THE WAILING KEEP

THE WAILING KEEP, by Tim Hanlon, artwork by Miguel Santos

Foscari the Gate-Keep swung from the straw pallet in the corner of his room and stood. Naked, he limped to the door and opened it to the tumult around the Merchant Baldovinetti’s compound. Riders crashed through the gates and shouts crested the high walls. Foscari, scratching his thick gut, studied the activity for some time. The midday sun was winter weak and his feet were cold on the stamped earth floor but he stood immobile. His body, enamelled in dark blue ink swirls of a language only he could read, filled the doorway. When a rider he knew passed, Foscari yelled a query to the man.

‘The merchant’s daughter,’ yelled the rider. ‘She’s been taken.’

The gate keep said no more but slammed the door closed and donned his cleanest doublet. Boots and belt followed. Foscari took his sheathed dagger, the blade broad as a man’s palm, and settled it at the small of his back. The stout man paused a moment and his right thumb rubbed across the leather braid around his left wrist. Nudging the door open with his foot and not bothering to close it, Foscari crossed to the main gate of the merchant’s palatial estate.

Just inside the passage were three human-sized mounds covered in rough cloth. One did not seem to have a head nor did the others look totally intact. It was as if disjointed human parts had been hastily rearranged before being covered by the coarse material. A wagon stood beside these mounds and a pack of servants waited nearby, debating, Foscari guessed, how to get the corpses successfully into the wagon bed.

‘Vincenzo,’ said Foscari to one of the men. ‘What goes?’

Vincenzo looked at the fat man. ‘The Lord of Silence, they say. He sent men this morning and they left these. And took young Mistress Lisabetta. In broad daylight, they say.’

‘And Ronaldo?’

The servant gestured to the wagon with his chin. ‘He’s in there already. Found dead in the gatehouse, they say. No one heard a thing. Thank the stars your shift had finished, Foscari.’

‘They would not have taken Mistress Lisabetta if I had been here,’ Foscari said, but the man had already turned away to examine the bodies again and did not hear him.

The gate-keep spied the captain of the merchant’s guard surrounded by his lieutenants. They stood on the far side of the vast forecourt. The men were in full harness with helmets balanced under their arms.  The armour shimmered even in the winter light like heat still rested in the steel and the men were large and strong. They were arrayed for serious work, these men. Killing work.

Foscari pushed his way through the circle. Malatesta, the captain, glanced at the gate keep but did not acknowledge him as he pointed to features on a large map. The vellum crackled under the tall captain’s finger as a route was traced.

‘I would come too, Captain,’ said Foscari to the man’s steel-clad shoulder.

The discussion stopped as Malatesta turned to Foscari. Words were replaced with smirks and nudges as the men regarded the keep. They saw a big fellow, gone to fat, grey of hair and beard. He looked, Foscari, like a wagon that had travelled too many rough leagues. He was an outsider who was accepted but still always a little foreign.

‘Are you joking, Fat Foscari?’ asked the captain. ‘This is hard riding for fighting men.’

‘Not farting in your sleep in the gate house,’ said a handsome lieutenant, his well-trimmed beard bobbing with laughter. ‘Do you even own a horse?’

Foscari, in fact, did not own a mount. ‘I will find one.’

‘Do not bother, fool,’ said Malatesta. ‘You would only slow us down. And Mistress Lisabetta’s life could even now be in the balance.’

‘There are things I know,’ said the gate-keep. ‘Beyond the magic of this…’

‘Begone, Fat Foscari,’ said someone and another cursed his mother as the steel circle reformed and the grey-bearded night watchman was on the outside once more. Foscari did not try to re-enter. He had known on arrival that he would not be accepted in the pursuit but he had gotten the glimpse of the map that he wanted. He turned to the gate but stopped when he saw the mistress of the house. She stood at the top of the wide steps leading to the main entrance.

Madam Baldovinetti waited to the side of the portico. She was clad in dark green and of noble bearing. Her face was calm and nary had a line ever creased her brow.  Her life was one of leisure and such things as her daughter being kidnapped did not seem to intrude on her tranquillity. Her husband surrounded her with high walls of indulgent servants like he surrounded his family home with walls of stone.

