Of Iron and Devils Read online

  OF IRON AND DEVILS

  By

  B.H. YOUNG

  Copyright © 2016

  http://bhyoung.blogspot.com

  Introduction

  I wrote OF IRON AND DEVILS because I wanted to approach fantasy with a perspective that did not focus on characters that are at the center of a grand world-changing event, but rather at its edge, unknowingly, while following a hard-boiled detective-style story.

  It is my hope that you will find the world I've created, entertaining, unique and at times humorous.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Table of Contents

  Legal Notes

  Prologue.

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Chapter 26.

  Chapter 27.

  Chapter 28.

  Chapter 29.

  Chapter 30.

  Chapter 31.

  Chapter 32.

  Chapter 33.

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35.

  Chapter 36.

  Chapter 37.

  Chapter 38.

  Chapter 39.

  Chapter 40.

  Chapter 41.

  Chapter 42.

  Chapter 43.

  Chapter 44.

  Chapter 45.

  About The Author

  Legal Notes

  © 2016 by B.H. Young

  Cover design © 2016 by B.H. Young

  Cover art © 2016 by B.H. Young

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Prologue.

  "Won't miss this place none too much," Jonvole said as they trekked out where the wall had fallen into the fading darkness of the land.

  "The dank old keep of Barberdose scare you boy?" Bridger asked in his usual choleric voice with a glimpse of judgment.

  Bridger always picked at him the most. He was a shrewd moose of a man in a band of thieves that made Jonvole question the honor any thief could have.

  "Dark and terrible things can fester in these ruins," he said.

  "Aye, worms, rats, and spiders... dark and terrible things indeed... for a woman." Bridger eyed him again this time with a sneer.

  "Not any woman you've bedded I'd wager, Bridger," said Derrick with a soft chuckle while counting coins in his hand.

  "Puts me at unease is all I'm saying." Jonvole had not forgotten the beating Bridger bestowed upon him and would say nothing to raise quarrel.

  He was always cautious and paranoid, and Bridger never let him forget the weakness that brought. Jonvole's old gram spared no tale in the late nights of foul and horrible things when he was a pup. The March waits in darkness and halls long abandoned lay betwixt hell and things best not seen, she'd say. Old gram had hundreds of stories for the ruins of the ancient world. The tale of Fogmount scared him the most, though he had only seen it through words. Barberdose seemed eerily to resemble those words. Maybe the mind just tells one what they wish not to hear.

  Bridger spat a slab of phlegm at Jonvole's boot. "Yet you had no trouble purring like a kitten under dreams of blue skies and fields of sweets within them halls."

  "A sniff of nightsolts helped bring that to task I'd say," Derrick put in as he started the count over.

  Jonvole turned his head away as if not proud of the revelation. "I heard noises rising from the lower keep."

  "And shoving that shit up your nose makes your ears hear no more? You hear noises everywhere that make you cold an awful lot lad," Bridger said.

  Bridger should be the last one to cast judgment Jonvloe thought, his habits were of a far fouler nature. The nightsolts were not just to find sleep in the broken halls of Barberdose, but to silence the dreams as well. Fields of cinder, rain of ash, and an army of riders atop steeds of hell, marching, came relentless in sleep and the nightsolts kept them away. The nightmares had infested his sleep now for three weeks and he'd ingest enough of the drug to turn his mind to mush and foam at the mouth if it meant not having to witness that cold darkness again.

  "Do you plan to count that coin all the way to Helbrode?" Reese asked, glancing back to Derrick.

  Jonvole tittered to that. Reese was a clean-shaven man who stood out from the rest of them with no hint of a murdering thief in his eyes. He wore a fine red doublet peppered with bronze studs and trousers striped in gray and black. In his youthful days he was a knight, Derrick had told him once, but bedding the wrong lord's wife and daughter lost him title and almost his head. A stripped knight was worse a title than of a plague and even the outland kingdoms of Vildeheim and Maytheral shunned them. Bridger and Derrick still addressed him proper, but not Jonvole. He could see Reese did not like it.

