What Remains of Heroes (3 page)

Lannick found himself unable to meet the barkeep’s gaze. “I don’t have a lot of options here, Brugan. A shirt, at least? Even your most ragged will do. Certainly you can do that for an old friend?”

Brugan placed a hand on Lannick’s shoulder. “You were a better man, once. A hero, even. Has so much changed?” His expression grew wistful for a moment, but then hardened again. “I can’t watch you live like this any longer, Lannick. I can no longer stand here with a smile and a full tankard for you as you piss away what little honor you have left.” He fixed Lannick with a serious look. “I have a couple of spare shirts in the kitchen. Grab the burlap one. Not one of my good linens or aprons, mind you. And then get out.”

Lannick searched the kitchen, only finding the shirt after a close inspection of the piglet roasting in the fireplace. His mouth watered at the scent of it, but he couldn’t wrong his friend any further by stealing a morsel. Instead, he peeled off his shirt, taking care to avoid contact with its moist stains. He cursed his bad judgment, knowing he deserved no better than this.

As he reached to retrieve Brugan’s shirt his eyes rested momentarily on the small symbol tattooed upon the inside of his forearm. A watchtower under which was a word: “
Variden.
” It meant “Vigilant Ones” in the elder tongue. A sadness came upon him as it often did when he encountered remnants of his old life. Brugan was right—Lannick had fallen far. He sighed and tugged Brugan’s shirt overhead.

He turned toward the kitchen door and was about to declare his gratitude when he heard a crash. The hard crash of the tavern’s front door being thrown open. A din of shouting followed and boots thundered upon the tavern’s planked floor. Glass shattered. Wood splintered. Lannick froze.

“Barkeep!” sounded a high-pitched voice, like a sword scraping free of a scabbard. Lannick knew the voice well. It was General Fane, and likely several members of his Scarlet Swords.

Lannick smacked at his head and tried to focus, frantically searching his surroundings. The cramped kitchen had no openings to the outside beyond a couple of narrow flues over the fireplaces. There was the swinging door into the common room and the bolted door to the cellar. The swinging door was sure to be thrown open in scant moments, at which point he’d be skewered just like piglet in the fireplace.

I’m forgetting
something!

There came another crash from the common room and the crack of wood breaking. He picked out Fane’s voice. “There was a man last night, here at your tavern…”

The Wanton Vicar
, Lannick thought. Brugan had told him the story behind the tavern’s name, once. Something about finding shackled skeletons and instruments of torture in the catacombs below the adjacent church. He cursed his wine-softened head, knowing there was something relevant, something important about the story he was forgetting.

A thud resounded from the bar, followed by a muted cry. Lannick winced, imagining Brugan’s face smashed against the bar top by one of Fane’s bloodthirsty henchmen. He thought of rushing in to save his friend from the beating, but quickly dismissed the notion. Both of them would end up dead if he tried, especially in such tight quarters and without a proper weapon. Instead Lannick uttered a quick prayer for his friend’s safety. As vicious as Fane was, he wasn’t likely to gut Brugan if he didn’t think the barkeep had been complicit in his daughter’s deflowering. At least Lannick hoped it was so.

Another crash sounded, forcing Lannick’s thoughts back to a means of escape. There was something about the place that Brugan had mentioned…

“I do not enjoy repeating myself,” said Fane in his screeching tone. “Don’t tempt me to bury you in your cellar!”

The
cellar
.

Brugan had once told him he’d found an entrance to the catacombs in his cellar. That’s why he kept it bolted shut, just in case anything or anyone ever tried wandering into the tavern from below. It was said the catacombs wound under the entire city of Ironmoor, a relic of an older time. It stood to reason there’d be another portal to the outside world, somewhere nearby.

With a silent apology to Brugan and a silent prayer the barkeep could hold out just a little longer, Lannick grabbed his old, vomit-stained shirt. He looped it about his hand and used it to grab an ember from the fireplace. The bolt to the cellar yielded with only minor protest and Lannick dashed down the stairwell and into whatever lurked below.

The cellar was a series of cramped chambers serving as storage for all manner of necessities for
The Wanton Vicar
. In the gloom Lannick discerned wheels of cheese, casks of ale, and seemingly endless bottles of wine. He managed to find a hand lamp amidst the stockpile, and judged there was some oil in it from the sloshing sound it made. He lit the wick with the burning ember from the fireplace and light spilled across the chamber.

Hard footfalls sounded on the planks overhead. Fane’s men were either leaving or tossing the place. Lannick scanned every dark corner of the cellar and at last spotted a low, bolted door. This bolt did not give easily, scraping and squealing as he pulled. Eventually, though, it gave way, and a rush of stale air from the catacombs beyond threatened to extinguish his lamp. Lannick could see nothing in the narrow corridor before him, but the thudding sounds from above permitted no other choice.

Just before plunging through the doorway, he turned back to the racks of wine. There were many bottles, so he reckoned Brugan could spare just one for an old friend. He grabbed it and departed.

