"The storm maybe," said Kro, emerging from the cloth. "But not the day."
Belmorn took in his surroundings. There was no gate, no painted sign, nothing to mark the place that was omitted from all but the most complete of maps. Just then, he realized that the so-called razor gale had brought wind alone. Whatever snow had flown in the air had been ripped from the ground and all else. He could see shapes, great blocky things. Buildings.
Stiff fingers prodded at the various knots until the tapestry came free. Then, Belmorn lifted and bunched the cloth until a girl's face appeared.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Rivka spoke through chattering teeth. "That... was longer than the ones I remember."
Belmorn smirked, then began gathering up the fabric. Making sure that there was plenty around her face, he wrapped the girl up as she had been when they left Kro's hollow.
"Thanks," she chattered.
"Alright, keep your voices down," Kro's warning sounded distant.
As the remaining snow settled, the buildings acquired features. Things like steps and doors took shape while various bits of clutter appeared on the street. Barrels, crates... a smashed cart lay beside the pile of stones it had once carried.
Belmorn noticed what looked like a small corral. The simple fence was badly damaged on one side.
"Goats," Kro offered an answer to the unspoken question. "This far out, you have to provide for yourself. In this case though, I'd say our herd provided for something else. Look there."
Belmorn saw a slash of bright yellow-green on one of the corral posts. Amidst the grey palette of the old mining town, the color gleamed.
"That's it then," Belmorn whispered. "You were right. The beast did come here."
Kro met the man's eye. "We should dismount. Find somewhere to tie off the horses. We have to be as quiet as possible. The witch may be wounded, but we've cornered her. She'll be desperate. Right now we have the element of surprise. I suggest we keep it."
"Agreed." Belmorn looked down at the girl with apology in his eyes. "Rivka," he said.
"No." she shook her head. "Don't you dare say it."
"I have to, girl. You know that."
"No!" Tears appeared and began to draw lines down her face. "I'm not going to go and hide in one of those buildings while the two of you fight that thing. Do you hear me? No! No more leaving!" At that moment, Rivka's chest wound pulsed with dull pain, but she hardly noticed. "Jayce was the only real home I ever had. But that thing took it away. Just by being born." As she spoke, her voice increased in intensity but also volume. "Don't tell me I'm not in this fight. Don't... you... dare."
"I..." Belmorn traded a wary glance with Kro. "I was going to say that you should keep your wits sharp. Watch. Listen."
Looking surprised, the girl drew the back of one arm across her eyes. "You... were?"
"Yeah," lied Belmorn. "Do you still have that knife?"
Holding the weapon up, the girl nodded.
"Good. Keep it just in case. But that knife must be your last resort." Belmorn reached back up to the saddle, pulled his Graelian axes from their sheaths. Then, looking as if he should know better, he handed one to the girl. With wide, hungry eyes, Rivka accepted the weapon. Grinning broadly, she bounced the thing in her hands, testing its weight.
"It's... not as heavy as I thought."
"Not so heavy, but the balance takes some getting used to. Feel it. Learn to anticipate it. And remember, only one side of the head is for cutting."
"And the other?" she swung the axe in a clumsy arc. The hammer end struck the ground with a ringing THUNNNGGG!!
The horses startled, and Kro turned with fire in his eyes. "For getting us all killed, perhaps?" He sounded annoyed. "You did hear what I said about the element of surprise, right?"
"Yes," said the girl, holding the axe as tight as she could. "Sorry."
"Alright, then." Kro shifted his cloak and drew the Maldaavan blade. It's length gleamed redly.
With that, the unlikely trio walked down the street, leading their horses. The first building crept up on the left. Like the rest, it was rectangle and scant of feature, utilitarian.
The blackfoot's blood surged hotly in his veins. Here at long last was Jayce, the proverbial X on the map. Of course, the true end of his quest had never really been a place.
He glanced at the man to his right.
"Remember," Kro's voice brimmed with quiet passion. "The hag could be anywhere. Around any corner. Jayce is meager as settlements go, but if she's nested in one of the residences, that's over twenty buildings we'll have to check. Keep your eyes open... for blood. For anything."
