Labyrinth. James Axler

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      Chapter One

      Ryan Cawdor gnawed the final, juicy gobbet of flesh from the boar rib, then tossed the bone over his shoulder to the pack of dogs prowling the rows of long tables. The resulting, savage combat was barely audible over the general din.

      The stone hall’s arched ceiling rang with the fiddles, squeezeboxes, trumpets and drums of a half-dozen, competing musical groups. It resounded with the clatter of knives on plates, the crash of shattering crockery, and from the far side of the room, with the scuffling, grunting chaos of a bare-knuckle brawl. The immense room was lit by bonfires roaring in massive fireplaces, torches burning in iron stanchions and candelabras spaced at intervals along the tables. Huge, faded tapestries draped the mortared walls. Dimly visible in the gloom overhead were strings of colorful pennants that hung from the high, wooden rafters.

      After wiping his fingers on the table linen, Ryan paused to scratch the thick welt of scar that split the left side of his face from brow to cheek, zigzagging beneath the black patch that concealed an empty eye socket. A servant in a stained leather tunic placed a heaping platter at his elbow. Char-roasted backstraps of venison beckoned.

      But first, something to cleanse the palate.

      Ryan hefted a discus of sweet potato pie. The crisp, buttery crust fractured in his hands as he raised it to his mouth. In three quick bites he ate half of it. The rest he chucked over his shoulder. Drawing his panga from its leg sheath, he speared a backstrap and settled down to serious work.

      It was gamy but good.

      It was all good. And the courses kept coming.

      Ryan ate like an animal, trying to satisfy a bottomless appetite. Though the food tasted delicious, it had no substance after he swallowed it. He had been eating for what seemed like hours, so long that his jaws ached from the chewing, and still his stomach felt hollow.

      He sat in a throne chair on a dais, slightly elevated above the other diners. Beside him on a less ornate chair was his lover and battle mate, Krysty Wroth. The color of her low-cut, emerald-velvet gown matched the color of her eyes, and set off the blaze of her long sentient red hair, which had retracted into a mass of eager coils around her face. Perspiration glazed the silky cleft between her breasts and her cheeks were brightly flushed, consequences of the hall’s sweltering heat.

      A wave of dizziness swept over Ryan, and he nearly passed out into his plate. He was so hungry he kept forgetting to breathe between bites. He forced himself to slow down and look up from the food.

      The others seated at his table had come a long way to join the party.

      From the far side of the grave, to be exact.

      Prince Victor Boldt, Baron Nelson Mandeville, Mashashige, Yashimoto, Captain Pyra Quadde, Baron Sean Sharpe, Cissie Torrance, Baron Tourment and Ryan’s misshapen brother, Harvey, had thrown off their shrouds and were again housed in living flesh.

      Despite the fact that Ryan had sealed their respective dooms, his old enemies seemed to bear him no grudge. They were in excellent spirits, gorging on the mounded banquet platters and drinking from steaming mugs of high-proof, buttered grog.

      At the surrounding tables, through the shifting clouds of smoke, he glimpsed less familiar, but recognizable faces, the cannon fodder of a hundred battles, sec men and mercies who had fallen to his blaster or blade. It was among these triple stupes that the brawl had broken out.

      Ryan was still pondering the puzzle of the party’s guest list when Harvey Cawdor got up from his chair. Death, it appeared, had shown him no more mercy than life: Harvey still had the cruelly twisted body he’d been born with. He hoisted his mug high in salute. “Here’s to Ryan Cawdor,” he cried, “the glorious hero of Deathlands!”

      Harvey shouted over the cheers. “Considering what he did to each of us, I think one thing’s safe to say—we should have kept an eye out for him.”

      The tired joke drew groans and boos. Boldt and Quadde pelted the deformed man with compressed wads of bread and bits of gristle.

      “And how about that panga?” Harvey crowed, undeterred. “Sure, long is good when it comes to blades, but isn’t eighteen inches overcompensating for something?” He waggled his pinkie finger at Ryan.

      A much better comedic effort.

      Encouraged by the coarse laughter of his audience, Harvey climbed to a precarious perch on the seat of his chair. He plunged a hand into his fly and unlimbered himself. “Here’s to brotherhood!” he cried, urinating in a broad arc across the banquet table, spraying and scattering the guests on the other side.

      “Judging from Little Harvey there,” Krysty remarked, “your knife must be a yard long.”

      Her jibe put the diners over the top. As they howled in glee, they pounded on the table with their fists and the pommels of their knives. Harvey was so amused he fell off his chair.

      Penis jokes and golden showers, normally grounds for bloodshed in Ryan’s world, raised no hackles this night. Everybody was having too good a time to take offense. The no-longer-dead hooted and backslapped one another as they reclaimed their places at the table.

      Servants brought fresh platters of roasted meats, and long trays of cakes and pies. As everyone got busy, fiddle, squeezebox and drum started up right behind the guest of honor’s throne.

      Krysty СКАЧАТЬ