Deeping Lore - 11. Chapter 11 - Assassin's Gambit

“D…can you lend me a knife?” Kian asked.

Sir Avery’s cobalt colored eyes darted back and forth behind sweaty black bangs. He examined the semi-dark of the passage that stretched to either side of his taught body with military precision. A third path lay straight ahead; the stalwart men that followed him stood at his back, weapons drawn in the middle of the intersection. The walls on the inside of the fortress were made from human ribcages, skulls, and spinal columns covered in a paper-thin veneer of flesh. The bones had been twisted and shaped in the vision of some insane plan drawn by an unknown architect. They were wet and glistening from bright red blood that poured down the walls from some unknown source; heavy droplets rained down upon their shoulders and splashed upon their helmets. Some of the mouths in the wall gaped, others were tight-lipped, but all of them moved subtly with unnatural life. They produced whispers from hidden throats that spoke wickedness in the language of the damned.

Wordlessly, Dylan unbuckled a foot-long throwing blade, shaped like a spade, sharp on both sides with a pommel formed into a ring, hollow at the center. Kian could put his index finger through it to twirl it ‘round; the knife was one solid piece of Kandeleyan Steel and was the best kind of knife outside of a cibrian weapon. Crispin watched Kian with fascination as the assassin spun it, grabbed the handle, spun it again, flicked it up and caught it. Kian’s movements were natural, fluid, and exact. He realized he had an audience and winked at the red-haired knight, almost playfully, as he handled the dangerous blade with his long elf-like fingers.

“This is balanced really well, D,” Kian remarked. “Thank you.”

“Just try not to lose it, please,” Dylan remarked, kneeling down and studying the floor of the passage. Like the walls, the floor also was comprised of bone and made treacherous from the coating of blood. However, these appeared to be exclusively leg bones, interlocked in such a way as to provide a solid and somewhat even surface. A ridge occupied the middle of the floor where the joints interlocked and the space between the femurs was filled with black bubbling goo. The length of Dylan’s soft leather boot spanned three of the bones, but if he turned sideways, any of them would run the risk of having their feet slide between them and get stuck. The other knights heeded Dylan’s caution and made sure to stand with feet at direct cross angles to the framework provided by the macabre floor.

Behind him, Kian addressed the boy.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked him.

“Luck,” the gray-eyed youth said. “I’m frightened.” Blood from the ceiling matted his hair.

“Well, technically you should be so that’s okay. I’m going to carry you on my back if that’s alright with you? Just put your arms around my neck and try not to choke me. If we get into a fight, it’d be best for the both of us if you hopped off and stayed out of the way.”

Luck nodded looking at the ground with distaste. He was barefoot and the feeling of the bone and other gruesome things on his unprotected skin was probably more repulsive than Kian could imagine. He was taking care to place his unprotected feet only on the surface of the bones but because his foot was significantly shorter than a man’s, he really only touched two of them with the entire span from toe to heel. But there was nothing to be done for it except to offer to keep him off the ground. Carefully, Kian stooped and Luck climbed onto the assassin’s muscular back; he was so light it reminded him of his own youth. If Kian had been Luck’s age, others might have mistaken the two of them for brothers. Dylan watched as his friend hunched over to carry Luck more comfortably. It was odd to see him like this and he realized that Kian would make an excellent father. There was so much that he just didn’t know about him.

“Which way should we head?” Heath asked.

“They went straight,” Luck stated. The knights turned to look at the boy who had his head nestled comfortably in the crook of Kian’s neck. He was holding on to Kian but it was a gentle embrace…one that embodied trust despite having just met the blond assassin. It didn’t surprise Dylan because Kian had a disarming look to him. In many ways, he was adorable and Dylan secretly wondered how many people had died looking into Kian’s soft brown eyes wondering how in the world they’d underestimated him.

“How do you know?” Dylan asked Luck.

“I saw them,” the boy responded. “They went straight and disappeared into the darkness. They told me that they wouldn’t be long.”

“How could they have known where to go?” Ephram asked. He walked up next to Kian and squeezed his shoulder with his gauntlet to reassure the boy who rode on his back and as a gesture to Kian to let him know that he was safe as long as he was there. Kian discovered that this was a very “wolf” thing to do. He was completely certain he could beat any one of them in single combat. Despite this, all of the knights felt like they needed to protect him from harm. It never even occurred to them that he really didn’t need protection. It was endearing and Kian thought it might have something to do with the sex roles each of them enjoyed. When he had more time to think about this, Kian intended to find out just how sexual positions amongst partners affected perceptions of weakness and strength in a relationship. It was something in which he was deeply interested but only from a strictly academic point-of-view.

