The Ouroboros Cycle, Book Three: A Long-Awaited Treachery

by G. D. Falksen

  But though they had a good lead on Thoros, they could not escape him entirely. Only a few moments later, he entered the hall behind them, shouting loudly for soldiers to raise the alarm.

  “I think you will get your wish,” Varanus said.

  Vaclav chuckled as they turned a corner and made for some stairs. “Let us hope I am not given cause to regret it.”

  They reached the top of the stairs and ran across a stone balcony that overlooked one of the castle’s many reading rooms. The windows to the room were open, and Varanus made sure her mask was secure over her face before plunging headlong into the sunlight.

  An archway at the far end of the balcony beckoned to them. The shadows promised Varanus some relief from the danger of sunlight—which was already causing her skin to prickle beneath the sword slashes and bullet holes that had perforated her clothing. But as they reached the midpoint of the balcony, Varanus saw a group of soldiers coming into view from the adjoining corridor, blocking their path with spears and swords.

  Vaclav halted and turned back, as did Varanus. But it was too late to try a retreat: Thoros had reached the top of the stairs, accompanied by two more soldiers who had been summoned by his shouting.

  Thoros extended his sword toward Vaclav and Varanus and shouted, “Subdue the infidels!”

  Varanus sighed and exchanged a look with Vaclav. Vaclav nodded without speaking, and the two of them stood back-to-back...or as near to it as they could manage with the difference in height. Varanus drew her elephant gun and aimed it at the cluster of soldiers blocking their escape. Vaclav readied his sword and faced Thoros.

  “This is going to be unpleasant,” he remarked.

  “Nonsense,” Varanus said. “Nothing like a little slaughter to relieve the monotony.”

  Vaclav laughed loudly at this, but he was cut off as Thoros gave the order to “attack!” and charged at them. The soldiers followed his lead and rushed in, though they seemed more reluctant, especially the four attacking Varanus. Perhaps the elephant gun was something of a deterrent: as Shashavani of the Shadow, they stood a good chance of dying if they were hit by the large calibre bullets.

  Varanus decided to put it to the test. She braced her feet and fired both barrels at her adversaries, making sure to aim for the chest. Her first target was shot dead and fell to the ground. The second was hit in her shoulder, which the bullet all but obliterated. The wounded soldier stumbled and collapsed to her knees from the pain, but it did not escape Varanus that she remained alive and a threat.

  There was no time to reload, so Varanus dropped the elephant gun and drew her axes. She knocked aside the first spear that was thrust at her and bounded forward inside her enemy’s reach. As she came in close, she struck the nearest target in the leg with both axes to force him down. The length of the spears made it impossible for her to stay with Vaclav, but she trusted that he would manage without her.

  The soldier she had just wounded toppled over as his thigh was torn to pieces from Varanus’s vicious hacking. As he fell, Varanus got a proper look at his face. To her great displeasure, she recognized him as one of the men she had brought down over a week ago. She had assumed him dead, like all the other soldiers she had fought, but it seemed that was not the case.

  “I suppose, liebchen, the solution is to make sure they are dead when you leave them,” Korbinian called to her. He sat on the balcony, watching the fighting with a smile upon his bloody lips.

  “You’re not helping,” she told him, without even bothering to conceal her statement.

  “I am doing my best,” Vaclav replied as he parried Thoros’s blade and then stabbed another man through the belly.

  “Carry on, Father Vaclav,” Varanus said. “Don’t mind me.”

  She brought one axe down onto the throat of the man at her feet, making damn sure that he was dead this time. The next soldier on her side of the balcony lunged at her with his sword, and Varanus quickly retreated, battering his attacks away with the axe in her left hand. She moved to the side and allowed him to come at her. He was quicker and more forceful than she had anticipated, and after a few parries, the soldier managed to get a blow through that tore the sleeve of Varanus’s coat and cut flesh.

  Swearing in French, Varanus drove her shoulder into the man’s stomach and pushed him backward until he stumbled over the body of his dead comrade and fell onto the floor. Varanus leapt upon him and struck him again and again in the chest and face with her axes, roaring aloud, until it seemed certain he could not live.