The sound of approaching hoofbeats kept him from saying more. Details of the rider were hard to make out, but there was no denying the large black stallion.
"Henric! Well, good you decided to join us." Kro's sarcasm didn't completely hide the relief in his voice. Stretching his neck, he attempted to see beyond the approaching rider. "Where... are your men?"
There came no response beyond a flap of dark cloak. The lone rider had a strange, slouching posture. He seemed to be sitting too far forward in his saddle.
"Kro." Belmorn's voice had a dangerous edge. "Something's wrong."
13 - 4
As he came closer, the three saw a pair of arrows fletched with black crow feathers. One stuck out of the man's collar; the other protruded from his chest--dead center, from that tiny stylistic hole in the breastplate.
"Henric?" Kro stepped toward the approaching rider, then stopped.
There was blood on the captain's face but his ice blue eyes yet gleamed with life. "K-rro," he sputtered, coughing. "I'm s-orry."
The apology was punctuated explosively as nearly two feet of sword burst forth--erupting from Galttauer's torso.
Like his men, the captain was covered in pale, ornate plates mounted upon an under layer of leather, allowing for a more supple range of movement in battle. The sword slipped through a gap between those plates, just above Gaulttauer's ribs, transforming the man into the living embodiment of his city's favorite statue.
"No!" Rivka's voice echoed down the snowy street.
With a sudden jerk, the sword retracted back through and out of the man. The body of Henric Galttauer fell from his horse. Landing in a clamor, as if someone had dropped an armful of cooking pots.
Still in the saddle, the captain's killer was revealed. He wore a crumpled mask--the sort doctors sometimes fill with dried flowers to protect themselves from plague.
"You!" Belmorn's accusation came with an expression harsh enough to give a salt-lion pause. "Are you blind or just insane? Your master is dead! Vanished by the same beast that we are hunting right now."
"Mr. Kro-o-o-o!!" The voice oozed like a slime, falling like steaming tar upon the ears in a strange, staccato accent. "The snake mother cannot have you, Mr. Kro."
Belmorn sneered, stepping between the masked man and his companions. "Insane it is, then."
The crumpled mask twitched, then shuddered as if shaking off a flash of cold, but the rider said no more. Kro and the girl were equally silent.
"If we battle, that monster is going to hear. Then she'll upset all our purposes." Belmorn brandished a single axe and a violent gleam in his eye. With a swipe of one hand, he ripped open his collar. "Whatever this is has to wait because right now we have a common enemy."
"I have only one enemy!" bellowed the masked man. "What the snake mother does is none of my concern. I am not here for her. Nor you, fool of a riverman!" The man's bloodied sword swung lazily through the air then stopped to indicate the man to Belmorn's right. "I told you, Mr. Kro. Today is a day of reckoning. For the settling of debts. I hope you did not think me a liar."
Belmorn and Rivka both turned in shocked silence to Tenebrus Kro.
"Kro?" Belmorn's voice held resolve. "What in Rinh's name did you do?"
"I... I don't know!" Kro's voice was low, but honest. He looked down.
On the ground, labored clouds rose from th
e captain's form. He wasn't moving, but for now, the stubborn son of a bitch was still alive.
"Kro?"
"Damn it, Belmorn. I said I don't--"
The man in the mask dropped from his saddle, hitting the ground with a hard crunch. He turned to regard the sword which he had stuck into the captain. It was different from those he had wielded initially. Long with an ornate, silver crossbar, it was the very sort carried by members of the Roonik Guard.
Without a word, the masked man inclined his head as clouds puffed and leaked through popped seams. Those clouds looked angry, like dragon breath. Stepping forward, the mysterious assailant thrust his blade into the ground. Then he reached both hands back, unlatching unseen straps within the thick ropes of his hair.
The mask landed like cast-off skin in a crumpled heap. Before, when Kro had looked upon that false face, his claim of ignorance to the man's identity had been true. But now, with his enemy's face revealed, memories resurfaced.