“The walls are telling us to go straight,” Kian said, listening to the language spoke by the Hellish faces.

“You can understand what’s being said?” Dylan queried. There was disgust in his voice and Kian chose to ignore that. In truth, he expected that at some point the holier-than-thou Valions would look down their nose at him. Afterall, they spent every spare moment they had in prayer to either atone for sins or to save the souls of those who had committed sin. He wondered briefly how often Dylan prayed for him and the thought unfortunately was open to all of the knights.

“I pray for you every day, Kian,” Dylan said.

“—Now that we know you,” Ephram said, “We’ll pray for you every day as well.”

“Uhhh…thanks, I guess…” Kian said, managing a half-smile. “But, yeah…for some reason, I understand some of the language. I guess that means that I’ve more in common with this place than any of you which should frighten me but it doesn’t. If only you boys knew half of the things I’d done in my life, you might not be so amiable toward me.”

“That isn’t true,” Crispin said with smiling green eyes. “You just haven’t been appreciated and that’s all going to change. When we get out of this place, we’re going to teach you to read and write.”

“Agreed,” Heath said, silver hair moving back and forth in front of his face.

Kian thought about Crispin’s offer and it brought tears to his eyes. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Absolutely,” Crispin nodded. “We’ll have you reading scripture in no time.”

Kian shook his head. “Uh…scripture? Is there anything else we could learn to read?”

“—And prayers…,” Ephram stated. Kian rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. This wasn’t a discussion he wanted to have at this moment.

Dylan laughed and Kian shot him a stern glance that his partner couldn’t see because he had his visor down. “It’s not funny.”

“From my point-of-view, it’s really funny.”

Kian sighed. “In my vision, I saw that the universe would be unraveled before us through words spoken in the ancient speech of the forgers. Well the inside of this fortress is a universe separate from our own, don’t you think? And its forgers would have all spoken this demonic language at some point…it’s the old speech before the Gods had concerned themselves with thoughts of different repositories for the souls of their followers. This would’ve been the tongue that Inzilbeth and Taleta would’ve shared in the time before she’d been slain by Deeping Lore, when the world was still young and the Gods were of flesh and blood.”

Dylan swallowed and moved out front. “Straight it is then. Watch your step and don’t get your feet caught between the bones. We don’t know what the black bubbling goo does.”

Behind Dylan, Heath moved into position, followed by Kian, Ella Fravaugh and Henna, and then the last two knights took up the rear. In front of them the passageway started to slope downward. The glow from the holy swords lit up the passage and shed pale blue illumination in front of them in a cone some 60-feet long.

Around Kian’s neck, Luck tightened his grip and Kian responded by saying, “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Kian quipped.

“You shouldn’t make promises like that in this place,” Ella Fravaugh said, hopping along next to him. “Hell has a way of making unpleasant things come true.”

“This isn’t Hell exactly,” Henna corrected. “But we are close to the underworld…very close. I don’t think even the Unseelie Court would dare to tread in this place despite the fact that most of their powers come from demonic pacts.”

Up ahead, the passage grew steeper and formed a stair that spiraled down into mysterious depths. Blood continued to drip sporadically from the ceiling and the floor of bones was alternately slippery and sticky depending on how long you stayed in one spot. All of the men walked with exceptional balance and managed to traverse the ground without mishap. Before Dylan’s broad armored shoulders, the corridor widened to double doors that lay propped open by huge stone statues shattered into boulders the size of a full-grown wild boar. On the other side was a huge room with a domed ceiling. Cauldrons of churning fire filled the chamber with a ruddy glow and hundreds of carved stone columns supported the colossal roof. The party descended a hundred steps; Kian heard the pitter patter of the blood striking the stone floor of this place which appeared greased with so much of the stuff, it resembled crimson paint. Everywhere there were statues of men in full armor, some wearing robes, and others sporting fine leathers and scale mail. The clothing and armor was not stone, only the people inside were.

Henna spoke up first. “We’ve entered the lair of a Gorgon.”

“What’s that?” Dylan asked.

“A Hellish unseelie, part demon, part dark fairy. There were three of them in legend, all crones with one eye that shared a second one between them. It’s said that they were old when the universe was new. Each of them possessed a secret word that could call forth a portion of the old magic. The Gods believed them dangerous because of this and separated them from each other. In isolation and doomed to immortality, they became personifications of pure hatred toward all the creations of the Gods. I believe we’ve entered the lair of Atropos, the Gorgon who was rumored to possess the old magic word for stone.”

