City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1)

by Steven Montano

  Kleiderhorn’s men were going to have their hands full.

  And so are we. How the hell are we going to get out of here now?

  Fifty-Seven

  Black Sun was Ebonmark’s best-known secret – no one would openly acknowledge it existed, but everyone had heard of it. It was whispered that malign spirits and angry ghosts haunted the underground ruins, and even those who didn’t believe such tales knew the Voss had left things in those vast and uncharted depths best left undisturbed. Fear of what might lie in its dark halls kept most people at bay, though Slayne now knew others had ventured there even before he and Toran Gess. Harrick, leader of the Ebonmark branch of the Phage, had taken vehicles from Black Sun’s stygian vaults, and Vellexa verified previously unconfirmed theories that much of the equipment used to reconstruct the body of the man called the Iron Count had also come from Vossian coffers.

  One of the entrances to Black Sun was an underground tunnel leading in from a cave mouth under the city’s crumbling northern docks. Contrary to popular belief, Black Sun’s construction had started long before Ebonmark had even been built, in ancient times when the mighty city of Krel Danuul had stood at the same spot before it was wiped away by the Infernal Rains during the Turn of Night.

  Slayne stood up in the small boat as it neared the rocky shore around the cave mouth. The water was filled with debris left by pirate vessels that used the River Black to sail north for Kaldrak Iyres. There were four boats in all, long and narrow crafts carrying four people apiece. Every passenger except Vellexa and Gess were Black Eagles. Their ruse had worked perfectly. Members of the Black Guild waited in hiding just up river with crates full of Serpentheart canisters. It surprised Slayne that the surreally eerie Aram Keyes had insisted on accompanying the mission himself, but according to Vellexa Keyes didn’t know any of her men by sight, so their subterfuge hadn’t been in any danger.

  She’s been right so far. If she’s wrong, we’ll all be dead too soon to worry about it.

  They silently disembarked onto the wet stone. Black cloaks fluttered in the rippling cold wind. Several of the Eagles wrapped mooring lines around the taller rocks while the rest quietly climbed up to the cave mouth. So long as Keyes didn’t think they were anything but Black Guild soldiers and waited for their signal, nothing would go wrong.

  For a change, Slayne thought.

  Once inside the cave the Eagles lit torches to drive back the gloom. Tall stalactites dripped oozing filth, and the leathery shadows of bats clung to the ceiling like black leaves. It didn’t take long for the unworked rock walls to give way to aged masonry and worked stone. The tunnel was tall enough to allow the passage of giants, and the floor dipped at a slight downward angle until it reached an onyx door standing slightly ajar.

  Slayne crouched low. Gess and Vellexa stayed close while the rest of the Black Eagles spread out.

  “What now?” Vellexa asked. She looked nervous, and Slayne knew why. It was unlikely she’d live, though he hadn’t decided if he was going to kill her himself or not. He’d had her son moved to a place called the Castle Street Orphanage to keep him safe, as promised, but he felt he’d already given her too much special treatment.

  “We wait,” he said. “Give Keyes enough time to think we’ve recovered the Dream Witch.”

  “So we’re just going to sit here?” she balked.

  Gess walked up and examined the door. Slayne had never been able to read Gess very well – he had a Veilwarden’s gift for masking his emotions – but the way the pallid man stood in front of the portal told Slayne that Gess was feeling the weight of the task ahead. Slayne had acquired a pure specimen of Serpentheart for Gess so he could study and analyze how Keyes had woven the Veil into the poisonous fluid. Gess had barely had an hour to work, and Slayne hoped it was enough, because if the Veilwarden wasn’t ready they were all as good as dead.

  “Slayne?” Vellexa stood over him, her eyes filled with worry. “You didn’t answer me – are we just going to sit here?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. Bitch. You deserve to die. “We wait. And we make sure no one gets out of Black Sun alive.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’ve killed people before,” Slayne said coldly. “This won’t be that bad. All we have to do is keep anyone from getting out.”

