Blood Gate Boxed Set

by K L Reinhart

  “Brecha?” Terak asked as the man reached the door.

  “About a week that way.” The disagreeable man paused, pointing off in one direction.

  I’m not in the far North. I’m not in Lord Falan’s realm, the elf realized. But he was a lot closer than he had been this morning.

  “Drink more of Edgeman’s Draught,” the brown-haired man grunted. He gestured to where there was another flagon on the table beside a covered bowl. “Then eat. Soup and bread and off-cuts, best for you at the moment.” The man stepped out of the room to call loudly.

  “Tanwen!? Your stray is awake!” he shouted, before slamming the door closed behind him, and leaving Terak to his confusion, but not for long.

  “Oath and bone, Gryff!” He heard the same voice he had heard when he had first arrived here. It got closer, the door swung open, and the red-haired human woman replaced his previous terrible nurse.

  “I see at least the old man was right,” the lady sighed. She was dressed in a similar fashion to the man named Gryff but appeared younger. “I’m Tanwen. I’m the one who found you,” she said, moving to the elf and raising her hands.

  “No!” Terak shrank back against one side of the bed, terrified that she was about to cast a healing cantrip, only for it not to work and for him to be outed to these strangers as precisely what he was—a null.

  And then they will cast me out of here or worse . . . he was thinking. His dark thoughts were interrupted by Tanwen’s laughter.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, elf—and I already know what you are, so don’t panic . . .” She moved toward him to lay the back of one cool hand against his forehead, no more.

  “Hmm. You’re lucky. No fever,” she said, picking up the second flagon of the stuff that Gryff had called “Edgeman’s Draught.”

  “Dear Stars, no!” Terak pulled a face at the thought of the foul liquid, before his mind caught up with his ears. She said that she knew what I was. An elf? A Journeyman of the Black Keep? An assassin? Or the other thing . . .

  The woman laughed, instead pulling the cover to bring the soup and bread to his bed, which the elf devoured quickly. He had not realized how famished he was.

  “For people like us,” the woman said lightly, “it’s one of the best heal-alls you can get.”

  Terak paused in his soup-eating and looked up at the woman. People like us? he wondered.

  In response to his wary glare, the woman simply rolled up her long sleeves, to reveal that her forearms were a nest of thick, white scars. She pointed at one, the largest, on her forearm.

  “Eighteen stitches. Hurt like an orc fight,” she said matter-of-factly, before pointing to another. “Six stitches, and got infected. I was in bed for a week.” She tapped at the side of her jaw, although Terak could see no obvious wound there. “Got two teeth pulled by Gryff himself there, after they went bad—that took one whole bottle of Araxian brandy.” Her hand moved to part her mounds of red hair, to reveal a curving white line on her scalp. “Bandit blade. Damn near took my head off. Five stitches and this time, three months in bed, as I learned how to walk again.”

  The assassin very slowly and very carefully set his long-handled spoon back into the bowl. While it wasn’t unusual for people in Midhara to bear scars—there were, after all, a hundred reasons why someone couldn’t find a healer or didn’t know enough natural magic of their own to reknit their injuries—it was unusual to see so many scars and so many stitches on one person.

  The only obvious answer was that she was a null.

  “Yep, that’s right, elf,” Tanwen’s tone was serious. Gone was the cheerful, encouraging woman of before. “Me, Gryff out there, and all the rest of the Emarii are like you. We’re nulls. I would say that it’s pretty lucky you managed to fall at our door, as we’ve taught ourselves all manner of ways how to heal and survive in a world where everyone else uses magic like washing water.”

  “It wasn’t luck . . .” Terak murmured, feeling strange and lightheaded. He had never met anyone else like himself. Not one! He was also remembering what Hyxalion had said, that he was being sent to a people called the Emarii, and he was to find someone named Kol.

  “No, I don’t think it was, either,” Tanwen said, gesturing for the elf to finish up his meal. “Luckily for you, all you had was privation, a cracked rib, a whacking great wound on your thigh, and you’d lost a lot of blood. Nothing serious.”

