by Max Anthony
“Let me guess? That one-handed axe I can see is also better than what I had before?”
“Much better,” said the thief.
Feeling that fate was pigeonholing her, Jera strapped on the breastplate, took up the shield and the one-handed axe. Mowing things down with her battle-axe had been immensely exciting, but she had to admit there was something good about having a shield again. She felt more useful, even though her companions had never once given the impression that she was anything otherwise.
“Are those daggers any good?” asked Rasmus. There was a pair of them, in twin black leather sheaths. Only their hilts were visible and these were also black.
“Not bad,” said Viddo nonchalantly. He drew one of them clear from its sheath. The blade was black and utterly dull. He ran a finger along its length, touching it as lightly as he was able. When he looked at his finger, there was a line of red. “In fact, these could punch a hole through a demigod’s spleen.”
“Do you need me to identify them?” asked Rasmus.
“Nope. These are exactly what I’ve always wanted. A pair of honest-to-goodness magical daggers that have been enchanted as high as they’ll go, without any additional fluff.”
“Fluff?” asked Jera.
“Fluff,” confirmed Viddo. “Such as extra prowess against demons, or the ability to render the wielder invisible. Or any one of a number of other unnecessary additions.”
Jera didn’t think that these sounded unnecessary. All she could think of was that the notion of extra abilities somehow compromised the thief’s peculiar sense of fair play. It wasn’t worth worrying about.
“Do we need the mace?” asked Rasmus.
“You could have it,” said Viddo.
“I don’t like it. I want another metal stave.”
“After you broke the last one?” asked the thief innocently. “Anyway, the mace isn’t anything special and I doubt it would fit up your sleeve easily.”
“I’ve only got six spells left. Perhaps I’ll keep hold of it,” mused Rasmus. He pushed the mace into his belt, where the weight of it contrived to pull his carefully-arranged clothing out of position.
“Only six spells?” asked Viddo. “If we come across this Baron Valps, I can’t imagine that six spells will be sufficient. Are any of them high-level?”
“Two of them and the rest are tat. Rest assured, I shall pull my weight if we meet the Baron.”
“You’ve not got one of those spells, have you?” asked Viddo.
“Yes I have,” confirmed Rasmus.
“What is one of those spells?” asked Jera.
“A spell of wizardly transformation!” said Rasmus, puffing out his chest. “It unlocks the inner me.”
“Which is the worrying part of it,” said Viddo. “When you see what happens.”
Jera smiled politely, without having a clue what they were talking about. “Is that a potion?” she asked, aware of the attitude her companions had towards them. She leaned over and picked it up. “Someone has helpfully labelled it. A potion of berserking, it says.”
Rasmus and Viddo exchanged glances. “Do they stack with your spell?” Viddo asked.
“I don’t know,” said Rasmus. “I’ve never tried it. It’s decades since I’ve needed to cast a transformation spell anyway.” The potion vanished into the wizard’s robes, much to Jera’s surprise.
“We’re only one room into the Baron’s quarters and already we’ve appropriated some nice items,” said Viddo, rising to his feet. His daggers were at his belt and his shortswords were left forgotten on the floor. They’d not been anything special in the first place and he didn’t give them a backward glance.
The large exit door was locked. There were no sounds from beyond and Viddo unlocked it quickly.
“How come we always find locked doors, but only rarely do we find a key?” asked Jera, unsure where the question had come from.
“We find lots of keys,” said Viddo. “Usually I discover them in the pockets of the creatures we slay, I simply don’t need to pick them up. If I did, I’d soon be burdened with dozens of keys, and no way to pair up the keys with their locks. Not that I need the keys anyway.”
“I see,” said Jera. The thief’s response provided a satisfactory answer to a question of only minor significance and she felt better for having heard it.
Beyond the door was another of the rectangular rooms with the depressing blood light. It was dominated by a long, heavy wooden table, with carved legs and metal inlays. The top of the table was entirely functional and had a huge engraving across it, which looked like a map.
