Promises Kept: Chapter 1

THE SIXTH MONSTER

Nine Years After The Escape

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Click.

Click.

The third click had his attention. He opened his eyes, saw his arm, and reminded himself before he lifted his head from the table. He counted the slashes he had made in his forearm. There were twenty-five there. Exactly twenty-five. And on the other arm, if he could lift his head and turn it, he would find twenty-five more.

One more click as a stone hit the table beside him. It bounced and he caught it before it could skip away. The stone was a perfect sphere of glass. He stared at it confused for a long time before he saw the flaw in the center of it that marked it a Glass Eye of I-Bok.

With a quick and sudden kick, he swiped the legs of his chair out from beneath him and hit the floor. He pulled the curtain from the window, covered himself up. With a roll and a tuck, he was behind the boxing ring. One more roll and he was under it, covered and invisible to the naked eye. He needed to move five feet left before he hit the trap that would lead to the cellar. As he moved, he unrolled himself from the curtain.

He rolled. One, two times, and grabbed the ring. He lifted it ever so slightly. The hinges did not squeal. The trap opened perfectly and he dropped in. With utter quiet, he closed it behind him and unwrapped himself. He wrapped the curtain around the handle, tied it in a knot.

The trap was effectively locked.

He swayed slightly from the night before’s drink and began walking the tunnel that would take him away.

Click. It bounced the paving stones and stopped at his feet. One glass ball with a flaw staring up at him.

“How did you find me?” he asked. His voice was still gravel from sleep but the growl was understandable.

“I was told to seek the Stalwart of Heroes, and I found myself here.”

“Fuck you, Bok. That joke will get you killed.”

“Will it?”

“I came here to drink myself to death. I’m about halfway there. Come back in a year and light me on fire.”

“Dreark, the Time of Monsters is upon us.”

A confusing riot of emotions ripped through Dreark as he heard the words spoken. Within moments they were gone. He could only put together a smear of the thing that had been said.

Dreark. He had once gone by that name. He had been an Elder of the Stalwart of Windlyre, trained by Reghar the Brawn himself. Dreark had been the leader of men. Dreark had, at one time, been a hero.

Then The Manhunters called for him to avenge Reghar’s death, and he had answered. But the man once known as Dreark stayed with The Manhunters too long. Rayph Ivoryfist had been too dear to Dreark to leave. After years, he agreed to one last attack.

Then the man known as Dreark lost all fifty of his men.

In the dark tunnel, he ran a finger over the scars he had slashed on each of his forearms.

Time. He heard the word ‘time’ spoken to him. Time and how much. How much time had Dreark been here in this place? The home he had built for himself. For his men. How long had he been here? Ten years? Thirty? Those numbers could not be right or he would have run out of ale. Time had come to mean nothing.

Monsters. Vampires they had been called, and they had been the death of his men. Vampires.

“Did you hear me, Dreark?” a voice said behind him. “The Time of Monsters has come.”

Dreark looked at his hands and flexed them. They did not feel strong. “Don’t call me Dreark. That named died with my men.”

“And you along with it, I know. But that is not good enough. That is not good enough by a lot. See, the Axe sits the hand of the Guardian again. The Kark King sits at the table you used to eat at, and he is waiting on his Monsters.”

“We are Elders. I was an Elder.” Dreark rubbed his face and dropped to a knee. He picked up the small glass ball, peered at it in the gloom. “Tell them you couldn’t find me. I am an Elder no more. And I will never be a Monster. It was once my only goal in life. I lived and hated for it. But now it is—”

There was a sudden impact, an explosion, and Dreark was thrown forward. He flew twenty feet, bouncing off the walls, ceiling and floor of the tunnel. Nothing but smoke, and his ears were ringing.

Dreark could not imagine what had just happened. He had never felt a blast of the kind. The dust had yet to clear when a boot hit his head and he was knocked to his back. The dust had yet to settle and he had yet to gather himself as a blade was drawn. When the steel hit the light, it glowed.

It was an odd blade. Long, thin, and straight. Not a dagger, less than a short sword, with a wide hilt and a needle point. There were six slashes of blinding light as the sword moved with speed Dreark had seen rarely. As the dust settled, Dreark was shirtless. Slowly, a figure appeared.

The hair was spiky and dark, the face pale and drawn. The hood and the cape were a rich deep purple. And the eyes were orange.

I-Bok.

He could never be confused for any other man.

Dreark stared into those orange eyes with wonder. I-Bok had wandered since the fall of the Ganamaian nation. Appearing with no warning, disappearing just as fast. No matter how much time he spent in one place or the other, whenever I-Bok left, there were more questions about him than answers. I-Bok was the only man Dreark had ever known who could spend time with you and leave you more confused than before he arrived.

As the years passed, I-Bok had become a whisper. A confused tale with holes in the telling, and a lot of lies. Everyone who talked of this man spoke of a different one. Things he had done never lined up. Places he had been seen were impossible. Few could remember much about him in the days before the nation fell, and even fewer could recall meeting him.

But as Dreark stood staring at the man above him, there was no doubting he was looking at I-Bok Twenty Fingers. He was bewitched by the eyes, until he felt the thin blade slowly enter his left pec. He winced as it slowly drew a circle around the tattoo he received the day the news came that Reghar the Brawn had died.

“Number six,” I-Bok said. “The sixth and youngest of the Six Monsters. Maybe the most vital.” I-Bok’s voice was oddly high. It did not have the deep timbre of a thick man. “Do I bring news back to King Mycenae of Dreark of Windlyre’s death? Or are you getting up and getting sober and answering the call?”

