by D. J. Tyrer
in Issue 143, December 2023
“This way.” A large and meaty hand seized the slim wrist of Mirzë and drew her out from the alleyway and into the night-darkened street.
The girl, no more than fifteen, turned her gaze away from the piled detritus that had once been men and women and followed after her guide. A heady odour of decay hung over the city.
The man who had hold of her led her around a corner and into a small yard with a well at its centre, hidden amongst the tall adobe tenement houses of Arak.
Behind them echoed the clanging of a gong, the signal that a procession of black-robed Chosen of Malarr approached, collecting the bodies of the dead.
“Shh.” The man held a finger to his lips, nearly invisible in the stygian pit of the yard where starlight barely reached. They waited for the procession to pass by, the priests having heaved up the corpses onto their handcarts to bear off for burning in one of the many pyres that formed a semicircle about the landward side of the city, sending up a hellish glow above its walls.
As they waited, she studied him. The man was known as Statalos the Butcher and he wore two curved sabres of polished bronze upon his back. In his tarnished lamellar jacket, he looked like a bandit rather than a hero from one of the epic poems her mother had taught her to recite, yet today, he was her rescuer.
The sound of the gong receded into the night and he took her wrist once more. They needed to be at the docks before the moon reached its full height in the sky.
The streets were empty and the only sound to be heard was that of their hurrying footsteps.
Mirzë was unfamiliar with their route. The wide boulevards were her domain, carried upon a palanquin, not jogging along in sandals. Her feet hurt and her legs ached, yet fear drove her on.
Sudden movement ahead brought Statalos to a halt and she almost ran into the back of him.
Five figures in dark armour edged in glinting silver and wearing helmets plumed with vulture feathers stepped out of the shadows. Their movements were halting and stiff, as if their limbs were tightly bound, their arms and legs angled in a curious manner.
“Get back,” grunted Statalos, releasing her.
The girl gave out a sob of fear. These were the Night Guard, raised by the Priest-King from their entombed slumber to enforce the curfew upon the plague-ridden city. Long years dead, they were immune both to the disease and the frailty of compassion, slaying anyone fool enough to exit their home by night.
In a fluid motion, the warrior drew his sabres and readied them for use.
Jerkily, the Night Guard advanced upon them and he moved forward to meet them.
Obeying his command, Mirzë slipped back to cower in the porch of a nearby building.
Like a huntsman spider, one of the Night Guard sprang at Statalos, slashing at him with its sword.
The warrior arched his back so that the blow skimmed harmlessly across the lamellar of his chest, then swung one of his blades so that it sliced through the undead’s knee, sending it tumbling to the cobbles.
The other four were upon him now, slashing and stabbing. Though their movements were awkward, the odd way in which their arms bent out from their bodies and the jerky manner of their blows made their attacks difficult for the man to evade or counter.
But, though they were remorseless, the Night Guard were slow and Statalos moved with a surprising nimbleness for a man of such a large frame and managed to dodge back from them. As long as he could keep away from them and dart in to strike, they were about his equal.
With deft moves, he was able to place himself so that he could deliver one terrible blow after another, lopping off heads and limbs until the four cadaveric guardsmen were destroyed.
Breathing deeply, he lowered his weapons and paused just a moment to check himself for wounds – for the blades of the Night Guard were known to be tainted with tomb dirt – then, turned towards her.
Mirzë let out a sigh of relief – then, gave a piercing scream as a bony, parchment-skinned hand grasped her ankle!
With a grunt, Statalos leapt towards her and buried a sabre blade deep into the skull of the fifth guard that had crawled, unseen, over to her.
It spasmed, then fell still, releasing her ankle.
“We must go,” spat Statalos. “Every Night Guard and Chosen in the city will have heard that scream and be headed this way.”
No sooner had he spoken, then there were shouts.
“Come!” Statalos tugged at the skull-buried sabre, but it refused to move and he cursed Melarr and the god’s mouldering consorts as he was forced to abandon it in order to drag her away.
Chosen were running towards them.
Statalos headed for a side street at random and pulled her down it.
A huddle of robed figures appeared before them, ritual flails in hand, but the warrior didn’t pause, just barrelled into them, slashing wildly at them with his sabre, scattering them.
Mirzë felt blows land upon her body, but the scattering priests barely had a moment to swing their flails and, though she would be bruised, she was certain no bones were broken.
They passed a pair of abandoned handcarts further up the street, each piled high with bodies, and Statalos paused for just a moment to kick them over, scattering their contents and half-blocking the street.
On they ran, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with the searching patrols, ducking in and out of alleys and shadowed porches.
Twice, Statalos had no choice but to stand and fight as Night Guard blocked their way, but it seemed as if none could stand before the brutal savagery of his blade, and they continued their race towards the docks.
