All but Guaranteed

Patton's debut novella, A Valley of Shadow, is available now. Follow Izrak the Deathless on his final mission for the Call.

The tower wall of Duke Danlo’s palace reflected the brumal light of a winter moon. Stones fitted and polished to near perfection by expert masons of two centuries past, its silken surface emanated a ghostly sheen, not unlike the frozen moat upon which Izrak Laav stood. His infiltration had thus far gone unhindered.

Diamond shrouds of whirling snow, and a shirt of black iron mail, had veiled the mercenary's approach. Yet scaling the icy wall presented an impossible challenge to any would-be invader.

Impossible to all, but for him.

Izrak removed his gloves and reached out to the wall, his skeletal fingertips gliding over the surface. A soft click. He found the near imperceptible crevices marking where the ancient stones were joined. Izrak looked up with hollow sockets, his empty gaze lingering on the tower window high above. His fingers closed around a worn pouch hanging from his belt. A long, steep climb… Will it bring me any closer… to you?

The yellowed teeth of his lipless grin gleamed in the moonlight.

Leather groaned as Izrak cinched his sword belt. He adjusted his hide skullcap, drew a long dagger hissing from its sheath, and set the blade between his teeth.

Lord Danlo was influential, wealthy, and powerful. But the arrogant duke had made an enemy more wealthy and powerful still; Varon was infamous for his ruthless cruelty, even among the lords of Enostran, and the toll he demanded was severe. Danlo’s error would prove costly. Indeed, the services of the order did not come cheap, as none were more lethal than the undead mercenaries of The Call. For the outcome was all but guaranteed…

Death’s pale shadow, Izrak began to climb.

***

Sergeant Foman sighed, glaring at the winding tower stairs. Why Captain Akym bothered to post a sentry up there that night was beyond him. Visibility was hopelessly impeded by the storm, and the cold was enough to drive the hardiest of men away from that Hell-blasted window. The sergeant had been requesting its repair for weeks.

Grumbling, Foman lifted the torch from a nearby sconce and began his laborious ascent. Rusted hinges whined as he pushed against the tower chamber door.

“Mitko! I told you to oil these damned hinges an hour ago,” the sergeant said as he tramped inside. “What the—” Foman froze. The window stood unguarded. “Where in this devil-cursed tower are you, you little bastard?” Foman said under his breath, casting furtive glances over the rotting furniture that yet haunted the chamber.

No, despite the horrors witnessed during two campaigns in the Borderlands and twenty years of service to the duke, the sergeant did not believe in ghosts. Still Foman found himself wishing, like the rest of the men, that Lord Danlo would remove the moldering remains of his past life.

The tower chamber had once served as the quarters of the duke’s first wife. He had loved Lady Yudmil dearly, more than any other. Lord Danlo had been different then—happy, ever more so as the birth of their first child approached. But one night, death paid visit to the chamber of Lady Yudmil. Foman shivered at the memory of her cries that night. All within the palace could hear the wailing of the dying woman as she gave birth to a stillborn child. Whatever void had consumed the life of the child, devoured that of the mother soon after. And on dark winter nights such as this, many claimed to hear the cries of the duke’s lost love, and those of the child that never was…

Wind moaned a requiem as it crept in through the open window. Yet, it was not only the night’s icy whispers that sent a numbing chill along the sergeant’s spine as he moved deeper into the chamber. Shadows fell in a web that seemed to clutch at his legs, his arms, his throat, stifling his usual wide gait into fearful, hitching steps. Foman’s mouth dried; gooseflesh crawled over his skin on spider legs.

He stopped, looking back over his shoulder toward the entrance. The sergeant breathed deep, chuckled to himself.

Sweeping the chamber with his flickering brand, Foman rallied and cleared away the skein of darkness, finding the young sentry slouched in a far corner. “Sleeping on duty, eh?” The sergeant trudged over, grabbing a handful of red hair. He jerked upward. “Wake up, you—”

A torrent of crimson poured from Mitko’s throat. Foman blanched, reeling back. He spun toward the door. Guttering torchlight caught the glint of chainmail and bone. Foman reached for his sword but never drew it again.

***

Over paths short, or over paths long, death comes for all; for death travels many paths and comes in myriad forms. None may know when death shall appear, nor when their time has come, until too late and the sword is swung, and the blood runs thickly and warm. And whether by terrible fate, or simple misfortune, to Danlo’s halls death had come; as Izrak Laav stalked those haunted paths, his sword swung to and fro, blade ringing its twilight dirge, exacting its bloody toll.

Sanguine tears wept from the edges of his broadsword as Izrak stepped into the hall of the ducal family’s chambers. Before the duke’s bedchamber stood his personal guard, six picked men, merciless fighters all. Eyes lit with desperate rage; they glowered beneath peaked iron helms. Wordless, torchlight glimmering on the thick scales of their mail hauberks, they brandished swords and axes, charging forward to meet death.

With a growling hiss, the first of the damned lunged at Izrak, the point of his sword shimmering a cold blue. Izrak parried the thrust, stepping to the side. The guardsman stumbled forward. As he lurched past, Izrak brought his blade down on the guard’s neck, sending his head tumbling into the shadows.

Unfazed, two more of Danlo’s guard charged in with reckless abandon.

As Izrak turned to face them, he drew a knife from his belt, launched it into the eye of the nearest foe. The fierce glow of the other eye fizzled out as the guard’s body crumpled to the ground mid-stride. That same instant, the second closed in, his battleaxe held overhead. As he brought the axe down, Izrak countered, swinging in an upward arc, relieving the guard of his weapon—and his arm.

