Dagger Lord: A LitRPG Series Page 30

  Wasting no time, he had hurried back to Castle Halberd, filling Mav in on the way and then telling him to call a meeting with Elena and Sarna. Once they were all gathered around the oval marble table in the meeting room, it was time to get started.

  There were none of Mav’s snacks this time since the urgency of the meeting hadn’t left any time for him to prepare his delicacies. Bluntfang, idling at thief’s feet and begging for treats, seemed disappointed.

  “Come here, Bluntfang,” said Elena, and stroked her pet’s head when he approached.

  Sarna drummed the marble table top with her haladie. Through the large window, Jack saw that a dark cloud smothered the sky. It bulged with rain but seemed reluctant to let it fall, as though the cloud’s only purpose today was to cast a mean darkness on what had been, for the briefest of hours, a pleasant morning. Jack found that the charcoal sky trail matched his current mood.

  Mav fidgeted in his seat, and more than once tried to catch Jack’s eye. Looking closely, Jack saw that the thief’s right hand shook. Mav got up and approached Jack, then bent and whispered into his ear. “I need Teyroot,” he said.

  Jack nodded, and the thief left the meeting. Sarna gave Jack a questioning look, while Elena said nothing. “He has an ill stomach,” Jack explained.

  He was about to begin the meeting when Sarna spoke. “Have you been doing your reading?” she said. “I know the texts are boring, but it’s important. Do your reading now, or you’ll bloody wish you’d done it when you’re on the battlefield.”

  He nodded. “I fell asleep reading Chapel’s chapter on situation control,” he said.

  Not content with beating him black and blue in the daytime, Sarna had been abusing his mind by ordering him to read some of her military texts at night. The strange thing was that he found that he didn’t mind being ordered around by her. Something about her authoritative presence set him at ease as much as it wore him out. In the end, the texts had been useful, and he’d picked up valuable tips about military command.

  “Good,” said Sarna. “I was worried you’d need me to read the big words for you.”

  “I’m concerned, Jack” said Elena. She was dropping the ‘lord’ part of his name more and more recently, and he liked that. “You didn’t schedule a meeting tonight. Has something happened?”

  “You might say that,” said Jack.

  He told them what he had seen in the peasants’ house. Elena expressed an interest in watching the crystal, only to sigh with frustration when Jack told her it was broken.

  “The bastard,” said Sarna.

  “Things are turning for the worse,” said Jack. “We need to deal with the raiders right now. It’s bad enough that they control the flek fields, but I could at least take some time to build up my defenses as long as they stayed confined there. But if they’re venturing into the heart of my lands, it’s a different story.”

  “I still don’t think the time has come. You aren’t ready,” said Elena.

  “I feel better now that I have some soldiers. Sarna, you did an excellent job with the watchmen, but they weren’t enough. They can’t be everywhere at once. We need our soldiers trained up better and ready to fight.”

  “Give me a week with the buggers and I’ll have them swinging blades in their sleep.”

  “We don’t have a week, unfortunately. I can’t let people think a band of roving mongrels have more control over the land than I do.”

  “You’re still new here,” said Elena. “The peasants do not understand that it takes a while for a lord to build his kingdom. In time, they’ll see the soldiers and the walls and they’ll stop questioning you.”

  “In the meantime, how many more peasants are gonna get their throats slit? I need to sort this out. I know we don’t have enough men to meet them head-on yet. Maybe we could sneak in to Veik’s castle and slit their throats.”

  “Listen up, Jack,” said Sarna. “If you want to have a chance at actually beating these raiders, you have to give me one more week with the new soldiers and watchmen. You should get your own scraggly arse to the training, too.”

  “What do you think, Elena?” asked Jack.

  “I stand with Commander Lornthane on this.”

  The meeting room door creaked as it opened. Mav shuffled back into the room with uneven steps. His face was grey, his eyes large. Bluntfang regarded him with suspicion, and Sarna even more so.

  “What are we yapping about?” said Mav.

  “I want to go kick the raiders’ arses, but Sarna and Elena here think I’m being rash. I wondered if a sneak attack at night would be the best way to do it,” said Jack.

  “I’ve done some throat slitting in my time,” said Mav. “But the raiders aren’t new babes ready to get their arses slapped. They’ll have watches posted every hour of the night.”

  “It isn’t just the raiders that bother me; it’s the reason behind it. Veik sent the raiders to the flek fields, so he must be getting a cut of their flek. He asked them to kill the peasants, and then he left the memory crystal for me to see.”

  “You think it was left there on purpose?” said Mav. His speech was slurred, and it was noticeable enough that Sarna arched her eyebrow.

  “What’s wrong with you, Carrion? Why are you talking like a drunk?” asked Sarna. “And what the heck is that smell? Hang on…is that Teyroot dust on your fingers?”

  “This isn’t the time,” said Jack.

  “I want to know who I’m sharing a table with. Are you an addict, Carrion?”

