The Skull Beneath the Crown

From the beginning, things felt off. The bar smelled awful. The man who told him of the job seemed scared. “Find the skull hidden by the Crown.” The crowd was thick with strangers- a large hooded man sat alone in the back. It didn’t matter. The sack of coin was fat and more was promised.

A courier for the Crown delivered coordinates. A king’s man was listening. The king’s man worked for the thief. The thief found him dead. A guard saw him leaving. He went beneath the city, where it was ancient- where he could hide.

He used contacts above to find the courier- agony spiders to extract the coordinates. An island on no map.

He dragged the courier to the captain and paid for a ship. They left that night. A large hooded man stood watching from the dock. They sailed three days past the edge of the map- into the fog. The island approached. Abandoned vessels littered its shoreline. The courier prayed.

They dropped anchor. The thief and courier took the dinghy. Splashes. “Must be sharks, row quickly.” Past the fog, the beach. Behind them, the captain screamed. More splashing. The thief drew his blade. “Row faster.”

He pulled the courier to the back of the dinghy, away from a serpentine shape cutting the sea. A nightmare head lingered above the fog and water then dove under and flipped them. The courier and thief swam for shore. The thief held onto his blade.

The courier crawled to the beach. The thief’s head rose from the water- then vanished. A slash to the beast’s face. It released his leg. Blood clouded the sea. Massive fins circled. He swam through blood, locked his arm around the beast’s neck and cut- sawed and hacked. The thrashing stopped. He surfaced. He reached the shore. The courier was gone.

The thief limped into the jungle, following the courier’s trail. He had the coordinates. His compass still worked. Shapes shifted behind trees. On his path lay rusted armor from the Crown’s infantry- bones eaten away.

The canopy opened. A waterfall. He climbed around its base, then inched behind it- blade in hand. Lit by a single torch, a shallow cave strewn with religious relics. A rock struck his chin. He fell. The courier now held his blade.

He stood before a small door- holy symbols engraved across its surface. The torch blew out. A shadow whipped through the cave. The courier’s bones smashed against the wall. The shadow stood still. An awful scent. A large man- face hidden beneath a hood. He stepped near the door, the engravings began to glow. The relics scattered.

He gestured.

The thief opened the door and removed the skull from within. Armageddon flashed through his mind. Famine. Blood. Desolation.

The hooded man tossed a sack of coin at the thief’s feet then held out his hand.

The thief gave him the skull.

The large man lowered his hood, placed the skull between his headless shoulders and left.