The Graveyard Shift (6 page)

Plus, I like teasing him.

“I think I’m going to have a quick beer up in my break room,” I say, as I point back to the garage apartment. The only furniture it holds is an old fridge that barely runs and an unwanted couch, and I love seeing the look of apprehension in his eyes—the thought that I might slack off and daydream my way into his dark little secret—right before he persuades himself that I won’t discover anything up there. After all, I
am
the too-serious meathead with no imagination.

“Yeah, that’s alright by me, just don’t go overboard on the beers,” Will jokes. “And thanks again. Bye, Robb.”

He walks out the gate where his wife and children are already waiting to head off. Only Ruth glances my way and offers a quick wave. It’s not returned.

Instead, I’m off to the garage apartment, off to the closet that holds my beloved axe, and after settling into the carpet, I’m off to Fairhaven, which is looking better since the last
Rohkai attack. Stronger. The cottages have been repaired. The streets are thrumming with happy villagers, which leaves me in a bit of surprise when I see that the Jarl’s longhouse is anything but festive. The soldiers gathered around the Jarl’s table are listless, as is Jarl Strolf.

“Robb,” he says, with a nod in my direction. “You’ve returned. You were successful?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then I’m afraid there’s more to do. I have word that the
Rohkai are growing in number. They’ve taken a fortress out in the northeast.”

“Fort
Highlock,” says another voice. “Are you familiar?”

It’s not until now that I’ve noticed the Jarl’s new advisor, sitting beside him clutching a quill and ink. He’s pale,
unbearded, a bit old, and has a dark purple robe. Beneath the neck of his robe I can spy the faintest hint of a necklace. One that’s covered in bone. He’s surely a spy for the Rohkai.

I’m not mad, though. I like a good plot twist.

“I’m not familiar with Fort Highlock,” I reply. “What can you tell me about it?”

“Just that it’s heavily guarded at the front lines,” the advisor says, “but extremely weak from the flank. There’s an old mineshaft back there that I don’t believe they’ve fully explored, because it leads right into the heart of the fortress.
Into a cellar. If you snuck in there, you could kill all of them like sleeping babies.”

I don’t like the way he says this, like killing an infant is a bit too familiar to him. “How do you know this?” I ask.

“Because I was a prisoner there, and they forced me to work in the mines until I escaped.” He holds up his wrists, which still hold the scars of shackles bound much too tight.

He’s good.

“Yes, and now he’s helping us in exchange for a seat at my counsel,” the Jarl says. “His name is Voss, he’s a priest of Aleria, and I’ve spoken with him at great length. He is to be trusted.”

Of course he is.

And so Voss, the priest of Aleria, uses his quill and inkwell and pens out a map leading to Fort Highlock, and offers his blessing before dropping a heavy bag of gold coins into my hand. A bag of coins that I take directly to the tavern. Once I’ve had my pre-battle ale, I mount up on my horse and head along the path to Fort Highlock. I’m expecting an ambush, of course. Or some kind of setup. But I’m prepared for this, and I
like
being outnumbered and outgunned. It always adds to the sense of thrill.

However, that thought is soon lost, because an hour into my journey, through those beautiful green
Enderien fields, I see a woman waving a torn piece of cloth on the side of the road. Also on the side of the road is her wooden carriage, which is upside down, busted, and missing a wheel, along with the body of her horse, which has a broken neck.

“Please,” she wheezes, with dirt on her face and a fresh trail of blood running down her forearm. “I got ambushed by
Rohkai, and they ran me off the road. I think my son is still inside the cart, but I can’t open it. The door is stuck.”

Her panic is genuine, and fresh tears fall down her face. “Please. I need to get him out of here! They mean to rape and kill me!”

Dropping down from my horse, I begin to circle the cart and eye the door along the side, which is actually propped open, and right as that registers as odd is when I see the glimmer of bone from the corner of my vision. Two Rohkai come flying at me, clubs poised to bash in my skull, but my axe is faster than they could ever hope to be and they drop to the grass in deep red puddles.

