Chapter 19
The Bazrian Seven
Alobaz rubbed the scruff on his chin and glowered across the abyss at Castle Hawxfure. Dark and gloomy—always so dark and fucking gloomy—it loomed forebodingly on Ombrash Island.
Fog encased it, and lightning that had no logical reason crackled continuously within the mist, which at times thinned but never fully evaporated no matter how much sunshine shone on the other side.
Though wide enough that no creature of any sort could leap across it, not even with a grappling hook, the chasm wasn’t nearly wide enough for the land on either side of it to exhibit different weather patterns.
As Alobaz had learned very early on, the castle had its own personality—way too much fucking attitude. He’d taken to calling the castle Mauldrene, purely because it was the first name that came to him that he didn’t particularly like.
Beyond the castle and its many outbuildings, the island allowed no other structures.
Most of the staff was forced to live in a small, meager settlement between here and Galmeen.
Mauldrene admitted the workers—or didn’t, depending on her mood, which was more fickle than a s?nglure being denied blood—by stretching a drawbridge across the chasm.
It was a feat of faithum that occurred in seconds.
With his boot, Alobaz nudged one of the magical posts that supported one end of said drawbridge. It held.
“Don’t trust it,” Night said from his right.
Lev pointed down into the chasm with a stabby finger. “No way am I walking on that flimsy thing across the abyss of all things.”
The abyss radiated a darkness so profound that it swirled like a shadow, a kind of mist of its own.
“Mauldrene’s never put out the bridge for us before,” Ed said.
As one, the entire crew, save Félix, who still hadn’t caught up to them, turned to look behind them.
The eighteen women and children Alobaz had rescued from the brothel had huddled together, casting worried glances between the abyss, the castle, and the sh?dreads.
“We’ve been at the castle for almost half a year,” Aziza said. “Half a year. But she’ll do it for them?”
“She must like them,” Moncho said.
“She doesn’t like anybody,” Alobaz said.
“But she apparently likes them better than us. Maybe that’s all that matters.”
“Why does she hate us so much?” Lev asked in a bit of a whine that seemed to come out more and more the longer they were stuck at the castle.
“She has no reason to hate the rest of us,” Aziza said. “But you? You’ve probably given her reason.”
With a hand to his heart, Lev spun toward her. “Me? Why me?”
“Your astonishingly consistent ability to irritate doesn’t end with the living.”
Lev staggered back as if shot with a quarrel. “You wound me.”
“You’ll get over it. Getting over yourself, however…”
“Hey.”
She shrugged.
“I wouldn’t be so sure Mauldrene’s not living,” Alobaz said, even though it made little sense. Castles didn’t do any such thing. Inanimate objects were by their very nature not living.
Regardless, neither Ed, Zi, Lev, Moncho, nor Night disagreed.
The sky was lightening with the promise of dawn, tingeing the sky around Mauldrene the faintest dusky rose. Before long, the sky would burst with color—reds, pinks, oranges, sometimes violets. But around Mauldrene herself, atop the island, nothing would change.
Lightning crackled loudly across the chasm, illuminating swaths through the fog in strokes of red-tinged violet.
“Uh … excuse me?” said one of the whores from behind them.
At their sudden attention, she brushed her hair back off her shoulders and smacked her garishly painted lips together, though it was more from nerves than being coy.
“You don’t, um, mean for us, ah, to cross Death’s Dooming Abyss, do you?” Her voice trembled a touch.
The young girl clutched her arm, and shivered when the hooker put such emphasis on the local name for the chasm.
Alobaz sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that night. “It’s the only way to the castle.”
The woman’s eyes widened, as did the girl’s at her side. As did the eyes of many others, including Jaeda, whose persona relied on projecting constant confidence, even when she was spreading her legs—or her Majora vein—for coin.
“You intend to take us to the…” The hooker gulped audibly, before stammering out the rest: “…t-the Abysmal Fortress?”
Alobaz frowned.
“It’s called Castle Hawxfure now,” Ed said.