The man had dark brown skin and bloodshot eyes that looked yellow in the dying light of day. His nose was broad, his lips were thick, and he wore a partial beard. A section of his face--from just below one eye, down to the collar bone--bore horrendous, pinkish scars. The sort granted only by fire.
Though he looked older than when last Kro had seen him, it was a face not easily forgotten.
"The other Guards," Steam shot past Belmorn's teeth. "Where are they?"
"They were in my way." The scarred man offered a shrug--pulled the sword from the ground. "Now you are in my way."
"Stop." Kro walked slowly forward, posturing himself so that his thirsty red blade was behind his body. "Please... I do remember you. It has been a long time. Ten years."
"More than that!" the man roared. His voice rang between the buildings. "Lifetimes more."
Belmorn met Kro's eye. "Damn it, Kro, what did you do?"
"Much." Kro's voice was low. Barely loud enough for anyone but himself to hear.
"You were gone for a long time, Mr. Kro." The scarred man looked down at the crumpled mask on the ground. "But I knew that if I waited, one day you would come back." There was something mixed in with the man's hostility. Hatred, but also pain. So much pain.
"What do you want?" Kro's voice held resignation.
The man turned his back to the rest as he hunched over something which was slowly pulled from his belt. Something the others hadn't noticed. There came a sharp scraping sound and then the flickering of light.
"A small thing." The scarred man stood up, turned. In his hand was the Bàozhú cross that had fallen from Kro's pack when the two had tussled. The fuse of which now terminated in a furious, hissing spark. "I want you to say his name."
Kro's expression turned desperate. As if he were staring down the throat of a volcano, trying to comprehend its fury.
"Who's--?"
"The name of my boy!" The scarred man lunged forward. "You took him away! Used him up, piece by piece! Now you will tell me his name!"
13 - 5
Over the course of fifty-one years of living, Tenebrus Kro had been many things.
In the past three decades, he had uncovered much that was unknown and tried to put some of that to good use. In some cases, hope was administered, in others... lives were saved. Strange that whenever he looked back, none of that mattered. Only the mistakes. The regrets. The actions he would gladly give the better part of his body and soul to take back.
But there was no taking back, only moving past or burying deep.
Here he was, back in Jayce after so long. Trying to right his life's greatest folly, only to have a lesser one catch up.
When he found them, the remains of a young boy had been little more than charred bones--part of a finger, a few teeth. All accounts agreed that the boy's mother and infant sibling had perished in a blaze which was already hastening into legend--but the father had survived. And when a pale traveler had come from across the great ocean, seeking shelter and knowledge of hidden things... the still grieving man had confirmed the tragic accounts of what happened to his family.
The boy had not played with fire... the fire simply was. And whether it truly had been sent from their harvest god, or if fate had simply been in a particularly cruel mood, the boy had been the door for that fire. Its way into being. And his flesh?
So much kindling for the blaze.
The father, who had suffered such severe burns trying in vain to save his wife and infant, had pointed the way to his son's resting place. For the safety of all, the grave had been placed far away from the village. On a distant hill overlooking the sea, where the boy could do no more harm.
At the time, Kro easily rationalized the act of exhuming the remains as a necessary evil. Spontaneous combustion was beyond rare. The opportunity to study the bones of the unfortunate boy could not be passed up--especially when the secrets to one of the four elements might be contained within.
Air and salt, water and flame. Unearth, unveil and know. Such was the creed of the alchemist. All the justification Kro had required to still his conscience for the work at hand.
In the end though, the bones had not held the secret to the fourth element. Not fire, only smoke. A trick he had used a few times over the years.
"Well?" the scarred man's teeth and eyes flickered with the light from the dwindling fuse. "Say it!"
"I'm sorry," said Kro with real regret. "I can't. I... don't remember."
The scarred man bellowed a cry of frustrated rage. He lunged forward, sword in one hand, sparking cross in the other. Protecting his companion, Belmorn swung his axe in hard, devastating arcs, but the scarred man was fast.