  It was time to show the criminals of Ebonmark who was really in charge of the city.

  Fifty-Eight

  Bordrec sometimes wished he had someone to talk to – some intelligent being he could share his thoughts and schemes with, someone who wouldn’t hold back their honest opinions. Some time ago, before either of them had found any real success, he and Targo had been friends like that, but Kleiderhorn was rich and paranoid now, and Targo had become addicted to his own werewolf drug. They spoke rarely, and only ever about business.

  Though Kleiderhorn would never admit it to anyone he dearly missed the company of the old Targo. Jorias had always been able to point out to Bordrec when he was making a particularly stupid decision. It didn’t matter if Kleiderhorn already knew – it always made more sense to him if Targo was the one to say it.

  Now, more than ever, he could have used Targo’s advice. He was stuck in Black Sun until the mad game he’d been drawn into was finished. He didn’t trust Gess or the Jlantrians one bit, but in spite of his jangled nerves he kept thinking about what he had to gain: an Ebonmark free of both the Black Guild and the Phage. It was a dream come true, and if it meant bending to Gess’s will for just a little while longer it would be well worth it.

  Kleiderhorn hurried down the corridor with Kyrin and Hask on his heels. He heard the awful grinding advance of Harrick’s war machines, stolen from Black Sun just a few weeks ago. Kleiderhorn couldn’t help but smile.

  Go ahead and delude yourself, Harrick, he thought. The only reason I came down here was to watch you die.

  The ambush site was a field of sparkling ice over dark marble. Pillars stretched up to the mighty ceiling, and the sides of the chamber were dotted with wide plinths and long-cold braziers. A trio of Gess’s hideous troll mercenaries stood on one of the plinths, sharpening their bloody teeth with their great blades.

  At the center of the room stood the most impressive artifact of them all – a great statue of the J’ann, a trio of spirit beings greatly revered by the Voss. The demons appeared delicate and attractive even with their bat wings and fangs. The cluster of statues was easily thirty feet tall, and a large and perfectly smooth pit sat at their feet. Kleiderhorn knew little of the J’ann, but that didn’t stop him from whispering a short prayer to them.

  “Please,” he said. “Let us win.” He unceremoniously dropped the bundled blades Gess had given him into the hole. They were exact replicas of the weapons Ijanna had stolen from Blackhall, only these were made especially for Harrick, and carried a deadly surprise.

  Kleiderhorn led his bodyguards out of the room and back to the secret passages leading to the east halls, where he’d join his mercenary forces. With any luck he’d have a grand view of the coming show.

  Fifty-Nine

  Blackhall watched as dusk approached. The room he stood in was a diseased mess, but it afforded him a perfect view of the city square and the crumbling statue of the One Goddess. The stars vanished into the purple clouds of the coming storm. The air was nearly silent, an impressive feat considering the fact that over fifty specially trained Jlantrian Soldiers – many of them the leftover members from Wolf Brigade he hadn’t sent into Black Sun – hid in the buildings around the square, each dressed in the same manner of drab armor and dark cloak Blackhall himself wore. At a glance they might have been common thieves, albeit well-equipped ones.

  Their target was the secret entrance to the Black Guild’s lair, the Cauldron. Vellexa had made good on her word and provided Blackhall the means to gain access to the Iron Count’s domain. Gess had already cast the necessary enchantments. Now it was just a matter of waiting, and in a few minutes Gess would Touch the Veil from his remote location and activate
the cutgate. Aram Keyes and the most formidable warriors the Shard had to offer had all left Cauldron to attack Black Sun, so Blackhall expected little more than token resistance. Even then, he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Part of him regretted what he was about to do, but he had to remind himself it was the only way to avoid the loss of more innocent lives. Vellexa had proved to be a treasure trove of information. Discovering that the traitorous Azander Dane was involved with the Black Guild hadn’t come as much of a surprise – like the rest of the Dawn Knights, Dane had become a bastard and a rogue, and Blackhall could only thank Corvinia he was among the last of his kind – but it had proven Harrick’s lie to Blackhall. Why would the Black Guild destroy the arena and kill the man they’d pinned their hopes on when, according to Vellexa, they’d clearly known he was there? Blackhall had tried to reason it all out, he’d tried to think of why he should have worked with any of those criminals, but in the end he decided it was best just to be done with them. All of them.