Finally, they neared their destination and it seemed as if pursuit had disappeared.
“Do not abandon your wariness,” Statalos told her as he led her along a narrow alley, kicking rats out of the way. “We may have escaped them, but the docks themselves will be well patrolled: The Priest-King knows they are the only way in or out of Arak when the seven gates are barred.”
He led her into another hidden square and over to the well that it contained and dropped its leather bucket into its hidden waters before drawing it up so that they each might be revived.
“We are to meet Anaxion near the wharf where they would land cargoes of spices. There, he will have a small boat to get us down the river.”
Mirzë nodded at his words. “My father told me of the deal with him, before…”
He grunted as she trailed off, then looked away and she wondered whom he had lost to the plague.
Turning back to her after a moment, he said, “We’ve tarried long enough.”
Once more, they hurried off along narrow and twisting alleyways, Mirzë starting at every rat she stumbled over and every cat they sent racing away in fright, yet somehow, she never once uttered a shriek.
They were on the edge of the docks now, a district of large warehouses and specialist merchant shops, all eerily quiet.
There were Night Guard here, but they kept out of sight of them and moved stealthily towards their destination, a one-room building of adobe that had once housed some inspector or other.
Leaving her in the shadows of an alley, Statalos crept over to the building and tapped lightly upon its door. A moment later, it opened a crack, revealing the faint glow of an oil lamp and Mirzë heard a brief, hushed exchange of words.
Then, the warrior waved her over and they slipped inside the room, which held a low table, upon which sat the lamp.
Anaxion was waiting for them, behind the table, along with three other men. He was, she knew, some sort of scholar or mage, a cunning man capable of devising an escape from the sealed city. Her father had promised her that Anaxion would get them out: She prayed to |Drinelza that he would.
The men with him were not what Mirzë had expected to see, being low born and rather thuggish in appearance. One, perhaps, was the boatman who would get them away under cover of the scholar’s wards and spells, but she had expected they would be joined by people of wealth and noble birth. What had these men done to earn their places in the boat?
Anaxion picked a pouch up from the table and tossed it to Statalos.
“As agreed.”
The warrior grunted and looked inside. “It will pay for abandoning my business.”
“Go wait by the boat,” said Anaxion. “We shall join you shortly.”
Although she had known he was no hero, Mirzë felt oddly saddened to have the mercenary nature of her saviour revealed to her, but meekly submitted as he reached out to lead her away with him.
“Leave the girl.”
Statalos withdrew his hand and looked at Anaxion. “Why?”
“You’ve been paid. Go wait.”
One of the men drew a dagger from his belt.
Mirzë blinked in confusion.
The warrior lunged forward with a roar that startled her and she threw herself back to huddle in a corner. With no room to draw his blade, Statalos seized up the table and slammed it into the men.
The dagger flew to the floor and Statalos grabbed it up and drove it deeply into the throat of one of the toughs.
There was a wild shrieking as flames engulfed Anaxion’s robes: The oil from the lamp having splashed upon them, followed by the licking lamp flame.
Mirzë felt herself being taken roughly hold of and dragged, still in a crouch, outside. The warrior was cursing. Behind them, the hut’s roof had caught fire.
Anaxion continued to shriek.
“The boat must be nearby. Where? Where?” cried Statalos as he dragged her along.
The flames and the mage’s cries would surely have every Night Guard in the district rushing towards them!
“There!” Mirzë pointed.
It was at the bottom of a short flight of wooden steps, almost invisible against the still water. Within moments, they were aboard and Statalos was rowing them out into the river.
“Pray to all the gods,” he whispered, “and ask them that the flames keep the eyes of the dead off the river till we are well away.”
She did as he bade, the sound of the oar seeming horribly loud as she mouthed silent entreaties and they left Arak behind, rowing out into the middle channel of the great river.
After several minutes had passed, she quietly asked, “Why did you kill them?”
“Because they were going to kill you.”
“What!”
“I guess Anaxion needed a sacrifice to empower the wards he placed upon this boat – and, you were it. Damn wizard thought I had no scruples. I may have retired to be a butcher, but I won’t let a girl be slaughtered in the name of demons – not even to save my own skin.”
Then, he chuckled. “With any luck, his own death might have empowered the spells he put upon this,” he patted the boat, “unless they unravelled at his death. We might just make it downriver, after all…”
He glanced back at Arak, then resumed rowing.
With powerful, heaving strokes, he continued to propel the boat with the sluggish river current, whilst, behind him, Mirzë absently scratched at her wrist.
©December 2023, D. J. Tyrer
D. J. Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Tales of the Black Arts (Hazardous Press), and issues of Broadswords and Blasters, Journ-E, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, and Tales from the Magician’s Skull.