Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  “He won’t,” Dryston answered, his throat suddenly dry. “But don’t mourn. I’m sure his death hurts us more than it hurt him. It’s always this way. Death does not affect us. When we live, we aren’t dead, and when we’re dead, we aren’t anymore.”

  He let the words sink in, taken aback by their own meaning to him.

  “I should go and take care of something,” he eventually said to himself, leaving the women behind at the hearth-fire.

  DRYSTON WAS ON THE WAY to the house’s staff quarters, when he encountered Tancred in the hallway. The king was still in his battledress, used to living in paranoia, always threatened with being poisoned, backstabbed, or shot. He wore it as an armor of dignity, having survived all the years and rivals, coups and assassination attempts.

  “Still out that late in the night?” he said, halting in front of Dryston. His stature filled out the corridor to the chambers where the staff members were kept at detention.

  “Yes,” Dryston answered.

  “Looking for something?” the king asked, narrowing his eyes, without losing this charismatic smile.

  “I thought it wouldn’t be bad to ask the retainers if they know the whereabouts of Godfrey,” Dryston said. “Or if they know of ways to get to him.”

  Tancred considered this and nodded. “That is a good idea. I have scattered my men to guard the accessways to the mansion. It would help if you took care of that part.”

  “Of course,” Dryston said with a short nod.

  “One other thing,” Tancred added. “The special forces under Belrand’s lead are my finest. Their dedication is unquestioned, and they are the most loyal troops one could ask for. They would follow me into death without hesitating. I always wondered why you are so ambitious. I kept watching you for a while, and you sometimes seem even more driven than them.” He considered him with sharp eyes for a moment. “I had a feeling that you were relieved I burned our ships after landing here, leaving us no way back. So what is it that goads you, Dryston?”

  Dryston shrugged and looked to the ground, searching for an answer. He wasn’t allowed to tell the truth. He simply couldn’t tell that he was poisoned and fighting for his own life while time was running out.

  “I won’t lie to you, Majesty,” he said, looking up into the king’s eyes. “It is not honor or loyalty. But we both know that a few days ahead, cosmic things will happen here, the consequences of which we might not grasp. I’d rather have this matter with Godfrey settled and be out of here before the hourglass runs dry.”

  Tancred nodded and finally smiled. “Ah, fearing the end of the world.”

  “At least as we know it,” Dryston said.

  Tancred patted him on the shoulder and shoved himself through the hallway. “I always liked honest men.”

  Dryston waited till the king had disappeared down the steps into the wide entrance hall. He spotted Belrand standing at the other end of the corridor at the window, guarding the staff quarters with one eye. His other was directed outside to the approach to the mansion, watching snow fall with his crossbow squatted on the windowsill. Belrand acknowledged him with a silent nod.

  Dryston went on and entered the first chamber. A man sat up from his cot, stripped of his weapons, but still recognizable in his bodyguard gambeson. Dryston made sure the door was closed behind him and faced the hired muscle.

  “Do you know,” he began in a low voice, his weapon carried visible, “a man called Argis Cairn-breaker?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SEWER RATS

  JADE CYRUS HAD FALLEN ASLEEP on the couch for an indefinite time. Dryston woke her before dawn, when the blackness of night had turned into twilight. The hearth-fire had almost died down, and everything was wreathed in colorless coldness.

  “Jade,” she heard her name whispered. She pulled the fur blanket she shared with Skadi closer to warm up her naked body. Their clothes were hung up over the hearth to dry and warm.

  “What is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “It’s time,” Dryston said.

  “Time for what?”

  “To separate from the crown.”

  Jade felt a surge of excitement rush trough her veins that made her awake instantly.

  “I have found the man I was looking for,” Dryston said, his voice a low whisper. “There’s no reason to stay longer at Tancred’s side. All this hide-and-seek play will soon be over. Time to lay the cards on the table. That’s what I came for, to save my life or die trying.”