  General Karthas, at the last, had been right. Those parasites had to be dealt with through use of force. Blackhall would prevent civilian casualties – it was the entire point of his plan – but he wouldn’t make any more compromises. The Black Guild and the Phage and all of Ebonmark’s other criminals weren’t any more human than the bloodthirsty soldiers of Wolf Brigade could be considered real soldiers. Blackhall, Slayne and Gess had finally found a way to deal with all of their problems at once.

  He clenched his fists. The men there in the room with him shifted, eager to start the slaughter.

  After tonight, he thought, there won’t be any criminals left in the city at all.

  Sixty

  Aram Keyes could hardly bear the light. He was glad for the approaching storm, glad the sun was finally vanishing behind the dark mass of clouds.

  He and his men waited away from prying eyes, beneath an ancient and dark pier that had rotted almost completely away. The longboats creaked and bobbed in the dark waters, burdened down by Tuscar enforcers. Several of Keyes’s own alchemists were on board to ensure the safety of the Serpentheart canisters.

  Keyes reached out with an unsteady hand and caressed the surface of the nearest crate. He put the bandaged stump where his ear had once been up against the wood. The bubbling liquid sang to him. It wept. It begged to be released.

  “Soon,” he promised.

  He and Serpentheart saw the lights of houses in the distance. They heard singing and laughter, the cries of babies and mother’s song.

  So many people, so many stories.

  But none as grand as what would happen the day Serpentheart reared its head, fanned its wings, and sucked the life from the city with its hungry teeth.

  “Soon,” Keyes whispered. “Soon…”

  Sixty-One

  A subterranean river ran beneath Ebonmark. Its narrow and twisted path had never seen light, and its waters were colder than the touch of death.

  The small extension from the River Black cut through the hollow spaces in Black Sun’s walls. The flow could sometimes be heard though the thick stone, but only on one level did the channel come into contact with the air in the underground city, where an expertly designed plumbing system carried the cold water to the baths.

  Cronak had held his breath for nearly three hours, and it hadn’t taxed him in the least. He’d been reborn as a human wolf, and his body was now capable of doing things he’d never thought possible. It was difficult for him to bear the touch of sunlight, for it burned his fur and flesh like he was on fire, and he constantly craved blood, but those were trivial losses compared to what he’d gained. Cronak had escaped Vellexa’s manor at night and eaten his fill on street urchins and beggars, both of which were in no short supply in Ebonmark.

  But his thirst could not so easily be sated. He followed a scent through flames, frost and water, all of the way from the manor to Black Sun. He’d swam through confines so narrow he thought his bones would crack, but his tolerance for pain was ten times what it had been before, and any wound he suffered could regenerate given enough time. He felt the urge to pull away from his furred form, to regain his toned Den’nari body, but that human frame was weak compared to this one. And there was work to do.

  Cronak pulled himself up from the roaring waters and into Black Sun. He’d followed the scent of Sammeus’s killer to this cold and lifeless place, and he wouldn’t leave until his throat was filled with the other man’s blood.

  Sixty-Two

  Dane wiped blood from his vra’taar. A lone mercenary had wandered down the hall and stumbled upon his position, but Dane had dispatched the man with barely a sound and tucked the body into a corner filled with stony debris. It would be some time before the corpse was found, assuming a troll didn’t just decide to follow the scent of blood.

  He donned the man’s cloak and drew the hood. Kleiderhorn’s men and the vicious trolls amassed all along the crumbling wall, ready for the coming battle. From what he could gather the wall on the far side of the icy thoroughfare was similarly manned, which meant Kleiderhorn’s forces had the Phage flanked.

