by Deck Davis
“I know Ian,” he said. “And I know the academy. Watching this kid’s Last Rites won’t be enough. They’ll say it’s just some killer doing dark shit, and something for the guardship to sort out. You know them too, Jakub. Do they get involved in things like this?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, but I guess I know what you mean. The academy doesn’t use resources on things unless they have to. We need something else.”
Witas nodded. “The mana box – do you still have the key?”
Jakub tapped his bag.
“Okay,” said Witas. “We get to the box. The necromancer might have stuff in there that could tie all this together. It doesn’t have to be much, just something. Plans, letters, a gods-damned diary, I don’t know, but something. With that, and with the Last Rites, we can make them listen.”
“Fine. So, we go empty the box, and then we get to a carriage.”
“And that, my friend,” leaves us with the biggest problem of all; we have the entire Dispolis guardship hunting us.”
“I have a plan for that,” said Jakub. “First, tie Archie up. I don’t want him free to run to the Royal Mile and grab a guard.”
CHAPTER 67
An hour later, they had gone from Archie’s shop, leaving the old artificer tied up in the basement. Before they left, Jakub had outlined his plan for getting through Dispolis unseen.
“The rogue’s blood draught is still working in me,” he said. “It’ll help me sneak better. As long as I don’t call attention to myself, if I stay away from the streets and don’t go running up to a guard and tell him who I am, I should go unnoticed.”
“I’m a pretty recognizable figure around here,” said Witas. “I’d like to say it’s my good looks, but mostly it’s the work I did with the guardship on their murders. Not to mention that I’ve had a few fights in the Boarhead tavern. Words gets around.”
“Well, when people see you, they won’t see the Black Cleric.”
“You know a spell to magically alter my face? Doesn’t sound like it’s in a necromancer’s spell book.”
“It’s not a spell. Here,” said Jakub. He passed Witas the vagrant blade. “Remember when we first met and I looked different?”
“The sword did that?”
“Just hold it for a few seconds and see.”
Witas gripped the blade. Soon, his face began to change; wrinkles cut into his skin, making him look even more world-worn than before. His clothes changed, but given Witas’s appalling lack of attention to how he dressed, the effect on his shirt and trousers wasn’t a great deal different.
His hair grew longer, greasier, and his beard became patchy. To complete the transformation, a ripe smell drifted from him.
“You know,” said Jakub, “When I first looted this thing, I thought it was junk. A waste of artificery. Now, I feel like it’s the best sword I’ve ever seen.”
And so, Witas the vagrant led Jakub through Dispolis, taking every deserted alleyway and side street he knew of. As a vagrant, Witas didn’t attract much attention from the people they passed, and Jakub knew why; it was a sad truth that when you were on the bottom rung of the ladder, people just stepped over you without noticing.
The last part of his plan was the easiest; he addressed the three birds flapping around him. They were all thrushes - one grey, one black, one brown.
I need you to spread out. Fly far enough away from me that it doesn’t look suspicious.
His birds hovered upwards, each rising and making an arc away from him until they were twenty-five feet above. At that height they just looked like birds and definitely not like reanimated corpses.
With the rogue blood draught in him, Jakub just had to stay in the shadows as they walked; he hugged walls and he sought out any darkness cast by towering buildings.
Finally, they reached an alleyway that looked out onto the northern part of the Royal Mile. Opposite them, across the Royal Mile, was a wooden building with only three walls. Inside were banks of boxes, each with a current of mana running around their edges.
“This is it?” he said.
Witas nodded. “Only mana box storage place in the city.”
Jakub eyed the Royal Mile and the hundreds of people walking along it. Lovers, shoppers, families, even guards.
Just a few days earlier he’d walked along it himself, felt himself become lost in the crowd. Now he was separated from them all; a wanted man, still unsure of his long-term future, but with something he desperately needed to finish.
“You ready?” he said.
Witas nodded. He held up the key. “Shouldn’t take long.”
“I’ll stay here with the suitcase. Empty the mana box, but don’t waste time looking at what’s inside. Just get back here and we’ll go through it later. You might not be the Black Cleric anymore, but I’m guessing a vagrant opening a mana box could still attract a little attention.”
“The parade’s starting on the south of Dispolis, and the guards who aren’t posted on that are going to be looking for me and you. If there was ever a day when vagrants, thieves, pickpockets could scurry around without getting collared, this is it.”
“Okay, I’ll be watching. Quick as you can.”
“You’re getting pretty demanding, you know that?”
“Good luck. Don’t screw around.”
CHAPTER 68
As Witas started to cross through the throng of shoppers that made up the Royal Mile, Jakub looked around for his birds.
Black was perched on a chimney edge, Grey kept hovering as if he still couldn’t believe he’d recovered the use of flight and didn’t want to waste it, while Brown was sitting on a gutter, letting the gutter water run over his legs. Plumper than Black or Grey, Brown seemed to keep a watchful eye on his brothers.
It looked that way, anyway. Then again, Mancerno had told him his resurrected creates would be mindless, so maybe Jakub was humanising them.
He kept them all in view.
Watch the edge of the alleyway, he commanded. Warn me if anyone comes, no matter how it is.
