was a sobering thought, to consider his own mortality. It would have given a lesser man pause, he supposed.

  Sahand was determined to press onward.

  By the time he reached his private chambers, two plates of rare meat, hearty bread, and hard cheese had been set out and a flagon of oggra poured for him, a cup of wine for the Lady Michelle. Since he had lost half of his face, he rarely ate with company anymore—the drool was unavoidable, and it made him look like a doddering invalid. This evening’s meal, though, was necessary. He threw himself in his chair and broke off a piece of bread, dipping it in the red juice of the meat and letting it soak. He let out a long, slow breath.

  And then he noticed Arkald the Strange, lurking in the corner. “Y-Your Highness?”

  Sahand barely avoided throwing a deathbolt at the man. “Dammit, Arkald! What are you doing in the dark like that? Come out here, into the light!”

  Arkald shuffled forward. Sahand couldn’t put his finger on it, but the man looked a little less wretched today for some reason. Maybe it was just a reflection of what he had just witnessed—after watching a man’s flesh dissolve off his bones, even a skinny old necromancer like Arkald looked hale. Yes, that was probably it.

  Arkald bowed. “You called for me, Your Highness?”

  Sahand muttered an augury to detect poison over his food, as was his habit. When he felt the delicate tingle of a pure meal, he took a big bite of the grease-soaked bread. As always, some of the red juice squirted through his cheek and dribbled down his jaw. “What do you know of sorcerous weaponry?”

  Arkald rose from his bow and steepled his bony fingers. “Well, my lord, there are death-orbs and warfiends and colossi. Firepikes, of course. Thunder-orbs. All variety of mageglass weapons and armor. It is my understanding that the Kalsaaris are fond of half-real phantasmal soldiers—”

  “No, no,” Sahand waved off his suggestions. “Something bigger than that—battlefield-scale invocations or possibly conjurations. City killers, understand?”

  “You mean, besides your attempt to weaponize the Daer Trondor power sink?”

  Sahand sipped some oggra and reveled in the heat in his throat. He found he was feeling a bit better. “Yes, besides that.”

  Arkald twiddled his fingers and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Ummm . . . well . . . nothing like that has been permitted in literal ages, Your Highness. Saldor would never condone such a thing, and no member of the League, to my knowledge, has ever—”

  “That’s all I needed to know.” Sahand waved him away. “You may go.”

  Arkald bowed. “I . . . if I m-may, my lord, it is possible the Lady Lyrelle might know—”

  “I said get the hell out!” Sahand picked up his knife as though about to throw. Arkald put up his hands and fled, not uttering another word.

  When the door was closed, Sahand sealed it with a word and put his knife back on the table. He dabbed at his chin with a napkin, wiping up the bloody grease that had escaped his ruined cheek. Someone had deployed ancient and forbidden sorcery against him today. Who? Lyrelle? Impossible—she could cast nothing from her prison and he had made doubly sure she had no contact with others since his last visit. Surely it couldn’t have been Saldor itself—the Defenders would never dare use such a thing. They were probably hunting for the culprit this very moment, filled with righteous indignation. The League, then? No, not them—this kind of sorcery was beyond them. They lacked the vision and the ambition.

  In point of fact, he had no idea who it could have been. He didn’t even know if they had meant to destroy him specifically. From what he could tell, that sorcery had killed indiscriminately—both armies alike had been consumed by the slithering darkness.

  It was possible, however unlikely, that the sorcerer in question was trying to help him somehow. The White Army had been entirely within the city limits when the ritual creating the darkness had been enacted, which meant that army was as good as destroyed. His own losses had been substantial—perhaps only half of his men had made it out in time, and gods knew how many Delloran mercenary companies were still hanging around when that thing hit—but he still had men to draw on and a treasury to pay them with. He’d have to recall a lot of his border guards and patrols, but he could muster an army of similar size to the one in Eretheria inside of two weeks at the most. At least that part of his plan was
still intact.

  But without a White Army to be enraged at his kidnapping of their Young Prince, who would come marching to his doorstep? How could he draw out the armies of the West if there were no armies of the West anymore? It was difficult to enrage corpses.

  There was a knock at the door in a prearranged rhythm that let Sahand knew it was his guards for this shift. He put a hand beneath the table, readying a lode bolt, and called out, “Enter!”

  The doors opened and the Lady Michelle Orly was thrust through. They had cleaned her up a bit—scraped off the ash and cleaned off the blood and put her into a linen dress that fit poorly on her skinny frame—but she did not look well, nevertheless. Great bags of worry hung beneath her eyes, and her cheeks looked sunken and sallow. She was shivering.

  Sahand gestured to the seat across from him. “Come closer to the fire. Sit down. Have something to eat.”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “No thank you.”

  Sahand rolled his eyes. “Are we going to do it this way, then? You and your pride force me to do terrible things to you to make you comply? Are you, Michelle Orly, of the opinion that such tactics will give me pause?”

  Shuddering, Michelle padded across the vast manticore rug and slid into the heavy oaken chair. She was so slight she looked like a child perching on the edge of her father’s throne. Sahand examined her. What he saw was disappointing. He usually liked more curves on a woman—a bit more meat. At least in the chest. One can’t have everything, he thought, snorting. “Eat something. You need it.”

  Her hands trembling, Michelle picked up the hunk of bread and began to nibble. She never even looked at him. It’s my face, he thought. I’m hideous now. That damned gnoll.