Isley smiled. “I am ever in your debt, Lord Egret.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“Thank you for coming, Ganomir.” said Rankin. He led the Jinn toward the back of the room. He showed Ganomir the empty chest.
“The artifacts of the Iron Witch are gone.” said Ganomir.
Rankin turned to face him. Ganomir was in a black robe, his face concealed behind a mask of black fabric and goggles whose green lenses seemed to radiate in the dim gaslight. “Your Dark Star Knight, Lord Tarquin, took them. He has taken the Iron Witch’s mask and used its blood iron to raise revenants. He usurps more power than he is due.”
“Are you certain of this?” asked Ganomir.
“I have seen it with my own eyes.” said Rankin. “Atop the skull of the fire dragon he sits upon the very throne of the Iron Witch. Upon his neck is a chain of blood iron. In his service is at least one revenant, but that number will grow if it has not already.”
“Impossible.” said Ganomir. “The Iron Witch’s throne was lost when King Garidrir had the tower destroyed.”
“Then see it with your own eyes.” said Rankin. “Go to the Dragon Forge and you will see that he has found it. He tampers in dark arts of which even your order is forbidden.”
“I will go.” said Ganomir. “I would see this throne he sits on with my own eyes.”
“Very good,” said Rankin, stepping up to him. “And after you see it, there is a duty you must fulfill.” He took the Jinn’s gloved hand and placed something heavy into it.
The Jinn looked down. In his hand was a large, golden coin. Upon its center was a gray crystal etched with the symbol of the Dark Star Knights. Around the top of the coin was written, Lord Tarquin Belemort. Around the bottom was written, In service to the Lands, a debt comes due; In defiance, a debt is owed. Ganomir flipped the coin around. There it was written, Lord Tarquin Belemort is hereby confirmed a Knight in the Order of the Dark Stars. Oaths and Measures given by Ganomir, 623rd Order of the Jinn.
Rankin fixed the Jinn with his eyes. “By his deeds, Lord Tarquin Belemort makes debts of blood upon our Lands. Beneath the Duroton sky, and by order of the Council, I pay his past to you. Go forth and collect for the Lands their due.”
Ganomir looked at Rankin. “Has this been formally authorized? To send a Jinn to collect a debt of blood for the Lands, especially against one as decorated as Lord Tarquin, would need full approval of the Council.”
“Tell me, Ganomir, do you remember the horrors of the Iron Witch?”
Ganomir tilted his head. “I do.”
“Then you know how deep Lord Tarquin’s debt is.” said Rankin. “You must do this. It is the duty of the Jinn to collect any debts to the Lands made by their Dark Star Knights. For bringing back the scourge of blood iron, the Lands are owed his blood.”
“Has Lord Tarquin not served the will of the Council faithfully?” asked the Jinn, testing Rankin’s resolve. “Your own hand has penned away the lives of innocent Icelanders. You and the Council have sent Lord Tarquin to do your bloodwork. Has he not served faithfully? Does not the Council owe a debt of blood themselves to the Lands?”
Rankin’s frail body seemed to crumple under the weight of Ganomir’s words. He nodded his head, his eyes turned down to the floor. “My debt comes due soon enough,” he said, his voice as heavy as if he were admitting a lifetime of sins to a priest. He looked back at Ganomir. “I was never worthy of the titles they gave me. I wasn’t born a noble. I was never fit to sit upon the Council. I used it as a place to hide from the praise of the people. They called me a hero; said I brought the hope of courage to the lowborn. But I did nothing for them. I cast down the Iron Witch because she took from me my family and I wanted vengeance. Yes, Ganomir, I’ve made plenty of mistakes, driven by my disdain for all those who were too cowardly to confront the evils I and my family had to bear witness to.”
Rankin breathed deeply. He looked back to Ganomir. “I know better than any the horrors the Iron Witch cast upon these Lands. I will not see another lich’s reign come to pass.” He stepped up closely to Ganomir, taking the Jinn’s robes in his bony clutches. “I do owe debts of blood to the Lands. But I beg you, let Tarquin’s debt go no deeper.”
Ganomir was silent for a moment. At last he bowed to Rankin. “Beneath the Duroton sky, I accept Lord Tarquin’s debt as my own and shall see it paid back in blood. Such is the way. Such is my lot.”
