by M. K. Gibson
The people who moved about the fortress were as I expected. Societal castoffs, runaway children, beggars and scoundrels.
In other words, poor people.
So naturally, they smelled.
Most of the realms were a knockoff of medieval or Renaissance Europe. Accents included. You know: those annoying fake British accents Americans ape when they go to the Renaissance Fair.
Since the Realms were stuck in that relative time period, so was their hygiene. But most of the people didn’t smell as bad as they should have. I never figured it out. Seriously, think about it. Next time you watch Game of Thrones and things get saucy, consider the smell that should be stinking up the place. The ratio of bathing scenes to sex scenes ratio is woefully one-sided.
But this place reeked of unwashed asses, halitosis, and poverty. A cautious look back towards my companions told me that they smelled it as well.
As we descended into the keep’s main hall, the air got warmer and more humid. Stolen goods lined every possible square inch of the stone interior. Tapestries, paintings, weapons, and carpets were strewn about, as in bad chain restaurants you peasants frequent. The ones with endless appetizers of deep-fried obesity and moderately-priced fruity drinks in type-2 diabetes commemorative mugs.
In the bowels of the fortresses was a grand hall, which held a raised dais carved with intricate unholy symbols and patterns. In the center of the dais lay a stone sacrificial altar. The reclined torture rack was recessed for a man-sized person to be held there. A cursory glance told me that the grooves in the stone were used for bloodletting. The contraption had buckles and harnesses to hold someone in place while the victim was drained of their blood. The offering for Khasil, no doubt.
Men and women lined the great hall and filled the overlooking balconies. Most wore threadbare clothing, while a few others wore leather armor and carried weapons. This must be their internal class system.
Braziers in corners of the room gave off flickering light and burned incense. But nothing they burned could mask that smell.
“Bastards!” a loud female voice said, distracting me from the poor-stink. “Your priestess comes!”
The speaker stood next to an arched doorway. She was a short and curvy with chin-length mouse-brown hair cut into a bob. Her clothing was made of soft leathers, which was finer than the rest of the people there. And she gave off a roguish, fun-loving, dangerous vibe. At first glance, she was cute, if a little too cherubic in her backside for my taste. But there was something distinctly feminine about her that I found oddly appealing.
The old crone that came through the arched doorway was definitely not my cup of tea. She was almost literally falling apart. Her skin was wrapped in bandages that seeped with infection. Her wispy hair clung to her misshapen head in intermittent sprouts and the remainder of her teeth were rotten and in various shades of yellow, brown, and black. She supported herself with a gnarled old walking staff made from the leg bone of some creature.
All of The Bastards remained silent as she shuffled into the room toward the dais. Her brittle bones and parchment-like skin threatened to split apart if she moved at anything faster than a geriatric pace.
Either that, or she was like my grandmother—the kind of old bitch that could haul ass when no one was looking but enjoyed the attention when the family had to wait for her painfully slow entrances and exits.
You know what I’m talking about. Every family has one of those attention-seeking elderly relatives. The ones who refuse to walk towards the goddamn light, and stay behind if for no other reason than to ensure other people are miserable.
Watching the priestess, I was not sure if I was supposed to be afraid of her or hug her and watch The Price is Right with her.
Then she spoke in a guttural, raspy voice.
“Slavish fools and mongrels of this accursed world, Khasil shows favor to us this day. The great queen, blessed be her unholy name, came to me in a vision and showed me a path to earn her dark grace. She showed me these four.” The priestess pointed at me and my companions. “She showed me their faces and honored me. A glimpse of her divine plan. A plan to lure them here and kill them all, forever binding their souls to the will of Khasil. Blessed is She.”
“Blessed is She!” the room repeated.
This old biddy was one hell of an orator. She had them all hanging on her every word and gesture. All around the room, the Bastards stared wide-eyed at her, awestruck. It was like going to a Baptist revival in the South. Religion really was an opiate for the masses. Everyone was enamored by yet fearful of the priestess.
Except the female speaker who announced the priestess. I caught her rolling her eyes when the priestess gave her speech. Interesting.
“Prisoners of the Dark Mother, embrace your fate and go willingly to your end. Her wrath is lessened by those who embrace her of their own free will.”
“We shall never serve your foul goddess!” Hawker called out from behind me. “She will derive no pleasure from our servitude in life or death! Right?”
I turned to look at Hawker but turned back before I said anything biting. Sadly, the realms, for all their beauty, magic, and exploitable rules, suffered from both heroic bravado and bad dialogue.
“High Priestess of Khasil,” I called out, “my name is Jackson. Some of you may know me as Shadow Jack.”
A murmur ran through the crowd. Apparently my name still carried weight among those in the underworld profession.
“You have something of mine, and I want it returned. Do this, and you live. Do it not, and each one of you will die this night.”
Now that is how you deliver dialogue.
“Dark manipulator, you have no power here,” the priestess hissed. “Khasil herself has marked you as her own. We took your token of power, and as the Mother of Sin predicted, you have come for it. You are beaten.”
“You angered a goddess?” Wren asked from behind me.
“Yes.”
