The Storm's Own Son (Book 1) (8 page)

The last two, flanking the next doorway, could only be
The Twins. They were in fact identical twin brothers, thought Talaos. They were also giants, more than seven feet tall, strong in a lean way rather than massive, and heavily protected with bronze breastplates, greaves, vambraces, shoulder and thigh armor, kilts with steel discs, and open faced helms.  They carried long steel axes. The faces under the helms were distinctive; clean featured, clean shaven, pale-skinned with icy gray-blue eyes and long silver-gold hair hanging in braids.

"Jotunheimer..." whispered Katara.

Beyond the twins, the next door was open. There was Cratus's torture table, but rather than holding a victim, it was scattered with scrolls, maps, papers, and books. Just around the corner beyond the door was a glimpse of a scarred, fat, mallet-like hand.

Cratus
.

The guards to the right were advancing with weapons drawn. The twins took a single step forward with axes raised. Talaos thought these
six bodyguards looked formidable, but he and his made twenty-three, and there'd be no archers on rooftops. They swept into the room. Talaos vowed he'd get to Cratus before there were any more tricks.

Then a strange thing happened. The two giants
stared at him, gazing right into his eyes, and a look of uncertainty passed between them.  They paused, and for the briefest of moments, half-lowered their axes. At that same moment, there was a mechanical noise in the other room, and a heavy steel door started dropping down the doorway.

Talaos flipped and rolled low past the giants
. They seemed to snap back into action and started swinging their axes. With a second sideways flip Talaos flew forward, inches under the fast-dropping door and into Cratus's sanctuary. Even as he passed through, he could hear the sound of fighting behind.

He vaulted to his feet with blades drawn. Cratus
stood a few feet back to the left of the door. Talaos sized him up. It had been a while. Massive as ever, Cratus was obese over a towering, powerful, bear-like frame with vastly broad shoulders, thick arms, and huge hands. His square head was still shaven, though he now had the beginnings of a gray beard, and his charcoal-gray eyes had more lines around them. Two other things were very odd, for Cratus.

The first was that he was plainly dressed in simple
gray wool. Talaos had never seen the man anything less than sumptuously attired in brocades and silks, with plentiful gold jewelry. The second was that while he had his trademark long, gold-inlayed, single-bladed executioner's axe in his right hand, his left hand held an ornately decorated book.

"I'm glad
you're here, Tal," Cratus said quietly in his rich, rolling, bass voice.

The room was crowded, both with dust-covered torture implements and with more recent oddities.
A tall, massive, ancient-looking stone column sculpted with glyphs and leering fanged faces loomed nearly to the ceiling. Vases teetered on a narrow stand. Shelves stood piled with artifacts, stacks of books and much more.

"They were right when they said you'd gone crazy
, or crazier." snapped Talaos in cold reply as he advanced on his old boss and mentor, swords dawn. The bulky items everywhere made his usual fighting style difficult, so he took measured but relentless steps.

"Still angry?
That's too bad. You were like a son to me, lad," said Cratus, with the seemingly sincere concern that Talaos had long since come to hate. As Cratus said it, he backed up and carefully, gently, put the book down on top of a pile of others on the torture table.

"
Like a son, but not. I'm glad I was an orphan," Talaos answered.

"
The sons of my blood were all worthless, or turned on me," said Cratus as he gripped his ornate axe, still stepping back. He had a calm look to his face. 'I can understand why even  you doubted. But you shouldn't have. You don't understand how much things have changed."

Talaos ignored him and continued to advance.
Cratus spoke again.

"
Tal, what have we been doing all our lives, as gangsters? Violence, cruelty, and death, all for no purpose..."

"You'd know about those well enough..." replied Talaos in a low, cold
voice.

Cratus ignored that, and continued,
"I was always capable of more. Unlike all the rest. So were you, lad.  Capable of great things! Like of old. There was once a great empire, with lofty ideals, that ruled this land and all about it. And long before that, a time of heroes, sages and wise prophets. But what are we now? Squalid and corrupt, all across the earth!"

Talaos decided to make his move. He vaulted over a closed chest with swords
flashing.  Cratus moved fast. Talaos had forgotten how fast the man could move when he wanted to, despite his bulk. The gang boss blocked both swords with a sudden twist of the long blade of his axe. Then something new happened. Frost appeared on the blade of the axe, and ran up the blades of Talaos's swords. Talaos stared at them for a brief moment in surprise. Cratus then stepped back and pulled out an ornate round shield from some hidden spot under the table.

Talaos
recovered from his momentary shock and spun at Cratus again. The latter caught the long blade with his axe, blocked the short with the shield, and then used the shield to hurl Talaos halfway across the room, crashing hard into shelves full of old stone carvings.

He felt suddenly cold, almost numb.
He struggled to move. Cratus started speaking again.

"Tal, my lad, you could have been part of something
greater even than the things I've described!" Cratus shouted at him in almost lofty tones, "And, far better! I have found things worth living for. I've given up my evil ways. I've given up my sinful pleasures, as you can see. I've thought of my soul. All of our souls.

"
I have a vision, Tal, a vision of what humanity can do, what we can all build together! What we can do in unity, all working as one! Palaeon may be unable to see, but you might yet... This city of Carai is the most ancient in all the world, and has been the site of many great things! Here, long ago, the proud, towering wicked were overthrown, and here, once purified of the petty, small wicked of today, we can be a beacon of light for all!

"And it won't stop there, lad! All the world and all mankind remade, in brotherhood and purity!
Of course, those who've helped me discover this don't understand what I'm destined to be. I will rise above them all, teach my would-be teachers, and show the way. I'm building a better world..." As Cratus went on, his eyes began to glitter and flash like ice in the dim light.

