Beyond the Hell Cliffs (18 page)

“
Oh yes, Gimlets; the most dimwitted, superstitious bunch of mongrels in the land!  Their words don’t even hold the weight yours do.  I could pay one an opal and they would say anything I told them.  Dornan, the eyelids, please.”

“Stay your hand, soldier!” a loud voice boomed.  Raegith looked over to the inn to see
Brimgor appear out of one of the shops near the tavern.  He was shirtless in leather breeches and looked as if he could rip Veles in half without a thought.  He strolled out to the Overseer and eyed Raegith before speaking.

“Grass-hair, stand up.
I am taking you from this outpost and to the Citadel myself.”

“You will do no such thing, warrior,”
Veles replied, waving his men to surround the huge Rathgar.  “I don’t know who you could be that you do not recognize the robes of an Overseer or know what they mean, but no one does anything here unless I authorize it.  Do you have a name, simpleton?”

The Rathgar warrior huffed
and leaned back with a smirk.  He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a medallion on a leather lanyard.  As he pulled the leather string over his head and the metal emblem slapped against his massive chest, the surrounding guards took a step back and straightened.  Veles’s eyes widened with disbelief and his entire expression changed.  His posture straightened slowly and he gently raised his closed right fist to his left breast in salute.  The warrior responded by slamming his own fist to his chest in a return salute that thundered across the walls of the surrounding buildings.

“Forgive me, sir,”
Veles said.  “I did not know we had a revered Agillean among us this day.  I did not even know we had a new Agillean, I have been here so long.”

“I am the 93
rd
Agillean, Overseer,” the warrior announced.  “I am too old for you to remember, most likely.”

“I had no idea you were even alive, Agillean,”
Veles replied.  A look of confusion came over his face, as if he were trying to figure out some puzzle in his mind, but after a moment he focused and looked back at the large Rathgar.  “As Overseer, I authorize any command you give, but if you will hear me, I strongly suggest that we interrogate this prisoner before he be allowed to leave… by your consideration, of course.”

“Your suggestion is duly noted, Overseer, and I will make sure Empress Kalystra knows it was you who
apprehended the intruder,” The Agillean said.  “But they will not be interrogated or eviscerated here, by you.  This Northerner is either a lunatic, or has a deep conviction to his cause to travel this far into enemy territory, don’t you think?  Such a man would best be brought to the Citadel, not put beneath an Overseers boot heel.”

“If he is a spy, or even plans an attack on the Empress…”
Veles began, before the big warrior cut him off.

“Then
I, not Veles of Fang, will be held responsible,” the Agillean said.  “You’ve done your job well, Overseer, none could say different.  I am requesting that you let me take personal responsibility for this invader, as a favor to an Agillean.”

Veles
took on a look of intrigue and looked back at Raegith while touching his lips with a finger in thought.  “Of course, Agillean,” he replied.  “It would be my honor.  I shall keep the foreigners under supervision as you finish preparing for your travels.”

“Good
, I won’t be long,” he said, turning to return to the inn.  “Allow them to collect their things.”

A Rathgar guard escorted
Raegith into the inn, where he gathered his belongings and brought them back out to the road to await the Agillean.  When Brimgor came back out, he faltered a bit on the steps, but straightened himself and paced right for Veles.  With another salute, he took charge of the three foreigners and led them out of the village, promising to return at some point so that he could return the favor to Veles.  Raegith wondered what had become of Fibbitch and his men or even Helkree, who had not returned as she said she would.  Neither was a huge loss now that he had some form of revered warrior leading him to the Citadel, but Raegith felt remorse in leaving them behind.

“What is going on, Raegith?” Zakk asked.  So comfortable was he in his ability to converse with the natives that he sometimes forgot that she could not understand anything that was being said.

“We were almost skinned alive… starting with our eyelids, but this guy saved us.”

“Fates…” Ebriz sighed, gripping his chest.  “I really should have stayed at home.”