“Good for you.” The ammalar nodded.
“How much longer do we need?” Cairn whispered.
“As long as it takes,” I answered back, then turned my attention to the priestess. “Your goddess is nothing more than the spoiled kid sister to Valliar. She has twice shown herself to me in the last day alone, yet I walk away unscathed. She poisons your mind with the promise of power. But look at you all, hiding in the hills like goblins. Are you not men and women of the land? Or do you prefer scraping out a living? Are you the embodiment of this very place? Society’s abandoned and forgotten, reeking of spoiled meat?”
This brought another murmur through the crowd. I saw several nodding heads. A few of the people even sniffed themselves, as if my saying they smelled was the first time they noticed.
“This priestess has turned the feared Forgotten Bastards into cowering sheep. Stealing and plucking like carrion birds. Mark my words, when she has killed us, she will turn on you all next. Her goddess will demand sacrifice. What do you think will happen to you, or your children, when she has no enemies before her to quench her thirst for blood?”
Several women burst into tears and husbands held their wives close. I had chosen my words carefully, knowing that all religious zealots sooner or later turn on their own people under the guise of sacrifice to maintain their power. And from the crowd’s reaction, I was right.
Not that I cared about them or their loss, mind you. I just needed these idiots on my side. While I felt nothing for their pain, it does not mean I relished in it. I am a villain, not evil. There is a difference.
“Enough, manipulator. Khasil awaits you. Guards, secure him. He dies first,” the priestess said. Instantly, I was gripped by two of the guards and hauled up to the dais. I was swiftly bound inside the altar and was unable to move.
The priestess started to walk slowly around the altar, chanting while she moved. The etchings and symbols on the stone dais started to glow with a sickly green light.
My allies struggled with their bonds, trying to reach me. Hawker and
Wren were struck hard in the back of their legs by steel-capped cudgels, forcing them to their knees, while Cairn had tears streaming down his/her eyes.
I just smiled.
“I give you this one last chance,” I said. “To all the Forgotten Bastards who hear my voice, heed my next words carefully: I am the Shadow Master. Bring me my token of power. Do this, and I will show you a new path. I will usher in a new era of wealth and prosperity for you all. Rise up and kill this old bitch. Do this not, and each one of you will die this very night. Choose.”
No one moved.
I heard the whisk of steel on leather as the priestess freed her ceremonial athame. She used it to cut open my shirt. Then the priestess leaned in very close, letting the blade dance along my naked torso. I could smell her rotting teeth over the smell of the fortress. I felt the warmth of her breath only millimeters from my ear. The sharp blade drew blood over my chest with only the smallest amount of pressure.
“You lose, Shadow Master.”
I leaned in toward her as best as I could, forcing the knife painfully into my chest. “Guess again, you old cunt.”
The fortress rocked as explosions sounded in the night.
Chapter Twenty
Where I Make False Promises, Strike a Blow Against Sexism, and Get Kicked in the Balls
Another volley shook the fortress. Dust came down as the stone fortress was shaken to its foundation. The priestess’s head snapped away from me towards the sound of the explosions. She hissed a curse in a language I did not recognize. Meanwhile, I laughed out loud.
“Bastards!” she bellowed, turning her head back to sneer at my mirth. Damn, the old woman had some lungs on her. “We are under attack. Respond as the Dark Mother would wish. Kill all the invaders. No mercy, no survivors, save two. One to torture and one to carry the message back to the world of the folly in attacking our home.”
The room emptied in a flurry of movement. I’ll have to say this: The Forgotten Bastards were indeed efficient when it came to mobilizing at a second’s notice. I guess when you live on the fringe of society, you have to practice response drills in case someone comes knocking at your door.
The priestess watched her people react, and when the last of her people left the great inner chamber, the only ones left behind were my allies, a few guards, the priestess, and me.
I paused my infectious laughter to address the priestess. “You know, the offer stands for you as well. Release me and you will live this night,” I offered her.
“I do not know what plot you have hatched, trickster, but it will fail. Khasil has foreseen it.”
“Your goddess is blind to all actions that involve me. It is a lesson you should learn. One of two lessons, come to think of it.”
The priestess cocked her head. “And what is the other lesson, scum?”
“The long version is that the very nature of villainy comes with the burden of knowledge. Knowledge of great power. Knowledge of your enemies. Knowledge that even at the height of your power, you must always beware the proverbial snake in the grass. The betrayer within our midst, as it were. Villains must always be prepared to be usurped by better minds. And sadly, sometimes by weaker ones. Nonetheless, that knowledge must always be on the forefront of your mind. There is a shorter version of this lesson that you failed to learn.”
“Which is what?”
“You never learned to watch your back.”
The woman who had acted as the priestess’s speaker had walked up behind the priestess and waved off the guards. The priestess turned just in time to see the other woman, who smiled at the priestess and then proceeded to smack the old bitch over the head with one of the steel-capped cudgels. The priestess crumpled to the floor and bled like a stuck pig.
“Gods above and below, I always hated you,” the woman said to herself. She then turned to the guards. “Either go outside and help repel the enemies at our gates or stay here and join her. Your choice.”
