The Sanguine Scroll, page 5
The warehouse door opened wider, giving him a better look at the man inside. He was tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in canvas shorts with his hairless chest bare. In fact, the only hair on the fellow was a little patch directly under his lower lip.
“Come in, come in.” He waved them through the open door. “Our other guest arrived two days ago. He doesn’t seem the patient sort, so the sooner I can get you lot on your way, the better for everyone.”
Finally, someone sensibly terrified. Gareth had begun to think he was the only one with brains enough to realize how much trouble they were in. He hurried through the door and Ginevera strolled along behind him. Inside, the warehouse looked like any other Gareth had robbed over the years. Light shone down through skylights, illuminating crates stacked everywhere in neat piles.
The warehouse manager hustled ahead of them toward the rear of the warehouse. “This way.”
“I’m Gar—”
“Don’t tell me!” he said. “I don’t want to know your names. I don’t want you to know my name. Ms. Raven made it clear I was to provide whatever help you needed and I will, but the less I know about this madness the better. She’s already insanely rich. Why in the world does she need to do something crazy like this?”
He shook his bald head and kept walking without looking back. The way he talked, you’d think they were dragging him out into the desert with them.
At the rear of the warehouse, in a deep, dark corner, a table sat in the shadows. Seated at it was a vaguely human-shaped shadow.
“The rest of your party is here, sir, I’ll leave you to get aquatinted. As soon as your contact shows up I’ll bring him back.”
With that explosion of anxious words, the manager hurried back the way he’d come.
Ginevera brushed past Gareth and stared down at the shadow. “You’re strong. I can see the corruption swirling around you. Which demon lord do you serve?”
The shadow man looked up, revealing a pale face so handsome Gareth’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t be human.
“I serve Astaroth,” the man said in a voice as perfect as his face. “Lord of the Dead commanded me to come here and join with your group. Your master’s spies will find the renegade and I will destroy her. Nothing else matters. As long as you do nothing to interfere, you will survive this mission. Get in my way and I won’t hesitate to kill you both.”
Lightning crackled around the sea witch’s hands. “One, I have no master. Two, I don’t take threats lightly. If you imagine I’ll be easy to kill, think again.”
The man stood and Gareth finally realized that the reason he looked like a living shadow was the loose, flowing cloak he wore. It covered everything from his neck down to his black boots. Darkness swirled around his hands. Just looking at it made Gareth nauseous.
“Hey, guys, we’re all on the same team here, right?” Gareth asked. “Maybe you could wait until after we finish the job to kill each other.”
Glowing eyes, one pair green and the other red, turned to glare at Gareth.
He winced. Should’ve kept his mouth shut.
“Your human has a point.” The shadow man sat back down and some of the tension drained away. “Any power I wasted on killing you would only increase the chances of failing my mission and that must not happen. You may call me Jackal. If you wish to continue this after my prey is slain, I will be happy to oblige.”
For a moment he feared the sea witch wanted to continue it right now, but slowly the lightning vanished and she sat opposite Jackal. “Ginevera. And as long as you don’t insult me again, I will let your offense go this once.”
Gareth let out a breath. “Great. I’m Gareth, by the way. Nice to meet you. I’m sure you’ve got some great stories to tell. Should make the trip more interesting.”
Jackal turned his burning gaze on Gareth who found he suddenly couldn’t breathe. “I am not a bard to sing for your amusement. Now sit and be silent.”
Ginevera’s lip quirked up a fraction.
At least the two of them agreed on one thing. Pity it seemed to be hating him.
Before the silence around the table grew too uncomfortable, the door opened behind them. Gareth looked over his shoulder but made out little beyond the nearly blinding glow of the sun. A silhouette appeared in the doorway then it closed again.
Footsteps filled the silent warehouse and a figure passed through the shafts of light from the skylights. Gareth got the impression of armor and weapons but little else. This must be their employer’s agent. With any luck he’d tell them what they all wanted to hear: that they could set out at once.
He stopped a few feet from the table. No one stood and as usual no introductions were made. Gareth really didn’t understand that last part. After all, it was nice to have a name to go with a face. Certainly it was better than pointing and saying “hey you.”
“Gentlemen and lady,” the man said. “Our mutual benefactor has entrusted me with acquiring the information you need to find Amet Sur’s capital. You’ll be happy to know I’ve secured access to Eddred of Markane’s mission. In fact, my mercenaries will be making up the bulk of his party. Signs will be left for you to follow.”
The guy looked like a thug but spoke like a banker. The weirdness of it made Gareth’s head hurt.
“How soon can we leave?” Jackal asked.
“Three days?” the agent said. “Eddred’s party will leave tomorrow and you’ll want to let them get a little ways ahead so they don’t notice you following along. A confrontation before you reach the city wouldn’t do, after all.”
Jackal growled but offered no complaint. The sea witch didn’t speak at all.
Curious, Gareth asked, “Why are you betraying your employer?”