Rankin exhaled his relief. “Thank you, Ganomir. Perhaps in this, some small salvation can be had for me.” He looked into the Jinn’s emerald lenses. “Speak not of this to anybody else, to nobody on the Council.”
Ganomir bowed. He turned and strode from the room.
— 9 —
The Throne of Bulifer
An unnaturally cold wind swept the mountainous valley, pressing against the rime-covered steel wall of the Grimwatch’s northern side and rushing up its enormous height where it caused Brandrir’s long, auburn hair to whip the sides of his bearded face. His storm-cloud eyes focused on the sunken basin at the foot of the wall, nearly two-thousand feet below, where a sea of cobalt-blue demons began to gather. For as far as the eyes could see, the high, sheer cliffs of the mountains stretched the length of the valley, funneling the Kald right to the wall of the Grimwatch. This wall was the only way beyond, into the lands of Duroton. There was no gate; no portcullis to open. Just a two-hundred-yard-wide wall of steel that reached up to the very peaks of the mountains on either side of it. From this height Brandrir’s ears couldn’t hear their hisses and battle cries, but his imagination provided them nonetheless. His eyes turned up, and in the distance came a dark cloud of winged Kald.
Brandrir’s breath smoked in the cold as he took off his helmet. It was sculpted to look reminiscent of a phoenix’s head, where the upper and lower beak protruded at the front and allowed him to see—albeit a bit poorly—through the thing’s nostrils. Like the rest of his armor it was enameled in reds and oranges. The rest of his armor was also sculpted so that the entire thing had subtle flourishes like feathers, with a great pair of wings etched into the very steel upon the back. His boots and the gauntlet that covered his right hand were sculpted to look something like the talons of the mighty bird. His left arm—the mechanical one—clashed slightly with his armor, but there was little he could do about that. It was made of steel, painted red. Although the Jinn had etched feather patterns into it, it still did not exactly match. It did, however, make him look more imposing.
From behind Brandrir the metallic baritone voice of Braken rattled the chill air. “A rather large lot this time.” His heavy, gauntleted hand thumped Brandrir’s shoulder a couple times.
Brandrir stared down at the writhing pool of cobalt demons below and nodded.
“You think they’ve come to call you out again, my Liege?” asked Aries against the howling winds. She stood beside Brandrir, her long, straw-blonde hair slapping at her rosy cheeks, even from the confines of her black hood. Above her head, flying high upon a pole, the flag of the Grimwatch flapped violently. Like the skies of the far north, it was a field of bleak gray and in its center was a red phoenix consumed in golden flames. She leaned against the rusty, steel wall, her two enormous, mechanical hands gripping at the frosty ramparts on either side of her. The black steel that covered her fingertips dug into the ice that coated the wall, causing it to crack. “There’s a lot of them, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve brought enough to wage a siege against us.”
“As usual, there’s enough of them to be a hassle.” said Braken. His metallic voice now took on more gravity, “Enough to whittle away at our supplies.”
Brandrir puffed out a smokey breath that was quickly carried away by the harsh winds. He regarded the numbers of Kald below as they gathered at the foot of the wall but did not attack. They were a surly and vicious lot to be sure, but like most of the demons of the far north, they wore little t
o no armor. Their serpentine bodies were covered with sleek, cobalt-blue scales caked with frost and ice. Their abominable faces were a tortured union of serpent, beast and man. They snarled and hissed through blunt maws filled with needle-sharp teeth. And even from this height Brandrir could see their terrible eyes glowing with unnatural, yellow light. Many carried swords or axes, but he saw no rams or machines of war with them. They seemed to be holding back.
His eyes turned back up to the cloud of flying demons far in the distance. There were at least a hundred, he guessed. Beneath them, marching through the valley cast in shadows by the high cliffs to either side, he could see a small contingent of larger, heavily armored Kald. They were emissaries, he knew; the ones permitted to speak on behalf of whatever terrible creature they bowed to. For the last year the Kald had been making monthly incursions upon the wall. Each time they brought a small force and sought to call him out for talks. But Brandrir really had no interest in anything they had to say. His face still bore pink scars of frostbite from where their blood had sprayed him as a boy. The auburn beard that covered his face concealed those scars, but what they had done to his left arm was always in full view. The tank on Brandrir’s back hissed as he squeezed his left hand into a fist. His steel fingers clicked together, and the gears of his elbow and shoulder whined.