  “Mind your own damn business, you fat-arsed whore” answered Mav.

  Uh oh, thought Jack. If there was one person you shouldn’t ever say that to, it was Sarna.

  Sarna bolted upright. She slammed the table with her fist. “Tell me what the hell is going on, or I walk.”

  Jack didn’t want to betray Mav’s trust, yet Sarna was right. She had every right to know who she was sharing a castle with, as did Elena. It wasn’t Jack’s place to hide the dangers of Mav’s condition from them. At the same time, it wasn’t his place to tell them, either.

  Mav seemed deep in thought, as if he were weighing up a decision. Then, he looked at Jack, and he nodded.

  “It’s time I told you all something, he said.

  Mav explained his condition and how he got it. Jack could tell it was hard for him to share this with everyone, and he was proud of him for doing it. All the while that Mav told his story, Sarna wouldn’t turn her furious stare away from the thief. When Jack was done, Sarna slammed her fist on the table again, loud enough that it jerked the dozing Bluntfang awake.

  “Tantalus’s Bane? Has the shit in your brains dribbled out of your ears, Jack? How in the name of Arcus can you keep him around? He’s a menace.”

  “Careful, Sarna,” answered Jack. “We aren’t alone now. You don’t speak to me like that when there’s people around.”

  “Fine. Lord Halberd,” she corrected, in a sarcastic voice, “Has someone punctured your lordly skull and let your gassy brain loose? Get rid of him.”

  “Mav stays. My word on that is final,” said Jack.

  “Perhaps-” started Elena.

  Sarna stood up. “If you don’t mind, Lord,” she said, “I’ll leave you fuckers to it. I have training soon.”

  “Go on,” said Jack.

  After Sarna left the room, Jack turned to Elena. “The crystal worries me,” he said.

  Elena nodded. “Crystals aren’t conjured out of thin air. It takes a gifted splitter to rip away even the freshest of memories. A poor splitter might damage the mind, or ruin the memory he is trying to get. This crystal was clear, was it not? That takes talent.”

  “So Veik wanted you to find it,” said Mav. “Of course he did – otherwise what would be the point? He wanted you to know that he’s working against you. The question is, why doesn’t he just march here anyway? No offence, but he could flatten you like a slug under his big boots.”

  “He’s wary of us,” said Jack. “Most of what Bruce said when
he was here were idle brags. The fact is, Veik doesn’t fully understand what kind of force – or lack of- I actually have. And that’s how we’ll keep him from attacking.”

  Elena leaned forward and rested her lanky arms on the marble. “What do you propose?”

  Jack opened his mouth but found he couldn’t answer. A shuddering sensation shook his brain. It felt as if an arm had reached into his mind and was tweaking his brain synapses.

  What the hell was it? He closed his eyes and hoped it would pass. That it was a migraine or a symptom of lack of sleep.

  But no. there was something in his head. No – not something. Someone. A presence in his mind that had settled there to view the world through his eyes. Could it be Feyen with his poison?

  With his steadily rising pulse beginning to hammer in his ears, Jack activated his mind shield. He imagined a shield in his brain, a block of steel almost as tall as himself and wrapped with a patchwork of his strongest memories. He pushed it against the dark shape in his mind, and slowly, he felt the presence begin to flicker, before draining away.

  When he opened his eyes again, he found that he was gripping the edge of the marble table. Elena and Mav stared at him. Elena reached forward and touched his shoulder.

  “Lord? Are you well?”

  He couldn’t worry them. He didn’t want to show any weakness to his friends. Despite a smothering sense of unease, he shook the memory the presence in his mind away, fixed on pondering it later when he was alone.

  Right now, he had bigger things to worry about. He needed to do something about the raiders and drive them off the flek fields. With that done, he could afford to buy more soldiers, buildings and weapons. The problem was that he needed Henry Veik to lay off a little while he got ready to attack the raiders. Henry wouldn’t voluntarily do that, of course, so Jack needed to give him a reason to. If Henry Veik thought that Jack’s lands were more militarized than they really were, then maybe that would persuaded him to leave him alone.

  “I have a plan,” he told them. “First, we need to capture a raider from the flek fields. But we need to do it quietly – I don’t want to provoke a full attack yet.”

  “Not the greatest idea…” said Mav.

  “And I need to meet with Crowley Drach, the Magier Alchemi. After that,” he said, fully aware that his friends’ attentions were focused unwaveringly on him, “I need to meet with the High Tacher.”

  “This guy’s on a roll,” said Mav. “Three horrendous ideas, each worse than the one before it.”

  “Just trust me. Elena, can you arrange to send a message to someone?”

  “I serve at your leisure, Jack. Who do you need to contact?”

  “It needs to go to General Bordan Vine,” answered Jack.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hours after that meeting, Jack found himself in another. This one took place in a dungeon deep in the bowels of Castle Halberd. He didn’t like the impenetrable darkness, the dew-covered walls, and the cell bars that were stained with rust, but there was no other choice. The discussion had to be kept so secret that not even his peasants could get the slightest hint of it. For this reason, he met with Crowley Drach in a shadowy place where even the torch flames struggled against the dark, and the silence was only broken by faint whisperings of the wind.