“This depicts the surrounding areas,” said Viddo. “I don’t know the area well enough, but I recognize some of these geographical features.”
“It looks like the Baron used these small sculptures to represent the towns and villages in the region,” said Jera, picking up a stone carving of a house.
“All these stone men to the side were likely intended to represent his forces, ready to be placed strategically as the Baron planned his moves into the areas he wished to conquer.”
“It doesn’t look like he got very far with his plans,” added Jera. “None of his men have been put into position yet.”
“The more I think about it, the less I believe that the Baron planned to go missing,” said Rasmus. “He was hoping to use the blood from the tank below to make himself invincible and his spell-casting underling cocked something up.”
“That sounds very likely,” said Viddo. “Whether we’ll uncover the exact details or not is another matter. We don’t have many rooms left to search up here. If the answers aren’t in the Baron’s chambers, they are unlikely to be lying around on the floors below.”
There were two further exits from this room, one with a broad metal door over it and the other with one of the grand wooden doors. Before he could give either door his attention, Viddo’s eyes caught sight of an imperfection in the wood of one of the table legs. After a bit of poking and prodding a tiny hidden drawer slid out, containing two platinum rings, one of which had a large diamond set onto the metal.
“Lady Agneta Valps and Lord Gloster Valps,” said Viddo, reading the tiny letters etched into the metal.
“The wedding rings of the Baron’s parents?” offered Jera.
“Not anymore,” said Viddo, slipping the rings into a pouch at his waist. “Now they are jointly owned by the adventurers Rasmus, Jera and Viddo.”
After that, Viddo spent several moments at the two doors. He concluded that the metal door led upwards into a tower, whilst the other would take them deeper into the Baron’s quarters.
“Upwards has a statistically far greater chance of leading to danger,” he said with conviction. “Therefore, we should look into the other room first, which will almost certainly be a bedroom or study.”
He was right – years of exploring dungeons, mansions and castles had given him an excellent sense of what was to come. Rasmus would have come to the same conclusion, but the wizard was generally happy to keep his mouth closed and let Viddo speculate about these things.
It appeared as though Baron Valps had accorded his dear old mother enough respect that she had been handed the larger of the two top-floor suites of rooms. Behind the wooden door which led from the planning room, there was a bedroom of modest size and with no further exits from it. There was a double bed that was unusually long and constructed with a soldier’s lack of concern for the fanciful. There was also a writing desk and a wooden trunk.
“I wonder if this interminable red light prevented the occupants of this castle from sleeping,” said Viddo to no one in particular. He lifted up the lid of the trunk and discovered it was filled with moth-eaten grey blankets, from which rose the smell of age and decay. “Spare bloody sheets,” cursed the thief.
As soon as they’d seen it, each of the adventurers had hoped that the writing desk would have a carelessly-left diary for them to read, in which Baron Valps would have spelled out each aspect of his nefarious plot. The
re was nothing of the sort, though there was a manifest for the guards he had stationed in the castle at the time of writing.
“Captains Gartrom, Blenkinsop, Higginbottom,” read Viddo, not really interested. “Lieutenants Feeblehorse, Crancher…”
“Wasn’t Crancher the name of that fellow we slew in the woods? The one who’d been killing the villagers?” asked Rasmus.
“Probably,” said Viddo, placing the sheet of paper back where he’d found it. He opened the two drawers in the desk and found a short backscratcher made of solid silver, and a mousetrap. “Looks like something had been stealing the Baron’s lunch,” he concluded, leaving the mousetrap and semi-valuable backscratcher where he’d found them.
With the desk rifled, they poked around the room. There was nothing obviously worth stealing and they all hoped that Viddo would come across a secret door or compartment filled with riches. Wherever the Baron kept his wealth, it wasn’t in his bedroom and Viddo was concerned that there was a treasury room somewhere beneath them, which they’d overlooked in their admittedly random searching of the castle. They left the bedroom and gathered at the metal door which Viddo thought would take them to one of the towers.