As he pivoted, the long ropes of his hair swung in counterbalance. He grunted as they slapped his back. Out shot an elbow, then a well-placed knee. Belmorn stumbled back, grasping his stomach, coughing, fighting through the tears.
Kro's red blade appeared from the side, but the strike was half-hearted at best. The scarred man raised his own, deflecting the blow in a loud metallic clang. Then, with foam in the corner of his mouth, he looked into the eyes of Tenebrus Kro and spoke a single word.
"Babatunde."
The man's face was a hideous thing--marred by time and fire and years of incessant hate. The smile stretching across the ruined lips was the worst part of all.
"Say it!"
Kro stammered, trying to repeat the name.
"Baba--"
But it wasn't going to be enough. Could never be. He knew this as well as he had ever known anything, and so did the man with the scars.
"--tun--."
But before the final syllable formed on his tongue, the alchemist felt the cross pressing into his shoulder, across his collar bone. The sharp, white agony of an arrow, pinning it in place. He looked down just in time to see the last of the fuse disappear in a sickening, little hiss.
Once the flame reached the stores of refined powder inside, the fury of ten suns came screaming from four cardinal points.
The sounds that followed were of the air and of salt. Of water and flame. Yes--that one most of all. In his hubris, the man who was making them had unearthed and he had unveiled, but as countless prismatic embers scorched and melted and exposed the tendons beneath his flesh... only now did Kro finally understand.
He had never really known a damn thing.
A gloved hand shot forward, gripping the arrow still embedded into Kro's shoulder. With one mighty pull, the shaft and the cross came away. Belmorn, shielding his eyes from the light, hurled the shrieking thing like a tomahawk. The Bàozhú cross spun and screamed through the air, down the main street of Jayce and out of sight.
Howling, Kro dropped to his knees. His hood had taken some of the damage, but judging by his cries, not nearly enough. Belmorn ripped away the smoldering garment, tossing it to a patch of snowy ground where it could do no further harm.
Hands, twisted into claws, clutched and raked the ground. In vain, Kro began pressing fistfuls of snow into the open wound where his face had been until
the man's consciousness gave out and he finally collapsed.
Belmorn stared in abject shock. Kro was not moving. Where his face had hit the earth, a wisp of steam now rose but by whatever Gods remained, he was not moving.
Remembering the axe in his hand, the blackfoot turned. Setting the storm in his furious grey eyes upon the interloper. This brown-skinned, rope-haired assassin whose scars seemed lacking when measured beside the ones inflicted upon his friend.
The assassin did not appear to notice the blackfoot thundering towards him. His arms were slack, his hands empty. Only when the axe cleaved the air did he move. Pivoting, thrusting out an elbow, he grabbed Belmorn's wrist and turned, twisting.
For a moment, the world upended. Belmorn landed hard, sliding a few feet. The scarred man shambled over to the nearest horse. He pulled a pistol from where it was strapped to the saddle and aimed it at the large riverman.
A series of clicks drew Belmorn's attention and his eyes widened.
"No! Stop," he said. "Get out of here!"
The scarred man turned his head at a curious angle, keeping the pistol pointed right where he wanted it.
"What's the matter with you?" Belmorn was close to pleading. "Do you hear me? I said go!"
"Pale skinned men..." sneered the man with the pistol. "The same everywhere. Always certain. Always so above. Even now, with you down there and this iron between us, you think you can decide what happens next, just by flapping your tongue." He lifted the barrel, stepping closer so that barely a foot separated it from its target.
"Hey!" Rivka shouted from behind the scarred man. "He wasn't talking to you."
Startled, the man wheeled round.
KUNGG!!
The second Graelian axe smashed into the man's skull, flattening his nose with such force a red stream shot through the air. The momentum pulled Rivka forward; the axe struck the ground hard enough to create a spark.
Dazed, the man stumbled a step back and then again, past the felled body of Henric Galttauer.
"That's what the other side is for!" Rivka shouted this as if it were the most venomous curse she could muster.
Mark of the Witchwyrm Page 24
