Perfectly round and three hands in diameter, the defensive weapon had a trigger in the grip, around which Hephaestion curled his left hand. He squeezed a discreet mechanism hidden in the handle—a small hand pump and piston—then with a final grunt, he locked the handle into the primed shield.
“Just punch something and pull the trigger,” Ulfric had assured him. “And you’ll hit harder than even I do!”
Hephaestion embraced his friend’s enthusiasm and prayed Ulfric hadn’t been over-confident. The tiny air-powered piston could crush through chains, locks, doors, and certainly armor and bone.
Now, which way to go in the tunnel? Hephaestion sniffed deeply. Both directions seemed equally foul, but one had the sweet tang of human rot.
Stalking towards the offensive odor and keeping his splashing to a minimum, Hephaestion inched his sword from the sheath, its metallic whisper a taut echo against the close walls. The tunnel bent in a constant curve to his left, ideal since his left forearm bore his shield. The shield would hopefully ensure that he maintained the advantage if he met an enemy down here.
A smile crept onto his face as he treaded deeper into the compound. His biggest advantage was that few had tried this before. Therefore, his enemy might not fathom his intrusion until he was already successful.
“Darius will be defeated, and we will be the ones to do it. Know why, Patty? Because no one has ever beaten Darius before, and he’s got us outnumbered five-to-one. We aren’t supposed to win, which is why we will!” Alexander had said on the eve before facing the fully mustered might of Persia.
Alexander would have loved this—the opportunity for glory and righteousness would have swollen Alex to the point of giddy delight.
The thought of Alexander’s presence lingered in Hephaestion’s mind as the tunnel gradually elevated until his heels found solid rock. The dull light revealed a large chamber ahead, domed and jagged in construction. A hole in the floor, several steps across, occupied the center of the room, with a depth so significant Hephaestion couldn’t gauge how far down it extended. He surmised that it may be an oubliette—a place of forgetting. If a person or a thing posed a significant problem, it was merely thrown down the hole.
As hot, stale air blasted up from the gap, hundreds of frail arms stirred along the oubliette’s wall. Hephaestion jerked back, sword extended, and beheld with horror the disembodied hands slowly pointing their fingers at him. Back flush against the low wall, he shuffled around the huge hole as the fingers followed him, silent witnesses of his invasion.
Then they clapped. Ill-coordinated and clumsy, the cacophony was deafening given the hundreds of arms that filled the circumference of the room. Hephaestion scrambled to locate an exit. Within moments, he found one—only to be blocked by an usher.
The beast snarled in alarm, both of its hands reaching for Hephaestion’s head, but he stabbed his sword right above its knee, twisted the blade, and made the thing stumble directly into his waiting shield-piston. With a popping hiss, the weapon crushed the man-thing’s forehead. Grunting, Hephaestion used his shield to maneuver the usher to the side, and he rushed through the exit while priming his shield’s pump again.
More roars and snarls echoed through the labyrinth of tunnels. The clapping oubliette applauded behind him, obliterating his quiet approach. Seeing three different exits before him, Hephaestion realized that this place might have been built as a maze. Every quivering Hell-ember burned the same dark crimson light, removing any distinguishing characteristics from his surroundings, and he could no longer tell the direction from which he came.
Randomly picking a tunnel, he sprinted, his thoughts churning. Would he bolt into another usher or a pack of them? Could he fall into another oubliette?
Clanging his sword against his shield, he echoed his position to any listening ears in an effort to disorient them.
Two ushers huffed behind him. He dodged through several curved twists and turns before he dropped into a crouch. The first usher chugged around the corner, club held high, and Hephaestion dug the bottom tip of his shield into the jagged floor to make a ramp. Tripping his foe, Hephaestion focused on the arrival of the second assailant. Using the beast’s forward momentum, he drove his blade through its sternum and lower trachea. Blood erupted from its frothing mouth, and it crashed into first usher, pinning it down just as it attempted to stand. With two swift stabs and twists of his blade, Hephaestion silenced them both.
