Within the Hollow Crown (21 page)

Chapter
54: Problem Number One

Jareld started counting problems in his head.

One, they were running out of food. They had packed a fare amount of dry goods to chew on, but Thor had lost his pack in the fall, and they no longer had a timetable for the completion of their quest.

Two, they no longer had a timetable for the completion of their quest. Jareld had calculated, based on average human walking speed over uneven terrain, that they would be underground for approximately five days. He packed food and water accordingly.

Three, they were running out of water. See problem one.

Four, there were many things under the earth that wanted to kill them.
Some of them, like the troop of Turin soldiers, wanted to kill them
specifically
.
Some of them, like the deadly scorpions and the Great Wyrm, just wanted to kill them indiscriminately.

Five, they were lost, with no hope of regaining the trail. This might seem to be another way of restating problem number two, but Jareld counted it as entirely different. There was a good chance, now, that not only would they fail,
but also there was no longer the option of aborting the mission to try again later. Everything they had learned would die with them in the dark and lonely caves.

“Why the long face?” Corthos said, making out Jareld’s face in their one remaining torch. Six.

“I’m running out of fingers,” Jareld said.

Chapter
55: The Worth of a Man

It occurred to Gabriel that he hadn’t slept in three days. He had gone to bed several times, and he had rested his body by sitting, but he had not slept. His mind had been occupied with so many problems, it was a miracle he could focus on any one at a time.

But at this particular sleep-deprived moment, he was standing out on the catwalk, contemplating himself. He was not accustomed to being on the balcony. He preferred the depths of the castle. The armory. The furnace. His quarters. The height of the catwalk made him dizzy. The wind whipped through his scraggly hair.

Gabriel was trying to judge his own worth. He had lived a long life, and he had met a lot of people, and whether he wanted to or not, he judged those people. He rated them, in his mind, according to how useful they were. They didn’t have to be important, so to speak. They just had to engage in the world around them. Count themselves as part of a society.

A farmer, for example, could be of great use. He planted the crops for people to eat. If he had a family, and was kind to his neighbors, he could be counted amongst the useful people of the world.

A Lord, for example, could be of no use. He could have a lot of money, a large army, and a lot of influence. But if he never raised a finger to help anyone, what good was he?

Gabriel
had always been very conscientious of how useful he was being. He never went out to win any
personality contests
, but he always tried to help his friends along
. But he felt age creeping up on him. Father Time was a relentless asshole. Was he still helpful to his friends? Was he still useful?

Ten years ago, Michael would have taken Gabriel with him on this mission. Sure, Michael had charged him with the protection of the Castle. Of the Countess. But he knew it was because where Michael was going, Gabriel wouldn’t be much help.

Vye had long ago surpassed him as a superior warrior and tactician, but now she had tapped into something he couldn’t even begin to help her with. When the Count was near death, it was the lightning fast thinking of a deranged jester that saved his life. Had he run out of worth?

And why, oh why, did his knee ache? It was cold out, but there was no connection between it being cold and him having a knee. It was just that bastard, Father Time, reminding Gabriel that he was there. Never a dull moment.

Asshole.

And that’s when Gabriel heard a scream carried on the wind. A man was crying in agony. He was clearly in a lot of pain, and he was clearly dead when the screaming was done.

“Not now,” Gabriel lamented.

He raced as fast as his aching bones could carry him back to the parapet. He scanned over the courtyard, but couldn’t see anything. He gathered the nearest Guards and led them down the spiral stairs into the Castle.

Not now, he kept thinking. Last time one of those Turin assassins attacked, they were helpless. Vye and Flopson had saved the day, and they were both out at the moment. He made a quick calculation in his mind, and decided that there simply wasn’t enough resistance in the castle, at that moment, to stop an invader.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

Two more screams of death echoed through the halls. The noises were coming from the Audience Chamber. He charged forward, drawing his trusty blade, running toward the cacophony of death. He barreled through the doors, and so he encountered Argos, the Master of the Turin-Sen.

