Ascending Shadows Read online

  His throat felt dry as cotton. His mouth opened, but no words came as he stared down at his skeletal toes. He tried again. “Join me for a drink?” He turned to face Crystal, who was brushing powder on her cheeks, leaning toward a cracked mirror hanging above her dresser. Each sliver of the cracked glass gave her an ethereal, disjointed reflection.

  “Isa,” Crystal sighed and cocked her head, looking at him through the reflection. “You know I can’t. And I must go downstairs to meet him now.” She exhaled what might have been frustration. “Or he’ll be angry. Sometimes he brings his friends… and the three of them like to have me. Though they do pay a fair price.”

  He saw then that there was a bruise under her cheek, concealed by powder. On the other side, her eye was unusually puffy. He had missed it before, lost in the rapture of her body.

  He frowned. A relationship with a whore? Have you gone completely mad? he asked himself. He put the strap of his sword sheath across his chest, reached back with his hand and grabbed the sword’s cold pommel to adjust it.

  “I’ll pay for his hour.” He snapped his belt on, sliding sheathed daggers where they belonged. On brass loops protruding from either side of his broad belt went his hatchet and hammer, dented and marred with the signs of hard use.

  “You will?” Her voice rose as she brushed lint from her dress. “It will be another ten marks. And don’t think I’m going to pay for my own wine. Alright. Come with me… to tell him?”

  “Course.” He grinned at her, and he saw his own eyes in the mirror’s reflection, staring back at him. They were deep set in his hairless head, a haunting, burning blue. His cheeks were narrow, drawn in tight around his prominent jaw and broad chin. He never liked the way he looked, too much like a Black Wynch by his estimation. He liked it even less after the Test of Stones had left with him an inhuman appearance, without hair and skin color.

  “Isa, are you alright? Ready?” She shuffled her feet, inching towards the door.

  “Mhm. I’m ready. Let’s go.” He put on his soft boots, and finally, his billowing black as night cloak, concealing his deadly instruments.

  Crystal held his hand as he led the way down the creaking stairs. The stairway was dark, illuminated by the gloomy light of the barroom below. Glasses clinked, and voices muttered. His hand started to sweat against hers. Or maybe it was her hand sweating against his. Her hand was narrow and her fingers long. He thought her skin might have felt how a baby’s would had he ever had the chance to hold one. The stairs became wide arcs near the bottom, spilling out into the bar on the first floor.

  He stopped her before the stairs started curving and leaned in. “Stay out of my way if things get rowdy. Can you promise me that?”

  “Rowdy?” She raised a worried eyebrow at him. “But why would—?”

  “Promise?”

  She frowned and gave him a funny look. “Alright.”

  They walked down the last six or so steps and onto the barroom floor. The ceiling was low and the room a long rectangle. A tongue of fire clung to life in a hearth blackened far beyond the point of scrubbing clean. There was an odd mix of the sweet smell of burning wood and the sour fragrance of bodies unfamiliar with baths. The bar counter was a thick slab of oak covered in rings from mugs and polished at the edge from thousands of elbows. Trystan, the barkeep, gave him a nod from behind the counter and resumed polishing mugs.

  Some faces turned to look at them. There were five men in all, two with women they were likely to take upstairs shortly. One man slumped against the bar, surrounded by four mugs and seeming half-asleep. He wore a dusty jacket and a leather hat trimmed with a pair of ruffled feathers tucked in the band. A whore stood behind him, massaging his shoulders with abject boredom. Beside him, the second whore had her arm draped across her customer’s bony back, ample breasts spilling out of a corset and pressed against his side.

  Isa’s eyes scanned over to the last two men at the bar, huddled to themselves and not sparing them a glance. They looked like they might have been soldiers once, given their builds and the way their backs stood rigid. He noted the sheathed blades on their hips, one fellow with a hand resting comfortably on the hilt. They were young, one with black messy hair and a lazy way about him. The one beside Lazy had a handsome Midgaard actor’s jawline and a sharp nose. Beautiful, he named him. The remnants of morning supper clung to the edges of a pair of plates in front of them.