The guards looked at one another, considering their options. The men were large and burly and none too smart-looking. But this short, thick woman might as well have been General Anders herself the ways their knees knocked together. They pounded a fist to their chests and left as if their collective asses were on fire, leaving my companions where they were and me still bound to the sacrificial altar.
“Now that feels so much better,” the woman said before she bent over and began rummaging through the priestess’s satchel. She stood, holding my phone.
“You came a long way and through a mess of trouble for this, Shadow Jack,” the woman looking the phone over, not sure of what she was looking at.
“I did indeed, Ms. . . ?”
“Lydia,” she said. “Lydia Barrowbride. And I only have one question for you. If I like the answer, you get this and you get to live.”
“And if you don’t like it?” I asked, amused. “You’ll do what? Kill me?”
“I’ll geld you,” she said, flashing the dagger on her belt.
Oh, I like her.
“Ask your question.”
“If you were released, would you live up to any of the promises you claimed? Would you see the Bastards returned to their full glory?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I didn’t mean a single word.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said, pulling her dagger. She ran it up my leg and looked at my friends with a warning glare. “Move and I’ll cut his artery. He’ll be dead by the time you reach me.”
“Seeing as I still have my balls,” I said to Lydia, “I assume you wish something more from me?”
“I’ve heard of you. I’ve heard of what you do. I want the Bastards back. Back how they were before we took in this old bitch,” Lydia cursed and spat on the priestess’s unconscious body.
“I make this deal with you,” I said, hoping my words conveyed their real meaning. “Release me, give me back my token of power, and I make my deal with you and you alone. I will show you how to form the Bastards into not just a thieves’ guild, but a real power. An organization that will have the lands trembling when anyone hears your name. Do we have an accord?”
Lydia smirked. “We do indeed, Shadow Master.”
Lydia used her dagger to cut the leather bonds that held me. Freed, I rubbed at my wrists and wiped the blood from my chest with my ragged shirt.
“You have something of mine,” I told her.
Lydia held out her hand. “Shake on our accord.”
I eyed her and smiled. I took her hand in mine, maintaining eye contact. I noticed she had a lovely pair of hazel eyes.
“My totem, if you please.”
Lydia handed me the phone and instantly I felt my power rush back into me. It was euphoric. I felt like myself again. The wound on my chest stopped bleeding immediately and in seconds, the cut was gone altogether.
“Now that you are free and have your . . . whatever that is back, we need to help my people.”
“No, we don’t. And I do apologize for this,” I said.
“For what?” Lydia asked.
“For this.”
I punched Lydia right between the eyes. Her head snapped back and she was unconscious by the time she hit the floor. I stood there and smiled. Then I noticed my companions staring at me.
“What?”
“Why did you strike her?” Cairn demanded.
“Are you mad that I hit her after making our deal, or because I struck a woman?”
“Deal,” Wren said.
“Woman,” Hawker said.
“Both!” Cairn said the loudest.
Rolling my eyes, I took Lydia’s dagger and belt sheath and strapped it onto my waist. Now that the item was mine by right of combat, I used a portion of my power to change the weapon into a shortsword.
“Look, her group is out there being slaughtered by Grimskull’s forces. We can use that commotion to slip away,” I explained.
“This was your plan?” Hawker asked.
Gods above and below . . . if I didn’t need the
se people, I would very much enjoy putting them to work in particularly deep, goblin-infested mines.
“Yes. As I told you back in the cell. We would be attacked and we would use the confusion to slip out.”
“You promised to help her after she freed you from the priestess. You gave your word,” Wren chided me.
“You want me to assist in rebuilding a militant thieves’ guild who accepts the occasional assassination contract?”
“No,” Wren said, “not exactly. But . . . something to help these people.”
“And you hit a woman. Have you no honor, sir?” Cairn said in mock righteousness.
“You, of all people, ask me that?”
“What . . . what do you mean?” Cairn asked, looking nervous.
“Never mind. Look, I hit a woman who threatened to cut my artery and let me bleed out. I hit a woman who, only moments ago, betrayed her superior. Thus, we learned she is not a nice person. So, I hit a woman who deserved to be hit. Are you telling me that women are not as capable or as deadly as a man?”
“Well, I . . . the thing is . . . ” Cairn stammered.
“Exactly. Women are as lethal and cruel and dangerous as any man. And to treat them differently is to say they are inferior. And I won’t stand for that kind of intolerance. I didn’t just strike her; I struck a blow against sexism.”
Yeah, that sounded good. At least it shut these idiots up.
“Hell of a speech, boss,” Sophia said in my ear.
I smiled. The moment the priestess had come close to me, my link through the phone was re-established. I’d had Sophia feeding me intel ever since. What I didn’t have was a handle on my companions. They all stared at me with shock, disgust, disbelief, and worst of all, broken trust.
“Fine!” I yelled, throwing my arms into the air. I stood over the fallen Lydia and tapped her on the forehead to wake her up.
“I’ve reconsidered our agreement. I promised to help you, not them. I will assist you in rebuilding the Bastards, but we have to go, now. Do you understand?”
