City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (34 page)

In the end it didn’t matter, because the means to capturing the half-Allaji Bloodspeaker was within Harrick’s reach.  His superiors both knew it, and if he wanted to maintain his position in the Phage he had to make acquiring the
thar’koon
his top priority.  What the Phage had given they could just as easily take away.

“My love,” he whispered.  Erys rolled onto her back and smiled at him.  It wasn’t a seductive smile, or even a loving one, just friendly.

“Yes, husband,” she said.  Her voice was as dark as wine.  Harrick knew that tone, and it told him all he needed to know: work had kept him away from her for too long, and she wasn’t interested in speaking with him or touching him right now. 

“I have to go,” he said.  He crossed the room and planted a small kiss on her forehead.  He loved the smell of her skin.  He lingered for a moment, then took his leave. 

Harrick ran his hand along the polished banister and looked out the large circular windows.  He’d spent a great deal of money on his home – there were expensive sculptures and paintings, fireglass dishes and specially treated ironwood, finely-woven rugs and silken sheets.  But try as he did, Harrick couldn’t find solace there.  His mind was ever in other places.

Why had the Jlantrians given the blades to Bordrec Kleiderhorn?  It just didn’t make any sense!  And now Kleiderhorn, the toad, had moved into Black Sun and commanded a considerable military force.  For what?  What was he doing down there? 

The entire situation reeked of some sort of trick, but Harrick couldn’t put his finger on what it might be. 

Why would the Jlantrians turn on me?  Did they learn of my involvement in the arena explosion? 

No – that was next to impossible.  They didn’t trust him, surely…so perhaps they’d simply put the blades somewhere they thought they’d be safe.

But Kleiderhorn?!  The blades would be safer with a street urchin than with that impotent dwarf.  Perhaps Kleiderhorn was all the Jlantrians had left.  The Black Guild had battered them from the moment they’d arrived in Ebonmark, and Blackhall obviously felt he couldn’t trust the Phage.  Bordrec Kleiderhorn was the most powerful unassociated criminal in the city and, unlike Harrick, he’d easily bend under the Jlantrian’s empty threats. 

Well
, Harrick decided,
that’s the last mistake they’ll ever make.

Marran waited for him in the drawing room, a richly appointed chamber filled with couches and items suiting Harrick’s expensive tastes – globes carved from mahogany, silver hourglasses filled with golden dust, trophies of exotic beasts.  Harrick’s sandaled feet pressed down on the thick burgundy carpet as his silk robe swept over a model globe filled with diamond crystals.  His servant was a tall and broad-shoulder man with pale skin and thick black hair he kept tied back.  Like his master, Marran dressed in fine silks, and his tunic and pants were the color of blood.  He stood unmoving, a patient and statuesque figure, but as Harrick gestured he glided to his lord’s side.

“Sire.”

“We have blood to spill, my friend,” Harrick said carefully.  “We must take the blades back from Kleiderhorn and teach him a lesson in the process.”

“Sire,” Marran nodded cautiously, “it may be a trap.”

“I’ve considered that,” Harrick said. “Tell Tydith and Narr to be ready.  Narr can make the necessary arrangements for our soldiers.  We’ll show the Jlantrians we know a great deal about Black Sun, and that we even kept some souvenirs from our last visit there.”  Harrick smiled.  “I want as many men as we can muster.  We have to retrieve those blades, or else we’re finished.  Do you understand?”  Marran nodded.  Of course he understood – he’d been with the Phage even longer than Harrick, and he’d seen how hungry power and position could make its agents, and just how quickly it could eat them alive.  “Prepare my weapons,” Harrick added.  “And my armor.”

“You’re going, Sire?”

“Yes,” Harrick said.  His stomach twisted with worry, but he’d been in combat before.  The stakes were too high for him
not
to go.  “I don’t have much of a choice.”

Marran nodded and left without another word.  Harrick stood alone in the room for a time, wondering if he’d find some way to warm Erys to him before he had to leave.  How he missed her.

Fifty-Four

Deep inside the place called the Cauldron – most believed it was located somewhere beneath Ebonmark, but in reality the fortress of magically enhanced iron stood hundreds of miles away at the edge of the Grey Sea – the alchemists were hard at work. 