  Nothing serious! The elf blinked. There was something in her—a hidden steel that reminded him of the Black Keep and their uncompromising attitude to pain.

  “I bandaged up your side, gave you comfrey-root balm, and we’ve been forcing the Edgeman’s Draught down you since you got here.”

  Terak couldn’t remember any earlier attempts to drink the foul stuff. He must have been only semi-conscious.

  “And your leg has already got some kind of bind on it,” Tanwen said.

  “Skin-Bind,” the assassin nodded. “It’s all I had.”

  “Good thinking. That’s when I suspected you were what you are,” the red-haired woman said. “You get pretty creative with your injuries when you can’t wave a hand and make them all go away. “You’ll need to recover your strength, and there’s tinctures that will keep you on your feet. But you’re not going to die, elf.”

  “Terak,” the assassin said, suddenly feeling a kinship with this woman. “My name is Terak. I was sent here to find Kol.”

  In response, Tanwen merely rolled her eyes. “Weren’t we all,” she sighed, moving to open the door and let in a wash of light and noise. “Well, you’d better come along and see him in action then, huh?”

  Terak hesitated but nodded, moving his body warily out of the thin bed. To his surprise, he found that his limbs, although twinging with stiffness and a dull sort of pain, swung free. He realized that, whatever techniques these Emarii used—it was a type of magic. He set his feet to the floorboards and stood up.

  “Come,” Tanwen held out her hand, but Terak shook his head that he didn’t want it. He might have found others like him, but he was still a Journeyman of the Enclave, after all.

  The corridor outside was narrow, all wood-lined, and ending in a sharp turn and a set of stairs, from which the sound of raised voices and thumping could be heard. Tanwen led the way, and Terak hobbled, a little painfully, to emerge in a broad partially-covered space. And noise.

  And lots of humans. Terak looked owlishly at the throngs of people.

  The wooden stairs lifted to one corner of a large wooden hall, open entirely at one end onto a small green edged with low, half-tumbled, stone walls. A tall birch tree stood overhanging the ruins. Higher walls, still ruined, appeared to skirt the evening sky around them.

  “We sunk hundreds of doubloons into re-building this place, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Tanwen said as she gestured for Terak to follow her.

  The wooden half-hall was scattered with benches and tables, at which sat twenty or thirty humans in assorted robes, tunics, and shirts. Men and women of all ages and all creeds, and even some children, screamed and laughed between the gathered. Terak would have said that he was looking at some kind of celebration—not that he knew what one was like, as the Enclave had forbidden them.

  “Are they all . . . like us?” Terak had to raise his voice a little over the hubbub to be heard, as Tanwen threaded her way to edge of the room, heading to the green sward beyond.

  “Emarii?” Tanwen said, turning slightly. “Most, but not all. Some come here just to hear Kol speak.” She looked around, caught sight of the uncharitable Gryff, similar standing on the other side of the room. He raised a hand and nodded.

  Terak saw Gryff duck down, for a series of flames to burst into life between the ruins and the well-kept grass and wooden half-hall.

  “I thought you said the Emarii don’t have magic?” Terak frowned dubiously.

  “We don’t,” the red-haired woman said proudly. “But we make do. That’s flash powder and fire-thread. I said that you get pretty creative
when you can’t wave a hand, didn’t I?”

  The flames had formed small byres, dotted at the base of the tumble-down walls. It turned the small patch of ruins into a grotto. The crowd hushed to an expectant silence.

  “He does love an entrance,” Tanwen sniggered.

  A shape that had previously been a silhouette detached itself from the highest and furthest of the ruined walls. The shape of a man, or almost-man, in a large flaring cloak of black feathers, swooped down to the grass to land with a thump before the seated people.

  He flew!? Terak thought, but then his quick eyes saw the snap of a recoiling silvery line behind the man. No, a hidden swing-rope . . .