The ushers were clearly physically superior, but decades of combat training with Ulfric had cultured Hephaestion’s sword attacks into organic and fluid swings, even when he wielded an unfamiliar blade.
He clanged his sword and shield again, unsure how long he could hold up under vigorous fights. Did most of them reside in Minos’s court, and the ones here were just on rest?
Cautious footfalls whispered nearby. Hephaestion hid behind a nearby wall, keeping the fallen in sight. The next approached in the shadows, shoulders lowered with meaty paws clutching a long-handled stone axe. It kicked one of its fallen fellows and grumbled in frustration.
When its back was turned, Hephaestion scurried forward and punched his shield piston into the back of its knee. The beast cried out as it fell, and before his foe could bellow for help, Hephaestion sliced its throat to the spine.
The lamplight grew brighter, and as he spun around, he discovered an usher in full-plate armor and helm. Each shoulder displayed a hellfire stone in a small cage, and instead of gauntlets, its hands wore metal balls covered with crooked spikes.
Hephaestion searched its segmented armor for striking points. Seeming to recognize his strategy, it charged him. The first fist crashed into his shield, forcing him back, as another impossibly fast punch knocked him off balance. Stumbling over one of the dead, he slammed his shoulder into the wall. The pain crippled him, but instinct demanded he duck—right before stone chips rained down on him, the result of a vicious blow intended for his head.
Shoving his shield between the man-thing’s knees, he threw off its footing. Arms flailing, the armored usher stomped about, trying to step on him, but Hephaestion banged his shield into its knees again and again. Then he drew his pepperbox pistol with his free hand, pressed it firmly up into the monster’s nearest underarm, and fired.
The pistol’s report deafened Hephaestion, but his move had paid off: the usher’s arm dangled by shreds of sinew and chainmail. Dazed, it stared at the limb in bewilderment. Hephaestion shoved his blade into the other underarm, grinding the point into the socket.
It roared in agony, both arms hanging useless and dripping. With a lurch, the usher butted its head towards Hephaestion’s face, but his sword waited instead. Impaling itself below the jaw, the weapon skewered its cranium. When the body stilled, the helm still teetered back and forth from his blade’s tip.
Yanking his weapon free, Hephaestion dumped his enemy to the floor, heavy armor clanging in a death knell. He then listened without a breath. No more roars. No more footprints. And no more clapping. Satisfied that he had handled all the ushers in proximity, he gathered his pistol and primed his piston pump.
His search proved fruitless. Frustrated, he considered what he knew: this structure was thousands of years old. If he followed the most worn sections of the floor...
He crawled along the ground, examining the wear on the ancient stone. After several winding hallways and declines, his determination guided him to his objective.
A torture chamber.
On the walls hung shackled captives, nearly a dozen, in various states of decomposition or torment. The body nearest to him had been disemboweled and fed its own innards. Next to that one slumped a torso with skeletal arms and legs that had been devoured.
One body appeared more recent than the rest—a bald, chubby man. His eyeballs had been burned out, and the seared scar tissue had swollen and puffed so that he appeared to be wearing grotesque goggles. A metal clamp fastened his neck to the rock,
and cord and wooden boards bound his legs on either side. A mallet and dull wooden chisel rested nearby.
Hephaestion had seen this torture before. Two wooden planks would hold the leg straight while the chisel’s tip was slipped between each twist of cord. With every mallet strike, the bone would break in a precise place, and once the torture was done, hundreds of fractures would have reduced the leg to a bag of bone dust.
A tiny wooden cross hung around the man’s neck, identifying him as Albrecht. Hephaestion dropped to his knee and lifted the man’s limp head, his broken jaw swinging loose.
“Nod if you can hear me.”
Albrecht nodded, weariness informing his movement.
“I’m getting you out of here, but it’s going to hurt.”
The ruined man began to cry, clinging to Hephaestion with gratitude.
“You saved me, so I’m saving you,” Hephaestion whispered. Digging the heart-ripper out of the leather bag, Albrecht tugged frantically at Hephaestion’s armor. Confused, Hephaestion tried to figure out the man’s communication. Did Albrecht honestly expect to be carried out?