Something his father had insisted upon despite his protests.
Alobaz didn’t need a castle named in his honor. Didn’t want it. He especially didn’t want this one.
Alobaz took a step in front of his friends and crossed his arms. “We live at the castle. As my…” Charges, wards, feeders, sex workers … what should he call them? “As my … responsibility,” he settled on, “you’ll live where I live.”
Ed stepped to his side. “You’ll be safe with us. We’ll all protect you.”
The hooker’s gaze trailed Ed’s thick neck, muscled arms and thighs, the weapons she wore strapped to her person everywhere, and shrank back half a step.
Alobaz felt rather than saw the bright smile fall from Ed’s face.
He scowled. “There’s no reason to be afraid of us.”
“Especially not of Ed,” Moncho said.
None of Alobaz’s new responsibilities—his scowl deepened—responded. Didn’t take so much as a tentative step toward the bridge Mauldrene had never found them worthy of.
“You know who we are?” Alobaz asked.
Many of them nodded. Jaeda said, “We heard o’ you long before you got to Galmeen. Most of us grew up hearin’ stories about you from our grannies and great-grannies.”
“And great-great-grannies,” another added, when Alobaz didn’t need the reminder that they were fragile humans with lifespans much shorter than theirs.
“So then you know we won’t hurt you,” Alobaz said.
None of them jumped to agree.
“Dammit, what kind of stories have you been hearing?”
The boy had stood partially behind two of the women. Now he stepped out into view. His eyes were wide, not with fear or apprehension, but with … excitement?
Alobaz harrumphed.
“I heard stories!” the boy said. “Not from my grannies only ’cause I ain’t got grannies. Ain’t got a ma either. But I heard all about your conquests anyhow. I asked anybody who’d talk to me about it.”
His eyes glittered. His smile was all teeth and gums. “Alobaz Hawxley. General of all the emperor’s armies. Prince, too, though not set to inherit the empire ’cause he’s—you’re—more valuable as a general. The empire needs you too much to have you rule.”
“Strange way to look at it,” Moncho muttered under his breath.
“Known as ‘The Razer’ across the Opalese. Known to his friends as ‘Baz.’ He’s—you’re—unmatched when it comes to military strategy, warfare, pretty much military anything.”
“He’s not wrong about that,” Moncho said.
“Alobaz is the most amazing, incredible, awesome man ever—who ever lived—who ever will live. Anywhere. There ain’t no one like ’im, never will be again.”
Alobaz couldn’t scowl any harder.
“Then there’s Ramone Vásquez, better known as ‘Moncho.’ An incredible fighter no one but Alobaz can best.”
The boy bounced on his feet, the words spilling rapidly as if he wanted to speak them all at once. “Then there’s Edwidge Shmooly, known as ‘Ed.’ A badass warrior. A woman who fights better than most men.”
Aziza bristled. “Hey, watch yourself, kid. Women can be amazing fighters too.”
He nodded eagerly. “No doubt. Aziza Lennel. Nickname: ‘Zi.’ Unparalleled fighter. Her small stature means opponents underestimate her a lot. And they don’t live to tell the tale.”
Aziza repressed a proud smile, but Alobaz still caught a glimmer of it in the twitch of her lips.
“Ooh, ooh, ooh. Then there’s ‘Night.’ The most mysterious of ’em all. Barely talks. No one knows his real name or if he’s even got another name. But he don’t need to talk to flatten anyone who tries to take him or his friends down.”
Night grunted.
“And then there’s Levin Brant.”
“Last but not least, eh?” Levin said.
“Known as ‘Lev’ to his friends, he’s so fast n’ agile, no one sees ’im coming till it’s too late. Strong too. A lethal combo between Moncho and Félix. Where’s Félix?”
A woman behind him tugged on his shirt. “Don’t ask questions like that,” she whispered, even though Alobaz and his crew would all hear just fine.
Humans often forgot a s?nglure’s senses were so much more potent than theirs.