  Jade nodded and looked at Skadi, who was still sleeping peacefully despite the horrors she had witnessed.

  “You still haven’t told her,” she said, “that you’re there to save your own neck. She believes you came to take Cairn-breaker’s life, to take vengeance for what he did to her. But what if it doesn’t turn out that way, if he doesn’t hand you the antidote? Because you won’t be in a position to make claims. How are you going to bring a gangland-boss to save your life? I think I know the answer, but are you really willing to do this? Are you willing to make this trade?”

  Dryston sighed and looked at the girl. “If there is no other choice. I came to Skybridge. I rescued her. She would be dead if I hadn’t been there. Now, I got poisoned. I simply bring everything back to where she was before and where I was before. The way I see it, I just prolonged her life.”

  “You would have given her her life back and then take it away again,” Jade said. “You know how it feels if you get something you never thought would be possible and then soon afterwards lose it? Getting your hopes built up and shattered. It feels worse than if you never got the chance in the first place.”

  “I know that feeling,” Dryston said, thinking about Kyra. “I think you just take it that seriously because it is your fault Haddock got that close. Now you’re feeling responsible for both of our fates.”

  Jade looked away.

  “What else do you want me to do?” Dryston asked. “Do you expect me to just give up and die? Listen, I will try everything in my power to get the antidote without giving her up. But if there is no other way, I will.”

  “Then I will make sure that there is another way,” Jade said and turned away.

  She aroused Skadi with a touch on her shoulder then got up on the stone floor. Jade walked over to the hearth where her boots and clothes were waiting. They had mostly dried from sweat, blood, and snow, but morning had coated everything with faint, chilly moisture.

  Dryston watched the women dress, himself being in full gear. He saw a name stand out from the list tattooed on Skadi’s back: Argis Cairn-breaker. This was the way they were choosing, for whichever ending, and he had approximately one day left before he collapsed.

  THE MANSION’S SERF awaited them in the hallway, leaning at the arched staircase with a set of keys and torch in hand. They went downstairs, into the wine-cellar, storage room, and hidden library of the landlord’s property. They passed huge barrels, crates of vegetables, hanged meat, dusty book-shelves, following the light of the serf’s torch. He halted at a grille and passed the torch to Dryston. Fumbling fingers searched for the right one on his key-ring. It must have been a long time since he last used it. The door opened, squeaking, and led into a narrow tunnel, leading to more steps descending down into the dark.

  “The old brotherhood has laid out this passageway to connect vital points in the city with their base under the surface,” the serf explained. His voice echoed from the close walls. The upcoming smell of human waste prompted the serf to halt at the last steps. “They mostly used the already existing infrastructure of the sewer system for the quickest routes. You can see their ways marked on the map I gave to you.”

  Dryston unfolded the cloth, indicating a labyrinth of tunnels.

  “I don’t want to imagine what urged them to travel that way, to stay under the surface,” the serf continued. “My master only used it once or twice, and this was years ago, more due to private encounters, if you know what I mean.”

  “Maybe because the surface promised d
eath for them,” Jade said, apparently not noticing the discomfort her dry view left on the others.

  They entered the sewer tunnel with the serf lagging behind, carefully lifting the ends of his noble attire. A stream of waste water funneled past them. There was the water reflection constantly cast over the vaulted ceiling, and the squeals of rats.

  The creaking grille opened behind them. The sound made them stop in their tracks and hold their breath. Clanking noises of chainmail, boots, and steel dragging over the cold stone floor came from the corridor that led into the sewer duct. The shape of Tancred of Treveria appeared, followed by Gilbert Belrand and another trooper.

  “Your Highness, you have to see this,” Dryston said and indicated around the sewers. “There is a passage to the jarl’s hall.”

  Tancred said nothing and came closer to the group that had advanced without his attendance. He assessed Dryston, Jade, and Skadi.

  “Good,” the king said. He turned to his adjutant, Belrand. “Give word to the others. Everyone will descend into the sewers.”