“Betray? Bite your tongue. My contract specifically states that the mercenaries I provide are there to fight undead and act as bearers. Nowhere does it state that I have to keep the mission a secret.”
“I doubt your employer will see it that way,” Gareth said.
The man shrugged. “If Eddred was worried about this sort of thing, he should have included it in the contract. If you all will excuse me, I have arrangements to make. When the time is right, I’ll return to set you on the correct path.”
He bowed and hurried back the way he’d come.
Gareth sighed and looked around. Not much here for entertainment. He’d like to explore the city but doubted that the others would look favorably on that suggestion.
“Anybody got a deck of cards?”
His question was met by a pair of glowing glares.
Yes, it was definitely going to be a long three days.
Chapter 6
Lady White had lost all sense of time and direction as she walked along the seemingly endless, identical tunnels running under the desert. Since the ghoul pit, she hadn’t seen or sensed anything, living or dead. Only a vague feeling of dread that hung over everything. If she’d been human, she would have attributed that last feeling to the corruption that filled the ether. But she had long since gotten over her discomfort and now drew strength from the darkness.
No, whatever she sensed, it wasn’t just a lingering effect of corruption. Something was down here. Something that wanted her crushed. It felt different from the guardian she faced on the surface. More primitive and savage.
She shook her head. Whatever it was, she had no illusions about getting out of these tunnels without facing it.
A tingle in the back of her mind alerted her that her warbeast wanted something. Despite its bestial appearance, the demon she bound was reasonably intelligent. Not brilliant like some of the greater demons she’d spoken with over the years, but smart enough.
Lady White closed her eyes and strengthened the connection until she could see through the beast’s eyes. The blinding brightness of the noonday sun made her flinch. Once she got used to it, she focused on what had her beast so interested. Far in the distance, a flash of silver glittered.
Using a little more of her power, she enhanced its vision. A slow smile spread across her lips. That was the portal she sought. The tops of three pyramids were also visible. Looked like these tunnels were taking her exactly where she wanted to go. That was some consolation at least. She offered her beast a psychic pat on the head and returned her focus to her body.
The flatness of the desert made distances hard to judge. Her best guess was that she still had hundreds of miles to cover. But at least her goal was in sight.
Heartened, she set out again at a brisk pace. Her legs offered no complaints despite having been walking for possibly weeks nonstop. One of the many advantages of an undead body. Even better, her magic had nearly returned to full strength. She didn’t dare call on Astaroth directly again, but the rest of her abilities should work fine.
It wasn’t that she lacked the strength to call on him. Rather, the demon lord favored those with the will to overcome their enemies on their own. Weaklings that constantly needed their hand held would receive no favor, in this world or the next.
More time passed and as she traveled, the sense of dread grew ever stronger. Whatever force wanted her gone, she was getting closer to it by the step.
The tunnel ended at yet another cavern, this one larger than the first and happily not filled with angry, hungry ghouls. In fact, it looked empty.
But it didn’t feel empty. The malevolence she’d felt for the last however long it had been was focused here.
Time to find out what hated her so much.
Lady White stepped into the cavern. The moment she exited the tunnel, the dread grew so strong she nearly fled back the way she’d come. Considering magical fear couldn’t affect her undead mind, her reaction had to be an instinctive reflex away from the power she felt.
Grinding her teeth, she took another step into the cavern. “I don’t know what you are, but if you think I’m so weak willed that you can force me back without a fight, you’re sadly mistaken.”
A blob of inky darkness fell from the ceiling. It reminded her of the darkness she summoned when calling a demon for binding.
The blob slowly took on a humanoid shape.
She debated attacking now, before it finished forming, but the thing was made of pure corruption. Any spell she used was unlikely to hurt it and might actually make it stronger. If she made it a contest of wills, she might have a chance. Certainly more of a chance than she’d have in a straight-up spell battle.
When it settled on its final shape, Lady White was more convinced than ever that she faced a demon. It had black bat wings, spiral horns growing out of the side of its head, and a body that appeared carved from onyx. Its face was smooth and without expression.
She drew herself up to her full height, back straight and unafraid. When dealing with demons, confidence was everything. They could home in on the slightest mental weakness. She’d been dealing with the creatures for long enough that she felt certain this was a battle she knew how to win.
“Step aside,” she said. “I have no quarrel with you.”
“I am the guardian of the underworld. If my compatriot sent you here, you must be strong. That is well. I haven’t had a challenge in far too long.”
So much for talking her way past the demon.
She drew a breath to try another tack.
A sphere of darkness shot at her.
She conjured a blade of corruption and sliced it in half, sending blobs of darkness flying past her on either side. It was so dense, even an undead like her would be crushed by a direct hit.
Another sphere came hurtling at her.
Lady White leapt aside. Defending would drain her strength too quickly.
The sphere curved, coming back at her.
With no other choice she blasted it to bits.
So far, the demon hadn’t so much as twitched. There was no path to victory like this. She needed to close and fight it directly.
Grimacing, she sprinted right toward the creature.