  Jack was worried about his plan. There were too many variables in play, and too many things had to go exactly right for this to even have a chance at working. Too much uncertainty made him uneasy.

  When Crowley Drach arrived at the castle this time, he had forgone his dozen illusory carriages, arriving on the back of a night-black stallion. His hood hid his masked face from view, and it was only when they traipsed down the narrow steps to the castle’s depths that he drew it back. Crowley didn’t show the slightest trace of discomfort in the dungeon cell. Instead, he settled onto a stone block that was set against the wall and crossed his legs. In harsher times, this cold mound would have served as a bed for castle prisoners. Jack hoped he wouldn’t have to send too many people here.

  “I am surprised to hear from you again so soon,” said Crowley. “I imagined that our meeting had been the last we would have for a while. Have things taken a turn? Have they gone to shit, lord??”

  Jack was bundled in a thick leather coat that he’d found on a rack in one of the castle bedchambers. It protected him a little against the creeping cold of the dungeon, but somehow the frost still managed to latch on to him. He drew it close to his chest.

  “I’m still unhappy with your price,” said Jack. “You ask for my blood like you’re asking for a beer, or something. It’s not that simple.”

  Price was such an underwhelming word for what the alchemist had asked of him the last time they spoke. It made it seem like he was haggling with a market trader, yet the truth of what Crowley wanted chilled him. What choice did he have?

  “You doubt that I can really help you, don’t you?” Crowley said. “Let me show you something.”

  He pinched the edges of his mask and slowly began to peel it off. It was a delicate procedure, and he moved with practiced hands. When he was done, he set his mask on the stone beside him. The darkness was so thick that Jack couldn’t make his face out properly.

  Crowley held his hand up. Something sparked within his palm, and then a mint-green light burned. The small dungeon cell was soon clogged with the stench of burned mana.

  Under the mint glare of Crowley’s light, Jack saw for the first time the horrors visited upon this man’s face. It was a cracked desert of scar tissue, of reddened and mutilated flesh that could scarcely be called skin. His eyes were sealed over, which explained the goggles that Crowley wore.

  Jack had never seen such an injury. He didn’t think of himself of squeamish, but all the same, it sent a peculiar feeling up and down his spine.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “This is a chemical burn.”

  “It’s the worst that I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’ll tell you how I got it, young lord, and then I hope you will understand how serious I am.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I grew up in the Magier Alchemi,” said Crowley, “As I am sure you guessed. I was taken on as an apprentice after my parents discovered my magical abilities and decided they’d rather sell me to the guild than raise me. Truth be told, I didn’t mind. It saved me from their incessant beatings when they were high on teyroot or blind drunk.

  “In the guild, I advanced much quicker than expected, and by the time I was thirteen I had completed the apprentice syllabus that most sixteen-year old were still laboring through. I became bored, Jack. Jaded with how much their lessons emphasized safety and learning to be responsible with magic and chemicals.

  “I started experimenting. There was a town nearby, and guild students were permitted to go to it two nights a week. This was because guild masters knew that boys will be boys, and they decided they would rather let us get our drinking and whoring out of our system early than try to prevent it.

  “Instead of going to whore houses or taverns, I had started meeting a man named Tomkins who could procure alchemy ingredients and mana potions. This was important, you see, because the guild employed mana limiters and withheld mana potions so that my fellow students and I didn’t do stupid magic that we weren’t ready for.

  “So first, I came up with a way to remove the mana limiter they had locked onto my arm. With that gone and my mana restored, I began experimenting with whatever chemicals the man could get for me. My contact would then sell the potions. These weren’t just your standard healing potions, Jack. The experiments I conducted back then would have made the guild masters’ faces lose color.

  “Tomkins and I struck up a friendship, but one day, he didn’t show up to a meeting. He was gone the next day, too. I was worried, and I took an unnecessary risk in visiting his house. Tomkins’s wife and children had been killed in a random attack by brigands. He was the sole survivor, having fought them off, but it had left him
a shell of a man. He was completely insane.

  “I vowed revenge. I didn’t return to the guild that night. Instead, I cooked up a horrible mist poison, snuck out to the brigand’s camp, and I threw it on their fire. Just as he did, one of the brigands snuck up and grabbed me by the arms.”

  Crowley paused for a second at this. He put his hands to his face and traced his fingers around the scar contours. It was a face kissed by destruction.

  “What happened?” asked Jack.

  “They poured the poison that I had made onto my face, and then left me for dead. Somehow, I made it back to the guild. The guild masters gave me these goggles to restore my sight. The senior masters went out and slaughtered the raiders to teach them a lesson. After that, there was just one more lesson left to teach. That was when they expelled me from the Magier Alchemi.”