  Belrand nodded to the other trooper to pass on the orders.

  “They will catch up with us later.” Tancred regarded the group again and signaled them to move on. “We have no time to lose.”

  THEY TRAVELED DOWNSTREAM through the vaults, through darkness and decay. A whole group of Tancred’s special forces was on their tails, with the king’s presence even closer. So close that Dryston could feel the breath of the patriarch on his neck sometimes. He had to read the surroundings while making sense with the drawings on the map. He exchanged glances with Jade and Skadi every time he halted to study the corridors in the light of the torch he was holding. They knew what he was thinking and were probably thinking the same. It had been a close call that the king hadn’t suspected them, but it hadn’t improved their situation. Now they had to deal with the monarch and his finest, instead of dodging him, one way or the other. Jade and Skadi were ready, and so was he. It was a strange feeling, wanting to kill the man you were ordered to protect.

  Dryston signaled the king to halt and waved Jade and Skadi to him. They were at a junction and cautiously feeling toward the left branch. It fell off into a waterfall a whole level beneath them. It wasn’t clearly visible how deep the water was down there, but the distant sound of the water’s impact made it at least knee-deep.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t think this is the right way to the jarl’s hall,” the serf remarked.

  Dryston turned and held the map, an awkward expression on his face.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he said to the king and his adjutant, his heel at the edge of the waterfall. Jade and Skadi were shuffling towards him, looking anxiously down into the abyss.

  Like it would matter to three fighters with a death wish, Belrand raised his crossbow and aimed at them.

  “What is this?” Tancred asked. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I cannot bring you to the jarl,” Dryston answered. “I have to go another way. And my friends are coming with me.”

  Tancred was beside himself. “What in the name of hell is of higher importance than to bring about the downfall of this tyrant?”

  He waved the men to him that were closing the lines, boots splashing through the sewage.

  “I’m a dead man,” Dryston said to the king. “There is only one chance to save my life, and if at all, it lies this way.”

  “Dryston!” Tancred sighed, losing his patience. “If this is about this world-ending theory, I have to say you are the dumbest lunatic I have ever met. When this is over, I swear I will rip your head off personally. You were a shire reeve, damn it! Your duty is to protect the realm from its enemies, without or within. You have sworn it by your blood!”

  Dryston looked at the wolf-head amulet on his chest. A brief reminder of how he really acquired it made him shrug.

  “You misunderstand me in so many ways it isn’t even funny anymore,” Dryston said. “But I have no time to explain.”

  “Dryston!” Tancred shouted again. His lips were trembling. “If you abandon us now, there will be no way back for you. I promise you, if you leave us searching a way through the sewers blind without a map, I’ll be forced to signal my army for help. I will bring the wrath of my whole army over this city and the blood of the innocent will be on you!”

  Dryston looked at Skadi and Jade, swallowing as he tried to make his decision.

  “Is your life really of more value than theirs?” Tancred asked. “You have to decide! If you lead us to Godfrey, we can end this conflict without shedding more blood. If you don’t, every last soldier that is holding our ground in the outer districts will be ordered to charge against the jarl’s hall. It will be a massacre, and you will be the one responsible for it!”

  Dryston breathed out heavily and shook his head.

  “Wrong. It will be on you.”

  He grabbed both women at the collar and took a step back. They were gone even before Belrand’s bolt could reach them, vanished in the dark duct.

  Tancred cursed out loud and threw his chainmail glove to the ground.

  “One of you, get back to the surface and send the signal to the host! Let them attack!”

  “Yes, sir,” a trooper said and hurried back.

  The serf set off to accompany the soldier back up to get a breath of fresh air and leave this sinkhole once and for all.

  Tancred seized him by the throat and thrust him back into the mud.

  “You will lead us, you worthless worm!”

