Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“No!” she cried, because this could not be allowed. “No! Protect Bamore, save the prisoner! He cannot be taken!” But whether the soldiers failed to hear, or chose to obey their captain’s orders over her own, they remained close, leaving Bamore protected only by four remaining Blades.

More fell, bodies lay strewn across the street. And she saw something terrible. The Blades who had been cut or clawed down were almost all dead, yet some of the Wreckers that lay there still moved, hauling themselves toward the soldiers even if limbs were missing, guts trailing…and, in one case, a head was severed.

Sorcery, Jan Ray thought. Sorcery, on the streets of Echo City!

She reached out and opened the carriage door, lifting a wooden shutter aside. She had to speak to Jave. The most important person here now was their prisoner, and if she lost her own life preventing him from being rescued by the Wreckers, so be it.

A soldier glanced back and saw her, and his eyes went wide.

Something struck her in the shoulder, something else fell on her and crushed her to the ground.

She saw red.

Jan Ray has to go deep. With the blood of the tortured man still on her hands, she leaves the dungeon levels, heading first up a slowly curving staircase with over a hundred steps that leads eventually to a lush courtyard deep in Hanharan Heights. She passes huge oxomanlia bushes, waving away tame red sparrows that flutter around her head in case she has seed for them, and everything here is beautiful, brought into being by Hanharan countless years ago and uncorrupted by the stain of sorcery. That’s what makes her most upset: not the fear of what Bamore could mean but the sadness at what his talents might bring. Echo City is miraculous and amazing enough without a monster like him using magic to twist its many meanings.

An aide approaches and she waves him away, not even catching his eyes. And now he knows that something is amiss, she thinks, but that does not matter. She should go to the Council with this, but that does not matter either—they would brood and muse, discuss options and argue alternatives, and all the while he would be down in the Dungeons deciding when to escape.

One chance, she thinks. There’s only one, and it all hinges on whether he knows of it or not. Dal Bamore has the talent, but he looks young. Where he had acquired it she cannot tell, and she knows for sure he will never reveal the source to her. So she must use his ego against him. He welcomed capture and torture, and now he plans the miraculous escape and recovery that will draw the wonder of the masses. She has to ensure the escape fails, and that he dies up on the Wall.

In the corner of the courtyard, she unlocks a heavy wooden door with a key around her neck. Every priest or priestess carries such a key, but none of them has yet found cause to use it. Being the first gives her a flush of pride.

“In Hanharan I find my strength,” she says as she closes the door behind her. There is a rack of oil lamps fixed to the wall and she lights one, watching shadows scamper out of sight. Spiders and ghourt lizards. They’ll leave her alone if she shows no fear. She draws in a deep breath and starts down. “In you I seek my truth, and to you I promise my best. In your words I hear the history of Echo City, and I vow to listen, adding my own life to the history you impart.”

The staircase curves onto landings, doors lure her in, tunnels are swallowed in darkness. Eventually she crosses a street of the most recent Echo, built upon several hundred years before and preserved down here like a painting of older times. What she sees of the buildings’ facades resembles those above, except deserted. There are shadows that move the wrong way, and whispers, but she recites the route aloud, remembering which way to go, feeling the importance of what she is doing pressing heavily upon her like the weight of the city itself. She has no wish to see or hear phantoms.

Several times her oil lamp almost goes out when a sudden breeze whistles in from the darkness, and she tries to ignore the smells.

Reaching the hidden place, she uses her key again to unlock another heavy wooden door.

Inside, the room is small and sparse. Its corners and junctions are blurred by dust and sand-spider structures. There is a table at one end, upon which sit several books, and three shelves on the left wall that hold two storage jars each. Dust on the floor is thick and undisturbed, and the books appear to have settled into place. No one has been here for a very long time.

There is a mummified corpse curled beneath the table, wrapped in heavy chains.

She feels a flush of terror, and for a moment she cannot believe in this place. What it contains goes against everything she holds true: the last sorcerer, trapped down here with the things that put him down…

“I only hope it’s still here,” she says, reaching for a jar.

“The torture’s over,” she says later, holding the back of Bamore’s head and offering him the mug. “I’ve consulted with the Council. Your lack of confession means that you’ll be sent to trial, and you’ll be crucified in three days.”

“Won’t that depend upon the verdict?”

“The verdict is a formality.”

“So predictable,” he says, trying to grin through his broken face. “But I won’t die up there.” Why he has not chosen to mend the damage as he healed those cuts she does not know. Perhaps it’s a sort of perverted vanity. Or, more likely, he wants people to see what has been done to him.

“Drink, in the name of Hanharan. He will watch over your final days.”

“Your god?” Bamore sips, swallows, sighs. He has not been given a drink in days. “Hanharan can suck my cock.” He stares up at her, his one good eye twinkling as he awaits her reaction to such blasphemy.

But she only smiles, and, behind his ruined face, Dal Bamore’s smugness turns to confusion.

Jan Ray tried not to scream. It felt as if her whole shoulder and arm had been dipped in molten metal and then solidified, locking all the pain inside. She kept her eyes open, because she needed to see, and when she lifted the knife still in her hand, someone pressed down on her wound.

“Priestess!” a voice hissed. It was a Scarlet Blade, splayed across her body to protect her from any more woundings. But the fool was young, and scared, and with every movement he nudged the bolt protruding from her shoulder.

“Get…off…” she managed, and then the soldier was lifted away from her. Jave’s face came close, and he even smiled.

“Jan Ray, I’ll give you a sword if you’re so eager to fight.” He helped her sit up, glancing around all the time, watching for danger.

She grimaced through the agony, then looked around. The raving Wreckers had been cut down, and there were three Blades hacking at their still-twitching bodies. They appeared shocked and terrified, but beneath that was a professionalism that shone through. They’d have a story for their barracks tonight, that was for sure.

“What are you doing out?” Jave said.

“Going for Bamore. He can’t be taken by them, Jave.”

“I’m ready to slit his throat myself,” the tall captain said.

“No!” She stood, holding on to his arm and blinking away dizziness. More arrows flickered in, their energy expended in Blades’ robes. Blood soaked the street, filling the spaces between cobbles. The crowds had drawn back now, but further along the street, close to a fountain, she could still see a few curious onlookers. She knew what some people thought of the Blades, and she hated the smiles she saw.

“Is he still alive?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“My Blades have him surrounded,” Jave replied, nodding along the road. “I don’t think an errant arrow has killed him yet.”