“There are a few magical guards as well as this elaborate lock,” said Viddo. “Do I correctly recall you mentioning that you had a dispel available within your collection of six spells?”
“Just the one,” said Rasmus. “I think you’ll agree I should retain it in case of greater need than a door.”
“Oh well,” replied the thief. “I suppose I’ve been getting a little bit reliant on you dispelling magical wards for me. I wouldn’t like to lose my touch.”
It took Viddo eight minutes to remove the magics which protected the door, using a variety of sweeping motions with his hand, along with a certain quantity of head-scratching. After that, it took an additional one minute to unlock the door.
“It’s made of really thick steel,” he said. “I can’t hear a thing on the other side, so we need to take great care not to make a sound.” With that, he pushed the door slowly, checking the hinges to see if they were intending to squeal. They made no sound and soon the door was open, revealing itself to be six inches thick. There was a passage beyond, that continued for ten feet, before it turned into steps. Viddo waved the other two back and crept along. The steps went straight upwards for perhaps twenty feet and then opened into a room filled with the expected blood-gem light. Viddo used his thief’s ability to hide in the shadows and went upwards, just far enough that he could peer over the top step and see into the room beyond.
Atop the steps was a square room – large at forty feet to a side and with a thirty-feet high ceiling, supported by arches. There was a two-feet-high stone bier in the middle of the floor. Pipes rose from the floor and disappeared into the sides of the low platform. Unlike most other rooms, this one had windows, which were tall, narrow slits through the thick stone. It was night outside.
The steps entered the room through the middle of one of the walls, so Viddo was unable to see all of the details. However, he was able to see what he needed to – standing alone on the far side of the room was a tall, broad figure almost seven feet tall. It was dressed completely in black plate armour, apart from the head, which was covered in pure white hair. Viddo couldn’t see the man’s face, but he already knew who it was. He backed slowly down the stairs and returned to the others. In the quietest voice imaginable, he spoke to Jera and Rasmus.
“Baron Valps,” he said.
22
They retreated into the war room so that they could speak more freely.
“I assume we’re going to attack him?” said Jera.
“Yes we are. We’re going to charge into his room and kick the shit out of him,” said Rasmus. “Horrendous man that he is.”
“He’s going to be tough, isn’t he?”
“Absolutely,” confirmed Viddo. “He’s alone, so I’m confident we should be able to manage him. All we need is for you to keep him distracted, whilst Rasmus and I polish him off. Then, we rob his corpse of any valuables and escape from the castle.”
“I’d suggest you fire an arrow into him before you attack,” said Rasmus. “That should get his attention pretty sharpish.”
“Then we’ll run in and start pummelling him.”
That was the plan, such as it was. Jera readied her bow and advanced beyond the metal door. She sneaked up the steps until she saw the Baron. There was no sign that he’d moved from the position which Viddo had described. She drew the bow string taut and stealthily continued until she was two steps from the top. With a deep breath, she let the arrow fly. There was hardly the time to see the missile puncture the steel of the baron’s armour and embed itself in his lower back, before she’d thrown the bow aside and begun sprinting across the floor with her axe at the ready. The hulking figure of the Baron spun around at the injury and Jera saw his blood-red eyes, and saw the six-foot sword that he took from where it was leaning against the wall. She sensed the hatred pouring from him as he opened his mouth and growled at her, the sound far more bestial than human. Jera was halfway across the room when she sensed movement behind her and realised that something was wrong – very wrong.
In the stairwell, Viddo and Rasmus waited. They intended giving Jera sufficient time to anger the Baron so much that he’d concentrate his attacks on her and her alone. When they saw the two gargantuan werewolves appear from the corner of the room which had remained hidden by the angle of the stairs and the wall, they realised things were not going to plan.
“Shit,” said Rasmus, standing up as if to launch himself into the melee.