The merchant himself stood to the opposite side of the portico. He conferred with the magus civitas, gesturing wildly to the white-clad official. The magus would raise her hands at times and the very air shimmered as the praesidia was tested. The state of the wards securing the compound seemed to satisfy the elderly woman in white but did nothing to mollify Merchant Baldovinetti. Foscari felt an itch across his shoulders as he watched the magus civitas operate.

 

Foscari climbed the steps and stood meekly in front of Lady Baldovinetti. He rested his weight on his right leg for, though the left no longer complained greatly, old habits were engrained in the grey beard. Foscari waited with the patience borne of experience until the lady of the house turned her smooth face towards him.

Foscari gave a bow and said to the lady’s feet, ‘I will find your daughter, Mistress. On that I give my word.’

‘Are you one of my husband’s guards?’ asked Mistress Baldovinetti in a soft voice. ‘You do not seem to be from Florrenti.’

Foscari raised his head at her words. The woman examined his face and his dirt encrusted doublet but the keeper could read nothing in her gaze. ‘I am called Foscari, your lady. I keep guard on the east gate at night. Your daughter, she was always kind to me.’

‘Ah,’ said the lady of the house. ‘I do not know you.’

She turned away to watch the commotion again and it was as if the gate-keep was nothing but a sudden breeze, now gone. Foscari stood with his head raised for some time. Then he too turned away and, limping, descended the stairs and pushed his way through the busy gates.

No one noticed him leave.

 

###

 

Foscari donned his keeper’s uniform for he had nothing else worthy of the task ahead. Thankfully, his brigandine was fairly new, for the merchant had experienced a recent windfall and generously gifted his men with new armour. No steel for Fat Foscari though, his station only stretched to stout leather. Still, it was of good quality and new enough that the gate-keep had not yet began to outgrow it. His only weapon, the cinqueda dagger, rested in its usual spot at the small of his back and from his broad belt Foscari hung his simple Celata helm. The Merchant Baldovinetti kept the pole-arms used by his men under lock and key so Foscari would have to arm himself from another source.

 

Again, he did not close the door to his small room when he left. Foscari now wore everything of value and, with a shrug, he was prepared to leave the life he had made in the mercantile city of Florrenti. Almost ten years ago, now, when the northern rebellion erupted, Foscari had gone south. The Merchant Baldovinetti had given him a job and treated him well but Foscari never told anyone who he had been or what he had done.

The big man moved surprisingly quickly through the city streets. He caught snippets of the gossip that spread quicker than the plague and was as deadly to a person’s reputation. The maiden Baldovinetti had been spirited away in the night. She had run herself. Her father had killed her in a fit of rage. And lastly, the greedy merchant had refused to pay the dark magus to ruin his enemies and the magicker had stolen the young woman away in revenge. Foscari looked at the butcher who spoke thus and the rough-hewn man returned his gaze, thunking a cleaver into the wooden table that was his stall.

The money-lender’s shop was in a street shadowed by the great city walls. It was a neat street; the foot stones swept each morning. It was a safe street too, for the hard-looking men who lounged in doorways or on benches were there to keep trouble away, not to cause it.

Foscari paused in the cool interior while presenting his dagger to the guard. The man nodded his head then checked the flame of the iron-fire for confirmation. It remained a soft red and so the burly guard motioned with his head to the next doorway. Foscari swept the curtain aside and entered the business chamber.

The money-lender sat in a chair behind a large desk. He was a thin man, almost skeletal, but the skin of his face glowed with health and his hair was dark and thick. He was a foreigner, the money-lender, like Foscari and the two had a relationship that went back a long way. They were as friendly as two people could be in a city built on money and greed.

‘Ah, Foscari,’ said the money-lender. ‘I did not think to see you so soon. Surely you have not spent the coin already?’

‘No, Carafa,’ said Foscari, ‘it is not money I need today but a good battle-axe at my shoulder and a swift horse to ride upon.’