  "Making sure none of you snaked me while I slept, Sir Reese."

  Bridger leaned over to Derrick, sliding his blade half out of its sheath. "If I'd snaked you, you wouldn't be here to count shit Elf."

  Derrick gave him a sharp grin Jonvole saw. The Treh Elf was confident. There wasn't anything he couldn't do with a pair of blades, and Bridger knew it, feared it, though, he liked to pretend not to, and act as if he could present some smidge of a challenge to Derrick. Jonvole witnessed the Elf rip a man twice Bridger's size from sternum to neck with a fork once. Bridger saw it to. Until that moment, he never thought it possible for the moose to reek of fear.

  "Normare was a good score," Jonvole said and gave a gentle squeeze to the bag of silver hanging at his hip.

  "Helbrode will be better," said Reese.

  They had never applied their trade in a province capital before for fear of drawing too much unwanted attention. The thought of thieving in Helbrode made Jonvole's guts rumble hollow. No job ever went without bloodshed, as Bridger was all too quick to spill it. In Normare he planted his blade in a man's skull who did not want to part with the family savings. Of course after that, they could not leave any witnesses, so Reese ordered the man's wife and two sons killed. It would have been better had he ordered Bridger killed, Jonvole thought, as he stared at the dirty bastard as he walked with his head lowered. The moose plodded along burdened under a heavy leather coat with pelts stitched at its shoulders. With a quickstep over and push of the blade, Jonvole could get rid the world of the bastard. Or, he'd miss and Bridger would beat him to death?

  "Praise the Gods for King Freethinker without whom these days of easy pickings would not be possible," Bridger said, spreading his arms and looking to the failing stars.

  "Praise them again no Irons are on our trail," Jonvole said. He would much rather deal with province guardsmen than that of the Iron High Guard.

  Reese tossed a look back to him. "Not yet they aren't."

  "Irons don't worry me much," Bridger said. "Just line them up and I'll have my go at them."

  Derric
k laughed. "You'd fair better with a mist cat."

  Bridger lost words at that remark and swept his eyes around the fog slithering at their ankles. "This ain't no time to be japing about such things dammit..."

  Derrick laughed again, with firmness in his throat this time. "Woman," he said.

  Jonvole did not have to guess which of two he would gladly tussle with, as Irons made the savage wildlife seem tame. Bridger talked a stout game, but he knew the smelly bastard would tuck tail at the first sight of any Irons and if he wouldn't the Gods would dress him as a jester to dance in their court once he arrived in their halls.

  "Some horses would've served us well. Do away with all his damn walking," Bridger grumbled moving away from Derrick's bait.

  "Normare had no stables, but Helbrode does," Reese said. "Be there by mid afternoon I reckon."

  They cut through the trees, sliding down the Hill. Jonvole worried his boot would catch under the fog and send him toppling into Bridger, who was at his front. That would surely piss him off, bringing another beating. And towards the bottom his fears were almost realized when Bridger stopped abruptly and he bumped into his shoulder. Bridger turned, caught him by the throat, and pushed his back to the tree. Jonvole saw his other hand was on his pommel, the glaring in his dark eyes was itching.

  "Watch your damn step boy." His breath smelled of anger and onion.

  "I tripped," said Jonvole holding his hands in surrender.

  "Next you might fall on my blade."

  Jonvole waited until he was a few feet along the road before falling in behind them. The pines stood daunting in robes of shadows to either side of the road, the gusting wind whistling through their needles. The thin dark made him weary, as if eyes, by the hundreds, watched them stroll along the road. Without warning, breaking the silence, a legion of wings spurred above unseen from nowhere, clamoring like breaking thunder. Thousands of them fluttered, pushing a force of air to the mist, sweeping it into up curl trails at the edge of the woods. The chill in his spine came quick to that. They all slowed their pace and threw eyes to the sky. Even Bridger placed quick hands to his blades. Almost as fast as the migration broke, the stream of birds passed on, their disturbance fading in the wake. Out here in the wild, Jonvole did not take comfort in his superstitions. The birds were an omen, their thrashing, signs of a storm to come. He would earn a smack in the mouth to dare speak of childish concerns, so he remained silent.

