Song (The Manhunters Book 1)

by Jesse Teller

“We wrapped everyone who died that day in silks,” Glyss said.

  Konnon winced. He had known it a bad idea when Glyss had commanded it done, but had not said as much. Glyss came from wealth. For him, it was no strange thing to wrap the dead in silk. But commoners like these were to be wrapped in sackcloth. The merchant might sleep a silk bed, but Konnon even doubted that.

  “Come in,” Blike said. He turned to Fale. “You will take these bodies to the city mourners. Let them be seen to by the brothers of the Cord. The rest of you, come in. I will have my man here unload what is left of the cargo.”

  Konnon wanted out. This was not going well.

  “I need to be on my way. I have a sick girl. I need the money owed to me so I can get her medicine.”

  Blike looked up at Konnon and stared. He closed his eyes and chewed on the words before he nodded.

  “Very well. Come in. Let me get you your money. Bind your horse in the front of the store and come on in. We will see to your payment straight away.”

  Konnon knew something was off about this but he could not tell what. He knew this a trap, and almost rode away, but he needed the money so bad.

  He entered the front door of the shop and was shoved aside by a boy running past. He watched him go and felt the sudden urge to pull his dagger and kill the boy. He held back, knowing it lunacy, and he walked into the shop.

  The door opened behind him and Glyss walked in. “Wouldn’t let me come in the back. Told me to wait out front until he could pay me.”

  “There is something off here. We need to go,” Konnon said. He could feel it now. The slight scratch that inched its way up his spine told him he was being snuck up on.

  “Bree needs us to stay,” Glyss said. “I won’t let you walk out on this. She needs that money and badly. Shake it off. Your instinct is wrong about this.”

  “When was it ever wrong?” Konnon spoke the words, then fell silent. He let the subject drift off. Glyss was right. Bree needed him to close this deal out. Konnon walked to the counter of the clothing store and banged on its top. “I need to leave,” Konnon said. “I need my money.”

  Glyss stood looking at a blue silk robe. He took it off the rack and threw it over his shoulder. He glanced at himself in a mirror and grinned.

  Konnon looked outside through the pane glass windows before storming to the front door and swinging it open. He scanned every direction outside, slammed the door closed, and walked to the counter again.

  “Konnon, slow down. We are fine,” Glyss said. “How does this work with my boots?”

  “I don’t give a damn about your boots, Glyss,” Konnon said. “We need to leave.”

  The door opened again and the boy ran back in. He rushed to the counter and back behind it to the back room. Konnon spun to the door as five city guards entered. Konnon felt his swords in his hands before he thought to put them there. Every guard ripped free a weapon and Glyss stepped between them all. He looked at Konnon.

  “Don’t. We won’t make it out of here alive.” Glyss cocked a thumb out the window where six more guards stood. Konnon turned to the counter, Blike standing there, buttoning on a red silk shirt.

  “What is this about?” Glyss said.

  “These men soiled a cart full of my silks. They failed to keep a valuable business partner alive, when they signed agreements to do just that, and they lost my most expensive wagon. I want them arrested and taken to Traders’ Court.”

  Konnon leapt the counter, and the merchant stepped forward and swung one solid fist. It impacted with Konnon’s head and sent him reeling. Soon guards were on him and his weapons were ripped from his hands. Konnon was shoved to his knees and he roared. He looked up at Blike, who smiled at him with that sly smile.

  The trial was a sham. Merchants and traders funded this court. The sons of merchants presided over it. It was an institution designed to fleece every coin out of the hands of the accused, designed to ruin men’s lives and create kings of commerce.

  Konnon and Glyss stood on a high platform overlooking the entire court. The tall railing wrapping the platform looked almost like the bars of a dungeon cell. Konnon looked at Glyss and he tried to be mad. He tried to summon up disdain, wanted to say many things, and claim over and over again he had been right. But when he looked at Glyss’s face, he lost all his rage. Glyss knew. He knew he had made too many missteps, too many bad decisions, and Bree was going to pay for it.

  The last case was pulled away, and the clothier appeared before the assembly on a platform standing in conflict to theirs. He turned to the judge.

