Chapter 43 – Dual Duels, Part 1
Zaphyr looked to Captain Zel, who stood to her left, then General Steroth on her right. Each held their weapon at the ready, warily eyeing the wizened old man before them. Her confidence bolstered by their presence, Zaphyr demanded, “What happened to Zull and Sir Kyr? Where are they?”
Vasil Reinhand smiled impishly. “If everything went according to plan, those explosions sent them right down into the tunnels beneath the castle. If they survived the fall, which, knowing your infernal luck, they most likely did, the Master has his new, specially prepared minion waiting down there ready to finish off any survivors. Such a shame; we had hoped that more would fall into that trap. Then again, that’s what I’m here for: to mop up whoever remains.”
“Specially prepared? Do you mean…with hemomancy?” Captain Zel asked. Vasil Reinhand continued grinning enigmatically.
“He means abominations, no doubt,” Zaphyr said darkly.
Captain Zel blanched. “I didn’t think even the Master would stoop to the level of creating abominations. Is that what you have done, fiend?”
Vasil Reinhand tutted loudly as he wagged a finger in their direction. “Now, why would I spoil all the fun and tell you something like that? The girl’s brother and the brave knight will find out soon enough on their own exactly what the Master has in store for them.” He smiled, but there was no joy in the expression, only a cold-blooded, calculated desire to slaughter everyone standing in front of him. “For now, you may content yourselves dealing simply with me.”
“I really wish I hadn’t given up smoking,” General Steroth said sadly.
Captain Zel took a step forward and waved his sword, gesturing to Zaphyr and Steroth standing behind him. “Listen, whoever you might be; we have been charged with our mission by the Empress herself, to rescue Prince Grevel from the traitor Prince Blyth. Now, in the Empress’ name, stand aside.”
Vasil Reinhand’s eyebrow shot up in surprise. “You don’t know who I am? Curious. I suppose that it would have been long after your time at court, young Zel. Permit me to introduce myself one more time: I am Vasil Reinhand, former hemomancer for the empress herself, before she and I had a…disagreement. I am the only man alive – until the Master completes his plan, that is – who has successfully drained the life essence of another, greatly prolonging my life span in the process. The stolen vigor has mostly dissipated by now, but the fact that I am over eighty and strong enough to best any man here should tell you everything you need to know. In sum, I will say: if I tell you that neither you nor any of the Empress’ other little minions will make it out of this room alive, then that is a promise. And Vasil Reinhand does not break his promises.”
Although Captain Zel tried to stop her, Zaphyr stepped forward, challenging Vasil directly. “You’re not the only hemomancer here.”
“Aaahhh,” Vasil said, drawing the sound out with evident relish. “One of the Tyrell twins tries to flex their repute as the bane of evil hemomancers such as myself. I’m afraid it won’t work. Your reputation does not phase me.”
“The feeling is mutual,” she responded.
“Rude to her elders. Oh dear, such shameful behavior,” Vasil responded casually. “Now, are we going to banter all day, or shall we get down to business?” Vasil reached out his hand, and both Captain Zel and General Steroth clutched at their chests, their mouths open in surprise and pain. “I think a simple heart attack should suffice.”
Zaphyr, fists clenched and shaking at her sides, clenched her eyes tight as she concentrated. A moment later Zel and Steroth gasped, smiling in relief as their hearts resumed pumping blood as normal.
Vasil frowned. “Strange. Ordinarily, that’s quite effective.”
“It’s all a matter of force,” Zaphyr said. “You apply hemomantic pressure to halt the blood flowing from the heart, and I apply a counteractive pressure in order to keep it flowing.” She smiled at him. “I guess we now know which of us is the stronger.”
“Concerning,” Vasil admitted, studying Zaphyr more seriously now as he stroked his chin. “But, ultimately irrelevant. Guards, please dispose of all these fools before they consume any more of the Master’s precious time.”
The guardsmen closed formation around Vasil, blocking him from Zaphyr’s sight momentarily. They advanced towards General Steroth’s own men, who lifted their spears, preparing for a fight.
“Stay back, Zaphyr,” Zel said, holding out an arm before her in an attempt to shield her. “You’re still just a child, with no battle training. Leave this to me and my men.”
Angrily, Zaphyr protested, “I’m no child; I have more than enough experience fighting!”
“Perhaps,” Zel said. “But it is my and my men’s duty to keep you safe.”
“Besides, you’re the only hemomancer we have at the present, and thus our only defense against Reinhand and the Master,” General Steroth said.