  A wiry man sat apart from the four at a table, with only an empty mug and a scowl for company. Crystal’s hand twitched as he gazed up at them. He was older than Isa. He had a curly white beard and a weather-beaten hat. Isa eyed the axe and the hunting knife tucked against his belt.

  He couldn’t believe how regular they all looked. How they’d look like any other person he’d pass on the street. But one of them made Crystal fearful, and that would have to end.

  He released her hand and set his jaw, clamping down against his broken molars. He strolled up to the end of the counter near the huddled pair with swords, putting his back to White Beard. He put his fists on the bar and leaned over it. “A beautiful day, eh, Trystan?” he forced out.

  “Aye. The usual, Isa?” The barkeep gave him a welcoming smile as he came over.

  “That’d be swell.”

  “Anything to eat?”

  “About filled up for now, thanks.” Isa nodded and sent what he thought was a friendly smile at the pair beside him, but it looked like a grimace.

  Trystan snorted, darted his eyes at White Beard and made them go wide, trying to point him out. Isa gave him a knowing nod. He made a show of dragging off his cloak, flapping it as he dropped it over the back of his chair. His weapons jingled on his hips, making it so everyone would look up at him.

  Trystan placed a streaked glass in front of him with bubbles locked within its confines. He started pouring him a whiskey. The amber liquid softly gurgled. Trystan wore an apron that was once white, now spotted grays. A few sprigs of hair swept over his bald head and round ruddy cheeks.

  White Beard started to rise out of his chair, glaring at Crystal from across the room.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute. I’ll explain,” she said raising her palm to stop him. “I just need to use the privy.” She left through the back door, closing it with a bang.

  “Useless whore,” White Beard muttered under his breath. He plopped back into his chair, staring through the soot-stained window with disbelief. He produced a twig from his pocket and gnawed on it, shaking his head.

  “Good for putting your cock in though,” Lazy threw over his shoulder good-heartedly.

  White Beard let out a fuming exhale and drummed his fingers against the table.

  “I’m sure Crystal’ll find a way to make it up to ya, boss.” Handsome grinned. His skin would have been flawless if not for the long knife scar that ran from the corner of his lip to his ear.

  “How’s business?” Isa asked, taking the first sip of his drink. It had a delightful burn.

  Trystan cast a wary eye on his patrons. “I could do with a little more. Some that actually turn a profit. Should be a nice crowd tonight with the Festival though. Need another lady? Ash oughta be finished up soon.”

  “No.” Isa waved. “I’m done for today. You know I only like Crystal.”

  Trystan took the plates from the bar and started scraping the scraps into a bucket. “Got plans for the evening? Imagine the celebrations will be nice in the Tower.”

  “Got some recruits to train. There’ll be no celebrations for them.” Isa sipped.

  Trystan grunted, started wiping at nothing on the counter, streaking the polished wood. “Where are you from, anyway? Don’t think you ever told me after all these years.”

  Isa shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  The rag stopped its movement. “Don’t know?”

  “Never knew my parents. Born and raised in the Tower, far as I know.”

  Another moment passed, and Trystan waited on the drunk fellow, pouring him a fifth mug.

  “W
here is that cunt?” White Beard growled.

  “Would you settle down already?” The bony man said, twisting around to face White Beard, and his whore’s earnest laughter faltered.

  “Mind your own,” White Beard snapped.

  Bony shook his head and turned back to face his beer. “Come here, darlin’,” Bony whispered to his whore, jabbing his tongue in her mouth, making her laugh again, or maybe making a show of enjoying herself more like it.

  “So what brings you to my part of the woods?” Trystan asked Isa. “Master of the Swiftshades… you gotta have some coin. Why come to my modest hovel?”

  “Quiet. Like the scenery, the patrons, most of the time.” Isa flared his elbows, showing the grisly spikes gleaming from his bracers. “Some people don’t know when to shut up though. Or when to keep their hands to themselves.”

  Isa glanced over his shoulder, using his peripheral vision to see White Beard looking at him. A series of twitches flickered over his eyes. Isa turned back to face the bar and could feel that White Beard was still looking. He saw Lazy’s hand shift to his hip, fingers creeping for his sword.