  “Your honor, I bring you two men who have sought to ruin my quarter’s profits and cause disruption to my sales. I ask for your judgment to be swift and righteous, and for your fines to be heavy,” Blike said.

  A bored judge decked in royal blue robes and a strange black hat nodded and motioned with his hand. “Let’s hear it.”

  The merchant smiled. “These men signed contracts to bring my seven wagons into Song safely. They vowed to protect the cargo and bring it all to us in a manner that would allow us to sell our wares for a profit. What I got was six wagons, one weighed down with corpses wrapped in my silks. The lost wagon was a coin wagon worth over four hundred gold. I counted the money on the wagons that did come, and the numbers are light by about a dozen gold as well. I could not sell the soiled linens, and I am out one business partner who bought and sold for me across the nation and even into Ebu. These men have tried to ruin me, and I want compensation.”

  “What compensation would suffice?” the judge asked.

  “One year of servitude and two hundred gold,” Blike said.

  Glyss laughed. Konnon looked around him, seeing more guards than he could kill with his bare hands. But not many more.

  “What brings you to such laughter in my court, young man?” the judge asked.

  “This is ludicrous. We saved his silks from the Brothers of Blood, all of whom we killed and left in a puddle of mud. We got his silks to him, when we could have abandoned them, and we brought his business partner to him for a proper burial. All of these things we could have walked away from. The wagon was destroyed by the bandits, but the coffers were not short. Every coin we left with, we arrived with.”

  “Let us ask the ranking soldier of the expedition. Shall we?” Blike said.

  Konnon looked at the growing mob of merchants and traders. Men wearing fine clothes and jewelry pushed Fale up to the front.

  “What do you know of this matter, young man?” the judge asked.

  “Konnon Crillian threatened the master of the carts.” Fale looked about to be sick as he spoke the words. “He ordered us to leave the coin wagon behind and he commanded us put the dead in the silks. He left for the camp of the Brothers of Blood and came back with—”

  Konnon gritted his teeth and curled his hands into rocks. “I will crush your skull!” he shouted.

  “He came back with a chest filled with gold,” Fale said. He looked up at Konnon with an apology in his eyes and Konnon gripped the railing and roared. Glyss wrapped his arms around Konnon to hold him back and they both wept.

  Two more hours and many other men stepped forward. Some told of jobs Konnon had never worked, where shipments were damaged and things missing. They talked of his threatening nature and his arrogance. Glyss was heralded a hero. They spoke of his bravery and his charm. They spoke of his dire need to get any job finished that was set before him, and they spoke often of his father and what a fine businessman he was. They were all afraid of Brole Crillian, and they did not wish to rouse him.

  When it was all over, neither jail time nor even reparations were demanded of Konnon. It was fines. Fines were rained down upon him in numbers too great to imagine. Blike raved and shook his fist, but the judge had him thrown out. Glyss was found innocent of all charges, but the court had seen an opportunity to gouge Konnon. They decided to fill their own coffers with Konnon’s blood.

  Konnon was placed on a wagon outside the courthouse to go to a work camp
when a soldier pointed at him. “You get off my cart,” the man spat.

  “Why?” Konnon said.

  “Now!”

  Konnon jumped off the cart and was handed a bundle with his weapons, his leathers and his boots. He stared at them and up at the wagon as it pulled away, hauling miserable sots ruined by Traders’ Court.

  When the wagon pulled away, Konnon saw Glyss from across the road.

  Konnon turned into an alley, stripped the rags they had given him, and redressed.

  “I couldn’t save the gold we got off the Brothers of Blood, but I did get your gear,” Glyss said.

  “How?” Konnon asked.

  “Dad’s old friends. They paid off your fines and got you set free. They want to celebrate with a great party at father’s old business partner’s estate. I said we would be there.”

  “Tell them I said thanks, but I can’t make it,” Konnon said.

  “You can’t say no to this. These men just gave you back your life.”

  “What of the money that bastard owes me for getting his wagons to him safely? What about the money I earned killing all those bandits?”

  “We don’t earn money by killing people, Konnon. It’s not what we do,” Glyss said.

