Lukas the Trickster Read online

  ‘Well, this is a disappointment.’ Lukas stepped forward and sniffed insolently. ‘I was promised a brotherhood of wolves. But all I see before me are mewling pups, barely weaned and all but blind.’

  The whispers turned to angry mutterings. Lukas grinned at the tension in the air. Blood Claws were never far from violence. The kill-urge ran hot through them. With age came the ability to control it, but these had yet to learn such a skill. And he was doing his level best to provoke them. ‘Well, then – which of you is in charge?’ he asked.

  ‘Me.’ The Blood Claw was bigger than the others. He had likely been big as a mortal, and had become massive as an aspirant. He pushed himself to his feet. He had shaved half of his scalp, leaving the other half of his hair to jut out from his head like a drake’s hood.

  Scars and tattoos covered his bare arms and chest, warring for space with thick patches of dark hair. By the smell emanating from his pores, he had been drinking long enough to lose what few inhibitions he might otherwise have had.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Kadir.’

  Lukas bared his teeth and strode into the sea of tables as if he owned them. He flipped the nearest with an easy gesture, spilling drinks and eliciting curses. ‘Well, you’re wrong there, my friend. You are not in charge. I am.’

  ‘And who are you?’ Kadir snarled.

  Lukas spread his arms. ‘Come and find out, pup.’

  Kadir bounded towards him with a howl, his long arms outstretched. Lukas sidestepped gracefully, one arm extended. His limb caught the Blood Claw’s throat like an iron bar and flipped the youthful warrior head over heels. He rolled on the floor, gagging. Lukas kicked him in the head. Bone gave with a wet crunch, and Kadir went limp, his heels drumming on the flagstones.

  Lukas bent and dragged his unconscious opponent to his feet. ‘He’s fine. Someone sit him in a corner and put a tankard in his hand. He’ll need it when he wakes up.’

  ‘Blood is coming out of his ears,’ one of the others said hesitantly.

  ‘As long as it’s just blood,’ Lukas said, shoving the dead weight towards the speaker. ‘Now, someone get me something to drink. That was thirsty work.’

  ‘Who put you in charge?’ someone growled. Another Blood Claw edged forward, yellow eyes gleaming. His hands flexed as if they were claws. He was shorter than his fellow aspirants, with flat, pugnacious features. His head was a lump on a thick twist of neck, barely visible within an excessively greased and spiked mane of crimson hair.

  ‘Me. Just now. Weren’t you watching? Shall I do it again? Drink, pups, and be quick. My temper is short and my thirst is long.’ Lukas looked at the one who had spoken. ‘What is your name, little one?’

  The Blood Claw lunged. Quietly, this time, without ceremony. They learned quickly. ‘Get him, Ake,’ someone shouted. Lukas met Ake, and their skulls connected with a hollow thud. The Blood Claw reeled, and Lukas’ foot rose to catch him somewhere sensitive. Ake yelped piteously and hobbled back, his eyes watering.

  Lukas caught him by the nape of the neck and ran him face-first into the wall. He turned to the others and cracked his knuckles. ‘Next.’

  They came in a rush, howling and snarling. Not all of them, but most. Lukas laughed and snatched up a nearby stool. He wielded it like a battle-axe, filling the air with splinters and blood. They fought like heroes. He didn’t. Eyes were gouged, nethers smashed, noses broken, skulls cracked and fingers stamped flat. He trod on feet, dislodged kneecaps and dislocated shoulders. The first wave fell back, cradling injured limbs and cursing.

  ‘First lesson, pups – Lukas is in charge. Always. Something to remember, even when your pelts turn grey.’ He sniffed the air. ‘What is that smell?’

  It proved to be coming from a young warrior who wore an inordinate number of luck tokens hanging about his neck and threaded through his mane of greasy hair. The Blood Claw shoved his way out of the crowd and stepped forward. Lukas blinked back tears and waved a hand in front of his nose. ‘You smell like something a cave bear left to mark its territory, pup.’

  ‘I am Halvar, Trickster. I am your doom.’

  Lukas raised an eyebrow. ‘Taking this seriously, then? Good.’ He gestured. ‘Come on, then. But not too close. Your stink might kill me before you get a chance to.’

