The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  The Sombre Men would forgive him. The skin-scribes would erase his crimes. The stonesingers would carve his deeds on towering obsidian stelae. And he’d be a hero again, this time for ever.

  So why did he feel bad about it?

  A door opened ahead of him. Hurrying footsteps. A light approaching.

  He was caught in the open, halfway down a corridor, and the stranger was coming too fast to find good cover. Next to him was a door in a recessed alcove. He tried it, but it was locked and he had no time to pick it. Instead he pressed himself up against the stone of the alcove and went still.

  She came towards him on soft feet: a girl, by her breath and the weight of her. She moved with haste, late for something, or on some urgent errand. What was she doing here, in these abandoned parts? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she wasn’t allowed to raise the alarm.

  Grub drew his dagger, the blade whispering against the sheath.

  The light brightened as the girl passed him. She was plump, with blonde hair in a long braid, her cheeks flushed and her eyes fixed forward. In her hurry she didn’t see him, and she headed off and up the corridor.

  Then, suddenly, she came to a halt.

  Grub gripped his dagger harder, his muscles tensing, ready to spring. If she turned, she’d spot him.

  If she turned, he’d kill her.

  She was looking down at the floor, her lantern held up for a better view. Grub followed her gaze and saw what had stopped her.

  Water. Fat spatters of water in a trail along the stony floor. Coming from ahead and leading away behind her. Leading to Grub.

  He heard the change in her breathing. There was fear now, the fear of strange things happening in dark places. Perhaps she sensed his eyes on her. Perhaps she felt some premonition of his hand clamping round her mouth, his blade piercing her back.

  If she turned …

  He saw her shoulders hunch. A child afraid of phantoms, suddenly vulnerable in the dark. She dared not look behind her, dreading what she might find there. Whatever that water meant, she didn’t want to know. She hurried off down the corridor and never turned.

  And so she lived.

  Grub put his knife back in its sheath and waited till she was gone. Then he emerged from the alcove and walked away.

  He counted doors until he reached the one he wanted. It wasn’t locked. Peering through, he found a grey room, stark and empty in the moonlight, with a rumpled bed of rugs and ram-skins laid in the corner.

  The air swam with the smell of sex. Grub leered as he realised why the girl had been down here. A secret tryst before heading back to her duties. Where was her partner, then? Gone another way, with luck. Otherwise they might find themselves on the point of his dagger.

  He crossed the room and found another door there. Cold air blew in around the edges. It was locked, so he knelt down and picked it, alert for movement behind him.

  The hall beyond was open to the sky, the stars glittering overhead. Tantera hung high above, with Lyssa beside her. One wall was mostly in ruins, with scaffolding all along its length. Through an archway, Grub could see another hall in even worse repair, the walls held up with iron props.

  The scaffold was an easy climb for someone of Grub’s rare talent. When he got to the top, he manoeuvred himself out onto the broken wall. Hammerholt towered overhead, enormous in its might. All around, the jagged tips of the Catsclaw Mountains shone like frozen waves in the moonlight. He crouched there, the wind chilling him in his wet clothes, and sniffed back a runnel of watery snot.

  He’d lived in Ossia longer than he’d lived in his homeland. Funny to think about that. Neither country had been kind, but Ossia, at least, hadn’t rejected him. From this vantage point, he could see for leagues about, and it brought an odd contentment.

  Winter would come soon, but here in Ossia there’d be no deadly blizzards of ice shards, no fanged predators raiding the villages, no sacrifices to the blood-witches. Ossia was a gentle place compared to the land of his birth. For the first time, he began to wonder why he was so keen to go back.

  He shrugged off the thought with a grunt. There was work to be done. He wiped his nose with one wet sleeve and looked up. Several stories above him was the window he wanted.

  Maybe he hadn’t killed an ice bear. Maybe he hadn’t ambushed a shipload of Boskan smugglers. But nobody could climb like he could.

  He flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders. Time to earn another tattoo.

