City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (6 page)

They eventually came to a simple building made of grey stone and even greyer wood.  A dangling metal sign read “Frost’s Trade”.  Dane peeked through a dirty window and saw sacks of dried goods, rolls of blankets, boxes of rations and hundreds of candles packed onto dust-ridden shelves.  Vellexa led them around the building and into a putrid-smelling alley riddled with refuse and dank rainwater.  Rats scurried into the shadows as the group approached a cracked wall. 

Vellexa held out her hand.  After a moment her fingers burned with a deep red glow, like she’d dipped them into a forge.  Dane smelled brimstone and pitch.  Ripples of ruby light bubbled under their feet.  Vellexa’s eyes turned the shade of hellfire.

Everything faded.  Light and heat pushed against Dane’s face.  His eyes sealed shut and his throat burned.  He felt himself floating, weightless, adrift in a sea of glowing flame.

When Dane could see again he found himself in a stifling black iron chamber.  Dozens of torches sat in high brackets, but the flames only barely held the darkness at bay.  The sounds of clanging metal, blazing fires and tortured cries echoed from beyond the walls.

It’s hell
, Dane thought. 
Only louder.

“Where are we?” he asked.  He had to shout to be heard.

“We’re taking you to meet our employer,” Vellexa replied. “The Iron Count.” 

Damn
, Dane thought. 
The Black Guild.  Looks like my uncanny ability to wade into shit is holding up just fine.

Cronak and Sammeus pulled open a set of double doors and revealed a wide metal hall lined with gargantuan furnaces.  The furnaces were separated by alcoves packed with axes, hammers, swords, arrows, bolts, spears, exotic blades like
raak’ma
,
shek’tar
,
ring’tai
,
vax’ol
, and
vra’taar
, and all manner of armor and shields.

Dane’s skin slicked with sweat as they walked down the flame-lined corridor.  His eyes felt heavy from the heat, and the relentless hammering made his temples throb.  The hall seemed to go on forever.  Bare-chested men with enormous muscles pounded blades to fine points atop marred anvils.  Dane and the others passed cooling buckets filled with steaming water and piles of raw steel.

They crossed paths with a group of tall men in dark cloaks.  The men wore cloth wraps over their faces and hands and pushed a metal cart loaded with egg-shaped glass canisters filled with swirling orange vapor.  Dane shuddered.  He’d heard stories about magically engineered poisons and toxins, and of the horrible things they could do.  These men had clearly spent too much time in the proximity of their own work, for their eyes were clouded white and what flesh was visible beneath their garb was flaky and grey.  The diseased criminals shuffled by like zombies as they rolled their deadly cargo down the hall.

“What
is
this place?” Dane shouted to Vellexa.  It was hard to hear his own voice over the din of furnaces and hammering.

“This is the Cauldron,” she said.  “All of your questions will be answered when you meet the Count.”

The hall ended at a spiral staircase leading down.  Dane wondered how deep underground they really were, and it occurred to him they might not
be
underground at all…for that matter, they might not have even been in Ebonmark.  Vellexa had triggered a
cutgate
– a magical tunnel which allowed travelers to span great distances with a single step – so there was no telling where in the world she’d taken him.

The staircase descended to a wide square room.  The air was surprisingly cool there, especially compared to the forge they’d just left.  A pair of powerful grey-skinned warriors with scarred muscles and sharp tusks slammed the massive doors shut behind them.  At the sight of the Tuscars Dane’s hand reflectively reached for his
vra’taar
. 

“Relax, Dane,” Vellexa smiled.  “They work for us.”

“Questionable company you keep,” Dane said. 

“Tell me about it,” she said with a laugh. 

“This way, mercenary,” Sammeus said.  He nodded towards another set of descending stairs leading down to an octagonal room.  The four doors in the room were guarded by Tuscars armed with their signature lance-sword
shek’taars
. 

Torches revealed an open chasm where one of the walls should have stood.  Jagged stones lined the underground canyon, and a solid black door sat in the wall on the other side of the rift, with no apparent means of reaching it.

“Wait here,” Vellexa told him.  She walked to the chasm.  Dane watched the Tuscar sentries, who stood as still as stones.  Cronak and Sammeus separated themselves from Dane and talked quietly. 

