Gearspire: Advent

by Jeremiah Reinmiller

  Instead of opening his mouth, Ryle smiled. Grating as it felt, he’d apologize and get back to Lastrahn.

  Nir didn’t take it as Ryle had hoped. The duelist growled and reared back.

  Muck.

  Ryle twisted away as Nir’s head snapped forward like a battering ram, trying to crack his sternum. Ryle barely made it past. Nir careened past him and into the bar.

  The short man had been faster than Ryle expected. A lot faster. If he hadn’t already been so on edge he might not have escaped. Or almost escaped. Something warm and gooey covered his hand. He glanced down and found a streak of brown gravy along his palm where the meat pies had resided. Muck, no!

  Nir spun. The remains of the meat pies now coated his face and chest. His eyes burned. Seeing this, his buddies turned on Ryle in unison.

  Honestly, Ryle didn’t give a crap.

  His stomach ached, his skull throbbed, his hands shook, but heat roared up his chest like a chimney. Days of useless riding, failures after failure beneath Lastrahn’s harsh scowling face, and now this muck faced Southern bastard.

  “You piece of shit,” Nir said. “I’m gonna—”

  “What?” Ryle snapped and stepped forward. “You’re gonna what? Tell me, little man. What the hex are you gonna do?”

  A thin pace separated them. Nir’s hands curled into claws, ready to lash out. Ryle’s hands rested on his belt. An instinctive, and useless position without a sword, but that meant they weren’t in his pockets.

  One of Nir’s big buddies glanced down, then looked again, and whispered something in Nir’s ear.

  For a disappointing moment Ryle thought this might mean Nir would back down, but he’d forgotten where they stood.

  “Swordsman, eh? Good! I love beating the hex out of your sort. Too bad you don’t have a sword, then we’d have a real scrap.”

  “Don’t let that hold you back,” Ryle said.

  Nir’s lips parted in a feral grin. The duelist just needed to make a move and Ryle would show him who the hex he was screwing with.

  “Hey, now! What’s this?” a thick voice shouted from across the bar.

  Nir’s eyes narrowed as someone to Ryle’s left grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. He spun and slapped the hand away as he heard a softer voice, say, “Easy.”

  The tall woman with the tattooed face who he’d seen moments before, stood there. The contents of her now empty mug dripped from her white shirt. Ryle averted his eyes from the clinging fabric as the woman’s own eyes rose from her shirt. When her gaze met his, her expression was less than friendly.

  At the sound of a growl, Ryle glanced back to find Nir’s buddies holding the man’s arms. Nir snarled and snapped his teeth. Ryle knew just how he felt, but neither of them had time to do anything about it. A red-faced Ibor strode toward them.

  “How the hell did you already find trouble?”

  For a moment Ryle thought Ibor’s question was directed at him, and his anger rose another notch, but the man was looking at Nir.

  The fighter’s face went neutral, but his eyes remained hard. He looked like a scolded, spiky-haired child, and Ryle smirked at him. Until Lastrahn arrived behind Ibor. He stayed back with his hood up again, but his eyes were clear enough. Ryle didn’t feel so smug then. He stepped back and shoved his hands back in his pockets.

  “He’s not allowed in our blasted section unless he’s challenging,” Nir said.

  “You’re not allowed to get into free fights,” Ibor growled.

  “He’s not even ranked!”

  “You won’t be either if you can’t fight. Drop the crap and get out of here. You have a match tonight.”

  Ibor glared Nir down until the duelist flicked the last of the meat pies from his face and stormed off. The rest of the folks in black leather followed him.

  Ryle’s chest still burned, his stomach still ached, and he had no way to address either one. He ground his teeth instead of screaming.

  Ibor shot Lastrahn a look then went after his fighter. As he left he pocketed a brass key Ryle had last seen on a chain around Ogrif’s neck.

  What the hex was Lastrahn up to now?

  A few others followed Ibor. Among them the tall tattooed woman still soaked with her own drink. She shook her head as she walked away.

  Balrod made a much louder exit, cursing when Ibor waved him over. He flipped a table into the wall with a swipe of his hand. The huge man sneered at Ryle before he and his entourage of fawning women paraded out of the bar.