  “Why do you think that is?” Trystan asked.

  “Don’t know. Some men are cowards, afraid of fighting others stronger than them, so they prey on the weak. That’d be my guess.” Isa said it like it wasn’t much to take note of and raised his glass.

  The barroom went quiet as a tomb. Isa sipped, and you could hear him swallow. The drunk fellow at the farthest end of the counter seemed to wake from his stupor and knitted his brow at him. Bony slowly produced a few marks from his pocket and placed them on the counter. His other hand was on his mug, the tendons squirming with tension.

  Isa leaned back in his chair. “It’s a sad thing, Trystan. There are bad men in the world. With no qualms about beating on women. Men with no honor, no class.”

  Trystan swallowed. “Sometimes it takes stronger men, women too, to make things right. Sometimes there are too many bad men for one man to handle.”

  Isa put his glass down with a thump. “Well, the hammer of justice catches up eventually, and the scales will always find a way of balancing.” Isa turned sideways, facing Handsome, whose hand gripped his sword hilt with quivering fingers.

  “Think that’s true?” Handsome asked, his voice cutting in before Trystan could respond.

  The back door banged open with a gust and Crystal stepped through. She stopped, and a shuddering breath came from her lips. “Isa.”

  “I do.” Isa leveled his steely gaze at him. “It’s almost a certainty, though nothing is certain.” He had no quarrel with Handsome, but it seemed he wanted to be part of the action. No, Isa couldn’t deny himself that pleasure.

  “Someone’s beating on girls, you say?” Handsome’s hand almost imperceptibly crept to his sword, and Lazy’s fingers wrapped tight around his hilt. A grim mood hung on the barroom, the ensuing violence palpable on the air.

  “Now, wait here. I’ve worked hard for this place. Don’t want any trouble—”

  “There will be no trouble, Trystan, as these fine fellows were about to depart from your establishment.” Isa gestured from Lazy to Handsome, then to White Beard. His eyes were wide and gleaming with the fire’s reflection, his mouth hanging open like a hungry wolf, showing the pink of his mouth. His breath quickened, and his lips spread into a broad smile. This was going to be pleasant, a welcome relief from training. He wanted it to last. He wanted to take his time with them and savor them like a succulent meal.

  “Oh, are we?” White Beard rose up, chair dragging across the floor.

  Isa clenched his fists, saw his scars anew. He remembered the scores of Death Spawn he’d killed, remembered how good it felt. “I’d heard about you. Didn’t think you’d be foolish enough to be here when I was here. But here you are.”

  “We’re not leaving,” White Beard snarled.

  There was a pregnant silence. Trystan reached for Isa’s cup and stepped away from the counter, a soiled cloth hanging over his wrist. He wore an appeasing smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

  Handsome and Lazy slowly stood, fanning out step by step and turning to face him. It seemed like they were wading through honey and hardly moving at all. Isa rose up in kind, gave a snort, and eased his hands over his hips, leaving them to rest on top of his hatchet and hammer’s head. He ran his index finger over the hatchet’s edge, sharp and chrome.

  Every second seemed like a minute. His heartbeat slowed, but boomed like a drum behind his eyes. The drunk’s breath caught in his throat. His whore inched away from him, her hands held innocently up.

  “You are.” Isa’s face became a grinning skull.

  Handsome’s hand twitched, his lips snarling as he went for his sword. Isa’s arm was a blur, drawing his hammer out from his belt with a ring and smashing him under the jaw. He stumbled, knocking over a beer and sending it spraying into the air.

  White Beard started for him and tripped on the table’s leg, the axe clattering from his hand.

  Someone screamed, and someone else shouted.

  Isa darted for Lazy, who was drawing his sword slow as mud. Isa’s hand clamped down around his, pressed his sword back into the sheath. His other hand came around, the hammer crunching against the side of Lazy’s jaw. Lazy let out a gurgling shriek and Isa’s hatchet plunged into his gut, dragging up the haft, tearing him open, blood showering over the both of them. Lazy squealed, his voice echoing from the walls as he fell to his knees, his hands scrambling to keep his intestines from spilling onto the floor. Isa grunted and cut off his scream by sending his hammer caving through his head with a cracking squelch.

