It was late afternoon by the time Syline reached her destination. She couldn’t pretend the journey had been particularly enjoyable; her bruises still ached and each galloping step by her stallion jarred them. But eventually, that had at least settled into a dull ache. She couldn’t deny the beauty of the journey either. Syline didn’t leave the city all that often, and in its own way the huge open vistas only broken by islands was breathtaking. The world went on further than she could see, meeting the cloudy sky on the horizon.
During those hours, she only once saw other people. She was straying close to the borders of the kingdom and chanced upon the sight of some of the tundra elves who migrated along paths further east. There was some kind of caravan going across the waters, all riding atop huge, powerful elk or smaller does. She had waved to them, riding in opposite directions, and one or two of the elves who’d caught sight of her, returned the gesture. She had always thought the tundra elves were beautiful, though she’d never tell Alexis that, she’d never let her live it down. She would’ve liked to speak with them, maybe see if she could buy some food, but they clearly had their own path and no intent on stopping nor crossing the border between her kingdom and their domain.
When she did reach her destination, it was about what she expected: an island large enough to house a forest, with a number of smaller islands dotted around it, sprouting their own groves of trees. Her horse’s magic finally ran out about a half hour’s walk from the town, so she’d set to walking, after picking herself up out of the snow. She’d not been expecting the damned thing to disappear so suddenly. The town itself was nothing to write home about: a large lumber-mill, sheds and storehouses, a tavern, a barracks for the lumberjacks who lived here as well as a general store, and a spattering of houses for the few people lucky enough to afford one. Other than the lumber mill, they all existed on a single, long street.
It was the tavern Syline headed for. After all, it was the obvious choice. Every book she’d ever read told her that if you wanted to find an adventurer, you go to the local tavern. It was a large, two-storey building, made mostly of timber, which made sense. A pair of horses nickered to one another, tied to a post outside the tavern. Light spilled out from within, fighting against the cloudy weather. Syline removed her huge witch’s hat as she stepped inside and immediately, she felt out of place. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her that this wasn’t exactly a place many women would be, but it did all the same. Looking around the room, she saw only large, powerfully built men with the weather-beaten, leathery skin of someone who spent far too much time out in the biting wind and the long beards of people with no reason to shave.
Almost all the bar turned to face her as she stepped in, and the feeling of so many eyes upon her had Syline’s cheeks flushing. Right away, she wished she still wore her hat to hide from their gaze beneath it.
‘Well now,’ the portly bartender said, ‘don’t see many girls come this far north. Are you lost, Miss?’ He was a bald, older man who looked like he’d only recently retired from the lumber trade. A brutal scar which had taken out an eye stretched across one side of his face. He smiled, revealing he was missing several teeth.
‘You gotta be real lost to end up here!’ said one of the patrons, getting a laugh from the room.
‘I’m…’ This was harder than Syline had expected; she’d never been good with crowds, or new people, or being intimidated. She wasn’t nearly as confident as she liked to think she was. ‘I’m looking for a bodyguard,’ she finally managed, looking around the bar.
To a man, they were all brutal, hardy sorts. Apart from one table. One table stood out and she found herself making her way there right away. At the comment, they had roused and the men were looking her way more intently. They looked like they’d be prime candidates as the protagonist of The Dragonslayer’s Lance: handsome, lithe, and with rakish, charming minor scars that spoke of swashbuckling and adventure. They reminded her of her father’s men, which had her feeling a little more at ease than with the huge, weathered lumberjacks.
‘He-hello,’ she stammered out as she reached the table.
The one in the centre – their spokesperson – was the first to reply. He had carefully groomed, blonde hair in a ponytail and green eyes like emeralds, gleamed at her, alongside a pearly smile.
‘Well hello, miss. Heard you say you’re looking for a bodyguard?’
‘Oy, missy,’ the barkeep drawled. Syline looked his way and he waved a hand as if to ward something away. ‘There’s an adventurer upstairs, better sort than those bastards.’
‘Ignore the oaf. That man’s hellblooded, Miss. You don’t want to truck with his sort.’
Syline nodded. She’d seen hellblooded in the city, but never spoken to one herself. From her understanding, they came in all shapes and sizes, but most all were marked by their strange skin colour and horns. They were interesting from a scholarly standpoint – anyone with blood from outer realms was, but that didn’t mean she didn’t find them a bit unnerving.
‘Better a hellblooded than someone bound for it. Tellin’ ya, miss.’ There was a hostile air in the room. The lumberjacks were looking at the bounty hunters and Syline like they wanted a fight. She swore she could hear growls and suddenly realised she’d stepped into some long running feud. She saw a handsome, brunette bounty hunter with a crew cut put a hand on his blade, the other on her elbow.
‘You should get out of here, miss,’ he said, looking at the blonde man with a little smile.
The man nodded and stood up.
‘Come with me, miss, I’ll take you back to our lodgings before this gets ugly; we can talk about the details there.’
He offered her an arm and Syline took it wordlessly. It wasn’t the first time a soldier had escorted her through a group of unruly peasants and his firm forearm made her feel much safer. She wanted out of that bar fast, it felt like it was a hair’s breadth from bloodshed. He led her down the road and, once out of the tavern, she released his arm and looked behind them, watching the bar in case any of the lumberjacks followed. They went down a well-trodden path, marked by the passage of hundreds of feet and carriages. No snow lay here long for how quick it was trampled down into the dirt. An inkling of worry wormed its way into her stomach. This wasn’t the way to anyone’s house. No one would have so many visitors, and why would anyone live off the main street in such a small place.
