A massive fire encompassed a circle of stakes, to which were tied four human sacrifices. They were not the first, already the dead numbered in the dozens, if not hundreds; but what churned Jim’s stomach more than this terrible scene, was that the slain had seemed willing, even eager to embrace a painful, flaming death.
Around the edges of the clearing more victims dangled at the ends of ropes; moments before, Jim had witnessed them place the nooses around their own necks, and jump off small ladders, to hang themselves. Many necks had broken with an audible crack, but a few had died slowly, kicking for what had seemed far too long a time. Jim had seen more than his fair share of public hangings in Krondor, but this was far more horrific than a criminal reaping his just deserts. This was a chilling display of self-sacrifice to evil. The howls lessened as the masochists finally began to lose consciousness and die.
As Jim watched, sickened, another score were impaled on wooden stakes, their blood and faeces filling the air with the unforgettable stench of death. Some of them quivered and twitched as their own weight drove the stakes deeper into their bodies. Others gave out only one death spasm before they hung on the stakes, motionless.
Jim saw nothing sane here. He turned his attention to the man standing on top of the tumbled down masonry, who held his hands up in a welcoming gesture. The man’s expression and bearing made Jim wish to turn tail and run away as fast and as far as he could. He had never seen this man before, but his description fit what he had learned from Pug of Sorcerer’s Isle and a Demon Master named Amirantha: The man on the stones above was Belasco; one of the most dangerous men alive, and certainly one of the maddest.
With a sweep of his hand, the domineering magic user conjured a mirage, a shimmering likeness that hung in the air above his head, one that made the mob at his feet cry out in supplication and awe.
The image was Dahun, and from what Jim had learnt over the last six months, the appearance of his likeness, almost as if he stood here in the flesh, meant that his servants were closer to opening a portal for him.
Dahun was twenty feet tall and roughly man shaped, but he also possessed a long black, scaled lizard’s tail, which descended from the base of his spine. His chest was massive and his stomach rippled with muscles under reddish skin that stretched from black at his feet and blended to crimson over his chest. His face was human, save for a massive, jutting lower jaw and large bat-like ears. His eyes were solid black orbs. Long tendrils of hair, braided with human skulls, hung to his shoulders. His brow was adorned with a massive golden circlet, set with a dark stone that pulsed with purple light. The fingers of his left hand ended in black talons and flexed restlessly, as if in anticipation of tearing his enemies apart. In his right hand he held a flaming sword. His hips were girded with a studded kilt, and two large leather bands crossed his chest with a massive golden emblem at their centre.
Jim spent a moment fixing the image in his memory. Then he glanced around and noted the slack jawed, empty eyed expression on the worshippers around him. It was clear they had been drugged in preparation for this ritual, so he attempted to mimic their shambling walk.
Feeling almost sick to his stomach, Jim steeled himself and slowly joined the people who were approaching the monster. Like them he wore a heavy black robe, but he had pulled the cowl forward to conceal his features. The original owner of the robe now lay at the bottom of a deep ravine less than a quarter mile away.
He shuffled his feet, moving slower than those around him to keep to the rear of the crowd; he wanted the opportunity to slip away easily should the need arise. He kept his hands inside the sleeves of his robe—one hand held a dagger treated with a fast-acting poison that would cause paralysis within a minute and the other a device which had been constructed for him by a master artificer in Krondor: a ball that when shattered would emit a blinding light for ten seconds, providing him more than enough time to get away. It would disable those around him for a few minutes, or at least the human onlookers, he couldn’t be certain that everyone in attendance tonight was like him.
Jim swallowed hard again and paused, forcing himself to confront the vision of the monster above him.
Belasco raised his hands again. Jim could easily see that the magic user was madder than a bug trapped in a bass drum. His demon projection was the most horrifying sight that Jim had ever witnessed, yet the magician was laughing like a delighted child. He was calling out to the faithful, but Jim wasn’t quite close enough to hear his words, only the tone of his voice.
Jim inched to the right as the followers in front of him continued their slow progression forward; the group was coming together at the centre of what had once been a fortress. Perhaps five hundred of the faithful had gathered. Jim glanced around; a sudden tightness in his neck had caused him to worry about who might now be behind him. It was a sense he had inherited from his great-grandfather, something the family called his ‘bump of trouble’. Right now it was starting to itch badly.
As he suspected, figures moved along the rocks that surrounded the flat central area of the ancient marshalling yard. The roaring fires at its edge made everything beyond their light difficult to see, but Jim had mastered the trick of not looking directly at the flames, and kept alert for flickering movement betraying those outside the light.
The name of this ancient Keshian fortress had been lost in time. Its walls and towers were mostly gone, crumbled like the masonry upon which Belasco stood, and only one underground entrance a few hundred feet away still led into its tunnels and caverns. Jim had no intention of entering that labyrinth. In his great-grandfather’s day it had been known locally as The Tomb of the Hopeless. Legend told that an entire garrison had been left to die in there. It once commanded the entrance to what was called the Valley of Lost Men.
Jim reoriented himself. To his right was a gap in the rocks that would grant him relatively fast access to a trail north: it was an abandoned caravan route that ended in the Keshian port city of Durbin. At the foot of these hills waited half a dozen of the deadliest thugs Jim could find. Five were cutthroats who occasionally worked for him in Durbin; the sixth was Amed Dabu Asam, his most trusted agent in the Jal-Pur desert region and the one he relied on to carry word back to Krondor should Jim not return by dawn.
To his left was an open expanse and then the sudden drop down of sheer cliffs. Only the gods knew what waited in the desolate valley below them, so should he have to bolt, Jim knew that he was certainly going to veer right.
He glanced around again, trying hard to look like just another devoted follower of the demon, mimicking the ritual movements of the others. He hoped his wary looks towards the archers hadn’t attracted attention. He sensed that other things would start happening soon, all of them bad.
For over half a year Jim had been trying to find the lair of The Servants of Dahun, a group of outlaws known to others as The Black Caps. He had decided to investigate this ancient fortress whilst poring over the many reports from his great-grandfather’s days.
Once home to a cult of fanatical assassins called the Nighthawks, the site had been considered abandoned for over a century. Obviously someone had decided that since no one was paying attention, it was time to reoccupy the fortress.
It was close enough to Krondor and the Empire city of Durbin to allow the murderous dogs quick and easy access, and remote enough that the chance of discovery was small. Jim had almost been killed twice, getting here, and now was counting the seconds of borrowed time that he had remaining.
He considered the tale of his ancestor facing down a cult of assassins here, with almost no help. Jim would take a fortress full of assassins over this mob of religious fanatics any day. The assassins might kill you, but at least it would be swift, but these lunatics would probably slow roast him over a fire and eat him.
Finally, Jim was close enough to hear Belasco’s words. ‘We are here to give blood and life to our master!’
As