Carafa looked at the big man and stroked his sharp chin. ‘I have heard that your master chose not to pay the magus scelestus, de Barbari, Lord of Silence. Instead, he attempted to take the dark one’s life on completion of the condotta.’

 

‘That seems to be the case.’

 

‘And that the magus returned the assassins less than intact and took the merchant’s daughter in retribution. This morning in broad daylight too, I hear. I would not think it would be on your watch, Foscari. For ransom, most likely.’

‘Yes. Most likely.’

‘But if I know the merchant, he will not want to part with any of his precious coin. A rescue attempt?’

‘Yes. Such is underway.’

‘Is that, perchance, connected to your request for blade and beast?’

‘It is,’ said Foscari.

Carafa the Money-lender frowned as if a particularly difficult accounting issue had been placed in front of him. ‘They would not allow a mere gate-guard to accompany them.’

‘No,’ said Foscari. ‘I tried to explain things to them, but such men will not listen to me. I do not care if they are successful, only that the young mistress is returned safe. Nor do I wish ill of them, Carafa, for their intentions are honourable. I do not, however, hold much hope for their success.’

Carafa placed his slender hands on his vast desk. He examined Foscari for some time. ‘And how would you pay for these items?’

The gate-keep drummed his fingers on the helmet strapped to his belt. It made a hollow sound that was not unpleasant. ‘Six months in your service.’

Carafa drummed his fingers in an echo of the sound. ‘The odds are not great that I will see you or my goods again, Foscari my friend.’

Foscari stopped drumming his fingers. He looked at the other man and said, ‘I see to have her returned.’

The money-lender’s hand lost the rhythm suddenly. He placed both his hands in his lap and held them there. Carafa had not seen that look on the fat man’s face for many a year but he knew what it foreshadowed. The money-lender swallowed once. ‘Twelve months.’

‘So be it,’ said Foscari.

Carafa stood and he gestured the big man to a door. It opened into a room that was part armoury, part storehouse, part pantry. The money-lender gestured to a rack of weapons and retired from the room. Foscari examined the contents. Finally, he drew a long-handled war-axe from a rack and looked at the blade. The design was simple, a single cutting head with a reverse spike like he had grown up with, but the steel was strong-tempered and sharp. Foscari grunted in satisfaction and tested the wooden haft. It was sturdy but flexed under his weight.  The fat man was satisfied and rested the deadly battle-axe on his shoulder.

 

The money-lender returned. He led Foscari to a yard at the back and a horse waited there, along with the guard and the gate-keep’s dagger. Provisions hung from the beast’s saddle. Foscari found a small barrel and placed it next to the horse. He stood upon it and swung himself up and settled everything around him. Foscari strapped his helmet onto his head. The gate-keep looked down at Carafa and nodded. He swung the mare towards the exit.

When Foscari disappeared through the gate Carafa returned to his office and sat at his large desk. It was some time until the beat of his heart returned to its usual rhythm.

 

###

 

The guard on the eastern city gate raised his hand and yelled, ‘Fat Foscari,’ in greeting as the fat man trotted past. He was a popular figure, Foscari, for he always paid his debts and was quick with the offer of a drink or an amusing story. Foscari answered the hail and then returned his concentration to his saddle. It had been some time since he had ridden and he had been a different figure then and, even though the mare was good natured and did not complain, the gate-keep worked hard to try and find the correct rhythm.

Foscari turned off the main road and the path began to climb. Now he could see fresh tracks on the trail, six heavy horses by the sign. The gate-keep checked the mare’s pace. He did not want to catch the merchant’s men. The sky was darkening and the squad would want to rest for the night before making the assault on the magus scelestus’ stronghold in the early hours.

 

It was a formidable bastion, De Barbari’s family seat, high on a mountain and only accessed by a single path. It was called the Wailing Keep for the sound of the wind as it swirled around the castle’s turrets. Even with whatever wards the city magus could place on the guards, the chance of death by spell or blade or falling from a great height were high. They would have to use brute force, Baldovinetti’s men, for a frontal assault was the only option.