No, the priest pointed in the direction of the other prisoners.
Hephaestion sighed. “You want everyone out?”
Albrecht nodded, his fingers grasping the cross around his neck and ripping it free. He shoved the talisman at Hephaestion and then pulled his cloak open, exposing his chest. Albrecht wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t figure out his only way out of this nightmare.
The heart-ripper slid over Hephaestion’s fingers and against his palm with ease. An engineering marvel of appalling cruelty, Hephaestion couldn’t help admiring its uncomplicated precision. With a comforting hand on Albrecht’s shoulder, he leaned in to whisper in the man’s ear. “Are you ready?”
Albrecht nodded with resignation.
The heart-ripper’s blades unfurled like a blossom in the sun as Hephaestion squeezed the handle. With a deep breath to steady his hand, Hephaestion drove the device into Albrecht’s chest. The priest flinched, then stilled as the ripper gnawed at his heart. Twisting and jerking while pumping the handle, Hephaestion withdrew the extractor. Caged within the steel blades sat the heart of a man, quivering with its last beat.
He disrobed the Christian and folded the cloak up into a makeshift satchel. Then he visited each prisoner, gathered up their hearts with sucking splorts. Bloody and frustrated, he grumbled as each time he tossed the cloak over his shoulder, the hearts bounced onto the floor.
When he finished, he retraced his steps, eventually arriving back at the four dead ushers. Then he did the opposite of what he had done before: he followed the stone flooring that looked least traveled until he reached the oubliette. The disembodied arms spotted him again, each hand accusing, and Hephaestion returned their gesture with one of his own as he passed by.
He soon clopped through water again, and he traveled the drained filth until crisp, fresh air from above teased his nostrils.
Shoving the hearts through the narrow opening, he tossed them onto the hill’s surface. His shield followed, then he sheathed his sword in preparation for his escape.
“No!” A voice, barely human, called. An usher stood at the far end of the tunnel, hand wrapped around a halberd with a curved blade as long as a horse’s leg. Its body wore a crude, tattooed canvas of wailing faces in a celebration of suffering. Its eyes burned with a furious intelligence Hephaestion had not seen in the others. This was the alpha.
Hephaestion rushed the opening. Behind him, the massive beast roared and charged. Hephaestion’s fingers tore through the mud above, seeking a solid grip.
It was too late. He wouldn’t make it. Hephaestion dropped down and spun to his side to dodge the incoming blade. The mountain of angry flesh slammed him against the tunnel wall, but the halberd’s length limited the alpha’s movement in close quarters, buying Hephaestion an unexpected gain.
Hephaestion drew his sword and slashed at the beast. Blood spurted as fat seeped from its lower belly. Breaking the halberd in half, the usher formed a more effective weapon. With a vicious thrust, the crazed assailant shoved the tip into Hephaestion’s chest, all of its weight bearing down.
The splint mail held, but Hephaestion felt his ribs buckle and crack. He stabbed at the alpha’s forearms, but the damage offered little more than blood and exposed bone, for all the alpha reacted to the assault.
One of its massive hands gripped Hephaestion’s arm like an angry parent scolding a child. The alpha jerked Hephaestion upwards, hoisting him off his feet so his toes barely brushed the earth, as it brandished the broken halberd in preparation to slice Hephaestion in two.
Taking his only opportunity, Hephaestion jabbed his sword into the alpha’s eye.
It laughed.
Stunned, he dug the blade around.
“I only need the one,” it snarled in its nameless language.
Hephaestion saw his own terrified reflection in the remaining, glaring eye. He threw his sword down, swung both his heels up, and clamped his legs around the alpha’s neck. The sudden shift in weight brought both fighters down, Hephaestion’s legs still holding tightly. The alpha pelted Hephaestion with its blade, but his armored back deflected and absorbed the blows. He squeezed his thighs together with all the might he had.
The strikes weakened and slowed.
Apparently, the alpha had never learned not to breathe. Hephaestion watched with satisfaction as its eyes rolled back and tongue flopped out, purple and swollen.
