Thieves' Honor

by David Combs

  The mage gasped as he suddenly realized that the magical call he had felt all this time derived from this book. Tyrell could feel the magic as it pulsed from the tome without any need to concentrate. With trembling hands, Tyrell gently slid the skull away from the pages and began reading the scribbled runes within.

  ***

  Nestor and Galen were back inside the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Starlight. Galen had stealthily crept ahead but found that the secret door remained closed. No signs of their pursuers were evident. Nestor had followed in behind him and sighed with relief at their discovery.

  “Well, at least we don’t appear to be followed anymore,” said the warrior. “I needed some good news.”

  “Do you suppose there is a catacomb here we could search? I just want to find this damn sword, and get out of here,” grumbled Galen.

  “What’s the matter, boy? Holy places got you spooked? Are the gods going to strike at you for your thieving ways?” Nestor laughed.

  “No, I’m comfortable enough in church. Never met a poor box I didn’t empty.” He grinned back at the warrior. “I just don’t like this place. Everything feels so dead.”

  “Fitting, then, that you will be meeting your end here,” called a deep voice from a side hallway. Nestor and Galen whirled around to see the blond giant stride forward with a huge sword in his hand. Three other knights followed closely behind him. All were clad in black armor, and each wore those now too familiar red sashes. The other knights all leveled crossbows at the companions. “I lost a couple of good men, good friends, getting through that damned door,” said the leader. The huge warrior tapped his sword casually against his shoulder as he slowly approached the two men. Then his eyes blazed with a sudden fury. “For their loss, as well as for my brothers in the Karghome Fen, shall I now take my vengeance.” He flipped his blade down to point at Nestor’s chest.

  A sudden high pitched wail sounded from behind the altar. Kershaw, now clad in a knee-length blue ceremonial robe, waved his arms frantically at the knights as he raced forward. The youngest of them, already on edge from the deaths of his comrades, turned and fired at the approaching elf. His crossbow quarrel punched into Kershaw’s shoulder, spraying the altar behind the elf with blood. The elf screamed in agony and crumpled to the floor.

  “Bastards,” roared Nestor. He plowed his shoulder into the blond knight’s chest, driving the man back into his own troops. As they scattered, Galen drew his own weapon, charging ahead at Kershaw’s assailant. The man raised his crossbow as an impromptu shield while the furious rogue attacked.

  The blond warrior slammed his knee into Nestor’s stomach, then punched the barbarian in the jaw with his mailed fist. The remaining two men held their crossbows at the ready, waiting for the opportunity to take a clean shot. Galen hacked away at the last knight’s makeshift defense, scoring a painful cut across the man’s knuckles. Before the man’s crossbow could hit the floor, Galen reversed his stroke and cut a fine gash across the young knight’s throat. Trained reflexes saved the young thief in the next instant as he threw himself forward to avoid the twin crossbow bolts that hummed through the air where he had been but a moment before.

  Nestor returned the blond warrior’s attacks with brutal fury. Fists flailed as the two men pummeled each other without mercy. Nestor answered the blond knight’s strike to the jaw with a mighty blow of his own that caused the armored man to spit blood and teeth. Their battle soon became one fueled by raw hatred with reason becoming lost in the swirling depths of blinding rage. For every successful strike, the other retaliated with an equally savage counterstrike. Each man refused to be the first to fall, and it seemed as though the very walls of the cathedral shook with their anger.

  Galen wasn’t faring so well. He now faced the remaining two knights alone, and both fought with the obvious skill of experienced veterans. They wove their blades in deft crossing strokes that pushed the thief’s guard to its limits. Despite his blinding parries, Galen had already suffered several minor cuts and knew from their sting that it was only a matter of time before he would no longer be able to keep up with them.

  A sudden flash of light blinded all of the combatants, causing all to fall away from their foes. When their eyes cleared, they saw Tyrell standing in the entrance to the sanctuary rubbing the black residue of flash powder from his fingers. His eyes burned with anger as he regarded the knights, then boldly pushed past them to kneel at Kershaw’s side. The blond giant raised his hand in a silent command to his men to hold their ground.

