Throne Hunters Book 3, Chapter 16

Harald awoke at dawn the morning after his raid. His strike? He lay in his bed, trying to decide what to call it. His assassinations?

And why was he awake so soon? The light outside his window was gray. He’d fallen in bed after a quick rinse only some five bells before. Yet here he was, alert and refreshed, as if he’d slept twice as much.

Shadow Fortitude was pretty incredible. At some point he’d just have to accept that he only needed half the sleep he used to if he could adequately shutter his windows.

Harald rose, dressed, and slipped out of his guest room. Unsure as to where he was going, he had some idea as to a morning run when he saw light in Countess Sonora’s favorite parlor, and stepping up to the doorway realized she was already up, dressed in a simple robe of light blue, her red hair pinned back, her freckled face freshly washed. A tray with a cup and tea pot was at her elbow, and a book upon her lap.

“Good morning,” said Harald.

She didn’t startle, but rather raised her gaze, smiled, and gestured for him to enter with her quill. “I find of late that I can’t sleep. Between the tension at court and my concerns here at home, sleep is fleeting at best.”

And indeed she looked worn.

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Harald sat, uneasy. “I, ah, perhaps it’ll give you some solace to know that I struck the first blow last night.”

“You did? And here you are, calm and collected, which means, I hope, that it went well?”

“I think so.” Harald tried to master the inchoate feelings in his chest. He wished Sam were here. “I struck at your main warehouse in the Gate. Killed the five Red Fist warriors and hid their bodies. I’m pretty sure I left nothing behind that would point to you.”

“Five?” Countess Sonora appraised him, impressed. “The Red Fists are elite mercenaries. How did you…?”

“Best if you don’t know the details,” said Harald, realizing that what might sound decorous on his part also allowed him to not relive some of the more gruesome details. “But I acquired a mass of scrolls from Gorkin’s office. They should make for some interesting reading. I’m going to go raiding today with Sam, see if we can’t acquire some scales for your - I mean, our - household. She said she’d be here for breakfast. Maybe you can look them over while I’m gone, see if you can identify our next target?”

“Yes, of course.” She studied him, her gaze piercing, her focus sharp. “What happened, Harald? You can tell me. I’m your liege.”

“What do mean?” he asked, trying to not sound defensive. “Just… murder.”

“It’s not murder if it’s a war,” she said distractedly, still studying him. “I mean, you look… concerned. Something sits heavy on your mind.”

“Yeah.” Harald rose, unable to stay still. “I, ah, guess it was… it’s one thing to discuss killing people from here, another to cut their throats in real life.” He lowered his gaze to the carpet. “Turns out it’s very different from killing goblins in the dungeon.”

“Harald.” Her tone was soft with sympathy. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. But I applaud your honor for fulfilling your obligation to me.”

“Yes.” He inhaled sharply and forced a smile. “Absolutely. That’s what got me through it. I’m sure, I mean, in time it’ll only get easier.”

They studied each other for a moment, but her commiseration, the way she was looking at him made him turn away.

“Please, don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” I just learned that I can suck the life force out of people and leave them like withered husks in my wake. “It was a good first blow. The scrolls are in my room.”

“Very well,” she said. “Thank you, Harald. For your service and loyalty.”

Those words warmed him more than he’d imagined, and he felt something frigid and locked up within him thaw. He managed a genuine smile and bowed low to the countess. “I am ever at your service. If I may?”

“You’re excused,” she said, amused. “I’ll take a look at those scrolls now.”

Harald departed, feeling better, and set out for a long, leisurely run. When he returned, Rivik wordless extended a letter to him, which he opened right there in the entrance hall.

It was from Sam. She’d not be able to make breakfast but would instead meet him in the Dungeon Plaza at Ninth Bell, and hoped that suited.

It did.