Foscari found a good spot off the path and directed his horse there. The mid-afternoon sun was pleasant on the mountain but the fat man could not enjoy it. He swung down on the second attempt and the mare gave a relieved grunt. Foscari laughed at that. ‘Even you?’ he asked.

He tended to the mare and took some dried beef from his saddle bag. He found a suitable tree to lean against and, groaning, lowered himself to the ground. Foscari began to chew on the beef and take small sips of the watered wine the money-lender had supplied. The fat man seemed at ease but the battle-axe always rested next to his hand.

The night rose and the gate keep watched a red glow swell ahead as the merchant’s guards built a fire. Foscari shook his head and sipped his wine. The night gained some bite and the big man dragged a coarse blanket from his saddle and draped it across his shoulders. He levered himself down again and rested against the fallen tree. Foscari watched the crimson glow of the fire ahead and drank his wine slowly and, eventually, he fell asleep.

The fat man dreamed. He dreamed of a voice on the wind, a low voice, an insistent voice, an indistinct voice. A voice of command. A voice of suggestion. A voice that was taken from the time when magic ruled the world and all humans could speak it such. He dreamed of a voice in his sleep and then he awoke.

To the clash of battle.

Foscari came onto one knee and his axe was in his hand. He stood slowly for there was no immediate threat. The gate-keep raised his head. He listened to the storm of steel and Foscari knew the merchant’s guards were dying. The noise began with shouts of alarm and then the shouts turned to screams like a tree warping around a metal stake. The human screams ceased, to be replaced by the cries of horses, and this was worse to Foscari’s ears. Finally, silence fell and Foscari shouldered his battle-axe.

The guards’ camp was a strong bowshot away. Foscari walked the mare. The animal shied as she approached but the fat man coaxed her with soothing words. He tied her at the entrance to the clearing, for there was so much blood now that he did not blame the horse its reluctance.

The guards’ bodies were strewn around the clearing like a blind man’s butcher shop. Several had lost their heads and Foscari spied one such resting against the stones of the fire. It was the handsome lieutenant and his face bubbled slowly on the hot stones. All of the men-at-arms were helmetless as if they had been caught unawares and their deaths had come with split skulls or throats slashed open. Their once bright armour was dark with blood. The company’s mounts were hacked down where they were tied and Foscari could see no reason behind that outrage. The horses had no stake in the venture.

Foscari could smell the taint of dark workings souring the air. He heard a low moan and crossed to the other side of the fire. The guard captain was there. Malatesta was not quite dead but it was in the way a morning can be bright but not yet sunrise. It would come. The captain’s must have risen to fight for his gut was pierced by a spear below his breast plate, the chain-mail links shattered. His blood flowed down the wooden shaft of the weapon and onto the ground.

Foscari squatted beside the dying man and the captain turned his head slowly to regard the fat man.

‘Foscari.’

‘It is I, Captain.’

‘I am done for,’ said Maletesta.

‘It would seem that way. What manner of thing did this?’

‘Just men,’ said the captain. ‘Savage men but human all the same.’

‘You did not see them? Was no guard set?’

The captain gurgled blood. ‘They came all of a sudden…they were just there. A voice on the wind…and they were there. My men?’

‘None survived.’

‘Why are you here, Fat Foscari? There is but death on this mountain.’

Foscari removed the severed head which rested against the fire stones and placed it beside a body. He sat beside the captain and stretched his left leg. ‘I had,’ he said, ‘a daughter once. She would be perhaps the Maiden Lisabetta’s age if she had been allowed to live.’

‘That is all. A dead daughter?’

The fat man addressed the fire. ‘The young mistress visited my gate at times. Bored, I imagine, with the quality of conversation within her own house. I told her of my daughter one night.

Yes, he had spoken of his daughter, Foscari, and how men of the rebellion had come seeking his service. And, when he had refused it, how they had returned when he was in the high pasture and burnt his steading to the ground in retribution. With his family barricaded inside. Foscari had told her many things about that time but none, however, of what he had done to those men before fleeing south.