Aries turned to face him. She was far shorter than he, standing only about four-and-a-half feet tall, and she had two mechanical arms. Where Brandrir had lost his to a Kald as a boy, Aries—like most of the men and women of the Grimwatch—had been born with physical deformities. In Aries’s case, she had been born with two withered arms. But Duroton was not a land to forsake its own. Nor was it a land to let its people forsake it. The Jinn of the Grimwatch were masters of making the sons and daughters of Duroton whole by way of their magic and expertise with mechanics. In many parts of Duroton, being born lame was seen as something of an honor. It secured you a place at the Grimwatch, and it secured you the gifts of the Jinn.
Unlike Brandrir, whose arm was crafted to the proportions of his body, Aries’s arms were narrow pistons from the shoulder to the elbow. From there they became hulking things whose fists where easily two-feet in diameter. They were glossy and black with the sparkle of silver wherever hydraulic pistons were exposed. They matched the black leather armor with silver buckles she wore, although her hooded cloak concealed most of it. Like Brandrir’s arm, hers were powered by a small, brass tank upon her back and it hissed and spat steam with each movement of her arms. She turned her gray eyes up to Brandrir. “So, what do you think? You going to hear what they have to say this time?”
“No,” he said, though inwardly he had to admit that the Kald’s persistence was starting to pique his curiosity. A little voice in the back of his mind also tried to warn him that the Grimwatch’s supplies were getting low, but it was a voice he tried to push aside, especially because he hadn’t looked at the books in a while and was afraid of just how low they might be.
Aries’s fists clanked loudly as she bashed them together, her pink lips turning up into a little smile. “Shall I unleash the artillery on them?”
Uhg. The word ‘artillery’ caused that little voice to start screaming something about only having the last reserve locker of shells left. “Not yet,” said Brandrir.
“Aw, come on!” protested Aries. She puffed her little lips out and her gray eyes shown large and sad. “Please…”
Brandrir rubbed his face in his hands. Apollyon below, he hated when she used that look on him.
“I can end it all with a couple booms.” she sang out with an enticingly hopeful voice.
He smiled and puffed out a smoking breath. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that they were almost out of artillery and that her days of making things go ‘boom’ might be numbered. That is, unless he took Etheil’s advice and made an appeal to his brother Dagrir, the King of Duroton, for some supplies. But that thought made him cringe. He hadn’t spoken to his brother in nearly five years and he wasn’t exactly on the Council’s good side.
Ten years ago, after the phoenix failed to rise for him, denying him the crown of Duroton, he had come back here to the Grimwatch. He still remembered riding up to the wall and seeing those gray banners with the phoenix consumed in flames flying and the thunderous roar of the men chanting, “King of the Grims!” to him. He had been honored, of course, but naming him King of the Grims was treason against Duroton in the eyes of the country’s Council and it had strained his relationship with his brother. Still, the Grimwatch, more than any other place in Duroton, had been Brandrir’s home his entire life. Being named its King felt gratifying and validating, especially after having endured the humiliation of the phoenix failing to rise in his name. But as King of the Grims could he really beseech his brother—beseech Duroton, the lands that denied him the crown—for help? Brandrir sighed. It would be humiliating, especially without good cause.
Aries screwed her lips up as she came to terms with the fact that Brandrir wasn’t going to let her unleash the artillery. “So, you’re actually going to go see what they want this time?”
Brandrir thought a moment. Maybe he could seek his brother’s help if there were good enough cause? If there were, such as a gathering army hell-bent on Duroton’s destruction like there had been when he was just a boy, then seeking out aid would not be quite as humiliating. After all, it would be in Duroton’s best interest to aid him. If the Kald were to get past the Grimwatch then nobody in Duroton was safe. But having an open talk with the Kald, the very demons who took his mother’s life and very nearly his own and his brother’s; the monsters that took his arm; the creatures who for ages sought to destroy Duroton? No way, no how. He had nothing to say to them.
“Well?” prodded Aries.
Brandrir looked at her. “You and Braken are going to create a diversion, and then I’m going to take Etheil and Syrus with me and we’re going to go see what they’re up to.”
