Plague of Shadows

by Michael Wisehart

  It was a battle to keep his eyes open as he sat there. A few hours here and there was all he had managed to claim over the last couple of weeks. In fact, he hadn’t had a full night’s rest since his capture in Rhowynn months earlier. He longed to be back home. To see his sister’s smile. To stoke the coals of his forge and strike the hammer on the anvil.

  He jerked awake. How long was I out? He pinched his leg to try clearing the grogginess, then glanced at his companions. Still asleep. Myron had turned over on his side, which had apparently stopped the snoring.

  Something rustled off to the right near the front of the barn, and he turned, slowly. He listened, waiting to see what it was. Possibly mice.

  He waited a while longer, but nothing happened.

  He yawned and shook his head. Got to stay awake. The temperature was dropping, leaving his hands shaking and fingers numb, so he tucked them under the blanket and leaned his head back against the stable door. The rain had stopped, and the faint, pale light stemming from the window at the side let him know the clouds were breaking.

  Suri fidgeted in her blankets, drawing his attention. She cuddled in a little closer under Rae’s arm. He envied the warmth their bodies shared. He bit down to keep his teeth from chattering as his eyes once more began to droop.

  A door hinge creaked, and this time, he came fully awake.

  Faint whispers from the front of the barn had him turning his head once again, careful not to make any sudden movements and alert whoever was there that he was awake. Ferrin’s sword was resting with the other weapons against the back wall on his left, between Myron and Rae. He couldn’t reach them without being spotted, so he slid the stone dagger from its sheath at his waist.

  He stiffened at the sound of approaching steps. A flash of movement to his left let him know that Myron was awake as well.

  “Their saddlebags are empty,” someone whispered.

  “They must have the coin with them.”

  By now, the purse snatchers were close enough for Ferrin to make out their silhouettes against the moonlight. He counted six, maybe seven. Two against seven. Not good odds, especially when those two were barely able to stand from a lack of sleep. The only hope they had was the element of surprise.

  Ferrin jumped to his feet, his adrenaline pumping, and shouted at the top of his lungs, hoping to startle the men long enough to gain an advantage.

  It worked—perhaps a little too well. His sudden outburst scared Rae and Suri so badly, both of them screamed on top of it.

  The men froze as Ferrin dove headfirst into the middle. He plunged his knife into the first man’s chest as he went by. The man barely had time to cry out before Ferrin barreled into the next and opened his throat. A familiar gurgling sounded as he, too, fell.

  The barn erupted into chaos. Men shouted and cursed as the sharp sting of the stone dagger pierced their flesh. The darkness was working in Ferrin’s favor as the men began attacking each other, unable to see who was attacking them.

  Myron flew by on Ferrin’s left, barely missing Ferrin’s head as he swung at one of the men. Ferrin danced to the right to keep away from the captain’s sword.

  A torch burst to life near the front doors, scattering shadows across the barn and revealing the gruff faces of their attackers. The flash of light almost blinded Ferrin. He covered his eyes and looked away, but not before one of the men lunged.

  Ferrin dove right, slamming against a stall door, barely managing to keep from getting skewered. His fingers were having a hard time gripping the stone blade because of the cold. He spun and deflected the man’s sword into the door beside him. It stuck, and Ferrin used that time to slit his attacker’s forearm.

  The man shouted and released his weapon, and Ferrin finished him with a quick thrust to the neck.

  Four left.

  Myron cried out on the other side and went down, one man holding him while the other stabbed him in the side. Two more turned to help finish him, but Ferrin grabbed the man he’d just killed and threw him into the pack. The weight knocked all four backward and away from Myron.

  Myron rolled over and rammed his sword upward into the midsection of the closest man. The attacker tumbled forward and landed on top of him. Neither moved.

  Ferrin rushed the three remaining men. He yanked Myron’s sword from the dead man’s chest and swung at the man on the left. The man raised his sword to block, and Ferrin buried the stone blade in his chest while his attention was diverted.

  Two more.

