Shadowbred

by Paul S. Kemp

  The majestic gongs of the House of Song sounded the fifth bell. Dawn was only another bell or so away. Cale decided to watch the sun rise over Selgaunt Bay.

  Rather than shadowstep back to the street, Cale dangled himself over the edge of the tower’s roof, sought a hold for his toe, and started down. He used the shadows to make himself invisible—he did not want a passerby or Scepter mistaking him for a burglar—but he did all the climbing himself, the old way.

  The exertion did him good, reminded him of days when he had still been human. By the time he reached the street, he was soaked in sweat—human sweat. He unwrapped himself from the night and set out for the bay. He kept to the shadows as he moved, out of professional habit, but he did not shadowstep or use the darkness to conceal him magically. He moved like an ordinary man, a human man, a skilled thief and assassin. By the time he reached the docks, he was smiling.

  Glowballs and burning braziers lit the wharfs. Caravels and carracks dominated the piers, but Cale spotted several freight barges, a longship, and even a bireme, probably from one of the southern realms. Sailors, dock men, and teamsters were already at work loading and unloading crates, barrels, and sacks. The docks never slept in Selgaunt, though the activity was less than Cale expected.

  The workers shouted, grunted, cursed, laughed, and sang as they labored. From time to time, groups of two, three, or four wobbly-kneed crewmen wandered back to their ships from a night in the dockside taverns.

  A virtual armada of small fishing boats floated along the length of the bay. Like the sailors on the larger ships, Selgaunt’s fishermen were already at work preparing their ships to set out. They would spend the morning at sea and return at midday to sell their catch in the Dock Market. Cale had shopped that market many afternoons, with fat Brilla, the Uskevren kitchen mistress, at his side.

  Cale moved away from the larger ships and walked down a small pier. A single-masted fishing boat was tied to its end. A wiry fisherman as thin as a whipblade sat in the boat, tending a net. A young man that Cale took to be his son examined the tiller, the mast, the sail. The youth saw Cale approaching. His eyes went to Weaveshear and he nudged his father. The fisherman turned around and took in Cale’s appearance. A knife lay on the bench near him.

  Cale tried to look harmless, not an easy task. “Do you mind if I sit? I want to watch the sunrise.”

  The son could not take his eyes from Cale’s blade. The elder fisherman shrugged.

  “As you wish,” he said, and went back to work on his net. When the boy continued to gawk at Cale, the fisherman said to him, “Mind that tiller, boy.”

  Cale’s presence might have made trained killers nervous, but not a Sembian boatman. Selgaunt’s fishermen had a well-deserved reputation for being unflappable. Cale smiled, sat, and let his legs dangle over the pier.

  The fishermen cast off before the sun rose. The elder nodded a farewell at Cale, the younger waved, and they released the lines. The son oared them away from the pier.

  Cale watched them grow smaller and smaller as the eastern sky turned from black to gray. The sky brightened with every passing moment until the sun peeked over the horizon. Backlit by the dawn, the boat and the two fishermen looked like nothing more than shadows. Cale knew the feeling.

  The slate sea turned blue under the rising sun. The light crept across the water and stung Cale’s flesh. The rays caused Cale’s shadowhand, the hand with which he had driven a punch dagger into the gut of the God of Thieves, to dissipate into nothingness. He had lost the original hand to a slaad’s jaws while doing Mask’s will. His transformation into a shade had regenerated it, but only in darkness or shadow. It seemed to him fitting that it was the instrument through which he had wounded Mask.

  The fight in the alley already seemed like a dream, the recollection hazy and distant. He wondered if the whole exchange had happened only in his head. He had no wounds to show for it, but of course he would not—his flesh effaced wounds as effectively as the sun effaced his hand.

  He decided it had been real. It had felt too good to be otherwise. He had stabbed his own god, and the bastard had deserved to be stabbed. How many priests would have liked to have done the same?

  He smiled, then grinned, then chuckled. The chuckle gave way to laughter, which transformed into a full-on belly laugh. A passing sailor walking by eyed him as if he were mad, but Cale did not care. He could not remember the last time he had laughed so hard. By the time he finished, he felt better than he had in months.

