by Edwin McRae
He watched has Vari touched one of the petrified reivers, her dark eyes inspecting his handiwork intently, and braced himself for her reaction.
“Those things are going to give me fucking nightmares,” announced Dayna in a voice drenched with disgust. She stood with the horses, her arms folded, clearly not wanting to be anywhere near the line of stone figures.
“Is it really any different to killing someone with an arrow?” Vari called back.
Relief washed through Mark. Vari understood.
“It’s...unnatural,” muttered the ranger.
“Magic is as much a part of nature as any tree or rabbit, Dayna. Spells are just as natural as eating and breathing.”
“This from the lady who treats corpses like marionettes.”
Mark decided to head this argument off at the pass and stepped out of the shadows with his hands raised.
“I come in peace.”
Vari whipped around to face him, then before he knew it, she was charging across the cobbles to wrap him in fierce hug. Startled, he put his arms around her and hugged her back, if a little awkwardly.
After a long moment she let him go and took a step back, her olive cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m just happy we all made it through…” She encompassed the carnage in the courtyard with a sweeping gesture of her hand. “...this.”
Mark nodded and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “tell me about it”. Then they looked at each other, smiling, getting a little more comfortable with the moment. Naturally, it was Dayna who spoiled it.
“Mark? You did all this?”
“Yup, with a little help.”
Her bow was bent, an arrow nocked before Mark could even blink. “Who?”
“Greetings!”
Citadel’s voice came from everywhere at once.
“Shit!” Dayna shouted, her arrow now firmly planted in the ground just millimeters from her right boot.
“No, SIT-ah-dell. Mark likes to call me Sid.”
The fortress seemed to be enjoying Dayna’s distress. And if Mark was honest with himself, he was too.
Dayna looked to him for some answers, eyes wide, her lips a thin, white line of unease.
Yes, thought Mark. A legacy of warlocks and a talking fortress. This is going to take some explaining.
17
Mark retrieved Garridar’s Ironhide and Punishment, and while he was up there, had a quick snoop around the reiver captain’s quarters. He didn’t turn up any ‘top secret’ invasion plans or hidden plunder, but he did find his old sword. It must’ve been confiscated from Dayna when she was captured.
He headed back down into the courtyard and met Vari and Dayna coming out of the stables, having fed, watered and combed their horses. Then together they took the first secret passage he had used down into Sid’s inner sanctum. At Mark’s mention of a washroom, Vari leapt at the chance to freshen up while Dayna flopped down into an armchair.
The ranger pointed at the sword Mark had propped against the bookshelf. “Thanks for finding my sword.”
Mark snort-laughed so hard that he had to clear his throat of phlegm before answering. “Your sword?!”
Dayna shrugged. “It’s got my name on it.”
Mark shook his head in disbelief and grabbed the sword for a closer inspection. Sure enough, “Dayna of Elmtree” had been scratched into the flat of the blade. He tossed the sword at her, hoping to startle the smug cow, but Dayna calmly plucked it out of the air by the scabbard.
“Dead men don’t get to own anything,” she said as she leaned the sword against her armchair.
“I’ve died two more times since then.” Mark suppressed a shudder and focused on Dayna so that his mortal memories would fail to gain any grip on his attention. “You didn’t happen to see her?”
“Who?”
“The reiver woman who killed me. About my height, platinum hair?”
“Oh, that one,” said Dayna as she put her feet on one of the side tables.
“Please, no boots on the furniture,” Sid requested politely, with just a hint of steel in his voice. While Mark was supposedly the castle’s new lord, there was no question who was still in charge of the day-to-day running.
Dayna sighed, removed her boots, and placed her grubby bare feet on the table instead.
“Better?”
“Barely.”
Mark sank into the chair opposite the ranger. “You were saying?”
“Vari dropped me off at the edge of the woods so I could pick off any reivers that decided to chase us. I heard screams, a bit of fighting, and then saw the reiver captain ride out. He headed north, towards the pass. Not long after, that reiver woman rode out and headed in the same direction.”
“Once they get over the mountains, are they in reiver territory?”
“Not quite. There’s the Barrens first.”
“What are the Barrens?”
She scowled and sank deeper into her chair, her hands folded and cradled on her belly.
“A place no-one wants to go, not even reivers. Whenever they do, they travel through in force.”
It was starting to make sense to Mark. If reiver slavers were able to set up camp within Garland’s borders, with only the occasional ranger to oppose them, Garland should’ve been overrun by now. But whatever this ‘Barrens’ place was, it was acting as a barrier between the two cultures.
“What are the chances that Officer Runaway and the Platinum Stabber will make it through the Barrens alive?”
“Pretty slim.”
“So we don’t need to worry about vengeful reivers coming to knock on the gates next week?”
“Well, these slavers weren’t the only reivers on this side of the mountains, and Hawker’s Pass isn’t the only path through them. But no matter which way you come, you have to cross the Barrens first.” She jutted a thumb in the direction of the washroom where Vari noisily splashed water about, making the most of the facilities. “Figurist or not, there’s no way she got through the Barrens on her own.”
“You’ve been there? To the Barrens?”