  93

  The dungeon was quiet and all but empty, far from the celebrations on the floors above. The only sounds were the prisoner shifting in his cell, and the steady snap of the jailor’s cards as he played One-Up with himself next to a glowing brazier.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  He sat at the head of a short, shadowy corridor with several cells running along one side. Various doorways led off it, leading to a privy, a storeroom, and a small torture chamber which was nevertheless large enough to accommodate great magnitudes of pain. The prisoner was in the cell at the end, slumped in the shadows.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  The jailor was a thickset man with a flat, broken nose, his hair shaved to disguise the fact that he was losing it. He scooped up the two piles of cards, shuffled them together and started turning them again.

  Snap. Snap.

  An animal whine and a scratch at the door made him look up. He put down his cards and made his way over to investigate. The door was thick wood reinforced with iron, with a barred window at face-height. As he was about to look through, a hound’s face appeared there, grey and lean and bearded like a ragged old man. Standing on its hind legs, it was taller than he was.

  Ruck woofed in a friendly manner.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ said the jailor. ‘Where’s your master?’

  Ruck’s tongue lolled and she panted. The jailor put his hand up to the window, and she sniffed and licked it. He was pleased with that.

  ‘Anyone out there?’ he called, but the corridor was empty. ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Lost, are you? All kinds running around up there, eh? Surprised you didn’t find your way to a feast.’

  He took out his keys and unlocked the door. ‘Come on in, then. It’s warmer in here and you’ll make better company than my prisoner. Better conversation, too, I reckon.’

  Ruck dropped away from the window as he opened the door, but she didn’t come in. Instead, she loped off up the corridor to the T-junction at the end and looked back with a whine.

  ‘You coming in or not?’ the jailor demanded.

  Ruck whined again. A look of dawning comprehension crept over the jailor’s battered face.

  ‘Something you want to show me?’ he asked.

  Ruck barked.

  The jailor sighed and looked over his shoulder at the prisoner. His legs were visible; the rest of him was hidden in a fold of dark.

  ‘Sorry. Ain’t supposed to leave my post,’ he said.

  Ruck barked again, with dumb insistence. The jailor rolled his eyes. ‘Just to the corner, then. I ain’t going further than that.’

  He lumbered up the corridor to Ruck, but as soon as he came close, she barked and darted out of sight.

  ‘Oi, come on!’ the jailor groaned as he turned the corner after her.

  Standing there, bow drawn and an arrow aimed at his chest, was Fen. The jailor stared at her in blank surprise as Vika lunged from the shadows behind him and clamped a wadded rag over his nose and mouth. The paint on her face had smeared and run, turning her into something primal and horrific, a fearful demon from an elder age. The jailor gave a muffled cry and shoved back against her, crashing her up against a wall; but Vika was tough as a root, and she held firm until his eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the floor.

  Fen lowered her bow as Aren emerged from an alcove behind her, his sword ready in his hand. Cade, Harod and Orica came with him. Cade squatted down by the jailor and prodded him in the nose with his forefinger.

  ‘That’s incredible!’ he said. ‘Is he asleep?’
/>   ‘He is unconscious,’ said Vika, ‘and will remain so for some hours.’

  ‘All because he smelled that potion?’

  ‘It’s remarkable what a few herbs and a little woodcraft can achieve.’

  The druidess was being modest. Aren knew she’d spent hours preparing her potions in the safehouse, locked away with her strange rituals. He’d seen the orders she’d sent to the city herbalist, calling for rare ingredients she usually collected by hand. Vika’s art paled in comparison to the sorceries of the Second Empire, if the legends were true, but there was power in her concoctions far greater than any apothecary could muster.

  Aren took the keys from the jailor’s belt. He was glad they hadn’t needed to kill him. Krodan or not, he was just doing his job.

  ‘Lock him in a cell,’ he told the others as he hurried towards the dungeon, his sword in his hand and excitement in his step. He knew it was selfish and silly, but he wanted his face to be the first Garric saw. He wanted him to know who’d rescued him.

  ‘Garric?’ he called as he entered the dungeon. The light from the brazier made it hard to see to the back and he passed several empty cells before he saw the figure stirring in the last one. ‘Garric, is that you?’

