City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (29 page)

It was done, and Sammeus, true to his word, had uncovered the location of the elusive Bordrec Kleiderhorn…and now they had an entirely new problem.  If Targo had told the truth (and Vellexa had no doubt he had, considering what Sammeus had put him through), Kleiderhorn was better connected and more resourceful than she’d ever given him credit for.  It would take something formidable to bring him down, something relentless.  Something like
Serpentheart
.

Vellexa ground her teeth in frustration.  Aram Keyes had sent her a message while Targo was being tortured, and it was as discourteous as she’d come to expect from him.

Vellexa – I’m nearly ready.  I intend to send the Count a report on our progress.  See me at once.

She didn’t take orders from a lunatic like Keyes, who was unfit for human company, let alone a position of authority.  He certainly wasn’t suited for the subtlety an organization like the Black Guild needed if it was ever going to survive.  The alchemist’s sick creations were the stuff of nightmares. Why the Count had handed Keyes the task of taking care of the Jlantrian problem was beyond her…after all, if not for the alchemist’s insistence on testing
Serpentheart
on Jlantrian soldiers in the first place, Blackhall never would have decided to focus so much attention on the Guild. 

“What next?” Sammeus asked.  “Should we see how Cronak is doing?”

Vellexa swallowed.  She hadn’t told him yet, and she was afraid how he’d take the news.  Sammeus and Cronak had been like brothers.

“We need to get Targo out of here,” she said.  “He
is
still alive, yes?”

“Barely,” Sammeus laughed.

“Good enough.  Go see how Cronak is doing.  As much as I dislike it, we need to return to the Cauldron.  I can’t think of any other way to deal with Kleiderhorn other than to use Keyes’s plan.”

“We don’t need Keyes,” Sammeus grumbled as he left the room.  Vellexa hoped he was right.

The men covered Targo with old bed sheets.  The man clung to life by a thread.  It would be advantageous if he lived – she could perhaps use him as a bargaining tool with Kleiderhorn, since it seemed they were friends.

Vellexa headed towards the stairs.  She saw a glow from the chamber where Cronak lay dead, and Sammeus’s tall shadow flickered against the wall.  Vellexa thought about going to him, but decided against it.  He wouldn’t want to be consoled, so she moved up the steps and thought of all of the terrible things she’d do to Bordrec Kleiderhorn for having put her through so much trouble.  The same went for Azander Dane.  It was unlikely he’d survived the explosion, but the Count was convinced the fallen knight yet lived. 

I hope so.  You don’t deserve to get off that easy.

Her mind was clouded when she came through the concealed door to the manor library.  There had to be a way to deal with Kleiderhorn’s forces without getting Keyes involved.  She had a small army of Tuscar mercenaries, but if Targo’s information was correct they’d have no chance against Kleiderhorn’s superior numbers.  Unfortunately, if Keyes had his way then
Serpentheart
would be released through all of Ebonmark, not just Kleiderhorn’s underground lair. 

Vellexa had to speak with the Count.  There was too little time and too many enemies afoot for them to make any more mistakes.  She’d not die fighting some idiot battle.

As she entered the manor she realized she wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they’d arrived.  The light from outside was dimmer than it had been before, but that probably just meant storm clouds were moving in.  She heard wood creak overhead, the sound of the sentries upstairs.  The chill in the air was sharp.  Vellexa wrapped her cloak tight and looked around.  Something seemed out of place. 

Vellexa quietly slid a dagger from the hidden sheath on her arm and started for the main doors.  The sky was filled with rapid-moving grey clouds, and trees bent from the force of the wind.  Whirlpools of leaves twisted across the yard. 

She stopped, suddenly very conscious of the silence in the manor.  She considered calling out for Regas, who she’d left posted at the door, but decided against it.  The creaking on the upper floor grew loud, and rapid.  Someone was coming down the stairs.

Vellexa kept moving, and cried out when her boot landed on Regas’s dead hand.  His throat had been cut and his body sat neatly against the wall, eyes staring at nothing.  Vellexa turned and ran back towards the dungeon.

“Sammeus!  Tyvik!”

