by David Benem
Words of power thundered through Lannick’s head. His sword-arm burned. He thrust his blade toward the creature’s mouth and the point found its black tongue and then the back of its skull. “To the old hells!” he cried.
The Necrist shrieked despite the blade splitting its tongue, the divided organ still wriggling madly about in its maw. The high-pitched wail sounded like something sucked away rather than given voice, and it lasted but an instant. Then the abomination fell slack.
Lannick jerked his sword free and the Necrist tumbled over the wall. It dropped to the ground with a dull thump, coming to rest alongside Brugan’s corpse.
Lannick whimpered and blinked back burning tears. All the men about him remained silent.
They buried the dead at dawn.
The graveyard—a place of honor for dead thanes and brave folk who’d died in their service—rested at the town’s eastern end, a swath of swaying grass encircled by tall oaks. The bodies of the three dead oath-bound had been wrapped in white linens and placed in a row near the ring of trees, Brugan’s covered corpse just beside them. The thane had insisted the old barkeep be buried among his most honored soldiers after hearing the circumstances of his demise. “He deserves a hero’s place,” the thane had said. “You have no idea,” Lannick had replied.
Thane Vandyl himself presided over the ceremony, a solemn affair attended by nearly two hundred of his oath-bound as well as the grieving families of the fallen. Vandyl coughed through old prayers to Illienne the Light Eternal and warned of ancient foes returning to the world. He spoke of the need to be vigilant—a call that brought Lannick’s hand to his Coda—and urged that even the worst of evils could be overcome by virtue in the end. He offered well-practiced words of comfort to the weeping families, and worn platitudes about lives sacrificed for the greater good.
Lannick stood beneath a creaking oak at the graveyard’s edge, listening less and less to Vandyl’s sermon. Instead, he drew long, shuddering breaths and did his best to keep his tears at bay. He felt that cold hollow in his gut, that all-too-familiar feeling of a profound loss. He wanted to cry out, to give voice to his agony, to scream to the dead gods that Brugan did not deserve this fate.
But he knew they’d pay no heed.
He’d learned that long ago.
The silence of the dead gods was the echo of the emptiness in his heart. That sense of terrible sadness he’d never be able to remedy. That reminder he’d never be able to bring back his family.
Or my only friend.
He thought of the wide smile that often stretched Brugan’s ugly, lumpy face, and the laughter that rolled from his broad belly. He thought of the man’s resolute faith in him, his belief that Lannick could be something more than what he’d allowed himself to become. And he thought of the man’s generosity, of all the times he’d helped Lannick in a pinch.
And how he died trying to save me from a Necrist coming to collect on Fane’s sick bargain.
He looked to the big man’s body, stiff and motionless beside the black pit dug for it, and did all he could not to vomit. He thought of his own weakness in Brugan’s final moments, how grief had stilled his hand when the Necrist summoned the voice of his dead son. And he thought, too, of how a stronger man—a man less broken—could have continued to fight without hesitation and spared the life of his friend.
He could dam his tears no longer and they spilled upon his cheeks.
Vandyl finished his eulogy and a pair of mail-clad soldiers began placing the dead in their graves. They hefted the corpses one by one and eased them into the ground. Brugan proved too wide for the hole dug for him, and the soldiers set about working with shovels to wedge his form into its hole. The body dropped with a thud.
Lannick’s chest wracked with a sob, a cry escaping him. “Keep your edges sharp, lad,” he remembered Brugan telling him. He drew a deep breath, trying to steel himself. He turned his ears to Vandyl’s words, hoping the routine of ceremony would dull his thoughts of guilt and grief.
Thane Vandyl shifted beneath his great bearskin cloak and walked to the first grave. He coughed wetly against his fist. “Worren served me for twenty years,” he said through a rough-sounding throat. “He was courageous and wise and steadfast. A rare man, and I lament his passing. His family?” he said, eyes searching the crowd.
A portly, weeping woman of perhaps forty years stepped forward, two sons just shy of manhood trailing just behind. They shared an embrace with the thane, then each grabbed a handful of the upturned dirt and tossed it across the body.
