City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (39 page)

Harrick had turned sixteen the day he murdered his father.  He’d finally grown tired of the old man’s lies, and he’d needed to take the anger he felt over his mother’s death out on someone.  He saw something of her in every woman he’d ever been with, even the whores, and he’d seen her floating over him in the moonlight when he’d pushed his father off the balcony and onto the rocky shore below.  He saw her in Erys, and their resemblance was so uncanny he sometimes wondered if his wife wasn’t his mother reborn.

All of the pain Harrick had ever felt over the course of his whole life crashed though his consciousness like a tide.  It pushed at his skull and tore at his heart, and when at last he was able to stand he’d forgotten all about the
thar’koon
, all about Bordrec Kleiderhorn and Blackhall and the Dream Witch.  He just wanted to go home.

Three fingers from his left hand had been burned away by the Egg’s fiery blast, and two from his right had been severed by the blades.  His face was a charred ruin, and his left eye was a bloody mess.  Harrick felt skin slide off his face. 

There was no pain.  He felt nothing but regret. 

Harrick struggled out of the bowl, eager to be away from the underground city.  He had to get home, had to get to Erys and tell how much he loved her, how sorry he was for all the terrible things he’d done, how he would quit his life with the Phage for her…how he had the strength to do what his father never could and put his wife before his career of crime.

He couldn’t feel his body.  His eyes were so welled with tears he didn’t see the swordsman coming at him until Narr cleaved through the man with his axe.  Narr caught Harrick as he fell, and some of Harrick’s slimy blood and skin peeled off and clung to the Drage as he set his employer down and fended off an attacking red-skinned beast. 

Harrick watched Narr’s brains splatter onto the floor.  He chuckled to himself as an Iron Egg rolled over the crimson brute and crushed it to gooey pulp.  A hole appeared at the top of the Egg.  The pilot popped out and shouted something down at Harrick.  An arrow caught the man in the throat and he fell forward, blood running from his mouth. 

It was difficult to get to his feet.  Harrick wept as he struggled up the slight handholds on the face of the Egg.  The metal was scalding hot, and suddenly he felt pain again, and he howled in agony.  Blinding hurt flared through his collapsing body as he climbed.  Bits of his skin stuck to the metal and pulled from his bones. 

A crossbow bolt plunged into his chest, and his breath seized.  He fell forward through the open portal on top of the Egg and into the pilot’s seat.  The burning in his ears rang like waterfalls.  He couldn’t see through the pain.

Harrick had piloted an Egg before.  The seat was in a tightly enclosed space surrounded by dozens of levers, pedals and cranks.  He reflexively pulled the correct switchs without thinking and sealed the hatch with an audible thud.  An image of the area around the Egg was magically projected into his fragmented mind by Vossian neuro-magic, and he saw clearly in spite of his blinding pain.  His body seared with hurt at even the slightest motion, but Harrick grit what was left of his teeth and pressed down on the pedals, spinning the vehicle into motion.

He saw but couldn’t hear bodies as he crushed them under the Egg.  Harrick pulled a lever and activated the flame jets, setting men on fire as the vehicle barreled into a stone pillar and crushed it to stony debris. 

Harrick was going home.

Seventy

Dane leapt forward and killed two Black Eagles with a single swing of his
vra’taar
.  Blood covered his face as he looked at a man he thought was already dead.

“Slayne,” he growled.  He threw himself at his former brother-in-arms.  Slayne side-stepped the attack and caught Dane with a glancing blow across the shoulder, then reached for a
ring’tai
. Dane kicked him in the stomach and doubled him over.  He slashed at Slayne’s throat, but the older man was faster and dodged the attack.

Kruje smashed two Black Eagles into bloody clay with his axe but took a terrible wound in his leg from a long blade.  A pair of arrows landed in the giant’s shoulder. 

Dane saw Vellexa back away with the diseased-looking Guild men.  He didn’t have time to worry about her.

A Veilwarden with short hair and pallid skin sent a sphere of crackling electricity screaming at Dane’s head.  He rolled forward and avoided the magic, which exploded against the wall behind him.  Dane ducked beneath a Black Eagle’s sword and took his attacker down with a thrust of his blade in the man’s groin.

