City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (35 page)

“What’s he doing down here?” Dane asked.  Their position afforded them a good vantage of the endless corridor.

“How would I know?” Maddox cursed.  “He’s always been a strange one.  I used to like him – he refused to go to the Black Guild or the Phage, just like me.  But he’s only out for himself, that one. He’d work with Targo sometimes, but he was too arrogant to give the rest of us the time of day.”

You could give lessons on being arrogant
, Dane thought.  Kruje stood near the doorway, the blade of his axe turned to the floor.  The giant had grown quiet since they’d escaped the tower.  He patiently waited for Dane’s lead, and seemed to have all but forgotten about Maddox.

“We need to get moving,” Dane said.  “We can’t just wait here forever.”

“Why not?” Maddox asked.  “We have food and water and a safe place to hide.  They’ll forget about us eventually.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dane asked.  “And what if they
don’t
?  I’d rather find a way out now than make this room my final resting place.”

“We can’t go,” Maddox commanded.  He was terrified, and he did a poor job of hiding it.  “I won’t go, not while those Voss-bred monstrosities are out there hunting us.”  He looked disdainfully at Kruje, and spat at the giant’s feet.  Kruje didn’t seem to notice.  “Made something nice, didn’t you, you big bastard?”

“I don’t think those things are Voss-bred,” Dane said.  He poked his head out into the corridor.  The air was colder outside the room, and the cross-wind was freezing. 

“What do you mean?” Maddox said.  “How would you know?”

“I think they’re trolls,” Dane said.  “Bred for the Empress to be used as shock troops.  I’d never seen one, but I’ve heard of them.”

Maddox didn’t say anything, but Dane figured he had some of the same questions Dane had, like why Empire-bred trolls would be in the hands of a criminal like Bordrec Kleiderhorn.  Dane could think of a number of different possibilities, none of them good.  Ultimately it didn’t matter – the trolls were there, and they weren’t very friendly.

“We can’t stay down here forever,” Dane said again.  He looked at Kruje.  “
Vag
,” he said, or “Go” in Vossian.  The giant nodded.  Dane looked at Maddox.  “I’m sure you’ve got business to attend to.  I know
I
do.”  That almost made Dane laugh out loud even as he said it – his obligation to the Black Guild was almost a distant memory, and he doubted now if he even had the time to see his assignment through.  There were other ways to come across money, and by now the Iron Count and his minions most likely thought Dane was dead.  He’d find a way out of the frozen city and let the Guild find their own damned Dream Witch – he’d had enough of hunting people.  The Black Guild would become just another group he’d have to avoid for the rest of his life.

“I’m not going out there,” Maddox hissed through clenched teeth.  “And neither is
he
.”

“Fine,” Dane said with a shake of his head.  “I’ll go and try to find a way out.  If I do, and if I remember how to get back to you, I’ll let you know where it is.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Maybe.  But I’m leaving.”

Maddox watched Dane uneasily.  He’d developed a purplish bruise on his face from the earlier melees.  “If you go out there, they’ll find you.”

“They’ll find us if we stay here,” Dane said.  “Come on, Maddox.  It’s time to go.”

Dane stepped into the corridor.  His short sleep had reinvigorated him more than he’d realized, and he was thankful for it.  He tensed his fingers and eased his way down the icy hall.  Dane felt sure they’d explored the right-hand corridor, but not those beyond it.  He paused at the first intersection and listened, and when he decided it was clear he moved on.             

A sound from behind him caught his attention.  Kruje was following, with Maddox in tow. Maddox clenched the control stone angrily in one hand, but Kruje looked at Dane and just nodded.

“Fools…you’re both fools,” Maddox muttered.  Dane put a finger to his lips, took a breath, and moved down the hall, the sound of his boots obscured by the gushing water in the open rooms to either side.  Even with the background noise Dane still heard armored feet and the clang of weapons.  It was all but impossible to gauge numbers or distance – for all he could tell Kleiderhorn’s men might have been around the next corner. 

He kept moving. Dane tried to keep a careful eye on their current position so they could head back if they needed to.  He led the small group down a hall he felt sure they hadn’t already explored. 

Dane heard voices, but he couldn’t make out what they said.  He motioned Kruje and Maddox to stop, unsheathed his
vra’taar
and crouched low as he approached the next junction. The voices came from around the bend.  His muscles tensed.  He wasn’t sure if he was up to another fight, but he carefully peeked around the corner.