“Wait!” hissed Viddo. “We need to give her a chance, else all is definitely lost.” Both men knew that it would likely take a miracle to pull a victory out of the bag now that the Baron had been joined by his two werewolf captains. Either way, there was no thought of abandoning their companion to her fate.
Jera reached Baron Valps before the gargantuan werewolves could attack her. He had a blood gem the size of her fist buried into the skin of his neck, just visible over the collar of his armour. She looked into the man’s face and saw that there was nothing human about him anymore. She knew with certainty that if he established a foothold in this region, the pain and suffering he inflicted would be beyond measure.
Baron Valps swung his sword, with the quick, easy movement of a man who’d been raised to fight. Jera stepped inside the blow and kneed him in the crotch. He had a codpiece on, but she knew the impact would piss him off. She jumped to one side and spun, turning to face the stairwell, doing her best to keep the Baron between herself and the two nine-feet-tall gargantuan werewolves which had almost reached her. These creatures had the same appearance as Captain Gartrom, whom the adventurers had eventually managed to kill on the lower floors. They were vastly well-muscled and terrifyingly cruel in appearance. Spittle flew from the jaws of the closest one and it almost had the temerity to barge its master out of the way in its eagerness to reach her.
“Doggy, sit!” commanded Jera. Her words enraged the creatures as she knew they would and she found herself fending off the attacks of three deadly foes. A clawed hand banged against her shield and Jera at once knew that this new piece of armour was something special. Not only did it deflect the blow, it also deadened much of the impact on her arm, ensuring that she would be able to fight for longer before fatigue set in. Her axe thumped back, cutting open a bloody nick in the hairy arm of the werewolf. At the same time, Baron Valps thrust with his sword. Jera turned to the side and the attack skimmed past her chest.
“Your mother had terrible taste in clothing,” Jera informed the Baron. “Not that she’ll be wearing any of her dresses now that I’ve killed her.” At the same time as she spoke these words, Jera pivoted and kicked the Baron with unerring accuracy in his codpiece again. The speed and fury of his attacks definitely picked up and Jera took another thrust on her shield. The second werewolf had been struggling to find an opening up till this point
. Now, it joined in, swinging a crunching blow against her shoulder. Jera was knocked to one side, though her fighter’s balance kept her on her feet.
“Bad doggy!” she told it.
On the stairs, Rasmus and Viddo observed with some admiration. “She’s got better, hasn’t she?” said Viddo.
“Much better,” confirmed Rasmus. “We should provide our assistance soon, though.”
Viddo stood and began to unload bolts from his hand crossbow, taking care to distribute them evenly amongst their opponents, so that they wouldn’t suddenly decide he was a more threatening target than Jera. He only had ten of his bolts remaining and he emptied them all into the welcoming backs of the werewolves and the Baron, whose magical armour wasn’t proof against the immense power of the crossbow or its quarrels. It only took fifteen or twenty seconds for Viddo to expend all of his ammunition. To one side, he heard Rasmus mutter the words “Here goes.” After that, was the sound of a potion being consumed, then there was a short period of mumbling. Viddo drew his daggers and set off into the room, just as he heard a ripping, cracking noise behind him, as if a set of cheap robes were suddenly much, much too small for the wizard they contained.
A creature ran past Viddo – it was definitely not something which one would class as human. It had dark red skin, long, tousled hair and broad shoulders. It was almost nine feet tall, with bunched muscles that told of the beast’s tremendous strength. At the end of the arms were oversized fists, each almost the size and weight of a beer keg. At full speed, it cannoned into one of the gargantuan werewolves, knocking it to one side. Before it could recover, a fist smashed into the side of its lupine head, dashing it to the floor.
“So they do stack,” said Viddo to himself as he reached the melee. Without hesitation, he plunged his new dagger into the spine of the second gargantuan werewolf and was delighted when his magical pantaloons distributed a second, identical backstab into the spine of Baron Valps. Even I’m calling them pantaloons now, he told himself sourly.