  Halvar roared and lunged, tattooed fingers reaching for Lukas’ throat. ‘Not that way, boy, I’ve got reach on you,’ Lukas snarled, hurling the shattered remnants of the stool into the Blood Claw’s face. Halvar clawed at the splinters in his eyes and Lukas jabbed him in the midsection, hard enough to result in an explosive wheeze.

  ‘Now I’ve stolen your breath. What good are armoured lungs if there’s nothing in them? Go sit down.’ Lukas caught an awkward punch on his forearm and bent, driving his own fist into the side of the Blood Claw’s knee. There was a crack, and Halvar fell, howling, to join several others on the floor.

  Another leapt on Lukas from behind and yanked him off his feet. Lukas glanced at him, a tight grin on his face. ‘You look familiar.’ Pale and lean, with jutting, pointed features, he put Lukas in mind of one of the half-starved vulpids that prowled the high places of Asaheim. Lukas snapped his head back and was rewarded with a loud crack. The Blood Claw released him and stumbled away, his nose flattened. Lukas spun to face him. ‘Yes, definitely familiar. Perhaps I met your mother in another life.’ The Blood Claw gave a choked howl and leapt. Lukas dodged to the side. ‘Yes, I recognise those eyes. Are you one of mine, then? I have so many, it’s hard to keep track. What’s your name?’

  The Blood Claw wheeled about, eyes bulging. ‘Dag,’ he snarled. ‘I am Dag.’ Lukas ducked a looping blow and drove a fist into the young warrior’s abdomen. The force of the blow nearly lifted the aspirant off his feet.

  ‘Hello, Dag. I am Lukas.’ The Blood Claw reeled, trying to put some distance between them. Lukas padded after him, smiling. The other warriors – those still on their feet – drew back. They’d had their fun, and there was precious little glory to be won here. Best to let what came next decide it.

  ‘I take it back, Dag. You’re not one of mine. If you were, you would be able to take a joke.’ Lukas kicked the Blood Claw’s legs out from under him. He crouched over the warrior, took a handful of his hair, and very deliberately slammed his face into the floor.

  Lukas rose, a smile on his face. He looked around at the circle of injured and unconscious Blood Claws. ‘I trust I’ve made my point, pups. I am Lukas. And I am in charge now. If anyone disagrees, step up.’ No one did. Lukas nodded. ‘Good. I think we will get along well. I have much wisdom to impart.’ He wiped the blood from his hands onto his clothes. ‘Now… Where’s that drink?’

  Chapter Three

  THE SERPENT

  640.M41

  The Duke opened his eyes when the screaming stopped.

  The sound spiralled down into hoarse gurgles and then, finally, ceased. ‘Time?’ he asked, without rising. He glanced at the lithe body beside him on the bed and smiled in memory of the pleasures of the night before.

  His Sslyth bodyguard hissed something in his own tongue. The serpentine beast slithered into view, the ornate kabalite armour it wore over its narrow, not-quite-human torso rasping softly against its thick scales. A long-fingered hand – one of four – rested on the sculpted pommel of the falchion-like blade sheathed against the Sslyth’s undulating abdomen.

  The Duke smiled. ‘Two hours better than last time. Exquisite.’ He rose from his bed, stretching languidly. Muscles popped in pleasing ways, and Traevelliath Sliscus, late of Commorragh and its environs, chuckled in anticipation of the day to come.

  Sliscus shone with a cold and startling aura, his form restored to the height of perfection by a night spent indulging in the pleasures of pain. Proud of feature and lean of limb, he fancied that he was, in all ways, the epitome of his race, shorn of pretension and weakness. In him flowed the blood of
a lost empire and the wisdom of a race that had been old before the light of the first stars pierced the firmament.

  He studied himself in the reflective facets of one of the contorted crystalline figures that stood arrayed about his quarters. Similar expressions of shock and terror marred the narrow features of the statues. Unsurprising, perhaps, given the nature of the art in question. The glass plague turned its victims into living statues, and slowly enough that they could enjoy the experience. He examined his reflection, taking in his lean, vulpine features. It was important to ensure that no flaw marred his face, save by design.

  It wasn’t vanity. Or, rather, not merely vanity. Imperfection would be viewed as a weakness. Beauty, composure, these were the watchwords of strength. And only the strong survived to ply the Sea of Stars for as long as he had. He turned. ‘Is it dead, or merely exhausted?’