“How do we kill her?” Dylan asked.

Henna shrugged. “She’s immortal. I don’t even know if it’s even possible.”

“—It’s possible,” Kian interrupted. “Anything can be killed…even a Goddess. You just have to stab the right place and I’m very good at finding it. I’ll make her bleed if it’s the last thing I do.” To punctuate his words, Kian popped out the cibrian blade on his armor and it extended over his clenched fist.

“The Eye of the Crone…” Dylan whispered to Kian who immediately understood the reference.

He nodded, “…and the Tome of the Liar. The Tome of Zanda…inside which we should find the knowledge to retrieve Deeping Lore. I still need to kill Korga though…I accepted a contract…and I never reneg on my word. It’s a matter of professional courtesy.”

Dylan moved forward with the others and Kian shifted his feet to make Luck more comfortable. The boy’s head was turned sideways and doing his best to keep the blood from off his face. Kian’s acute hearing picked up on something other than their party moving through the chamber. From somewhere beyond the huge stone pillars, Kian discerned a rattle as that produced from the tail of a giant snake. Then he also noticed the unmistakeable sound of scales grinding against rock. He swallowed nervously, and looked at Dylan who was meticulously examining a statue. Kian’s eyes opened in surprise for here were Skellhaundar Romax and the Timeron Knight that had accompanied him, frozen forever in stone. Skellhaundar was dressed in the Darkglory armor, his brilliant cape soaked through with the same blood that bubbled and hissed as it struck the hot cauldrons that lit the place.

“Seeing those two like this,” Ella Fravaugh said, “doesn’t bring joy to my heart.”

“It’s rather unsettling, isn’t it?” Dylan agreed. “We must be careful if they could be overcome so easily.”

From out of the corner of Kian’s eye, he saw movement amidst the pillars and he quickly ducked behind one of the smoking stone cauldrons. Under the carved mouth of a leering two-headed demon with cloven hooves, he set Luck carefully down upon the wet stone. “Be very still,” he whispered. The boy covered his face and crouched at Kian’s feet, hugging his legs with his arms.

Kian peered around the corner and saw that the other Valions had also scattered. He spotted Dylan near him and under the same cauldron. Ephram and Crispin were hiding behind pillars. Heath crouched near a collection of stone ogres holding shields. They were posed with polearms in their hands facing some unknown threat obviously caught by surprise.

Kian heard the noise again and looked through his visor and saw the Gorgon. She had a head of snakes and a scaled face with one eye on the left and a vacant hole on the right. Her torso was female, she had large pointed breasts with sharp black nipples pierced with steel hoops and strung with a glittering silver chain that joined them together. Her lower body was like the nagas they’d killed out front, serpentine, and long. She carried no weapon but her hands had nails so sharp on them Kian thought she could probably cut glass with them.

“Stay down,” Dylan’s thoughts floated through all of their combined minds. “She’s closest to you, Heath.”

“Do you want me to take a shot?” Heath’s thoughts floated back.

“Yes,” Dylan responded.

Heath gripped his sword and turned. Unfortunately, even the slight jingle of his spurs made enough noise that it called attention to where he crouched in hiding. The Gorgon knocked over two of the statues which crashed to the ground and shattered in an explosion of stone pieces. The monster uttered a word with her index finger outstretched. Kian tried to recall the word once spoken but as soon as it had been uttered, it fled from his memory as if burned from his very mind. Before his eyes, Heath turned to stone. Kian wanted to cry out in horror but he kept still, shrieking in his mind for his loved one.

“Stay still!” Dylan ordered. Kian could feel Dylan’s thoughts floating through his brain. He was overwhelmed at Heath’s apparent death but also, was unwilling to lose his cool. Dylan’s military training took over and Kian could feel his boyfriend trying to think of some tactic that they could all use to their advantage. Then the one thought that filled his mind was the candle that Dylan had lit the night he’d fucked him in the tent on the desolate windswept plains of Vas of Kleef. But why was Dylan thinking of the candle at this of all times?

He peeked at his boyfriend who pulled the candle out of his bag and held it up to the cauldron where the heat made it soft in his hands. He broke off pieces of the wax and stuffed them into his ears and then motioned for Kian to do so as well. “The wax will deafen you. If she’s using a word to petrify us, let’s do our best not to hear what she says. We can communicate through thought using the rut. I want you to teleport over to the others and make sure that their ears are plugged as well and do so quietly.”

