The Stone Sorceress

Chapter 24

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm sorry, it's just, I've never seen anyone as pretty as you." He feigned an inability to act cool, his eyes fell upon hers, and the words that cost him nothing to speak whirled around in Aurora's mind like an electrical storm. At length he drew close and kissed her hand. Then the game commenced, Acheron drew upon every opportunity to be close to Aurora, to look at her, to brush her hand.

The princess won again because she was remarkably good at billiards. Acheron appeared not to care. Humbly he requested that Aurora join him for dinner, and she accepted.

"Ho there!"

Acheron spun around at that familiar voice, which he loathed. The rogue grimaced at the sight of Eros, who wore a smile, and had his hand auspiciously close to the pommel of his sword. Eros beckoned for Aurora to join him, but she recoiled, clinging to Acheron, "Don't let him take me," she begged.

Acheron looked down into her eyes, "I won't my dear."

Astraea had sauntered over meanwhile, and said to Eros from behind, "It is a hex, you know, that he uses."

The knight looked at Aurora's poise and concluded that she didn't seem herself.

Sabriel had, meanwhile, shouldered her way through to the front of the crowd. "Well this is a pleasant surprise," Acheron said, "How long has it been my dear?"

Sabriel unholstered a pistol, but Acheron didn't waste a moment, maneuvering Aurora in front of him - as a shield.

"Leave, and you can have her back when I'm done," he clutched Aurora's neck like a vice, "Advance and watch me tear out her throat."

Eros looked at Sabriel, who stood with a pistol trained on Acheron. He knew how the man had seduced her, and how humiliated she'd felt afterwards. "It's too dangerous Sabriel, don't." But upon Astraea's remark - that Aurora had been hexed as she must have been – she couldn't restrain herself. Eros looked at the glacial gunslinger when smoke billowed from her pistols. Aurora's garments gushed with blood that was not her own. Acheron fell into a crimson pool, haemorrhaging as he clung to life while Sabriel advanced, firing one more ball into a corpse.

"That was an awful risk," Eros said to her.

Eventually the company seated themselves at the bar where they wondered what their next move was: no-one knew anything about their enemy, or his crusade.

The bartender placed a round of complimentary drinks before Eros and the others, "You're not from around here are you?" He said, "I see in your eyes that you think little of our home, but we have principles." The bartender watched as two lackeys removed Acheron's body, casting it out the back entrance, "He liked to forget that."

"You knew him?"

"I did."

The servants were busily scrubbing blood off the tavern's floor.

"A wicked man that preyed upon women, but the best smuggler in Lucretia. No customs agent could root him out; his adept skill was his cloak of protection," the bartender laughed, "but it appears that cloak wasn't bulletproof."

At length Eros said, "Do you know of some stones, ones that contain old magic?" He didn't expect an answer, but he felt it worth asking because he'd asked everyone else.

The bartender shook his head, "Never heard of em'." The bartender thought hard, "Though, there may be one in Cannered-Noz who can help you." The man darted his eyes back and forth before saying in a whisper, "But he's not from this world."

"What do you mean?"

The bartender was busy satisfying himself that their conversation was private, which it was because the dancers had the bandits attention now the bloodshed was over, "An old man was rumoured to have travelled here. Where he came from none can say, but after lingering for some months he travelled to the old fortress on the northern border."

"Old fortress?"

"It's an old abandoned fort on the outskirts of town. No-one goes there you see, when our ancestors took this city they defiled the queen. When at last ruined, she retired to the final stronghold of her people, and there remained. She exists now as a banshee, defending the remnants of her kingdom. Only when the moon is full does she cease her watch, to venture out into the city in order to return upon one all the horrors she endured at the hands of many."

The bartender mopped his brow with a white handkerchief before continuing.

"Many have coveted the riches in that fortress, but in vain. None who have ventured there have ever returned to speak of it." He beckoned for the lackeys to take their rags and bucket of bloodied water out back. "It's unnatural then for an old frail man to conquer what young souls cannot. They say that he's the devil's eyes – a spectre."

Eros didn't know what to make of the bartender's infinitesimal tale. It was likely folly, but on account of the distance to the old fortress not being great, and the inescapable truth that he had no better plan, he yielded to the notion that he should at least try the spectre in the fortress, and see if it had knowledge that it would be willing to impart.

The 85th remained in the apartments of the Black Hydra, under the bartender's hospitality, and at first light they departed for the old fort on the northern border.