Chains of a Dark Goddess (12 page)

As Breskaro rode in, an old warrior lunged forward with a spear. Breskaro deflect the spearpoint with his sword. With the rim of his shield, he struck the man on the top of his skull, spraying teeth and blood onto a grey-haired priestess charging in with a quarterstaff.

Momentarily blinded by the blood in her eyes, she never saw the sword strike that killed her.

An ancient, hunchbacked priest and two teenage priestesses stood defiantly before the altar. 

“Move aside,” Breskaro told them. “I wish to worship here.”

They didn’t move.

Larekal entered, bloodstained and with a fierce cast to his face. “The horses are safe, master. The Seshallans have all been slain.” He noticed the ones in front of the altar. “All the ones outside, at least.”

“How could you do this?” one young priestess wailed. “
Why
? We are innocent servants of Seshalla.”

“There is nothing innocent about you,” Breskaro said. “Men from here attacked the Temple of the Rose of Keshomae recently.”

“Because they … because they are infidels,” she replied.

“Well, the favor is now returned. And I’m showing you how Issalian warriors treat infidels on the crusades. It could be worse. We haven’t raped anyone. Larekal, get them away from the altar.”

Larekal and Quorus grabbed the priestesses and the priest and shoved them into a corner.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked them. The acolytes shook their heads hesitantly.  “I am Breskaro Varenni, former Knight Champion of Seshalla. The greatest knight in a century, people said. Pray that Seshalla is kinder in death to you than she was to me.” 

They cowered and a wicked smile crept onto his face, behind the mask.

Breskaro knelt at the altar and gazed up at the statue of Seshalla. She was nine feet tall, her skin bronze. Her flowing hair and eyes of gold sparkled. She wore a belted crimson tunic. Her round shield and the broadsword hanging from her belt were silver. In her hand was a spear, mimicking the Spear of Endless Dawn which Breskaro had traveled halfway across the continent to recover.

“Seshalla, Seshalla,” he murmured. “I gave you everything, and you gave naught in return. I have one more gift for you, though.”

Breskaro stalked toward the devotees. “Go to the altar. I wish to make a sacrifice to Seshalla, a sacrifice as was done to the gods in olden times.”

“Have you no heart?” said the wizened priest. “Spare these two girls at the least.”

“I have a heart. It is cold and stone and has warmth enough for but one love. This temple threatened that love.”

“Seshalla, aid us!” the priest cried. “Save us from this demon!”

Breskaro paused and looked all around the chapel, feigning to search for the goddess as if she were a child hiding from him. He laughed heartily. 

“See? She does not care.”

He drew his dagger and spoke the
spell of compelling obedience
. 

“Lie down upon the altar,” he said to the priest.

Larekal and the other Knights of the Dark left the chapel and stood outside, their faces grim as they listened to the screams of agony from within.

Chapter 18

Breskaro and his knights rode along the ancient path from the Temple of Saint Resban to Peithoom Swamp, which lay many leagues northeast of Issaly, in the outer reaches of Mûlkra. At first the route was a well-traveled if crude road used by many locals and traders seeking a shortcut. It degraded into little more than a trail for hunters from the few scattered, xenophobic clans that lived in this region of barren moors and anemic farmland.

No one spoke of the massacre at Saint Resban’s aloud. The Rrakans were men of iron, solemn and straightforward, content in their revenge and the rescue of their families. Even if horrified by Breskaro’s actions, they would honor the prices they had agreed upon in exchange for their lives.

Esha rode beside Breskaro at all times. He had given her the fastest of the stolen horses, a sleek Hareezan roan, which she already knew how to ride. She spoke to him incessantly, talking about all manner of things from strange birds she spotted to tales of her grandfather’s prowess in scouting. Occasionally Breskaro took a break from reciting spells and paid attention to her, but he rarely replied. If she realized he wasn’t listening, she didn’t seem to care.

The moors gave way to marsh and slowly a tangled, mist-webbed swamp rose before them. Once the swamp was in full view as they came over a slight rise, the Rrakans paused and gazed at the Peithoom Swamp with motes of fear dancing through their eyes.

Seeing that Esha had stopped chattering, Larekal rode over and patted her on the arm. “Be brave, little one. The swamp won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Esha said sternly. “Why should I be? Nothing here can harm me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Chentius. “This is an
ill
place. Can’t you feel the hatred? We shouldn’t go in there. This is a place of death and elder—”

“Chentius,” said Larekal with a glance toward Esha. “It’s only a swamp.”

“No,” said Breskaro. “Chentius is right. This place is filled with malevolence. I can feel it, and based on its history, I know it must be. Men aren’t supposed to come here anymore. The swamp doesn’t want us.”

“Are we going in anyway?” Esha asked.

“I have to retrieve an ancient device that has the power to restore the semblance of life to those who are dead. With it, I can create an army of undead that might have a chance of saving Mûlkra.”

“Was it hidden here?” Esha asked.

“Discarded and forgotten after it stopped working.” He patted his pack. “But I have the piece that can fix it.”

“This swamp is leagues and leagues across,” said Larekal. “How will you find it?”

Breskaro drew out a map Nalsyrra had given him. It depicted the region before the swamp had ever formed and showed the lost city of Peithoom.

Larekal looked over it. “Seems it would lie near the center, but there are few landmarks on here that would remain after all this time. I’m not sure we’d be able to spot anything in there from more than fifty paces away.”

Breskaro grunted. “We shall have to go on foot as well.”

“Parts may be covered in water so deep that we’ll need a boat.”

“What I need most is a guide.” He selected four Rrakans. “I want you to split up and go in different directions, staying on the outskirts of the swamp. Look for locals. Don’t travel more than three hours away. A man could easily get lost out here. The rest of us will return to the last hillock we passed an hour ago and make camp.