  Varanus started to get up but suddenly a spear was driven into her shoulder, forcing her onto the ground and pinning her. Startled, Varanus looked and saw the remaining soldier—the woman who had lost her arm—gripping the spear with her remaining hand and holding Varanus down as well as she could manage. The woman swayed a little from blood loss, but her face was set with the same inhuman determination that Varanus had seen Luka display after similar trauma. Even in the Shadow, Shashavani were Shashavani: they did not easily succumb even when a mortal would give in to death.

  Varanus tried to struggle, but the soldier only held her more firmly. The blow had probably been aimed for her heart, but it had thankfully missed. She was restrained but not immobile.

  Behind her, Varanus heard another body hit the floor. She looked toward Vaclav, about to call to him for help, but Vaclav was in no position to assist. Both of the soldiers he had faced were down, possibly dead if their wounds were any indication—though perhaps not, Varanus reminded herself. Now Vaclav faced Thoros, and the duel between them was an affair of great brutality.

  Both men hacked at one another with their swords, blocking one another’s blows with attacks of their own. Soon their arms and chests bled freely from the wounds that were inflicted. Vaclav’s mouth was set in a grimace, focusing hard on the fight; Thoros, in contrast, grinned in delight at the bloodshed and laughed aloud.

  “Give in, Hussite!” Thoros shouted. “You are too young to best me!”

  “By a hundred years?” Vaclav asked. “Little enough time at our age.”

  He twisted at the waist and broke through Thoros’s defense, knocking Thoros’s sword away and cutting into the armor along his ribs. Thoros made a noise of pain and withdrew a pace, but before Vaclav could take advantage of this breathing space, Thoros advanced again with an overhead blow, forcing Vaclav to throw his blade up to parry.

  “Do not let your arrogance deceive you, Thoros,” Vaclav chided him, forcing Thoros’s sword away. “I am as strong as you. I am as skilled as you. I will not be an easy victory.”

  “Perhaps,” Thoros replied.

  He made a low cut toward Vaclav’s legs, which Vaclav quickly blocked. Thoros drew his sword up as if to recover for another blow and then smacked the pommel of his weapon against Vaclav’s chin.

  “But you are not as ruthless,” Thoros added.

  As Vaclav staggered backward, drawing up his sword defensively while he recovered from the disorienting strike, Thoros hefted his blade and brought it down upon Vaclav’s sword hand, severing it cleanly at the wrist. Vaclav cried out and fell back again, staring at the stump of his arm. He quickly grabbed for a knife at his belt, but before he could draw it, Thoros hacked through Vaclav’s leg and then plunged his sword into Vaclav’s stomach. Vaclav collapsed to his knees, struggling to stay upright as blood spilled from him.

  “No!” Varanus shouted, fighting to stand, to reach Vaclav. She could already see what was about to happen, and she had to stop it! But the soldier who kept her pinned had strength enough to overpower Varanus’s famished muscles.

  Thoros ignored Varanus and drew his sword from Vaclav’s body. He laughed and pointed the tip of the bloody weapon at Vaclav’s face, his attitude triumphant and dismissive.

  “I have been told that I am not allowed to kill without extending the offer to join us in service to the Winter King,” he said. “I find it a pointless
effort, but orders are orders. So, Hussite, I give you a choice: you may renounce Shashava and the false laws, join our ranks, and reveal to me the location of Lord Reza and his followers. Or I will kill you now and mount your head above the chair in the Great Hall as a lesson to any who would oppose us. It really is a very simple choice: convert or die.”

  Vaclav laughed weakly. Despite the weight of fatigue, injury, and starvation, he raised his head in defiance and replied:

  “The King of Hungary could not force me to convert when he threatened to have me burned as a heretic. What chance could you have?”

  Thoros sneered and raised his sword. “Good,” he said, and clove his weapon through Vaclav’s neck.

  “No!” Varanus screamed, as Vaclav’s head fell to the floor and rolled against Thoros’s feet. “No! No! No!”

