City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (38 page)

“Now,” he said as he turned back to Kleiderhorn, who still dangled from Kruje’s grip, “maybe we can have a moment of quiet.  Kleiderhorn, I need to know where she is.  I’m not going to give her to the Guild, or the Phage, or anyone else.  I…”  He had to take a deep breath before he said it, because saying it would make it real, and then there was no turning back.  “I want to help her.  No…I
need
to help her.” 
Blood on the ground.  The boy’s body.  That smiling black face.
  “Please.  I need to make things right.”

Kleiderhorn stared at Dane like he’d grown an extra head.  Dane held his gaze unflinching – if there had been any way to shed his skin and bare his soul, he’d have done so then.

Clanging steel and explosive blasts echoed from the battle.  Dane heard screams and fire. 

“Please,” he said.

After what seemed an eternity, Kleiderhorn finally nodded.  “I’ll tell you.”

And he did – he told Dane everything he knew of where Ijanna had gone, and how the Jlantrians planned to find her.

Sixty-Five

The battlefield had become an abattoir.  Kleiderhorn had a great many soldiers, and those red-fleshed beasts were fierce, but Harrick knew his reinforcements had taken the enemy off guard.  The Iron Eggs relentlessly brought men down with flames, blades and acid, and what few lucky souls survived the artillery were mauled and crushed. 

Debris littered the chamber like fallen leaves.  An Egg smashed another pillar, which teetered and groaned as large chunks of stone fell and buried more of Kleiderhorn’s mercenaries.

The fight was far from over.  Kleiderhorn’s forces were dug in tight behind the crumbling walls, launching arrows and bolts with utter disregard for their own men.  The Phage soldiers had taken up position directly on the other sides of each wall and stabbed through the gaps with long blades or sent through arrows of their own.  Harrick’s reinforcements swarmed into the main chamber, where they sandwiched in those of Kleiderhorn’s men who’d charged out from behind their cover.

An Egg fired blades which tore through crimson beasts and soldiers and turned them to bloody mist.  One of the creatures impaled a man on its blade and used his body to bludgeon other Phage, but Narr cut off its leg with his mighty axe.  Bombs filled with hot oil splashed into the hall and brought men down screaming, but one of the Eggs launched a canister of acid through a gap, and sickly green fumes billowed from the hole.

Harrick blocked a sword thrust with his bow and shoved an arrow into his attacker’s stomach.  His bow was smashed, so he picked a crossbow up from the ground and drove the loaded bolt into a man’s back.  He was barely able to recover his sword before yet another mercenary came at him.

His heart pounded.  He still had no idea where the
thar’koon
were.  He wanted to send Bordec Kleiderhorn to hell, but not if doing so would prove to be suicidal.  The thought of not seeing Erys again filled his heart with dread, so he drowned out the image of her face by skewing another man on his blade.

A head flew through the air from the top of the steps, compliments of Tydith.  Her face was covered with blood, and she bore a hideous cut on one arm.  She chopped her way through two more men with her powerful sword before she came halfway down the steps to Harrick.

“We’ve been duped!” she shouted.

“What?!”

Tydith grabbed the body of one of Kleiderhorn’s men, tore open the cloak and separated the armor plate with her blade, exposing the corpse’s bare shoulder.  There, beneath a mass of blood, Harrick saw a dark tattoo in the shape of a snarling wolf.

It was the mark of Wolf Brigade.  Imperial mercenaries.

“Damn,” Harrick muttered. 
Blackhall found us out, after all
.  “Let’s get out of here!” he shouted. 

Harrick looked around desperately and saw an Iron Egg near the middle of the room, spraying fire and setting men ablaze.  Arrows whisked past his face as he ran down the steps.  The sound of combat rang through his ears, and the blur of motion all around him was dizzying. 

He signaled the Egg.  Something sloppy and wet landed on his back.  It was Tydith, or part of her, as her head had been crushed beneath one of those red monster’s giant hammers and her body clung to the haft of the weapon like meat to a fork.  The creature smiled and started down the steps.  Harrick frantically reached for his blade.

