Blood and Iron 4
Blood & Iron
Part IV
Eli Steele
[to table of contents]
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This is a work of fiction. Obviously. All of the characters, organizations and events in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously; any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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The events in this book are a direct continuation of Blood & Iron, Part 3, available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y6XKHV7
Reading Parts 1 – 3 prior to Part 4 is necessary to understand the story contained herein.
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Copyright © 2019 Eli Steele.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, copied or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
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Acknowledgements:
My son, my padna’.
My wife, my best friend.
Hammer, for the feedback.
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Map:
Visit my blog for a map of the region: https://elisteele.blogspot.com/
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* * * * * Table of Contents * * * * *
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Epilogue I
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Epilogue II
(Reprinted from Blood & Iron Part III)
Eldrick D’Eldar
Braewood Keep
The sound of the heavy shelves crashing against the stone floor roused Eldrick from his sleep. He lay in the same cell in which he had prattled Creedon, and the irony was lost on him. Standing, he pressed his face against the bars and waited in silent anticipation.
Through the gap in the wall stepped Bo and Jarin, groaning as they did, the young Alexander slung limp between their arms.
“Is he dead?” Eldrick whispered.
Startled, they turned.
“He is not,” replied Jarin, “though he may yet pass. His breathing’s faint, and grows fainter by the hour.”
“What’re you doing in there?” Bo asked.
D’Eldar hung his head. “The Brae has fallen. And I have graver news still, but I cannot share it with you… only him, for it’s his to hear. Now, help me out.”
“But how?” asked Bo.
“In his coat or on his belt should be a skeleton key, I hope… And be quick about it, before the guard returns…”
Chapter 40
Eldrick D’Eldar
Braewood Keep
Kingdom of Beyorn
Bo turned the skeleton key until he heard a click, before removing it from the lock and pocketing it. Heavy iron hinges creaked as Eldrick leaned against the bars and pushed the cell door open. Gray stone pressed in on them from all directions, lit by a single failing torch. “What happened?” he asked.
Looking down at Griffon and back up again, Jarin replied, “I sorely doubt you’ll believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Ever heard of a…”
“…A bramwar,” Bo added.
Eldrick searched his mind for a moment, before snorting, “The myth?”
The pair nodded.
“I don’t believe it…” the spy said with an air of incredulity.
“I told you.”
“You should’ve seen him,” remarked Bo. “Downing a demon in single combat!”
At the wall, Eldrick crouched and stood the heavy shelve – that he had moved into position to hide the cave’s entrance before his surrender – back upright. “If he is to live, we must seek help, and soon, though I know not a soul that is experienced at the healing of a wound made by a demon’s hand.” His face was grim, and he saw it in their eyes too.
We cannot lose you, not now…
In the corner lay D’Eldar’s gear in a heap – sword and shield and pack and coat. Pulling on the heavy furs, he welcomed its warm embrace and drew the hood tight, though not so much as to narrow his vision. Starting towards the stairs, he readied the blade, glanced back, and whispered, “We’ll need range if we’re to make it out of here alive.”
“The first landing up has a storage room,” replied Bo. “We may find bows in there.”
With footfalls faint as a wraith’s, they ascended the steep stairs, searching for sounds of approaching threats as they did. Beyond the keep’s walls, a storm howled like a soul suffered.
At the landing, footsteps echoed down from above. Stepping into the darkened storage room, Eldrick and the others held their breaths and listened as a single guard descended to the dungeon.
“Wait here,” the spy whispered as he handed off his shield and pushed opened the door. A Kal’Dean lyric, long forgotten, crept into his mind though he tried to push it back.
Callous, restless,
the cruel one stalks the night…
Cold steel, black heart,
beware the vengeful wight…
He recalled a dozen more stanzas about the malevolent vestige of a knight, seeking to redress the wrongs from his past life. Before, he’d seen the dead soldier as the adversary, but now, he wasn’t sure.
At the base of the stairs, Eldrick found the Meronian in silent shock, searching for the apparition of a once-caged man that only an hour ago had pushed back in protest a plate of bread sopped in pork fat.
For the honor of Beyo- …no… for the Brae…
His final step was a lunge. Grabbing the guard by his hair, D’Eldar yanked back his head and drove the blade forward. Looking down with wide eyes, in those last moments, the man saw an arm’s length of steel staring back at him from out of his throat, sanguine and dripping. The spy slid the sword from its somber sheath, letting the body slump forward as he did. Face first on the floor, a ribbon of crimson snaked out, congealing in the cold. Crouching, he plundered the corpse’s wool-lined gauntlets, before turning and ascending the stairs once again.
At the storage room, D’Eldar tapped the heavy wooden door and whispered, “It’s me.”
Jarin thrust out a short bow and a quiver of arrows. “It’s the only one we could find. Here, take it.”
“Just our luck.”
Lifting his half of the unconscious Alexander, the oarsman replied, “Perhaps, but Bo’s stubby arms can nigh nock back an arrow, and I can’t aim for shit.”
