Chapter 10

I

Braka was a lot nicer without a Guard regiment tearing it apart, although I still wouldn’t describe it as clean or fragrant. It’s quite fascinating really, the entire neighbourhood is floating on water and these people still can’t keep themselves from smelling like piss, shit, vomit, and sweat. Neither can they keep their skin looking the colour of skin rather than soot.

Yayim’s ‘court’ was built on a small island in the middle of Braka. It was an enclosure not unlike the slaver compounds of the Pens, with a square-shaped, four-story building denoting its perimeter and creating a closed off courtyard within. The outside building had a watchtower on every corner as well as walkways along its roof and parapets to protect those who’d be defending its perimeter. Though I wasn’t exactly clear on who’d be attacking this castle in the first place. Hanna claimed there was another building within the courtyard, about a decade older than this one; a two-story house in which Yayim himself resided.

A few thugs, their leather vests, tight pants, and knee-high boots in sharp contrast to the squalor of their surroundings, were lounging near the front door of the compound. As we approached, one of them noticed us and gestured, interrupting another one telling a story in a loud voice. They turned around as if one single organism; the interrupted one looking annoyed, the rest considering us disinterestedly.

Hanna took the lead, “we’re here to see Sasha.” She showed her hand to the biggest one among the thugs, who took note of the black slave tattoo on its back, “my master has an appointment.”

The biggest one, who was older than the rest by at least a decade and in charge as a result, nodded, “Do you have a name?”

“The appointment is in the name of Lord Hamatsa.”

He spoke into a barred window beside the door and waved us closer after a few moments. “Do you have the gold? You need to pay before entering.”

Hannah nodded, handing him a heavy purse filled with looted coins. The man checked inside, weighed it in his hand, nodded, and passed the purse through the window. A few seconds later a voice came from within and the thug pulled the door open.

We walked into a hallway with a gate at the far end, presumably leading to the central courtyard. On each side, there were stairways, with stairs leading up as well as down into the basement. Two other doors were inside the tunnel as well, both closed. They probably led to the rooms on the first floor, probably holding the slaves and the least important thugs.

A young girl, more child than woman, was waiting beside one of the stairs; she bowed upon seeing us, gesturing politely for me to follow her.

Hanna’s hand on the small of my back prompted me to nod and smile. The girl bowed again, turning around and walking up one set of stairs. Hanna whispered in my ear as we paced behind the girl. “That gate opens into the courtyard where Yayim’s house is. It’s one of the two that lead there. We’ll need to go through it or jump out a window to get to him.”

We went up two flights of stairs, then followed the girl through a long hallway. There were doors on both sides, most of them open. Inside the rooms I could see rows of bunk beds and more thugs lounging in groups, drinking, carousing, playing at dice. In one raucous room two men were wrestling each other to the cheers of the rest. In another room there were arm-wrestling matches going on, five or six pairs of contestants and three times the number of people betting and cheering them. The number of people this building could house was surprising. This wing alone held at least two hundred men.

We turned a sharp corner left, leaving the spartan barracks wing and entering a more opulent section of the structure, with beautiful rugs the colour of blood on the floor and numerous tapestries on the walls. The tapestries demonstrated various ways one may indulge in sexual congress, and the participants ranged from the traditional man and woman to large groups consisting of both sexes, a creature that seemed both male and female, and even a few horses. In this wing, the rooms were spaced farther apart. Every door was closed without exception. Even so, I could hear women’s moans, slapping sounds, and panting as we walked past. Yayim’s whores clearly lived here, and they were busy working.

I wondered why Yayim’s home would be arranged as it was. There was no reason for prospective costumers to walk past the sight of two hundred lazing men to get to their prize, the whores’ quarters could’ve just as easily been place nearer to the front door. A point was being made, I just didn’t know what it was.

Finally, the girl stopped and knocked on one of the doors. It opened almost immediately.

The woman that opened the door was stunning. She was tall and quite muscular. Her skin completely black and its entire surface coated in oil, glistening in the sunlight shining in behind her. Her black hair was in a braid starting at the top of her head and reaching her waist. She was dressed in a short pelt skirt and her breasts were covered with another piece of fur, both items of clothing unlike anything I’d seen so far and no less alluring for it. Her smile as she gestured me inside made my heart shudder.

Hanna surprised me by grasping my shoulder and whispering in my ear once we were inside. “Calm down boy. You can fuck her all you want after you kill him.”

She dragged me towards a couch in the corner of the room and sat me down. “You can’t touch her yet. Check on your monster.”

I didn’t appreciate being manhandled, but she had a point. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, but the sound of Hannah talking to the stunning beauty, Sasha, kept distracting me. Apparently, they’d known each other, and Sasha was amazed about the blonde’s survival. She was asking about living outside when my patience ended.

I raised my voice, “Silence.”

They shut up. I concentrated.

The monster was closer than expected, a lot closer. I could reach out with a metaphorical hand and touch its light easily. Its thoughts were violent, powerful, and singular in their purpose. It wanted to kill, had been made to kill, and it hadn’t done so for far too long a time. But something was holding it back, an invisible collar looped around its neck, the equally imperceptible leash stretching towards me. The thing wanted to kill, and only needed permission to do so.