“Esha, pick two men and go find us clean water.”

~~~

Two crudely dressed men with dirt-encrusted hands and faces, overgrown beards, and a grim, lifeless look in their eyes were brought before Breskaro. Quorus and Chentius stood behind them, swords drawn. Larekal, Esha, and the others were off gathering food and hunting.

“You are natives to this area?”

The men replied but not in Korian, the most common tongue on the western half of the subcontinent. Breskaro, being classically educated, could also speak Pawani, the language of the East. He tried it, but the men shook their heads.

Breskaro drew from his pouch two silver coins and threw one to each man. They pocketed them with greed in their eyes.

“Captain Larekal, see that these men are fed well but be sure they don’t leave.”

As Larekal led them away, Breskaro took the grimoire Nalsyrra had given him from his pack and searched through the spells. He had focused his studies on spells of stealth, attack, and defense. The book was organized in as arcane a manner as it was written, but at last he found what was needed, the
spell of universal translation
.

“By the gods,” he muttered after examining the spell.

“Do not assume,” Nalsyrra had told him, “that because the effect of a spell appears easy that casting it will be simple. For one thing, effects that seem quite basic to you may in fact be much harder due to the laws of nature. Also, there are many different ways to channel the energy of a spell. Do not assume that those which you learn from this book are the most efficient. This is what makes the lesser deities so powerful. They can do many of these things instinctively and without the filter of another’s intellectual methods. This is somewhat true of the Qaiar. They need the methods but they can go beyond them.”

Esha and the two men returned with water. Breskaro drank and then spent the next four hours studying the text. He practiced opening the proper channels and saying the phrases perfectly, but he wasn’t getting far. Frustrated, he decide to take a break and walk around. It was late into the evening. The men were huddled around a fire.

“Larekal, we will need to keep these men for several days until I…”

Breskaro’s eyes went wide then narrowed. Esha was fluently conversing with the two strangers. What she was saying, he had no idea, but judging from her expressions and tone, they were hearing a tale of her grandfather’s exploits.

She stopped when Breskaro’s shadow fell over her.

“You didn’t tell me you could talk to them.”

“Of course I can.”

“I cannot.”

“I’m sorry, master. I didn’t know. I assumed you’d talked to them already.”

“What have they told you?”

“They told me they want to leave. They wanted me to beg the dark one, that’s you, to let them go. I told them I wouldn’t and that I didn’t think you meant them harm. Otherwise, why would you give them the coins.”

Breskaro sighed. “I have been attempting and failing at a spell that would allow me to speak their language. How is it that you can?”

“My grandfather taught me.”

“Of course.”

“A lot of people near the swamp speak only this. They refuse to learn proper languages.”

“Well, little one, you will now be my translator as well as my shield-maiden. Ask them if they know the swamp well.”

Esha translated.

Replying through her, the one named Kriba said, “Yes, we travel into it for hunting sometimes, and famalata petals which grow wild there.”

“Have you seen the ruins of a city?”

“Once,” replied the other, whose name was Zibu. “Deep within.”

“Could you take me there?”

“Yes, but it is far and dangerous,” said Kriba.

“In payment I can give each of you a horse and two gold coins upon our return. Plus a good sword now as a downpayment.”

Greed burning within their bleak eyes, they agreed.

Breskaro chose the two Rrakan knights with the most experience as hunters to accompany him into the swamp, Firrus and Perolo. 

“I want to go with you, master,” Esha said.

“You will have to,” Breskaro replied. “I need a translator.”

Breskaro said to the rest of his knights, “Stay here, guard the horses, and await my return. I trust that you won’t dishonor yourselves by fleeing. However, if I do not return in two weeks, you are released from my service.”

“Are you sure you don’t need more men, master?” Larekal asked.

“A large party will draw too much attention and someone must guard the horses.”

~~~

Kriba and Zibu led them along dry winding paths so they could avoid slogging through fetid waist-high water. Swarms of mosquitoes plagued everyone but Breskaro. The atmosphere was gray and oppressive, an endless marsh, draped with vines and moss, and shadowed with long-twisted limbs and pale leaves.

They heard the cries and rustling movements of strange creatures. A splash would sound, sending ripples through the water, but no one ever saw the creatures that made them. Everyone, save Breskaro, jumped at every sound and glanced over their shoulders so often that they nearly tripped on every trailing vine or sunken log.

As they forged deeper in, the temperature rose from cool autumn to sweltering summer in a matter of hours. 

Esha wiped sweat from her brow. “It was cool outside the swamp. Why’s it so hot in here?”

“Volcanoes,” Breskaro replied. “Two of them deep within the swamp.”

“Fire mountains?” she said. “Wouldn’t those dry up all this muck?”

Breskaro shrugged. “The place was cursed with terrible magics, it doesn’t have to make sense.”

While the others tried to sleep at night, catching a few moments of rest, Breskaro kept his routine and studied spells. The two guides, Kriba and Zibu, were restless. They woke often during the night and glanced toward Breskaro. When he would notice them, they would duck their heads back and return to sleep. They deeper they went into the swamp, the less they slept and the more they fidgeted while on the march.

“Esha,” he said in the morning while the others were breaking up their small camp, “ask our guides if they are used to staying the night in the swamp.”

“No,” she replied a few minutes later. “They don’t often spend the night. They usually come in and leave on the same day. It’s not safe to stay too long. There are wicked creatures that haunt the mist and water.”

“But they know where we’re going? Be sure of it.”

She asked them again. “Yes, most certainly. They wouldn’t lie to you. They think you’re a demon and that you might drag them into Torment if they displease you.”