  THE FALL WAS GRAVER than the impact, falling through darkness with an uncertainty in mind when about how it would end. But the time after was even worse. Dryston’s hurting legs kicked back in. The drain of painkillers, water, and food made it impossible to let his body regenerate. A wound was one thing, but several spread out over the whole body, all suffered during the last twenty-four hours, soon became too much to cope with. Then there was the thing Tancred had threatened to do. To send in the host and drench the rest of the city in blood. But not one emotion would help him now. Anger, happiness, fear, sadness, not one of those would bring him forward. Actions would keep him alive, nothing else.

  Dryston drove the women forward. They, too, had to deal with sprained ankles from the fall into the shallow water. They kept moving on, even if their life was not on the line like Dryston’s. Even more now than before, he admired Jade and Skadi’s loyalty.

  Tancred didn’t have enough resources down here to take up the hunt. Back on the surface, though, things were different.

  The three of them ran through the twilit tunnel, daylight falling in from above. It ascended to the surface, where thick networks of algae hung from the infested ceiling.

  One of the mansion’s house staff had known who Argis Cairn-breaker was. It was a name you didn’t speak out carelessly in the gangland of Skybridge. Even so, Dryston now knew where to find him.

  They set their feet back on the outside world covered in morning light and a blanket of snowfall, the boundary wall of Old Town towering before them, and began to climb.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JARL’S HALL

  THE ROAD TO OLD TOWN GATE was a busy hub of the occupants’ forces that morning. Lictors, clerics, and bystanders hurrying from the Styxian Oarsman clustered around the scene of another Kolanthel-initiated assassination. The dead bodies of Grandmaster Pyrone and his adjutant Sol’al-Rus still lay were they last dropped. In Pyrone’s case, this was still on the roof of the house.

  “Look at this mess,” Freya said to herself. “Somebody get him down from there!” she demanded. “Who are the witnesses?”

  She got led through to where Ysara Horne, Ravage, and Barknar were being treated by one of the clerics.

  “I’m fine.” Barknar got rid the cleric when it was his turn.

  “He spared you,” Ysara said, remembering the incident.

  Barknar shrugged and looked away to the arriving lictor.

  “Out of all the people present, he spared you
,” Ravage said with an unbelieving head-shake. “I wouldn’t have spared you, if I were the assassin.”

  “If you were the assassin,” Barknar gave a snarky reply, “the mages would still be alive.”

  “Cut the chatter,” Freya told them. “Who did this?”

  “The Kolanthel are here,” Ysara Horne answered and inclined her head over to Old Town.

  KYRA RETURNED TO THE PLACE she had been the night before, absorbing the scene and environment by daylight. The sight of two of her brethren killed in such an efficient and calculated manner was disgusting. They had to die, because they were like her: adept at magic and sorcery. Now, she was the last one of her kind, as far as she knew, around here.

  Something was in the air. A faint sound at first, a whistle, ascending into a shrill siren that turned into a shriek descending rapidly on the crowd. The sound was fear-inspiring, not from the single arrow in the sky it was accompanying, but for its purpose. Everyone fell quiet. This was a signal from the king on his suicide mission that something had gone wrong. He needed their assistance in storming the jarl’s hall and suppressing Godfrey. It meant their time of peace was over, and the bloodshed was about to continue. It had rested far shorter than both expected and hoped for.

  An arm caught Kyra and broke her out of her stare. It belonged to the warlord, Jarnsaxa Ornsdottir.

  “You know what this means?” she said.

  Kyra nodded. All-out attack. Her fear that she would be separated from Connor again suddenly reignited.

  “I need you right now,” Jarnsaxa said. “Godsmite is in chains. He has no means to prove his innocence. But he has a hunch who would have the power and malice to plot something like this.”

  “Do you believe him?” Kyra asked.

  “I have to,” Jarnsaxa said. “According to him, there is an old grudge between him and a gangland boss. That man is planning to have a ball in honor of the apocalypse everyone is talking about. It will be held in his residence in gang territory, deep inside Old Town.”