Mourningbird

by Brock Deskins

  Dorian ducked beneath Bertram’s slash, stepped forward, and punched out at Zibaran. A black ray leapt from his closed fist and struck Vulcrad’s leader in the chest. Zibaran uttered a low but loud grunt. It felt as though he had been kicked in the chest by a horse, had the animal been made of ice instead of flesh. His breath erupted in a cloud of fog as his flesh froze where he had been struck.

  Bertram stabbed at the Necrophage’s exposed back, but the creature turned as if he had eyes in the back of his head and saw the strike coming, rolling out of the blade’s path, and swung his void lance at his legs. Bertram leapt over the arcing weapon and immediately knew he had made a tactical mistake.

  Black energy wreathed Dorian’s hand once more. With perfect timing, he hurled it at the young man while his feet were off the ground. With no way to avoid the strike, Dorian twisted his torso around, taking the brunt of the blast on his left shoulder. His entire arm went numb, but he maintained his grip on the sword held in his right hand.

  Dorian was tiring, and his store of power was diminishing by the second. He needed to break away from the battle and accept a partial victory, but he could still inflict more damage before he beat a tactical retreat. He had not forgotten about the two women who had thus far kept out of the fight and huddled together in the far corner. They were leaders as well, and easy prey.

  He parried Rastus’ slash, kicked him in the chest, and swung his lance like a club, clipping him on the side of the head. Before the duke or his nephew could recover and rejoin the fray, Dorian rushed the two women, his deadly weapon set to impale their soft flesh.

  He felt a moment of surprise when the taller, much thinner of the two levied an angry sneer at him instead of a look of fear at her impending death. Esmerelda raised her hands, her entire forearms glowing with eldritch light cast by the arcanist bracers clamped around them.

  Similar to his shadow strike, sapphire energy erupted into the Necrophage’s chest and sent him hurling across the room. He leapt to his feet the moment he landed despite the brutal pain. He sought to rush forward and enact revenge, but Krysten raised a short blunderbuss she kept strapped to the outside of her leg and hidden beneath her billowing ball gown.

  Dorian’s eyes went wide as he focused all of his energy into erecting a ward. The blunderbuss’ flash lit up the room, the sound rocking the Necrophage almost as solidly as the half-pound of shot that struck his ward. He cried out as several pieces of shot penetrated his shadowy barrier and sundered his flesh.

  The glow around Esmerelda’s bracers had vanished, but the light was returning as they drew energy from the arcanstones and formed it once more into viable power. Krysten reached into the purse slung over her shoulder, dug past the napkin-wrapped pastry inside, and retrieved a large paper cylinder packed with powder and shot. She broke the blunderbuss open at the breech, slid the cartridge into the massive bore, and snapped it shut.

  Dorian knew the tide had turned, and there was nothing left to gain, and everything to lose, by continuing the battle. He hurled himself headlong through the shattered doorway just before the fat duchess triggered her hand cannon once again. The shot destroyed a square foot of hallway wall just above Dorian’s body, sending a cascade of marble veneer down upon him.

  The Necrophage pulled power from his soul stones as he scrambled to his feet. His free hand limned in black energy, he formed a massive claw. He sank the spectral talons into the wood and stone of the breached doorway and ripped it down, choking the entrance with rubble. Dorian retracted his void lance and slipped it into its holder on his belt to free both of his hands.

  He tore at the ceiling as he backed down the hall, his ghostly appendages rotting and ripping at the material above him, filling the passageway with debris and clogging the air with thick dust. Satisfied with the destruction, he turned and raced away.

  CHAPTER 23

  The bright light illuminating the room beckoned to Langdon to release his spirit and float away to wherever the afterlife took him. He tried to let go of his mortal coil, but the only thing to escape was the last bit of urine in his bladder. He looked away from the light. His dilated pupils made out little of his surroundings.

  When the walls did come into fuzzy focus, they swam in his vision, causing him to become nauseated. Langdon turned his head toward the sound of muddied voices. Two men, caricatures of Fred and Top Hat stood nearby, their exaggerated features making him giggle.