It was too late.  Two assassins came at her, one male and one female.  Both wore black leather armor and were armed with short blades.  Vellexa had no time to breathe out the Veil before the woman’s hand clasped over her mouth and painfully rammed her head against the wall.  Her skull felt like it had split open, and the room was spinning.  Her dagger was knocked away as a knee lifted into her stomach. She could hardly breathe.

Everything went blurry.  Vellexa stared down at the floor and fought the urge to be sick.  They gagged her and bound her hands behind her back.  Vellexa heard shouts of alarm and muffled cries. 

They were finished.

Forty-Four

Sammeus gripped Cronak’s hand tightly.  “Hang in there, brother,” he whispered.  “Just hang on.”

How Cronak could still be alive after sustaining those wounds was beyond Sammeus, but somehow his long-time partner and only friend looked better than he had before.  He had cuts on his shoulders and stomach, but even though they looked painful the wounds seemed to have mostly healed already. 

Cronak was unconscious.  He looked pale and weak.  Tyvik had done excellent work bandaging and cleaning him up.

“Eh…you’ve looked worse, I guess,” Sammeus said.

Sammeus wished Cronak would wake.  Cronak didn’t talk much, and never had, but he was the one constant in Sammeus’s life, the one person he could always count on.  Other people in the Guild came and went, but Sammeus was always there.  The Iron Count was like a distant nightmare, a terrible and faceless thing as vague and sometimes as unbelievable as the One Goddess.  Vellexa had her son – what was his name? – who she was always worried about, and all of the Guild business angered and distracted her. 

Sammeus tried not to worry much.  He and Cronak didn’t know all that much about the war with the Phage or this new Jlantrian Colonel who was causing so much trouble.  All they knew was that a bunch of people were making Vellexa’s life difficult, which in turn made his and Cronak’s lives difficult, as well.

Most of the time their lives were good.  He and Cronak were cruel men from cruel homes, and they’d both grown up with blades in their hands.  Sammeus liked to inflict pain – it was all he’d ever really been good at.  He never got the impression Cronak enjoyed killing as much as he did…Cronak reminded Sammeus of his own father in that way.  The man used to beat Sammeus and his mother not out of anger or malicious glee but because he seemed to feel it was his duty.  Sammeus had tried to learn from his father, but he’d never been able to distance himself from the pain.  He enjoyed it too much.

Cronak breathed in rasps, and despite his profuse sweating his skin felt icy to the touch.  “I made Targo pay,” Sammeus whispered.  “Vellexa is keeping him alive – I guess we still need him.  That’s why you need to get back on your feet, so you can be there when we don’t need him anymore.”

Cronak’s eyes flickered open, and Sammeus stared in disbelief.  They were blank and yellow, utterly inhuman.  They closed again – it seemed Cronak hadn’t actually woken up.  Sammeus nervously let go of his hand.

“Goddess, Cronak,” he said.  “I’ll carve his heart out for whatever he did to you.”  He shivered.  It had been years since he’d felt so afraid.

A shout echoed from upstairs.  It took Sammeus a moment to realize it was Vellexa.  He sprang to life and raced out of the room, drawing his scimitar as he ran down the narrow hall.  He heard ringing steel and running feet and saw a struggle at the top of the stairs, so he took a breath and ran up the steps.

Forty-Five

Cronak felt different inside.  He was healthy and strong, which he knew wasn’t right.  After all, he was dead.

The lamplight was too bright, and it burned his eyes.  Cronak’s heart pounded furiously, and he felt the blood flowing through his veins.  He smelled sweat, and tasted blood.  Echoes of unfamiliar voices rattled in his skull.

Cronak sat up and opened his eyes for the second time since he’d died.  The details were sharp.  He smelled blood, oddly sweet and enticing.  His gums ached with longing.

He was afraid.  It wasn’t an emotion he was used to.

Cronak heard drops of water running down the walls, felt the breeze blow through an upstairs window.  He tasted salty blood from the end of the hall. 

He noted the pungent but familiar smell of another creature like himself – the man called Jorias Targo, who wasn’t really a man at all.  The scent was heady and threatening but also rank and dying.  Cronak didn’t know or understand how he could discern those details, how his senses gave him knowledge of a battle going on in the room where Targo had been tortured.

