A Blight of Blackwings

by Kevin Hearne

  He noticed.

  “Graah! Where are you, firelord? Face me, you coward!”

  He shouldn’t have been able to talk or form a coherent sentence through the flames. He should be screaming and dying, but he was standing there on fire as if he were lavaborn, looking about for me.

  He knew it had to be someone else sparking him up, because Mirana La Mastik had somehow died of old age in a matter of seconds. He let her go and she fell in a frail heap of bones, shrunken in her armor.

  Growling in frustration, he swung his gaze to Fintan and Abhi, who were clutching their ribs and trying to get up. He took a couple of steps in their direction.

  I ducked my head through the window and called out, “Don’t let him touch you!” That drew his attention to me. He could see me now that I’d moved into the light.

  “Ah, there you are!”

  Another hilt sprouted from his torso. It was Koesha’s other long knife, which pushed out his back to the right side of his spine, but it didn’t rock him backward or have any visible effect. Koesha was deadly with those—or at least she would be against a human target.

  “Yes, here I am, shitbird.”

  Lorson casually removed the blades from his body, and while there was some blood on them, it didn’t seem like enough. “Can you come out and play?” he said, mocking me through the flames.

  “Be right there,” I said. I scooped up my sword, yanked it free of the scabbard, and lit it. I stepped outside to find Lorson already charging me. He threw the knives horribly—they sailed wide and were really no more than a distraction. He wanted to get his hands on me like he did to La Mastik, and he had no choice but to keep coming, because I kept pouring fire into his face. I stopped his charge with a straight kick to the chest and he staggered back, but then he ducked underneath the swing of my sword. I kicked him again to make sure he kept his distance, catching him in the gut as he rose to grab me, and that robbed him of momentum. I sent a fresh gout of white-hot flame to his scalp, and finally—finally!—he started to feel it. His skin crisped and bubbled.

  “Augghh!” he cried. He dropped into the dirt and rolled around, trying to snuff the flames, and I took the opportunity to step forward and bring my sword down on his unprotected skull.

  It split open and he stopped rolling because, unlike Koesha’s blades to the torso, a busted head could not be shaken off. I let his body keep burning and hurried over to Mirana, just in case. But no: She was definitely dead. The imprints of Lorson’s fingers and thumbs had left deep purple bruises on her arms, but otherwise she simply looked about sixty years older than she had been five minutes ago. And I realized that she’d seen the danger that Lorson represented when I hadn’t. If she hadn’t kept me in hiding, or if she’d told the truth and let him know that there was a firelord to worry about, he might have killed me first.

  “You saved my life,” I whispered, even as I absorbed the truth of it. “Thank you.”

  At that point, the sequence of events caught up with me and I whirled around to find Fintan. “Bard!” I shouted in my native tongue. “What in the name of Thurik’s blistering cock just happened?”

  I was not the only one saying something along those lines. People from the camp were running over to investigate the screams, and Koesha had retrieved her knives to make sure they were still actually made of steel. She was gesturing first to them and then to the burning body in disbelief, talking to Haesha in her own tongue. The bard and Abhi both were still clutching their ribs, but they looked otherwise unhurt. The plaguebringer’s bloodcat was at his side now, hackles raised and growling at anyone who came too close, and the stalk hawk had flown up into a tree.

  “Well,” the bard gasped and replied in Nentian so that everyone could understand, “he killed La Mastik and then you killed him.”

  I switched languages out of courtesy. “Yeah, I was there for that part. But why did he do that?”

  “I have no idea. He didn’t tell us ahead of time that he planned to kill anybody.”

  “Except for the murderous expression on his face when we first hailed him,” Abhi said.

  “Yeah, I did see that too,” Fintan admitted. “I just didn’t think he’d follow through so brazenly. I mean, who walks alone into a huge camp like this and thinks they can take everyone?”

  “Well, there’s no doubt in my mind that we did the right thing. This was definitely a kill-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of deal. He targeted Mirana and murdered her in front of witnesses because he clearly thought he could get away with it. Which is scary,” I said.

  “I agree,” Fintan said. “Did you hear him ask before he moved if there were any rapids or firelords around? That’s all he was afraid of. He acted like he was invulnerable otherwise.”

  “He kind of was. I mean, it seemed so, anyway. He didn’t even care about those knives in his guts. Look at Koesha. She still can’t believe it. And it took a whole lot of fire before he felt it.”

  “And he was strong,” Abhi added. “Far stronger than he looked.”

  “So are you, eh, kid?”

  Abhi shrugged. “My speed and strength came with my kenning. But if you stab me, I’ll feel it. And if you set me on fire, I’ll burn right away.”

  “Were you going to use your kenning on him?”

  Abhi shook his head. “Not much I could have done. My stakes are repelling creatures, so I can hardly call them into camp. And I couldn’t ask any animals to attack a man on fire in any case.”

  “Come here,” I said to the two of them. “Look at what he did to Mirana. She’s old.”

  They squatted next to me and we examined her body. Except for the bruises, she didn’t appear to be harmed; she simply looked like an old lady.

  “It seemed like he was getting younger as she was getting older,” Fintan said. “Did you see that too?”