Kian nodded, filling his ears with the soft wax. He flickered and appeared next to Ephram who already had his helmet off. Kian stuffed wax in Ephram’s ears and then repeated the procedure for Crispin who was visibly shaking because of what had just happened to Heath.

Then Kian teleported next to Ella Fravaugh who he spotted hiding underneath a huge stone table. He handed wax to the bunny who took it greatfully and then Kian blinked back to Dylan’s side to insert the last of the wax into the ears of Luck. The boy was so frightened that he looked as pale as a ghost.

Standing over Heath’s statue, the Gorgon looked around the room, nostrils flaring. Contemptuously, she pushed Heath’s statue over to shatter it. Unexpectedly, Crispin ran out from hiding and caught his packmate before his petrified body had a chance to strike the ground. The weight of the rock knocked the wind from his lungs and Crispin was almost instantly pinned. However, Heath’s statue was still whole and undamaged. The Gorgon smiled and uttered the word again. This time her victim survived the old magic.

“Attack!” Dylan commanded.

“D, you clever son-of-a-bitch,” Kian thought to him. “I’d have never thought of the wax.”

Kian teleported behind the Gorgon and she struck at him with her arm but he parried it aside. Then, he lanced her with the throwing knife while simultaneously slicing across her back with the cibrian blade. The cibrian cut her and she shrieked; black blood spilled from the smoking wound. Kian smiled because despite being immortal, this was all the evidence he needed to validate that she could be killed.

Dylan ran up and faced Atropos the Gorgon and she uttered the word again, this time from desperation. Never before had the word failed her. The old magic lanced around Dylan but he remained unpetrified. He ducked under a tail swipe and thrust his glowing holy sword between her breasts. The blade didn’t penetrate the skin but the touch of the holy weapon left a black mark on her flesh that sizzled and burned. She screamed with horror.

Crispin finally pulled himself out from under Heath and carefully set his friend down on the blood-drenched floor so as not to chip any piece of him. Meanwhile the Gorgon swung at Ephram who danced in and out, stabbing with his holy sword while punching with his fist. He raised large burning welts on her skin but only Kian’s cibrian blade was leaving visible cuts.

“Stab her deep,” Dylan said to Kian.

“I’m trying, I can’t get more than an inch in because her sinew and bone protects her.”

Dylan looked around, saw one of the pillars and told Ephram to join him in backing her toward it. Their efforts in herding the Gorgon worked and Kian jumped up and pushed himself off the pillar as hard as he could, blade pointed toward the middle of her back. He struck with the cibrian knife and with the extra momentum provided by the pillar, drove it so deep his fist slammed into her spine. The Gorgon turned her head up and whirled to grab a hold of the stone pillar. Black blood flowed out of her mouth and she left scratch marks an inch deep on the rock face as she fell underneath Kian’s master stroke. In seconds she was dead.

All at once, the enchantments in the room broke as all the multitude of creatures that were still in one piece and undamaged, turned to flesh. Those that had been broken instantly died in fountains of blood. Kian teleported next to Heath and helped the young knight to his feet. But they had worse things to deal with now than the Gorgon herself. They were surrounded by at least a hundred fiends that had all come to this one place for the same thing…to retrieve the Tome of the Liar from under the Eye of the Crone.

“Fuck,” Dylan swore. “Don’t get me wrong, Heath. I’m overjoyed you’re back with us. But we’ve got a huge fight on our hands.”

“Imagine the honor it will bring to defeat them all my lord,” Heath responded with eloquence.

Kian grimaced and retrieved Luck; they formed a protective circle around the boy. Ella Fravaugh and Henna joined them, pulling the wax from their ears. Kian and the others followed suit, watching with trepidation as the disoriented creatures from many years and even centuries imprisoned within stone, suddenly found themselves released of the powerful curse. The question that surfaced in Kian’s mind was simple. Would they be thankful that they’d been set free and given another chance to live a full life?

“Not a chance,” came Dylan’s thoughts followed by, “Sometimes, Kian, you seem awfully naïve despite your age.”

“Just because I entertain certain thoughts which you can see in my head doesn’t mean I’d speak it out loud,” he retorted. “Stop nosing around in my mind.”