  It was then Ryle noticed the silence that had fallen, and the stares that went with it. No dinner. No fight. And no anonymity. Great job. Casual was out, so he walked to Lastrahn who turned for the door without a word. The silence was almost worse than getting berated.

  Out on the underground street the crowds had grown only thicker. Hundreds of revelers streamed past, drinks flowing, clothes flapping loose. He wasn’t in the mood and looked away, then remembered what he’d left behind. “Sword’s still inside. Sir.”

  “Leave it.” Lastrahn pushed past a trio of singing men dressed in fur loincloths.

  The night grew more confusing. If it was night by then, he had no idea what time it was anymore. “Yes, Sir.”

  A group of giggling women with flowers in their hair broke apart around them like a flock of birds and then met back up on the other side. They might wear flowers, but they smelled like a cloud of cheap wine. Ryle’s nose wrinkled.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “We’ll find out when we get to Hartvau’s.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Wait here.” The guard’s voice was surprisingly high voice. This didn’t lessen the fact he was one of the largest, most tattooed men Ryle had ever seen. Swirling intricate patterns in green covered his thick, bare arms, neck, face. He looked strong, no doubt about it, with perhaps the slightest hitch in his left leg.

  He disappeared through the curtains draping a booth on the far side of the room.

  Like Ogrif had said, Hartvau’s place wasn’t hard to find. There’d practically been a sign outside. They’d descended a short flight of stone steps, and now stood in what looked like an upscale bar.

  Hazy red light, shining through quarter windows, high on the walls at street level, filtered down through the sweet-smelling smoke that filled the dark paneled room. The sound of the crowds outside rushing past along the underground Satin Road were muted.

  Deep booths, draped in thick green curtains and lit from within by flickering candles, lined three of the walls. A bar that looked heavy enough to withstand the assaults of most brigades, dominated the fourth. A grizzled bartender watched them with his one good eye while he polished a glass. His expression didn’t put Ryle at ease.

  People in padded high backed chairs, most dressed in sharp-cut grays and blacks, filled the room with quiet conversation.

  Lastrahn took a seat in the nearest vacant chair and signaled the bartender for a drink. Ryle sat across from him and tried to appear calm. He still didn’t know if Lastrahn had a plan.

  His mind circled back through the day, trying to pull together some meaning. Ogrif. Ibor. His fighters. Maybe Lastrahn had hired them as back-up. The idea of working with duelists was distasteful, but that was normal of late. He agreed they could be useful, but for what? Were they raiding this place? Were they sneaking in somewhere else?

  At the moment, none of that changed his situation. He had to stay ready. He blinked smoke out of his eyes, and forced himself to stay awake. And wait.

  The bartender delivered a mug of dark ale to their table. Lastrahn sipped, nodded appreciatively and tossed the man a copper coin. He took it without comment and returned to the bar.

  Ryle tried not to mourn the loss of the meat pies; he still felt their grease on his fingers. His hunger had eaten itself down to a hard ache that sat like a rock in his gut. The emptiness at his hip was even more concerning. The sword from the inn had been burnt chaff, but he’d gotten used to its weight. He was sure their lack of weapons would beco
me a problem, probably sooner rather than later.

  Across from him, Lastrahn sat silent in his black coat, his cloak discarded in the gutter outside, and sipped his ale. When the champion’s eyes passed over Ryle, he sensed nothing. They might’ve been paying Hartvau a social call for all the stress they showed.

  Ryle hoped his master had a very good plan he hadn’t bothered to share.

  Minutes dragged on, one after another. Ryle’s stomach kept aching. Despite his best efforts, his eyes drooped. Only the constant threat of ambush staved off sleep.

  Lastrahn finished his drink. People came and went from the bar.

  After what had to be an hour of waiting, the guard returned and invited them through the same curtains where he’d departed. It was all Ryle could do to drag himself up out of his chair and follow after Lastrahn.