  Both Abhi and I nodded, and then the plaguebringer said, “He was like a leech.” When I blinked at him incomprehendingly, he said, “I mean he was a parasite that requires physical contact to do his thing, or else he could have done it to any of us from a distance.”

  That fit with my battlefield assessment of his tactics. “Fintan, in all the stories you have in your head, all the lore you’ve ever read, have you ever heard of anything like that? Somebody siphoning away all the vitality of your life and somehow using that energy to fuel their own regeneration—”

  “That’s what he was doing, wasn’t it?” Abhi interrupted. “Not just growing younger but ignoring the fire and not caring about the knives. He used everything he stole from La Mastik and kept regenerating until he couldn’t anymore.”

  “Oh! So that’s why he went after Olet!” Fintan said. “If he defeated her, he’d have been really hard to kill after that. He could have wiped us all out.”

  “Guys.”

  “Sorry, Olet.” The bard looked abashed. “We’re just catching up to conclusions you’d already reached. To answer your question: No, I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

  “Was he really alone on that island?”

  “He appeared to be. We saw no one else. He said his master was away.”

  “His master? So there could be another monster like him out there?”

  “Could be.”

  “There’s a fancy house on the island,” Abhi said, “and he’s not going to be back. We might be able to find some answers there. I’d like to go just to make sure he didn’t have any pets. Or prisoners.”

  “Good idea,” I said, nodding. “I’ll go with you, just in case the master turns up. And if he doesn’t turn up, that’s fine. I’m still going to burn it all down.”

  I was all for leaving right that second but then realized we couldn’t. The people of Malath Ashmali needed to be told what happened. Koesha needed to be reassured that her knives were fantastically de
adly and would still kill most anything. A funeral smoke needed to be held for La Mastik. And we needed to make sure this thing—this lifeleech, Lorson—didn’t find a way to live again. Couldn’t be too careful about something like that. Plus, I really wanted to wipe every trace of this creature from the earth.

  I supervised his disposal. Using someone’s donated sheet, I snuffed out the flames on his still-burning body and wrapped it up so that there would be no possibility of contacting his skin. Then a crew of Hathrim bore it down to the beach, where I set it all on fire again and left it there, unhallowed and unmourned. Suris volunteered to stay and make sure it burned all the way to ash.

  And then, with heavy boots and heavy heart, I returned to camp to say farewell to my oldest and best friend, Mirana La Mastik.

  Who would keep my counsel now? Who could I trust to advise me from a place of love and loyalty?

  She told me on more than one occasion that Thurik said all cities were born in fire and blood. It was a favorite passage of Gorin Mogen, in fact, though he had not been particularly devout. Turned out Thurik was right, both about Baghra Khek and Malath Ashmali. I never thought it would be my fire and her blood, though.

  * * *

  —

  That tale got everyone talking, but Fintan held up a hand. “Wait! There’s more. There’s me, about an hour after that.” He took on the seeming of his past self.

  Like everyone else in Malath Ashmali, I wanted to know what exactly had happened and what kind of weird creature Lorson was. He couldn’t tell us, so we had to go back to that island if we wanted any answers.

  After we said farewell to La Mastik, that’s precisely what we did. Olet joined us this time, along with Abhi and Koesha and the Raelech stonecutter, Curragh. He’d missed the fight with Lorson because he was working on building a Raelech embassy, but I felt better having him along with us for this trip. Olet wore her armor, and she brought one of the huge houndsmen’s axes with her in addition to her sword.

  Abhi asked his stalk hawk and bloodcat to keep their senses alert and warn us against anyone approaching.

  Olet suggested we search the outbuildings before we tackled the main house, and that proved to be both instructive and ominous.

  “These were built by hand, and rather poorly too,” Curragh said. Inside the largest, we discovered that there was a well protected from the snows. A table next to it held stacks of plates and cups. There was a privy with ten stalls. A kitchen with no food or utensils in it. And then there was room after room of bunks. Olet asked me to keep a count of the beds; there were eighty-four all told. Most peculiar was that the rooms, while all open, possessed doors that could be locked only from the outside.

  The smaller buildings served either a single purpose or no purpose at all that we could tell. There was a bathhouse, judging by the tubs within and the hearth for heating water, but said water would have had to be hauled over from the well in the other building. Another building was clearly a stable for absent livestock, and another was simply a large empty hall with a spacious hearth opposite the door. A recreation room, perhaps? Dancing? A space for morning exercises during the long winter months?

  Whoever used to occupy the buildings, they were long gone now. A thick layer of dust coated everything, and we sneezed often.

  “My theory,” Olet said on our way to Lorson’s master’s house, “is that these buildings housed the laborers used to build this fancy thing ahead of us.”

  “Okay, but then why were their bunkrooms locked from the outside?” I wondered aloud.

  “I bet they were deceived. He behaved friendly at first, just like he did with us, offered them pay, and once he had them on the island he was in control. They had to do what he said or he would drain their life away. We should definitely take the time to search the docks and vessels there too.”

  Curragh shook his head after a few more steps. “I don’t know, Olet. I can tell from here that whoever built that nice house knew what they were doing, as opposed to whoever built these others. From an architectural standpoint, they were constructed by completely different sets of laborers.”