“That’s it?” I ask.
“Just two of you?”

But it seems it’s not, and from behind the cart comes one more, with a double-sided axe that has twin blades forged from bone. I step narrowly to the side as he swings, and the head of his axe goes straight into the cart with such force that it shears the paneling along the side in
half. When the Rohkai goes to wedge his axe free, however, it gets caught in the wood.

And so his shoulders are still shrugging with urgency, desperately trying to free his only means of survival, as my own axe launches into his stomach, parts his armor like butter, and spills his entrails onto his boots like a dropped bowl of chili. The
Rohkai drops soon after, to his knees, and in a glossy eyed panic he’s trying to shovel his own dirt-and-blood covered intestines back into his stomach. His axe is long forgotten, as is his language, because he’s babbling incoherently.

Back on the side of the road, I catch glance of the woman who’d flagged me down. She looks like a rabbit, quivering timidly, just waiting to bolt off. But she knows better.

“I… What I said was true,” she explains, nearly tripping over her own feet as she backs up in the tall grasses. “Well, I don’t have a child, but the Rohkai, they
did
ambush me. And they demanded I trick you, or, or…” She’s beginning to hyperventilate. “Or they
were
going to rape and kill me. Please. I swear it.”

I believe her, and though I’m still angry (mostly at myself for not seeing this coming), I want to use this to my advantage, so I tell her, “Go back to Fairhaven, then, and tell Jarl
Strolf and Voss of Aleria that Robb was ambushed and killed alongside the road. Can you do this for me?”

“Yes, but…” She chokes briefly on her tears. “Are you Robb?”

She winces at the sound of something heavy striking the ground, and behind me, the Rohkai that just scooped his dirty entrails back into his body lays dead.

“Just deliver that message exactly as I told you, and do it quickly.”

I toss her the half-empty bag of gold coins that Voss had given me, and quickly mount my horse. I haven’t much time to get off the road and find a good hiding spot before Voss’s spies send word to Fort Highlock that I’m dead. And when they do, and they sleep comfortably, carelessly—that’s when I strike, and that’s when I rescue Mary. I can’t explain it, but I know somehow that she’s being held in that fort.

I just know she is.

*

My axe looks and sounds like a miner’s pickaxe when I’m immersed in darkness, and it makes it that much easier to sneak into Highlock Mine.

‘Clink
clink clink.’

My axe digs into the side of a rock, carving away little more than a few sprinkles of rock, but it sounds like I’m mining ore and allows me to draw closer to the guard, who can’t see my armor in the torchlight.

‘Clink clink clink.’

He thinks nothing as I pretend I’m walking toward a wheelbarrow, but then I circle behind him, raise my axe, and part his skull in half down to his neck. The body flops to the ground, but not before his ejected brains paint the rock wall. Considering this man was a full foot taller than me, this is no small achievement.

Beside me, a miner in tattered rags is staring with his mouth agape, and the pickaxe falls out of his hands, landing beside the shackles that restrict the movement of his feet.

“You’re free,” I tell him, “so long as you get out of here right this instant and don’t make a peep.”

He’s about to say yes, but reconsiders it and turns on his heel to flee as fast as his shackles will allow.

As Voss had said, the mine leads straight into the fortress, which I discover to be true as I continue through the mineshaft and reach a pair of double doors leading into the fortress’s wine cellar. There are two headless bodies lying behind me, and ahead of me I hear the idle chatter of two more bodies that do not yet know they’re dead.

I take a celebratory swig of their alcohol after I spray the walls in blood, wine, and broken glass. It tastes like grape juice mixed with paint thinner, but it dulls my senses a bit and makes me forget the coagulating blood that’s covered my trembling hands.

“Everything alright down there?”
I hear from the stone steps leading up. “It sounds like a damn ruckus! You two drunken idiots knocked something over again, didn’t you?”

“You’d better come check this out!” I yell in a muffled tone.