“I am dead,” Dreark said.

I-Bok drew his blade back for the thrust.

Dreark held his arms up in defense.

“I do not lie to the king I serve. If you want me to tell him Dreark is dead, I will have to kill you,” I-Bok said. “I will do it here, wipe my blades on the rags you call clothes, and I will go to gather Monster number two.” I-Bok leaned in very close. His breath smelled like ash and char. “I will kill you without a single foul thought about it, because you are of no use to my king if you wallow in this muck and self-pity.”

I-Bok spat on Dreark. “Self-pity is the most disgusting thing I can think of. I will not bear it.” He scoffed. “It is said you lost men. How many, legend does not accurately say, but Garrison told me fifty. That number is paltry. That number of deaths is a rough afternoon.”

“You bastard!” Dreark said. He started to push himself up, and I-Bok’s needle blade dimpled his throat.

I-Bok’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Ganamaia lost forty thousand men the first day of the fighting. Over the course of the ten-day war that took our nation, Mycenae lost another 115,000. Do you know what Mycenae told me when I came to him weeping? Can you imagine?”

Dreark slumped and dropped to the paving stones.

“He told me that grieving for his men disgraces their sacrifices. You wallow in your self-pity for a breath longer. Then I will slay you so that I do not have to lie to my king.”

Dreark stared up at I-Bok. “The Axe has returned?”

“Mycenae placed it in Garrison’s hands himself.”

“They’re in Windlyre?”

“Your home. The post you abandoned. Everyone will gather there.”

“You want me to go back to Windlyre?”

“There is a horse for you outside.”

Dreark dropped his head to the paving stones of the tunnel. He turned his face, unable to look I-Bok in those eyes any longer. “Why are your eyes orange?” Dreark said.

“So I’m going to collect the Second Monster, then? Stab you through the heart and collect the Second Monster?” I-Bok sighed. “I won’t sully my blade on coward’s blood. Follow or die. I’ll collapse this tunnel in three minutes.”

The light vanished as the blade was sheathed and the trap opened. I-Bok began to climb the ladder.

“If you were down here, who was throwing the spheres upstairs?”

“Finger number fourteen,” I-Bok said. He disappeared up and under the boxing ring, but before he left, he dropped something in the tunnel.

Dreark ran, grabbed the ladder, and climbed. He slammed the tunnel door shut, rolled to the middle of the floor of the Stalwart he had built with his men here in Ironfall, the Lair of The Manhunters.

Dreark only then noticed the place was a sty. Feces in piles, vomit everywhere. He had disgraced the home of his fifty men. He saw the door close with a flap of I-Bok’s purple cape, rushed to it, and opened it. His eyes strained in the morning light.

“I can’t leave this place like this,” Dreark said, looking at I-Bok, ten riders, and one empty horse. “Can you give me time to clean? It is the only testament of my men left.”

I-Bok smacked the side of his horse and a step dropped from the saddle. Then Dreark realized how massive these horses really were.

“Stay if you want to, but you won’t be comfortable.”

“Won’t be comfortable?”

I-Bok winked as a dull detonation sounded below the Stalwart. The frame of the door Dreark held trembled and parts of the roof began to cave in. He turned back to see the floor ripping up and the boxing ring burst into flames.

Dreark slowly backed out of the Stalwart as it burned and broke and ripped. He stared at the falling of the building until it lay flat, no more than a five-foot pile of wood and rock. The entire building had collapsed in on itself, as if I-Bok folded it nicely and tucked it into the bowels of history. The dust and the collapse had doused the fire. It was all done neatly and efficiently.

The street began to collapse. In a straight line, toward the edge of town, abandoned buildings caved in as the line moved under them. Dreark’s tunnel was falling, all the way out of town until he could see a burst of dirt and rock at the forest edge where the tunnel ended.

I-Bok cleared his throat. “The horse won’t bite, but Lean will. Mount up. We have a few more Monsters of War to retrieve.”

Dreark looked at the horse, then at the shambles his shirt had been sliced into, and up at I-Bok, who was slapping his reins.

“I am a mess. I can’t be seen like this,” Dreark said.

I-Bok threw an object over his shoulder without looking. It tumbled through the air and landed directly into Dreark’s extended hand. He stared down at a bar of soap.

“It’s going to rain,” I-Bok said. Dreark saw no storm clouds. “You can wash as we ride.”

Dreark gaped wide-mouthed at the horse he was supposed to ride. It was three feet taller than any horse he had seen before. It was not blonde, it was yellow, and possessed longer legs and a slimmer trunk than he had ever seen. A step was being held by a white-haired man dressed in steel, with two short swords crossed on his chest.

He was taller than any Ganamaian Dreark knew, but thin. So thin as to be emaciated.

“Get on. He promised I would bite if you didn’t,” Lean said.

Dreark walked slowly around him and to the step. He pulled himself on, and the step folded back up on its own.

“You’re Lean?” Dreark said as he walked away.

“You can call me Lean, or Finger Eighteen. Your choice.”

Dreark was not prepared for how fast the horse was. They shot through the abandoned city of Ironfall and down the slope out of the mountain. Then he reached the tumbled rock, which had always blocked the only road into town. It was gone. Had simply disappeared.

He looked down at his pec. The six tattoos all set in a circle, and his mark had been circled with a slight cut of I-Bok’s blade.

The Six Monsters of War. Dreark didn’t feel like a monster.

He hoped he would be one before he found himself at the feet of his king.

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