Dane rose in time to see the Veilwarden bind Kruje in glowing spiked chains, and he only narrowly dodged a
ring’tai
as it went flying past his chest.  Black Eagles moved in from every direction as the diseased men clustered around the fight, their hands on small metal spheres strapped to their bodies. 

Slayne smiled wickedly, but just then something large sprang from the shadows, a furred lupine form with terrifying claws and blood-red eyes, the same beast that had earlier attacked Dane.  It jumped on Slayne from behind and tore into his back. 

Dane turned and drove his
vra’taar
into a charging Black Eagle, desperate to fight his way free.

Seventy-One

Slayne was smothered in a mass of claws and teeth.  Blood ran from his rent flesh.  His face painfully smacked against stone.  Something crushed him from behind, and saliva fell onto his neck. 

He found a
ring’tai
on his belt and jabbed back into his attacker, forcing it off of him.  Long claws ripped from his shoulders, and Slayne growled in pain as he found his sword and turned around.

A hideous creature stood before him, humanoid but massive, with bristling grey fur and enormous claws and fangs.  Its head was that of a wolf, a nightmare beast from a children’s horror story.  Slayne dove into the creature and forced it against the wall. 

A blade dug into his shoulder from behind, and pain flashed down his body.  He twisted around and saw Vellexa, weapon in hand, so he slashed her across the face with his
ring’tai
.  She screamed and fell, and Slayne moved in to finish her off when the wolf ripped into his back and sent him to the ground.  Slayne stabbed into its haunch, spraying blood everywhere. 

He rose to his feet, his heart pounding furiously.  Slayne spat at the wolf, and it came at him once more.

Seventy-Two

Dane wrestled a Black Eagle woman to the ground.  His
vra’taar
locked against her serrated blade as they struggled in a knot of limbs.  Blood and sweat ran in his eyes.  Dane finally managed to force himself on top of her and plant his knee in her stomach.  Her arm fell, and he sliced open her throat with the short end of his blade.

He should have been dead, but the rest of the Jlantrians were suddenly occupied with rescuing Slayne from the lupine assassin.  Dane saw Vellexa scurry out of the cave, blood gushing from her face.  The diseased Guild men filed through the door into Black Sun…all save one, who stood quietly in the open doorway with his arms folded in triumph.

Kruje struggled to free himself from the chains.  Streams of his black blood fell to the floor.  The short-haired Veilwarden was locked in concentration, entirely focused on the giant.  Dane raced forward, but without even turning the Veilwarden held out a hand and Dane was thrown against the wall like a child’s toy.  The impact drove the air from his lungs, and pain lanced down his shoulder. 

Something enormous came down the passage beyond the open door.  The metallic roar of an Iron Egg enveloped the cave.  A Black Eagle backed away from the door and right into Dane, so he skewered the man on his blade and let his body drop to the ground. 

The Veilwarden closed his fists and tightened the chains around Kruje, but the thunderous approach of the egg distracted him just long enough for Dane to leap forward and slice his hand off.  The man screamed and fell to the ground holding his gushing stump.

The chains vanished.  Kruje ran from the approaching Egg and down the corridor with Dane right on his heels.  The grind of metal on stone drowned out the screams behind them. 

The tunnel shook.  Chunks of rock fell in their path, and the ceiling looked ready to collapse at any moment.  Dane and Kruje cut their way through wide-eyed Tuscars and moved as fast as their exhausted legs could carry them until they reached the rocky shore, where they dove headlong into the freezing waters.

Seventy-Three

“Ready!” Kleiderhorn shouted.  The Iron Egg bore down on them, but he’d finally come up with a way to beat the damned things.

Bodies were everywhere.  Kleiderhorn had been on the verge of vomiting the instant he’d stepped into the battle.  His heart and his mind raced.  Strangely he no longer felt any concern for his own safety.  He’d hacked through three men with his short blade, and blood oozed down his side from an arrow he’d taken in the ribs.  He didn’t even feel any pain.

The Egg had Bordrec and two of his men trapped between itself and a damaged pillar.  The pair of mercenaries held their crossbows ready.  Bordrec wasn’t sure if his plan would work or not, but it was the best idea he’d been able to come up.

