by R. S. Ford
‘You have come for me, Sword Saint?’ the giant rumbled. ‘Well here I am.’
Kaleb realised this was Badab Endyr, High Lord of the Legion of Wraak. For the first time in a long time, he felt fear well up within him.
The berserkers waited in the doorway. Kaleb could hear them grumbling in their battle lust, but their fear of Badab kept them at bay.
The High Lord placed a foot on Fierdun’s body and wrenched his axe free as Kaleb glanced around for an escape route. A flight of stairs led upwards from the room, most likely to the roof and a dead end, but what choice did he have?
‘I wonder if your master, Avenor, will learn his lesson when I send him back your head.’
With that he swung the axe, the speed of it belying its size, but Kaleb was faster. He ducked, dodging past the gigantic warrior and heading for the stairs. The axe crashed down again as he raced upwards, splintering the wooden steps behind him.
Kaleb leaped through the hatch at the top of the staircase, finding himself on the open roof of the tower. The noise from the camp below was cacophonous, the light from the fires killing any starlight. The sky was black and there was nowhere to go.
Badab Endyr climbed out of the hatch, his bloodstained axe resting on his shoulder.
‘There is nowhere to run, Sword Saint,’ he said.
Kaleb already knew the truth of that. ‘Give me a weapon,’ he said. ‘And we can end this.’
Badab’s sonorous laugh bellowed into the black night.
‘You think me so stupid?’ he said. ‘I have no need to prove myself against you. All I require is your head.’
He took a step forward. There was nowhere to run. No escape other than leaping from the roof. This had only one way of ending, but at least Kaleb would not be thwarted in his mission.
He ran forward to meet Badab, ducking a swing of that axe before bowling into the huge warrior. It was like hitting a rock, the bone plates of his armour cracking as Kaleb’s shoulder impacted against the High Lord’s chest.
There was a clatter on the rooftop as Badab lost his grip on the greataxe. Off balance, Kaleb managed to shove him backwards. It was like lifting a bull, but he would not be stopped.
With a cry of rage on Kaleb’s lips he and Badab toppled from the roof.
The fall was brief. Wind rushing like a hurricane in his face. Kaleb heard the snap of bone as Badab’s body cushioned the impact. He felt pain in his head and shoulder as they both lay crumpled in a heap at the base of the tower. When his head had quit its spinning he looked across to see Badab staring blindly at the sky.
With his one good arm Kaleb tried to crawl away from the High Lord’s lifeless body. If he could make it to the river perhaps he could—
Before he had made it five yards, the Legion were on him.
36
Kaleb’s earliest memories were of the streets. He had grown up in a city where opulence and indulgence lived alongside poverty and strife. Both sides of the same city, existing in symbiosis, feeding off one another like a roiling wyrm with two vile heads.
In the years since he’d been taken, Kaleb had tried to suppress his memories, curbing the emotions he had for the place. They had been hard years of hunting for scraps, of huddling from the cold. Years in which he had made and lost many friends, too many to remember the names. His rise to Sainthood within the walls of Kragenskûl had been no harsher than his fight for survival in Tallis. It was a time he was happy to forget, and over the years thoughts of the place had faded to almost nothing.
But there was one memory he tried to keep and hold onto; an ephemeral thing he was desperate to grasp but which would slip through his fingers more often than not. Kaleb Ap’Kharn could barely recall his sister – they had been separated at an early age – but he knew one thing beyond doubt: she had loved him.
He had known that when he was finally beaten, when he lay on the cold ground staring up and waiting for the sunlight to fade, his final memory would be of her. One final image. And as he took his last breath he would see her face, his sister’s smiling face, beckoning him home.
* * *
Kaleb’s eyes opened. The left felt heavy, swollen shut from his fall. His shoulder ached and it took him a moment to realise his hands and feet were manacled.
He was naked and strapped to a chair of heavy oak, hands secured to the arm rests, feet secured to the legs. A hole had been cut from the wood beneath him so it was as though he sat on some kind of sadistic privy. His head had been strapped into position by steel rings at forehead and neck. There was no escape.