  The old elf gasped for breath as Tyrell lifted his head from the bloody stone. Kershaw clutched feebly at the bolt sticking from his shoulder. As his gaze fell upon Tyrell, the mage saw that the elf recognized him, and for the first time since their meeting, seemed completely lucid.

  “Ne tamo ki Kaariken,” whispered Kershaw as he grasped Tyrell’s hand. The wizard simply nodded. Kershaw smiled and whispered, “Feramik ila fev’amish.” The elf stiffened, groaned once, and then lay still.

  “Walk eternally in sunlight, my friend,” said Tyrell, as he let the elf’s head down gently. He covered Kershaw’s face with the hood of the blue robe that he wore. He then stood and turned to face the warriors. “I have every intention of fulfilling Kershaw’s last wishes. He first asked that no blood be shed within these holy walls. If this fight is to continue then it will be taken outside.” The blond warrior nodded respectfully. “His second wish was for us to stop the Dark Enemy. I swear by all of the forces of Heaven and Hell that this damnable vampire will pay for this innocent blood.”

  The blond knight snorted. “Do you expect us to believe that you would change your allegiance for the sake of a single elf?”

  “You had better find a new bloodsucker to worship,” growled Nestor. “Your current master dies as soon as we return to Tarnath.”

  “Worship? The Shadow Lords exist only to destroy such evils. And those foolish enough to follow such villains,” the knight added with a pointed glare.

  Tyrell looked puzzled. “You are vampire hunters? But . . . we were told that those who wore the red sash served the fiend. Kellen Ambrose hired us to stop vampire cultists, and deliver the sword Shadow Reaver to him so that he could use it to destroy Darian.”

  “Who in Alhambra’s Hells is Darian?”

  Tyrell’s jaw dropped open. “Darian is the damned vampire we’ve been opposing. Who did you think it was?”

  It was now the blond knight’s turn to look confused. “I have never heard the name Darian before. However, the name Kellen Ambrose is well documented in the records of our order.”

  “Hold on,” said Galen. “What in the hell is going on here?”

  “I’d say you’ve been duped, and set upon those you should name as allies,” said one of the other knights.

  Tyrell walked up to the blond knight. “Are you telling me that Kellen Ambrose has been misdirecting us this whole time?”

  “What I am telling you is that Kellen Ambrose is a vampire lord who has wreaked havoc in these lands for close to a millennium. Ambrose’s terrors have been recorded by my brother knights for centuries. His name first appeared at roughly the time of the fall of this city. There is ample proof in our libraries to mark him as the beast that we hunt. We received information that this fiend had recruited the three of you to work for him during the daylight hours that he himself cannot suffer. At first, we only meant to watch you, and determine your intentions. However, after the deaths of our brother knights in the Karghome Fen, we were convinced that our intelligence had been correct.”

  “Your fellow knights were the men we fought in the Fen?” Tyrell sat down heavily on a stone bench. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “They were en route to Tarnath to deliver a message to some of our other soldiers about. . . .”

  “About the locations of Kellen’s lairs,” finished Tyrell. “Gods above, this all makes sense now.”

  “Ah,” said Galen, “suppose that for some of us, there are still some gray area
s. I mean what about the zombie attack, Kellen’s kidnapping, and the chase in the sewers? What about the room of coffins that he himself set on fire? Why bring the Shadow Lords into this to stop us from doing what he wanted us to do?”

  “Kellen did the whole thing to further his own deceptions,” said Tyrell. We needed an enemy to occupy our attention, so he must have anonymously tipped off the Shadow Lords to who we were. He probably figured that we’d be so busy battling each other that we would never question one another. Also, anyone who was killed in battle was one less enemy seeking to destroy him. The list of lairs was kept out of the hands of the people who could have done the greatest harm to him. He simply had to abandon the places that they knew about, and establish new hideouts before anyone was the wiser.