Skellhaundar wasted no time. He and his companion noted the placement of their hated enemy and readied their weapons. As Skellhaundar moved to attack position, he shouted to the disoriented forces of evil, “They have the tome! Do not let them escape with it!” The lie worked all too well; there was a clamor of weapons being drawn along with battlecries and the stomping of heavily shodden feet. Kian saw Skellhaundar pause with satisfaction in the shadow of one of the huge pillars as three great rock ogres moved forward swinging hammers and brandishing wooden shields. Moving to their left was a band of five Nykorans and four Tandaleyan assassins who bore the facial markings of the Shanagi Clan. Behind them stood two Merenzaran necromancers, wearing the mask of the dead…a thing comprised of dried and treated human skin stretched over facial bones into a grim covering. On the right, beyond the pillars carved to resemble nagas with huge curved horns, gathered ranks of imperial legionnaires from ancient Thularum. Their armor matched a style in use more than two centuries earlier.

The first assassin tumbled and threw a Kandaleyan blade and Kian snatched it out of the air and hurled it back. The stunned clansman dropped dead from his own weapon, blade protruding from his throat, the wound spurted blood. Kian gripped Dylan’s knife teleported, slashed with the blade using his right hand and his cibrian knife on his left wrist. He gutted one of the assassins whirled, slit the throat of a third, and lopped the arms off a fourth as he was swinging a hooked weapon on the end of a chain. Kian caught the weapon as the man fell dead, whirled the chain snapping it about his waist and caught the end of it about the ankles of one of the ogres. He dug his feet in and pulled tight, tripping the ogre who fell forward straight onto Dylan’s blade, impaling the ogre through the skull.

Heath met the other ogre, danced to one side as the monster swung its huge hammer at him, and leapt off the head of the ogre Dylan had just slain giving him enough height to smash his gauntleted fist into its face. Blood and bone spattered outward in a conical swath. Heath twirled in mid-air and brought his sword down on a Nykoran who raised a shield to protect his head. Heath’s powerful blow cut the top off the shield and the Nykoran hurled it to one side and gripped his blade tightly in defense. Heath landed lightly on the balls of his feet and crouched protecting his mid-section, deflected three blades, turned aside two strokes and dodged two crossbow bolts aimed at his chest by Khaymanite archers.

Crispin rushed in to help Heath. The Nykoran attacking Heath swung at Crispin’s neck but he feinted, and came around with a sock to the jaw that shattered the warrior’s steel helmet which flew apart at the rivets. Crispin then cut him from hip to groin with his sword, used the dead body as a shield, and pulled loose his sword in the space of those precious seconds while crossbow bolts sunk into the dead Nykoran’s back. He dropped the flesh “pin-cushion”, parried a sword, sliced an arrow out of the air, and then behead a third Nykoran. Its head rolled to a stop at Kian’s feet, he kicked it like a pigskin and sent it sailing into the chaos. The warrior would have landed a deadly blow on Crispin’s shoulder had Heath not turned it aside with a flick of his own holy sword.

The sorcerers all by themselves in the back hurled lightning into the fray but the Valions were wearing corobidian armor and were completely protected from it. Bolts of electricity flew between them and sizzled in the blood that coated the stones. One of the ogres fell dead, boiled in his own flesh and three Nykorans burst into flame, bolts of fire burning out their eyeballs; the smell of burnt flesh billowed throughout the room along with their tortured screams.

Ephram slashed at a Nykoran, cut him down, kicked out the legs of another who fell; he quickly dispatched him by severing his spinal cord with his sword. Then he whirled in time to see two axes previously coming at his back but now enroute to his chest. He fell backward with incredible speed, arched his spine like a circus performer and the axes whooshed an inch over his navel while he supported himself with his palms. Then he rolled his body, kicked hard at the knees of one of the Khaymanite barbarians and broke his stride by snapping the bones of his leg through metal kneecaps. When he hopped to his feet, Ephram rammed his sword through the barbarian’s helmet. Blood fountained out of his face and he dropped; the barbarian’s leather helmet decorated with braided pieces of hair flew about wildly in his death throes.