  “Take as many men as you think you need,” Fred said. “I want this arcanist, no matter the cost.”

  Top Hat pursed his lips as he thought. “I believe I will go alone. We tried the direct route and failed in a most spectacular fashion. My spies tell me he should be alone, other than the hireswords lurking about. I don’t expect them to pose much of a problem for me.”

  “Whatever it takes, Mr. Ridley. Just bring him to me, alive and able to work.”

  Top Hat tilted his head at the young man bound to a chair in the middle of the room. “What about him? We have what we need from him.”

  Fred levied his gaze upon Langdon as he pondered his fate. “He’s important to Rafferty. There’s no harm in keeping him alive a little longer.”

  “Unless Rafferty decides to come looking for him.”

  “He’s in no position to launch an attack against me. He suffered worse in the battle than I did. Like Nimat, he’ll hole up and lick his wounds until he knows any offensive measures he takes will be overwhelmingly successful. We’re all on a precipice, and no one wants to tip it over, except for me. As soon as my arcanists make me my weapons, I’ll bring them all crashing down.”

  Top Hat checked his weapons, including his new blade thrower Langdon had so generously gifted him, before stalking out into the night. He took one of Fred’s carriages into Blindside, leaving it with the driver and a single guard several blocks from Kiera’s junkyard.

  The girl had been conspicuously absent for at least two weeks. He hoped this night was not the one in which she decided to make her return. Or perhaps he did. Nothing would give him more satisfaction than carving her up. Top Hat pushed the fantasy aside. He needed to capture this clever, unregistered techno-arcanist with as little fuss as possible. Work came before pleasure, but he would have his pleasure one day soon.

  He strolled down the middle of the street as if to dare any of the low-quarter inhabitants to accost him. None chose to call his hand, and wisely so.

  Top Hat’s cocksure strut shifted into a stride of exceptional stealth as he neared the junkyard. He could see the derelict airship’s silhouette sitting atop the tiny mountain of rubble even from the outskirts of Kiera’s territory, but there was a lot of ground to cover between here and there. Ground guarded by a dozen men. It wasn’t nearly enough to keep him out or anyone inside safe from his blades.

  He slid his knives from their sheaths and used the deep shadows next to the mounds of trash and debris to conceal his approach. A strong wind began kicking up a cloud of dust, further obscuring him, and his target, from view. The killer fitted the goggles he wore around his neck over his eyes and wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth to filter out the airborne particulates.

  The man he stalked had holstered his pistol and was in the process of covering his face when Top Hat appeared behind him like a vengeful wraith. He wrapped a forearm around the sentry’s face and drew a blade across his neck so deep it did not stop until it reached his spine.

  The action was so fast that Top Hat was able to hurl the man to the ground before a single drop of blood marred his ridiculous outfit. The increasing wind masked the gurgling alarm the man managed to utter as he died.

  Top Hat knew he could approach the airship without alerting any of the other guards, but if these men were worth a fraction of their pay, they would tighten the cordon around the airship as visibility decreased. The last thing he needed was to have to deal with them while he had his prisoner in tow. With sadistic anticipation, Top Hat stalked toward his next victim.

  ***

  Ber
tram crawled on hands and knees to Farelle’s side where he lay in an expanding pool of his own blood. The Thuumian delegate’s eyes fluttered open to slits as his son cradled his head in his lap and pulled off both their masks.

  “You…called me Father,” Farelle said, his voice soft and choked with blood. “How…long have you known?”

  Bertram fought back the tears welling in his eyes. “Not long. I have been trying to find a way, and the proper time, to bring it up. I hadn’t discovered an answer to either of those questions, and now it is too late.”

  “It is never too late.” Farelle coughed, his blood painting his lips bright red. “I knew, and now you know. Nothing else…is important. I am proud of the man you have become. I am proud to…call you son, to tell the world…you are my son.”