  From the outside, the booth they entered looked like all the others, but its curtains concealed a passage that led to a metal banded door. The tattooed man knocked in a quick pattern, twice and then three more times, and the door opened revealing a stair twisting downward. Ryle never saw who opened the door.

  A matching door lay at the foot of the stairs. Here, the process repeated with the door opening onto the room they’d just left.

  Confusion battered Ryle’s tired head until he realized the rooms were nearly identical except these curtains were blue instead of green, and lamps had taken the place of the quarter windows. Even the bartender looked identical, but this one smiled and nodded as they entered.

  Only a few others occupied the room. They all sat in the booths along the wall, and Ryle never got a look at them as, almost in unison, they all closed their curtains. It wasn’t creepy in the slightest.

  The big guard gestured for them to take a seat at a table and disappeared through another concealed passage.

  It was only after he left that Ryle realized he was not the same tattooed man they’d seen in the room above. This man had been even taller, and blue tattoos covered his skin. What the hex kind of place was this?

  Once again they waited. After a few minutes the bartender wandered over to their table.

  “Can I get you fellows anything?” he asked in an Eastern accent.

  “I’ll take a Mulgrahm Stout. If you have one,” Lastrahn said.

  “Indeed I do. Got a nice cask of it.” He turned to Ryle. “And for you?”

  Ryle didn’t see any food anywhere in the room. Not that he would’ve felt comfortable eating it here. He shook his head.

  “Suit yourself,” the bartender said and returned to the bar.

  Lastrahn’s drink arrived quickly, and after tasting it, he sighed appreciatively and paid.

  “Thanks much,” the bartender said, and started back.

  “You’re from Bendene,” Lastrahn said.

  “Close, Dallion. You been to the old country?”

  “A few times, but not for years. Nice place.”

  “Aye, loved it, but ah, well. Things move on, don’t you know.”

  “You came west with your boss then,” Lastrahn said.

  The bartender smiled widely, touched the side of his nose, and returned to his bar.

  Lastrahn seemed to consider this as he drank his stout, but made no further comments.

  Seconds ticked by. Each one felt like a constant, irritating drip upon Ryle’s skull. Hex knew who or what waited for them below, and here they sat, letting their opposition prepare whatever welcome he wanted. This was to say nothing of the time slowly falling away, shaving their incredibly short timeline even shorter. At this rate, the Harvest Moon would come and go before they saw daylight again.

  He clung on to this irritation. It pushed the sleep away, made him feel almost awake. He soon wanted to pace the room in disgust, but he settled for drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Lastrahn put a stop to it with a flat stare.

  Long after Lastrahn had finished his drink, and Ryle’s blood was nearing a boil, the man with the blue tattoos returned and invited them to follow him.

  Another door and stairs followed. Two flights this time. Ryle tried not to think about how many stories of stone hung above their heads. At the bottom an even heavier door awaited them. When the dead bolts were drawn back he got the impression that teams of horses swung into action to make it happen.

  They stepped from the passage, and their feet sank into plush rugs. A thicker haze of unpleasant, sweet smoke washed over him. He clenched his throat to prevent his lungs from fleeing his chest, and took in their surroundings.

  Instead of booths small alcoves harbored ancient sculptures on pedestals. They were beautiful. Some were marble or granite carved into nude figures, but upon closer inspection they grew horrible, as their humanity gave way to horns, claws, and bizarre appendages. Others were indescribable objects that looked almost organic. Portions of bodies, bones and muscles exposed in excruciating detail. He didn’t understand them, but he moved on without comment.

  A solid looking table flanked by a pair of doors stood in place of the bar. A man and two women sat on the far side of the table in high backed chairs of dark wood. His chair was a tad larger, and more ornately carved. The intended impression of a throne was less than subtle.

  This was obviously Hartvau. Thin of face, thinner of body, long black hair parted down the middle framing pale features. A thin, black goatee encircled pale lips. He wore a loose fitting, shiny black jacket with wide, crossing lapels, and held a long stemmed pipe languidly in one hand. Smoke wafted from his nostrils past unsettling bloodshot eyes, one so light it was almost white, and the other onyx.