  He backswung on the second attacker, but the man proved decent with a blade and blocked the attempt, forcing Ferrin to jump back to keep from getting his head lopped off. The man kicked Ferrin in the side, and he stumbled backward.

  Seeing their chance, the two remaining men rushed him.

  He blocked the first and sidestepped the second, but they managed to corner him against the stalls. Ferrin was a decent swordsman, but not in his weakened condition, and not against these odds. One of the men thrust, and Ferrin blocked with his sword, but while his weapon was occupied, the second swung a club at his head. Ferrin raised his arm. The club missed his head, but he heard the bone in his arm snap.

  Ferrin screamed, the pain so intense his entire left side went numb. He ducked to miss a second strike, dove to the left, and tumbled over a pile of hay.

  “It was a valiant effort,” the man with the sword said as he raised it over his head to finish Ferrin off.

  For a split second, Ferrin was almost relieved. At least now I’ll finally get some rest.

  Suddenly, a blade punched out the front of the man’s shirt, and he spat blood. He had just enough time to look down at the blood-soaked tip before his eyes closed and he collapsed. Rae stood behind him, her face so calm, Ferrin found it disturbing.

  The last of their attackers made a quick dash for the doors, pushing the hooded figure with the torch out of the way.

  “Wait! Where are you going, you coward?!” the torch wielder shouted.

  Layna.

  “They’re all yours,” the man called back.

  The taverner took one look at Ferrin and ran out the doors after him.

  Ferrin started after her, but Rae grabbed his injured arm, and he nearly emptied his stomach at the pain. She spun him around and pointed at Myron. She was right. They had more important things to worry about. He followed her over to where their comrade lay bleeding beneath one of their attackers.

  Ferrin pulled the dead man off, and Rae lifted Myron’s shirt, laying her hands on the wound. The familiar lavender glow spread from her fingers and bore down into the open wound, lancing into the surrounding muscle. Myron gasped and then slowly exhaled. Ferrin was all too familiar with the feeling.

  The light faded from Rae’s hands, and she was on her feet, heading to the back of the barn where Suri was waiting, curled in a ball under her blankets.

  “That . . . That was . . .” Myron stared wide-eyed at the healed wound in his side. “Incredible. I’ve watched her do that to you more times than I can count,” he said, looking up at Ferrin. “But I never thought to experience it myself. It was like icy—”

  Someone shrieked near the back, and both men turned to find Rae pushing her body weight onto the pommel of her sword to shove the blade into a body that wasn’t already dead. The man moaned and went still. Ferrin and Myron watched with astonishment as she pulled the blade out of the man’s back and moved to the next to repeat the process.

  Ferrin glanced at Myron. Myron looked like he was going to be sick.

  Ferrin cleared his throat and looked at Rae. “As soon as you finish making sure everyone’s good and dead, would you mind fixing my arm?”

  Rae ignored him until the last man had been thoroughly impaled, then she walked over, handed him the bloody sword like nothing had happened, and grabbed his arm.

  Ferrin yelped as the icy chill rushed in. The pain eased, eventually disappearing altogether. “Much better,” he said as he moved it around to make sure it worked properly.

&
nbsp; “So much for us finally getting some sleep,” Myron groused as he pulled himself up to his feet with a little help from the stall door. “Is it really so much to ask for one single night’s rest?” The horse in the stall looked at him and nickered as if he agreed.

  Ferrin chuckled and started sifting through the dead men’s belongings. “At least we can use some of their clothes. Not much in the way of coin, though. Barely five coppers between the lot.”

  “Better pack our stuff and be on our way,” Myron said. “As fast as Layna tore out of here, I wouldn’t doubt her coming back with the rest of this sorry excuse for a town behind her.”

  “They’re back.”

  Both men turned at the sound of Suri’s voice. She was still curled up in her bedding, sitting with her back against the wall.

  Ferrin grabbed his knife and turned to look at the doors. There was no one there. “Who’s back?”

  Suri raised her hand and pointed up.

  Ferrin followed her gaze to a small window hidden high in the rafters.

  A gruff Caw! rang out as the enormous bird spread its dark wings and flew off into the night.