  He waited for the sun to rise fully over the sea, then rose and followed the light west, toward Stormweather, toward his past, toward his future.

  He was still smiling.

  CHAPTER NINE

  29 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Mirabeta and Elyril sat across the table from Malkur Forrin. The rising sun cast blood-red light through the leaded glass windows of the small meeting chamber in Mirabeta’s manse, Ravenholme. The mercenary’s right eye drooped from an old wound and pale scars crisscrossed his muscular arms. He looked uncomfortable in his attire: the high-collared shirt and vest of a Sembian gentleman. Elyril imagined he would have preferred his mail and helm. He wore his graying hair in a helmcut. A broadsword, rather than a gentleman’s rapier, hung from a battered scabbard at his belt.

  “You sent for me, Overmistress?” Malkur said.

  Mirabeta had employed Malkur’s mercenary company, the Blades, often over the years, sometimes as escorts for the caravans of the Six Coffers Market Priakos, a trade consortium in which Mirabeta held controlling interest. Sometimes, she hired him for darker deeds. Malkur had proven his proficiency at bloodletting on several occasions. Elyril thought that he and Mirabeta possessed similar temperaments—ambition unrestrained by moral foibles.

  Elyril also knew that her aunt and Malkur had occasional sexual relations. She thought it strange, since they did not appear to like each other much. She suspected the coupling was performed without sentiment. The mental image amused her and she had to swallow a smile.

  “How many of the Blades are available at this moment?” Mirabeta asked.

  Malkur rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand and pondered. “Three score are away on jobs. I have about a hundred men to hand. And all are eager. Most have been idle for nearly a month.”

  Elyril and Mirabeta shared a satisfied look. One hundred men would be enough. Elyril knew the Blades to be a diverse force. Most of them were former Sembian and Cormyrean soldiers with a taste for violence, but Malkur also commanded a few wizards, a cadre of warrior-priests in service to Talos the Thunderer, and a handful of highly skilled men who could act as scouts or assassins for the larger force.

  Mirabeta said, “Malkur, I have some … delicate work that needs to be done. You have the stomach for it. Know that it is for the good of Sembia.”

  Malkur snorted derisively. “Sembia can sink into the Inner Sea for all I care. And I mean no offense, Countess. I am interested only in the payment.”

  Mirabeta smiled tightly. “I understand. Then have eighty of your men ride south along the Rauthauvyr’s Road. Weerdon Kost has communicated with Lady Merelith already. The Saerloonian delegation to the moot is on its way north. They will skirt Selgaunt. I want your men to attack them.”

  Malkur did not flinch from the politically sensitive nature of the targets. Elyril thought he would have made a fine Sharran.

  “All of them should die?”

  Mirabeta shook her head. “No. Attack them from the south, in the guise of Saerbians and Selgauntans, as they move toward Ordulin. Through my house wizards, I will provide you with magical sendings telling you the exact day. Kill some and let the rest escape northward to me. I want them to bring me news of the attack.”

  Malkur stroked his whiskers, thoughtful. “You have the uniforms of Saerb and Selgaunt?”

  Elyril shook her head. “Uniforms are too obvious.”

  Mirabeta nodded. “Your men should act in some way to convince the Saerloonians that their attackers
are in service to Saerb and Selgaunt. I am sure you will think of something. After the attack, the men should return in small groups to Ordulin. It goes unsaid that none of your men should know of the nature of the attack until it happens.”

  “It also goes unsaid that none of them should be taken prisoner or left dead on the field,” Elyril added.

  Malkur looked at Elyril. “My men have never lost a battle, Mistress. Some nobles out of Saerloon and their ceremonial guard are not going to change that.” He looked at Mirabeta and leaned forward in his chair. “The proffered payment, Overmistress?”

  Mirabeta leaned back in her chair. “I will pay your men twice their normal fee. And you, Malkur, have my promise that when the time comes, you will be reinstated into Sembia’s army and named my commander general.”

  Malkur tried to disguise it, but Elyril caught a flash of interest in his eyes. He had once been a general in Sembia’s Helms, but Kendrick Selkirk had dismissed him from his post for excessive brutality in policing the roadways.

