“Vellichor. Where is it?”
Kal’s face was hard to read. He looked like a parent deciding how best to discipline an unruly child. They’d arrived at the massive bronze doors, and the booker hauled one open, beckoning Clay and Gabriel to follow him inside. “This way,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Vellichor
He led them into a vaulted chapel lit bright with mirrored lamps. The pews had been removed, and the stone floor was laid with rich carpets. The hall itself was in disarray, haphazardly cluttered with shelves, display cases, weapons racks, overflowing chests, and wooden dummies half-clothed in armour scraps.
“Excuse the mess,” said Kallorek, surveying the room. “I’m still sorting it all out. Hey, look at this.” He plucked a helmet off a dummy’s head. It sported a pair of long cheek guards that jutted like poison-laced mandibles. “This belonged to Liac the Arachnian. Poor Liac got devoured by a crypt slime a few years back. This here was all that remained.” Kallorek replaced the helm and ran a hand over the coat of red mail beneath it. “The Warskin,” he said reverently. “The impenetrable armour of Jack the Reaver. No sword or spear can pierce it, they say, but syphilis got through all right. Poor Jack.”
He waded farther into the room, pointing out artifacts as he named them. “There’s the Witchbow, and here are the gauntlets of Earl the One-Handed.” Kallorek waved at a bookshelf set against one wall. “Those were written before the fall of the Dominion. And these boots were worn by Budika, the Sea Wolf of Salagad. So many precious treasures!” he exclaimed. “But none so prized as this …”
He gestured toward a raised dais at the end of the hall, where a statue of the Autumn Son towered in the gloom. The statue’s face had been crudely altered to resemble Kallorek, and though it bore Vail’s characteristic torch in one hand, the sickle in his other had been replaced with …
A sword, Clay realized, in the same moment he heard Gabe speak softly beside him.
“Vellichor.”
From this distance the blade glowed faintly blue-green. A subtle mist rolled down the weapon’s length, drifting from the tip like smoke from an extinguished candle.
If his friend had seemed unsettled by the sight of his ex-wife, he now looked positively dumbstruck, his expression a mix of awe and shame, like a father gazing upon the face of a child he’d been forced by poverty to sell into bondage. When he spoke his voice was unsure, wavering. “You said I could have it. You said if I ever really needed it—” He swallowed, and Clay saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. “I need it now, Kal. I really do.”
Kallorek was silent for a long time, idly fingering one of the heavy medallions on his chest. “Did I say that?” he asked, affecting an air of abashed innocence. “It sure doesn’t sound like me. If I remember correctly I paid a princely sum for that sword. Enough to clear your debt with the Mercenary’s Guild. I’d say I’ve a fair claim to it. In fact, I’d say it’s well and truly mine.”
“You said if I—”
The booker waved dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, you said what I said already. But like I also said, I’ve grown rather fond of it since then. Druin swords don’t exactly grow on trees, you know, and that brat daughter of yours stole a pair of ’em from me. Doubt I’ll be seeing those blades ever again.”
“Kal, I promise—” Gabe began, but Kallorek rolled on over him.
“And now you’d have me lend you what is, quite possibly, the most coveted weapon in all of Grandual so … what? So you can take it into the bloody Heartwyld? It might be years before someone stumbles across your bones and brings it back to me.” He crossed his hairy arms. “No. Best it remains right where it is, I think.”
The barest flicker of anger lit Gabriel’s face as he started toward the booker. “Listen, you—” he said, before a pair of broad-shouldered constructs came plodding from the shadows of nearby alcoves. Each of the golems were half again as tall as Clay, though much smaller than the one they’d seen during the Stormriders’ parade. Both were the matte black of old basalt, with runes carved into their eye sockets that pulsed a vibrant green as they answered to some unheard command. The glass of display cases rattled as they moved to intercept Gabriel. They were two strides away when Kallorek raised a hand.
“Hold on,” said the booker, and Clay noticed he was clutching the medallion he’d been toying with earlier. A rune identical to that in the golems’ eyes blazed there. The automatons stopped dead. “How’s this then, Gabe? If you can take it, Vellichor is yours.”
It took Gabriel a moment to tear his eyes from the nearest golem. “Really?”
“Really truly,” said Kallorek, stepping aside with a flourish. He was grinning again, but there was no mirth in it. He’d been a common criminal in his youth, Clay remembered. His brutish nature had served him well as a booker who occasionally needed to extort payment from those who reneged on a contract. As grateful as Clay had once been for the ruthless flavour of Kallorek’s past, it was beginning to taste awfully bitter now.
“Go ahead,” Kallorek urged. “Take it.”
Gabriel slunk forward warily. He tripped over the corner of a gilded sarcophagus and barely caught himself.
The booker sniggered. “Careful. Kit the Unkillable’s in that thing. Dead as a doornail, but he walks and talks just the same. Talks a little too much for his own good, actually. I locked him in there for a reason.”
Gabriel climbed the steps of the dais one at a time. When he reached the top he turned and looked back. At a loss for inspiring words, Clay could only nod. He didn’t think for a moment Gabe could wrest the sword from the statue’s grip, and it was quite obvious Kallorek didn’t, either.
Then again, the fact that Clay was here at all instead of at home with his wife and child was testament to the fact that Gabriel was, if anything, full of surprises.
Gabe gave the blade a quick tug first. When it didn’t budge he stretched his shoulders and cleared his throat. He placed a bracing hand on the statue’s elbow and gripped the hilt just under the guard, trying to push the blade forward. Long seconds passed. Gabriel stopped, flexed his fingers, and tried again. Kallorek and his golems watched in silence. The booker was clearly amused; the golems didn’t appear to give a shit. Clay found he’d stopped breathing. He prayed silently that Vellichor would slip suddenly free, waited to hear the clang as it struck the floor.
Instead he heard a low whine, so quiet it seemed to come from a long way off. The whine grew louder, finally stretching into a long and lingering squeal as Gabriel poured all his strength into pushing the weapon loose. At last he gave up and stood panting, staring down at his own right hand as if it had somehow betrayed him.
“So, Slowhand.” Kallorek turned his way, good-natured once again. “I see you’ve got Blackheart still. Can’t be much use for a treasure like that standing on a wall up north, can there? How about I buy it off you, eh?”
“It’s not for sale,” said Clay, really not liking the direction this was going.
“Oh, come on, now. I’d say a relic like that is worth … let’s call it five hundred courtmarks? A man in your position has more use for gold than for a ratty old shield, does he not?”