Disarmed, the guardsman cried in agony, stumbling back. Izrak silenced his foe with a thrust, driving the blade through his open mouth. The body went limp, falling to its knees, pulling the mercenary’s sword down with a jolt. Thrown off balance, Izrak lurched forward. Before he could recover, the remaining three guards were rushing in for the kill.

Izrak kicked the body from his sword into the path of the first guardsman, tripping him, sending him sprawling to the side.

Izrak sidestepped, the hoary glint of the next foe’s blade flashing before his sight, as he narrowly avoided the blow. Pivoting, the mercenary brought his sword over his shoulder in a mighty downward swing, cleaving the guard’s shoulder through to the chest.

Before Izrak could dislodge his blade, the third guardsman lunged, thrusting his sword into Izrak's shoulder. His chainmail held under the blow; yet the memory of pain is long in fading. Izrak roared, smashing his brow against the man’s face, sending the guard reeling. Before the guard could recover, Izrak drew his dagger, and buried the blade in his foe’s guts.

He pulled the dagger free as the guardsman staggered back. Then, Izrak freed his sword from the sundered corpse at his feet, spun and, the blade arcing in a silver crescent, severed the other’s head.

Saffron witch-fire kindled in the pits of Izrak’s eyes as he trudged toward the final guardsman, who was still climbing to his knees over the body of his fallen comrade. Before he could stand, Izrak delivered a crushing kick to the guard’s ribcage, hurling the man back to the ground. The wheezing guardsman looked up at Izrak as the mercenary’s boot crushed his head.

Izrak sheathed his dagger and turned to Danlo’s bedchamber. The smoldering embers within his eyesockets diminished, flickered out, as he approached the door.

Standing before the threshold, the mercenary hesitated. He does not deserve this. He is innocent… He grasped at the pouch hanging from his belt. Is this what I have become? The chamber beyond the door was silent. Am I nothing more to you? Yet, Izrak knew the answer lay upon the other side—waiting. Always waiting.

So be it. After a moment, he opened the door.

Lady Danlo shrieked, leapt from her chair and fled to a curtain partition closing off the far end of the chamber. Then, all was quiet but for the crackling of a great flame blazing in the hearth. Izrak stepped inside. Steel glinted silver at the edge of his vision.

Sidestepping, Izrak turned the thrust of Danlo’s rapier with his sword as the duke lunged from the shadows. Danlo recovered, began to circle the mercenary, searching for an opening. He found none. Despair paled his face, and with a desperate cry, he lunged again. Izrak parried and slashed into Danlo’s side, his blade cleaving through ribs, lung, and heart. Slain, the duke slumped to the ground in a crimson ruin.

Choked sobs seethed from the rear of the chamber. Lady Danlo trembled, clutching at the curtains behind her. The furious glow of her eyes was dimmed only by the black terror draining the blood from her face, drawing taut the cords of her neck as the mercenary approached. She drew a poniard from the sleeve of her gown. “Stay back!”

Izrak stepped forward, his blade hanging heavy at his side. The mercenary’s voice was a lament. “Where is he?”

“No!” Lady Danlo held the knife before her in shivering hands. “You will not take Nadezh,” she said through ragged breaths. “You will not kill my son.”

“The price is paid,” Izrak said as he lifted his sword. “Your fates are sealed. I can afford you this small mercy—bring him out, and I will send you together to meet your husband at the River. Or die now—alone. The choice is yours.”

Rage and panic twisted her features into a demon’s mask. “Go to Hell!”

I deserve nothing less. “Come, then.”

Lady Danlo shrieked as she thrust the point of her poniard at Izrak’s skull. The mercenary stepped past and drove his blade through her heart. Izrak withdrew his sword as the lady fell at his feet, the ringing clatter of her blade a death knell as it tumbled across the flags.

Izrak wiped his blade clean on his trousers, sheathed his sword, and flicked open the curtain. An infant boy lay in a cradle, wide eyes innocent, staring out from a bundle of furs. The mercenary drew his dagger, holding it over the child. Nadezh simply stared, lost in the abyss of Izrak’s hollow gaze. Not a single tear wet the boy’s cheeks.

Such courage—and from one who has every right to fear. More than his parents, whose failed attempt on the lives of their rivals purchased their own. More than myself, when I…

Looking out a bay window, toward the heavens, Izrak clutched the pouch at his hip. A moment passed, and his gaze fell upon the boy. “Forgive me.”

***

Some say that mercy is found in death. But what mercy may death truly provide? Peace, they will say—release from the torments of a world born of a mad god’s nightmare. Rest, others will say, from the trials and tribulations of a doomed existence cursed with naught but pain and suffering. Yet even the dead will cling to life, its warmth, its promise; for only the dead understand that death is no mercy, no prize to be coveted. Death’s kiss brings no joy; death’s cold embrace cannot soothe. No, death is a void, an infinite separation, which can do naught but consume and cut off. Death is not mercy; it is only an end. But every end heralds a new beginning, and thus, even death cannot rob the dead of the one thing that ever made them truly alive at all…

Hope.

As Izrak placed the wicker basket holding the bundled child before the threshold and knocked upon the hovel door, he hoped that Nadezh would find love and care, warmth and protection, in the home of strangers, in the arms of the living.

“What’s that?” the gruff, waking voice sounded as candlelight bloomed behind the frosted shutters of the lone window. “Who’s there?” the voice said, cautious footsteps approaching the door.

The mercenary climbed into Parom’s saddle and drove his horse along the darkling path. Through the hood of his cloak, he could hear the squeal of an old door opening to the infant cry of a nascent chance. And as dawn’s first light glittered over the snow-crusted streets of Severgrad, Izrak Laav dared to hope for life, and the promise of a new beginning.