  Malkur, pretending to ponder the offer, shrugged. “Promises are hard to spend, Overmistress.”

  “Triple the fee,” Mirabeta said, and Malkur smiled. One of his front teeth was missing.

  “Done, Overmistress,” he said. “I will muster the men and await word from you.”

  Mirabeta said, “You cannot lead them, Malkur. I have a special task for you and a handpicked group of your men to perform.”

  Malkur’s eyebrows rose in a question. The man fairly sweated greed. “Oh?”

  “My informants have located Kendrick Selkirk’s sons. They are in Scardale, preparing to journey to Ordulin.”

  Her words hung in the air, fat with implication.

  Malkur’s eyes narrowed and he said, “I would enjoy nothing more than seeing the sons of Kendrick Selkirk at the end of my blade.”

  “Here is your opportunity,” Elyril said.

  Malkur nodded and looked to Mirabeta. “Some of my Blades are skilled at what you require. And I have a diviner who may be able to locate them on the road. But Miklos Selkirk will be accompanied by his Silver Ravens. You will have a large battle to explain.”

  Elyril knew that Miklos commanded his own mercenary company called the Silver Ravens. They were less swords-for-hire than adventurers-for-hire. One of the Silver Ravens had been operating as a spy for Mirabeta for the better part of a year. He had informed them of Miklos and Kavin’s whereabouts.

  “No,” Mirabeta said. “He is traveling in disguise, with only his brother. Few know he is coming. He hopes to arrive in Ordulin in secret and perform his own investigation of his father’s death before revealing himself to the moot.”

  Malkur leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on the table. “Miklos is well known, Overmistress. If word got out …”

  “Word should not get out,” Mirabeta said. “That would put us both in grave danger. That is why we can trust one another, Malkur.”

  Malkur nodded. “The Selkirk job will cost more. For the men, and for me.”

  Mirabeta smiled. “I would expect nothing less, dear Malkur. Quadruple the fees, then. A deal?”

  Malkur looked pleased. He pushed back his chair and stood. “A deal, Overmistress. I can muster the men immediately.”

  Mirabeta stood and extended her hand to Malkur. He took it, kissed it, lingered over it.

  “It is always a pleasure to be in your company,” he said suggestively.

  Mirabeta smiled, clucked her tongue, and waved Elyril from the chamber.

  “Leave us, Elyril. We have … more business to discuss.”

  Elyril had no doubt. As she left her aunt and the mercenary leader to their lovemaking, she touched her invisible holy symbol and thanked Shar. The plan to employ the Blades to attack the Saerloonian delegation had been largely hers. With one stroke, they would invent a rebellion, make Saerloon a staunch ally, and eliminate Miklos Selkirk, a man who would have stood firmly against Mirabeta’s appointment as war regent.

  Sembia soon would explode as surely as a Gondsman’s firebomb. Elyril chuckled when she considered how easily Sembia would descend into civil war. The tools had been in place for years. They had wanted only someone to wield them.

  Daylight showed Selgaunt for the rouge-covered whore she had become. Cale was appalled by how much the city had changed over the last year.

  Groups of destitute refugees crept out of the alleys and dark places of the city and sat listlessly on the walkways or streets until shopkeepers or the Scepters moved them along. Many begged alms and almost all of them looked hungry. Surreptitiously, to avoid being mobbed, Cale slipped a few silver ravens into the palms of the women and children he passed.

  Selgaunt had been a wealthy city for so long that seeing so many poor on its streets shocked him. Cale guessed they must have come south from the upcountry, fleeing the drought, the Rage, the Rain of Fire, and the daemonfey.

  He thought of Varra’s words: The world is too big to save everything. Looking into the dull eyes of the hungry, he thought she had been as much a prophet as Sephris.

  The streets lacked the usual vendors hawking day old bread and browned fruit. The typical smells of breakfasts cooking did not fill the morning air. Instead, stick figures wandered the streets and the air smelled of dumped nightsoil and despair.