  Konnon curled his fists into knots and cursed.

  “Come to the party. You were raised in my household, you know how to work a party. Come and give thanks for them buying you out. When we are done, we will figure something out.”

  “I am not asking your father’s friends to—”

  “To save your daughter’s legs?” Glyss said.

  “Tiera would not want anything from them.”

  “Yes, my sister hated my father and his friends in the end. She ran off with you and broke every heart but yours. She vowed she would never take anything from them. But then she gave birth to Bree. Now, we work when we can. We do what we can, and we beg when we can,” Glyss said.

  Konnon nodded, but knew he would slip out as soon as he was not being watched. He had promised Tiera he would never take coin from them again, and he was not going to go back on that now.

  One Soul

  With the map memorized, Rayph cut his way through Song cleanly. He had stopped by the church of Cor-lyn-ber to talk with Dissonance, to talk to the men there. The young holy warrior had secured the church. Rayph now held command of every warrior and priest of Cor-lyn-ber within the city. They waited in their church for any sign of dire need from Rayph.

  Rayph walked the shadier districts, where a criminal element could be felt. He let them get a look at him and judge his intentions. Within minutes, a child approached him. The filthy urchin extended a hand to Rayph, and he took it. The wizard let himself be led through stinking alleys clogged with refuse, through burnt out buildings, gutted and stripped of every valuable, where the homeless huddled, whispering. Rayph walked through it all, until ducking under a low hanging doorway brought him into a littered courtyard, where dozens of men stood on a balcony surrounding the courtyard, bearing crossbows, sneering at him with derision. A gorgeous woman of about fifty stepped to the crumbling railing of the building before Rayph and stared at him.

  “Rayph Ivoryfist, the Hope of the Nation. You have come here at your own peril. Why penetrate my streets? Why worry my grounds? Do you come seeking something? Should I see this as a show of force?”

  “May I have the name of the one I speak with?” Rayph asked. “You know me, but I am at a loss for who you are.” The beautiful woman seemed a bit perturbed by this response, and she bristled slightly.

  “My people call me Meyen the Darkness.”

  “What do you wish me to call you?” He looked in her eyes, his death poised at her tongue. He sensed a presence here, a power beyond that which stood before him. Julius Kriss was near.

  Of course he would be, of course one of the world’s most notorious assassins would take the criminal element first. Rayph pulled magic to his aura only to feel it ebbing rapidly. There was a drain somewhere, a dampener that would make casting impossible. Could he even draw his sword? Could he summon the magic to rip open the plane that held his weapon? Rayph doubted it. He searched the faces of the cowled men above him, looking for Julius’s lean face in the crowd.

  “I wish no show of force against you, Meyen. I am not a show-of-force kind of wizard.”

  “Not much of a wizard at all right now, are you, Rayph Ivoryfist?” She chuckled, but something lived within the sound, some sort of fear she held barely in check. She was in over her head with Julius, and she knew it. Julius did not share power with a lesser mind. Meyen tapped her fingers gently upon the failing rail before her, a bit of a tremble to her hand.

  “What do we do now?” Rayph asked. “You have me here without my magic, but can your men pose a significant threat to me to warrant the loss of life you will suffer?”

  A figure stepped past the woman and pushed into the open air.

  Rayph held his fear in check as his eyes danced across Julius’s features.

  “The great Ivoryfist caught without his magic,” Julius said.

  A figure sauntered from behind him to lay a clawed hand upon the assassin’s shoulder.

  She stood nearly six feet tall, but he dwarfed her at nearly seven. Her skin was gray, splotched with large patches of white. Her tentacles, she wore at her throat. They cascaded down her breasts to drape to her waist, covering her chest and stomach. Her face was lean and spear-shaped with cat slit eyes that gleamed as if hungry. Her bladed tail languidly stroked her throat as she smiled at Rayph with needle sharp fangs.