Ella Fravaugh answered sorcerer’s lightning with an explosion of glass shards; Henna whipped the shards around in a wind that she controlled and formed into a cyclone which she guided between the pillars toward Skellhaundar Romax. The blue dragon Darkglory dodged behind one of the burning cauldrons, wind whipping his razor cloak as he looked to the room for more monsters he could direct at them. Dylan raced forward, killing men with his fist and sword. He plunged into a contingent of Thularum legionnaires, dodged their bronze polearms which they wielded with deadly efficiency. Ablaze with the strength of their god, the cyclo-titan legionnaires swelled to twice Dylan’s size with their armor and weapons matching their growth. A fiery glow permeated the outside of their golden armor which was enchanted to strengthen the protection. They swung with such strength and ferocity that deflected blows shattered stone, broke flagstones into a thousand pieces of rock, and split steel down the middle. However, Dylan had almost unnatural strength. In bed with him, Kian saw only a fraction of what his lover’s body was capable of doing and battle was another story altogether. Anyone that saw Dylan could see that he possessed hardly any body-fat at all and was rippling with muscles from his neck to his toes and from places where most people didn’t even possess muscle. Sir Avery swung that holy sword with such terrible strength; it literally cut through the enchantment on the armor, sliced through a one-inch steel breast plate, and gutted one of the legionnaires. In the same instant, Dylan actually beheaded another with a blow from his gauntleted fist that tore the massive head from off the shoulders of his assailant. Flesh and bone ripped asunder, tendons snapped, and bone shattered, sending a fountain of crimson blood spilling upward and spraying the fray in hot thick droplets. The legionnaire’s enlarged head fell like a medicine ball, still wrapped in golden armor and rolled to a stop near the base of the cauldron where Skellhaundar Romax stood.

Fearlessly, two more cyclo-titan legionnaires intercepted Dylan. He leapt over their halberds which they jabbed at his legs and caught another with his forearm. The blow rang out with a clang as it collided with Dylan’s corobidian encased limb and Kian saw Dylan’s arm break and fall limply to one side. Dylan cried out in pain. Nevertheless, he rushed his assailant and punched him in the groin so hard it lifted the ten-foot man off the ground and blew his pelvic bones into his stomach cavity instantly killing him. Then he gritted his teeth and snapped his arm back into place. Simultaneously, he dodged two more attacks from the other cyclo-titan. A moment later, the regeneration had healed his arm and he picked up his holy sword once more. Then he parried the cyclo-titan’s halberd, grabbed the shaft with his arms and spun in smashing his elbow into the Legionnaires hands, disarming him. The weapon dropped with a clang. Then Dylan sliced him up in a matter of seconds, dropping the huge man as yet another corpse in a long line of dead attackers.

“You’re next Romax!” he roared.

The Darkglory closed his visor and engaged Dylan, swinging his cloak about him like a trained bullfighter, the cibrian razor whistling through the air, and his unholy sword blazing with black light. Blue lightning coursed down both of their armored suits, dancing in chaotic fire that sizzled and popped and sometimes leapt painfully to those that wandered too close to their duel.

Kian flickered and appeared near a cluster of Khaymanite barbarians and engaged them as they were headed toward the wall where Crispin stood protectively over Luck who huddled helplessly, hiding his face with his hands. He slit one of the barbarian’s throats, dodged four axes, parried two crossbow bolts, gutted a second, beheaded a third, immobilized a fourth with an elbow across the face and impaled a fifth in a blur of swift blows. Bodies fell around him spurting blood and various body fluids. Veteran soldiers who’d killed hundreds of men attempted to hold guts in their hands as Kian cut foot long gashes across their abdomens in-between blinks of their eyes. Kian’s weapons dripped with gore and it was a good thing he could loop his finger through the ring or he might have been unable to hold on to the slippery handle of Dylan’s knife. As Kian fought, the ring of steel-on-steel sang as he sometimes stabbed his victims ten or twelve times in under a second and then threw the knife only to retrieve it a second later from the fleshy skull of someone he’d just killed.

Ella Fravaugh, Henna, and the two sorcerers stood a few feet apart hurling spells at each other. The sorcerers were surrounded in globes of shimmering light while Ella Fravaugh and Henna stood within a cylinder of force that deflected magic, arrows, and melee blows. When the hare-foot priest cast a spell, he reached over the top of the cylinder with his paw and hurled his magic while Henna flitted on butterfly wings. The sorcerers called forth damning darkness which billowed outward into the room but was unable to penetrate the light coming from the holy swords. Kian stepped in close to Crispin who shed a glow of pure white light around them and he heard the snapping of tendons and the chewing of mouths emanating from the darkness…followed up by terrible screams. Then the cloud dissipated as Henna banished it with fairy fire light which she sent in floating globes out over the battle. Kian saw that in the span of just a few seconds, many soldiers, ogres, and men had been ripped to pieces by invisible chewing mouths that had lain hidden in the darkness spell.

Ella Fravaugh cast a paralyzing enchantment at the sorcerers and it was countered. They returned with balefire in scintillating green black globes of pure hatred and Henna summoned the spirits of dead fey who rose up and intercepted the balefire globes causing them to explode and detonate before they reached their intended target. Whirling discs of purple and red light went back and forth between the sorcerers and the Melzhondran priest and his fairy companion. Crispin stepped forward and engaged two legionnaires that swung at him with their polearms and dodged the blows which landed on the black stone walls and sent the rock cracking in a spiderweb pattern. He danced in and out, thrusting his holy sword at their golden armor which glanced over the enchantment with visible blue sparks.