  “In the sewer, he staged his own kidnapping simply to convince us that his feud with Darian was real. We never looked inside the coffins he burned to see if any of his minions were even inside. Damn, I’ll bet my life now that they were all empty.”

  “What about the sword? Why not just leave it unfound, and go on about his business?”

  “He probably would have if you hadn’t heard the story of Gilgorad, and mentioned it to us all. Since we knew of the weapon, he must have decided that he would be better off having it in his own possession so that no one else could use it against him. We all supposed the sword was a legend, but he swore it was real. The reason he knew was because Gilgorad had used it against him centuries before.”

  “But why did he choose us though? Why not get someone who really was interested in helping him,” asked Galen.

  “He told us that himself. Our skills complement each other well enough to let us succeed at tasks he couldn’t undertake himself. We can function by daylight, unlike him. Also, we were conveniently thrown together on the same night, and left without a choice of refusing his offer.”

  “We need to be absolutely certain of this, Tyrell,” said Nestor. “I mean we can’t just kick down Kellen’s door, and attack him. If we’re wrong, we’ll end up on the gallows for certain. Of course, if you’re right, then I personally want to ram 3 feet of steel through his bowels.”

  “We need more to go on, Tyrell,” added Galen. “In my line of work, I know the value of evidence.”

  “We’ve never personally met with Kellen during the day, we’ve never seen him eat a morsel of food, and I can’t recall ever seeing a single reflective surface anywhere in his home. All of these are traditional signs of vampire lore. But if you want proof, I think that this confusion with the Shadow Lords as well as their own histories should give anyone a pretty clear idea that Ambrose has been lying to us from the beginning.”

  The blond knight coughed lightly. “Now that we’ve cleared all of this up, and we all realize that we both want to destroy the same creature, perhaps we should consider uniting our forces. My name is Drayton. My two surviving companions here are Krieger and Berthis. If you truly seek the destruction of Kellen Ambrose, then our swords are at your disposal.” The knight extended his hand out to the mage. Tyrell clasped it and shook.

  As the introductions concluded, Tyrell lifted Kershaw’s frail form from the stone floor and placed the elf on the great altar of the cathedral. He bowed his head reverently, then returned to the group. The knights did likewise with their fallen man, with Drayton offering a brief prayer of blessing over his dead soldier. When all were finished they joined together at the entrance of the sanctuary.

  “Now, then,” said Nestor, “all we have to do is figure out where that damn sword is. We still haven’t found a single clue.”

  “Yes we have,” said Tyrell. The wizard reached into his pack and drew forth the beautiful leather-bound book he had discovered in the city’s library. “What you are looking at is the Book of Torax’alamien. He was the most powerful wizard that the elves, and arguably the entire world, has ever known. Everything he ever learned about the arcane arts was written into this mystical book, which apparently never runs out of pages. I can turn right to any topic I concentrate on, provided that he wrote something about it in here.”

  “Is there anything in it about Shadow Reaver,” asked Drayton.

  Tyrell nodded. “Torax’alamien was the mage who enchanted the sword. This book says that Gilgorad’s body was carried to a particular crypt in the heart of the city soon after his death in the Battle of Southmead. His sword rests at his side.”

  “Then you know where the crypt is,” said Galen. “Is it close by?”

  The wizard grinned. “My friends, we’re practically standing on it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The tunnels to the crypts beneath the Cathedral of Starlight were choked with cobwebs and dust. The group proceeded slowly and cautiously. As the knights cut through wall after wall of ancient webbing, Galen would scout ahead for traps. Nestor watched the passage behind them, although nothing appeared n the centuries abandoned halls. Tyrell walked in the middle of the group, thumbing through the Book of Torax’alamien for guidance.

  At last, the twists and turns came to an end at a short stairway that emptied out into a wide chamber filled with row after row of stone sarcophagi. “We are now in the Chamber of Kings,” said Tyrell softly.

  “Elven royalty only received simple brass plaques and plain stone to mark their passing,” asked Drayton indicating the simply adorned monuments. “Doesn’t seem very fitting.” The knight absently ran his hand over the dusty stone that housed a long forgotten elven monarch.