  Bertram choked on his words as he watched the color drain from his father’s face, and with it, his life. “I am proud to be your son, and I will always seek to bring honor to our family name. I swear to you.”

  Farelle’s breath became reedy, his words barely audible. “Help…your brother. He needs you to show him how to be a…better man. The man I know he can be. Forgive him his anger. That fault…is my own. Now go kill that gods-be-damned creature.” Farelle’s last breath rattled out, and the tiny glimmer of life left in his eyes winked out like a dying star.

  Powerful emotions pounded against Bertram’s will like a levy trying to hold back floodwaters. He laid his father gently back onto the floor, stood, and began reloading his pistol with shaking hands.

  Rastus and Zibaran limped to his side, his uncle laying a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. He was a good man.”

  “Did you know?” Bertram asked in a soft voice as he fumbled with his shot and powder.

  “I have long suspected, but I did not pry. I knew if he and your mother wanted me to know, they would have told me. I respected their decision and never made inquiries. Perhaps it was a mistake.”

  Bertram nodded as he holstered his pistol and adjusted the sword on his hip. “I think I understand why they kept it secret. Look what happened when just one person found out. It doesn’t matter now. The only thing that is important is that we kill that thing.”

  “He’s really done a number on the interior,” Zibaran said, looking at the rubble choking the doorway as well as a long stretch of hallway.

  Bertram found a mage glass torch in the room and shone its light into the mess of stone and timbers. “I can get through,” he said, and crawled into a narrow breach.

  Rastus called after him, “Be careful, son. Get help. Do not fight that thing on your own.”

  Bertram heard his uncle’s warning, but he had already lost precious time, and the monster was getting farther away every second. If help found him, great, but if he wasted time looking for it, he would certainly lose his quarry, and he would rather die than let that happen.

  ***

  Kiera was in a dark office filled with accounting ledgers. She shone her small arcanist light over the entries as she flipped through the pages filled with largely indecipherable text and numbers. Conner had instructed her to look for entries dating back around the time his wife and daughter had been murdered, but even narrowing her search down to a time frame did little to help her understand what she was looking for.

  She was about to give up her fruitless search and shove the ledger back into its spot when a particular date caught her eye. To anyone else, the entry was unlikely to stand out, but to Kiera, and others like her, its significance was obvious. It marked one of Nimat’s tribute days. That in and of itself was unremarkable, there were numerous payments and deposits every day, but the amount and the location where the payment was made clearly marks it as a tribute. Why would someone in the government be paying tribute to Nimat?

  Kiera focused her efforts on picking out all payments made on tribute days and tore out the pages. A muffled explosion rattled the cabinets and sent a dull thrum through her body. Folding the papers she held in her hand and stuffing them into her bodice, she exited the office and ran into the hall.

  She heard shouts echoing down the passageway and occasional guards running past where the corridor she was in intersected with another. A soldier charged past her, brushing her shoulder, but paid no heed to her presence. Obviously, there was something far more important to deal with than a lady wandering the palace.

  Kiera heard sounds of battle and muffled shouting. More crashing of stone and timbers sent tremors through the floor and walls, then silence. Moments later, she heard a strangled cry from the intersecting hall ahead. Her footsteps slowed then stopped as she cocked an ear. Dorian appeared like a specter of death without a sound. He paused a moment, both foes staring at each other in surprise.

  Seeing nothing but a girl in a fancy mask, Dorian moved first, stalking toward her without concern. Kiera grabbed a nearby chair, smashed it against the wall, and tore the legs from the shattered frame. She held two chair legs in her left hand and one in her right.

  “You want to dance, tall and pasty?” she shouted. “Let’s dance!”

  Kiera sprinted directly at Dorian, causing the Necrophage to pause in his steps. He looked at the girl streaking toward him screaming with nothing but a chair leg for a weapon. He shrugged, thinking she must be insane. He would put her out of her misery quickly enough.