  Bridger and Derrick both looked back to him then stopped. Had they heard his thoughts he wondered? They were looking past him and he hadn't heard it at first, the squeaking tip toeing further behind him. Reese stepped between them harboring the same curious look that donned their faces. Jonvole walked slower, turning eyes back as he did. Beyond, in the fog an orange bloom wobbled above the screeching of rusted metal and worn wood. Some travelling soul did not realize what they were about to pull into.

  "Sounds like a wagon," Derrick said.

  Reese pulled his sword and then said, "Sounds like we'll make to Helbrode sooner."

  Jonvole's blade was not as fearsome looking as theirs were. Reese held a saber of silver with dark lining, Bridger wrapped his hand around a polished bone handle broadsword, and Derrick favored his crossbow over the two curve swords at his hips. Jonvole looked down, turning the pitiful rusted dirk he held. Reese had told him he needed to steal something better, but failed to mention he would have to fight the three of them to do so. All he ever got were scraps, but the dagger's point was sharp enough to stab and that is all that mattered to him.

  He squinted as the fog rolled over the horse trap wheeling into the opening. Its wood was dark and old, a long pole fastened at its side warped at the top to the weight of the lantern. The frail horse's faded black coat looked dried and pulled tightly against its bones as if the beast should be walking the Shadowlands. The rider sat hunched over draped in a tattered hooded robe of dark green with a scepter rising from the back, twisting in shape and holding a roughened gem.

  "What the hell is that attached to its back?" Jonvole asked in an unsure voice. It reminded him of a weathervane, though he could not recall ever seeing one on a person, or holding a valuable.

  "Payday," said Bridger.

  When the wagon stopped a few feet in front of them Reese hollered. "We'll need you to be stepping off your wagon traveler, if you wish to live that is."

  The rider lifted his head but his face hid consumed in the darkness under the ragged hood. For a moment, he did not move and Jonvole thought Derrick to shoot a bolt into his chest, but then he slowly climbed down moving slowly as if every reach and step shot aches through bones. Unexpectedly, awareness began to claw at Jonvole. Something he'd seen or heard, but did not reveal itself. A chill swept his skin and cold creeps pimpled his arms and neck. Something was not right, he felt.

  "Maybe we ought let this one pass... I... think we should let him pass?"

  "Are you daft?" Bridger asked then smacked him across the back of his head.

  Bridger wasted no time stepping to the traveler. The impatient shit-headed moose wanted first pickings.

  "We should step aside," Jonvole said to Reese and Derrick but neither replied.

  "Be needing that jewel as well old man," said Bridger as he ran his hand along the blade.

  Jonvole winced before peeling eyes when a hint of twilight rolled under the traveler's hood as it straightened its stance to Bridger's request. A shadowed memory stood clear now. From dreams this Being came. Half the faceplate it wore had no socket, only etched symbols that faintly burned yellow. Bridger saw it to, but had no chance to react before the black blade swept across his throat.

  Reese howled and ran to his aid and fell face dead at a glimmer no sooner than he arrived. Jonvole squeezed his hand around the dagger so tight his nails pierced his palm, filling it with warm blood. He could not move nor stop trembling. When The Being caught the crossbow bolt mid air, he pissed his trousers. In half a blink, Derrick fell headless at his side and he fell hollow as a bitter cold crawled up his legs wrapping him tightly in a cloak of dread.

  The Being slowly turned to him, the wind pushing back its threadbare robe revealing its jagged armor, forged wicked under shadows. For a moment, Jonvole saw his reflection, marring back at him from under The Being's hood, and darkness and deafness soon followed.

  Chapter 1.