A small group of dark-cloaked Jlantrians armed with longswords nonchalantly marched by, accompanied by a fearsome troll warrior wielding a four-foot long hammer.  Dane frantically motioned for Kruje and Maddox to back away. Trolls supposedly possessed an uncanny sense of smell, and if any of them stood downwind the beast would be alerted to their presence.  They hid just inside a nearby room to stay out of sight. 

Dane held his breath and watched as the red-skinned beast lumbered down the corridor.  He counted out the seconds until he no longer heard its heavy footsteps. 

“What…?” Maddox began, but Dane whipped his blade back and held the tip inches away from the slaver’s face.  Maddox gasped.

“Quiet,” Dane whispered. 

He watched the hall.  More men filed by, most of them armed with heavy crossbows.  Two men pushed a ballista on a rolling swivel mount.  Further down the hall the orange torchlight showed more of Kleiderhorn’s mercenary forces, who apparently occupied a massive section of the complex. 

That’s way too many men for a search party.  They’re readying for a battle.

“I’ll be right back,” Dane said over his shoulder.  He quickly set off down the corridor, silent as he stalked through the shadows.  Dane kept low and moved fast through the darkened halls, using the bobbing torches in the distance to light his way.  After he’d gone a few hundred yards a number of black-clad troops moved across the passages to either side of him, but somehow he escaped their notice. 

I should probably come up with some sort of plan.

He reasoned that if he could find where the mercenaries had gained access to Black Sun he could show Kruje – and maybe Maddox – the way out, but that likely meant fighting their way through a small legion.

Dane looked back over his shoulder.  He’d left Kruje and Maddox six intersections back.  He knew they hadn’t been spotted or else he’d have heard a commotion by now.  He didn’t care a spit about Maddox, but he’d grown to like the Voss, and he wasn’t prepared to leave the giant behind.

A tall Den’nari man rounded the corner behind him, his face red in the wavering torchlight.  Dane silently fell to the ground and cursed the blade in his hand; the man was barely three paces back, and if his torch turned at the proper angle the light would reflect off of Dane’s
vra’taar
.  The man looked up and down the corridor, but his eyes never sank to Dane’s nearly prone position in the shadows on the floor.  A Jlantrian man with wild red hair appeared next to the Den’nari and eyed him quizzically.

“Come on, Draevac,” the Jlantrian said.  “Those Phage goons aren’t going to be down this way.”

“The other intruders are here somewhere,” Draevac whispered.  “You know they haven’t been found yet.”

“We’ll have to worry about them later,” the Jlantrian insisted.  “Our guests are almost here.”

“I’ll be glad when this is done.  It’s not smart fighting the Phage.”

The two men went the same direction as the other mercenaries.  Dane let out his breath. 

An ambush was being laid, and it wasn’t for him.  It seemed the Phage were coming to take the Dream Witch from Bordrec Kleiderhorn, and Kleiderhorn knew it.  A possibility suddenly blossomed in Dane’s mind – if a battle was brewing, maybe he and his bizarre crew could escape in the ensuing chaos. 

It was far from a foolproof plan. 
Goddess, with how my luck has been running lately, it isn’t even a
good
plan. 
Still, anything was better than waiting to be found. 

He took a quick glance around the corner, didn’t see any soldiers coming, and made ready to head back when a hideous metal groan stopped him dead in his tracks.  It came from the far end of the halls, so loud it drowned out even the crash of water.  Dane went to investigate, against his better judgment.  He had a sinking sensation in his gut.

Kleiderhorn’s mercenaries had converged near an enormous wall of ancient and crumbling limestone.  A large open space waited on the other side.  Dane kept to the shadows and watched. 

The horrid metal grinding rattled his teeth in their sockets.  The mercenaries had to scream to hear each other as they took up position and peered through the gaps in the wall.  Several trolls stood off to the side, licking their weapons with utterly inhuman grins on their faces.  There were easily seventy or eighty troops assembled, peering through the stone at an enemy on the other side. 