  The nightbird hurled the single chair leg at his face when she closed to within a few yards. The attack took Dorian by surprise. He jerked his head to the side and interposed his lance between himself and the projectile. Shifting one of the bludgeons in her left hand to her right, Kiera used the opening she created and slid between the creature’s legs.

  She cursed the ridiculous dress despite the smooth surface it created between her and the marble floor. With preternatural grace and speed, Dorian leapt over her and the two makeshift clubs arcing toward his shins, turning a complete flip in the air. He stabbed back and down the instant his feet touched the floor. Kiera rolled with her slide, narrowly avoiding being impaled.

  The void lance pierced her dress and an inch of marble beneath it. Kiera heard a loud rip as she scrambled away and jumped to her feet. Dorian sneered as he stood staring at the girl. Something in the back of his mind thought she was familiar somehow, but what the association could be was lost to him. It did not matter. He would kill her and leave this place before reinforcements arrived and complicated things.

  He darted toward her and thrust his lance at her chest. Kiera ran directly at him and sprang onto the wall over the deadly weapons seeking her heart. Glad once again that she was wearing her boots, her feet somehow found enough purchase to take two full strides on the vertical surface before pushing off and kicking the Necrophage in the face.

  She almost laughed at the black tread mark now marring Dorian’s alabaster skin despite the promise of brutal retribution burning in his eyes. “You got something on your face. Kind of, all around here,” she quipped, making a circling motion over her left cheek.

  Dorian’s face twisted into a rictus of indignant rage. “You will suffer for your insult before I kill you,” he promised as he wiped his forearm across his cheek.

  “Bring it on, raggedy man.”

  Kiera’s bravado fled in the face of the Necrophage’s furious assault. She backpedaled as her clubs batted at the whirling and stabbing lance. She felt the lethal spear brush past her head and tear at her clothing, each miss only a hair’s breadth from piercing her soft flesh.

  She tried to dart past the creature, somersaulting beneath a powerful thrust. Dorian twisted around and swung his lance like a staff. The tip cut through the girl’s gown and scored a deep laceration on her hip. Kiera sucked in a sharp breath and tried to block out the weapon’s searing touch.

  Momentarily beyond his reach, Kiera rolled to her feet and sprinted for the end of the hallway. She had nearly made it to the end when an icy tentacle wrapped around her left ankle and tripped her to the floor. Her breath exploded from her lungs upon impact, and one of her chair legs went
skittering across the marble tile.

  Kiera rolled onto her back and traced the shadowy cord wrapped around her leg to the creature’s deathly hand. Her eyes went wide with fear as Dorian stalked toward her, a sadistic smile on his ghostly face. Kiera screamed and hurled her club. Dorian laughed at her feeble defense, leaning to the side as the projectile went sailing past his head.

  “You have spirit,” Dorian said as he raised his void lance. “It will serve me well.”

  Kiera screamed again and kicked against the spectral leash locked around her ankle. Dorian’s head snapped up as someone burst in from the adjoining hall. A pistol spat fire, smoke, and lead. Dorian spun away, pulling in his lash and hastily raising a ward. The shot clipped his shoulder with enough force to make him gasp in pain.

  Kiera scrambled to her feet and rushed to her savior’s side. She never thought she would be so happy to see Bertram. He had lost or discarded his mask along the way. Instead of his usual smug look, his face revealed only quiet determination with a glare in his eyes that promised death.

  Bertram holstered his pistol and shifted his sword to his main hand. He pushed Kiera behind him when she rushed to his side. “Go find help!”

  Kiera slapped at his restraining arm and picked up the chair leg she had lost in her fall. “Don’t push me aside!” she snapped as she took up a position to his left.

  “I can’t fight him and keep you safe at the same time!”

  “I don’t need—!”

  Dorian recovered and charged toward them, cutting short her objection. Kiera darted out to meet death head on. Bertram cursed the girl’s foolishness and chased after her. The three met, Kiera sliding to the floor, her club arcing for Dorian’s shin. Bertram leaned forward, thrusting for the creature’s black heart.