  Chapter 46 | Lyessa

  “YOU HEARD ME, ladies, I want to see you spread those feet.”

  Lyessa glanced over her shoulder at the other two. She couldn’t help but chuckle as Darryk smacked Fraya’s left leg with his position stick, eliciting a wide-eyed look of embarrassment from the raven-haired young woman as the weapons master struggled to get her legs into a proper fighting stance.

  Adarra, standing opposite of Fraya, nearly tripped and fell for the third time as she maneuvered into position—left leg forward, slightly bent, and right leg behind, angled outward.

  “Right,” Darryk said, sounding like one of her father’s sergeants as he smacked his stick across the thick of his palm. “Back to your starting positions, and let’s try that again, shall we?” Darryk was certainly enjoying his role. It had been a long time since he’d been a commander in the Sidaran Lancers. He was a natural leader and an even better instructor.

  “Whose idea was it to do this, anyway?” Adarra griped, struggling to catch her breath.

  “Yours,” Fraya snorted.

  From what Lyessa had learned about her new friends over the last couple of weeks, Fraya spent a great deal more time working outdoors than Adarra. Adarra tended to spend most of her free time wading through mounds of books while reclining in a firm rocker. The difference showed. Fraya was winded, but Adarra looked ready to collapse.

  “You need to be able to defend yourselves,” Lyessa said. “When a battle breaks out, you can’t always rely on the men. And since neither of you has a lick of combat magic, it’s about time you learned how to handle a proper weapon. From now on, I want you over here at least four days a week. You will learn hand-to-hand combat, and from there we will move on to weaponry and tactics.”

  “We aren’t lancers, Lyessa,” Fraya said, rolling her eyes as she attempted to perform a simple snap-kick that would have been lucky to reach her opponent’s knee. “We’re women. We can’t be expected to fight like men.”

  “This is hopeless,” Adarra groaned as she shuffled her back leg to move to the second position Darryk had shown them earlier. “I saw the way you fought those Northmen. It was amazing. But let’s be honest,” she said, stopping long enough to look at her footwork and throw her arms out in exasperation. “I could never do that.”

  “Yes, you can.” Lyessa was having a difficult time instilling encouragement. “When I first started, I wasn’t any better than you—”

  “Worse, even,” Darryk added with a humph, his eyes smiling where his mouth dared not.

  “Hey!” Lyessa glared.

  Darryk crossed his enormous arms over his barrel chest. “The point is, ladies,” he said, “that I plan on taking what the Creator has seen fit to bless you with and turn it into something dangerous. By the time I’m done with you, if a man so much as looks at you the wrong way, you won’t cower in fear. Instead, you will spend those precious moments trying to determine which of thirty-six ways you know to field-dress him and mount his head over the hearth as a trophy.”

  Lyessa blinked a couple of times, grimacing at the visual image, then turned and glared at him.

  Darryk cleared his throat. “Forget the head-mounting. The point is, I’ve been tasked with giving you the tools you’ll need to help keep you safe. And by thunder,” he said with another smack of the position stick to his palm, “that’s what I intend to do. Now move back to position!”

  From the looks on their faces, Adarra and Fraya had never been as relieved to shed their clothes and crawl into a hot bath as they were at that present moment.

  The steam from the tubs swirled around the room like a summer fog, clinging to Lyessa’s skin, helping to ease the burn of another hard session of training.

  “Lyessa!”

  Lyessa turned to find her friends staring at her naked figure. She suddenly felt embarrassed. She wasn’t sure why. They were as naked as she was.

  Fraya pointed at her. “What happened to your . . . your—”

  “Your whole body!” Adarra blurted out as she scanned Lyessa from top to bottom. Adarra was clearly not one for beating around the bush. It was actually rather refreshing. Those in Lyessa’s circle rarely said what they meant. They always seemed to have a hidden agenda behind everything they did.

  The two girls walked over and began a thorough examination of the damage, their fingers tracing each raised mark.

  “Darryk and her father is what happened to my precious little one,” Gina said, emptying a bucket of hot water into one of the three brass tubs. Lyessa’s nanny frowned at the scars.