Dane saw a cluster of rubble next to a small hole which would give him a clearer view of what was happening, far enough away from Kleiderhorn’s forces he’d likely escape their notice.  He quietly ran to the rubble and dove to one side, keeping the pile of rocks between himself and the soldiers.  Dane waited breathlessly for a few moments to make sure he hadn’t been found out.  The wall pressed painfully against his back, and a bone-chilling breeze crept through the gap in the stone over his head.  When he was content no one had seen him Dane cautiously turned and peered through the hole in the wall.

Enormous blue fires and massive stone pillars filled the garganutan chamber on the other side.  The floor was white with frost.  Dozens of mercenaries in flowing crimson cloaks and cloth masks marched across the floor – the Phage.  Each yielded a wickedly serrated scimitar or short sword, and many had bows strung across their backs. 

Dane’s heart jumped into his chest.  At the head of the cloaked army were three monstrous metallic balls, hissing with magic and rolling across the floor with tremendous force.  The black iron spheres were twice as tall as a man and caused such vibration it seemed the ceiling would come crashing down.  Each sphere’s face was covered with thousands of intricate glyphs, interspersed with smaller iron plates Dane knew were capable of emitting vicious substances like acid sprays, gouts of flame and deadly razor projectiles.  The vehicles rolled slowly, grinding up the stone and ice in their path.  Each Iron Egg was a terrible marvel of Vossian war engineering, manned by a single pilot and capable of cutting a small legion to pieces. 

Kleiderhorn’s men were going to have their hands full.

And so are we.  How the hell are we going to get out of here now?

Fifty-Seven

Black Sun was Ebonmark’s best-known secret – no one would openly acknowledge it existed, but everyone had heard of it.  It was whispered that malign spirits and angry ghosts haunted the underground ruins, and even those who didn’t believe such tales knew the Voss had left things in those vast and uncharted depths best left undisturbed.  Fear of what might lie in its dark halls kept most people at bay, though Slayne now knew others had ventured there even before he and Toran Gess.  Harrick, leader of the Ebonmark branch of the Phage, had taken vehicles from Black Sun’s stygian vaults, and Vellexa verified previously unconfirmed theories that much of the equipment used to reconstruct the body of the man called the Iron Count had also come from Vossian coffers.

One of the entrances to Black Sun was an underground tunnel leading in from a cave mouth under the city’s crumbling northern docks.  Contrary to popular belief, Black Sun’s construction had started long before Ebonmark had even been built, in ancient times when the mighty city of Krel Danuul had stood at the same spot before it was wiped away by the Infernal Rains during the Turn of Night.

Slayne stood up in the small boat as it neared the rocky shore around the cave mouth.  The water was filled with debris left by pirate vessels that used the River Black to sail north for Kaldrak Iyres.  There were four boats in all, long and narrow crafts carrying four people apiece.  Every passenger except Vellexa and Gess were Black Eagles.  Their ruse had worked perfectly.  Members of the Black Guild waited in hiding just up river with crates full of
Serpentheart
canisters.  It surprised Slayne that the surreally eerie Aram Keyes had insisted on accompanying the mission himself, but according to Vellexa Keyes didn’t know any of her men by sight, so their subterfuge hadn’t been in any danger. 

She’s been right so far.  If she’s wrong, we’ll all be dead too soon to worry about it.

They silently disembarked onto the wet stone.  Black cloaks fluttered in the rippling cold wind.  Several of the Eagles wrapped mooring lines around the taller rocks while the rest quietly climbed up to the cave mouth.  So long as Keyes didn’t think they were anything but Black Guild soldiers and waited for their signal, nothing would go wrong.

For a change
, Slayne thought.

Once inside the cave the Eagles lit torches to drive back the gloom.  Tall stalactites dripped oozing filth, and the leathery shadows of bats clung to the ceiling like black leaves.  It didn’t take long for the unworked rock walls to give way to aged masonry and worked stone.  The tunnel was tall enough to allow the passage of giants, and the floor dipped at a slight downward angle until it reached an onyx door standing slightly ajar. 

Slayne crouched low.  Gess and Vellexa stayed close while the rest of the Black Eagles spread out.

“What now?” Vellexa asked.  She looked nervous, and Slayne knew why.  It was unlikely she’d live, though he hadn’t decided if he was going to kill her himself or not.  He’d had her son moved to a place called the Castle Street Orphanage to keep him safe, as promised, but he felt he’d already given her too much special treatment.