The boy wiggled free of her grip, taking a bold step forward. “All together, they’re known as the Bazrian Seven.” He hopped from foot to foot. “I can’t buh-lieve I get to meet y’all. And to be bought by you…” The boy nearly swooned.
Alobaz grunted, sounding like Night. “Alright, alright. That’s enough of that. Now get your asses across that bridge.”
Maybe it was the way he growled it. Or maybe it was that Alobaz was used to commanding soldiers, legions of them.
Clutching their skirts, the females staggered forward to obey. The boy was in front.
When he lowered his foot to the bridge, Alobaz grabbed his arm. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Crute.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I’m ‘twice as much trouble n’ half as ugly.’” The scrawny kid said it like it was a good thing.
Crutes were furry, knee-high creatures who got into everything, destroyed gardens, and were general pests. They had big front teeth, a feature they and the boy did have in common.
“Are you gonna lemme be on your team?” Crute asked, pulling his foot off the bridge to fully face Alobaz. His face brimmed with hope. “Not now, I know, I get that. But when I’m big and strong like y’all? I know I got it in me. I do. I’m a hard worker.”
“My team?”
“Yeah. The Bazrian Seven. My dream’s to fight with y’all.”
Alobaz grunted. “Then get a better dream, Crute. You don’t want to be on my ‘team.’ You don’t want anything to do with us.”
“Then why’d you buy me?”
Alobaz wasn’t capable of scowling any harder. “I have no idea. Now, go, scorch it, and hurry.”
Crute was off and across the bridge like a quarrel shot from Ed’s crossbow.
Alobaz’s remaining responsibilities followed at a slower pace but at least no longer hesitated, even as they clutched the ropes to either side Mauldrene had provided as handholds.
Once they were all safely across the abyss, Moncho grabbed the rope as if to test the bridge.
It vanished so quickly that he lost his balance. He was spinning his arms to keep from falling into the abyss when Baz and Ed grabbed him by the tunic and yanked him back.
He was still catching his breath when Lev yelled across the chasm.
“Fine! We didn’t want to use your scorching bridge anyway.” Then, under his breath, he mumbled, “Ya miserable cunt.”
All at once, the rest of them, even the recovering Moncho, spun around to look at Mauldrene.
Nothing. No change.
“Shouldn’t have said that,” Zi told Lev. “She’ll get you back for that one.”
“Oh, whatever. She couldn’t have even heard me,” Lev said, but flicked now worried eyes toward the mist and the castle hunched beneath it.
Lightning flashed and crackled from around it in all directions, like a starburst of Mauldrene’s fury.
“Double dragonshit,” he whispered.
The others took a big step away from him, leaving him standing alone in a circle in their midst.
“That was just him, not us,” Moncho hollered toward the castle, pointing at Lev.
“Thanks for the support,” Lev said. “Really appreciate it.”
Moncho palmed him on the back. “Gotta choose the winning side here. Besides, she watches us while we sleep.”
“I’m never sleeping again,” Lev grumbled.
“Seems like,” Moncho said, a little too happily for Lev’s taste, stalking toward their sh?dreads.
The others, including Lev, followed. With the responsibilities alone on the island, they had to hurry.
While Mauldrene had given them a warmer welcome than Alobaz had believed her capable of, he wasn’t sure she hadn’t actually cast her web, lured them in, and was even now preparing to gobble them whole.
If she was comparable to any living creature, she was a s?ngmortarán. Cunning, shrewd, vengeful—turning deadly in an instant.
He didn’t have to tell his crew. In seconds, they’d leapt onto the backs of their steeds and were airborne, flying high above the chasm.
Fly too close and its shadows emerged like the tentacles of an umbrac—that awful creature, somewhat similar to an octopus or squid in appearance, and which terrorized the deep forests—trying to snare its prey. According to local superstition, deep within its depths, the abyss fed Death.
But the demigod himself was imprisoned, no threat to anyone anymore, unless at the order of the emperor.
All that animated Ombrash Island now were the fears of the people who didn’t belong anywhere near it.