  “Be quiet!” snapped the remaining soldier, already swaying on her feet from blood loss and trauma.

  Varanus felt her head pounding as she stared at Vaclav’s lifeless eyes. She had so little blood left, but that which remained boiled inside her. A strength she had not known in days suddenly returned to her, flooding her with its fire. She grabbed the spear that pinned her and tore it from the soldier’s hand. With the support of the spear gone, the soldier tumbled to the floor, her injuries preventing her from standing. Varanus pulled the spear free from her shoulder and drove it into the soldier’s chest.

  Quiet yourself, she thought, though when she tried to speak, all she managed were a few guttural snarls.

  “Well, well...” Thoros said, turning toward her. “The masked fiend that has been terrorizing my soldiers these past days. You and your comrades have been quite the nuisance to me.” He raised his sword. “I shall enjoy this.”

  Varanus tried to offer some retort, but again all she managed were snarls. She snatched up her axes and charged at Thoros, roaring like a beast even as she heaped insults upon him in her mind. Thoros seemed surprised by Varanus’s ferocity, and her first attack managed to break through his defense and draw blood.

  But Thoros did not remain unprepared for long. He kicked Varanus savagely to force her away and began hammering at her with his sword, driving her backward and to the ground beneath the might and savagery of his attacks. Each time Varanus tried to seize an opening, Thoros intercepted her and forced her away. It was all that Varanus could do to deflect Thoros’s blade.

  Growing frustrated, Varanus waited until Thoros stood mid-swing and threw an axe at his face. Started, Thoros interrupted his attack and jerked away as the axe clipped his ear.

  “Damn you!” Thoros shouted, renewing his attack. “Die you gnat!”

  Varanus withdrew to the railing of the balcony and evaluated her situation. Thoros had the advantage of strength and speed, but most of all he enjoyed height, which made it all too easy for him to deflect Varanus’s attacks and keep her pinned in place.

  Climbing onto the railing, Varanus turned to face Thoros. As he came at her again, Varanus raised her remaining axe high above her and leapt at him, bringing her weapon down two-handed, aiming to cleave his head open.

  It was a good plan, Varanus concluded, and it would have worked too, had Thoros been mortal. But he was Shashavani and centuries her senior. With inhuman speed, he intercepted her with a blow to the chest, shattering her ribs and almost rending flesh beneath the leather of her coat.

  Varanus was lifted into the air, and she fell backward, tumbling over the railing and down toward the stone floor below. Though dazed from the blow, she remained conscious until she hit the marble with a painful crack, saw a flash of white, and then saw nothing but darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  •

  It was the burning touch of the sun that snapped Varanus back to consciousness. The vacant nothingness that had filled her when her head struck the stone floor was suddenly boiled away by the telltale stinging of daylight where it touched skin exposed by the holes in her coat. Varanus jerked her head up and rolled onto her side, giving her exposed back a moment’s reprieve while the sun began to burn her chest and abdomen. Her head still swam from the impact, and she felt blood trickle down her cheek, but she was alive and awake.

  And it was well that she was, for looking upward she saw Thoros on the balcony, leaning over the railing. At first he looked amused, but as Varanus stood—aided by the nearby wall—his expression became one of shock and anger. Perhaps he expected she had been knocked out so soundly that she would simply burn to death before ever waking again. Still, Varanus was not about to tempt either the sun or Thoros. Tucking her head down to relieve the pounding in her temples, she bolted for the nearest doorway.

  Glancing back, Varanus saw Thoros drop from above and land firmly on both feet. His snarled at her, shouting obscenities in at least three languages as he charged at her. Varanus waited no longer but kept on running as Thoros gave chase. She ducked and dove down each passage that presented itself to her, working hard to place some distance between herself and Thoros, whose stride outpaced hers. She was suddenly thankful for his age, for in his day even big men had been much shorter, and the difference between them was not so great as with a younger Shashavani.