“May this earth pave your path to the Elder God’s heavens,” Thane Vandyl said.
Vandyl offered words to the remaining two of his fallen oath-bound, and with both the respective families threw clumps of dirt upon the bodies.
At last Vandyl came to Brugan. He looked to Lannick. “Captain?” he said through a wheeze. “This is your man. I’ve not the right to speak for you or for others who knew him best. You and your men should say your farewells.”
Lannick sniffled and swept tears from his face. He tried to summon some semblance of composure but was unable to speak. Inside he trembled as he watched his companions move near the grave.
Kevlin stooped to grab a handful of the upturned soil. He rose and tossed it across Brugan’s corpse. “We’re not the same without you,” he said, swiping the rest from his big hands. “Not the same at all.”
“No,” grumbled Arleigh Lay, reaching out his one remaining hand to throw a fistful of dirt. “Goodbye, Brugan. I’d have liked to march with you one last time.”
“One of our very best,” said Cudgen, repeating the ritual. “We’ll miss you, Brugan.”
The three turned and looked to Lannick, the weight of their gazes causing him to tremble all the more. After a moment, he trudged toward the grave.
He came to stand at the foot of the pit, Brugan’s thick body resting slightly cockeyed at its bottom. He tugged in a ragged breath. His legs felt weak and his head flooded with so much sadness it seemed ready to crush him.
My only friend.
He blinked and stared through bleary eyes. He thought of how Brugan was the person—the only person—who’d remained a friend to him even during his awful descent into those dark depths. For nine long years Brugan stood steadfast while he wallowed and wasted away. Lannick knew he’d given his friend little in return during that time, not even those few silver crowns he’d left unpaid at The Wanton Vicar.
“I owe you much, old friend,” he said, voice quavering. “Far more than my bill at the Vicar. You were a friend when no one else was, and you never gave up on me. You were a fierce fighter and a welcome advisor. I owe you for all that remains of me.” He thumbed a tear from his cheek and after a moment continued. “We will miss you as the Elder God welcomes you to his distant heavens, but I know you’ll bring him laughter.” He snatched three silver crowns from his purse and tossed them into the grave. “Farewell.”
“What the fuck is that for?” Arleigh hissed, staring at the coins.
“Brugan would know,” Lannick said with a sob, stooping to the loose soil to throw it over the body. “He would know.”
He rose and used a sleeve to rub tears from his cheeks and snot from his nose. He heaved a shuddering sigh and straightened his spine.
Thane Vandyl addressed the crowd. “Let the bodies rest and the souls set upon their journey,” he called. “Those who grieve may come to the keep for a feast of remembrance.”
The oath-bound soldiers and families of the dead shuffled from the graveyard, through the ring of oak trees. Thane Vandyl, though, lingered, then came close to Lannick.
“Three of my men,” the thane said, looking to the graves. “Three of my men dead and another of yours. The one wounded sits gibbering madness in my infirmary.”
Lannick swallowed hard. “I’m sorry for your losses.”
“And I for yours,” Vandyl said, squinting toward the rising sun. “Upon hearing of the deaths of these men I considered withdrawing my offer
of twenty oath-bound. The danger of these vile creatures of the dark—these Necrists—concerns me. But I know such beasts will never be defeated by me holing up and making some sad, last stand in this keep. I know they’ll only be stopped by winning the fight against General Fane. By ripping away that tumor festering in Rune’s army, and giving those soldiers the chance to defend this kingdom against this so-called Spider King and his foul allies. Only with that sort of victory can we put an end to tragedies like those that befell these brave men.”
“I’ll do my best, Thane Vandyl,” Lannick said.
Vandyl coughed wetly, bringing a fist to his mouth as he did. Dark blood speckled his hand as he removed it. “You’d better do nothing less. I’m dying, Lannick. I’ll not live to see the end of this war.”
Lannick tried to think of some comforting words but his emotions left little room for another’s troubles. “It saddens me to hear this.”