Crispin was young, athletic, and powerful, but he didn’t have the terrifying strength in his muscles that Dylan possessed. No one did actually. However, he was clever and exceptionally resourceful which proved his worth as a Crimson Guard. One of the Legionnaires slammed his halberd down with an axe stroke and Crispin deked to one side as it narrowly missed his body by a hair’s breadth. He reacted by jumping up onto the polearm shaft giving him the needed height to see eye-to-eye with the enlarged cyclo-titan. Then he thrust his holy sword through the narrow opening in the helmet afforded to the eyes and killed his attacker instantly. Crispin was a Valion knight with a precision stroke. The second legionnaire almost caught Crispin but the knight leapt up with an astonishing vertical leap, landed behind the butt of the legionnaire and swung low at a crease in the armor above the critical hamstrings and managed to sever them with his sword. Painfully, the Legionnaire dropped, cracking his knees, and Crispin finished him off with another skillfully placed stab to the eyes.

Kian teleported into the middle of the sorcerers, severed the hands of one in the midst of casting a spell, and then killed him with a slice to the jugular vein with his cibrian blade. Fire boiled over Kian’s armor from Ella Fravaugh’s outstretched hands…fire intended for the sorcerers, but it couldn’t penetrate the shimmering globes the men had erected. Luckily, Kian’s armor protected him from damage as well. Then he swung about with his cibrian blade and beheaded the other sorcerer and kicked the head into the crowd with his left toe. “Stop screwing around,” Kian said to the hare-foot who had no reply for him and just looked at the blond assassin with a flustered expression.

Then Kian teleported near Dylan to engage the other Timeron Knight who was taking aim at his lover’s back with a longbow and a black arrow. “You’ve got other things to concern yourself with, old chap,” Kian said kicking the bow aside so that the black arrow flew wide. It landed in the back of one of the rock ogres, instantly slaying him. “Cursed arrows aren’t honorable at all, don’t you think?”

“I know you,” the Timeron Knight hissed dancing back and drawing his sword, tossing the bow to the ground in one fluid movement. “You’re that Black Dragon Assassin called Hunter. Dolmani sent word to us not long ago that you’d joined the expedition. Although he should’ve just killed you but I guess you were handsome enough that he wanted to rape you first.”

Kian leapt in and knocked the blade aside but the Timeron Knight wasn’t where he thought he would be because of the whirling cloak. He leapt up and kicked Kian with his feet. The assassin managed to dodge one, but the other foot caught him on the back of his head and he felt blood run down his neck. He looked down and saw that the Timeron Knight’s feet had small blades on them that were made of cibrian metal.

“I’m at a disadvantage,” Kian said crouching more carefully, nursing the shallow wound. “You know who I am but you’ve not introduced yourself.”

“I’m Zylander of Clan Chezbernon,” he said with a voice thick with hatred. “You should know me…I raped and murdered your woman who agreed to have your child.”

Kian froze and Zylander took the opportunity to rake his cibrian cloak across the assassin’s armor. He felt the bite and managed to blink just in time to avoid a mortal blow. “How do you know about that?” Kian asked, trying to recover from the shock. He hoped the words were just lies.

“Dolmani. He left a letter for us in the courtyard of the Blades Acuuarum. He told us the location of the thieve’s guild in Zanda and our allies were most pleased. By now the whole thing has been burned to the ground. Heh…she was good. I’ve never had that kind of pleasure but I’m surprised that you didn’t see to her safety.”

Kian parried the cloak with the razor ribbon with his own cibrian blade, ducked under and stabbed with the throwing knife but sliced nothing but air. Then he jumped, flipped, landed and kicked out with both of his feet and missed again. Kian lighted on his palms and righted himself, ducked under the singing sword and parried the razor cloak. He teleported blade extended at Zylander’s back but the knight dodged with lightning speed, caught Kian’s arm and started a grapple with him. He rolled Kian under him; the assassin kicked out with his feet, and thrust Zylander up against a pillar. He hurled the knife, the knight caught it turned it back on Kian and he dodged and caught it with his free hand. But the knight was so quick he’d stepped in and kicked Kian in the stomach, doubling him over, then put his arm in a lock forcing him to drop Dylan’s knife. Kian teleported out of it and struck with his fist and the knight turned the lightning fast blow aside. They traded blows, switching from twitching mongoose to prancing cheetah to clicking lotus styles. Breathless, Kian tumbled back, retrieved his blade and looked his opponent in the eyes. “No one knows those moves aside from me!” Kian exclaimed in disbelief.