Cronak slowly rose from the table.  His muscles burned with pain, and he felt like he’d tear open his wounds if he moved too quickly.  His teeth ached.  They were longer than they should have been, and so sharp he sliced open his tongue and tasted his own blood.

He instinctively knew that the other Black Guild men down the hall were dead, slain by some silent band of intruders.  Those intruders were dead, as well, slain by Targo, who’d drenched the room in blood and had rent his enemies limb from limb.  Despite the ugly bond Cronak held with Targo – a bond born through the venom dripped from Targo’s claws and teeth – he shed no tears when he heard the other wolf’s heart beat its last.  The exertion had been too much for the mortally wounded creature.  Cronak knew that given time Targo would have recovered from his wounds, but he hadn’t waited long enough before going into battle, and it had cost him.

Pain flashed up Cronak’s back.  The muscles in his neck twisted and popped.  He felt something moving under his skin, like tiny creatures swimming in the tide of his blood and tissue.  Fire raced through his chest. 

He felt the venom in his blood, Targo’s man-made potion.  Cronak opened his hands and stretched his fingers.  Silver talons tore though his skin and forced themselves into the wall, ripping into the stone.  His vision ran red. 

Forty-Six

Vellexa was dizzy.  She felt weightless.  Her captors dragged her across the floor by her bonded wrists.  Someone delivered a sharp kick to her ribs, and Vellexa doubled over with pain as the air raced from her lungs.

The killers had to be from the Phage, or assassins sent by Blackhall.  All Vellexa could hope for now was that they’d finish her quickly.  She’d never see Kyver again…but maybe that was for the best.  She’d never been much of a mother, and he deserved a life without her there to make a mess of things.

“What’s taking them so long?” one of the assassins growled, an unshaven and well-muscled rogue with ghostly white hair and dead eyes.  He held an archaic
ring’tai
in one hand and wore twin swords strapped across his back.

“Should I check?” the woman asked.

“No.  Get her out of here, and I’ll…”

Someone was hurrying up the stairs.  The man went quiet and motioned his companion to back away from the door to the dungeon.  Vellexa howled as loud as she could through her gag, but she could barely even hear herself.  She tried to kick out but the woman easily overpowered her, and without the ability to open her mouth Vellexa couldn’t breathe the Veil.  The woman pressed a curved blade to her throat and held her tight while the ghostly man moved against the wall next to the doorway.

Sammeus ran into the room with his scimitar in hand.  He made it two steps when a
ring’tai
took him in the sword arm.  The assassin kicked Sammeus in the back and sent him sprawling to the floor. 

The ghost snatched the
ring’tai
free from Sammeus’s arm, drew a sword from his back and pinned Sammeus into a sitting position against the wall.  He seized her henchman’s long hair with one hand and pushed his head against the stone, then pressed the tip of his blade into Sammeus’s mouth.

Sammeus looked at Vellexa.  His eyes were flooded with fear. 

The man shoved the sword into Sammeus’s mouth and through the back of his skull.  Vellexa screamed, but nobody could hear her.

Forty-Seven

The mission had turned into a disaster.  Black Eagles were exceptionally well trained and loyal, and Slayne had only lost two since forming the group just over a year ago.

Now he’d three on one mission, and it didn’t make any sense.  The table and instruments suggested Targo had been tortured to death, but there he was on the floor in a pool of blood and steel.  Raeric’s blade protruded from the criminal’s face.  There wasn’t much left of Raeric, either, and Slayne knew he wouldn’t have killed Targo unless he’d been left with no other choice.

The room was awash with gore and pieces of bodies.  The stench was nearly overpowering, and it was impossible to walk in the stone chamber without his boots getting stuck in the thick blood and steaming skin.  Slayne hadn’t seen that brand of slaughter in years, and never in a city. 

This wasn’t the work of weapons.  Weapons don’t tear people’s heads open or pull their spines out through their stomachs. 

There really wasn’t any way to determine how many had died in that cold chamber.  Slayne walked around the room slowly so as not to slip in the morass.  Raeric had killed Targo, but that left the obvious question as to what had killed Raeric.