The Executioner by Dee Carteri (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

The City to the Stars was only truly visible by night. By day the sprawling ruins were covered by the greenery and verdure of a place long lost to mankind. One might walk along the main boulevard never noticing that the stones that threatened to twist ankles were parts of a vast, straight stretch of road, never seeing the toppled buildings and over-grown by-ways along its sides; instead all too conscious of the weeds, the shadows, the aging trees that hung over it, that penetrated right through its foundations. To the sun, it was merely a tangled chaos, but to the stars, it was a city indeed.

And when the light of the moon shown down upon the tumbled remains of buildings long abandoned they gave form to half ruined walls and roofless structures, filling them out, giving them life, or at least a half-life of dreams. They lived again, seemingly, when the moon's silvery rays retraced their long broken lines in the darkness.

That is, until the boulevard found its way to the city's center. Here a great plaza, of the same flagstones as the road, opened up. Surrounding it on all sides were the crags of towers, thrusting upward, broken each as they reached the sky. Here at least man's work was unmistakable. No passage of time, even the millennia supposed to have passed, could mask the emptiness of the plaza, the heights of those shattered towers. Weeds had sprung up, even a few trees had pushed through the crumbling stones but still the city center maintained its sense of scale. Armies could have battled across it, and perhaps had.

The towers ringed the plaza, each of them many times the size of the tallest tree. Their jagged tops testified their collapse, and the heaps of crumbling stone, of twisting corroded metal at their bases proved it. The greatest tower of them all, that is the tallest, the widest, was called the God's Tower by the locals who revered at as a holy site. Their ancestors (for surely they were the descendants of those great men who came before) must have been great indeed to have built these structures, and this, the God's Tower, was surely the greatest of them all.

Of a height, it was unmatched. While the surrounding towers were each tall, this one dwarfed them all. On overcast days, its peak was hidden by the clouds. On clear days the peak, a thin jagged spire of one outer wall, would glow with the red of sunset long after the rest of the world fell into shadow. The tower was constructed entirely of steel, corroded, mottled, dangerous to come near. Occasionally a piece of metal would fall from above, shattering flagstones and anything else in its path. Men had been killed by the God's Tower, and men had died trying to recover the pieces of salvageable steel that chance (or the gods, or the ancestor's ghosts) might hurl their way. Those slain by the God's Tower were always honored by the townspeople, a great respect for those deemed worthy to return to the ancestral home, but the living still regarded the tower warily, and it was rare indeed for a holy man or steel smith to venture close enough for that chance honor.

The God's Tower was the holiest site in the City to the people of Dunmere. It was here, in this plaza, that the priests prayed for succor, for aid, for honor. And always they faced the Tower. The Tower, symbol of Ancestor, of Civilization, of Greatness gone from the world.

Men said the Tower stood to remind man of his folly, to show him what pride wrought. But it also stood as a testament of strength, of arrogance; that it could not be destroyed, only wounded. One day, the optimistic claimed, the Tower will be rebuilt, the City to the Stars will be rebuilt. And we will be worthy.

This night the jagged spire of the God's Tower pierced the full moon. The plaza glowed in its reflected light, and the emptiness was magnified by the cluster of lantern-bearing townspeople gathered at the mouth of the great boulevard. The lanterns seemed to dance merrily as the men passed into the city center, but there was no merriness in their stern countenances. Swords rattled at each belt, helms covered each head and they walked with a solemn surety into the plaza. Two throwing javelins rose from each back. A great black shadow, the shadow of the God's Tower, scarred the bright plaza, and as they neared the center, where the thin finger of shadow reached out for them, they stopped, all but one man.

This one had no sword at his belt, only a sheathed dagger, but in his clenched fist was the haft of a mighty war axe. The blade, resting casually on his shoulder, was long and curved, and though the edge was nicked in places, the moon limned a wide cruel arc along it. The owner called the axe Justice, as his father and grandfather before him had done. This was the family blade, their claim to knighthood, and it had served each of them well in his turn. The haft was blackened by the sweat and blood of battles long fought, and the steel of that blade was well forged. God's Tower steel, Corym claimed, and few would deny it. Justice had sent many men to their gods, and tonight it would do its work again.

He was Corym, Guards Captain, and Lord Knight of the town of Dunmere. He was the Lord's Justice, hand of Lord Manryk Dunmere, ancestral Lord of the Dunmerish lands and Justicar of the realm. Lord Manryk was the law, and Corym was his law-bringer. He stepped forward, out of the press of guardsmen and into the shadow of the God's Tower.