The demon gathered and hurled darkness so quickly she didn’t even sense the spell forming. But she did anticipate it.
A shield of darkness formed around her and she kept running.
The third sphere broke and dissipated.
Through the haze of corruption, she saw the demon, still unmoving, ten feet away.
A fourth sphere hammered into her barrier and shattered it.
Ignoring the pain, she pushed through and reached out. Her fingers reached its head and sank in to the second knuckle.
With an effort of will, she sent her mind into its.
Lady White stood in the infinite darkness of the demon’s mind. Its humanoid form loomed above her, ten times bigger here than in the cavern. No sensation reached her. She felt totally disconnected from her senses.
“You have great courage coming here,” the demon’s voice came from all around her. “Were you so very desperate?”
She ignored the question and reached out with her magical senses. It had to be here somewhere, the demon’s link to the mortal realm. If she severed that link, she could send it back to whatever hell it came from.
“You won’t find it,” the demon said. “I wasn’t bound to this realm like your warbeast. The mighty Lord Amet Sur summoned me body and soul from hell.”
Her eyes snapped open. To summon a demon to the mortal realm required human life energy equivalent to the demon’s corruption. How many lives had it taken to summon this creature? She couldn’t imagine a human lord being willing to sacrifice so many of his own people just to call a single demon.
“Amet Sur and his fellows had an interesting view of mortal life. They treated it as just another resource, no different than gold or food. If he needed the lives of thousands to power a spell, he would claim them with as little thought as a farmer harvesting wheat. Of all the wizards I’ve met over the millennia, I respected him the most.”
Lady White understood that. Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t follow her original plan. She tried to return her consciousness to her body and failed.
“You chose my mind as our battlefield,” the demon said. “I accept your challenge.”
She barely had time to curse her luck when the darkness closed in and tried to crush her into oblivion. Gathering her will, she pushed back, gaining a fraction of breathing room.
She had no hope of defeating this creature in a contest of pure strength. Even if it was summoned, the demon still had to have a core, someplace its consciousness resided. She needed to find it and quickly.
Lady White dissolved her psychic form and sent her awareness racing through the demon’s mind.
Where was it?
“You’re a clever one,” the demon said.
An inky black bottle appeared and a vortex tried to suck her insubstantial body in.
She countered, becoming solid just long enough to smash the construct. Before she could dissolve again, a bolt of darkness shot through her.
The pain drew a gasp but failed to break her concentration.
Insubstantial once more, she continued her search. The demon’s consciousness would be the most powerful concentration of corruption.
She found it soon enough: a ball the size of her head made of pure, compressed corruption. Her body reformed and a blade took shape in her hand.
Refusing to give the demon time to react, she slashed across its core.
Her blade shattered, not even making a scratch.
Not exactly the result she’d been hoping for.
A spike shot out from the sphere, impaling her psychic body. The pain nearly blinded her. She couldn’t even scream.
Even through the pain she kept her focus. Locking her arms around the spike, she flowed down it like water. At the base she found a tiny crack in the core’s smooth surface.
It was all the opening she needed.
Lady White burrowed her way inside.
“What are you doing?” the demon demanded.
She ignored it and dug deeper, forcing her consciousness through layer after layer of vileness. A mortal woman would have been killed a thousand times over, but for an undead, the experience was merely unpleasant. Like having your brain run through a cheese grater was unpleasant.
When she had fully entered the demon’s core, Lady White gathered every ounce of her power and thrust outward.
The core exploded. Shards of corruption flew in every direction.
She blinked and found herself back in her body. The demon slowly sunk into the floor.
“Well fought. It will take me years to reform my core. Should we meet again, I will not underestimate you a second time.”
The demon vanished into the stone and Lady White collapsed. Never in her nearly two hundred years had she felt this weak, not even during her time as a mortal.
With the demon temporarily defeated, a short rest should be safe enough. Not that she had a choice.
Chapter 7
Eddred leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the table, and stared up at the bare rafters of his rented warehouse. The boards looked thick and sturdy enough to withstand a Markane winter. He doubted they’d ever seen snow in the City of Coins, it must have been simply pride in their craftsmanship that inspired the builders.
Since he hadn’t seen a mercenary in over a week, random thoughts like this flitted through his mind off and on. Just a distraction from his impressive failures. Lord Valtan might have been better advised to send someone else to take his place. It’s not like they could have done any worse. Of course, the Arcane Lord didn’t have many people to send on missions. In fact, Eddred was his only option at the moment. So he’d just have to muddle through.
He glanced right to find Lilly, the second half of his bodyguard duo, watching him with a concerned frown. The creases on her forehead made her look older than her nearly thirty years. He knew both she and Adam worried about him. In truth he didn’t know why either of them bothered to keep watch. He wasn’t even a king in more than name. Habit most likely.
Uther no longer bothered to show up. But he hadn’t gone back to the whores. Instead, he spent hours on deck sparring with the crew. He seemed determined to hone his swordsmanship to a razor edge. Eddred appreciated his dedication but didn’t really understand it.