Vellexa approached the edge of the canyon, pulled a tiny iron key from the folds of her cloak and placed it in a lock built directly into the wall.  Sharp grinding filled the air, so powerful it made Dane’s teeth rattle.  A pitted iron plank extended from the far wall just under the door and stretched out to form a bridge across the chasm.  It seemed to take ages for the platform to extend over the open space, but eventually it came to a halt with a reverberating crash.  The Bloodspeaker removed the key from the wall and nonchalantly crossed the narrow bridge.  Her boots clacked loudly and her cloak twisted sideways in the dark wind blasting up from the deeps.  The door on the other side opened and shut behind her, and she was gone.

Dane paced and examined the large chamber, careful to avoid the Tuscars.  He watched the sealed door on the other side of the bridge and kept looking back at the now-sealed doors through which they’d entered, which had undoubtedly been locked.  If things went sour he’d have to use the Veil to get them open, and while he was certain he could retrace his steps back to their arrival point in the Cauldron he didn’t think it would actually do him any good.  A
cutgate
like the one Vellexa conjured was very difficult to use without knowing the specifics of its construction, the subtle ebbs and clefts of the Veil left accessible so someone could reach in and work the unseen tumblers.  Figuring one out could take hours, even for a Veilwarden.  Only Bloodspeakers had a talent for doing it quickly. 

No, if things go bad down here, I probably won’t make it out alive.  Nice work, Azander.

“Dane!”  Sammeus called.  He and Cronak stood leaning against one of the walls.  Dane turned to face them.

“What?” he said.

They approached slowly.  Sammeus smiled, and the long scars on his cheeks seemed to puff up with blood.  “We were wondering something…how old were the girls?  You know…the
young
girls?  The ones who hadn’t even blossomed a proper chest yet?” 

Dane watched him, unblinking.  Memories of what had happened in the Razortooth Mountains burned at the edge of his thoughts. 

Sammeus seemed pleased with himself.  Cronak’s stony face betrayed no such amusement, but his eyes stayed locked on Dane.  “Because it would have been a terrible shame,” Sammeus continued, his words playfully drawn out as he and Cronak drew close, “if you killed those ripe little fawns without even tasting their meat.”  They stood right in front of Dane.  Sammeus folded his arms.  “You know, maybe that was the problem with you Dawn Knights.  You should’ve just had your way with a few of those eager little bitches before you killed them –
relaxed
a little, if you take my meaning.  Then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out so badly for you.” 

Cronak ran his scarred tongue along the flat side of his axe blade. 

“I suggest you shut the hell up before you get hurt,” Dane said quietly.

Sammeus laughed.  “I heard you had a female knight among your ranks...maybe you were all too busy fucking
her
to notice the other little cunts, eh?”

Dane slammed his palm into Sammeus’s nose.  Blood spurted out as Sammeus shouted and doubled over in pain.  Cronak raised his axe, and Dane had one hand on the hilt of his
vra’taar
when one of the chamber doors burst open.

A tiny man stood in the doorway.  The Drage couldn’t have been four feet tall.  Tattoos circled every inch of his skin, from the tip of his shaved scalp down to the fleshy lines beneath his solid black eyes.  He wore black breeches and a leather vest which left his muscular arms and chest exposed.  A small troop of Tuscars followed on the Drage’s heels with a group of shackled slaves.  At the sight of the Drage Cronak stepped back and lowered his axe.

“What’s going on here?” the Drage demanded.  His voice was unusually deep and powerful despite his small size.  “Cronak?”

“Nothing,” Cronak grunted.  Sammeus still grasped his bleeding and broken nose, so Cronak pulled him aside.  Dane stood his ground.

“I advise you move,” the Drage growled.  “Gullax has a schedule to keep.”  He directed Dane to the edge of the room.  Dane waited a moment before he stepped aside.

“Who the hell is Gullax?” he asked.

“Gullax has killed for stupid questions like that,” the Drage said. 

“Gullax has quite a temper,” Dane smiled.

“Gullax does.”

The Drage walked to a door and unlocked it with one of the many keys dangling from his belt.  The Tuscars dragged the manacled slaves across the room.  Each prisoner was bound neck, wrist, and ankle to both their jailors and each other.