Dayna nodded, slowly, her eyes taking on a distant glaze. “Yup. Once.”
“What did you see?”
“Things I’d rather not remember.”
“Monsters?”
She frowned. “Not a word we use much here in Garland, apart from things like the Earwig.”
“Earwig? The little bug with pincers on his butt?”
Dayna snorted. “Never heard of those. No, the Earwig is a monster that attaches itself to a child’s head, burrows through their skull and sucks out their brains.”
“Shit!”
“Don’t panic, little boy. They’re just a tale made up to scare children into washing behind their ears. Grubby ears attract Earwigs, or so the story goes.”
“So that’s as close to a monster as Garland gets? Kids stories?”
“Yup. But for what’s in the Barrens, it’s as good a description as any.”
“Monsters doesn’t even come close, in my opinion,” Vari added as she exited the washroom, still drying her dark hair on some ancient fabric that Sid had turned up from somewhere. “But it’s a good place to start.” She sat close enough to the fire that her damp locks started to steam. “A land of dreams and nightmares. From what I’ve read, there’s power and wealth to be had in those ruins, but people who go in don’t tend to come back, and when they do, they aren’t who they used to be.”
“Yeah,” seconded Dayna. “That’s about the sum of it.”
She had that faraway look again, and Mark wondered what happened to Dayna on her foray into the Barrens. Perhaps it explained why she was so nock-happy with that bow of hers. There was no point in asking yet. She would just stonewall him. But perhaps in a while, when they knew each other better.
“So Mark,” Vari ventured with a rather girlish grin, “Are you going to show us around your new house?”
<
br /> Dayna groaned as she sat up. “I should be getting back to the villagers. They’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”
“Are they camping out in the forest?” asked Mark.
“For now.”
“I thought they’d head for home.”
Dayna shot him an incredulous look. “Remember what their ‘home’ looked like when we left it?”
Burning buildings and corpses. Although it seemed like so long ago now, the mental images were still vivid.
“Why don’t they stay here for now?” offered Mark. “There’s plenty of room.”
“Hmm, not sure how they’ll take that.” She pursed her lips in thought. “There’s a few farmers among them. They’ll want to get back to their fields. The reivers hit the town but pretty much left the outlying homesteads alone. Yet for the townsfolk, it’s a complete rebuild, so yeah, they might be interested.”
Mark’s mind was racing now. Although he hadn’t really been one to play town builders, a few of the RPGs he favored had town-building elements to them. Not that he was interested in managing food supply and sanitation for a bunch of settlers. They could work that out for themselves. But he could at least offer them protection while they rebuilt their lives within his walls. And if they started to think of those same walls as theirs, they might even help him repair the place, bring Citadel back to his former glory.
“That curious expression, Mark, is that your scheming face?” Vari was looking at him, eyebrow raised, the hair framing her delicate features now glimmering auburn in the firelight.
Caught out, Mark blushed a little. “Just working over some possibilities.” He looked over at Dayna as she pulled her boots back on. “Would you ask them for me?”
The ranger stood and gave him a long, hard look. “If they agree, and you fuck with them, I’ll put another arrow through your neck, find out where you pop up again, and keep shooting you so full of arrows that you finally decide it’s better off to just stay dead.”
Mark did his best to remain impassive. “Dayna, have you ever heard of the term ‘people person’?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Didn’t think so.”
The ranger shrugged, picked up her bow and quiver, and sauntered off into the tunnel, headed for the stables.
Vari chuckled. “She does her best to hide it, but I think she likes you.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure that knowledge makes her any easier to be around.” He looked to the ceiling and called out. “Sid?”
“Yes?”
“Do you feel like taking us for a tour?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
The barracks were cavernous, and while the blankets and mattresses had been eaten to pieces by insects, the dry conditions had preserved the wooden bunks and foot-lockers. The laboratory was draped in oilskins that were keeping the various alchemical apparatus in good condition. Similar care had been taken with the torture chamber. Even the cells would be usable after a little oiling of hinges and sweeping of floors. The dining hall was in similar shape. Nothing a good dusting wouldn’t fix. By contrast, the kitchens were so clean that Mark could’ve eaten off the floor. The only problem being that the place was full of cockroaches.
“Lunch is almost ready,” Citadel announced. “I’ll have the girls and boys serve it in the library once we’ve finished our tour. As you can see, I’ve ensured a healthy stock of leftovers should some of the villagers accept your offer today.”
A huge pot of vegetable soup bubbled over a fire and the enticing smell of baked rye bread wafted from the stone oven. Yet even Vari, who was used to dealing with corpses all day, paled a little at the suggestion of a meal made by giant cockroaches.
“Um thanks, Sid,” Mark managed. He shot Vari a worried look which she mirrored, then followed with a shrug. She was game if he was, and judging by the fastidious cleanliness of the kitchen, Mark felt a little guilty at his prejudice. “That will be lovely. Can’t wait.”
Their last stop was the Armory which included a large forge and very little else, other than empty shelves and weapons racks. Mark was a little disappointed, having hoped to upgrade his Garridar gear to something even more ‘epic’.
