City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (17 page)

Dane grinned in spite of himself.  It was a sickly comic scene.  It seemed the Voss was a coward…which went against everything Dane knew about the race. 

Something isn’t right here.

The golem’s fist smashed the Voss against the wall, and the giant came away from the cracked stone bloody.  He blocked a blow from the construct’s blade, and another.  Sparks rained to the ground with each ear-shattering clang of metal. 

The giant ran to the opposite side of the arena, much to the crowd’s disapproval.  For a brief moment he looked in Dane’s direction, and despite his alien visage it was easy for Dane to recognize the look of desperate fear on the ebon-skinned face.

Dane felt a pang of pity for the brute, and hated himself for it.

What the hell is wrong with you?
he asked himself.
  It’s a Voss, for Goddess’s sake! 

The crowd painfully pushed him against the railing.  Dane held his glowing
vra’taar
over his head and shouted out, which cleared enough space so he could catch his breath, step up on the rail and gain a batter vantage.  He floated at the edge of a sea of sweat and flesh.  Dane was nearly knocked into the pit when someone ran into his leg, but he righted himself and looked around again for Targo’s men so they could put a stop to the fight.

Down in the pit, the Voss looked out at the crowd as it fled from its opponent.  It yelled at them with a deep and bellowing voice.  Dane recognized the harsh Vossian tongue, but he had no idea what the giant was saying. 

The metal beast struck the back of the Voss’s shoulder with its blade, but the giant pulled free and ran again.  Black blood gushed from his wounds.

Tollok was holding back a crowd of new arrivals at the doors.  Dane glimpsed white and blue armor under black cloaks.  A moment later Tollok was run through.  Some thirty White Dragon soldiers plowed into the room and sliced through Targo’s men.  Most of the crowd didn’t even notice.

Shit. 

Dane couldn’t be taken by the Jlantrians – it would mean his death – and there was no way to stop the fight, not that it would’ve made any difference at that point.  If the Voss didn’t die there today it would meet its end in another fight soon…and what the hell did he care about a black giant, an outlaw criminal monster who under different circumstances Dane might have killed himself?

He started to climb down from the railing.  The Jlantrian soldiers came to the edge of the crowd and pushed the witless spectators out of the way. 

The iron warrior’s blade punched through the Voss’s arm.  The giant fell to his knees, head bowed, as if waiting for the executioner’s blow.  The blade rose up. 

Dane froze in place.  He saw the circle of women kneeling before the sword, waiting to die.  The man with the black face killed them all, one at a time, laughing all the while.  Dane felt their blood on his hands and face as he stood alone in the dark and screamed.

Twenty-Four

Kruje knew he was about to die.  Every muscle ached with fatigue, and he shook with fear.  His wounds burned like wildfire. 

I never had a chance.

He’d avoided the Bloodnaught as long as he could, cursed with the knowledge of what would happen if he did any damage to it, but it didn’t really matter because his fate had been sealed the moment he’d stepped foot in the arena.  He’d called for help without expecting any, had even tried to warn the humans to get away, a last and desperate attempt to please the J’ann through his selflessness. 

He was too weak to move.  He watched his blood pool in the dirt.  All he had the strength to do now was watch his own shadow on the floor.  His neck tensed, ready for the sharp blow to end his once-promising life.  Would he see through newly dead eyes as his head flew away when he was decapitated?  He hoped not. 

Close your eyes
, he told himself, but he couldn’t, and in any case the blow never came.  A shadow passed overhead, and he heard a clang of metal directly in front of him.  Kruje looked up and he saw something he never thought he’d see.

A human had saved him. 

The man was young and fit and as nimble as a Bloodcat.  He wore a tattered cloak, which he quickly discarded as he rose from the ground to prevent himself from getting tangled.  The man’s armor was black and gold, the sturdy Jlantrian style of leather and chain with metal plates at the knees and shoulders.  He had a curved hand-and-a-half sword with a second shorter blade protruding from the bottom of the hilt like some deadly thorn.  The dark helmet left only his eyes, chin and mouth exposed. 