He
was the most terrifying warrior
Gabriel had ever seen
.
Clad in pine green armor, with long, silver hair, he swung a gigantic claymore that seemed too large to be practical. He stood amidst a pack of dead Guards, fighting his way towards the Count’s pedestal. On the pedestal, Landos held Sarah behind his body. Gabriel briefly thought of Vye’s warning when he noticed they were both dressed for bed.

Argos cast his death spell again, eliminating the closest Guard in a tortured howl. And every time he cast the spell, the other Guards were that much slower. That much heavier in their motions. That much more dispirited. These were their friends and peers, men they had served with for years, and they were being dispatched with such violent ease and reckless pain that they had no choice but to lose faith.

But Gabriel wasn’t going to let Argos win this battle without a proper fight. If Argos was going to invade their home, he was going to remember the day.

“Hartstone!” he cried, charging in with his compliment of Guards. Argos was now fighting on both sides. He didn’t seem phased. If anything, he became more efficient. His gargantuan bade swept through two Guards at once, slicing one neck on the way to decapitating the second.

The room was painted in blood, littered with arms, legs, and guts. Gabriel ignored the pain in his limbs. Ignored the soreness in his muscles. Told the ache in his knee to fuck off. He wasn’t going to wait around for Father Time, who was probably always running late. He was going to determine his own fate.

They circled him. They flanked and feinted and flailed. But Argos was so much better than anyone they had ever seen or heard of. They fought to the last man. After the twenty-six Guards in the room were dead, that last man was Gabriel.

He knew it was coming, but it didn’t lesson the shock. When Argos’ sword sliced through his shoulder, nearly separating his arm, all the fight left his body at once. He folded and collapsed against the wall, dropping his sword and almost breaking his back with his fall.

Argos turned to Landos and Sarah, still atop the pedestal.

“Out of the way,” Argos said, “You cannot stop me.”

Landos knew it was true. He didn’t need to see Gabriel and the twenty-six guards lying dead on the floor. He only needed to hear Argos’ voice. His command was so
pure; his voice came from such depths of time that it couldn’t be wrong. Could it?

Argos ascended the steps and grabbed Landos by the arm. He wanted a witness. One person who could attest to the devastation he had caused. One person who could carry the seed of fear to his other enemies. So instead of killing Landos, he heaved the Lieutenant across the room, slamming him into a wall.

Then, he grabbed Sarah. She screamed. She flailed. She kicked. But Argos was too good to be slowed down at all by her. He whispered something quickly, and a smoking door appeared in the middle of the room. He stepped through, carrying Sarah with him.

Gabriel pulled himself up to his feet. His vision was blurred. His left arm had buckled, and his back was hurting. He couldn’t stand up straight. He limped forward, stumbling through to the
portal...

---

He fell through the smoking door, watching as Argos vanished down a long, stone corridor. Gabriel knew that wherever he was, it was a far way from home. The tapestry was completely foreign to him.

The smoke door began to dissipate. He had seen it, that day at the Wedding. He knew he didn’t have long. He grabbed the nearest tapestry, tore a corner off, and lurched his way back through the smoking door.

He collapsed to the stone floor among the Guards, back in Hartstone Castle. His hand clutched the fabric from the faraway place. He couldn’t feel the pain in his knee...

And so, Gabriel proved himself to be useful, even as he died.

Book
5

Sights Unseen

Chapter 56: Insectus Jareld

“Let’s go over the plan again,” Jareld said.

“Aye,” Corthos said. “You run into the hole in the wall…”

“I got that part.”

“You make a lot of noise…” Corthos continued.

“Sounds simple enough.”

“And as soon as you think the creature is about to strike, you run out of the hole.”

“OK, you see, that’s the part I’m not comfortable with.”

“It be safer than trying to hunt the thing in its own hole.”

“Do we even know what it is?”

“No,” Thor chimed in.

“But we think it’s deadly?”

“We saw it eat one of the scorpions,” Corthos said, reassuringly. “One o’ the bigger scorpions.”

“And we think it’s edible?”

“Aye,” Corthos said. “Methinks.”