When the beast went limp, Hephaestion returned his sword to his scabbard and rested for a moment, hands on his knees. The burning in his chest and sharp stabs from floating ribs seemed to be the brunt of the damage.
“Well?” Yitz called from above. “What, you toss out everything you need before climbing out?”
Hephaestion tried not to laugh given the state of his ribcage. Soon, four arms reached down to assist his climb to the surface.
With a fire raging in his torso, Hephaestion reached up to them, their fingers finding grip among his own, and they pulled with all their might. His boots scrambling, Hephaestion managed to get his head and shoulders free of the cavern, Yitz tugging at his arms while cursing in Yiddish.
Somewhere below, the water splashed, followed by what sounded like the grunt of a bear as the alpha gripped Hephaestion’s legs.
“Oy!” Yitz called out. “Boudica—do your thing!”
Boudica dove head first into the hole. The alpha’s intrigued grunt suggested delight, but an instant later, a flash of light boomed like a lightning strike, and Hephaestion slid free. Tumbling over Yitz, both men flopped clear of the smoldering hole.
Lungs wheezing, Hephaestion crawled back for Boudica, but she popped through the hole on her own. The woad patterns on her skin glowed cerulean, and the steam rising from below gave Boudica an ethereal appearance.
“We should get going,” she ordered, scooping up the rogue hearts that fell out of their makeshift bag. Tying Albrecht’s robes more securely, she handed the bloody satchel to Yitz. Next, with a single motion, she tossed Hephaestion over her shoulders like recently killed game.
With the shield halves under one arm, and the heart satchel over the opposite shoulder, Yitz followed Boudica and Hephaestion home.
Chapter 21
Gottbert eyed the pile of gore-caked hearts displayed in the center of Minu’s sewing table. They’d been delivered to him in Minu’s home, bundled in Albrecht’s robes, and a small crowd had gathered to witness the result of the bold rescue. Shintos peered over each other’s shoulders, murmuring to each other in disbelief that someone actually stormed the usher’s compound while Adina and Boudica examined the treasure.
“While I am grateful that these tormented souls will now be in our care, I am saddened at your employment of violence to rescue them,” Gottbert said grimly as he returned his focus to sealing the lac
erations along Hephaestion’s back. Exhausted and battered, the Grecian sat slumped with his forehead resting on his folded hands as the monk healed him. Occasionally, Hephaestion would yelp as one of his ribs found its proper place with a muffled snap. Yitz looked on while Minu returned to her needy guests.
“Do we know which is which? Which one is Albrecht?” Yitz asked, trying to determine a means to appraise the hearts. Did one seem more talkative than the others, somehow? Was one a bit round and pale, much like its host?
“No, they spilled on the way back—several times,” Hephaestion mumbled. Each breath hurt and crackled in his bruised lungs, but to not breathe was just as painful.
“We will take them all into our care. Even if a monster or two is among them, they deserve mercy as our order dictates. We will pray and sing them back to full health,” Gottbert said.
Yitz rolled his eyes. “Your chant will drone any rejuvenation right out of them.”
Adina slapped her husband’s shoulder. Hard.
“Be nice to me,” Yitz implored, feigning injury. “I looked like a bloody Father Christmas carrying these things back.”
“Ours chants promote growth and good humors. But we would welcome you and your violin, if you wish. We don’t often get to listen to a proper stringed musician.”
Yitz was taken aback by the sudden and generous invite from Gottbert.
Before Yitz could graciously accept, Adina chimed in.
“You invite my husband, and you still won’t be listening to a proper musician!”
Yitz frowned, his dignity moderately savaged. “My violin is rusty, and I haven’t played with the New Dis orchestra in many, many years.”
“We would be pleased to have you, Yitshak. Proper or no, Albrecht would be very happy for it, I’m sure, as would all of these individuals. Any attention or music would be a welcome balm. Lord knows what torments they suffered at the hands of the merciless.” Gottbert touched Hephaestion’s shoulder. “I cannot actually thank you for rescuing these people, you understand,” he said, his youthful eyes stoic but piercing.
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