Before any more could be said, the Master’s men charged forward, drawing their swords and spears as they attacked Steroth’s soldiers. The cramped nature of the hallway, which pinned the soldiers to either side, along with the sunken pit in the floor behind them, limited their maneuverability and kept the battle compressed to a small space. Quickly, the melee turned into a confused maelstrom of frantic duels lost amidst a bewildering storm of swinging arms and glistening blades. The hallway had gone from being shrouded in deathly silence to a thunderous din in a matter of moments, and the fighting only grew more frenzied and intense as more and more of Prince Blyth’s guards crowded in, hoping to overwhelm their enemies through the sheer weight of their numbers.
As Captain Zel frantically commanded his forces, rallying them against the onslaught, General Steroth continued towards Reinhand, determined to strike down the enemy’s leadership. He was blocked by two soldiers, one a large, burly man with dirty blonde hair, the other a thin fellow with a long, melancholy face.
“Traitors,” General Steroth spat.
The burly man smirked. “Only if we lose.” He lunged forward with his sword as if to stab General Steroth, but the General knocked his sword out of his hand with an expert blow from his own blade, then struck him in the chest. The melancholy looking guard drew a dagger, which he held alongside his sword. He crossed the blades, warily trying to protect himself against any oncoming attacks. General Steroth instead swept low, cutting at both of his knees. As the guardsman, shocked and unprepared, fell to the ground, General Steroth slashed his throat open with a single, efficient blow.
“As I said, traitors,” General Steroth said before stepping over their slain bodies. He held up his sword, the end of which dripped with still warm blood. His eyes swept the surrounding area, before he realized that Vasil Reinhand had vanished. Spinning back, he began shouting orders to his men, trying to restore some sense of discipline despite the chaos of the battle as he continued his search for the hemomancer. Captain Zel, standing protectively in front of a frustrated Zaphyr, danced amidst the various groups of fighters, landing a blow here or a strike there, all the while shouting encouragements to his men.
Gradually, however, as more and more mercenaries appeared to replace the ones that had fallen, they were pushed back, foot by foot, towards the pit. Zel found himself separated from Zaphyr and cornered by a guardsman wielding a pike, who grimaced as he brandished the weapon in his direction. Behind the captain yawned the gaping pit. “Tell your men to surrender, or your head will be next,” the guardsmen said.
“I take orders only from the Empress and my general,” Captain Zel responded.
The guardsman grunted as he lunged forward, stabbing at where Zel was standing, but the captain used his narrow blade to bat the tip of the pike aside just before it hit him. While his opponent was off balance, trying to keep his footing and not fall forward into the pit, he struck with his sword, skewering the guardsman in the shoulder. The guardsman grunted with pain as he reeled back, clutching one hand to his shoulder to try and staunch the bleeding.
The guardsman, sneering, said, “You can’t hope to kill all of us.”
Silently, Zel struck twice more with his blade, striking him once on the opposite shoulder and then in the neck, which gushed bright blood. The guardsman toppled backwards, falling to the ground with a heavy thud. Captain Zel knelt down and picked up the man's weapon. He hefted it in his hand for a moment, testing its weight, then nodded to himself, satisfied.
Zaphyr, meanwhile, staying protectively within the bulk of the soldiers, had started using her hemomancy to help the injured soldiers where she could. Ironically, due to her short stature and the general chaos, she was safer now than she had been in any fight she had yet experienced, as none of the guardsman even noticed her, so focused were they on their more obvious opponents. As she assisted one soldier with a long diagonal gash across the length of his right arm, she noticed something odd: his wound, despite not being tended to yet, had stopped bleeding already.
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“Odd,” she said. Speaking to the soldier, she asked, “Does it hurt?” When he nodded, she leaned forward and began gently poking at the wound with her fingers. She yelped in surprise as a spike of blood erupted from the wound like a geyser, nearly hitting her eye before she jerked back. The soldier thrashed about, blood leaking from his eyes and mouth as he let out an agonized shriek of pain, before falling limp, twitching sporadically. Zaphyr raised a hand to her mouth, horrified.
“I’m certainly hoping you didn’t forget about me so quickly,” a voice said from behind Zaphyr. She froze, then turned to see Vasil Reinhand standing there, his expression as calm and calculating as before. Just as she had done, he had vanished in the turmoil of the battle. Then, he had used that as an opportunity to sneak up behind her. He held his left hand out before him, then clenched it into a fist. Zaphyr felt a horrible pressure in her chest, and her vision started to blur and twist. Swaying slightly, she raised a hand to her forehead, where her temples were pounding with a distracting intensity.
She tried to use her own hemomancy to fight what Vasil was doing, but through the pain and haze it was difficult for her to concentrate enough to ward off his attack. “What are you doing?” she asked, her words slurring slightly.