Kruje’s savior was so tiny compared to the Bloodnaught – its very shadow eclipsed the little knight, but he held his ground, poised as if ready to leap.  The Bloodnaught seemed to have forgotten Kruje entirely, and focused on the human.

What in the name of the J’ann is going on?  The knight must have deflected the killing blow, but why?

Kruje struggled to his feet.  The wide-eyed crowd was dispersing and seemed to be in a panic.  Something was happening up above, beyond his line of sight.  He wondered if maybe someone in that throng of blood-eager gamblers actually spoke Vossian and had decided to heed his warning.  Kruje found his axe and picked it up, though its weight suddenly seemed too much for him to bear. 

The Bloodnaught took a long step forward and brought down its blade.  The knight dodged out of the way and the metal sparked against the ground, but the Bloodnaught’s powerful fist caught the man with a backhanded strike and sent him crashing against the arena wall.  The human fell in a crumpled heap, blood pouring from his nose.  Even then, his eyes never left the Bloodnaught. 

Kruje heard the automaton’s combustion generator as it started to overheat.  Its explosion was imminent, and if he and his foolhardy savior didn’t find a way out of there soon they were both as good as dead.  It had taken five hundred Bloodnaughts to destroy the Empire of Gallador, but just one would be more than enough to kill everyone in the building.

The Bloodnaught slowly approached the knight.  Each step made the ground rumble as it stamped through pools of viscera and gore.  Though the Bloodnaught seemed to have forgotten Kruje the thought of leaving the human behind had never crossed the Voss’s mind.  He gritted his teeth and charged with a war howl that would have made his father and brother proud. 

Kruje brought his axe down and shattered the Bloodnaught’s blade.  He hoped the indirect strike wouldn’t set off the Bloodnaught’s combustion generator.  The automaton stumbled back, thrown off balance long enough for Kruje to reach the knight, who watched him with his weapon held ready.

“We have to get out!” Kruje shouted, not sure if the knight understood him.  The man’s eyes were locked on the Bloodnaught as it righted itself.  Kruje lowered his axe and raised an open hand to try and make the knight understand.  “Please,” he said, “we can’t fight it!  We have to run!  Run…”

The crowd pushed away from the iron railing.  Kruje saw motion from the corner of his eye as one of the doors to the arena opened and Maddox and his men emerged.  The slaver’s face was twisted with rage, and he held the fearful stone in his hand. 

Kruje felt the collar around his neck tighten.  His legs went weak with fear.

Twenty-Five

Dane’s head pounded.  Sharp pain pulsed down his back.  He felt like a broken doll. 

The metal giant stomped towards them.  The air was heavy and loud and it seemed the entire place would come crashing down.  Sweat and blood ran in his eyes.  Dane threw his helmet aside so he could see.

The Voss stood between he and the golem, and it kept shouting at him. 

What in the One Goddess’s name is he doing? 
He listened to the black giant’s words.
  Run?  Is that what “vrast” means?  To run?

The Voss stood stupefied.  Exhausted and swimming in pain, Dane held his
vra’taar
aloft and focused every last fiber of his strength into the blade.  He could barely keep his eyes open with the hurt slicing through his head.  A dread chill overtook his bones as raw Veil power scraped against his soul. 

Dane sensed the Voss moving towards him.  Someone nearby cried out in rage.  Dane focused, felt his blood stiffen as fire surged in his veins.  A lance of white flame shot from his weapon and slammed into the iron juggernaut.  Molten blood spurted out in streams, and a tidal wave of bleeding mercury ran down the metal husk. 

His vision went red, as if Dane cried blood.  He was thrown from his feet and flew through the air until he struck something hard.  Pain eclipsed his body.  All he heard was the sound of metal.  Dane struggled to right himself, but something pressed down on him.

The world blazed bright.  Dane cried out into heat and darkness as it washed over him.

Twenty-Six

The sun rose.  Tendrils of pale mist from the River Grey slithered across the city.  The light gradually cut through the morning gloom, but even in the new day Ebonmark looked old and sick.  Shadows seemed to scurry away like vaporous rats, and the oddly-shaped buildings leaned like headstones in old soil.  Blankets of darkness covered the cold desert to the north, and to the east the Moon Sea was just a glitter of green and blue beyond cracked hills, scattered farms and desolate outposts.