“Nonsense. All men die. Every last one of us—pauper and nobleman alike—finds the dirt in the end. Most do so quietly, withering away before passing from this world and from memory.” He paused and stiffened, eyes bright in the sun’s glow. “Children, for a time at least, may remember a parent’s stubbornness when faced with a dire illness, how that parent labored on and on before finally surrendering to death. But others won’t remember that, won’t even care. Such aren’t the tales passed along to others.” He cleared a wet throat. “The tales passed along are those of heroes, those rare folk who dare the greatest odds for reasons beyond mere survival. Those are the tales whose echoes will be heard by generations to come.”
Lannick nodded, eyes falling to Brugan’s corpse.
Vandyl grasped Lannick’s shoulder with his blood-flecked hand. “You have that rare chance to be remembered, Lannick. Go and win this war for all those you’ve lost, for all those who are certain to fall. Honor your dead and mine, and let my great-grandchildren hear your tale.”
8
THE GODSWELL
Prefect Gamghast drummed the butt of his walking staff against the dusty stone floor of the corridor. “A moment!” he groaned, straightening and rubbing his aching spine. “A moment, please.”
The tall, sturdily built man ahead—Tannin, the queen’s bodyguard—halted and turned. His face was square and clean but for the pitted ruin where his left eye had been. He shifted his cloak, adjusted the shutters on his lantern, and waited.
“Just a moment,” Gamghast wheezed, leaning heavily on his staff. “My bones have weathered many more years than your own.”
“We cannot delay, Prefect,” Tannin said, shining his lantern into the dark of the musty passage before them. “We risk our lives returning to the Bastion, and the closer we come to dawn the greater that risk becomes. Every corner of the place is closely watched by the chamberlain’s men.”
“You’re certain we can gain entrance?”
Tannin nodded. “Chamberlain Alamis has seized the throne, but there are still some in the Bastion who quietly object. We have some friends yet within those walls.”
Gamghast sighed and looked ahead. The catacombs had wound beneath Ironmoor for centuries, originally constructed after the War of Fates, after Yrghul and his forces razed the city. They were intended as a defensive measure, to store provisions and house citizens in the event of siege. Later, the myriad tunnels were used as a tomb, a convenient place to dispose of the bodies of beggars and orphans. Now, many claimed the ghosts of the dead haunted the stagnant passageways. They were avoided and abandoned, traversed only by the desperate or the insane.
Such as a certain mad prefect seeking answers to questions likely too dangerous for him to be asking. He grunted and smoothed the wild wisps of his white beard.
“Prefect,” Tannin said firmly.
“Very well,” Gamghast huffed, and trudged onward. After a deep breath he paused again to speak. “Has anyone else tried visiting the Godswell? Any of my brothers from the Sanctum? Prefect Kreer? Perhaps several weeks ago? Him, or others?”
Tannin slowed slightly and looked back. “No, not that I’ve heard. But wouldn’t you know such a thing? Is there distrust even within the Sanctum?”
“Distrust permeates all places in such times. Good men are mixed among bad. Worse, good and bad are mixed within the hearts of us all.”
Tannin stopped, and the glare he gave through his one remaining eye seemed not at all forgiving. “I serve no ill purpose. I serve only the kingdom of Rune and the glory of Illienne the Light Eternal.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Gamghast said, waving a hand dismissively. Simple minds are ever less murky. “I’ve no doubt you do.”
Tannin nodded curtly and resumed his tireless stride through the murk, lantern held high before him. The flame burned brightly enough, though the light seemed to fail as it tried to penetrate the gloom. The wind blew oddly in the catacombs, shifting strangely about and carrying with it the stink of decay. An occasional, distant shriek from somewhere echoed across the stone, though whether from the mouth of man or beast or something else entirely remained uncertain.
Gamghast peered over Tannin’s shoulder and thought he sensed a dim flicker far ahead. “How much farther?”
“We’re close.”
“To think,” Gamghast said with a hint of disgust, “a prefect of the Sanctum forced to use such gutters to gain entrance to the Bastion.”