  Shopkeepers tried to hold up the pretense that Selgaunt was still Selgaunt—sweeping their stoops, setting out their wares—but even they looked underfed. Selgaunt reminded him more of Skullport than anything else.

  He made his way as best he could through the deprivation. He knew that he could pray to Mask for the power to cast spells that created food. He knew the priests of other faiths could do the same, and wondered why they had not. At least two score priests lived in the city who were capable of casting the spell.

  Perhaps they were seeing only to the needs of the wealthy? Or perhaps they were casting the spells for the needy and the magic was not enough. It occurred to Cale that the famine was not simply a problem of feeding the refugee villagers. The villagers had been the ones to feed the city with their crops and livestock. The recent disasters had forced the farmers into the city, and not only did they need food, they were no longer producing food for Selgaunt. The problem would only get worse with time. It would take a small army of priests to feed a city the size of Selgaunt.

  A disturbance in the street ahead drew his eye. A wave of people jumped to their feet and pushed toward the middle of the avenue, all racing away from Cale. Many shouted, raised their fists. Cale fought his way through the press to see.

  A caravan of mule-drawn wagons from the outlying farms rumbled down the center of the city. Turnips, leeks, and sacks of grain lay piled in the wagon beds. Armed Scepters surrounded the caravan and held the press of people at bay with their shields. Two Scepters rode in the wagon, straddling the food as if it were gold.

  “This food is going to the market!” one of the Scepters shouted. “Make your purchase there!”

  “Purchase!” a man near Cale shouted. “We cannot afford to pay! A bag of turnips costs a fivestar! We are hungry here, guardsman!”

  Many in the crowd shouted agreement and pressed closer.

  The Scepters looked alarmed, as did the teamsters driving the wagons. Even the mules looked skittish. The Scepters pushed the press of bodies backward with their shields and brandished their blades. The people fell back and the carts moved onward toward the market, leaving crying children and despondent parents in their wake.

  The crowd started to disperse, grumbling in their despair. Cale put a hand on the shoulder of the thin man who had shouted about the price of turnips.

  “Did you say a fivestar for turnips?”

  The man turned and regarded Cale with hollow eyes. “Aye. The price of food has left all but the rich scraping for dog scraps, unless you are willing to wait all day in a priest’s food line and swear to the worship of his god. Where have you been living?”

  Cale held his tongue and let the man go.

/>   A year ago, a sack of turnips would have cost a copper, maybe two. But a fivestar! Half of Selgaunt would be unable to eat at those prices. There would be riots.

  Cale immediately decided that the new Hulorn was incompetent. He picked up his pace. Perhaps Tamlin could get the Old Chauncel to act.

  Halfway to the Noble District, on the sharply angled, shop-lined Adzer’s Way, Cale caught sight of a mounted trio of Helms patrolling the streets. They sat atop warhorses and each wore the customary round steel cap and blue tabard emblazoned with Sembia’s coat of arms, the raven and silver. Cale stared at them for a moment in disbelief. He had never before seen soldiers of the Sembian army patrolling city streets. Sembia’s merchants had always shown a strong distaste for soldiers. The nation’s army was small and decentralized and kept deliberately so. Sembia was positioned to conquer through the force of its trade, not through force of arms. The Helms’ duties had always consisted of patrolling the trade roads and villages outside of Sembia’s major cities.

  Cale decided that the new Hulorn was not merely incompetent, he was an idiot. He had put soldiers on the street—not city guardsmen accustomed to peacefully resolving disputes among the citizens, but soldiers, accustomed to answering problems with steel.

  Shaking his head, Cale steered wide of the Helms and hurried on. He had been isolated in his cottage for too long. He had not known things had deteriorated so far, so fast. He needed to see Tamlin; he needed to understand what had happened.

  The sounds on the streets were strangely subdued, tired, pensive. Cale moved through the street traffic, dodging thin horses, men pulling empty carts, pedestrians trying to pretend that life was normal. He followed a line of people that snaked almost an entire block until he reached a warehouse with its wagon doors thrown open. Inside, priests of Lathander and Tymora spooned porridge out of huge pots into whatever container the hungry carried. He imagined Temple Avenue must look much the same.