  The prisoner surged clumsily to his feet, his hands gripping the bars. When Aren reached him, there was a look of such disbelief and amazement on his face that Aren could do nothing but grin breathlessly. Neither of them knew what to say. He was tattered and sallow, wearing roughspun prison garb, his hair and beard shaved off; but he was here, and alive!

  ‘How?’ he managed eventually, looking Aren up and down. Aren was still sodden, his clothes sticking to him in places.

  ‘That’s a long story,’ Aren said. Then, because he couldn’t think of anything else: ‘Are they keeping you comfortable in there?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Let’s get you out, then.’

  Aren unlocked the cell door and pushed it open as the others came up behind him, dragging the unconscious jailor. Garric moved to the door of the cell. His features looked all wrong without his hair and beard to frame them, and the deep scar across his throat was stark and repulsive, but his eyes were as fierce as ever. In a rush of relief, Aren stepped forward and hugged him hard.

  Garric’s hiss of indrawn breath sent him stepping back quickly, uncertain whether he’d overstepped the mark. Then he saw the new scars peeping out from the collar of Garric’s shirt and his torn sleeves; the raw, seeping pads where the fingernails of his left hand used to be; the weary, injured way he held himself.

  ‘They cut you where it won’t show,’ Garric said, his voice low and grim. ‘Cut you, and worse. Wouldn’t do their image good to have my face all bruised up when the crowd come to see me hang.’

  ‘They tortured you?’

  He grinned. There were two teeth missing on the right side. ‘They tried,’ he said. ‘Reckon Klyssen would have loved to keep me longer, but the powers that be want me in a noose before the princess arrives. I gave them nothing.’ He spat it with furious pride.

  The others had crowded up behind Aren in the corridor. Aren unstrapped Garric’s sword from his belt and held it out. Garric took it, turning it this way and that, studying it as if it were something unfamiliar.

  ‘Keel?’ he asked.

  ‘We don’t know. He’s gone.’

  Vika stepped up beside Aren. ‘Are you ready to take back the Ember Blade, Garric?’

  ‘You’re going to steal the Ember Blade?’ Garric asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course,’ said Aren, puzzled. ‘Weren’t you?’

  His gaze fell on Aren. ‘And all this was your idea, I take it?’

  ‘Mine and Mara’s,’ he said, suddenly worried he’d done something wrong.

  But there was pride, not anger, in Garric’s eyes. ‘Shades, I’d never have believed it,’ he said quietly. ‘If Ossia has more like you, let her enemies beware! It’s almost enough to give a man back his faith.’

  Happiness filled Aren like the light of a dawning sun. To win such praise from a Dawnwarden, from Garric, made him feel invincible! He fought to keep the smile off his face. ‘Almost?’ he asked mischievously.

  ‘Aren!’ It was Fen, from the dungeon doorway. ‘Men coming! A lot of them, in armour!’

  Aren was serious again in an instant. ‘Move!’ he snapped. ‘We can’t face them here, we’ll be trapped!’

  They were quick to obey, leaving the jailor on the floor as they ran for the door. Aren turned to Garric, brusque now, all business. ‘Can you fight?’ he demanded.

  ‘Against Krodans?’ Garric drew his sword and let the sheath clatter to the floor. ‘Always.’

  94

  Mara picked up an ivory trebuchet from the castles board and hovered it over the battlefield, pretending to dither. Across from her was the Master of Keys, wearing a smugly indulgent smile on his face. She had his measure entirely. He was monotonously aggres­sive and easy to predict. With a swift break for the high ground and her knights sweeping in from the side, she could ruin him.

  ‘There are so many factors to consider, aren’t there?’ oozed the Master of Keys. ‘It’s enough to muddle anybody. Do take your time.’

  Taking her time was exactly what she was doing. She agonised over every action, feigning indecision. She picked up pieces and put them down again, humming and hahing all the while. The master endured it all with the patience of a father teaching an infant, having been confident of victory from the very first move. As long as he was beating her, he was content.

  ‘Tactical and logical thinking, remember?’ said the master as she wavered again. ‘Now imagine having to do this every day. That is what it takes to be a Master … forgive me, a Mistress of Keys.’