Harald washed, donned his armor, skirted past the parlor, and headed out into Flutic. His earlier run had served only to warm him up, so he decided to jog down to the Dungeon Plaza. Long gone were the days when it took all the grit in his soul to run a half-mile. Now he felt unstoppable, capable of running down the horizon, and he wove through traffic with nimble feet, flashing an apologetic smile whenever someone yelled out in annoyance as he cut through their path.

The morning sun was rising over the rooftops and between the towers of central Flutic, and long shadows were melting away before its light. People hurried about their lives, fetching food, hurrying to market, clutching at their packs, their purses, the trappings of their lives.

Not for Harald their quotidian and circumscribed existences. They’d soon be working at their stalls, in their offices, behind shop counters.

He’d be below, killing.

They’d be counting scales and waiting until their shift ended, complaining or exulting, feeling satisfaction or bitterness.

He’d be down in the depths, slaughtering.

Soon they’d head back out into the streets, ready to head home for dinner, to meet with loved ones or lovers and recount the events of the day, to eat and plan or despair and bed down beneath their sheets and blankets, ready to sleep like the dead.

And while they slept, he’d be making himself king of the underworld.

After the grim work of the previous night, heading down into the dungeon felt like a reprieve. A chance to do what he did best without worrying about guilt and moral obligations.

There was a purity to it that he relished.

So it was that just as Ninth Bell tolled that he jogged at last into the Dungeon Plaza and saw Sam waiting for him. Two city guards were trying to chat her up, one egging the other on. Sam stood with her arms crossed, chin raised, and by the angels she looked like the wrong woman to be taking lightly. Clad in her tailored armor, blade at her hip, pack bunched up behind her broad shoulders, she looked like she could bury both men without needing to draw steel.

Yet still the tall one was talking her ear off, smirking as he pushed the edge of his helm back, looming over her as the other nodded vigorously.

“Problem?” asked Harald, stepping up.

“Problem?” The tall guard seemed offended. “Why, get along, fellow. I was just -”

“Amusing me,” said Sam, stepping past the man and patting him on the chest. “But run along now, boys. I’ve got work to do.”

Harald fell in alongside Sam as she walked toward the Copper Gate, and Harald heard too late the taller guard splutter, but nothing more came of it.

Harald could imagine both guards slinking away.

“You could have told them to get lost right from the start,” he said.

“Why would I do that?” Her smile was mysterious. “I’ve been holed up in your house my whole life. It’s interesting to have men come up and try to talk to me without having anything to say.”

“Must be nice,” smiled Harald.

“Keep absorbing those scales,” laughed Sam. “You’ll be drawing eyes soon enough. Actually, you already do.”

“Do not,” scoffed Harald.

“You do indeed. Well. From a distance. You’ve got that looming, dangerous, muscular thing going on. I’ve seen more than a few women turn their heads as you prowled on by. A few men, too.”

Harald didn’t know how to respond, so he forced a laugh. “Right till they get a better look at me.”

“Like I said, if that’s the kind of attention you’re looking for, keep absorbing scales. You’ll soon be getting more than you know what to do with. Speaking of which, here.” She drew a pouch from her pack. “Your commission from the crew for your previous delve, along with your cut.”

Harald hefted the pouch. “Perfect, thank you. I’ll keep this for healing.”

“And our goal for this morning? I’m assuming we’re doing House Sonora work?”

“Right. Making some scales for the countess. Seeing what Wirmas can do.”

Sam nodded pensively. “You sure you don’t want Nessa and Vic with us?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no. But by the time we wrangle the two of them into the raid, the day would be over. And I’ve no idea what condition Nessa is in. So let’s just run an experiment ourselves here.”

For a moment he considered slowing her down, telling her about last night. But he didn’t want to dredge up the murders. He’d tell her, he would. Soon. After the raid.

For now, he just wanted to enjoy this.

They reached the Copper Gate. Few were lined up to go below at this early hour. They marched right up, but this time Harald didn’t recognize any of the guards on duty. So they were processed with impersonal directness, registered at the tax table, and were about to step up to the platform itself when Sam grabbed his arm and squeezed, hard.

