Chapter 15
The Stench of Blood
Greeves grew bored of watching the celebrations, he didn’t know why he was even bothering, he wasn’t interested in the wedding or its lackwit participants. Stumbling around, smiling shit-toothed grins at one another as if two strangers getting married was something to be happy about. Mercy hadn’t returned either and Zanzo had floated off after her. The slimy bastard.
He decided he would retire to his chambers and get some sleep, who knew where he would be going tomorrow after all. Maybe he’d head north and cross the ocean to the place men called - Aethera. A stupid name, it was the equivalent of calling their lands Human-land. The aeth there called it Jersai, a word in their tongue that represented cold and beauty as one. Greeves knew it by another name. Lekrolin, meaning frost land. A place that in his time had not been worth inhabiting. Yes, he could go there and finally answer for the blood, death and chaos he had sown during the war of the seraphim, aeons ago. He snorted, no he thought not. He would of course head southeast to Balhasi like he’d always planned. A place free of the religious zealots of the tals.
He made to exit the great hall but something began to itch at him, he looked over the chaos of the room once more. People were drunk and laughing, dancing and eating, nothing out of the ordinary.
The married couple and his parents had left after their dance a while ago but it hadn’t mattered to the rest of the guests who remained lost in their self indulgence.
He continued scanning the area, unsure of what he was looking for, whatever it was, it was giving him a deep sense of unease.
Finally, he saw it, the desert princess’s men were moving around the room in small groups with hard looks on their faces. There were five such groups, all coming to a stop at different areas of the feasting hall by large barrels people had been using as tables for their drinks.
Greeves watched as one of them, a tall, gaunt faced man from the group closest to him raised an open hand to the others then clenched it into a fist. Greeves reached for the hilt of his great ebony blade.
Each group knocked the glasses and plates off their respective barrels and began to quickly open them. There was no need to think about what was in them, he doubted it was wedding presents.
Greeves unsheathed his ebony blade, feeling the familiar hot tendril of pain course through his unwoven body as it attempted to connect with him. There was no need for the connection, even if it had still been possible, he and it understood one another. The blade itself had always incited the deeds of violence; but he had carried them out.
His heart pounded and his breath quickened. He felt his face twist into a rictus grin, he was ready to smother his senses with sweet, poignant carnage.
He ran straight for the closest group, the tall, gaunt man was just pulling a white handled scimitar from the barrel as he noticed Greeves bearing down on him. His eyes widened and Greeves laughed to see his shock and fear.
Laughing, Greeves swung the black blade in a glorious downward arc that split the fool's skeletal armour and sliced cleanly through his shoulder to his guts, hot blood sprayed out of the carved man spattering Greeves like warm summer rain, somewhere,far, far in the distance a woman screamed, many women maybe.
To Greeves they were distant things that had no meaning right now.
It was true overhead swings could get you gutted by a ready opponent as he’d told the boys earlier, it seemed the reverse was also true for one who wasn't.
Greeves ripped free his sword and the gaunt man’s guts spilled out splattering the clean tiled floor.
The tall man’s companions, a man with red hair and a woman with a hairy mole on her cheek had drawn their scimitars from the barrel but looked stunned by how suddenly their tall friend had become a pile of butchered meat.
Greeves didn’t waste a second, he spun his sword in a low circle, stepping forward and hit the hairy moled woman in the shin, it didn’t slice the leg off due to her armour but it did snap it. Mole-face screeched as her shin folded under her weight and she fell to the floor to join her companion's guts and blood.
That just left Redhead, who had sobered up to the reality of what he was facing and had taken a few defensive steps backwards, raising his blade.
All around them the feast had turned into a frenzy of carnage as other skirmishes took place, screams of pain, terror and anger sounded everywhere. The woman joined her own scream to the cacophony as she rolled in the guts and blood between them.
Greeves walked towards Redhead giving Mole-face a hard kick to the head as he passed, her screaming stopped and she lay motionless in the bloody offal. Greeves raised his sword and roared, Redhead flinched and came at him with a barrage of heavy blows, their blades screamed as they clashed even over the noise of the bloody banquet. Greeves continued to defend as the heavy blows rained down on the black blade. Redhead clearly thinking he had Greeves’s measure pulled back before lunging in with a huge swing of his sword.
Greeves hissed and swung the blade in a furious upward arc, the blades connected once more and the scimitar shattered like glass. Redhead stumbled forward like Greeves knew he would, he stepped towards him quickly grabbing the hand holding the broken blade and forced it upwards through Redhead’s throat.
They stood locked in that position for a moment, eyes locked, then Red coughed a damp, gurgling cough and said, “blurrghhhh-urrg!”
Greeves retorted by pushing him over. Fucking savages. He stared around the room, there were dead, useless nobles everywhere now carved up like the pigs, cows and chickens that lay on the tables. Guards were fighting some of the groups, but others were free to kill indiscriminately. One last happy memory together. He’d thought things might go wrong but this was something else. He lifted the black blade once more and charged at the next group.
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Ideron sandals sucked at the sticky blood as he stepped through the corridor, his robes trailing and collecting it. The blood was still fresh and filled his nose with its coppery stench. A pair of soldiers in Heraldforn tabards were slumped against the walls. Both were stabbed in the neck, their swords still sheathed. They were attacked from behind, he glanced about the floor, hoping their attacker had left bloody footsteps, but there was nothing. The assassin had moved on before the death of these men had spilled its mess.
He followed the corridor to an intersection, based on nothing more than instinct, he took the path to the left and followed it cautiously. It was not long before the sound of fighting could be heard from the main courtyards. Ideron picked up his pace, his magi blade drawn, but he moved away from the sounds of the fighting. He rounded a corner and there she was, Amka Torren.