I showed it where it should go and gave it permission to kill everyone it in its wake, then I opened my eyes. “It’s here and moving towards us as we speak.”

Sasha looked confused, “Who?”

Just looking at her was an exercise in self-control. She was the embodiment of the word fuckable, but alas, I needed to murder a crime lord first.

Hanna tried to calm her, “It seems like we need to leave early, Sasha dear. I’ll see you later.”

“I think we should wait a while inside here. It’d be safer. Let’s wait until those barracks rooms are empty before walking past them again.” I cautioned, not intending to leave until I was sure of my safety. No reason to risk my life getting in front of a thug weighing thirty stones when such a perfectly safe refuge was at my disposal.

Hanna nodded, placed her hands in her lap, and waited in silence. Cat looked at the window when the yelling started, but she stayed in place; Sasha didn’t have Cat’s experience with my creatures, and she walked to the window to see what was happening. The sight transfixed her for what seemed like minutes, at the end of which a visibly shaken whore turned around and hurried into her privy. She’d barely slammed the door closed when retching sounds began drifting outside.

The yelling ended soon after, and was replaced by screams of pain and terror. In Cat’s defence, she only flinched once. Sasha, in comparison, didn’t fare so well. She’d stopped throwing up, now, the only thing I could hear from the privy was her moaning.

A few minutes later, when I was sure the hallways would be mostly empty of sword and knife-carrying maniacs serving the crime lord, I left the whore’s rooms.

No one stopped us as we walked back the same way we’d come. No one was there to stop us. The whore’s room were silent as a graveyard, the barracks deserted. A few men were still screaming in the courtyard, but their screams were weak, heralding the end of fighting. I didn’t hesitate in taking the stairs down and entering the tunnel, where I found death itself – metaphorically.

The thing, my monster, was human-shaped but large. Twice the width and height of an average man, it was a hulk of engraved steel, coloured green and orange from rust and moss. Blood was dripping from it in droves, and I noticed a piece of flesh stuck between the thing’s left greave and poleyn. It looked like the tail end of a forearm. Prominent above all, however, was the teardrop engraved on the forehead of its helm. Ashkan made, again.

The tunnel was filled with corpses. Some were crushed, other torn apart limb by limb, a few were stuck to the walls by some process I didn’t understand, though I had suspicions it had something to do with being thrown really hard. There was no saying how many men had died here, since most of the corpses were too crushed to distinguish from each other.

I pointed at the monster and gestured to the gate leading to the courtyard. It either understood my gesture or heard my mental command to lead the way inside. I looked back at Cat and Hanna, who seemed reluctant to step into the tunnel for some reason, before following it.

I spoke, “This thing doesn’t have a name and I’m tired of thinking of it as “it”, anyone have any ideas?”

Cathy shrugged beside me, “You could call it Knight.”

Containing my groan was hard, “Something a little bit more imaginative please.” Really, I wasn’t asking for much. Just a good name for my killing machine. No one seemed to have any ideas though. The philistine miscreants seeming indifferent to my plight.

The monster kicked at the gate. There was so much force behind the blow that the heavy oak of the gate exploded outwards into the courtyard. A split second later, an arrow clanked off the thing’s chest plate. It moved forward, disconcertingly quick for how large was. The movement shook the ground, sending ripples across the pool of blood I was standing in, and then there was contact. One archer was tossed away before he could draw his sword, smashing into a wall. His blood splattered and his insides burst outside. The other archer had his entire torso crushed by the thing’s fist. The man’s legs crumbled, still attached to his neck by way of a mauled spine. No one else was in the courtyard, which held things I’d never seen before. Trees, tall and holding orange and red leaves; flowers, though they didn’t seem as beautiful as the poets claimed they were; and even grass. I stared in wonder at the colorful painting before me.

Movement ahead and above distracted me. A man walked out onto the second-floor balcony of the central building. He was unnervingly calm, considering the circumstances, and he spoke in a clipped, precise voice, “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?”

He was tall, bald, and muscular. His skin as pale as any I’d ever seen, in sharp contrast to the majority of Karans. He looked old.

Hannah answered for me, in a loud and confident voice betrayed only by a single tremor at the beginning, “We were hoping to have a discussion with you, Yayim.”

The man nodded, “Of course, I’ll be right there with you.” Polite and sarcastic ... Of course.

Hanna snorted when he left the balcony. She took the lead, walking towards the two-story house’s door. I followed her, Cat at my shoulder and the monster shadowing me.

Yayim opened the door a minute later wearing a bathrobe. He politely gestured us inside. Hanna had a different idea. She stepped forward and rammed a long knife under his chin and into his brain. One swift motion, a murder as brutal as any I’d seen, executed without hesitation or doubt. Yayim’s eyes widened, his mouth started to open, but the lodged knife halted the motion. He collapsed, pink froth leaking from half-opened mouth.