“What?” He followed the direction of her stare.

The Gold Gate.

A small crew was getting ready to ascend to the platform and enter. They had the air of having camped out for a short spell.

Lady Yseult Khan was amongst them in her gold and cerulean blue.

“Let’s wait a moment,” Harald said.

The Gold-ranked party climbed onto the platform and there Lady Yseult raised a handful of scales. The Dungeon Portal spun, shivered, then fixed and hollowed out a triangular face. A moment later the small party passed through the portal and were gone.

“Damn,” laughed Harald, feeling all twisty and knotted up. “I thought she was here for me.”

“Just a coincidence,” said Sam, voice tense. “Right?”

“She doesn’t know what level we’re going for. I think she went much farther down. So yeah. Just… just a coincidence.”

“Worth calling the raid off, though?”

“No.” His refusal was absolute. “She’s already gone. She won’t know where we went. Let’s get going.”

They climbed the steps, listened to the guard’s warning, then raised their scales and summoned the portal’s attention.

It spun, locked in on the 16th, and hollowed out.

Harald drew the Dawnblade from its scabbard. It still wasn’t attuned to his Cosmos, but it was a fine weapon nonetheless. A glance back to Sam, who nodded, and he led the way up into the portal.

There was that moment of dislocation, that sensation of passing through the abyss itself and being warped onto another plane, and then he emerged into the green miasma of the 16th.

All around him arose the rough castle walls, the battered keeps, the endless void that fell into nothingness below. Bridges and ledges, crumbling archways, windows dark as sin. The sky was a roiling nothingness, an endless green fog bank, and everything smelled of wet stone and scorched iron.

Sam appeared a moment later, and they both drew back against a huge wall that beetled out over them like a wave about to crest.

“All right.” He studied the endless serried ranks of walls and buildings that stretched out into green obscurity around them. “Here we are.”

And it came back to him then, a series of memories, bright intercut flashes of violence, his fist, his blade, blood spattering, blood splashing, screams of the dying, screams of pain and fear, and the wild red ride he’d enjoyed while wearing the Helm of Wrath. The way he’d torn bodies apart with his hands, rended flesh from bone, and felt a hunger that had never been quenched.

“You all right?” whispered Sam, reaching out to his shoulder.

“Just… memories of wearing the Helm.” He’d thought last night’s activities would haunt him instead, but it seemed his berserker massacre had left a deeper impression. “Being back here brought up some memories.”

“Well, it’s a good thing it’s locked up. Nessa argued it should be destroyed.”

“Agreed,” said Harald, feeling hollow, feeling a sickening lust, a frustrated desire. “Yeah, we should destroy it.”

Sam studied him, gaze somber, then nodded.

“Anyway. Good. Ready to get to work?” Without waiting for her response he summoned the Goldchops. He did it reflexively. The memory of butchery had made him feel weak in comparison, and he found himself needing power.

They appeared on either side of him, his gilded guardians, heavy and lethal, and immediately his Strength and Dexterity rose, giving him some mild satisfaction in terms of personal lethality.

That and their presence guaranteed their safety.

Next he drew forth Shadowpaw. The mastiff appeared off to his left, huge and hirsute, shoulders hunched and head low as it set to sniffing the ledge, then raised its big boxen head to stare out inquisitively over the ruins.

Harald took immense comfort from his presence. “Ready to hunt, boy?”

The mastiff swung his head around to stare at Harald.

“I don’t think he likes to be called ‘boy’,” whispered Sam.

“You don’t say. Shadowpaw, you’re to do what you think best tonight. Stay close enough to be of help, but range where you will, yeah? Kill what you want. We’re summoning an army and wiping this floor clear. It’s going to be an extermination. Have fun while we work.”