  The man—Kol—stayed huddled like that long enough to draw out the tense anticipation in the air, before slowly rising. He was tall, human, and wore a dark jerkin the same color as his feather-cloak. He was also completely bald, but his face was obscured by an elaborate white mask, shaped into a bird’s beak.

  The man named Kol raised his voice and spoke in a ringing cry.

  “Welcome, friends! Let me tell you a tale of our beloved world of Midhara, before such dark times as we face now! Let me tell a tale of the First Times! Of the First Creatures and of the Elder Beings . . .”

  11

  The Northern Wheelhouse

  Get to the Northern Wheelhouse . . . Get to the Northern Wheelhouse . . .

  The thought reverberated through Reticula’s mind as she ran along the battlements. She knew where it was, of course—even in this unnatural darkness that surrounded the Black Keep and straggled over its walls like dark ink.

  In fact, the blond-haired Journeywoman could even see the Northern Wheelhouse up ahead. It looked like a column of brick that bulged inwards from one of the outer walls, ending in a squat, rhomboid box shape with a peaked roof that straddled the battlement ahead. It was only visible thanks to the oil lanterns that swung with the dark winds at its eaves and the standing torches that flamed every few feet from the wall tops.

  The problem was that in between Reticula and the Northern Wheelhouse was a battlement already crowded with the fighting forms of Enclave warriors and beastials.

  “Ixcht it!” Reticula breathed, skidding to a halt where her own wall-way turned back inwards to run as a gallery along the inner face of one of the audience halls. There were flashes of purple curse-light and the sudden expanding ripples of protective blue shields as her Brothers and Sisters fought for their lives.

  But the Journeywoman had been taught well in the short time that she had been seconded to Father Jacques’s care in the Enclave External.

  There’s a route through the lesser galleries! she knew. Turning an abrupt about-face to run back to the nearest set of double doors, she flung them open with the multi-use unlocking spell that the Enclave used for all of its public non-restricted zones.

  “Avouna!” she said. The latches flew back, and the doors sprang inwards. No sooner did they, than Reticula was running the length of one of the narrow but long lesser galleries. These were stone rooms which had doors and windows facing the outside, often used for contemplation and quiet reflection.

  This particular gallery, in one of the most public of the Black Keep’s halls, had double wooden doors interspersed with vaulted stained-glass windows on the northern and the western sides. It afforded a view over the inner parts of the Black Keep. Reticula’s feet drummed across the gray stone that was checkered with inscribed black flagstones, each one bearing a lesson from the Book of Corrections . . .

  You must prepare to both master your pain and win. How you do each is your path. But know that if you fail at one, you have failed at the other. ~ The Sixteenth Maxim.

  You cannot choose all of your tests in this world. Sometimes, you will know from which direction the danger comes, but always remember that it will come. ~ The Seventeenth Maxim.

  Not everyone who walks beside you is your friend. Give trust cautiously. ~ The Eighteenth Maxim.

  Reticula only had to see the carved number on each slab for the memorized words to leap into her mind like a hammer blow. Maybe it was this constant battering of her attention that meant that she reacted a fraction too late when one of the stained-glass windows burst inwards, showering her with glass.

  “Ach!” She hissed as the glass fragments tore across her cheek. She flung herself to one side, rolling awkwardly amidst the glass chips, one hand already rising to her pained face.

  “Grargh!” There was a loud thumping, scrabbling shape inside the lesser gallery with her—the brutish creature had flung itself through the window to get at her.

  The words of the Malama healing prayer died before they even managed to make it out of Reticula’s lips. The Journeywoman found herself crouching and looking across at the hunched hulking form of the beastial just a little way from her.

  Beastials could have a wide variety of face-forms and shapes, Reticula had studied in the Chief Martial’s Bestiaries. This one in front of her appeared to have the face like a boar, only with two short horn brackets on either side of its pronounced brow.

  Ixcht! Reticula swore as she wished she remembered what that meant. She knew that it meant something, but she just couldn’t remember what. Did it mean that this one was more aggressive or less? Maybe it was an age thing. This one could just be older than the others.