A roaring jet of fire seared around him.  His body was eclipsed with pain.  He fell.  His vision went white for long and dreadful moments until giants bled into view, tall and dark shapes with scaly wings on their backs, and he knew he was in hell.

No.  Not yet.

He lifted his head.  He couldn’t hear a thing, but every motion was agony.  Harrick had landed near the base of the statues.  He couldn’t feel his hand, but it was covered with black blisters.  He pulled himself over a corpse with no legs and fell face first into a bowl-like depression at the statue’s feet, where the demonic women stared down at him. 

Harrick’s good hand fell on something sharp. Twin swords had been left in the stone bowl.  He laughed, because he’d finally found the
thar’koon
.

Sixty-Six

Dane and Kruje followed as Kleiderhorn led them down the corridor.  There was no longer any need to restrain him, since it seemed he’d taken Dane at his word.  He was going to help them get out of Black Sun.

The only means of escape lie through the damaged iron door Dane had spied earlier, right at the edge of the battle.  As they drew close Dane saw men with their faces melted away and bodies riddled with arrows.  The mercenaries waged desperate battle with opponents just out of reach on the other side of the crumbling wall.  According to Kleiderhorn, many of the combatants were Jlantrian soldiers from the infamous Wolf Brigade.  Dane’s own countrymen.

No
, he reminded himself. 
Not anymore.

They looked through gaps in the wall and saw roaring flames at the heart of the ferocious melee.  Kleiderhorn ordered his men to push through, and Dane and Kruje readied their weapons. 

“It’s that way.” Kleiderhorn pointed at the doorway, which stood at the end of the great hall.  They’d have to go directly through part of the Phage forces to get to it.  “The passage on the other side leads to a cave under the docks.”  He looked at Dane.  “Good luck.”

Dane nodded.  He looked to his Voss ally, who regarded him with a stoic expression.  “Out,” Dane said.

“
Out
,” Kruje repeated.  There was something like a smile on the giant’s broad face.

It was time to fight their way free.

Sixty-Seven

Kleiderhorn picked up a crossbow.  The battle was horrifying.  Bordrec had seen people die, had even ordered them killed, but the carnage before him nearly made him sick.

He watched the Dawn Knight and the Voss as they went, the unlikeliest duo he’d ever seen, and found himself impressed by their resolve.  They stepped into the great hall and hacked through Phage soldiers with relentless fury.

Bordrec loaded a crossbow and slung a quarrel case over his shoulder.  He was no warrior – he barely even knew how to shoot – but it seemed he was going to get some fighting in whether he wanted to or not.  His face still stung where Dane had struck him, but he let the pain make him angry.  Anger was the only thing keeping his fear in check.

I never should have let it come to this. 

Kleiderhorn was glad to have met the knight.  It had been surprisingly easy to take him at his word, especially considering how naturally distrusting Bordrec was of most people.  He could only imagine the mental torment the Dawn Knights must have gone through after what they’d done.  It was ignorant to believe they were all evil, and while many of them had doubtlessly enjoyed the slaughter there had to be some, like Dane, who’d just been following orders. 

I hope he can help you more than I could
,
Ijanna
.

She was a good person, just as her father had been.  Jonas had seen his fair share of horrors, so many he’d taken his leave from polite society after his experiences in the Heartfang Wastes.  His friend since childhood, Jonas had always sided with Bordrec, even when he shouldn’t have.  Kleiderhorn had spent many nights wishing the Phage had killed
him
instead of his only true friend – they’d tried, but Jonas had stepped up to protect him, at the cost of his own life.

Bordrec was shaking.  Memory of how Jonas died sent waves of weakness through his body.  His nerves were frayed, and he was so frightened he could barely stand.  He stood with his back against the wall and watched as his mercenaries and Wolf Brigade soldiers struggled against Harrick’s cold-blooded killers.  The sounds of combat hammered in his ears.  This was never where he’d wanted to end up, but it was too late now.

“Jonas,” he said quietly, so quiet he couldn’t even hear himself over the roaring flames and the din of battle.  “Ijanna.  I’m sorry.”

He took a deep breath, readied the crossbow, and fired through a gap in the wall.  His heart pounded.  An arrow whizzed by.  Kleiderhorn saw a pair of trolls attack a great iron sphere with suicidal abandon.