The Shadow Mastiff narrowed his burning eyes, and while Harald wasn’t sure how much of that the Servitor had understood, it chuffed deep in its chest and loped off, its dark, black-burning form quickly lost amongst the shadows.

“Which leaves Wirmas,” he said reluctantly.

“It feels strange,” said Sam. “Possessing a thinking creature. Though I know what the literature says. He’s not real. He doesn’t even actually think. Not the way we do. He’s just a shard of the Fallen Angel, like an Artifact, or an Ability.” She considered, frowning. “Still.”

“Yeah,” said Harald. “But what can you do?” And he summoned the hobgoblin.

Wirmas appeared to their side in a squat, one hand pressed to the worn stone ledge. His golden pauldron glimmered mutely as if seen through a bank of shadows, and his golden cloak pooled about his heels. The hobgoblin lifted his face to sniff audibly, then grinned, revealing his hagfish teeth. “Ah. Lovely.”

“Glad to be back?”

“Fuck this place,” said Wirmas. “What I sense is the slaughter to come. There’s no greater thrill than exercising my function.” He glanced at them with his sole burning blue eye. “Ready, Praetor?”

“I don’t know about this ‘Praetor’ business.”

“How would you have me address you, then?”

“Harald is fine. Now, you got that amulet working?”

The hobgoblin tapped the amulet where it lay upon his chest. “I can feel its power filling me. Waiting to twist and make my fellow hobgoblins the stuff of legends.”

“Then let’s go find some,” said Harald, rising to his feet.

They scouted along the ledge, then descended a steep flight of steps to a small courtyard that opened out to a bridge. This one was a spindly thing, little more than a yard wide, and arched out improbably over some twenty yards of nothingness before meeting a slender doorway in the far wall.

Harald didn’t like the look of it, so instead he cut back along the wall, found a crumbling archway that led them into an enclosed courtyard, walls towering above them, windows staring down blindly, and as they crossed to another archway a hobgoblin patrol appeared through it, clearly as surprised as they were.

Harald willed the Goldchops to hold back and raised his palms even as he stepped to the side.

The enemy patrol was only four strong. The hobgoblins lacked a clear leader, but were clad in their typical mismatched armor, a collection of iron plates and chain, their dusky red skin muted, their faces angular and ferocious. Even as the one in the front tore his broad blade free of it scabbard, Wirmas stepped forward, his pale skin distinctive, and pointed a taloned finger at his kin.

“On your knees! Might recognizes might, and you see my strength! Bow your heads to your leader!” The hobgoblin boss’ voice crackled with authority.

The hobgoblins reacted immediately. Their eyes widened and then they dropped to their knees, releasing their weapons and bowing down low.

“Damn,” whispered Sam, staring at the four prostrated warriors. “It really works.”

“Of course it works,” muttered Wirmas. “They are mine, and for that shall be made greater than what they were. Rise, my warriors. I am King Wirmas! You are my first. You shall be the tip of my spear. Rise!”

The four hobgoblins shivered and changed.

The power of the amulet blended with Wirmas’ own Ability, and their very bodies mutated. Their muscles swelled, their frames becoming more massive, and their skin darkened from washed-out rust to blood crimson. They heaved themselves up, and Harald resisted the urge to step back. They’d put on a couple of inches in height, their armor growing to accommodate their new mass, but more than that, they just looked more terrifying. Their faces were more striking, more ferocious, and their eyes glittered with a newfound feral bloodlust. Even as he stared, their armor darkened, as if a wash of ink was drying over the steel and iron and copper, darkening it all so that they appeared grim reavers where before mere warriors had stood.

“Yes,” exulted Wirmas. “This is power. You there, tell me: where did you come from? Whose camp? Where is it?”

“We patrolled for Boss Thrukor. His camp is that way, inside a high keep.” And the huge hobbo pointed the way they’d come.

“Ask him about Thrukor,” said Harald.

“Tell me about your former boss.”