Zylander chuckled and the laugh seemed familiar to Kian. Suddenly, he knew who he was facing.

“Constantine? That’s impossible. I murdered you!”

“And I stayed dead for a very long time no thanks to you… you ungrateful upstart rat! I took you wet behind the ears and taught you everything! I treated you with kindness and you returned it by poisoning me, slitting my throat, and then stealing my sword. Where is Bloodbane?”

“You’ll never wield it. I killed you once…I can do so again.”

“I’m not the one bleeding here, Kian. You haven’t landed a single blow. Things are much different now that I can see you for what you are!”

The Timeron Knight rushed Kian, he teleported and swung at his back, but Zylander parried and traded blows with him. He punched, Kian parried, he kicked, Kian dodged. Steel gleamed and lanced from blade and cloak and the two men traded deadly arcs from weapons that made the air whistle around them. Kian managed to slice a thin line through Zylander’s chestpiece, drawing some blood from pectoral to sternum. Suddenly the ground heaved underneath them and split open. Kian leapt to one side of the trench nearest Luck who was several feet behind him where Crispin was fighting off barbarians and slowly edging toward a stone throne where the Gorgon must have took seat inside the immense hall. Huge carved cobras dominated the sides of the throne, hoods flared, and above it was a singlular carved eye that gazed outward in the room that was filled with the carnage of those eagerly meting out death with a chance at getting their hands on the Tome of the Liar.

“I think its under the seat,” Crispin’s thoughts flooded back to him.

“I’ve got my hands full here,” Kian answered back to his red-haired lover.

“Do you need some help?” Heath responded.

Kian glanced over his shoulder at the silver-haired Valion who was fighting back-to-back with Ephram. They were knee-deep in bodies and had been wounded several times but the regeneration from the rut had of course saved them.

“I might…if you can spare it,” Kian admitted. “But be extremely careful, Zylander is not a typical Timeron Knight. He may even be more deadly than Skellhaundar Romax.”

And the epic battle between Dylan and Skellhaundar raged on. Dylan’s latest blow failed to land on the blue dragon Darkglory and sliced through the rock on one side of a cauldron which toppled over in a fountain of glowing coals as the ground erupted in chaos underneath them. Fire roared upward from the spilled contents and Dylan leapt the gulf created by the unexpected tremor and continued to hammer away at Skellhaundar’s raised sword, lighting arcing from both of their bodies.

“Something’s coming!” Ella Fravaugh called out, pointing into the crack. The black ooze that they’d seen bubbling underneath the latticework of bones in the hall that led to this chamber was also at the bottom of the newly created crevasse. It was about ten feet down and swirling. Kian swallowed hard because he knew that their battle had caught the attention of the Faceless Lord…the horror that stalked the corridors of the Fortress of Unbreakable Walls. As far as he knew, the Faceless Lord was a Demon Prince and would be a foe beyond anything that they had ever faced. To fight him in his own domain was folley.

Carefully, he negotiated the edge of the chasm as the bubbling black goo rose slowly up toward his feet. Meanwhile Zylander edged closer to him, sneering behind his helmet, stepping with the same dexterity as Kian with thin rivulets of blood dripping from the cut Kian had given him only moments before. Kian’s muscles ached from the battle but he knew he couldn’t afford to make a mistake against this man who fought him with the knowledge of his old master.

“I claim the right of Assassin’s Gambit,” Zylander stated.

Kian looked at him in shock. “You can’t claim that right! You’re not part of the Guildhouse.”

“One-on-one combat…no one else, Kian. I was a part of the Guildhouse long before you ever came along. You can deny me this right, but you’ll have to answer for it in the Assassin’s Council in Thorn if you do so.”

Kian swallowed and told Heath to stay back in his mind.

“Why? I can help you kill this asshole.”

“He’s claiming Assassin’s Gambit.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to give him this or I may lose all standing with my church.”

Zylander sneered at him as the ground rumbled and heaved yet again. The two men, however, had perfect balance and Kian backpedaled along the edge of the broken stones to buy himself some time.

“Assassin’s Gambit,” Zylander stated again. “Do you agree?”

He nodded, “I’ll enjoy killing you, Constantine. You’ll find I’ve improved on a lot of your teachings over the years.”

“Say it!”

Kian clenched his teeth. “I agree to Assassin’s Gambit. Your move.”

Then Zylander attacked.