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Chapter Twenty-Five
"I'm telling you, she's up to something," Calisto said from behind his nasty helmet, a thing battered and scratched from countless battles and crawling with grave worms.
Skellhaundar steepled his fingers and stared at the door to his office here in Zanda City. Bound in black leather with hand-tufted buttons of twenty-four carat gold, it led to the inner chambers of the vestry of Taleta's temple: the grandest of its kind on the continent of Garohar. In the role of Darkglory to the Night's Daughter, Skellhaundar sat behind a desk befitting a man of his station. It was a fine immaculate thing with gilded lion's paws on the ends of each of its four legs, and the whole of it decorated in remarkable bas-relief.
Visitors that stared at the dark varnished wood saw scenes of jackals feasting on wildebeest in a jungle under a full moon. Opposite this scene was another that took place within a city. For every jackal in the woodland scene, a similar human figure occupied its corresponding place on the conflicting mural. In the place of the wildebeest was the figure of an overweight man, his throat slit, and his bulging pouches being robbed by the thieves around him.
"Do you see this desk?" Skellhaundar asked. The only sound in the room came from a mammoth grandfather clock which filled the room with a "tick tock" that put most visitors on edge. Skellhaundar, however, always found it relaxing.
"Of course I see the desk," Calisto said, leaning forward.
Skellhaundar grabbed an orange off his desk and casually held it to his nose. After Calisto's last visit, Skellhaundar had hired a taxidermist to create a bag that so resembled an orange peel one couldn't tell it apart from the actual fruit. Then he'd stuffed it with fragrant cloves. Skellhaundar was glad he'd taken such precautions for the stench emanating from the death knight general was almost too much to bear.
"It belonged to a man that once thought he could outwit me, and it's my greatest treasure. It belonged to a priest of Tethyr, the god of thieves. When I killed him and his entire congregation in a secret lair in the city of Darkwell, I claimed this desk as my own. These lovely details on the front panel serve as a reminder that no one outmaneuvers me. Of course Kahket is up to something. As a matter of fact, I know precisely what she's up to. The bitch has already discovered the location of the Keep of Silverhawk, which I used to believe was mythical but now know to be real. It's true we don't know where or how to get to it...yet. And, she's captured Ser Ephram Skye, a mortal enemy of mine. Rather, I should say that Ephram is the prisoner of one of her lackeys. No matter, because I'm making sure that when they smuggle him into the city, we get a hold of him before she does. I've got guards on every gate, and I've got knights on blue dragons watching the skies for anything that might approach the Dreaded Irtemara's palace. Even a flesh and blood god like Zandine, who I hear is in a trance until his next child is born, would not dare to raise a hand against us for fear of angering our goddess. Kahket knows we have the upper hand here in Zanda City, but I think it's time we reminded her of just exactly what that means."
Skellhaundar stood and walked over to a bar covered in fine bottles of brandy and wine from the vineyards of faraway imperial Thularum and Sulasia. He offered Calisto a taste in a fine crystal goblet, and the death knight accepted. Then Skellhaundar threw another log in the fireplace. The crackling wood gave off the scent of aspen and spilled wave after wave of heat into the chilly room, made more so by the presence of such a powerful undead.
"This is good," Calisto said.
The sentiment surprised Skellhaundar, for he didn't know if the death knight could even taste anything. However, he refused to watch the general drink, as the sight of all those fleshless teeth turned Skellhaundar's stomach. Instead, he just listened to the slurping sound the general made and the strange tinkle his naked teeth made as they struck the rim of the glass.
"Is it a Kandaleyan 3642?" Calisto asked after a moment.
Skellhaundar looked at the bottle. "A Kandaleyan 3643," he replied.
"Another fine year," the general said, placing the empty glass on Skellhaundar's gorgeous desk. "What if Kahket has another way past your men? What if Zanda City has more ways to enter it than by sea, highway, and sky?"