“Thrukor is a great general. He is strong, yes, aggressive, but he is a master of strategy. He knows what enemies will do, and prepares for them. He uses traps and ambushes to protect his camp. He is old and cunning, and all fear him and obey his authority.”

“Used to obey,” smirked Wirmas. “I am the end of his reign. You know where the traps are?”

The hobgoblin nodded.

“What else?” prompted Sam. “Barko was a berserker, Wirmas, you were… well. You. What does Thrukor do?”

The reaver hobgoblin replied directly. “He has a battle roar that makes his followers better at crippling strikes.”

“Battle roar,” said Harald. “All right. I guess we should proceed?”

“Lead us to Thrukor,” commanded Wirmas. “Help us avoid the traps, but don’t attack any of our kind before I give the command.”

The lead reaver hobbo bowed his great head then filed back through the archway with his fellows.

Harald exchanged an excited glance with Sam.

It was working.

They navigated the ruins. This involved crossing through a couple of keeps, their interiors dark and gloomy and filled with wreckage and rubble. One curving curtain wall led straight into the heart of Thrukor’s domain, and when they reached its end where it met a great keep that rose like a vast fist, the lead reaver hobbo raised a hand, then pointed at a glimmering wire stretched across the parapet.

They stepped over this carefully.

When they reached the giant keep the reaver again raised his fist, bidding them stop, then approached warily and pointed at a flagstone. “You step, it explodes.”

“Then we’ll not step,” agreed Wirmas pleasantly. “And inside?”

“It’s a big room. There’s a wire trap hidden there. Another patrol waits above.”

“Lead on.”

They filed into the gloomy room. It looked like a storage for broken beds and desks, ragged jagged chunks of wooden furniture through which threaded a narrow path to the base of a rusted ladder bolted to the far wall.

“There,” said the reaver. “Wire. I will disarm.”

Harald tried to spot the trap and failed. Perhaps if he’d expected it and moved hunched over with a scale lantern at full brightness he’d have noticed it, but mostly likely his attention would have been fixed on the trapdoor in the far side of the ceiling.

He’d have plowed right into the trap.

The reaver did something with the wire, lifting it off a trigger of some kind, and then it went slack.

“Good,” said Wirmas, who strode forward brazenly. The four reaver hobbos parted for him. “You up there!” Wirmas’ shout was shocking in its volume. “King Wirmas addresses you! Open the trapdoor!”

There were muffled sounds from above, and then the trapdoor lifted to reveal a puzzled hobgoblin’s rust-red visage. The monster looked confused by his own obedience. “Who -”

“Silence.” It was a casual command, but the sentry’s mouth snapped shut. “I am King Wirmas. How many are with you?”

“We are six, your majesty.”

“Six. Come down, all of you.”

And by the angels in the Pleroma, they did.

One by one they climbed down the rusted ladder and then prostrated themselves before Wirmas, who commanded them to follow his every whim, and infused them with his power.

Their rusty skin darkened to deep crimson, their armor stretched to accommodate their growing forms, and when they rose the room was crowded with the presence of the ten reaver hobgoblins, each nearly indistinguishable from another.

But all possessed the same implacable stare, that heavy, ponderous presence, that burning spark of hunger and violence in the depths of their recessed eyes.

“Good, good,” said Wirmas, rubbing his palms together. “What lies above?”

One of the new reavers responded. “The room we guarded connects to three others on the same floor. A sleeping room, a weapon room, and junk room. Another ladder climbs to the next floor where orcs sleep. They patrol for Thrukor on occasion, but mostly sleep and eat.”

“How many orcs?” asked Harald.

The reaver hobgoblins turned to consider Harald with unfriendly stares.

“You are to obey Harald as you are me,” snapped Wirmas. “He is our royal friend, and a king in his own right. Answer his question.”

The reavers didn’t seem convinced, but agreed to the direct command.

“Their numbers change. Sometimes there are none when they are all out on patrol. Other times there are five or six, when half their number are gone. At most ten.”