  Julius’s face parted to a grin like the extracting claws of a panther’s paw. “How will you survive this, court wizard?” he drawled. “These men have you dead with their archery. My wife has you dead with her powers of possession, and I…” he slowly drew the thin blade from his shoulder and waved it before him, slicing a chunk of stone from the railing to fall and shatter to the flagstones beneath, “I can claim your soul with this blade.” The weapon shimmered and trembled slightly as it vibrated. It held the malice of a generation within its edge. Eager for blood, the sword possessed a singular vision, a brilliant mind, and a dark purpose.

  “You stole five years of my life, Ivoryfist, with that infernal prison of yours. I wish my years back.”

  Rayph felt the saliva dry in his mouth, making swallowing difficult. He slowed his breathing, calming his mind and bringing discipline to his thoughts.

  “Let’s make this interesting, shall we?” Julius said. He reached behind him, proffering the child who had escorted Rayph here. It was too filthy to determine a gender, but the streaming tears marked it terrified. Julius held the blade to the kid’s throat and laughed, a wicked sound that hurt Rayph’s heart.

  Rayph memorized the child’s face. He looked into its huge, terror struck eyes and his own tears rose within him. “You will be avenged,” he said to the child.

  “Oh no, Rayph, you’re not playing the game right,” Julius said. “Make promises to help the little bitch. Claim it will be all right, that you are a breath away from saving her. Do not give up so quickly.”

  Rayph could not hold back the tears trailing down his cheeks as he beheld the tear-streaked face of the girl. Rayph knew the blade, knew the properties of the weapon and the fate that awaited those it killed.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Rayph said.

  Slinter Kriss, the demon bride of Julius, laughed a dry, rasping sound that reminded Rayph of a rattlesnake’s tail.

  “There you go, Rayph. Now you’re playing right. Appeal to my merciful nature,” Julius said.

  “The child does not need to die.” The words inspired a chuckle from Julius, mimicked by Slinter and the men poised with crossbows looking down on him. He knew the words pointless, but had to try. “Take the life you hate,” Rayph said. “Wreak your vengeance on me, but let the child go. She doesn’t deserve this fate.” Hopelessness churned around him like the waves of some maelstrom.

  “How long has it been?” Julius said
. “How long, Rayph, since you saw the awesome, devastating power of this sword?”

  “Five years.” Rayph could suddenly hear again the screams of the dying woman Julius had killed and the smoking wreck that had been made of her. “I remember it well,” Rayph said.

  “I’m sure you do, wizard. I’m sure you do.” Julius looked to Slinter and nodded. The demoness disappeared into the shadows behind, leaving Julius on the balcony with the child alone.

  “You had this weapon in your vault for five years. Why, oh why, did you not destroy it when you could?” Julius said.

  Rayph swallowed, sweat trailing his back. “You know why, Julius.”

  “Tell me anyway, wizard. It punches home a point I mean to make.”

  “The destruction of that sword demands a sacrifice,” Rayph said.

  “A soul must willingly give itself to destroying this weapon. Why not do it yourself? Why not give yourself to the destruction of such a villainous device?”

  “I coul—”

  “You didn’t. You value your hide too much,” Julius said. “How about your friends? Surely one of them could be talked into destroying my sword.”

  “I would not allow it.”

  “Too precious to you?”

  “No soul deserves that torment.”

  “Oh, but, Rayph, you have ensured that many will, nonetheless,” Julius said. Slinter stepped from a door beneath the balcony, and Rayph stared at her as she approached.

  “Let her take you and I will release the girl,” Julius said. “Let her bind you and I will not kill the child. You will be killed by this blade instead. The great Rayph Ivoryfist will be sent to my tower in Hell to burn and suffer for eternity in place of this child.”

  Rayph knew he must choose. Could he take the girl’s place? Who would stand between Julius Kriss and the king? Who would face off against Black Cowl’s Stain? Slinter stomped forward, her mouth curled in a perverse smile. Rayph watched her approach as the fate of the child weighed heavy in his hands. She reached for him, but Rayph was faster. He gripped her wrist and spun her close. He wrapped a tight fist around her throat and jerked Fannalis from the sheath. The blade pricked her throat. Rayph hissed in agony and shoved her away as her sweat ate into his flesh, searing the skin, melting his prints from his hand.