At the Iron Count’s behest, Aram Keyes had ordered the creation of gallons of
Serpentheart
.  Dozens of fist-sized metal canisters were filled with the vile purplish fluid and stuffed into iron-rimmed boxes, which in turn would be transported to the abandoned Voss city of Black Sun.

Keyes stood on a pedestal of stone.  His scarred flesh was wrapped in bandages, and a heavy hood was drawn over his scarred pate.  Dark goggles covered his inhuman eyes. 

He and his subordinates had labored for a year perfecting
Serpentheart
, and though they’d lost much in the process – their skin, their hair, their sanity and their souls – it was all finally drawing to a close.  Keyes smiled as his subordinates stirred large vats of blue-black goo and dipped pots hanging from iron chains to capture batches of the substance. 
Serpentheart
ate away at the body and poisoned the blood stream with a substance carefully designed to dissolve internal organs and tissue.  It turned people into bile from the inside out, so it had to be handled carefully. 

Goddess, it will be beautiful.
 

Masked Tuscars hauled crates of
Serpentheart
to the
cutgate
.  Keyes would have preferred to release the disease directly into the center of Ebonmark, and that had been the original plan, but Vellexa had stepped in.  Stupid, pretty, arrogant little bitch.  She was the only thing keeping Keyes from the control he wanted.

Why did she have to survive?  If only the Jlantrians had finished her.
  But she’d managed to escape their clutches and return with a handful of her men, none of whom looked well after their run-in with the Jlantrian assassins.  Before that she’d found Targo, and had learned all the Black Guild needed to know. 

The Iron Count wanted the Dream Witch, and he wanted the Jlantrians out of the way.  Now he’d get both, because the Jlantrians were setting a trap for the Phage in Black Sun, and Bordrec Kleiderhorn was helping them.  Bordrec had the Witch.

Keyes could barely hear himself think over the roar of the furnaces.  Sometimes the screaming flames were more than he could handle.  Even when he was away from the labs – which was seldom – the buzzing in his brain rarely stopped. 

The attack would require perfect timing.  It fell on Vellexa to retrieve the Witch and act as a spotter for the
Serpentheart
deployment teams – once that was done, his child, his creation, would be free.  The Jlantrians would be dead, the Phage would be dead, Kleiderhorn would be dead.  Maybe, just maybe, Vellexa would be dead, too.

Keyes massaged his temples. He clicked an apparatus built into his wrist which increased the circulation of his bodily fluids.  Blood and water rushed through his system, and pain-numbing narcotics shot into his veins. 

It was an enchanting possibility.  Kill the Phage, become the Black Guild’s hero.  Kill Vellexa, become the only one left who the Count trusted.  If Aram Keyes had possessed a heart it would have raced, but it had been replaced with a clockwork mechanism long ago.

He turned back to his work and directed his subordinates.  A sense of pride filled his inhuman soul.  In just a few hours, Ebonmark would be a very different place.

Fifty-Five

Vellexa’s quarters felt like a cell.  The dark iron chamber was decorated with plush rugs and tapestries she’d placed to try and make the place seem more comfortable.  She had a lavish bed, an ornate writing desk and a well-appointed wardrobe – every semblance of the sort of room a lady might possess. 

She sat on the bed and furiously scribbled a note to her son Kyver.  She couldn’t believe she was going through with this.  Just that morning she’d thought it possible to make good on her situation.  She’d found Targo, and she’d uncovered Bordrec Kleiderhorn’s whereabouts.  Now, just a few hours later, she’d become a traitor to the Black Guild and a spy for the Jlantrians. 

Despite what the Jlantrians promised her in return for her cooperation she gravely doubted their chances of success, or their ability to keep her and Kyver safe once her treachery was uncovered.  The Iron Count had eyes and ears everywhere, and it would only take one person to eliminate her or her son.

In spite of the heat in the room her skin felt like ice.  She didn’t trust Slayne.  The memory of him killing Sammeus was frozen in her mind.  She hated the murdering bastard, but the only reason she was still alive was because he’d offered her a deal.  Blackhall had seemed content to burn her alive like he would any other Bloodspeaker, but the man who’d killed one of her only friends had offered her a chance to save both herself and her child.