  The two girls gulped at the same time, no doubt realizing what awaited them in their training. Neither said a word as they made their way over to their respective tubs.

  “Oh, don’t get your knickers rolled up,” Lyessa said with a smirk. “Darryk will be a whole lot easier with you than he was with me. It’s the price you pay when trying to master the art of martial defense. Self-reliance doesn’t come cheap. Something must be given up in return for something gained.”

  “Well, if it comes right down to it,” Adarra said, dipping one foot into her tub and sucking in a breath, “I have no problem giving up something I clearly don’t have in exchange for something that could one day save my life.” Her tone held a sad touch of sarcasm.

  Fraya carefully stepped into her tub and winced. “Oy, this water’s hot.” Her puckered lips soon relaxed as she slowly lowered herself the rest of the way in. “Oh . . . Oh, my, this is probably the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt.” She released a soft whimper, closed her eyes, and laid her head against the back of the tub.

  Adarra’s reaction was pretty much the same as Fraya’s as she gripped the sides of the tub and sank into the bubbles.

  The water was laced with more than just lavender. Gina always made sure it held a variety of medicinal extracts—like marigold, elderberry, and noni—that were good for soothing the muscles, treating aching joints, and softening the skin. Darryk had given her nanny the exact amounts to use after their first lesson some years back, and Lyessa had been enjoying it ever since.

  She could have asked Fraya to heal the soreness with some magic, but why negate the pleasure of the hot water and scented bubbles? Leaning her head back against the edge of the tub, Lyessa closed her eyes and concentrated on clearing her mind, like Darryk had taught her to do. She focused on nothing. “The mind controls the body,” he would say. “If your mind is not relaxed, how do you expect your body to be?”

  She smiled at the memory.

  “I could die happy right here and now,” Adarra said.

  Fraya giggled.

  Lyessa concentrated on her breathing as she inhaled the lavender fumes and let the tension melt away. The room was quiet. Peaceful. Something that seemed hard to come by nowadays.

  “This is really nice,” Adarra said. “I’ve never . . .” She paused a mo
ment, long enough for Lyessa to glance her way. “I’ve never really had friends before. I mean, I’ve got my brothers, but you can’t exactly talk to them the same way you can with another girl.”

  Fraya chuckled. “I know what you mean. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a close friend. Ever since Mother died, I’ve been too busy keeping up the house and taking care of my father and the others to find time to make friends.”

  Lyessa could relate. “I’ve always been surrounded by those who see being friends with me as a way to gain station or importance. They use my acquaintance more for their own social climbing than because they actually like me.” Lyessa snickered as an image of Ty popped into her head. “It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about your brother, Adarra. He was the first person I’d ever met who didn’t care that I was the overlord’s daughter. He doesn’t fawn over me like all the others do. Then again, he’s too busy thinking up new ways to get on my nerves.”

  Adarra chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re the only girl he treats like that.”

  It did, actually.

  “Yep, if anyone at home ever wants to get him riled up, we just have to mention your name and watch him go.”

  “Hey, I give him as good as I get,” she stated proudly.

  “You do more than hold your own, that’s for sure. Although,” Adarra said, lathering her arms, “he’s been acting a little odd lately.”

  Lyessa snorted. “When does Ty ever not act odd?”

  “Odder than usual.”

  “In what way?”

  “He seems more distant. Angry. He hasn’t taken Mother’s passing well at all, I’m afraid.”

  “Can you blame him?” Fraya said. “I remember when I lost my mother. Father didn’t leave his room for three days. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I was the only one of my siblings who knew how to cook, I’d probably have stayed in mine as well. You’ll need to give him time.”

  Somehow, the topic had gone from upbeat to depressing. Lyessa needed to change it before her mood soured as well. “So, what about you and Breen?” she said to Fraya. “How did that ever happen? He always seemed kind of quiet. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever said two words to me. Don’t get me wrong; he’s like the epitome of what most women dream about—tall, strong, ruggedly handsome, and gentle to boot.”