Surrounding him was shadow and a small brick room. From beyond it came the sounds of violence, as though a battle were raging all about him. Weapons clashed and voices were raised in bellowing war cants to create a cacophony.
The room was dark; candles burned to his left and right, but Kaleb barely noticed them. He was more focused on the man who sat opposite him. A grey robe hung loosely off his shoulders and a bald tattooed head watched him from the dark.
As Kaleb’s vision began to focus he could see the tattoo was of some kind of lizard or great sand wyrm, curled about the man’s deep-set right eye. As Kaleb came to, the man smiled.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re still with us.’ He took a step out from the shadows and Kaleb could see his gaunt face as though it had been whittled from a rotted tree. ‘I was worried you might not regain consciousness. That would have been most unfortunate.’
Kaleb stared back, working his jaw, loosening some of the blood that had settled in his mouth after the fall from the roof. He spat it at the man’s feet.
Ignoring the gesture, the man’s smile still beamed out those white teeth. ‘I am Byram. I hold a somewhat senior position amongst the Legion of Wraak. You might call me “Hierarch” though there is no official term for it within the Legion. They’re far too savage to give much credence to titles. You, however, I know are the Sword Saint Kaleb Ap’Kharn, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘How did you…?’
‘As I said,’ Byram continued, ‘I hold an elevated position within the Legion. You could say I am its beating heart. Its mind and mouth. Why do you think this rabble does not destroy itself? Can you not hear them? Already they are about to indulge in their savage ritual of slaughter just to find another High Lord.’ He paused, as though listening to the baying outside the room. ‘Without me this would be an everyday occurrence. Then where would we be?’
He came closer, looking at Kaleb with concern. ‘I’m not sure how long you’ll last. I’m surprised you survived the fall, but young Badab was quite sturdy. I imagine he was quite the cushion, despite the distance you fell. Still, it’s unlikely you’ll be with us long. So I will be brief… Where is Avenor?’
Kaleb shook his head. For almost a year now Avenor had moved around regularly to fool the assassins of rival cults. And even if Kaleb had known the answer he would never have told this cur.
‘Go to hell,’ he said.
‘Mmm,’ Byram looked disappointed but not surprised. ‘That’s what I thought you’d say. So I have made arrangements. You will be tortured, Kaleb. It will hurt. You will resist because of your considerable training and the natural power of your will. But eventually, when we have ruined your body and your mind, you will tell all you know.’
A door opened, letting in a little more light and noise from outside. Kaleb could hear that the bawling and shouting from outside had changed to the sound of clashing steel and cries of the dying.
A figure entered and for a moment Kaleb got the impression of a giant snake, head bobbing from side to side in a hypnotic manner. Then the door closed, shutting out the light and noise.
The figure stood beside Byram, the light from the candle illuminating her.
‘This is the Carpenter,’ Byram said. ‘You’ll get to know her well. Now I must leave; a new High Lord is hard to find, and it sounds like a lot of potential candidates might be lost before the right one rises to the top of the pile.’
Byram left the ro
om, but Kaleb could not take his eyes from the woman. She was dressed in leather, her clothes sealed with buckles as though she had been strapped in, rather than dressed. Her hair was shorn, sticking from her head in blonde tufts, and her eyes were rimmed with dark shadows as though she had been imbibing a cocktail of drugs for many years.
‘Hello, Kaleb,’ she said, and again he got that serpentine sense from her voice. ‘I am here to ask you some questions.’ She turned, walking to a table in the dark before returning with a hammer in her hand. ‘But before that I will first show you there is no hope. That resistance is pointless. To do that I must take away what is most precious to you.’
She walked forward and Kaleb felt panic grip him. The Carpenter paused, drinking in his fear. Then she raised the hammer and brought it down on his right hand.