‘Later, she came again,’ he said, ‘and she gave me this leather braid to remember my own long-gone lass by. She has a fine heart, Mistress Lisabetta.’

‘That is all?’ asked the captain slowly.

‘That is enough,’ said Foscari. ‘For me.’

‘I am dying,’ said the guard captain again.

‘Yes,’ said Foscari.

‘They came from nothing, Fat Foscari. You will not leave this mountain.’

The gate-keep stood slowly and reached across to his left sleeve. He ripped the length of material free and the tattoos on his arm were exposed. Foscari wiped the blood from the captain’s mouth with the sleeve and then tossed it aside.

‘I see to have her returned,’ Foscari said. ‘Now bear up and be silent.’

He went to the fire and threw more wood upon it. The dying flame grew and the red glow spread around and above the small clearing. Foscari stood with his back to the flames and his battle-axe rested beside his right leg. His plain helmet mirrored the fires glow. Foscari lifted his head and he heard it.

The voice came on the air and it swirled around the tree tops surrounding the clearing. It was calm but insistent. It did not ask for much but it wanted everything. It was low but could not be denied. Foscari heard it and he felt it and he wanted to listen.

Then the tattoos across his left arm ignited bright blue in the dark and Foscari’s eyes read them and all was as it should be in that clearing. And the man standing before him with sword raised was revealed.

Foscari jerked his axe up to block as the sword chopped down. The blade bit into the wooden haft and his left hand and two of Foscari’s fingers flew into the air. The fat man ignored the pain and slammed the butt of the battle-axe into his assailant’s face. The man reared back and Foscari chopped into his neck. The killer’s head flopped sideways and blood splashed across the shiny axe head. The man slumped, all but dead, but Foscari held him upright on the end of the axe.

The fat man dragged his attacker around and into another killer beside him. The two went down and Foscari moved aside, gracefully, and a third assassin’s spear went past. Foscari swung his axe and the man brought his spear shaft up to block. The axe head was heavier than a sword blade and smashed through the wooden shaft and cleaved the killer’s head down to the nose.

The clearing was noise now and frantic figures twisting in the firelight. It was blood and fear and a big man with a deadly axe. In the red light of the fire the attackers were black shadows. Hooded, the killers seemed not to be armoured, nor did they carry shields. Invisibility had protected them. Until this point in time, in this glade.

The attacker who had been knocked to the ground was rising but he got no further than one knee before Foscari’s foot caught the side of the man’s head. The hard leather sole cracked the man’s skull like old pottery and the killer fell. He did not try to rise again.

There were three remaining.

Two leapt forwards with broad arming swords raised. Foscari met them gladly and his battle-axe battered their defences aside like they were children, not dread assassins. One was sliced from shoulder to hip and his rending torso fouled his partner’s progress. Foscari’s backswing went deep into that one’s torso and bones and muscle offered scant resistance.

The last ran and the fat man levered his axe behind his head and threw. Foscari lacked practice. He knocked the fleeing man down with the cartwheeling haft and the man in black sprawled onto this belly. Foscari lumbered over and grabbed the killer’s head with both hands. Blood from his missing fingers painted the wounded assassin’s face. Foscari knelt on the fool’s shoulders and, rearing backwards, broke the man’s neck with one sharp, definite crack.

The silent assassins were now anything but, for the one who yet lived howled with the destruction visited upon his body by the fat man. Foscari was not moved to pity. The gate keep placed his boot on the man’s torso and leant thereon just a little of his considerable weight. The assassin screamed and Foscari’s mare shied at the noise.

‘How do I find the girl?’

The failed assassin was panting with pain but he managed to speak. ‘I do not know. But the Lord of Silence will wish to keep her close.’

‘Speak truly now,’ said Foscari.

‘I do,’ the man said. ‘But do not concern yourself, too greatly. For you have yet to cross the best of us and our champion does not suffer defeat.’

‘I look forward to the meeting,’ said Foscari.

The assassin drew a torn breath, ‘How did you see us?’