“A diversion? Wait, you’re actually going to speak with them?” asked Aries.
“No.” said Brandrir. “I’m going to sneak into the Shardgrims. Before I have any talks with the Kald, I want to actually see what they’re up to. They won’t expect me to do it, and it will give me an upper hand in any talks I might later entertain with them. Or my brother.”
Aries raised an eyebrow. “You sure about this? That sounds a little risky. We have no idea what lies north beyond this valley. For all we know they have an entire army waiting.”
“That’s exactly why I want to do this.” said Brandrir. “This has been going on for a year now. They must have something planned; something waiting for us. I want to go see what it is.”
“You want me to come?” asked Aries, her eyes hopeful. She punched her fists together a couple times, the loud clanks echoing off the frozen wall. “I could bash some heads for you.”
“No,” said Brandrir. “I want you to stay and lead the diversion. Just something so I can sneak by undetected.” Here Brandrir turned to his right to address his more reserved lieutenant. “Braken, I’ll need the fliers out of the way.” He pointed to the cloud of Kald in the distance. “Think you can handle them?”
Braken was something like the living embodiment of the Grimwatch’s ramparts. He was tall, muscular and imposing, and doubly so in his black armor which was dusted with snow and frost. Like Aries, he was one of Brandrir’s most trusted lieutenants and he too was born with physical deformities. Braken had been born blind and with a disfigured mandible. The Jinn had implanted a pair of ruby-lensed goggles upon his face, and staring out from behind the helmet that masked his mouth, he looked downright otherworldly. The goggles couldn’t be removed, but he could see things regular eyes could not. They also made him perfectly accurate with any type of firearm.
“I’ll get some archers up here.” said Braken, his voice reverberating through the angled mask that concealed his mouth.
Brandrir looke
d at the mass of fliers out on the horizon. They were like a gathering storm cloud. “Bolt-throwers have more range.”
Braken nodded. “They do, my Liege, but might I suggest that arrows are cheap and we have many.”
Brandrir sucked his bottom lip as he looked at the coming Kald and wondered if the Grimwatch’s supply situation was really that obvious now. A little voice in the back of his head chided him for not having studied more on the intricacies of running a castle as a child. “No,” he said at last. “I need to be sure they are taken care of. I can’t get stuck out in the Shardgrims and have their eyes spot me. Get some bolt-throwers up here and make sure none escape.”
“Let me go in your stead, Brandrir.” said Braken. “The Grimwatch needs its King, and Captain Etheil can lead us upon the Shardgrims.”
Brandrir puffed out a smoking breath. Braken was right, he knew. Part of him was almost ready to admit that it might even be a little irresponsible for him to go and also take the Captain of the Grimwatch with him. But, if he was going to appeal to his brother for aid he had to see what the Kald were up to with his own eyes. And if he was going out there he would need Etheil and Solastron with him. Solastron the wolf was as swift as the wind and his nose would prove invaluable. And Captain Etheil was worth ten men himself.
Etheil was the Grimwatch’s only remaining Dark Star Knight. After having been named King of the Grims, most of the Dark Star Knights—and the Jinn—left the Grimwatch and returned to Durtania to serve King Dagrir. They were sworn to Duroton and its King, not the Grimwatch, and so could not rightfully serve Brandrir. Etheil, however, was a slightly different story. He and Brandrir had been friends since childhood. Though Etheil was a Dark Star Knight, he had essentially been banished from the Lands by Brandrir’s late father, King Garidrir. Since then, Etheil had sworn himself to Brandrir rather than the Lands.
Etheil aside, it was quickly revealed that the few Dark Star Knights who remained hadn’t done so out of loyalty to the Grimwatch. Lord Ardur led a coup and nearly succeeded in having Brandrir deposed from his new-found throne. In fact, had it not been for Etheil, Lord Ardur might very well have been successful. Even after the failed coup, Lord Ardur and a few of the Dark Star Knights made assassination attempts upon Brandrir’s and Etheil’s lives. The attempts only ceased after Etheil sent a quick-hound to King Dagrir, telling him of the coup and assassination plots. Dagrir named a blood-debt against Ardur and his men, and Jinn were sent to collect upon it.
Here Shines the Sun Page 19