  Here and there, groups of scholars crossed Varanus’s path, though they all quickly drew away in fright at the masked creature running past them. But Varanus took advantage of the newcomers, darting behind them or shoving them into Thoros’s path. Thoros shoved them away just as quickly, and with little regard for their safety, but it was enough to slow his chase. A few minutes later, Varanus was able to duck behind the pillar of an indoor cloister before Thoros rounded the corner. Not seeing her, Thoros swore again and continued on into the next room, a trio of soldiers following behind him.

  Varanus gasped with relief when they had gone. Thoros was like a dog bent upon nothing but running his prey to ground, and Varanus was grateful for it. Had he taken a moment to search the cloister, he might have smelled the blood that hung about her. Thankfully, Thoros’s single-minded obsession with the chase would not allow him to pause long enough to detect his prey.

  “Best not to be complacent, liebchen,” Korbinian observed, as he leaned around the pillar from the other side. “They will be back eventually, when the lout realizes that he has lost your trail.”

  Varanus nodded. “I should find the others,” she said. “To tell them about....”

  She stopped, unable to speak of Vaclav’s death. She gritted her teeth and fought back tears. They would not help, not now.

  “There will be time to mourn fallen friends later,” Korbinian said. “And to exact revenge. But now, you must find your allies and see what has become of them.”

  “The Moravian Hall,” whispered Varanus.

  She checked to see that the hallway was empty before she left her hiding place. She was in the north wing and not too far from the Moravian Hall. With her axes gone, Varanus drew her sword and darted back the way she had come, carefully pausing at ever corner and intersection to be sure she was not seen. She had no wish to find Thoros on her trail again before she rejoined Joan and Djata.

  But as she approached the Moravian Hall, she realized that her allies had encountered the enemy and that it had not gone well for anyone involved. She smelled blood before she came across the first corpses—two soldiers who lay where they had fallen, pierced by arrows. Shortly after were three more bodies, torn apart by both arrows and sword wounds. The floor was slick with blood, and Varanus walked carefully, in part to avoid slipping but mostly to reduce the noise of her footsteps.

  At the doorway to the hall, she found even more bodies strewn about the corridor. The corpses had been dealt with violently, but they had all died fighting. Their own weapons were drawn and caked with the blood of their enemies. At least one of the soldiers appeared to have died not from outright injury but from exposure to the blood of the Living, which had seeped into his wounds as he lay upon the floor. Fortunately, the
blood had lain for long enough that it was probably no longer a danger, but the smell of it made Varanus hungry. She could not drink—because that would be cannibalism and because it might still be toxic—and that made her hunger all the worse.

  “Water, water, every where,” Korbinian whispered in her ear, “and all the boards did shrink.”

  “Water, water, every where,” Varanus agreed softly, “nor any drop to drink.”

  Varanus looked past the open double doors and saw another cluster of bodies on the floor, again having died in battle. But their deaths had still achieved results. Varanus saw Djata and Joan lying near the door, where they must have fallen while trying to fight their way inside. Another look revealed where they had been trying to go: the bodies of Magnus, Zabel, and Amadeus were slumped over a makeshift barricade of benches placed near the door. All of them were alive, but likely not for long.

  Two more soldiers stood by the bodies, their weapons raised in case one of the Living recovered enough to pose a threat. They were led by Jan of Holland, who stood beside Caroline of Burgundy, covered in blood and looking deeply worried by the losses among his forces. Caroline did not seem to share his concern: she held a military hammer in one hand and gleefully brought it down upon Amadeus’s head. From the state of Amadeus’s body, Varanus gauged that Caroline had already beaten him with it several times before.

  “Well?” Caroline shouted at the body. “Will you talk now? Or must I continue?”

  Amadeus did not answer.

  “You fiend!” snarled Zabel, rising as best as she was able despite being almost eviscerated. “He is dead!”

  “Restrain her,” Caroline instructed Jan, before poking at Amadeus’s body with her hammer. “Hmm...perhaps she is right, though.”

  Jan pressed the tip of his sword against Zabel’s chest and pushed her back down. To Caroline, he replied, “I believe it is so, My Lady. Perhaps you would prefer to interrogate the prisoners more gently...while we still have some.”