Take care, Brugan, and may we both survive long enough for me to repay
you
.

The catacombs were said to be haunted, and the utter dark yielded little to the light of Lannick’s lantern. Strange winds whipped at him from every direction, and the air carried the sickly-sweet reek of decay. Occasionally a howl or scream from something, somewhere, pierced the wind’s moan. If the Scarlet Swords behind him weren’t enough, the thought of undead beasts stalking the darkness was sure to spur his pace.

Lannick was a tall man, which didn’t match well with such low ceilings. He winced as he scraped his head again and again upon the roughly hewn rock. What was more, the tight passages twisted and turned, and he slammed into the walls more than once. But he figured the haphazard design provided him some small advantage. He guessed there was some chance his lantern’s light would be concealed from the Scarlet Swords, and they’d have no clue as to his path. The henchmen were certain to find the tavern’s entrance to the catacombs, and he needed to reach his quarters before General Fane.

The passage straightened and ran on for a distance. Lannick dimmed his lantern, growing worried of being found.

Dread settled upon him in the dark. This was no ballroom fop or petty noble he’d wronged, but the kingdom’s most ambitious and dangerous man. Lannick had gotten crossways with him once before, and the price Fane had exacted had been nearly too much to bear. The fleeting joys of the previous evening disappeared entirely. It seemed that after all he’d been forced to suffer over these years, he’d die at the hands of his tormentor, General Fane.

I am a dead man
.

After a time the cramped corridor began sloping upward. Lannick was certain the air was freshening and there was a faint murmur of what sounded like voices, likely the Scarlet Swords behind him. He shuttered his lamp closed and tried to quiet his breathing to better focus on the sound.

There
were
voices. But these weren’t gruff exchanges of soldiers. Rather, it sounded like the hum of many conversations occurring at once. He tiptoed forward a few more paces, his head fixed at a tilt in hopes of hearing better. He guessed he was beneath some kind of meeting place, a market or square. What was more, there was the thinnest ribbon of light penetrating the gloom ahead. Lannick moved on, caring little for the resonating scrapes of his leather boots upon the limestone floor.

The rough-hewn ceiling gave way to blocks of carved stone, and between two blocks was a tiny hole. Lannick pressed his eye as close to the hole as his nose would allow, but he could make out nothing but the gleam of light. But light it was, and he was certain there were people milling about the space above.

“Help!” he hissed, hoping someone above would hear him. “Help me!”

He waited there a moment, awaiting some sort of reply. But there was no response, and seemingly very little chance he could be heard. He cursed and pulled away from the light, and looked again into the gloom of the passageway.

Just then an angry shout resounded from the darkness behind him. “Stop, you bastard!” came a gruff voice.

Damn my wine-muddled head!
Lannick charged forward as quickly as the strangled passage would allow. He could no longer afford caution, so he opened wide the shutters of his lamp. He ran, and the path ahead continued its upward slope. There had to be an exit somewhere.

Another shout boomed from the darkness. Lannick swung his lamp around and saw a glint of steel not more than thirty feet behind him. He nearly stumbled as he turned about, trying to move faster than his legs would carry him. He ran with a frightened pace, a hare from the hound.

He did not see the rubble strewn across the floor where a wall had crumbled and he lost his footing. He spilled across the stone, barely managing to keep hold of his lamp. He twisted about but fell back again, his boots sliding on the rubble.

“Stay down, bastard!” The voice was close, almost upon him.

At last Lannick scrambled to his feet and grabbed from a pocket the wine he’d stolen from Brugan’s cellar. The Scarlet Swordsman was no more than ten feet away, blade brandished and eyes agleam with fury. But he was alone.

Lannick directed the lamp’s glare at the soldier, hoping the bright light in the utter dark would disorient him. With his other hand he threw the bottle. It struck the Swordsman square in the face, not hard enough to break the bottle but enough to make the man misstep and lose his footing on the same rubble which had toppled Lannick. He skidded to a stop at Lannick’s feet, and Lannick dashed his lamp across the Swordsman’s skull. Flames engulfed his head and shot across his red cloak. His screams told of horrific pain.

Lannick looked frantically about for the man’s sword, and finally spotted its point protruding from beneath a flailing arm. He couldn’t chance trying to pry the thing away, nor could he wait for the flames to sputter and die. If there were other Swordsmen in the catacombs, they were certain to hear the cries of their comrade. Lannick turned his back to the burning body and tried to outrun the light of the blaze. The screams followed him for a long while, but that was well enough. His heart held a special hatred for Fane’s Scarlet Swords, those awful thugs retained by the general to do his darkest work.

Like what they did to my
family
.

After a time, the cries fell silent. Lannick fumbled through many turns and twists in the dark, and then the corridor came to an abrupt end at a door of moldy wood. Lannick grimaced as he neared it, for the air carried a gut-turning stench. He pulled an arm to his face, burying his nose in the crease of his elbow, then tugged at the door.