  The Sslyth glided towards the captive hanging from the wall of the bed chamber. A clawed hand wrenched the dangling head up by its bristly scalp, exposing slack, ruined features. A string of drool dripped to the floor from the zygo’s bifurcated jaws, and its ovoid eyes were empty of all awareness. The multi-armed ophidian hissed something. The Sslyth tongue was a deceptively complex language, consisting as it did of a limited vocabulary with innumerable possible inflections. Sliscus had a working knowledge of it, something few of his peers would even consider bothering with.

  He nodded idly. ‘Not dead, then, but its nerve endings are. Which means it is worse than useless for entertainment purposes.’ He gestured. ‘Make note of the time and see to its disposal, Sleg. Then fetch another for this evening’s entertainments.’

  Sleg bowed low, all four hands pressed flat to the deck, before rising and seeing to his task. The Sslyth was laudably efficient in the art of disposal. The ophidian and his coil-kin were coldly professional, unlike many of his followers. They could be relied upon not to get out of hand with his property, so long as they were allowed to indulge their simple-minded desires at a later date. Sliscus commended himself for his foresight in acquiring their services when the opportunity had presented itself.

  ‘Foresight,’ he murmured. ‘Forewarned, forearmed.’ He rubbed his cheek, feeling the smoothness of his flesh, knowing that it wouldn’t last. It was a constant battle to remain in fighting trim, out here in realspace. She Who Thirsts prowled at the edges of his consciousness, nibbling delicately at his soul and vitality. It seemed to require ever more effort with every passing cycle. The more he fed the need, the hungrier it became.

  But that was all part of the fun, wasn’t it? What good was immortality without challenge? What was life without danger?

  He heard the hiss of flesh against silk and the delicate rasp of metal. ‘Case in point,’ he murmured, turning. His courtesan was awake. The Lhamaean was a thing of chill beauty. A mane of amethyst hair draped her head and shoulders, bound into tight, serpentine locks by lengths of golden wire. Those wires were deadly sharp, he knew, the better to ward off unwelcome caresses. Her veins pulsed dark against pale flesh, and by the faint flush of her cheeks he could tell she had imbibed something while he was distracted. ‘Myrta,’ he said.

  She was on him before he could react, moving with a speed that was chemical in origin. The blade she held was a small, flat thing, easily concealable. Laughing, he slapped her hand aside with his palm. The blade skittered away. He lunged, catching her by the throat. He pivoted and sent her flying, back onto the bed. ‘Oh, very good, my lady. As close as you have ever come.’

  ‘Closer than you think,’ Myrta said. Her voice was a harsh rasp. Some toxin had scoured her vocal cords long before he acquired her services, roughening them to a brittle edge. She gestured, and he saw that the blade had kissed his chest before he disarmed her, scraping a dark line across his pectoral muscle.

  Blood trickled sluggishly from the thin wound, and he smiled as he felt the poison burn through his system. It was swift, but lacking in nuance. He dabbed at the blood and licked it from his fingers. ‘A piquant appetiser, dear lady, but not, I fear, at all satisfying. Not up to your usual standards at all.’

  ‘A new mixture,’ the courtesan said. She tossed the knife aside, embedding it in a wooden panel. ‘Subtlety sacrificed for speed.’

  Sliscus nodded. ‘Such is the story of us, from beginning to end. Still, a worthy try and another day of life earned.’

  ‘But not freedom.’

  ‘There is no freedom in this existence, my lady. Merely a choice of masters. And you could do worse.’ Sliscus smiled benignly and spread his long arms. ‘Now, bring me my walking robe, if you would be so kind.’

  The robe was a soft thing of sensual, shimmering colours, only some of which could be perceived by the mortal eye. It had been woven from the hair of some species long since exterminated by the barbaric mon-keigh. Its rarity made it even more pleasurable to own and display. Psycho-mesh armour lined its folds, providing discreet protection in the event of early-cycle assassination attempts, and the material itself was tougher than it looked.

  Thus clad, he left his quarters, his courtesan in tow. While Sliscus was content with his robe, Myrta had dressed herself in a suit of intricately decorated kabalite armour over a robe of nocturne-weave. It drank in the ambient light around them, draping her in permanent shadow and making his radiance seem all the brighter. A pair of matched Shaimeshi blades were sheathed on one hip, opposite a gilded splinter pistol.