Kaleb spat the pain through his teeth as the first of his knuckles was smashed. She raised the hammer again, another knuckle shattered beneath the hammer’s ministration, and this time Kaleb couldn’t quell a yelp of pain. Twice more she brought the hammer down until all that remained was a bloody ruin at the end of his wrist.
He stared at it for a moment. His sword hand. No surgeon would ever be able to repair such damage. Of course he could fight with his left – he was a Sword Saint after all – but it merely made the weapon sing. With his right hand he could compose a symphony. And now it was gone.
He breathed erratically as she walked back to the shadows. His head was muddled from the pain and his whole right side had begun to shake.
The Carpenter stared down at him, allowing him to register the damage she had done. Slowly she reached behind her and produced a nail from her belt. It shone in the candlelight, six inches of polished iron.
‘Blunt pain hurts, I know. But to get the most from this I will have to stimulate your nerves. That will mean damaging the surrounding flesh and bone… an unfortunate side effect. I would avoid such crudeness if I could, but there is no other way. My apologies.’
She knelt before him. Kaleb felt the panic begin to wash over him once more but he was not afraid of the pain. It was the damage he was afraid of – the prospect of her ruining his body, making him less of a man.
As she positioned the nail against his knee, Kaleb tried to struggle against his bonds but he’d been secured to the solid oak chair with utmost precision. He could not stop what was happening.
The Carpenter struck the head of the nail. Again Kaleb tried to grit his teeth against the pain but he could not quell it. She struck again, this time a light tap, and the nail hit whatever nerve ending she had been aiming for.
Kaleb screamed as the pain seared up his leg. It was as though someone were stripping his muscle from arse to ankle. He had never felt anything like it – not even on the battlefield or in the Circle of Kragenskûl.
Eventually, when he had stopped screaming, she produced another nail.
‘Where is Avenor Ap’Wroch?’ she asked.
‘Go to hell,’ Kaleb said. He tried to shut out the pain, tried to draw on all his courage.
The Carpenter positioned the iron nail against the side of his head. Kaleb breathed heavily as she paused, allowing him to savour the prospect of what was about to happen. He gave a little gasp of laughter as she raised the hammer. He had no idea what was funny.
As the hammer came down driving the nail into his skull he felt his throat becoming sore. Another strike and he felt something break in his head. His ears began to throb, and it took a moment to realise that it was his own screams he was hearing.
Beneath him he heard the slosh of his bowels evacuating into a bucket, and it was a weird feeling of satisfaction to suddenly know why they had carved a hole in the seat of the chair.
‘Where is Avenor Ap’Wroch?’ the Carpenter said.
‘I don’t know,’ Kaleb screamed.
It was the truth; he had no idea where the Sword Saint was.
The Carpenter produced another nail.
37
Iron nails became his life. The resonant sound of the hammer as they were driven into his body. The scything agony as every nerve seemed to be stripped bare and torn free.
Kaleb could not tell how long he suffered; in the dark of the room there was no way to know where day waned and night began.
He tried to hold onto his sanity, to his memories, but with every nail that pummelled into his flesh, with every crack of his bones, he seemed to lose his grip a little more. His life at Kragenskûl became a distant dream. Avenor’s crusade was just a memory, Kaleb’s victories on the field becoming nothing more than a vision beyond his grasp.
The one thing he had always tried to hold onto, the memory of his sister, faded into nothing. That had been the hardest part for him – trying so hard to hold onto something that slipped out of his hands and fell away into the deep black agony his life had become.
Only one thing mattered anymore. The Carpenter.
Eventually she stopped asking him where Avenor was. It was as though she didn’t care, or she realised that Kaleb didn’t know, but was still happy to ply her trade, to torture him into madness.
She became the only thing he had. Her and the nails…
* * *
He sat in the dark. The room was cold but he could still smell the bucket of shit and piss beneath the oaken chair. There was nothing but his breath to keep him company and the perpetual noise of battle outside.