Kleiderhorn steadied himself, reloaded the crossbow, and fired again, then picked a short sword up from the ground and called for whoever was left to follow him into battle.

Sixty-Eight

It was time.  Gess was ready, and Slayne had sent Syn off to fetch Aram Keyes and tell him they’d secured the Dream Witch.  Shadows dotted the dull light near the cave entrance as men hauled crates filled with
Serpentheart
canisters down the tunnel.

He watched Vellexa.  She’d be the first to die, he decided, after the canisters were deployed.  He’d keep his word and take her son to safety, but Slayne had spent so much of his life eliminating Bloodspeakers with single-minded brutality he saw no reason to let this one live.  She’d be one less plagued soul polluting the world.

There was a veritable war taking place on the other side of the circular door.  From the sound of things Harrick’s Eggs were tearing the place apart.  Wolf Brigade and the trolls wouldn’t go down without a fight, not that it mattered.  In a few minutes they’d all be dead. 

Lose stones fell from the ceiling, and the ground trembled.  The onyx portal shook in place, and the Black Eagles drew their weapons and gathered around the door.

Aram Keyes strode down the hall flanked by a pair of grey-skinned Tuscars.  Keyes was a hideous creature, wrapped in soiled red cloth which left only the scalded flesh of his bald head and his dead yellow eyes exposed.  A dozen men followed him with the crates.

“Where is the Dream Witch?” Keyes growled.

“Safe,” Vellexa said.  “They’re bringing her up now.”

It was all the answer Keyes needed.  He nodded to his men, and they threw open the crates.  Dozens of egg-sized metal spheres were passed forward.  Keyes’s diseased and tattered men armed themselves with leather bandoliers stuffed with
Serpentheart
bombs.  Slayne realized they intended to deploy the magical disease personally.

Goddess, you idiots really
are
insane.

“Open the door,” Keyes commanded.

The onyx slab rolled into the wall with an ear-shattering groan, but it wasn’t any of Slayne’s men who’d moved it.  A blast of heat came through the open doorway.  Slayne heard the deafening ring of steel and the cries of dying men, but even those were largely drowned out by the thunderous motion of the Iron Eggs. 

A massive black-skinned giant with powerful rune-carved muscles and bright white eyes stood on the other side of the door.  He yielded a gore-soaked axe the size of a lance.  Slayne’s eyes widened.  The Voss fearlessly swung its weapon as it barreled into the passage.  Tuscars leapt to Keyes’s defense only to be cleaved apart.  Keyes’s men scattered, but a few brave Tuscars were smashed underfoot as the giant charged forward.

The Black Eagles fired their arrows, but the missiles stopped short of the Voss, repelled by some invisible force that sent them to the ground with a clatter. 

Slayne looked at Gess, questioning.  The Veilwarden seemed to have found who’d stopped the arrows, and he stood watching the newcomer with a sinister smile on his face.  Slayne followed Gess’s gaze to a figure standing behind the Voss.  The man was ragged and blonde-haired, a knight armed with a wicked
vra’taar
.  It was a weapon and a man Marros Slayne hadn’t seen in years, and one he’d never thought to see again. 

His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.  His blood burned with rage.

“Happy day,” Gess said with a grin.  “It’s Azander Dane.”

Sixty-Nine

Harrick thrust the two
thar’koon
blades together at the hilt, and his mind flew apart.  His screams eclipsed the thunderous din of the Iron Eggs.

He was a child again, sucking on his mother’s teat.  He was a young boy, running through his dark house in the rain-soaked city of Blackmoon.  He was ten years old, looking out at the grey and rocky coast with tears in his eyes.  He was thirteen and now without a mother, as she’d been murdered by rival smugglers, and he finally saw the world for what it truly was, a hopeless and bloody place which hated him as much as he hated it.

Men fell onto each other’s swords.  Axes came down and split skulls.  Torsos flew apart into bloody soup.  The Eggs scorched and crushed and melted flesh and bone down to liquid, but Harrick sat unnoticed at the center of it all, laughing even as he wept.