  “The elves put less importance on their aristocracy. They understood that a bloodline didn’t make someone either good or wise. So, King Curealane the Humble set forth the practice of requiring the elven people to be buried according to their accomplishments and merit, rather than by their station. The more decorative burial chambers will be deeper in. Come on.” The mage led the others through aisles of the dead to a low opening at the far end of the chamber.

  Fewer sarcophagi were in the second room, but the carvings upon the stone were more detailed, displaying inlays of gems and precious metals. The nameplates attached to these were made of pure gold. Galen’s eyes gleamed as he took in the small fortunes used to mark the last resting places of those entombed. The thief rubbed his hands together, stepping towards a slab when Nestor grabbed him roughly by the collar.

  “We’re only here to loot one grave. Don’t touch anything else,” the barbarian growled. Drayton nodded his agreement and clutched his sword hilt a little tighter. Galen grinned sheepishly, holding his hands out wide in silent apology. He knew that he was in the wrong company to commit any acts that might be seen as irreverent or a desecration.

  Tyrell looked up from the book again. “This still isn’t the right place. This is the Vault of the Sage. All of the great elven scholars and artisans are buried here. The next chamber must be the Hall of Heroes. That is where Gilgorad was laid to rest.” The wizard hurried forward and descended another short flight of stairs that led into the final burial chamber.

  Only three sarcophagi were in the last room. Each was studded with jewels, and made from the finest quality of marble. The light from the group’s torches made dazzling reflections as the flames danced over the surface of each tomb.

  “Hero must not have been an easy title to achieve in elven society,” mused Drayton.

  “Only the greatest contributors to their culture earned a place in this room,” replied Tyrell. “This was King Khasharas,” said the mage as he touched the first stone. “He united the warring tribes of elves and brought peace to their race after six centuries of violent war. The city Khasharsta was named in his honor, and built by the unified elven nation. His laws formed the basis of not only the elven courts but were adopted by many other cities that Khasharsta dealt with.” The wizard moved to the second stone slab.

  “This is the tomb of Lady Hylissa. She was a priestess who offered herself as a hostage in lieu of an elven prince. For forty-three days she was tortured and beaten by the general of a bandit army that threatened the city. Sh
e not only endured the agony, but prayed to the elven gods throughout her ordeal to forgive the aggressors, and let them see how the elven people could live in harmony with their kind. The enemy general was so moved and ashamed by her display of compassion that he recalled his army from their siege, which had very nearly defeated the elves. Not only did he attempt everything in his power to make amends for his actions, but he also threw down his sword forever, and became the first Archbishop of Tarnath.” Tyrell walked to the final sarcophagus that sat upon a raised dais.

  “And this is the tomb of General Gilgorad. He wrote the book on elven warfare and tactics. His strategies are still required reading in most military academies around the world today. He led the elven armies to more victories than any other general in history. He fell during the Battle of Southmead while single-handedly holding back a troop of kargs. The ground had become so slick with blood that he eventually slipped, and that was when one of his opponents got in a glancing blow. It was heavy enough, though, that he fell to the ground. It was only then that the could set upon him. His second in command brought in a cavalry charge right at that moment that decimated the remaining creatures, but the damage was already done. Another of his important feats was when he drove off a despicable evil that threatened the elven nation by night.” Tyrell’s eyes met Drayton’s. “I think we all know who that was.”

  “Something with big, sharp, pointed teeth, I suppose,” said Nestor. He squinted at the end of the sarcophagus. “What the hell is this nameplate made of?” Tyrell and Galen knelt down to see better. The metal plate glittered like a rainbow even in the dim light of the flickering torches. The etchings, written in the elven tongue, were infused with diamond dust.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” whispered Tyrell. “It’s beautiful though.”

  “It’s called elvensteel,” said Galen. All eyes turned with surprise to the thief. He shrugged. “Read about it at the guild. Supposed to be the most precious metal in the whole world, and damnably hard to work with. Only the elves knew how to make things out of the purest form of the metal. It’s thought to exist only in legends.”