  The women were equally thin, and pale, but there the similarities ended. The tall woman on Hartvau’s right sported a red mohawk. Large black goggles obscured her eyes, and a black leather tunic with a high collar hugged her tight over a close fitting red shirt. Ryle saw no weapons, but her posture set off an alarm in his head nonetheless. Something told him this was Mawren, the bodyguard Ogrif had mentioned.

  Her opposite was shorter, and a translucent, white veil left only her lips exposed. She wore a black corset over a lacy white gown. An easy dozen silver necklaces dangled in a glimmering tangle across her low cut gown and pale bosom. She tapped her jet black lips with ebony fingernails.

  After all of the talk of Hartvau, Ryle had expected a dark terror. He didn’t know if he was scared, or bewildered over the trio. Lastrahn’s face concealed his thoughts on the subject.

  As he and Lastrahn approached, a man with a long, black ponytail threaded through a length of chain entered the room through one of the doors beside the table. A large, exotic gray bird clung to the man’s gloved arm with long, curving talons. As he passed Hartvau a slip of paper, an assortment of rings running around his earlobe jingled.

  The big, tattooed guard deposited them before the table, and left without a word. When he turned to leave, Ryle realized once again, he was not the same man. Somewhere between the last room and this one, their blue tattooed guide had been replaced with one sporting black tattoos, and even more muscle. He stepped past the thick doorway and pulled it shut with a soft click.

  Ryle suppressed the urge to curse out loud at this rotting chaff blasted place. They waited. The bird on the man’s arm stared at Ryle with a large yellow eye rimmed in red.

  “Mawren?” Hartvau waved the pipe absently toward the woman on his right while he studied the paper.

  She stood, then leaned forward over the table. Ryle thought a faint glow lit within her dark goggles as she peered at them.

  His pulse raced. A Praeter? Or some oldcraft he’d never seen?

  After a long moment, she flopped back down, one leg draped over the arm of her chair, and she shook her head. Hartvau nodded. “I won’t have to have you killed then.” Hartvau’s voice sounded like Ryle’s throat would feel after sucking down a couple decades of this smoke.

  Lastrahn must’ve anticipated this, but Ryle’s hip felt no less empty.

  Hartvau dipped the scrap of paper he’d read into the bowl of his pipe and it
went up in a puff of smoke. Then he scratched something on to a new slip of paper and passed it to the bird handler. The man bobbed his head and left. The bird on his arm was still watching Ryle as it was carried through the doorway.

  “Magnificent creature, isn’t it?” Hartvau said. “Called a fevergeyer. They’re never seen outside of the Blasts. I have the only one east of Sarroh.”

  Ryle agreed the bird was striking, but he wouldn’t show it, and for one simple reason He didn’t like this man. He knew it before ten words left Hartvau’s lips. His tone, the look in his eyes. The way he’d be made them wait for hours for his own amusement. Even without the horror story of his prisoner, he and the women made Ryle’s skin crawl.

  He remained silent, and let the moment pass. Hartvau though kept staring at him with his mismatched eyes, as if he expected a response.

  Ryle ground his teeth. This was the man they’d come all this way to see. For all he knew his father waited in the next room. He wouldn’t spoil it over something so petty. “Impressive,” Ryle finally said, and left it at that.

  Hartvau smiled weakly, then addressed the champion. “So you are the Lastrahn. Champion of the House of Reckoning. Wielder of Exequor. Warrior of a thousand battles. Hero of a thousand damsels. Impressive. And your squire I presume. He looks young, but to each his own. I’d heard you were back in town, but never imagined you’d turn up in my place.”

  Ryle looked, but he saw no actual sarcasm dripping from his lips. He might’ve missed it in the dim light.

  Lastrahn kept a small smile on his face. “Your reputation precedes you as well. Ace of the arcane. Companion of chaos. Commander of unseen blades. Eastern virtuoso. I’ve heard the stories.”

  The champion had never indicated he’d heard of Hartvau, but then again, since when had Lastrahn shared any information with him?

  Hartvau smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “I almost didn’t let you in. You’re not the sort I’m in the habit of meeting with. Not under such, friendly, circumstances.”