Dane breathed deeply. 
Don’t even think about it
, he told himself.
  There’s nothing you can do. 

He watched as eleven women, six men and five children were brought through the chamber, each as bare as the day they’d been born.  They were dirty and bloodied and had obviously been abused.  Their skin rubbed raw beneath the shackles.  Judging by their bony frames they hadn’t been properly fed for some time, and most of them left bloody footprints on the iron floor.  One of the men’s faces had been so severely beaten both of his eyes were swollen shut. 

In any sane world slaves in such poor condition would have been useless for sale or trade…but the world had stopped being sane a long time ago, and Dane knew it.  Even slaves of the worst stock could be sold as food to the Tuscar tribes, as victims for the gladiator games in Kaldrak Iyres or as test subjects for use by the Enclave on their cursed island in the Moon Sea.  Where there was flesh there was money.

“Help us!” a woman cried out.  Her hair was greasy with old blood, and she was so thin Dane thought a strong wind could knock her down.  Wild desperation danced behind her eyes.  “You’re a Jlantrian Knight!” she screamed.  “Help us!”

Dane was almost ready to step forward when a Tuscar struck the woman a backhanded blow across the face.  Blood ran from between her broken teeth, and she spoke no more.

He kept his eyes on the floor until the slaves were gone. 

Goddess
…
what have I become?

Sammeus and Cronak left Dane alone.

Good.  There isn’t much that would stop me from killing both of you right now.

He stood against the wall, arms crossed and head down, weighed by memories that were more like nightmares. 

How long had it been?  Three years?  Sometimes it felt longer.  He’d never faced the truth of what had happened. He’d just run.  They
all
had.  Everyone who’d survived had disappeared, and he hadn’t seen a trace of them since.  Sometimes he wondered if he shouldn’t find the others, but he didn’t think any good could come of it.

There’s no longer any bond between you.  Everything you’d once stood for died in those mountains. 

“Azander.”

Dane hadn’t heard Vellexa’s approach.  Her stern look told him she knew of Sammeus’s broken nose.

“I’m still here,” he said.

You don’t get to go back
, he told himself. 
This is where you belong now…down here with the scum.
 

“He’s ready,” Vellexa said.  “It’s time for you to meet the Iron Count.”

Vellexa led Dane to the narrow bridge.  It looked sturdy, but the iron plank was barely two feet wide and almost thirty paces across, and Dane saw nothing but a yawning black void below.  Cold subterranean wind blew up from the depths of the chasm.  A pair of shuttered lanterns flanked the recessed door on the far side, but neither the lanterns nor the torches provided much illumination, and the surface of the walkway was drenched in shadows. 

With nothing to hold onto each gust of wind made Dane’s feet slide closer to the edge of the bridge.  He felt empty air all around him, and his knees turned to liquid.  Vellexa, on the other hand, strode across with confidence, and if the wind bothered her in the slightest she didn’t show it. 

Dane took slow and even steps and held his hands out to his sides for balance.  Vellexa stood impatiently at the door – Dane half expected her to push him off the bridge when he finally got across just for making her wait so long.  There wasn’t much room on the landing, so Dane and Vellexa stood almost toe-to-toe. 

“Don’t move,” she said.  She spun around, and her body brushed up against Dane’s.  He closed his eyes and smiled as her long hair tickled his face. 

Life’s little pleasures
, he told himself. 

Vellexa placed a key in the wall and the bridge slowly retracted, moving as loud and slow as it had before.  The two of them were left standing on the narrow ledge; if Dane slipped he’d fall headlong into the void.  Freezing wind scraped against them.  His footing was uncertain, and fear churned in his gut.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.  “How are we supposed to get back across?!”

“We’re not,” Vellexa said over her shoulder.  “Not today, at least.  The Count wants you to stay as our guest through the night.”

Dane bit his tongue.  He didn’t like the sound of that at all. 

The door opened into a richly decorated foyer with black and blue silks and an elegant chair.  A pair of tall yellow candles provided dim illumination.  There were three more doors, each made of lacquered black wood set with stark white handles.  The air smelled of fruit and wine.