“Bloody hell,” I hear, and after the thumps down the stairs get loud enough, I round the corner and deliver the axe’s blade straight into the Rohkai’s neck. The pain is so great that he bites down hard on his own tongue and a mixture of blood—from his tongue, and from the geyser in his neck—bubbles up out from his lips. It stains his red beard even redder, and I grab his staggering form and toss him back into the wooden chairs behind me where his two friends lay in eternal slumber.

I take another swig of wine, toss the now empty bottle over my shoulder, and creep to the top of the stairs. I’m expecting a war, but I find that the fortress appears empty.

Where is everyone else?
I think, as I survey the lifeless den before me. This room alone is large enough to house fifty, and yet the straw beds lining the walls are all empty.

“Who else is here?” I demand. It’s probably not the smartest thing I’ve done, but I’m greeted with nothing but silence. Where the hell is everyone?

I branch out into a hallway, which is also bare, and then round a corner. The next room yields nothing. Nor does an armory on the other side of that, or the pantry past that. I’m just waiting for someone to jump out at me, but nothing happens. I’m clenching my axe so hard I feel like I might break the handle.

Finally, as I round the next corner, I hear the soft shuffle of footsteps, and I see the edge of a cape at the end of the hall. I burst out into a sprint, and so does whomever I’m chasing, because those soft footfalls pick up into loud, frantic stomps. The corner leads to a set of spiral stairs, and as I begin to catch up I see black boots pounding the steps just ahead of me. The armor this one wears is special. It’s almost entirely made of bone plating, even his helmet, which is adorned in feathers and a set of elk antlers.

He’s their leader.

He glances back over his shoulder, and through the thinnest slit in his helmet I can make out a look of apprehension. It fuels me, and I can feel myself gaining on him, right as he steps up onto the fortress’s stone rooftop. There is hay up here, and bones, and bloodstains, and it doesn’t
make sense until he glances back a second time and I see that the apprehension is gone.

From just ahead of him an enormous rust-colored eye
flops open, and a skinny, cat-like pupil focuses in on me. It’s pitch black out here, with only the smattering of stars and a paper-thin crescent moon radiating the faintest of light, but even in the darkness I can see the piercing blue of the scales that ruffle loudly, and the long, giraffe like neck that propels the enormous eye skyward.

It’s a dragon, armored from head to foot in sapphire colored scales, and it’s the size of a small houseboat, which is fitting, because as it stands on its hind legs it spreads a pair of leathery wings that look like an enormous, fleshy white pair of sails. Tendrils of smoke plume from its nostrils, and it huffs loudly. It knows I’m an intruder. And so, as the
Rohkai commander climbs atop its back, it’s already set in motion toward me.

With a bit of fast but clumsy footing I throw myself forward as a set of talons the
size of hunting knives carve the air above my head. I’ve never fought a dragon this big before, and the only thing I can think to do is run. In the darkness I’m slipping on still-moist blood and stomping over bones that were once used as toothpicks, but that’s irrelevant to the claws that are so close to carving my spine that I can now feel the breeze on my back where my leather armor was sheared.

“You can’t hope to run from me,” the
Rohkai commander says, with much satisfaction in his voice.

Up ahead is a set of wooden chairs and a table, against the northern wall where archers assemble. But my goal is not to seek refuge. My goal is to seek height. And so with my axe clenched tightly in both hands I lift off my feet, first climbing the chair, then stomping up onto the table, and then launching myself at the wall with my foot extended. When it reaches the wall and makes contact, I kick as hard as I can off of it, turn my body, and bring my axe up over my head.

It’s the first time I’ve seen the dragon face to face, and right now it’s swinging both of its arms toward me, only it wasn’t expecting my jump, so the talons go directly underneath me and send the table and the chairs tumbling over the side of the building. Like a horse, the dragon has its eyes on each side of its slender head, so it turns its face to inspect me right as I’m soaring toward it. An enormous eye that was once the color of rust explodes like a crushed tomato as the axe makes contact.