The princess of Yashai leapt back from a swing of a Heraldforn soldier’s sword. She did a good job masking her apprehension with determination. It would have fooled the untrained observer, but her upper arms were too tense. Her grip wasn’t quite steady. She had a cut on her exposed shoulder where a small stream of blood ran down her arm. They were the kind of cues that Ideron had been trained to look for when he needed to dismantle another fighter. She relied too heavily on the initial surprise of attack, Ideron surmised. The inherent sexism in Urunians would often leave a blindspot also, that the girl could capitalise upon.
Ideron traced a binding rune intending to root her feet to the ground but he wasn’t quick enough. She launched at the soldier, feinting an attack to the left and ducking below his swing and stabbing him in the calf with her blade. Not blades Ideron noted. The sharpened bones—or teeth perhaps—from her dress. She finished the man with surprising efficiency, stabbing him in the back of the neck as she stood up. The man fell and Amka looked up to face Ideron.
“Your magic not work, shaman,” she said, nodding to her shoulder.
“I assure you it does, Lady Amka. It was no shielding rune,” he said calmly, “I have bound you to me. I could kill you with a thought.” To her credit, the girl’s face didn’t show any fear but Ideron didn’t miss the tension in her arms.
“Then why no kill?” she said.
“Why are you here?” Ideron asked, taking a step toward her, “why agree to this wedding? Was it revenge?” Ideron noted that she gripped something else in her other hand, not a weapon, something small with a glittering chain.
“Was it all for that?” Ideron asked, indicating it. He tried to appear casual, to let her believe that he had no concern for her attempting to run. He avoided the urge to glance down the hall behind him where he could hear the sounds of fighting.
“The skeleton god says man magic is weak,” she said carefully.
“You have spoken with him, your god? Did he tell you to do this?” Ideron asked, he took a nonchalant step toward her, hoping that she didn’t notice hesitancy in it.
“He says that Tal shamans lie,” she spat, “Tals need lies, like ground needs water.” This skeleton god certainly wasn’t wrong there, but the truth that Amka knew about the Tals was a surprise. Their understanding was that the Yashai tribes had no knowledge of Timeran, that they were pagan savages worshipping the sun and the stars.
The sounds of fighting grew closer and Ideron’s instincts forced him to flick his gaze over his shoulder; a pair of Yashai men were running toward them. Both men wielded long curved blades.
Ideron traced the paired runes on his magi blade, summoning two ephemeral daggers identical to the one he held. They hung suspended in the air in front of him. He moved into a warriorstance. The blades were formed of his own aether, and he only had enough strength to summon three. Four if he really pushed himself. But keeping the focus on two in battle alone was a difficult task. He glanced back to Amka and was not at all surprised to see she had already fled.
The two approaching Yashai men faltered before his floating etherblades, one had completely shaved one side of his head and the other had a network of small scars along his exposed bulging arms. He held up his magi blade, pointing it at them, its weight felt good in his hand. The etherblades pulsed in unison, eager to jump to his commands.
“I have put a curse on your princess,” Ideron lied, “If you come any closer she will die.” Neither of the two replied but they also didn’t move closer.
“Put down your weapons,” Ideron said as calmly as he could despite his heart pounding and the etherblades pulsing rapidly in response.
“Ishvak ni hiri,” The scarred man growled and he raised his scimitar, Ideron had no idea what the man’s words meant but he guessed it was along the lines of ‘I don’t speak your language.’
“Well that makes this more difficult, doesn’t it?”
The two etherblades shot forward. The shaved headed man fell as an etherblade struck him in the neck. It vanished to nothing once it had torn open a hole in the man’s throat and Ideron reformed another at his side in the breadth of a second. The shaved man crumbled, desperately trying to stem the blood from leaving his body.
The scarred man was quicker; he had deflected the blade with impressive speed. Once struck, the etherblade wisped to nothing. When the external force broke the etherblade, it briefly severed Ideron’s connection to ether. He quickly traced his magi blade rune, summoning the second blade back.
Ideron didn’t back away nor press ahead, retaining his calm posture. His legs began to quiver, urging him to make distance between him and the armed savage. The Yashai didn’t waver and rushed him. Ideron shot the two etherblades forward again, the Yashai sidestepped the first and deflected the other. The one that had missed shooting off down the hallway before dissipating into nothing, ethereal objects became harder to maintain and control the further away from the summoner.
He didn’t have time to retrace the summoning runes before the Yahsai man was upon him, swinging his sword. Ideron raised his magi blade parrying the attack and attempting to step back. His sandals, still slick with blood, caused him to slip on the tiles falling on his back. His plush robes cushioning the fall.
The Yashai man was quickly on him again, bringing his sword down for the kill. Ideron’s fingers snapped the summoning runes. With the man so close to him they formed behind the bulging Yashai-man and Ideron pulled them towards him with every ounce of aether he had.
In his mind, Ideron felt the etherblades sink into the man’s back followed by a splattering of blood on his face as the Yashai grunted and coughed. The sword slipped from his grip, clattered onto the blood soaked floor. Ideron felt the full weight of the muscular man fall onto him.Ideron let out a grunt of his own, but was glad that it wasn’t followed by him coughing up his own blood.
The man stank of gore and sweat, Ideron laboriously rolled him off and climbed to his feet. His robes now heavy from soaking up the blood. He could still hear more fighting and Amka was nowhere to be seen. He prayed to Timeran that Eryn was still coherent enough to maintain his tracking rune on the girl.