Vellexa wrote apologies to Kyver, words of love in case she never saw him again, a frighteningly realistic possibility.  She tried to apologize for not being there, for not being the mother he deserved.  For leaving him behind with her legacy of lies and crime.  She hoped he could forgive her, but she wouldn’t ask that of him.  It was too much.

It didn’t feel right to betray the Iron Count, but every time she had second thoughts she saw her son.  He was more important than the Black Guild.  Damn Slayne, but what he’d said to her seemed right – Kyver deserved the chance to grow up outside of the Iron Count’s shadow.

She knew the letters weren’t making any sense even as she wrote them.  Vellexa wanted to cry, but she hadn’t done that since her husband had died, and that had been so long ago she wasn’t sure if she even had tears left.  Crying was a sign of weakness, and she didn’t believe in weaknesses.

“But you certainly
are
weak, aren’t you?” she said aloud.

The door swung open.  The man who stepped into the room wore the same style of black cloak as her henchmen, but she knew it was Marros Slayne.  He swiftly closed the door.

“Are you ready?” he asked.  “It won’t be long now.”

“This is crazy, Slayne,” she said.  “You’re as much of a lunatic as Keyes is.”

“Maybe,” Slayne said with a nod.  “Maybe.  But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m ready, you son of a bitch,” she snapped.  “Just remember our deal.”

“Your son is safe,” he said.  “And he’ll stay that way, so long as you keep your word.”

Vellexa’s vision went red.  She wanted to drive her fist through Slayne’s heart.  He’d smuggled nearly a dozen of his men into the Cauldron, a dozen against a legion, but he stood there like he was invincible.

“You just make sure my son
stays
safe,” she said.  “If anything happens to him, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough,” Slayne said.  He showed no trace of fear, no emotion at all.  “Just keep up your end of the bargain and everything will be fine.  By morning, you’ll be free.”

He left without another word.  Vellexa sat quietly for a long time.  She started to cry.

So I still have tears, after all.

Fifty-Six

Dane woke.  His eyes fixed on the pillar of water flowing straight down from a hole in the tall stone ceiling to a wide pool on the floor.  The chamber stood just off of the main corridor, one of a series of interconnected and identical rooms, a network of giant baths. 

He tried to clear the muck from his eyes.  Dane hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but thankfully Kruje and Maddox were closeby, both watching for any sign of Bordrec Kleiderhorn’s hunters.  The two of them looked every bit as weary and exhausted as Dane felt.  His back was stiff and his skin was soiled with grime and sweat.  He picked his
vra’taar
up from the ground and slipped it into the scabbard on his back.

It had been a miracle they’d made it out of the tower. 
That was one part divine intervention and three parts dumb luck.

Dane had inspected the rest of the narrow citadel they’d been trapped in while Kruje held the door shut, but all he’d found was an abandoned structure devoid of supplies or any other means of escape.  Dane had Touched the Veil to give himself light in the apex of the structure, and that was when the way out had revealed itself: a door which only turned visible in the presence of magic.  By the time he’d gotten back down to the others the bar over the lower door had been nearly snapped by the red-skinned beasts outside, and the three refugees just managed to get up and out before the tower was overtaken from below. 

And now we’re in an entirely new nightmare.  Hooray.

Dane stared past Maddox and looked into the confusing corridor.  The stone was ice blue and the massive halls were chipped and worn from the passage of time.  The labyrinth seemed to stretch on endlessly, and every time they eluded a squad of mercenary soldiers they lost their bearings and wound up right back where they’d started.  Dane liked to think he had an exceptional memory, but even he couldn’t keep track of where thery were.  They’d just moved from one trap to another, and it would only be a matter of time before they were burned out.

“Damn you, Kleiderhorn,” Maddox said from out of the blue.  “You dwarf slime.”  Maddox was holding up surprisingly well, Dane thought, considering he hadn’t slept since his bodyguards died for fear of losing the precious stone that gave him control over Kruje.  Dane had considered dispatching the slave owner, but he still reasoned they needed numbers on their side, and right then three felt like a hell of a lot more than two.