Bow over his back, D’Eldar resumed the lead on their ascent, moving between the islands of gloom that huddled between the torches. At the top of the stairway, in the structure’s antechamber, a pair of tapestries hung on either side of the wooden door painted black. On one, the story of Skyfell – a stone as big as an onager’s – hurled down by an angry god scorned, it set a blaze that burned for a moon from full to new, before being quenched by a rain that drove the rivers from their banks and flooded the six cities of the plain, of which only three remained. On the other, Leofric, the first Eleksandr, who waded ashore in the bloody foam of the fallen and planted a blank gray banner, the Alexander’s symbol of it forgotten sigil, in the rocky ground.
In the darkened alcove at the top of the stairs, he paused and listened, but heard nothing save for the squall’s crescendos and falls, like a ballad bleak by a bastard bard from the darkened depth
s of Abaddon. Pressing forward, he sheathed his blade and drew his bow and bore against the black banded planks of the entrance until they parted, revealing the courtyard beyond. Icy winds shoved back, threatening to slam the doors shut. Planting a boot, Eldrick held fast and continued searching the gloom beyond.
Endless white swirled sideways outside, piling in drifts along exposed walls and filling gaps in the mortared stones. Fighting back a shiver, Eldrick nocked an arrow and stepped out into the blizzard, searching for threats and vengeance. Snow crunched in protest beneath his feet, while his brown coat speckled white and shimmered like oiled alabaster by the glow of the blood moon.
Woe that it be this night for winter’s first bite…
Glancing over, the spy saw a body sway from makeshift gallows, just at the edge of the storm’s haze. The blued face chilled him more than any icy gale. Looking away, he dared not call its attention to the others. Instead, he leaned into the night, nearing a stairway that ran along the wall’s interior.
Halfway up, faint light spilled out behind them, followed by the sound of the keep doors slamming. Though the moon glow was bright, the dark side of the wall masked their presence. Pulling his coat tight, the Meronian guard turned and disappeared towards the stables without so much as a second glance.
Too close a call...
Topping the stairs, Eldrick locked eyes with a sentry a dozen strides away. Without a word, he leveled his bow and loosed the nocked arrow, driving the shaft a hand’s length into the man’s chest. Mouth agape, the guard gasped and stared down in shock as he stumbled backwards. Before he could cry out for help, the spy buried a second arrow in the base of his throat, forever silencing him.
Just stand still and let me end you with honor, D’Eldar mused, drawing his sword and approaching the guard.
But the man’s knees buckled, sending him teetering over the low parapet and plummeting into the courtyard below, a low gurgle chasing after him, swallowed up by the banshee storm that seemed to grow more embittered as she battered the ageless place. Through it, somewhere lost in the gale, a hawk’s hoarse screech struggled to be heard.
“Someone’s on the wall!” cried a voice down below.
“The ruse is up,” Eldrick said to the others, frost clinging to his cheeks, its cold burn chilling him to his core. “Let’s find a place to make our stand.”
Across the wall they raced, slick black ice battling them beneath their feet, towards the south gate. Unhooded by the bitter winds, snow clung to the spy’s short brown hair, and sent a shiver – sharpened by the adrenaline coursing through his veins – down his body. Leaning over, he searched the courtyard with his bow and found five figures sprinting towards the stone stairs with swords drawn. Two quick arrows ended one and maimed another, but the remaining men tightened their formation and raised their shields.
“Eldrick!” Bo shouted as he and the oarsman lowered Griffon onto the cold stones.
Looking up, the spy saw half a dozen guards merging into a line of shields.
“No!” Jarin spat, “I won’t have it! We didn’t come this far, only to die here, on this night!”
Sometimes your story doesn’t end like it ought, the spy mused to himself, dropping his bow and drawing steel. “Our lord lies behind us,” he said, turning his back to the pair. “Let no harm come to him! That is your charge!”
…Back to back, with swords splayed wide,
Each crimson stained and face astone,
Five warriors in a land unknown.
And ‘til that hour, death denied,
But fortune’s fleeting favor gone,
Five warriors with no way back home...
Words clambered back to the forefront of the Kal’Dean’s consciousness, long-forgotten words, words from his youth that had held little meaning. “I didn’t appreciate them then,” he whispered to himself through cracked lips.
“What was that?” Jarin asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“I said… I didn’t appreciate you. Five years you rowed for me, did you not?”
“Indeed.”
“I count myself favored that I should die beside men like you, both of you.”
“For the Brae,” whispered Bo.
“For the Brae,” replied Eldrick, “one last time.”
Again the hawk cried out, cruel and foreboding, it pierced the gale and raised their hackles and unmanned them all at once.
“What manner of bird brave’s a storm like this to hunt, and what does he hunt?” Jarin asked no one in particular, still eyeing the sentries as they closed in.
Out of his periphery, the spy watched a hand swing over the battlement from the blackened beyond, and then its pair, and then two more, and two again, and more yet still. Grasping at the ice-slick stone, they strained and heaved up faces smeared with blue-woada paint with daggers in their mouths and axes crossing their backs.