  “Grekh!” No time to wonder if it was more aggressive, however, as the beastial sprang forward with two over-large claw-fists stretched out and reaching for her.

  Training kicked in. The Journeywoman dove to one side, the shortsword already in her hands whispering through the cool airs of the space between them.

  “Rakh!” An animal grunt and a spurt of blood erupted, as Reticula’s blade found flesh. The creature crashed into the rear wall, before backflipping and bounding toward her, windmilling its wounded arm like a club.

  “Ach!” The beastial caught Reticula a glancing blow across the shoulder, spinning her and smacking her to slide across the floor.

  At least the dark flagstones of the lesser gallery were smooth. Reticula was sliding and kicking herself backwards as the beastial bounded again, higher this time, in a leap that would send it in an arc to land right on top of her.

  The Journeywoman still had her shortsword blade in one hand. It was a thinner blade than some, and only a third of the length of a longsword—but it was forged from Tor steel, which meant it was strong and light.

  The Journeywoman of the Enclave External punched one hand flat down on the floor and thrust forwards with the other in an upwards strike.

  It went straight under the bulbous ribcage of the beastial as it landed atop her. There was a furious flurry of heavy limbs and thick claws, but the blackened talons of the beastial were dulled from its many seasons of running and climbing the mountains and iron wood trees of the Everdell Forest. They scratched and tore the heavy black robes and the lighter linens underneath that Reticula wore, but they did not find flesh before the beast heaved a confused sigh and was stilled.

  “Dear Stars! Get off me!” Reticula gagged under the foul and musty odor coming from the creature as she heaved it to one side.

  “Ghreeek . . . !”

  Suddenly, there were two more climbing over the shattered window ledge of the lesser gallery.

  Oh, yeah, the Journeywoman remembered as the blood dripped down her cheek from where she had been struck by flying glass. The horns mean it’s an alpha of its pack . . .

  “Ghrurkh!?”

  One of the two beastials—the larger one, Reticula noted—had advanced cautiously into the room and was sniffing at the air, its pig-like snout quivering in an almost excited way, the Journeywoman saw disgustedly. Its slightly smaller companion was still balanced on the shattered window ledge, growling.

  But there was a quality to the second beastial’s voice that made Reticula pause—it was a concerned, almost questioning note.

  I’m no expert at monstrology . . . Reticula thought, but she would have bet her hair that was a worried sou
nd.

  Maybe seeing the big alpha get stuck in front of it makes it think twice! The Sister of the Enclave thought in a surprisingly clear way. She could feel her own pain and worry rippling through her body, making her stomach clench and her skin quiver as if from cold.

  But Reticula’s thoughts, at least, remained calm. The Book of Corrections had taught her that much. She knew how to breathe down through the pain and worry and to allow her mind to remain clear of all distractions.

  The second largest beastial gingerly put one giant fist forward, and then another, as it stalked a few paces into the gallery. It kept its small black eyes upon her as it lowered its head to the blood-stained flagstones. Some of that blood was her own, Reticula thought, but not all. In a move that almost did completely unseat her calm, the Journeywoman saw the beastial extend one long, fleshy-pink tongue to lap at the ichor that was both the human’s and the dead fiend’s.

  A part of Reticula thought proudly that maybe these two beastials should think twice before they attempted to attack her! She was a trained Enclave member after all, taught how to resist and overcome any kind of physical or mental anguish—and she had been taught by the Chief External himself in the more ornate ways of taking a life—

  And subterfuge, Reticula thought, as she suddenly found a plan.

  It is two very alive beastials against me, her mind calculated. A wounded me, at that. Despite the fact of her special and extreme training—the Book of Corrections allowed her to calculate that her odds of surviving the next few breaths were not high at all.

  But the secret schooling of Father Jacques had not solely been concerned with how to take the breath from someone’s body. In fact, the dealing of death was only one fraction of his schooling.