Foscari looked at the injured man but he did not reply. He simply leant all his bulk onto the killer. Bones cracked behind the man’s shrieks. Foscari turned away. The fat man was panting with the exertion but, in the red light, Foscari no longer seemed such a figure of jest.

He bent to the fire and jammed the stumps of his butchered fingers against the red glowing coals. Sweat sprang across the fat man’s forehead but Foscari was silent. He waited as the fire cauterised the bleeding wound and then stood. Foscari snorted to clear his nose of the stink of cooked flesh and spat into the fire. The gate-keep examined the state of his hand and the shaft of his battle-axe and nodded to himself. They would both have to do.

Maletesta stared at the fat man with eyes dimming as his blood seeped from his ruined stomach. ‘Foscari, how? You are but a gate-keep.’

‘I am but a gate-keep now.’

 

Foscari went to his saddle bags and found some feed for the mare. When she was done he patted the brave horse on the neck and hobbled her front legs.

The fat man looked at the other. ‘I had a name before I came to your city. And a life. My mother was a Woman Who Knows and on my initiation day she rendered on me the words of protection of my people. Your city is a wondrous place, Captain, but it is not the only place of magic in the world.’

Foscari undid the bindings of his brigandine. He dropped it to the earth and then his shirt on top. He strapped his dagger around his waist again and gathered his battle-axe. Foscari stood in the firelight like a thing suddenly from another world. The tattoos that snaked around his body glowed softly blue like iridescent eels swimming just below the surface of a lake. Foscari looked at the pile he had made and shook his head ruefully.

‘I leave my horse here,’ he said. ‘If you are alive when I return, I will see you off this mountain.’

Maletesta said no more. The guardsman lay his head back and watched the big man walk from the clearing. He could not find a jibe to throw at Foscari anymore.

 

###

 

Foscari stood before the final approach to The Wailing Keep. The narrow causeway looked sturdy enough but the drop on either side was endless. The castle waited at the end of this daunting path.

The new day was welcoming. In the sharp blue sky an eagle floated nonchalantly. The air was crisp but not overpowering to Foscari’s bare skin.

The causeway was wide enough for one rider comfortably at a time. Two horses abreast would forever be slipping a hoof off the edge. Along the length of the earthen bridge stood statues of eagles, their wings spread in flight. The statues were hollowed at different points so that the rushing wind made various sounds that combined in a sombre song. At the end of the path the gates to the citadel were open and the fat man watched. There was nothing to see.

The gate-keep stepped on to the compacted earth of the track. Foscari strode forward, for the mistress Lisabetta’s well-being pulled him forward and he could feel the length of tough, twisted leather that bound his left wrist. And bound his loyalty.

Heat flared across Foscari’s right ribs and the big man stopped. His tattoos smouldered in warning but the gate-keep could see no danger. He waited and he watched and the fire on his skin continued to burn. Foscari let himself in to the embrace of his people’s magic and the causeway’s strange tune dimmed, in a blink, his eyes revealed the truth.

The path was no more. It did not continue straight as it seemed but turned to the right, so that anyone crossing would step into the void and to their end. Further on, it turned again. It was a path only for those who knew. Or those who could really see.

Foscari crossed the crooked bridge and entered the citadel. Again he was not hindered. The courtyard spread before him, the flagstones level and well tendered. The castle rose before Foscari, a lofty tower of ancient stone. An open door beckoned the gate-keep and he entered the citadel, his flesh prickling with a tattooed warning.

The fat man ascended unimpeded. Doors were opened before him and revealed empty rooms. He climbed with his peculiar disjoined gait, his left leg hitching his side with every step. Foscari rested his axe on his shoulder, his helmeted head tilted towards the summit of the castle.

The final room appeared at the end of the twisting stairway and Foscari stepped inside. It was a large room, richly appointed, and at the far end a large window, a door really, opened onto the sky. The wind wailed through this opening like the room was in pain.  In front of it stood the dark magus, De Barbari, his left hand entwined in the long dark hair of Lisabetta. The young woman’s head was wrenched to the side in the magus’ grip but she managed a smile when she saw the fat man appear.