“You stopped me from blocking the blood flow into those fools’ hearts,” Vasil said, though it was difficult for Zaphyr to hear him over the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears. “Now let’s see what you can do when I pump enough blood through your heart to make it burst.”
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As he came to a rest amidst a shower of dust, Zull, coughing loudly, looked to Sir Kyr for help. When he had fallen into the tunnel, he had ended up pinned beneath some of the rubble. The knight, who had landed gracefully on his feet by contrast, hastily removed the blockage and helped Zull back to his feet. They looked up, seeing that they stood at the very bottom of a sheer pit, the walls of which were far too steep for either of them to climb, which led into a damp, dark, mold-filled tunnel connected to an apparently abandoned section of the catacombs which ran beneath the palace and most of Melkis. They could hear the battle raging overhead between Blyth’s forces and their friends.
“Are you hurt?” Sir Kyr asked.
“No, Zull said. “At least, I don’t think so.” Craning his neck upwards, he added, “We can’t climb back up from here.”
“Then we find another way,” Sir Kyr replied. Searching briefly amidst the wreckage, he found a broken piece of a wooden beam. Then, using his sword’s blade and a piece of rock as a makeshift flint and steel, he created some sparks and lit the tip of the broken beam on fire, then held it aloft as a torch. With a last lingering glance upwards, he started walking down the tunnel, Zull following closely behind. The maze-like nature of the catacombs soon made it difficult to navigate, even with the torch, as each twist and turn only disoriented them further. Zull couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread, as well as the nagging thought that they were not alone down here. It was an uncanny feeling, and one which chilled him immensely.
“There must be some air flowing through these tunnels. Maybe you could smell where the air is freshest and guide us that way, Sir Kyr?” Zull asked.
The knight looked at him, and Zull saw genuine sorrow in his eyes. “I think my sense of smell has disappeared, Zull.”
Zull turned to look at the knight in surprise, but in the murky dimness of the tunnel, saw only a vague shape. “Even with the bindings that Zaphyr and I repaired?”
“I did not wish to worry you and your sister, Zull, but with as little experience as you have, your bindings were always just a temporary remedy. Before we even left the palace, I felt them beginning to fail again.”
Zull winced with sympathy and shame. Though he could not see it in the darkness, he had noticed earlier that Sir Kyr’s eyes had gone cloudy, and his fur had fallen out in several places. Moreover, his gums had begun bleeding, and his fangs seemed brittle, as if when he bit down too hard, they would break altogether. Despite his obviously ailing health, however, the knight bravely soldiered on, his step as confident as ever.
“How is your strength?” Zull asked.
“For the moment, still with me,” Sir Kyr told him. “Unlike poor Sangue, my strength appears to be the last to go. But it will go soon, I fear.”
“You will be dead by tonight,” Zull said quietly. It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact.
“Unless my bindings can be repaired again, yes,” Sir Kyr said.
A tear came to Zull’s eye, which he hastily wiped away. “Then there’s still time to save you. We can-”
“You and Zaphyr both did everything you could, and I do not blame you,” Sir Kyr said gently. “My only remaining goal is to see this quest through to its finish, to help you and Zaphyr defeat Blyth, save Prince Grevel and the Empire. Then, I can die in peace.”
Zull looked at the ground sadly, wishing there was something further he could say, something to comfort his friend in his last hours, but he could think of nothing. They came to another fork in the tunnel, one splitting off to the left and sloping down, one heading to the right and sloping up.
“I would think we would want the right tunnel,” Zull commented after looking at each for a moment.
“I concur,” Sir Kyr said.
At that moment, however, they both heard, faintly but unmistakably, the sound of distant, chortling laughter, coming from within the right tunnel. It echoed around them in the confined space, distant, but coming closer.
Sir Kyr, sword in one hand, torch in the other, growled slightly, a challenge to the darkness. “We aren’t alone.”
“I didn’t like the sound of that. It was…monstrous,” Zull said. And somehow familiar, too. “Let’s take the left tunnel.”
Sir Kyr wordlessly agreed. As they entered the left tunnel, they heard in the distance the laughter ring out once more, joined now by a horrible scraping sound, the unmistakable noise of something long and metallic being dragged across the stone floors of the tunnels. It unnerved Zull, but Sir Kyr remained as calm and stoic in the face of the strange sounds as he had always been.
The tunnel only sloped downwards for a short while before turning sharply upwards. It twisted and turned back on itself often, as if whoever had designed it had changed their mind about its destination repeatedly while in the process of building it. Even as they walked on, they heard from behind them, as repeatedly and methodically as if it was timed, the haunting laughter of their pursuer. With each repeated instance of the sound, they could tell it had grown closer.