He could not see the stranger, the law-breaker, in the gloom, but he heard the rattle of chains twenty paces ahead, and he knew that was where his guardsmen had staked their prisoner. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he made out the dark shape ahead, saw the dim outlines of a man in armor.

But this was no man, his squire, Erikine had told him. It was Erikine brought him down. Erikine with his grapple, who pulled him from the tower to land painfully on the rubble below. It was he who had hammered the manacles on wrists and ankles, as the stranger lay dazed from his second (second!) fall from the God's Tower. With Rodryk's help, Erikine had pulled him from the base of the tower and drove the stake through the flagstones to hold him until Corym could be summoned.

The guards, patrolling the City to the Stars, had first come across the stranger that afternoon, when they spied him climbing the God's Tower. Outlaws and grave robbers had come to the City in the past. Invariably they sought the long lost treasures of the ancestors. Usually they were content to wreak havoc among the ruins for little more gain than some good steel. The people of Dunmere knew there were no treasures to be found.

For as long as memory served, many generations at least, they had been the wardens of this holy city, but never had they found treasure. Surely the artifacts of the ancients had been destroyed along with whatever cataclysm had destroyed the city itself. If not, then 3,000 years was enough time to have satisfied many generations of looters. No, all that was left in this City was memory. Memories of an age long past, of a civilization deemed unworthy. There was no treasure here: only sorrow, great sorrow.

And danger. Patrols were always sent in groups of six or more. Fewer men might meet their doom, and had, from the many perils of the City. Buildings could collapse, even the ground could collapse into yawning chasms when and where least expected. And of late fearsome beasts, creatures of legend, had been spotted. Corym had no first-hand knowledge of these beasts, but the rumors persisted and he feared there might be some kernel of truth to them. That did not concern him now. Only dealing with this stranger, this inhuman grave robber who dared to flee from his guard, concerned him

It had taken six of them to grapple with the stranger as he was dragged forth. He had super-human strength, they said. He spoke to them, too, pleading for release in his peculiar accent. It was this they feared. They had called him a demon. They had called him a ghost, he who had spoken in the manner of the most ancient texts. His words were old, and his voice too sounded old. Was he an avenging spirit or a grave robber?

No matter: he ran, he fought, he climbed the God's Tower, he insulted his men and the whole of Dunmere, even the ancestral home, by his actions. He was no avenging spirit of the past but a common criminal. Corym could make out his form in the gloom. He stopped and inspected the stranger, now but a few steps away.

The stranger was donned from head to foot in armor of raw, black iron. The workmanship was crude, simple, but it covered him completely. There was no art, no ornamentation to this armor, just smooth slabs of iron tightly joined. He wore gauntlets of the same ore, greaves, even his boots were iron. His head too was covered by a helm, visor drawn shut. While most helms Corym had seen were ornamented, even fanciful with wings or horns or flairs, his was simple, smooth and rounded. In the shadows of that helm, Corym could see the dim glow of two red orbs staring out at him. Now he knew this was indeed no man. His axe came up off his shoulder as he moved gracefully into fighting position.

The demon stood unmoving, bowed by the chain staked to the ground. He straddled the stake and the chain about his ankles was taut in his effort to keep his feet planted square under him. The chain about his wrists too was taut, but the stranger seemed to have ceased struggling against his bonds.

Corym cleared his throat and spoke. "Know demon, that you have been judged guilty of robbery, of disrupting the graves of our ancestors." He watched this demon as he spoke trying to discern any movement that would give away its intentions. The creature remained still. "You fought and tried to flee the Lord' s justice. For these crimes I judge you guilty. Speak now your last words and I will send you on your way to the pits you came out of."

He stopped, nervous. It was a risk to allow this demon to speak.

Corym had no fear of the creature's inhuman strength, but words had power, and Corym had no experience dealing with wizardry. But honor demanded that he allow last words to the condemned, and he judged even a demon was worthy of an honorable demise. Corym would not stain his dignity for the likes of this. He cast a wary glance behind him, to the guards who were spread out in a semi-circle. Each man stood in the moonlight and the wedge of shadow in which Corym and the stranger stood penetrated like a knife thrust into their midst.

Then the voice of the demon boomed out of that black helm and he saw his men tense, almost quail at the ominous depths of that voice. Like a rumbling of boulders or a bull moose's call from deep