‘Now hold on one moment,’ she said, backing up from her prospective bodyguard. He stopped in his tracks and turned back to face her. The look in his eye set her quivering: it was a hungry, feral look. ‘What are you playing at, sir?’
‘Ah, you caught me…’ he said with a little chuckle. walking towards her. She backed up, hand going for her wand. The incantation for her arcane missiles was halfway out her mouth when the man broke into a sprint. The last syllable left her tongue right as his fist hit her stomach, driving the wind from her as a pair of little arcane missiles buried into his shoulder.
‘Bitch!’ he shouted.
Syline was doubled over from the first punch, and the second one he threw caught her on the back of the head. Everything went black as she hit the floor. The last thing she heard was Corax loudly squawking as the bird was caught by the man and thrown against a tree.
The next minute or so was a haze for Syline. He’d well and truly knocked the senses from her and her vision blacked out repeatedly. She had no strength in her limbs. All she knew was that he was dragging her somewhere by her leg, her body pulled along the cold dirt like a sack. Things went dark. She could see a ceiling above them. A door slammed shut, then the only sound was his heavy breathing and the wind whistling through a broken window. She was beginning to feel strength coming back to her limbs. He stood over her. There were tears in her eyes. She was sure he was one of Jane’s hunters, that he had come for her to take her spell-book, to kill her. He had taken here to do it quietly where no one could get in his way.
He grinned lecherously at her as he pulled off his shirt and stuffed the sweaty, rank clothing in her mouth and tied it behind her head as a gag. It was only then that she had the presence of mind to begin to scream. She kicked out at him, but the man only laughed, hurling her sword belt to the side of the room. He lay atop her. Hands parting her robes to feel across her body.
This was so, so much worse than him trying to kill her.
She felt him kissing at her neck, his weight across her form, his hands grabbing her breast, going lower.
Syline had never had a lover in her life and she doubted she’d ever want one after this day. She screamed for all she was worth beneath the man, but it only seemed to amuse him. His dark gaze staring down at her, he looked at her like she was an object, something to be used and tossed away. How could she have been so stupid? Just because of a few handsome faces, she’d ignored the bartender’s warning. Her hands batted against his sides, but she was too weak to do a thing to him. Her arms were still heavy from the blow he had struck her. She needed to do something, to get help, to do anything to escape this situation.
She kicked out. Her leg struck a table and she heard something clatter to the ground. She looked to the side as his pants reached his knees. An axe. His breath was hot on her neck, her robes open, his eyes wild. He was reaching to remove her robes entirely when suddenly, her saviour arrived.
Corax appeared from nowhere. Having gotten in through the broken window, the little raven leapt at his face, screeching and pecking at his eyes. As he did, Syline’s fingers pressed as deep as they could into the wound her arcane missiles had left on his shoulder. The man roared, rearing back like a struck bear. With his weight off her, Syline swung to the side and grabbed the axe. Hand over his eyes he reached for her blindly. Syline sat up and swung for all she was worth.
Out of all the moments of that haunting event, the sound of the axe crunching through his finger bones to carve a crater through his face was the one that would stay with her the longest. He didn’t roar this time, he screamed, falling to the ground and bucking about like a stuck pig. His face ruined, the fingers on his left hand taken off at the knuckle. Syline got to her feet, taking the axe in both hands. She could barely see him clearly for the sting of tears in her eyes but hate gave her blow strength and led it true. She screamed as she swung, screaming out all her anger and pain and fear and letting it ring in his ears for the last moments of his life. The axe cracked his skull open like a melon, going deep before sticking in place, blood splattered across Syline’s hands.
Sobbing and feeling more hurt, more violated than she ever had in her life, Syline closed her robes and ripped the axe free from his skull. She swept up Corax, her hero, and grabbed her sword belt on the way as she fled the building. Legs shaking as she left the man – the nightmare – behind, trailing tears and spilt blood, Syline stumbled back to town.
Chapter 7
Three men came into the room, all dressed in similar garb and armour to Amberly, each held a torch in one hand and a longsword, blessed by the church, in the other. The one at the front was one she knew very well: Leoric, her mentor, adopted father and the one who had given her permission to investigate this place alone. All three recoiled at the scent and sight of the place, one of the men trailing Leoric turning to the side to vent his stomach. Leoric wrapped an arm over his mouth, calling to Amberly through it.
‘In Soel’s name! Amberly, what happened here and what is that?!’
This was something Amberly had not predicted. She’d thought her superiors would have had the trust in her to let her handle this place alone. Seeing as they had little faith in her hunch anyway. She could only imagine what it must look like to them: her, standing beside someone who was very obviously a devil, or at least aligned with the hells, amidst what might as well have been a charnel pit. The skin of children lying alongside corpses of demons and cultists alike. She had originally been thinking about how to approach mentioning the vampire, when she saw him next, but any thought of the woman completely fled her mind at his appearance here in the catacombs with her.
‘Laes, get out of here,’ she whispered to her friend. He might have been a devil, but he was a friend and she wasn’t going to abandon him.