  Isa wheeled and stomped on White Beard’s hand as it grasped for his fumbled axe. He screamed, gray eyes staring at his pinned fingers. Isa’s axe came down, chopping into the floor with a thump and severing all his fingers. White Beard shrieked and tried to get his hand back, but Isa ground his heel harder. Blood ejected from each nub in dark jets. “Stay,” Isa hissed, tossing his hammer into his axe hand so both were in the same hand. He drew a dagger and slammed it through White Beard’s palm, pinning him to the floor before returning the hammer to his free hand.

  Handsome held his blade out in a two-handed grip, blade waving and blood pattering from his perfect chin. “Look at what you did! Look at him!” His eyes bulged out of his head and flickered from Lazy to Isa and back. Trails of blood wept from his nostrils. Lazy had given up on trying to put his guts back in, and turned on his side, his eyes glossy and staring out at nothing.

  “Put that down,” Isa commanded flatly.

  “Fuck off! Bastard!” Handsome charged, aiming to impale him through the heart. He was too slow, too clumsy. Were they trying to make this easy?

  Isa twisted, dropped low and drove his hammer through the man’s knee, which buckled and crunched like a shattered pot. His axe came next, driving up and hacking into his groin. Handsome bellowed, the blade tumbling from his grip, and stumbled on one leg, his hands going for his ruined crotch.

  Isa released his grip on the axe, drove up and bashed his forehead into Handsome’s jaw. He caught him around the neck and drove his face into the counter, once, twice, three times, bits of teeth clattering from his lips. Blood spattered on the counter and sprayed into Trystan’s face, his apron, and the wall of bottles behind him. Isa raised his hammer behind his head, his lips drawn into a feral grimace. His hand was a streak of light, punching through Handsome’s temple and collapsing his face with a pop. His eye ejected from the socket, flopping out onto the counter. Blood pooled around the now ugly man’s head like spilled wine, until finally, he slipped from the counter with a thud.

  “Please, please, I’ll never touch her again. I promise,” White Beard said from behind.

  It felt like an hour might have passed, but he knew this feeling well, knew it was likely little more than just a few breaths. He felt hot and dizzy. He turned around to look at White Beard, a bloody hammer in his iron grip. It was as if someone had made the lanterns sitting
behind the bar glow brighter, almost making the world too hard to see.

  He strode forward, eyes burning with tears, his white face spattered with red dots. His breath was a low growl.

  “Shit, shit, please,” White Beard whimpered, struggling to dislodge the dagger pinning his palm to the floor.

  Isa loomed over him and kicked his severed fingers, sending them spinning and trailing blood across the floor.

  “I won’t touch her again. Never again! Never!” he pleaded, peering up at him with wild eyes. Isa re-adjusted the grip on his hammer, slick with sweat and blood.

  Soft, cautious steps shuffled up from behind him. “Isa,” Crystal whispered. “I think that’s enough.”

  He turned back to look at her and the tireless rage melted right off him, filled in by the warmth of her eyes.

  Wood cracked. “Cunt!” Something blurred past his eyes. Crystal gasped, staggered back and reached for something in her neck. There was a dagger there, his dagger, buried up to the hilt. She wrapped her delicate hands around it.

  “No!” Isa reached, but she was too far. Her eyes rolled back as she jerked the dagger free. Blood shot out from the wound in thick, pulsing ropes.

  “Why?” Crystal sighed and collapsed as if her bones had turned to rags.

  Trystan backed into the wall and bottles crashed down all around him. He started heaving with choking breaths. “No, not her.”

  Isa howled and dragged his hammer up in two hands. He bridged the gap between himself and White Beard with a leap. His hammer came down and struck the man’s head with a vicious clap, caving it in at the top. White Beard fell. Isa raised his hammer again, coming down and puncturing a hole through his forehead. Up and down, Isa’s hammer worked, blood flying and bits of bone scattering. His arm was fire, muscles burning, blood blinding, spraying his face in a red spatter.