  Slaves shuffled from their path, their cortical control implants clattering. The slaves were chosen without regard to race or gender, though they were colour-coded daily in anticipation of his whims. Today, their flesh was caked with a crimson dust scraped from the dry canal beds of some distant dead world. When mingled with perspiration, it produced a pleasingly pungent musk that accompanied the omnipresent odour of their fear.

  ‘I believe I shall take my repast in the gardens, Myrta. Would you care to join me?’ Though he phrased it as a question, they both knew it was anything but. Myrta was bound to his whims, whatever her own wishes. She had only the freedom he chose to give her. No more, no less. Only their long association allowed him to read the displeasure on her perfectly sculpted features, and he laughed all the way to the gardens.

  The pleasure gardens had been a gift – a bit of arcane technology salvaged from somewhere in one of the Dark City’s tributary realms. The discordant tiers were contained within a dimensional tesseract that occupied one of his ship’s non-essential holds. The artefact had been installed in his flagship by trusted artisans who had subsequently been mutilated in the traditional fashion and cast into the lowest gardens, taking the secret of its construction with them.

  It was a space within a space, and inviolate save by invitation. Sliscus had only extended that invitation to a handful of souls, many of whom were even now wandering the dark places of the gardens, lost to poppy dreams and chemical nightmares, their finery long since worn to ragged tatters. A never-ending party that swelled and subsided according to the whims of its host. He inhaled, drinking in the miasma of sweet suffering that inundated the gardens, and felt the ever-present pull of She Who Thirsts abate.

  He took a seat at his table among a grove of fungal trees, and eyeless slaves brought him his repast. Myrta stood behind him, alert for any sign of danger. One could never be too careful, even in one’s own home. He could hear the clash of weapons and the hum of music echoing from deeper within the collection of tiers. Packs of bestial khymeras ambled through a forest of prismatic vegetation, and flocks of razorwings and stab-beaks nested in the highest tiers. The air was thick with the pungent stink of life at its rawest, and he inhaled deeply, savouring it.

  Beneath it all, the systems of the Incessant Agony purred like a contented predator. His flagship was one of the original three cruisers he had claimed upon his self-imposed exile from the Dark City. He leaned back in his seat, indulging in a moment of delicious nostalgia. Port Carmine had shuddered at his departure, a
nd the flames had filled the false horizons – a celebration worthy of him. He had taken the vessels for his nascent fleet from three different kabals, all at the same time. A masterstroke that had crippled their ability to raid realspace and simultaneously earned him the well-wishes of the Kabal of the Black Heart and its lord and master, Asdrubael Vect.

  Even now, he wasn’t absolutely sure that the idea to depart in such a flamboyant manner had been entirely his. Vect was as subtle as a shadow, and wove a hundred schemes where a lesser mind wove one. Still, it had been Sliscus’ daring that accomplished the deed and won him an immortality that many craved but few achieved.

  And now, he was free. Free of the tedium of Commorragh. Free of the grind of kabal against kabal. Free to explore and raid as he saw fit. To indulge his every whim, without the worry that it might lead to later difficulties. He held out his goblet and a slave refilled it, whimpering slightly. He sniffed the liquid and took a deep swallow. Made from the oily secretions of an immature Galg, it had an invigorating effect, if one didn’t mind the occasional hallucination.

  Smacking his lips, Sliscus called up a star map from the hololithic projector built into the centre of the table. He could access all of his ship’s systems from the garden, if he wished. He had once conducted an entire raid from the warmth of a hot spring, overseeing operations even as he indulged in more intimate pleasures.

  A number of pre-selected worlds swam into view, haloed by slow crawls of pertinent information. None of it interested him. ‘Mon-keigh worlds have a dreadful sameness to them, don’t they?’ he murmured. Several of the selected worlds paid him a tithe in return for his protection. Others had refused. Sometimes he spared the latter and attacked the former, just for the fun of it. Once, he had even engineered a war between several worlds and worked for both sides, playing one against the other. It had been interesting, for a time. Then boredom set in, as it always did, and he destroyed both sides in a fit of pique.