“We do what we must, Prefect. We do what is necessary.”
Gamghast smiled a rare smile, finding Tannin’s practicality a mirror of his own. “Then lead the way, Tannin.”
“Here,” said Tannin, gesturing toward a jagged crack in a wall of rough rock, a slight passage seemingly used only by rats or worse. Tannin pressed lithely through the thin, twisting space, his large form surprisingly agile.
“Through there?” Gamghast asked, puzzling over the contortions that moving through the crack would require.
Tannin nodded, and held his hand out through the crack as though greeting a maiden descending from a carriage.
Gamghast angrily brushed aside Tannin’s hand and forced his way through the narrow opening, leaning his head and neck as far back as his bones would bend and angling his knees just so. Pain filled his form. “I require—” he began, but then moaned as the rough stone bit at his frail chest. He sucked in a deep breath in order to press through the deeper dark just beyond. “I require,” he wheezed, “no such assistance.”
He stumbled through, and in the faint light of the lantern found himself before a tall door of hardened wood and bound iron.
Tannin rattled the door’s hefty handle, seemingly finding it locked. “Beyond this is a passageway leading to an old storage chamber that once served the castle. Dug into the wall of that chamber is a secret doorway—for which Queen Reyis has given me one of only two keys—that leads to the Bastion’s cellars. From there it is but a short distance to the Godswell.”
“You do have a key for this door, then?”
Tannin shook his head. “There are no keyholes on this side. The locks can only be opened from the door’s other end. But as soon as the belfries toll the morning’s fourth hour, those locks will be undone. I’ve made arrangements.”
Gamghast nodded, impressed with Tannin’s thoroughness. The appointed time could not be far away, for they’d left the Abbey shortly after three in the morning. He suppressed a yawn, finding that thinking of the early hour brought to mind his lack of sleep, both on this night and many others since the Lector’s death.
And since Castor’s most unusual transition…
Just then there came the sound of heavy tumblers turning, then a squeal like a large bolt sliding. The door creaked open, pressed ahead by thin, withered fingers.
“Hurry,” said a frail, wavering voice. “You’ve not much time. Chamberlain Alamis stirs early these days.”
Tannin moved inside. “Many thanks, old friend. You risk much by doing this, and you have my lasting gratitude.”
Gamghast came behind, looking at the old man as he passed. H
e was old, his face withered and his bald head covered with liver spots. Thick, milky cataracts marred his eyes—eyes very clearly blind. Once they’d passed through the door, the man grabbed a long switch and began tapping it before him.
“This way,” the old man said over the tip-tap of his switch, walking into the dark passage of stone.
Gamghast followed, recognizing the man. “I’m relieved to see there are some here who yet serve the High King.”
“May his soul find rest,” the man said, head sagging briefly before rising sharply. “I know your voice.”
“Prefect Gamghast of the Sanctum. And I know your face. You were attending Queen Reyis when last I came to the Bastion.”
“I am Jalim,” he said with a stiff bow. “Simply Jalim, and I have held the queen’s counsel since her youth.” Worry pinched his heavily wrinkled face. “Things are well with the pregnancy? There’s been no mishap?”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Gamghast said, nervous eyes searching the corridor for eavesdroppers. “But we will speak no more of this within these walls. How are things in the Bastion?”
Jalim continued his sightless march through the passage, clicking his switch before him but feet seemingly confident of their path. Gamghast reckoned the man knew every inch of the castle, considering how long as he’d served. The old man remained silent, prompting Gamghast to ask his question again.
“Anxious,” Jalim answered after a moment, his tone thoughtful.
Tannin sniffed. “That would seem an improvement from when I departed.” He touched the nasty mess of scabs and scars where his left eye had been. “Alamis’s lackeys left me half as blind as you.”
Jalim nodded. “A frightful night, that. But the violence subsided thereafter, likely because there remained no one left to stand up to Alamis directly. There has been little discussion of Queen Reyis, and none at all of the Sanctum. The chamberlain seems more concerned with consolidating his own power than with those he believes deposed.”