"I'm sure it does," Skellhaundar replied, returning to its desk. "But I have an informant. A very good one who has reason to hate Kahket because she almost killed her. She's an Amserran woman. Her name is Mudrufamesa, and she forwarded some information to one of my most trusted lieutenants."
"Ser Makidon Oberon? He's a dashing piece of ass if I say so myself, and he looks damn good in his armor. Don't look so surprised, Skellhaundar, for I've got my spies too," Calisto said. "I like to stay on top of current events."
Skellhaundar frowned and drew a finger across his desk. "Makidon and three other gold spurs."
"Good," Calisto replied. "We can't chance a mission of this importance to just anyone. When do you expect them?"
Skellhaundar was about to speak, when their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," Skellhaundar said. "Come in!"
The door opened and four Timeron knights entered, the shortest being 5'11" and the tallest 6'2" (accounting of course for the heels on their shiny black boots). Each of these men took off their beautiful corobidian helmets, three were brunettes and one was a ginger. They all had soft brown eyes and tanned supple skin; their youthful faces looked ageless. To a man, each had a strong cleft chin and prominent Adam's apple, and each had no facial hair save for well-trimmed sideburns. The colors of their military tabards and cloaks showed particularly bright in the firelight, and this made Skellhaundar's chest swell with pride because he loved good-looking men who took pride in their appearance.
They stood at attention until Skellhaundar said, "At ease, gentlemen. Report."
Makidon spoke up first. "Ser, we did as you ask and recovered the scroll from the Amserran woman at the tavern you told us to go to in Port Town."
Skellhaundar smiled at Calisto and stretched out his gauntleted hand. "Please give it here, Ser Oberon so that I may see if the woman's information is worth what we paid for it."
Makidon gulped and sweat broke out visibly across his brow. The other three knights fidgeted nervously. "As I said, ser, we did recover it, but a thief stole it from us. We're all to blame here, and we accept full responsibility for this," Makidon said, voice a little shaky.
Skellhaundar's first impulse was to feel anger, but at the last moment (before he let his temper slip) he thought about what was going on here. Are they playing a joke on me in front of General Calisto? He looked sideways at the death knight (whose glowing eyes never looked anything but deadly) and decided that this could not possibly be the case. What then do they mean by this? Skellhaundar asked himself. Who could get the best of my hand-picked soldiers? These men are trained killers with the instincts of a tiger and the reflexes of a mongoose.
"Tell me what happened, Makidon," Skellhaundar said, keeping his cool. "Depending on your answer, I may or may not be angry with you."
The young man nodded, clearly anxious. "Ser, we were attacked by a shadow. And this was no shadow demon, but a man. At least I think he was. At least he had the silhouette of one. Before I knew what was happening, he'd killed all four of our shadow demons with some kind of blade that created some unearthly howl as it slashed through the air. Two of our shadows died in one blow, skewered through the middle, and I'm pretty sure the sword drank their souls. Damien, Valanthe, and Kendrick attacked him, but the attacker was like a ghost, appearing out of thin air to strike one of us and then vanishing in the next instant. I swear by Taleta's sister I've never seen anyone move so fast."
Skellhaundar sat back in his chair, brow furrowed in thought. "Have you heard of such a creature?" he asked Calisto.
The undead general looked over the recruits, but Skellhaundar knew Calisto had complete faith in their system. The death knight knew what kind of athletic ability and training it took to where the gold spurs. His answer would be supportive. Calisto may be a bastard, but he always looked after men that wore the colors of Taleta's army. Men who wore "the spurs" were without reproach.
"Why are you still alive?" Calisto asked them.
Valanthe spoke up this time. The tall red-headed knight with freckles on his fair skin said, "Our assailant wore a black and silver suit with no ornamentation on it. The visor on his helmet looked like it was obsidian, and when he spoke, his voice sounded distorted and almost tinny, if that makes any sense. It filtered through a grille that was positioned over the mouth like so." Valanthe gestured at his own helmet to indicate the exact location of what he'd seen.