Talaos climbed out
of the pile of broken wood and ancient stone. He tried to find his footing. Cratus hadn't moved an inch since hurling him, and was still talking, on and on. Talaos couldn't take it anymore.

"
You fucking lunatic!" roared Talaos. "When I was a little street rat I used to believe you! You used to be a hero to people who didn't know better! You showed me what you really were! Now you learn some sorcery, and you're babbling about saving the world?"

Cratus stared at him for a moment, looking almost hurt.
The room grew cold.

"
That is too bad, Tal, you were the most promising of all," replied Cratus in a nobly sorrowful voice. "You have potential for greatness, lad, even if you've chosen to squander it."

Talaos found his footing, gauged the distance, and prepared his leap.

Then Cratus's eyes hardened, gleaming and pitiless, and he spoke again. "So be it. I had high hopes for you, once. But now... time to die, Tal."

Cratus took a step forward, huge axe in his right hand, shield ready in his left.

Talaos leapt. He vaulted not at Cratus, but at the tall sculpted column. He kicked it hard in midair and sent it toppling back Cratus's way. The big man stepped partly aside and took the brunt of the impact on his shield.  It would have crushed most men. He then gave a mighty shove that sent the thing hurling away, covered in frost.

However, Talaos had landed on the tabletop, turned and spun, and was now behind and inside Cratus's reach. He struck the
long blade down behind the huge man's shoulder, and through his heart. Cratus toppled , and amid the crowded junk, knocked over a shelf of his own torture implements. He landed on the floor among them with a tremendous clattering crash.

Talaos
stared at him for a moment, looked almost disbelievingly at the ruin of Cratus. He forced down his regrets, and faced the tasks ahead.

T
hen he turned to the steel door. The sounds of fighting had stopped, and instead he heard knocking.  He walked over to where Cratus had been when he arrived.  There was a small lever in a niche in the wall, pulled down. He pushed it up. There was the sound of gears and counterweights, and the heavy steel door began to rise.

On the other side,
a strange scene greeted him. Katara, Sorya, and most of his men stood there with blood on their weapons, facing The Twins. The giants of Jotun, in their bronze armor, had taken a defensive position in the corner. They had their long axes raised before them. Neither side moved to attack. Two others of his men were at the door, where they'd been knocking.

T
he other guards lay dead, as did six of his own men. All were friends, and one was Arax, whom he'd known since they were boys. Talaos kneeled down and closed his fallen men's eyes one by one. More who'd followed him, he thought blackly. More deaths on the long trail of blood that had taken him to this place.

When he was done, he noticed that
nearly all in the room were watching him, and the twins most intently of all. Katara noticed their inattention and took a step toward them with raised sword. The others around her followed.

"Wait!" shouted Talaos, then he turned to
The Twins. "Hold. I offer a truce."

They looked at him uncomprehendingly.

He tried again, "Do you speak Imperial?"

That, they seemed to partially comprehend. The one on the right replied, "Little."

"Why did you stop when I entered the room?"

Again, incomprehension.

"No fight. Stop," he said. He looked them in the eye, one then the other, as he sheathed his swords. The giants kept their long axes in hand, but rested the bottoms of the hafts on the ground. They looked around the room without fear, then back to Talaos.

Then he had a thought, "
Katara, ask them why they paused when I entered the room."

She looked at him in considerable surprise, then answered, "I will do as you say, but Jotun speech is different from the other northern countries
, and I have not studied it. Imperial is also not my language. Still, I will do this."

Katara spoke words in her language, and there was a pause. The twins looked at her, then, they answered with words that sounded only somewhat like her
speech. She shook her head, then tried again, using different words this time. They gave thought to what she'd said, and attempted another reply.

At last, she turned to him, "They said they thought you were someone from a story."

Talaos shook his head.

Katara, however, added in earnest, "Tales are serious things in the north."

"I believe it," he answered. Then he stepped forward toward them. His own men stepped aside to clear the way, and he faced the two giants by himself, unarmed. They watched him.

"Cratus is dead
," said Talaos. "Follow me."

He turned and
after a pause, they followed, axes held loosely and casually. Sorya made a disapproving noise under her breath, but he ignored it. Talaos led the twins to the door of Cratus's sanctum, and showed them the corpse. They nodded, then without a word, dropped their axes on the ground at Talaos's feet.

"Let's go find Palaeon," he said
to Katara, Sorya, and his men.

~

Around them, the capital of Cratus's onetime empire was in shambles. The fortress compound was full of bodies, and blood was everywhere. Fifty of Cratus's men had died fighting, and the rest were either too wounded to fight on, or had surrendered.  Palaeon's cordon in the streets had ensured none escaped.

Palaeon himself now stood on an interior balcony, overlooking the great hall where in other times Cratus had held his legendary
wild parties and gluttonous banquets. The new master of the hall was cleaning blood from his sword.

Talaos stood beside him, surv
eying the scene. Then he turned to Palaeon.

"So when are you moving in?"
he said.

A darksome smile crossed Palaeon's lean face
, "I think moving out is the better term. Once I've got everything of even remote value carted out, I'll try to find a buyer. Hard to say how much gold we'll get for it, but then the purchase price was in blood."

Talaos looked at the
long tables below, with memories good and bad haunting his mind. Murderers and thieves had sworn oaths of honor at those tables, and talked of fighting for the people. Wine had flowed and women had danced naked to the sound of drums and lyres. Talaos had been barely more than a boy when he started with Cratus. A child of the streets with nothing, nothing at all, but what he'd seized by his own mind and hand, he'd imagined he was part of something great.