‘No further,’ said De Barbari, “or we will see if the lady can fly.’ He was a tall man, the magus, with a long, strong face. He resembled a council member, perhaps, or a physician, but for the mean slant to his small mouth which gave some insight into the soul within.

‘Foscari,’ said Lisabetta.

The gate-keep nodded his head. ‘Mistress,’ he said. ‘It will not be much longer.’

De Barbari twisted his hand and Lisabetta cried out. ‘Foscari, is it?’ said the magus scelestus. ”You have some power to have come this far. But this is your end, Foscari.’

‘I will take the Mistress Lisabetta and leave you unmolested,’ said the gate-keep. ‘That is all I want.’

The magus raised his head in query. ‘You did not bring the ransom, I imagine.’

‘No.’

De Barbari nodded. ‘The merchant reneged on a contract,’ he said. ‘Her father is not a man of honour.’

Foscari took a step closer. ‘No. He is a man of business. But I gave my word to see the mistress returned. And I am one who keeps to a condotta.’

‘So be it,’ said the Lord of Silence. ‘My champion will deal with you and then perhaps I will send him the young lady’s left foot. See if that can persuade him to be more honourable.’

De Barbari began to talk, in a voice low and relentless. Lisabetta squirmed in his grip and her face was deformed with fear, but her voice was strong when she called out, ‘Foscari, leave me. Do not risk your life for my father’s disgrace.’

‘It is not for him,’ said the fat man as he started forward.

The magus’ voice was unceasing and, from a shadow at the side of the wailing room, a large figure in full armour appeared. The Lord of Silence’s champion. The armour was blued steel and gave off no light and the full helm hid the wearer’s face. A long sword rested in the figure’s hands.

Foscari grasped his battle-axe. He stepped forward to engage the armoured champion but held himself for, from another shadow, a similar blue-armoured killer appeared. Then a third revealed itself. More stepped forward into the high room, all identical, one perhaps more deadly than the rest. Soon, half a dozen armoured figures circled the space.

Foscari turned in place for he was unsure which assailant to guard against. His tattoos were flowing rivers of burning blue light as the danger approached but, try as he might, the fat man could not summon the power of his people. The magus scelestus was too close, too potent, and Foscari could not prevail.

The champions stalked him. The armoured figures flitted across his range of vision, left, right, never pausing. Foscari did not know which was substance and which was illusion. The Lord of Silence chanted on, his voice unsurmountable, and the gate-keep realised that in this lofty tower he would not keep his word.

Then Lisabetta turned into the sorcerer’s grasp and raked her nails down the tall man’s face. Her nails, well-tended and strong, drew blood as they scoured De Barbari’s skin and the magus flinched from the pain. He flinched and he cried out in shock and his insistent words faltered for a moment.

The mass of champions dissolved and Foscari saw the real killer strike, his long sword blade falling towards the fat man’s neck. Foscari twisted and the blade missed its intended target, slashing instead the meat of his left shoulder. Blood pulsed across Foscari’s chest and his arm felt weak. The sword came again and Foscari fell away as he felt pain slide across his back. He rolled, knocking a small table over on his way. Foscari left a trail of blood as he went but he was free of the swinging blade.

The fat man came to his feet, agile with desperation, and his right hand still held his battle-axe. He heard Lisabetta cry his name and the magus’ voice rise again but the dark magic could not bind him anymore and now Foscari knew it would be only steel and strength in that high room.

He tried to grip his battle axe correctly, but his damaged fingers cried out and his slashed arm would not fully obey. Foscari grasped the axe in his right hand only, but he had fought that way before when necessary. It would not be skill now that decided the contest but pure brute force.

The Mistress Lisabetta squirmed in the foul magus’ grip and the armoured champion stood between them with sword at the ready.  Foscari did not retreat, for inside bubbled the rage he had long contained. The rage of his family killed all those years ago that no amount of death could ever salve. The rage he now unshackled.

He strode forward.