“Ten.” Harald considered. “They won’t listen to your commands, right, Wirmas?”

“You are most perceptive,” agreed Wirmas. “Seeing as orcs aren’t hobgoblins. Most wise.”

“Then they’ll have to die,” said Harald. “I want to save your reavers for now. I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll take care of it?” asked Wirmas.

“Just give me a moment.” Harald slipped through the clustered reavers, who grudgingly made room for him, and climbed the iron ladder. Up through the trapdoor and into a crude stone room, decorated with little more than rickety wooden chairs and a dart board of sorts, its face deeply scarred and boasting three daggers planted deep in the center target.

Sam came up behind. “You’re going to use the Goldchops?”

“At first.” The next ladder led to an iron trapdoor. Harald considered it, unshouldered his pack and set it aside. “Want to get your Shield ready?”

“It’s ready.”

“Then lets get some scales.” And he climbed up, hand over hand, until he reached the heavy metal door. There was no latch on this side, so he simply pressed his shoulder to the cold iron and grunted as he pushed.

Once it wouldn’t have budged an inch.

Now it rose slowly.

When it was just high enough, he urged the Goldchops through.

Both hatchets slipped neatly through the gap and spun away.

Harald continued pushing his way up.

Roars sounded as the Goldchops got to work. Surprise, anger, fury. Wet sounds like buckets of suet pudding being thrown against the wall.

Harald grunted and shoved the trapdoor away altogether.

The room was already dripping blood. Three orcs lay butchered where they’d been climbing out of bedrolls. Four more were clustered in the far corner, bewildered, axes and scimitars out, shoulder to shoulder as they stared at the spinning Goldchops that were floating into place.

Harald willed them to ease up.

“Hey. Hey!” It took the orcs a moment to tear their gaze away from the hatchets. “If one of you can kill me, he gets to keep the gold axes. Who’ll fight me?”

The center orc, a muscled brute wearing a leather skirt stepped to the fore. He wiped someone else’s blood off his face, licked a heavy tongue across the smears, then grinned at Harald, displaying his two tusks to full effect. “I kill.”

“Good.” Harald drew the Dawnblade. There wasn’t much room to maneuver. The three corpses lay strewn across the ground, and a table with chairs took up the far side. “Come at me when you’re ready.”

The massive orc flicked a wary glance at the Goldchops once more, gripped his scimitar so tightly his dark green knuckles whitened, and took a deep breath.

His huge chest seemed to inflate, the slabs of muscles tightening, and then he let loose a barbaric roar and rushed at Harald.

Who dropped the Aching Depths upon the room even as he activated Abyssal Grasp. The temperature dropped, the air darkened, and the insidious power of the abyss flowed from his palm toward the orc.

It charged at him, shrugging off the enervating effect of the Depths, right into the streaming rope of shadows that boiled out of Harald’s palm. The orc had to weigh some two hundred and fifty pounds, his musculature pronounced to the point of deformity, his bald head gleaming, his explosive speed startling.

No time to think.

No time to get fancy.

Harald had fallen into the Tail Stance, the Dawnblade backswept, Abyssal Attunement turning it jet black.

The orc was no fool. He threw himself aside, avoiding the questing rope of shadow, ducking low and then coming up to hit him like a runaway bull. At just the right moment, Harald swept the Dawnblade up and unleashed Demonic Edge.

The glimmering arc of unholy energy warped the air as it sizzled forth and hit the orc from its left hip to its right shoulder.

The orc fell apart. Blood fountained back to drench its fellows, its legs folding immediately, the severed upper half coming loose in a welter of gore as it dropped into a mass of sizzling, blackened flesh at Harald’s feet.

The other three orcs gaped, eyes wide beneath their massive brows.

“So much for him,” said Harald, restraining the urge to grin. “Let’s make this more interesting. Why don’t you all come at me at once?”