Bruce Blake - Spirit of the King

I smile.

Hunted. I’m a hunter, a server of justice, an angel of death. So much better than being a whore, a victim, raped and abused by men like him. My belly knots with excitement. Soon he’ll pay for his sins.

I’ll make him pay for everyone’s sins.

An hour passes before the door opens a crack. The hinges creak, the sound faint; no one but me around to hear. They have me to thank for the privacy. A minute passes-they’re being careful. They’ll have heard the cries of my victims earlier, perhaps spent the rest of their day curled in a corner hugging their knees in fear. The image makes me happy.

The door opens farther and a man I don’t recognize steps into the street. This is the magician, Athryn. He’ll die, too. Close behind him, my quarry emerges. Thin lines of red light illuminate his blade casting eerie shadows on his face, but I know it’s him. I see his face every time my eyes close.

Something is different about him.

It’s in his eyes and the look on his face. He’s wary, a little bit afraid, but he lacks signs of the cruelty he wears like a mask in my dreams. My stomach twists and tingles and suddenly I know something I didn’t know before.

I loved him once.

But how could I? He’s responsible for all the bad and harm done me throughout my life. He raped me, tortured me, killed me, yet somehow I loved him.

They move from the doorway and I follow silently, keeping my distance. My curiosity is piqued, I want to find out more about this man before taking his life. I want to find out what made me love a monster.

No matter what I discover, I will kill him.

***

Khirro and Athryn crept past the corpse, a dried puddle of blood pooled by the man’s head.

“What do you think happened?”

“It is Poltghasa,” Athryn said simply.

The answer satisfied Khirro. In a city where the residents are thieves and murderers, he found it easy to imagine the things that might have brought about this man’s death: a dispute over a bet, a woman, a wrong look, anything.

One day I’ll be free of all this death. The thought held little conviction for him.

They kept to the shadowy walls; the whisper of their leather soles on the cobblestones seemed loud and hearing them so clearly made Khirro wonder what happened to all the other sounds of the city. Where were the fights? The drunkenness? Where were all the things he’d heard that made Poltghasa such a dangerous place?

Athryn stopped him and pointed to a building at the end of the avenue. The wooden porch in front of the stone building canted to one side, the door hung askew. A sign nailed to one of the posts named the place but was illegible from a distance, maybe even from up close. Khirro looked at the magician and shrugged.

“A public house.”

This is no time for a drink, Khirro wanted to say, but neither was it time for poor humor.

Athryn led him out of the shadows and across the courtyard. A fountain-long dried up, its statue smashed into indistinguishable chunks-dominated the yard and Khirro gripped his sword tighter as they passed. He suddenly felt like they weren’t alone, but no one hid behind the crumbled stone. On the side of the fountain closest to the door, the stones beneath their feet changed color, darkening to black in the dim moonlight. The sense of being watched stuck with Khirro. He reached out and put his hand on Athryn’s shoulder.

“I-”

The magician put his finger to his lips, nodded, then led Khirro up the two creaking wooden steps onto the porch. The wood here was darker, too, as if painted with the same brush as the courtyard. Khirro glanced down as they passed over it and noticed the color came in patches and blotches, some large, some small; only a few places showed bare, pale wood. Ahead, Athryn disappeared through the doorway. Khirro stole a look over his shoulder before following, expecting to see someone standing in the courtyard, watching, or a group of soldiers running toward them. It remained empty. He pulled his charred shield off his back and followed his companion through the door.

***

He senses me, as I feel his presence. There’s danger to him like I haven’t felt before, but there’s more, too, something I haven’t felt from any of the others I killed. I sensed danger in some of them, too, but most reeked of fear as they saw their deaths coming at the end of my blade. He won’t have the same stink; I’ll be disappointed if he does. Whatever it is, it stays my feet. I rub my leather-wrapped sword hilt hoping to feel the comfort it normally brings, but it’s absent. Instead it’s the cold, unfeeling handle of a weapon. Have I been deserted at the moment of truth?

As if in answer, the woman’s voice whispers in my ear.

“It is time,” she says. I look around, hoping, but I already know she’s not here. “It is time for retribution.”

Visions of the things he did flash through my mind. My body feels every blow, every cut, and I double over struggling to keep from crying out.

“It is time for vengeance.”

Bodies appear on the ground before me, their images wavering in the dark. They are people I’ve known and loved, people whose deaths are his responsibility. The sight of their faces brings a lump to my throat and I recall their names: Despina, Aryann, Leigha, Maes, Shyn, and more. A dozen corpses flicker and disappear. I swallow the knot. I won’t cry. I’m not a woman who cries anymore.

“It is time for him to die.”

I straighten and nod once, jaw set and muscles tense. My sword murmurs words of encouragement as it slides from its scabbard. The woman’s voice is gone from my ears but I don’t need her now, she served her purpose reminding me why she brought me back. I have one thing to do: the task I was reborn for.

I start across the courtyard, struggling to keep the grim smile off my lips as I glide over flagstones stained with the blood of men I killed.

***

Khirro searched behind the chipped and splintered bar while Athryn watched the door. They found a little food in the kitchen and stored it in their packs, perhaps a week’s worth at most. Khirro’s search behind the bar revealed nothing but patches of spilled ale that tried in vain to hold his feet to the floor. He rounded the bar shaking his head and Athryn pointed across the room.

“There is one more room,” he said indicating a dark rectangle in the center of the far wall. “A store room, perhaps.”

They wound their way through upset chairs and overturned tables, careful not to disturb anything or make noise to give away their presence-men might hide behind the last door.

Where is everybody?

As they made their way toward the door, the room’s smell changed. A sweet, cloying odor that threatened to adhere to the insides of Khirro’s nostrils overpowered the smell of stale beer and liquor. The closer they came to the door, the stronger the odor. Athryn reached out for the door handle and dread suddenly crashed down on Khirro like a limb fallen from a tree.

We’re not alone.

“No. Wait-”

Too late. Athryn threw the door open, brandishing his sword as he did. The stench rolled over them and Khirro’s stomach took a hard right turn. Athryn stepped back from the door, eyes wide.

Khirro couldn’t tell how many bodies were in the room. The way they’d been piled on top of one another, limbs twisted and tangled, made it impossible to see where one corpse ended and another began. There was no way to know which severed limb went with what butchered body. Khirro put his hand to his mouth to block the fetid air from his lungs as well as to keep his stomach’s contents in.

“Gods,” Athryn whispered.

“Let’s go,” Khirro managed.

Neither of them needed any more words to convince them. Whatever did this was bad, worse than giants or dragons or lake serpents. They turned to retreat to the courtyard but only made it a few steps before they halted, the corpses crowding the room behind them forgotten.