Aaric Blackhall stood alone atop his small tower.  Cold wind cut across the plains and battered the Jlantrian camp, which was half-illuminated by early morning light and dying cook fires. 

His father had shown him his first sunrise when he was only six years old, and he’d not missed a single one in the three-and-a-half decades since.  Blackhall wasn’t what he’d call a sentimentalist, and he never understood what it was about the dawn which inspired so many poems and songs; truth be told, he didn’t even understand what it was
he
enjoyed so much about them, except for the simple fact they reminded him of home.  Seeing the new day always made him think of his boyhood.  His father had been alive, and his worries had been petty and few.  It was a time he missed.

Blackhall rubbed his hands together to fight off the new day’s chill as he stared out over the city.  Ebonmark was a deplorable place.  While he admired the common folk who lived here – those who’d survived the old wars and raids and crime and the constant change in rulers and laws – he hated the city itself.  It was diseased, a useless stump that had somehow become the object of everyone’s attention.  The crime guilds wanted Ebonmark for its advantageous trade location, while the Empires wanted it because it stood at the borders of their old territories.  In a way, the criminal’s reasons made more sense. 

But the Empress wanted more than just Ebonmark: she wanted her precious Stone amulet, and she was willing to seize a city or a nation to get it. 

What the Empress wants, the Empress gets, no matter the cost.  Goddess, Empress, Empire.

His eyes were heavy with fatigue.  Blackhall hadn’t slept much since the catastrophe at the arena.  He’d felt honored when General Karthas had given him the task of securing control of Ebonmark…honored, but surprised.  He and Karthas were soldiers of an entirely different stock, and the older, more brutal and much more Goddess-fearing Karthas had never approved of Blackhall’s methods, which he considered soft.  Karthas would destroy a city in order to save it, and chalk it all up to the One Goddess’s mysterious will. 

I should have known better.  This isn’t a reward, it’s a punishment, and I’ve been handed a near impossible task.  Now I’m stuck with it.

He heard the calls of distant hawks.  Ebonmark was coming to life, and the sound of foot traffic, horses and rumbling wagons echoed through the streets.  Sunlight punched through the clouds like ember daggers. 

Blackhall yawned.  He didn’t want to face another day in that place, and he wasn’t sure he could do it without killing someone. 

Step to, old man.  There’s work to be done.

He slowly walked down the stairs and into the tower.  The cold citadel, brought and used at Gess’s insistence, was almost pitch-black inside.  Blackhall’s bare feet left steam imprints on the cold stone steps as he descended to the meeting chamber, the very place where the mysterious woman had intruded three nights before.  Gess had used the Veil to replace the hole in the wall, but the man’s arcane connection to the tower hadn’t been sharp enough to notify him of the woman’s invasion in time. 

A cup of warm wine still sat on the table from the night before, next to the letter Blackhall had started writing to Cassandra.  A pair of candles cast dim light across the room, and his tall and twisted shadow seemed to follow him as he walked.  Blackhall rubbed his raw eyes and took a sip of wine, which churned in his empty stomach and reminded him how hungry he was.

Goddess, what a mess this is. 

Over a hundred people had died in the explosion, twenty of his own men among them.  He’d put off meeting with the elder merchants of the city, the only sort of council or power base Ebonmark had left, as he knew they’d only scream at Jlantria’s lack of efficiency and demand more protection.  Instead of wasting time with the merchants Blackhall had spent the last three days coordinating the recovery efforts.  Only a large crater remained of the arena, which was still filled with hundreds of pounds of debris and dozens of decimated corpses the workers hadn’t been able to pull out yet.  Blackhall couldn’t afford to spare any more White Dragon regulars to aid with the recovery and Gess’s magic wasn’t suited to the task, which meant the clean-up would take another few days.  Clouds of ash still hovered over the blast site like a miasma, and people swore they heard ghostly whispers in the area.