“Where is everything, Sid?”
“Alas,” sighed the fortress, “Warlock Garridar led the entire garrison, fully equipped, into the Barrens on some hare-brained scheme to attain an artefact.”
“What kind of artefact?” asked Vari.
“What was that thing called? Ah yes, the Sanguine Throne. No idea what it was meant to do. Garridar never said. He wasn’t the most trusting chap I’ve ever met.”
“He didn’t come back?” asked Mark.
“Nor did any who followed him. The servants tidied up, packed a few things, and then simply left. That was the last I saw of anyone until the reivers moved in upstairs.”
Mark felt genuinely sad for Citadel, being abandoned like that. “How long did you have to wait, until I showed up?”
“Hard to say, really. I snoozed for most of it.”
That’s a relief, thought Mark. In his experience, from books and movies mostly, disembodied sentients tended to go a bit crazy when left to their own devices for too long. Yes, Citadel’s appreciation of cockroaches was a little eccentric, but he seemed mentally stable in every other way.
“Well, Sid, if we can talk some people into it, I reckon we can turn you into a living, breathing stronghold again. If, of course, that’s alright with you.”
“Does a warlock crave magic that curdles the blood in the veins of his enemies?”
“Ah, not me personally, but I get your meaning.”
Mark pointed at the forge. “Will we be able to make weapons and armor here, if I can get an armorer to do it?”
“Better than that, Mark. We can make magical weapons and armor here, given the right materials. There are a few recipe books in the library that you may wish to peruse at some point. And we don’t need an armorer. I have the necessary expertise. I simply need some meaty hands to do the hammering and such for me.”
Mark rubbed his hands together in glee. There was only one thing better than finding an epically powerful magical sword, and that was making an epically powerful magical sword.
“Um, there wouldn’t happen to be a recipe for a Volcanic Sword would there?”
“A blade of living lava bound by thermal enchantments, able to slice through armor, chitin and scales like a hot knife through butter?”
Mark felt a wave of excited “squee” mount inside of him.
“It’s called Marakor’s Molten Mayhem, but you could name it whatever you like since Marakor incinerated himself in a rather tragic fireball misfire. Alas, Mark, there is one drawback with the recipe.”
He braced himself for crushing disappointment. It was going to contain some element, like the gall bladder of a red dragon, that would make it nigh on impossible to forge. It was always the case. The best loot demanded the biggest grind.
“Ok, hit me.”
“I have no fists with which to strike you, Mark. But if you wished, I could drop a piece of masonry on your head.”
“It’s a figure of speech, Sid, meaning that you should tell me the bad news.”
“Oh. Yes, the recipe requires the melting down of a reasonably strong magic item first. The power from that item would then be conveyed into the sword as a catalyst for the weapon’s own enchantment.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, the other ingredients are difficult to find but not ridiculously rare. A bit of mining should procure them.”
Mark could no longer contain himself.
“Oh my fucking god! I’ve wanted a Volcanic Sword ever since I saw it in book six of the Dragon Warriors tabletop RPG series. That book, coincidentally, had the warlock character class in it.” He bit his lip and willed himself to calm down. “Sorry, it’s just that this is an adolescent dream come true for me.”
“A few of the captives were miners once,” Vari piped
up. “The oldest one, I think he was a foreman. He talked Dayna and I through getting that blaze on the north wall going.”
Citadel’s gasp hissed from one end of the room to the other. “That was you?!”
Startled, Vari took a step towards Mark as she eyed the walls with a mixture of anxiety and guilt. “Sorry, Sid. I had no idea.”
The air shifted around them, as if Citadel was breathing through his anger. “True, true. You weren’t to know.”
Tentatively, Vari walked to the closest wall and gave it a gentle pat. “I imagine it really hurt.”
“Ever put your hand in a fire and hold it there?” asked Citadel.
“No.”
“Then you can’t possibly imagine.”
“I mean, I didn’t willingly hold my hand in the flames. It was an inquisitor who did that, using a manacle and chain.”
It was Mark’s turn to gasp. “Holy shit! Why would he do that to you?”
Vari shrugged, and although she was trying to be matter-of-fact about it, Mark could see that the memory still pained her.
Of course it would, he thought. Someone putting your hand in a fire is not something you ever forget.
“It was in the early days of my training as a figurist. I tried to run away, and he healed my hand shortly after, so the pain was brief.”
“In that case,” offered Citadel, “it is I who owes you an apology. I was being churlish.”
“No, you weren’t.” Vari shook her head. “Let’s just promise not to set each other on fire.”
“Absolutely agreed.”
“Count me in there too,” added Mark.
“This from the man who wants a Volcanic Bastard Sword?” she asked with a wink.
“Two-handed, eh? Nice. And it sounds even cooler with the bastard bit in the middle.”
She smiled. “It does rather.”
Mark gave the Armory one final look. “So this is the end of the tour, Sid?”
“Other than the labyrinth of tunnels through which you entered, yes.”
“In that case, after lunch, I’ll go topside and have a word with these miners Vari mentioned. If I’m to properly defend these people, I need the best gear.”
