[First couple of pages]
A fog descended upon the Keep of Kronan, enveloping the fortifications like the breath of some dark and consuming god. With both moons in crescent, it was perfect cover for a covert operation.
A midnight fog was typical for autumn in the foothills of the Kroff Mountains. The night watchman called the hour from up on the battlements, unseen through the gloom. The torches at the top of the battlements cast only a ghostly glow into the surrounding fog without reaching the darkness at the bottom of the tall, fortified walls of the north side.
Four figures crept along the base of the wall, sticking to the shadows, until they huddled mid-way along the fortification. A head taller and far more muscular, with arms as thick as fire logs, Hogroth the Merciless directed the other three men to an opening in the wall.
Two weeks before, Hogroth had tracked down the castellan of the keep, drunk at an inn an hour’s ride away, and dragged the cowering bastard to the cellar of a ruined grain mill. Over the course of several hours, Hogroth tortured the man to the edge of death and back to get details of the Keep. One of those details was this opening, a weak point in the defenses. Then he burned down the mill with the castellan still strapped to a chair in the cellar.
Hogroth gingerly opened the tiny shutter of a small lantern, just wide enough to cast a glow upon the moss-covered stones of the wall, then he turned it to shine upon a circular iron grate. Milky green sewage trickled out through the bars.
“Blimey,” one of the other men whispered, wrinkling his nose. “I should make you add another gold sintar on my payment.”
Hogroth grabbed the man by the throat and pushed him against the grating. He put his face right up to the mercenary’s runny nose and glared. “We have a deal, Jas,” he rasped. “Five gold and whatever you wish to plunder — crawling through shit if need be. It’s more pay than you’re worth!”
Jas flailed at Hogroth’s massive hand, croaking in an attempt to breathe, when Hogroth let go. Jas gasped and rubbed at his throat. “I was joking, you stupid ox.” He flashed a sullen look at Hogroth. “This lover of yours had better be worth it. I don’t give the damnation of the gods whether you’re a gladiator or not. I’ll stick you if you lay another damned hand on me.”
Hogroth ignored the threat. Jas had been a formidable mercenary a decade before, but by the time Hogroth found him drinking himself into a stupor along the wharves of Tagreth, Jas was just another vainglory sot with a belly full of mead and a tarnished rapier on his belt. But time was too short to find a better hireling.
Hogroth looked up for a moment to check if they had been detected. There was no movement or sound from up on the ramparts, nor at the bastion at the end. He turned to the other two companions, Bem and Tenalius. “Ready?”
They both nodded as one. Lean and battle-hardened, and as quiet and deadly as vipers, these two were active members of the Assassin’s Guild of Askrena and were positively bristling with daggers and short swords. Hogroth considered himself blessed by the Sacred Four to have found these killers, fresh off another job here in the kingdom of Saltem, before they could sail back north to Askrena’s largest city-state of Miklos. Hogroth made a sign with his hands, indicating for them to keep a watch of the ramparts.
With a silent prayer to Agmom, God of Wrath, Hogroth reached into his pocket and ran his fingers over the pendant there, an emerald in a fragile silver setting suspended by a necklace of finely-wrought gold. Filan, he thought, I’m coming for you. Be strong.
(continued)
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Strange Worlds of Jason Kilgore 