Kaleb had no idea if the sound was real or just another fleeting memory. He could no longer discern between what was real and what was imagined. Where the Carpenter was he had no idea. Neither did he know how long he had been alone. Every time he moved he felt the nails that protruded from his body tease his nerves, filling him with spasmodic pain, making him flinch, causing him endless agony until he willed himself to be still once more.
He tried to concentrate on the noise, on the sounds of battle and death. It was the only way he could stop himself thinking about his body, about the constant pain he was in. Even when he willed himself to be still, his muscles twitched, his left eye fluttering and weeping as tears rolled down his cheek.
The clashing of steel seemed to grow louder. Angry voices screamed in an unknown language. Raging at one another, the battle echoing down myriad corridors.
Kaleb was sure the noise was creeping nearer, louder with every imagined death. The voices became clearer, their gurgling death cries sounding as though they were right outside the room.
The door burst open.
Kaleb flinched, feeling the searing agony course through his body. The light from beyond the room was blocked out by a figure that Kaleb first thought must be the Carpenter. But the intruder was larger, bulkier. His gait was that of a fighter, confident rather than serpentine.
As the figure came into the light, Kaleb thought he recognised the face. It leaned in, and a memory began to coalesce along with a name… Avenor.
‘What have they done to you?’ whispered the Sword Saint.
This could not be real. It could not be him; that was impossible. This was merely another trick of the Carpenter’s. One more torture.
Kaleb began to laugh. He could hear it in his head, long and loud and raucous.
The man masquerading as Avenor did not share Kaleb’s mirth.
‘We are leaving this place,’ he said, looking over Kaleb’s broken body, as though he dare not touch any of the nails sticking from it.
Avenor’s expression turned from sympathy to determination, and he gingerly reached for one of the nails. As he pulled out the first one, Kaleb’s laughter turned to screams. It was as though Avenor were wrenching free his brain, pulling out what little thoughts and memories were left. Kaleb felt a line of drool spill from his lips, his breath coming long and fast.
One by one, Avenor pulled the iron nails from Kaleb’s body. Each one seemed more painful than the last, and of all the tortures he had endured, Kaleb seemed to suffer most under this one. There was a final jolt of agony as Avenor slowly pulled the last nail from Kaleb’s knee, bef
ore unbuckling the leather straps that held him to the chair.
The Sword Saint stood back. Kaleb was free, but he couldn’t move; the pain in his head and limbs was burning like fire. The sounds of violence from outside had erupted once more and seemed closer than ever.
‘We have to go,’ Avenor said.
Kaleb shook his head, feeling the pain lance through his spine. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said. ‘It’s a trick.’
‘Stand, boy,’ Avenor demanded.
Kaleb trembled in the chair. ‘I can’t.’
Avenor drew his sword. ‘You can and you will. You are a Sword Saint. You will follow me and we’ll bloody well walk from this place together.’
For so long he had been at the Carpenter’s whim. He would have done anything to obey that snake of a woman. But Avenor would not be denied.
Kaleb pressed his hands against the arm of the chair, feeling the smashed right hand groaning in pain. As he pushed himself up his left leg collapsed beneath him.
Kaleb gritted his teeth as Avenor let him rest the weight of his body against one broad shoulder, and together they walked from the room.
The tower was in disarray as they moved through it. Bloodguard and Legion warriors lay dead and broken, their blood and entrails spread throughout the dark corridors. Avenor carried Kaleb down the twisting staircase that ran through the centre of the tower until he reached the rotted wooden door at the bottom. He kicked it open, revealing the hell that lay beyond.
Vast skeletal beasts, raising weapons of blazing iron, fought one another on a field of molten lava. Among them teemed giant insects, their red carapaces glinting in the light of a thousand fires. They attacked the giant skeletal warriors en masse, mobbing them with their steel blades, cutting them down and consuming them beneath a swarm of death.
Avenor’s sword was in his hand as they made their way across the infernal battlefield. Kaleb stumbled along beside him, eyes wide in terror as he took in the scene of carnage.