  He gave a knowing glance to one of his companions, a moustachioed young Krodan called Tallen. Several more people were observing the game. One, an Ossian, had brought his wife to watch, too. Some were supposed to be feasting, but they wanted to see how this turned out. Men enjoyed a wager, even if it was only pride at stake, and Mara’s challenge had intrigued them. She guessed that no one would be sad to see the master lose – everyone liked to see a braggart taken down a peg – but it would be equally satisfying to see a mud-headed woman with delusions of grandeur learn the error of her ways. It was win-win, as far as they were concerned.

  She looked over the board. Her pieces were few, and getting fewer. If she lost many more, she wouldn’t be able to win the game, and she’d delayed him a good while already. She could begin to fight back by moving her trebuchet to that hill, overlooking the river of counters which divided the board.

  She moved it backwards instead, withdrawing it to defend one of the two castles she still held.

  ‘Ah! A defensive move. Very wise,’ said the master. ‘But perhaps you did not see how it leaves your eagle exposed to my assassin, thus?’ He slid his piece across the board and tapped it against her eagle.

  ‘Well, we must all make sacrifices,’ she said, with a tight smile.

  It was good that she’d had a few glasses of wine. She’d need a couple of bottles later to wash away the shame. Sacrifices? She’d made more than her share. A lifetime’s potential sacrificed on the altar of Krodan belief. Her genius smothered, her voice silenced, her only great contribution to the world credited to her former lover. So many times she’d bitten her tongue, bowed her head, dimmed her light so as not to outshine a man. And now she was forced to do it again. For Grub’s sake. For the cause.

  ‘Might I suggest reinforcing your left flank? You’re rather exposed there,’ said the master helpfully.

  ‘So I am!’ she said in mock surprise. ‘Thank you for your advice. Hmm … Perhaps a swordsman would bolster my forces?’

  ‘Ah …’ The master sounded uncertain.

  ‘You have another idea?’

  ‘Have you considered that the giant might offer better protection?’

  ‘Of course he would,’ said Mara. ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for telling me how to pla
y my own pieces against you, you patronising bastard.

  ‘Here, allow me.’ He reached across the table and moved her piece for her. It was all Mara could do not to slap him.

  ‘I see,’ was all she could manage, almost choking on her rage.

  ‘Now … Ha ha! I seem to have stymied my own next move!’ he chuckled. ‘There’s a giant in the way now! I’d better think again.’

  ‘Don’t despair. There is a way through every barrier.’

  ‘Oh, not every barrier,’ the master replied. ‘Otherwise I’d have no job!’

  ‘I must disagree. Surely there must be someone out there clever enough to get through your mysterious vault door.’

  ‘You are worried about thieves, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, the Ember Blade is quite a target, and I’ve heard Ossians have a rebellious streak. Look at Salt Fork.’

  ‘Salt Fork! Ha! The average Ossian can’t get on with his neighbour long enough to borrow a pair of shears! Present company excluded, of course,’ he added, nodding to the Ossians in the audience.

  ‘No need to apologise, Jarrit. You’re quite right,’ said Lord Hewit, a lanky man with a sharp nose. ‘Weak stock, that’s what this country has. No discipline or willpower in the common folk. Half of them are barely better than animals. Only bloodlines worth a damn are the nobility.’

  Mara was finding it increasingly difficult to contain herself. She wanted to rain righteous truth down on these insufferably superior fools. She met the eyes of the only other woman present, Lady Hewit, a raven-haired Ossian who’d once been swan-necked until age loosened her skin. Did she feel as Mara felt? Did she burn inside daily at the injustice?

  ‘Still,’ she said, returning her attention to the master, ‘if you can open the door, is it not possible someone else could?’

  ‘Not without the key. There is only one, and I keep it safe.’

  Mara’s face was a picture of innocent puzzlement. ‘But you said there was no key?’

  ‘My lady, I said there was no keyhole.’ He absently moved a piece and took her other eagle. ‘There is, however, a key, if not in the conventional sense.’