“How do you know he saved us and isn’t just leading us away from the town to rape us without any witnesses?” Zakk asked, adjusting the sword on her hip.

“From the way the others acted around him, I doubt he would have cared about any witnesses.”

About an hour into the trek to the Citadel, the Rathgar slowed, looked around at the rocky formations surrounding the road they followed and called out.

“I know you’re up there, little harlot,”
he bellowed.  “How much longer do you intend for me to walk with these fools before I’ve earned what you promised?”

A shadow moved from behind a rock and
a familiar cloak rose up from behind it and moved down the hill, the sound of muffled armor moving underneath.  Helkree pulled back her cowl as she reached the two and she smiled at Raegith.  The sight of her seemed to make him anxious and he eagerly stretched his arm out to her, looking a lot less regal than he had in front of Veles.  Helkree regarded him sourly and then took Raegith’s water skin out from under her cloak and passed it to the warrior.  Relief washed over his face, but then he tested the weight and frowned.

“Is this it?” he asked.
  “You led me to believe there was more last night.  Plus, I didn’t think I would have to talk down a damn Overseer, either.  That should be worth more!”

“You stupid
drunk,” Helkree growled.  “You must have conveniently forgotten that enormous bar tab you ran up last night after you accepted my offer.  How do you think that got paid?  This is what’s left after I had to sell five ounces just to get you square with the innkeeper.”

“Damn you, woman, I am an Agillean…”
The Rathgar roared.

“You
were
an Agillean,” Helkree said, cutting him off.  “That was half a century and a hundred kegs ago, old man.  We’re all damn lucky that the Overseer didn’t know anything about you; that or he didn’t realize that the 93
rd
Agillean was Brimgor the Forgotten.  If you can ration it, this should last you a month.”

“A month my face!”
Brimgor huffed.  “I’ve burned out my tolerance to Kafkel years ago.  It’ll take half an ounce just to make my head swim.  I couldn’t make this last a week!”

“How is that my problem?” Helkree asked.  “Look, it’s this or nothing and you can’t just take us back to Knot’s.  The Overseer catches you with this and not even your status as Agillean will save you.  So what’s it going to be?”

“I’ll take what you offer, wench,” Brimgor sighed.  “I’m appalled by your lack of respect for my title and I’m sure your family would be, too.”

“My family would give less of a fuck than I do, if they had the breath for it,” Helkree replied, waving him off.  She turned to Raegith and smiled again.  “I’m sorry for not joining you sooner, but I thought enlisting the services of an old warrior might serve us well.  It’s a good thing I did, or you might be missing a pair of eyelids right now.”

“I see you’ve managed to find some armor,” Raegith said.  “I knew you would be of more use than you claimed.”

“I’m pretty impressed myself,” she replied, pulling her cloak off and returning it to Raegith.  Her armor looked a bit old and didn’t fit correctly, a mix of leather and metal plating for the torso and a leather skirt with strips of metal attached in loose lines dangling nearly to her knees.
  It looked as if she had sheared the top of the breastplate off and bent it outward to accommodate her massive bosom, as the armor was clearly meant for a man.  She had leather boots and gauntlets as well.  “I didn’t even have to fuck or kill anyone to save your ass.”

“
Well, your debt is paid,” Raegith replied.  “You can return to… whatever you were doing before being chained to a rock in the desert.”

“
You were a Stone Worshipper?” Brimgor asked Helkree, laughing.  “Did this one free you?  Raegith of the Grass-Hair, I know your tale was mostly bullshit and something else entirely brought you here, but if this one here worshipped the stone, then she isn’t worth your time.”

“Says the traitor whose name no one dare speak for fear of their stomach heaving!” Helkree shot back.

“I appreciate your concern, Brimgor, but I take no one’s word on who is worthy but my own,” Raegith said, cutting into the argument.  “Plenty have thought me unworthy as well.”

“
Raegith, these people who think you unworthy, they caused you to be here?” Brimgor asked.  Raegith nodded.  “And you killed them for mocking you?”