The champion struck but Foscari battered the sword aside with his swinging axe. The fat man let all technique go and hammered his armoured foe from left and right, the axe-head bludgeoning the assassin, denting the blued steel. Foscari waded forward and he had no mind to defend. He hammered and smashed and the champion retreated.

The fat man swung his axe and the armoured champion attempted to displace the blow but the force sent his sword spinning away. Foscari circled his axe and the blade crashed upon the stout helm of his opponent. The helmet held but the champion tottered drunkenly and Foscari drove him to the floor with another blow. The assassin crashed backwards and Foscari stood above. The fat man spun his axe in his hand so that the spike was presented. With all his rage, his weight, his might, Foscari drove the spike down and into the eye slit of the champion’s helm. The hardened spike split the steel and continued. It continued through steel, bone, and brain and the champion thrashed on the stone floor until he was dead.

De Barbari yelled, ‘You will not save her,’ and he began to drag the maiden towards to open sky door. A gust of wind surged through the opening and their raised voices were lost in the howls. Foscari tugged on his axe but he could not dislodge it from the ruptured helmet so he abandoned the weapon. He pushed himself across the room, frantic to save his charge.

Lisabetta fought but the magus was too strong. Foscari was too slow. He watched De Barbari haul the young woman towards the final sloping section that surrounded the window and desperation sent Foscari’s hand to the dagger at his back. He hauled the cinqueda out and threw it at the straining magus as his feet continued to carry him forward.

The broad dagger tumbled end over end. The magus scelestus saw it and he pushed Lisabetta towards the deadly slope. She stumbled and fell and began to slide into nothingness. De Barbari was too slow and the spinning dagger smashed into his face, sending his head back in a red ruin, but in the end he would have his way and have the death he sought.

Foscari threw himself towards the sky door. His body, slick with blood, lost control and the fat man was forced to dig his right fingers into the flagstones to arrest his slide. His damaged arm jerked out and grabbed Lisabetta by the elbow but his ruined left hand did not have the strength to hold on. She screamed again as her arm slithered from his grasp.

She slithered from his grasp but her hooking fingers found the leather cord binding his wrists. The cord she had painstakingly braided. The cord that pulled taught around the big man’s hand just long enough for Foscari to brace his legs wide and reach with his strong right hand. He hauled the mistress, nay he threw her, from the deadly sky door and to the safety of the centre of the Wailing Keep.

The man who had been Fat Foscari and was now someone different was not finished. He crossed to the injured magus scelestus. The tall man’s face was cleaved by the cinqueda’s blade and he looked at the ceiling of the room in a daze. Foscari seized the collar of De Barbari’s coat and hauled him towards the sky door. It was only at the last moment did the dark magus realised his fate. Then De Barbari was no longer the Lord of Silence as he tumbled through the opening and into the nothingness beyond.

 

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Foscari hammered on the stout eastern gate of the merchant’s compound. Above him on the resolute mare sat Lisabetta. He saw torches flare from within the walled mansion and turned from the doorway.

‘I will ask my father to make you captain of the guard,’ said Lisabetta.

Foscari looked at her young face and saw a strength that had not been there before. He shook his head. ‘I have given my word to another,’ he said. ‘Tell them where they might find their men.’

Lisabetta made to speak but her voice caught. ‘I owe you my life, Foscari,’ she said finally. ‘I will not forget.’

Foscari nodded his head. ‘The money lender, Carafa. If you need my assistance,’ he said and he turned to the night.

The gate-keep heard the familiar sound of bolts being drawn but he did not turn back. He walked away, Foscari, a fat man with a limp, and a man of his word.

 

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Tim Hanlon has been a History teacher since the dawn of time. When not writing or reading, he
enjoys banging on about craft beer with mates, boxing, and long road trips. Tim also spends his
time standing upside down in Australia, so if you are ever down that way drop in for a chat.

 

 

Miguel Santos is a freelance illustrator and maker of Comics living in Portugal.  His artwork has appeared in numerous issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, as well as in the Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 2.  More of his work can be seen at his online portfolio and his instagram.