What in the nine- “Keep their focus on us,” Eldrick whispered, before stepping forward and shouting, “Throw down your arms and leave now, or die!”
Taken aback, the Meronians gave pause for a moment. Grinning, their commander sneered, “What manner of foo-“
The collective roar of a dozen Uhnan’akk climbing over the wall stunned the sentries and spiraled the scene into disarray. Axes raised high overhead were brought down in sharp arcs, finding flesh and bone and banded wood, cleaving all that it bit.
“Now!” shouted D’Eldar, driving his sword forward and piercing to the hilt the ribs of a man caught between two fronts. Drawing back the blade, he spun, severing a guard’s shield arm at the elbow as the man brought it up to guard against Ulriich’s scarlet-stained axehead. The mountain warrior carried his swing through the shield, burying it in the man’s skull.
In the midst of the chaos, Kren Redstorm – the hawk aprey – climbed over the battlement between two merlons and raked his axes across the back of a Meronian, dragging him through the stroke, before turning and slamming into another sentry with his shoulder, flinging him over the west wall and onto the pikes and rocks that waited under the deep drifts below. “Until none stands!” the titan roared, slinging an axe at a fleeing guard and sinking him to his knees.
As the confusion faded and blood froze hard against the blackened ice, Kren knelt beside Griffon and pressed the back of his hand against the young lord’s forehead. “He burns like a fire and his heart beats weak. What has happened to Eleksandr?”
“A-a rock,” Bo stuttered, still in shock from the fur and hide clad warriors with long hair, and the devastation they had wrought from over the wall. “A rock demo-“
“A bramwar, he called it,” said Jarin. “A fiend as tall as this wall, with hot embers for eyes and long dagger claws. He felled it in single combat with a sword drawn from a crypt in the belly of the caves beneath our feet.”
“The legend?” the spy snorted, “It cannot be. Is that the sword, Daernwyn, in his sheath?”
“That’s the name he gave it.”
“If that is true, he is the first reborn as the stories tell it.”
“He is a dead man,” the titan interjected, rolling Griffon onto his side and seeing the weeping gashes across his back, “if we do not salve these wounds. We must take him to Olin, and soon.”
“Olin?” asked Eldrick.
“An elder of our tribe, a shaman,” said Kren, lifting up Alexander and laying him over his shoulder. “Open the gate, with haste.”
Chapter 41
Rowan Vos
The Cormorant
Calisal Sea
Steel met steel across their fullers, jarring Rowan and pressing him back. Lithe and quick, he turned the stumble into a sidestep, maintaining posture and focus, and bringing Unforged back up to the ready. Its blade was a shade that wasn’t quite black, though no longer gray, with a stain of crimson somewhere deep in the metal.
Sunlight glinted off the longsword, betraying its movement as it sliced lower than before. The thief did not need the cue to ready himself, for Unforged had shown him the te
nsing of muscles, and a faint throbbing of a vein in the neck, and the deceitful movement of the eyes. Rowan turned to the side and batted the sword along on its arc.
Grunts of approval rose up from the ring of a dozen or so sailors that watched them spar. Red-cheeked and freckled, Ortun beamed at Rowan’s performance. The other swordsman was foreign and easy to root against, with thick words and a sharp face that betrayed a life hard lived.
“You are good, Just Rowan,” Byard remarked. “And you say you have not been trained?”
“I’ve swung swords,” the thief answered, lowering his blade and catching his breath, “but nothing formal.”
“You lack form and stance, but you have the eyes and motion of a seasoned man. With time, I could make you a warrior feared.”
Smiling, he replied, “I would like that.” Finding his stance, he added, “But first, come at me, and this time, don’t hold back.”
“You know not what you ask, Just Rowan,” he said wryly, “but I will give you more than I have before.”
With a sudden flit, Byard lunged, catching the thief off-guard. He parried and circled wide, buying some distance between he and the older man. Lurching forward, Byard telegraphed his attack, drawing a response from Rowan before skirting to the side and slapping his ass with the broadside of the sword. The thief whirled, bringing Unforged around quick, but Byard ducked low and brought the tip of his blade up with a flash to Rowan’s throat. Grinning, he said, “You are good, Just Rowan, but for the time, I am better.”
Exhaling, the thief wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped back.
Concluding the session, Byard said, “Now, I could use a skin of wine. Join me?”
On the bow they leaned against the rail and quenched their thirst with young summerwine from Falasport, a pink so pale it was scarcely colored at all. On their port side, several islands climbed high out of the brilliant blue waters with sheer-faced cliffs that were brushed with bright strokes to contrast the Calisal. Chalk-white rocks rimmed the isles, barnacled black below the tideline. Past them, red and brown dirt pocked with outcroppings bleached like alabaster bones rose up, interspersed with knee-high scrub brush, vibrant and green, though likely prickly of branch. Gulls patrolled the banks from a cerulean sky untouched by clouds, searching for schools of fish unaware in the clear depths, while filling the air with their throaty cackles.