  The arms of morning began to stretch over the province, rolling down the mountains and atop the trees before splashing into the lowland and pulling itself further with hazed fingers. Cold and crying with dampness, the sigh of its misty breath flogged at the guarding walls of Helbrode. The capital city of Morthet did not shake its old frame to the bitter whispering of the dawn. Its crowd of pitted stone gargoyles perching its walls welcomed the winter-beaten morn unmoved, as they had every morning prior. Their chiseled eyes had seen more rainy winters than any soul dare dream. Witnesses of history watching over the city with mute expressions and tongues that could never to tell the tale. Helbrode stood commanding at the most Northern point of Terongard unchanged and unscathed from the ancient world.

  It was a colder this morning than most who were awake could remember. A hard rain had passed the night before, showering the ground with icy water that riled the new day chill under the bruised sky. Windows throughout the city began to light slow as Helbrode pulled from its slumber. Resentful flames that found the new day too bitter, fluttered behind murky glass specking in haze with no order or desire as bleary shadows shuffled behind their bloom.

  Sylo pulled the two city guardsmen from the cobbled walkway by the back of their necks and tossed them. The thick shrub where the stone of the castle met the wall swallowed the bodies with a mangling appetite of too long gone without proper quenching. Any other morning this path would have held a dozen or more patrolling boots, but eyes were now blind to the kingdom and focused elsewhere with neglect.

  King Norindale Barret held fast at the shores of Vyhoven, learning the error of his freethinking ways, fending off an invadi
ng horde from the isle of Dhunwitch. The war was now in its second month and had drained large amounts of guardsmen from the provinces of Terongard to fill ranks of a destitute king's army while leaving behind the lethargic of the rubbish to protect the stewards.

  Sylo looked to Jelkin who had the third guard slumped over his shoulder. The Phost Elf struggled as he tossed his catch to the eagerly waiting shrub. He could see the tightness in Jelkin's eyes; the twisted black ink sprawling up his neck grabbing the left side of his face looked to slither under strain along the foggy alabaster of his skin. He sniffed and then spat. The winds riled the stale odor of the dredwood beyond the wall to stir the Snow Elf's senses. Sylo could smell it four miles out before they reached the city. Here it permeated with intense effort.

  Hardstone Castle squatted on a swell of land overlooking the labyrinth of stone and tiled roofs kneeling before it. Two walls slithered from its foundation curving down each side of the hill hugging the town with a shielded embrace. To its back, it watched over the open land, standing guard to a vast prairie. Under its banners of an orange sun on a grey field, outside of its protection, the giant dredwood stood vigil, digging its distorted roots deep into the ground, while its skeletal limbs sprawled with casting motion. Deep gouged bark of shadow and ash, a daunting wood said to be the keepers of souls who lost their way. They only smelled of death Sylo thought.

  Jelkin ran his hand along his matted locks of silver gray while the smaller ones dangling from his chin danced under tired breath. He folded the crossbow, slid it to the holster strapped along his back, pulling the leather strap tight across his short coat of quilted wool with ring armor at its shoulders. He stepped back over to the puddle of blood steaming in the morning air, plucked the key ring from the ground, tossed it to Sylo, along with a nod, and then backed into the cover of mist to make way for the dredwood.

  Beneath the fog drawing down amid rooftops, the pitiful farmer wagons venturing into the market carried squeals of annoyance as the bruised sky began to heal. The city was beginning to wake. But the bowels of Hardstone Castle still laid quiet in dreams. Heartbeats danced at Sylo's ears calmly along the lining of doors in the narrow hall with no smells of burning torches, candles, hearths or readying of new day food. Only the sourness of fur-burdened sweat tickled at his nose. The small thumping came from nowhere when he passed through the kitchen into the servant's hall. The girl tapped her tiny fingers along the wall, inching towards the opening where he stood. Even in darkness, his shadow was cold enough to freeze the youngling in his presence. Curls of red and a face of pink, her young eyes were of broken blue and shattered milk. She could not see him, but she could sense him.