“Put out your torch,” Zull hissed.
“What?” Sir Kyr said. “If I do that, we will be completely blind down here.”
“I know,” Zull said. “But I don’t want whoever is following us to be able to use that light to track us down.”
“Very well,” Sir Kyr said.
“Wait,” Zull said. He tore a piece of the hem off his robe, then wrapped one end of that piece around his right arm, and the other end around Sir Kyr’s left arm. “Now, even in the dark, we won’t get separated.”
Sir Kyr nodded appreciatively. “Clever.” He threw the torch to the ground, then, as it spluttered faintly, stomped on it with his foot until it had gone out entirely, leaving them in absolute darkness. Zull could see nothing whatsoever and made his way along through the tunnels by touch alone, feeling the walls and the damp stone floor beneath as he followed the knight. They heard the laughter again at regular intervals, and while it grew no closer, neither did it draw any further away. Without any light, Zull lost all sense of the passage of time as he crawled through the tunnels with Sir Kyr, until at last, he thought he noticed a faint graying, as if the very first hints of light were coloring his sight, promising more to come.
“Sir Kyr,” he said in the faintest whisper he could manage.
“I see it,” Sir Kyr responded. “I will lead us towards the light.”
They did exactly that, crawling over rubble and stones slick with condensation as the gradually grew lighter, allowing them to see better with each passing moment. Eventually, Zull could clearly see the walls and floor of the tunnel around him, and even Sir Kyr beside him. Most importantly of all, he spotted a shaft of pale light ahead, guiding them. Zull almost broke into a run, so eager was he to escape the tunnels and whatever unseen thing hunted them. They came at last to what had clearly been the exit to the tunnel, which had been sealed up at some point. One rock at the top of the tunnel’s entrance had fallen out, allowing a single shaft of light to illuminate the tunnel, however faintly.
“Do you think you can remove these rocks?” Zull asked Sir Kyr. He nodded, reaching out one clawed hand to grab the rocks in the entrance way, lifting it with barely any effort, and tossing it to the side. Patiently and stoically, he removed the rocks one by one, until he had completely cleared the tunnel’s entrance.
“We’ve made it,” Zull said, clearly relieved. Just then, he heard from behind them the piercing, mocking laughter of their pursuer, now far, far closer. So close, in fact, that Zull knew that if he turned and reached out, he could touch whoever or whatever it was.
“You haven’t escaped,” their hunter, still hidden by the darkness in the tunnel, said mockingly. “No one escapes.”
“Run!” Zull said, sprinting through the now cleared tunnel entrance with Sir Kyr right behind. They found themselves in a small, interior courtyard near the very center of the palace, which rose up around them. Zull saw only two ways out of the courtyard, one being the tunnel entrance they had come through and the other a gateway on the opposite side, blocked by a lowered portcullis. By the door stood a winch, evidently intended for raising or lowering the portcullis when needed. A large tree, blooming with bright pink, sweetly fragrant blossoms Zull didn’t recognize, stood at the center of the courtyard, surrounded by stone benches. Grass and weeds were growing between the courtyard’s cobblestones, showing its apparent disrepair compared to the rest of the palace. Zull skidded to a stop beside the tree, his momentary surge of panic turning to a cold, steady despair.
“We’re trapped,” Zull said miserably, looking back to the tunnel mouth they had just come through.
Sir Kyr drew his other swords shouting into the tunnel, “Whoever you are, know that if you try to stop us, I will fight you.”
In response, there was only the haunting response of the same lilting, taunting laughter. A chill ran down Zull’s spine, as he felt he should have recognized that laugh, though he could not have said where exactly he had heard it before. Eventually, the source of the mirth shuffled its way into the light, allowing both Sir Kyr and Zull to finally see their pursuer.
They had been followed by a twisted wreck of a woman, wrapped in bandages and scraps of dirty clothing stained with blood. She wore a metal mask which hid her face, and metal gauntlets which she then removed, showing that her hands had been replaced with enormous, hooked appendages, a cross between the talons of a vulture and the claws of a bear. The black ink-stain markings of blood bindings were dotted across her body, too many to count. The woman hissed, the sound rendered oddly hollow by the mask she wore, as she said in a hauntingly familiar voice, “Sir Kyr and Zull. How poetic. I knew we would meet again, somehow.”
“Sangue,” Sir Kyr said, and Zull’s mouth fell open as he finally recognized her. “What has the Master done to you?”
“What needed to be done, if I was to survive,” she said, her voice hoarser and far harsher than before. “You two bested me before, humiliated me, when I was imperfect. Now, I will tear you both apart, and I will relish it.”