"He spoke to you?" Skellhaundar asked. "What did he say?"
"In the battle my helmet got knocked off," Valanthe said. "H-he tripped me in the middle of the Blind Man's Bluff, and before I could finish executing the move he had me on the ground with a double cibrian blade to my throat. I swear, I thought he was going to kill me. He stared at me through that glass, and I could feel his eyes examining me. But it was almost like he had a change of heart, staring into my own eyes like that. So instead of killing me, he said, `Don't get in my way. This isn't personal.' Then he grabbed the scroll off my belt and vanished."
"Were the rest of you similarly disabled?" Skellhaundar asked.
They all nodded yes.
"Ser," Damien said, "It's like what Makidon said, he moved like lightning personified." He turned his head to show bruising on the side of his face. "That's where he struck me. It knocked me out through the helmet, ser. But he hit all of us like that in under a second."
"An emissary of Kahket's?" Calisto asked, turning to Skellhaundar. "A demon perhaps?"
The general shook his head. "No. The bitch has no one with powers like that, and demons wouldn't have a change of heart."
"How do you know?" Calisto asked.
"Because no one has powers like that. Not even us. Not even the Night's Daughter. This is something else entirely. Think about this, Calisto. These men are telling us someone attacked them and struck all of them in the head in a single second. That's so fast, it'd be nothing but a blur. A new player has entered the game, and we need to find out who it is if we don't want to be surprised again. My guess is that it's one of Ser Ephram's companions that came with him to the shores of Zanda. We know so little about them, but he was one of Thomas's Crimson Guard. It would appear that he's assembled the best help that money can afford."
"You give the followers of the Wolf god far too much credit," Calisto said with disgust.
"And you don't give them nearly enough," Skellhaundar replied. "To underestimate your opponent is to turn victory into defeat."
"Ser," Makidon said, interrupting. "There is one piece of good news."
"And what's that?" Skellhaundar asked.
"I was curious, and I know you said that the information on the scroll was to remain sealed, but I disobeyed you," Makidon replied.
"You read the contents?" Skellhaundar asked.
"Yes," Makidon replied. "And I remember everything."
"Go on," Skellhaundar said. "What did you see?"
"The Amserran said that at nine o'clock p.m. tonight after Omar's Imports closes for the evening that two Nevrenachtur lords hired by Kahket will be coming up through a tunnel that goes under the wall. The men at the caravanserai are already expecting this. They're bringing with them the Valion knight hero, Ser Ephram Skye. Kahket plans on torturing him to get the password to defeat a cibrian golem in the Keep of Silverhawk."
Skellhaundar smiled and stood with both fists on the top of the desk. "That's it," he said smiling at General Calisto. "We get Ephram Skye, and she has to work with us. She can't retrieve the Orb of Winter without that password. And once we have Ser Skye in our clutches, then we wait for the red-head from prophecy to show up that is destined to lead Thomas astray in the moments following the destruction of the orb. This is how it all comes together."
"Are you mad at us, ser?" Makidon asked. His handsome companions looked nervous.
Skellhaundar walked over to Makidon, grabbed a hold of his shoulders, and then kissed him long and deep, pushing his tongue into Makidon's mouth and caressing the young man's lips with his own. After a full minute, he stopped, and the other men stared nervously, blushing and mouths slightly agape. Calisto just sat there watching in silence.
Makidon smiled and said, "Thank you, ser."
"I'm not mad. All of you are good soldiers; now go and get those bruises looked at by a cleric in this temple. All of you. And when you're fit, begin the process of getting four more shadow demons. I can't have my gold-spurred knights without their most powerful servants," Skellhaundar said.
The young men nodded and said, "Yes, ser!" and then filed out of the room.
The complete novel is now available to read at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead.
Are there any artists out there willing to draw some pics for my story? If so, please email me. There is an "Orb of Winter" map now in both the NEWS section of my website and in the FORUMS of my website.
If you go to my website directly from this posting, you will want to begin with "CHAPTER EIGHTEEN."