“It’s more edible than rock,” Thor added, “Which is what our diet will consist of in about twelve hours.”

“Alright, fine,” Jareld said. He took a couple of steps toward the dark hole in the wall of the cave. What manner of beast rested within, only--

“OK, just one thing,” Jareld said, turning back to his friends, “Why am I the one going in?”

“I be the best with the sword,” Corthos said. “I need to be out here, so I can strike the thing down.”

“Fine,” Jareld said, then turned to Thor, “And you?”

“I don’t like confined spaces,” Thor answered. He really didn’t.

“Very well,” Jareld said, “I’ll go lure out dinner.”

“Wait!” Corthos shouted.

“Well, do you want me to go or--”

“Mister Jareld,” Corthos said, “It be right behind you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jareld said, “The hole--”

“No!” Thor said in a shouted whisper, “The thing is right behind you.”

Jareld went stiff. Only his eyes moved, darting from left to right. His breathing altogether stopped.

“What is it?” he asked in a soft voice.

“I cannot tell,” Corthos said, “You be blocking the torchlight.”

“Are those antennae?” Thor asked Corthos.

“The things by Jareld’s foot?”

“Yeah.”

“Nay, I think they be legs.”

“I thought the other seven things were legs,” Thor said.

“Some of them ought to be arms,” Corthos commented.

“But, if those are arms, then what’s the big thing on its back?”

“The thing with the stinger at the end?”

“Guys!” Jareld said in a very stressed whisper, “Can we discuss its anatomy after we kill it, please?”

“Aye, a right smart chap you are,” Corthos said, lifting his sword. “When I say ‘Go!’ you jump forward.”

“Is this like the plan where I run in the hole?”

“The fundamentals be the same.”

“When are you--”

“Go!”

Jareld dove forward. The creature, startled by this movement, jabbed with its stinger, but the stinger met Corthos’ blade and was lobbed off. Corthos kicked the creature onto its back exposing its softer underside, then impaled it.

Jareld lay motionless on the ground for another moment. He was curled up into a ball, his arms helmeting his head.

“Is it over?” he said, muffled, from his ball.

“Aye,” Corthos said. “Dinner be served.”

---

The three of them used their remaining flint and tinder to start a small fire. For fuel, they used the creature’s legs, which were tough and unsavory. Despite the hard shell, the inside of the beast was meaty, and the three companions enjoyed as much of a meal as they could from it.

They spent a considerable amount of the meal discussing the official rules of entomology and biological classification. Thor declared that since this was a new species, they had the right to name it. Jareld declared that it would make little difference if nobody ever knew about it. Thor insisted that as scholars at the Towers of Seneca, it was their immediate responsibility to name the thing.

“We don’t want to live through this, and recount our story to Gallar, and when we get to this part, we don’t want Gallar to say, ‘So, you ran into a new species, what did you name it?’ and for us to say, ‘Well, Master Gallar, to be honest, in all the chaos, we didn’t get a chance to name it,’ and for him to say, ‘I thought I taught you better than that,’ and for--”

“Look, if that’s the worst thing that happens to us, I mean, really, if that’s the lowest moment of our adventure, when we’re home, and warm, and safe, and full, and the worst thing that happens is--”

“Why don’t we call it Jareld?” Thor said.

Jareld lowered his eyebrows.

“You want to call this thing Jareld?”

“Not this one in particular,” Thor said. “It’s not like it’s a pet, and we’re naming it as we eat it. I mean the entire species.”

“Aye,” Corthos said, “That be a great name.”

“Then it’s settled,” Thor said, “Insectus Jareld.”

Jareld was about to respond when they heard a noise. It was a footsteppy kind of noise. Not just one set of footsteps, but a multiple footstepsy noise. The three of them rose together.

“The Turin?” Jareld said.

“Aye, methinks so.”

Corthos handed the torch to Thor. Jareld picked up a rock. He looked left, then right, then behind him.

“Which way is the sound coming from?” Jareld asked.

“I can’t tell,” Thor said.

“I can,” Corthos said. “It be coming from all around us.”