The Egg rolled to within a few yards.  Kleiderhorn threw a pair of
scythespheres
at the floor directly in its path.  They detonated in twin bursts of silver light and formed a sizable rift in the ground, and the Egg fell into the hole with a deafening boom.  It struggled to roll free, grinding rock and sending up sparks, but before it could get clear Bordrec threw a third sphere at the Egg itself and formed an opening over the cockpit.  Crossbow bolts slammed into the shocked pilot’s chest, and he slumped over in his seat.

Kleiderhorn laughed and cheered, but not for long.  A thick and bloody mist came from out of nowhere and filled the air in the shattered hall.  Men from both sides of the battle screamed and ran, and those who stood their ground fell to the ground clawing at their throats.

Bordrec realized too late that the last Egg was screaming towards the pillar next to him.  He turned to run, his courage suddenly gone.  The mist seemed to chase him.  A hundred bodiless screams echoed through the Vossian temple.

The Egg slammed into the pillar.  Shards of rock flew from the impact, and a large slab of jagged stone dislodged from the ceiling, fell on Bordrec and pinned him to the floor.

He couldn’t feel a thing, and he couldn’t move.  He saw with detached shock that his legs had been crushed. 

Red mist swept over him and forced its way into his lungs.  He thought of Ijanna, and hoped she was all right.  It was the last thought he had before he vomited blood and died.

Seventy-Four

Everything was red.  Harrick piloted the Egg down the hall at maximum speed, destroying everything in his path.  He heard music in his head, a sweeping crescendo which made him fly.  He couldn’t recall the title of the piece, but Erys had always loved it.

Bodies exploded beneath the vehicle.  Thick red mist erupted from men who just stood and waited for the Egg to crush them.  A solid fog of blood smoke trailed the Egg, and Harrick saw in the vehicle’s mental projection that the iron shell was slick with gore. 

Something inside the Egg burned his eyes and throat, and it took every last reserve of his strength to pilot the vehicle.  He had to get home.

He drove into the nearest tunnel, the one which led to the docks.  A tall and disgusting looking man wrapped in bandages stood before the doorway, and he didn’t even try to move before the Egg splattered him all over the walls. 

There were others in the cave. Harrick saw a wolf and a woman run off together, and further down the tunnel he even saw a Voss.  Tuscars and men desperately tried to get out of the way, and Harrick did his best to steer the Egg so it rolled over them.  He even thought he saw Slayne and Gess, and realized with some malicious joy that he still wore the amulet they wanted on a chain around his neck.

The Egg thundered down the tunnel.  It ripped up rock and brought down the ceiling.  He saw light ahead.  Harrick’s eyes closed.  He imagined Erys in her wedding dress, and she smiled at him with lips like a ruby night.  He was home.

He died just as the Egg crashed through the low cave entrance and plummeted into the river.

Seventy-Five

They’d made it.  Dane still wasn’t sure how, but they’d made it.

To his great surprise the rickety-looking longship they’d stolen from just outside the cave mouth proved capable of supporting both his and Kruje’s weight.  There were some supplies on board, as well as a number of heavy tarps.  Dane was no sailor but he at least knew how to hoist a sail, and soon the small ship was underway. 

Kruje was injured and exhausted, so the giant didn’t object when Dane helped bandage his wounds and then covered him with the tarps so he’d remain unseen. 

The sky was pale blue, and the face of the rising moon reflected bright on the river’s surface.  Lights were being lit all over Ebonmark as people prepared for the coming night, each of them blissfully ignorant as to the bloody war going on beneath their feet.

Dane sat at the bow of the ship and kept his eyes and ears alert.  He knew Blackhall didn’t have any regular river patrols established yet, but that didn’t mean Jlantrian soldiers wouldn’t come after them just the same.  He hoped they’d be too busy contending with the messy aftermath of what had happened in the city below, not to mention dealing with the Vossian war machine that had flung itself to the bottom of the river.  Its crash had echoed through the night, sounding so much like thunder Ebonmark’s citizens had probably wondered why they’d heard a storm when there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.