  He cautiously stepped back into the corridor. Ballistae had been moved to the low gaps in the wall, and crossbows and bows were aimed at the Phage soldiers on the other side. All hell was about to break loose. It would be best for Kruje, Maddox and himself to find a way out as far from the conflict as possible.

  Dane took a deep breath and fell in with Kleiderhorn’s soldiers. A troll eyed him suspiciously as he passed, but Dane did his best to act nonchalant. He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kleiderhorn’s men as they moved down the passage with loads of arrows and ballista bolts. All of the lights on that side of the wall had been extinguished, and the only illumination came from the Phage torches on the other side, which cast Kleiderhorn’s men in a ghastly half-glow. The air was thick with tension and sweat, and it was difficult to hear anything over the rolling Eggs on the other side of the wall.

  Dane saw a troll laboriously filling small metal spheres with scalding liquid from a large vat. Soldiers gathered up the fuming projectiles and stuffed them into oversized leather slings.

  He absently fingered the hilt of his vra’taar as he circumvented the troll. A few more yards along he saw a great iron door set in a crumbling stone wall. A rock pillar had been wedged to keep the door from toppling over. Another troll and several mercenaries stood nearby with their weapons drawn.

  And that would be the way out, he thought. Of course.

  His situation hadn’t improved – those guards weren’t likely to let anyone through, and it would be difficult to deal with them without drawing the attention of the rest of Kleiderhorn’s forces.

  I still have to go back for the others. Dane didn’t care if Maddox made it out alive or not, but it didn’t seem right to leave Kruje, especially since the giant would undoubtedly end up getting killed being forced to defend his odious owner. Dane decided he wasn’t leaving unless Kruje came with him. And how in the hell are you going to do that? If you’re lucky you might be able to sneak out of here on your own. Getting a giant through this mess is going to be next to impossible.

  He was rapidly running out of ideas. A surplus of ballista bolts and arrows was stacked against the wall. Dane grabbed a crossbow and a pack of bolts while he desperately tried to come up with some sort of plan.

  A Drage in a fine green cloak emerged from a side hall. Tendrils of sickly gray hair tangled in his thick and gnarled beard, and Dane glimpsed serpentine tattoos on the dwarf’s arms. He was accompanied by pair of axe-yielding bodyguards.

  Dane recognized Bordrec Kleiderhorn from his description. The crime lord was unarmed but still appeared strangely formidable despite his diminutive stature. His bodyguards scanned the corridor, and Kleiderhorn’s dark eyes were wide and alert. When he spoke to the men stationed at the door his voice was barely audible over the roar of the mechanized Eggs.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the nearest man nodded. The flash
of a blade under the soldier’s cloak caught Dane’s eye, and to his surprise he saw a White Dragon crest on the hilt. He glanced at the blades of the soldiers near the ammunition and saw the same.

  They were Jlantrian soldiers, infantry from the White Dragon Army…or at least they used Jlantrian equipment.

  Jlantrian soldiers, the trolls…what in the One Goddess’s name is going on?

  “Make it quick,” Kleiderhorn said. “I don’t want that bastard to know what hit him.”

  Dane had seen enough. Kleiderhorn and his bodyguards went into another hall. Dane kept to the shadows and followed them from a parallel corridor, far enough back that he wouldn’t be seen. He passed a few more soldiers moving towards the crumbling wall, but none of them seemed to notice him. Kleiderhorn and his bodyguards went deeper into the complex.

  When he was sure they were out of sight Dane drew his vra’taar and moved in.

  Kleiderhorn seemed to weigh a ton. After he’d dispatched the Drage’s men and smashed him in the face to knock him unconscious, Dane dragged the dwarf down the corridor by his heels. He only made it a hundred yards when he had to stop.

  Someone lurked in the shadows. Dane spun around, his vra’taar held ready. A blur of motion at the edge of a fountain caught his eye.

  What the hell was that? Whatever it was, it was big.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. Kleiderhorn’s goons would be on top of him at any minute. Dane took hold of the Drage’s ankle and pulled him across the slick floor.