“No
,” Raegith said.  “My enemy is powerful and influential in my nation.  It would take an army to reach him.”

“You
don’t need an army to kill one man!” Brimgor laughed.  “You need only to find your target.  Set no burial grounds and dig no grave for yourself… make no room for dying.”

“Does the Empire need a burned out,
drunken jester to win a war?” Helkree asked.  “What does that even mean?”

Brimgor looked at the sack of K
afkal juice in his hand as if it were a mate leaving him.  Then his expression soured and he scowled at the drug that he had sold his allegiance to.  His arm swung out and the sack of juice hit Helkree in the chest and she fumbled to catch it before it hit the ground and spilled.

“War is on the wind.  I can smell it!” Brimgor growled, his wide lips curling into a grin.  “
This war will not see Brimgor in such a wretched state.  This axe needs its rust broken off!”

The large Rathgar gave Raegith a final nod and turned back down the trail, off to some distant place to
reclaim his lethal skills.  As he strolled away from the two, he raised his massive arms to the sky and roared with excitement.

“Greimere!
  You will have war once again… and Brimgor shall feed you blood by the barrels!”

“That may have been your dumbest move yet,” Helkree said to Raegith as they watched the Agillean disappear down the trail.  “He may have been a warrior once, but now he’s a drunk… an old drunk.  And the idiot got so excited that he gave back his payment!”

“I think I just gave him something better than a quick buzz,” Raegith replied.  “What was he like before he became… like this?”

“Brimgor in his prime?”
Helkree asked.  She looked down and to the side and smiled, some joyful memory coming back to her as they started back out towards the Citadel.  “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t kill.”

“He was that good?”
 

“The Shield of Agil
les is a medal bestowed on a Rathgar warrior of unparalleled courage and skill,” Helkree explained, somberly.  “It is the highest honor a Rathgar can attain aside from being born into royalty.  The honor is not given out lightly and rarely in times of peace.  Only ninety-eight have been bestowed in our entire history, the last one being given to Allstay, the 98
th
Agillean, who resides at the Citadel.  The others are all dead, save Brimgor the Exile.”

“He said that he was the 93
rd
Agillean,” Raegith said.  “You must have given this honor out more readily in the past few years, huh?”

“Not so,” she replied.  “Brimgor discovered his talent for carnage at a young age, killing his first beast four years after his birth.  He grew to manhood in the Lurches, a hell hole worse than anywhere else in this land
.  The world knew nothing of him until he emerged from that death pit at fourteen, not even a mature Rathgar, and joined the ranks of the Imperial Army.  He attained the honor of Agillean at the unprecedented age of twenty-six, after being the lone survivor at the Last Stand of Gundumm.  I’m pretty sure he’s in his late seventies.”

“If he is such a great warrior, then what happened to him?”

“The Curse of Prodigy,” Helkree said.  “A child becomes gifted at something and that’s all they’re allowed to know.  Society saw a boy who was absolutely peerless in battle, who could kill like none alive, no matter who or what enemy he faced.  Brimgor pursued his talent from the time he could walk to the age that most were allowed to retire, but it was never enough for an Agillean prodigy.  After a lifetime of being prized as nothing but an immortal weapon, Brimgor snapped.  There is an unwritten rule that Agilleans serve until death, but luckily for Brimgor, there was a written rule that there must always be a living Agillean.  So when the Emperor at the time forbid Brimgor from retiring, he used the only option he had: he killed the 94
th
Agillean in single combat and walked out of the Citadel forever.”

“And they let him?”
Raegith asked.

“What could they do?” Helkree
responded.  “He was the only living Agillean, so they couldn’t execute him.  None of the others had the stomach to try and apprehend the man who just bested another Agillean half his age.  The Emperor quickly gave the Shield to his greatest warrior, Imnar, and sent him after Brimgor.  Inmar was killed by Brimgor in open combat and his death was completely justified because Inmar started the duel.  It was another decade before a new Agillean was presented.”