  “Interesting. But you do think this house was built by hand, not by Raelech stonecutters?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s definitely carpentry, not the Third Kenning. Even that well in the bunkhouse—that was dug by hand.”

  We stood before the front door, and I couldn’t even tell what kind of wood it was made from. Perhaps somebody from Forn would recognize it.

  Abhi asked Murr and Eep to remain outside, which I imagined they preferred in any case.

  Inside the building, it became abundantly clear that all the materials were imported by ship. There did not appear to be anything native to the island here: Not even a plank of the indigenous fir was in evidence. The floors and furnishings were made of hardwoods I did recognize from Brynlön and Forn. The baths and kitchen used plenty of marble from Rael. There was a trophy room with the gruesome heads of animals from Ghurana Nent mounted on the wall, along with some javelins, spears, and a large bow. In another room there were display cases full of glass knives and sculptures from Hathrir. I thought for a while that there was curiously nothing from Kauria, until I ran across a Mugg’s Mug mug from Linlauen sitting in a kitchen cupboard. I’d never been there myself, but I’d heard it described as a must-see tourist attraction.

  The pantry was extremely interesting to me, as the island did not seem to host any animals beyond some insects and worms. It contained, as one might expect, plenty of dry goods and even more preserved vegetables and fruits, lined up and labeled in jars. Fresh produce had to come from the garden in season or not at all.

  The cutlery was the good stuff from Hathrir, the finest steel possible. It was stamped with the Mogen family crest, in fact. I doubted Gorin Mogen himself had made the knives, but someone he’d trained certainly had. The rest of the kitchenware was likewise first-rate; it was the demesne of a modern gourmet chef who probably had only fresh fish or dried meats to work with.

  In contrast to the modernity of the kitchen, the living spaces were filled with antiques. Looking at a silverbark couch and tea table with a couple of rocking chairs opposite, I shook my head.

  “I’ve seen drawings of these before. They’re museum pieces. Priceless. I’d feel like an outlaw if I sat on them.”

  “They look designed for taller people, though,” Olet said. “I’m not shy about trying them out. If they snap under my weight, oh, well. Bastard killed Mirana, so I’m not going to cry about his furniture.”

  She sat down on the couch, and it groaned under her weight but didn’t buckle. Olet sniffed in disdain.

  “Not bad, but not great either. Mediocre. Unless someone has a compelling argument against it, I think we should take all his stuff. Especially the dining room table and chairs. Those would work for the Hathrim.”

  “Well, he said he had a master who’d be returning soon,” I reminded her.

  “If he wasn’t lying, sure, we should worry about that. Here’s the test—bedrooms and bathrooms: Is there more than one that looks lived-in? Are there two? Will we find different toothbrushes? If Lorson was a servant of some kind, we should find his humble room somewhere else besides the master suite, right?” She pointed at the stairs leading up and down. “Which way do you figure the bedrooms are?”

  “Most likely up,” Curragh said. “Unless they’re in the back of this main floor.” We hadn’t gone there yet.

  “Let’s split up. I’ll head upstairs with Koesha. Curragh and Abhi, please check out the basement. Fintan, you can finish looking around this main floor.”

  As boots clomped on stairs going up and down, I drifted toward the back half of the sprawling house. I found a tea room with a bewildering array of looseleaf teas from Forn and Kauria, along with antique tea sets that also belonged in a museum.

  “Somebody had
to know this guy was living up here,” I thought aloud. “If he wasn’t buying all this himself, he had to have an agent down on the continent buying it for him. And even if he did buy it all himself, someone still had to sail it up here—past the krakens—and help him move it in. You’d need a wagon…which we’ll probably find down at the docks.”

  The next room was at once familiar and welcoming and strangely uncomfortable. It was a rather large library with floor-to-ceiling shelves, complete with a rolling ladder to access the top ones. The room was long and narrow, seeming to spread across the entire back half of the house. There was a single upholstered chair next to the one window on that wall, angled so that the light would shine down on whatever book he was reading. A small bistro table next to it held a saucer and teacup. There was also a beautiful varnished silverbark table with a prize open on top: an atlas of the world! And I mean the world, not just the portion of it I already knew. Joabei was there, across the ocean and in the northern latitudes, as well as some other clusters of islands and land masses that I’d never seen before. They were labeled Omesh, Ecula, Bačiiš. Presumably the Bone Giants had come from one of them.

  “There could be a room full of gold downstairs,” I breathed, “and it wouldn’t be worth more than this. This is priceless.” I committed the pages of the strange continents to memory on the spot.

  Curious to see what else might be on the shelves, I peered at some spines. They were in Brynt, and while I recognized some titles, there were far more that were unfamiliar. I kept going and, when I reached a bookcase full of titles in Hathrim, realized that he had organized the library by language. Nothing in Raelech or the other continental languages, so Lorson hadn’t been lying about not speaking them. But most of the shelves in the library, as I progressed, were filled with titles written in a language I didn’t recognize, except that it might bear some relation to a long-dead mother tongue called Uzstašanas.