Confident that nobody could see him because of his blood draught and happy that his birds would stop anyone sneaking up on him, he watched Witas.
Witas played the part of vagrant differently to Jakub. While the thick throng of passers-by walked either left to right or visa-versa, Witas cut straight through them. If anyone didn’t stop to let him pass, he pushed them and growled, “get outta tha fuckin’ way.”
It was a novel interpretation of character, but it seemed to be working. He got a few dirty looks, but nobody stared for long, and nobody thought it was strange. It was like they expected the attitude from him.
Jakub heard a bird make a chirping sound behind him. When he turned, he saw a man taking long strides in his direction, with brown robes flapping behind him.
Pressed against the wall, protected by the blood draught’s stealth, Jakub knew the man couldn’t see him, yet he was walking with purpose.
What does he want?
The suitcase. He was eyeing the suitcase.
At that distance, not being able to see Jakub, the man probably thought it was unattended.
Jakub kept his back to the man but stepped out of the shadow now, just enough that the man saw the case wasn’t unguarded.
“You,” said the man. “Where did you get that case?”
Jakub knew that voice.
“Henwright?”
It was him. It was instructor Henwright, only he looked different now. Stressed out, sure, but also a little older. Maye he was sick.
He wasn’t wearing his usual instructor clothes, either; instead, he wore a button up shirt with a bow-tie, and he wore black leather gloves on his hands.
“Jakub. What a pleasure it is to bump into you. I must say, boy, you look like you’ve been through it a little. Dispolis not treating you well?”
The bastard was trying to act like he hadn’t done anything wrong. Jakub would have loved to smash his teeth down his throat, but the last thing he wanted
was a scene.
Act normal, he told himself. Just until we’re away from the Royal Mile. Then I can smash his teeth.
He breathed in, cooling his anger.
“It’s been up and down since I lost my career and my home. Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“A sorry, sorry business,” said Henwright.
“Yeah; you said that back at the academy.”
“Hate to be a bother,” said Henwright. “I suppose money must be tight at the moment, but, well, this is a coincidence. That suitcase, young one; it’s mine. I’d recognise it anywhere. It was…it was stolen from me, you see. I came to Dispolis to catch a wagon ride to visit my sister, and some bloody street rat – no offence – stole it.”
“This is yours?”
“It’s artificed, isn’t it? I suppose they’ve already sold everything that was inside it, but the case is valuable. Hate to be a bother, but I’ll need it back.”
That sold it. Henwright was guilty as hell.
Even if the fairest judge in the land looked on Henwright’s letter and everything that followed it as a bunch of coincidences, he couldn’t deny this second piece of evidence; the suitcase he’d found below Archibald’s shop belonged to Henwright.
You rotten, murderous bastard.
It was obviously a heap of bullshit. In all the years he’d been at the academy, Jakub had never seen Henwright take a trip during term time. Visiting his sister? Yeah, right.
Looking at the suitcase, a truth bore through his mind.
Henwright must have used it to bring Trout here.
“I have to be going,” said Henwright. He took out his money pouch. It was tied to the inside of his robe by a metal link that smelled faintly of mana. He picked out two silver coins. “Here. As a thanks for returning it to me.”
“You’ve gone white, instructor,” said Jakub. “This case must have been special to you.”
“The strangest objects can hold sentimental value, can’t they?”
“They can hold other things, too.”
“I’ll just be taking that back,” said Henwright.
Henwright reached out for the case. As he stretched his hand out, Jakub was ready, and he was quicker.
He drew his blade and pressed the tip against Henwright’s throat. “No letters that you need delivering today, instructor?”
“Jakub, what is this? Have you gone mad?”
“I couldn’t deliver your letter; it was stolen from me. It ended up with its intended recipient though, and a poor pickpocket suffered for it. What did the letter say, Henwright? ‘Here’s a student for you to cut up’?”
“I don’t know what you are-”
“This case is pretty special. Artificed to hold much more than you’d expect, but to be light at the same time. Easy to carry. Was Trout still alive when you carried him in it? What happened, did you knock him out? Use a sleeping draught?”
“Irvine will hear about this. You’ve lost your mind, boy.”
Keeping the blade steady, Jakub used his right hand to unclip a clasp on the case. He let it open an inch; enough for Henwright to see Trout’s body.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I lost my mind, and I’m imagining Trout dead, tortured, flayed. Are you going to keep on denying it?”
Henwright tried to move back, but Jakub stepped with him, keeping the sword against his skin.
He wasn’t sure what to do with him yet; part of him wanted to run his blade through his neck and watch him bleed out, but that wouldn’t help anything.
“If you calm down, we can talk,” said Henwright.
Behind him, way over at the end of the alleyway, Jakub’s birds chirped.
Henwright put his hand on the sword hilt and gently pushed it down. “Easy does it. You wouldn’t hurt an instructor.”
The birds chirped louder.
Jakub tightened his grip and put the sword back against Henwright’s neck.
His pulse pounded now; he didn’t know what to do with Henwright, and he didn’t know how Witas was getting on.
As Henwright tried to move backward again, as the birds chirped louder and Jakub’s pulse raced, a figure burst toward them.
It was a boy; small, quick, his face dirty and his clothes torn.
The boy grabbed the suitcase and then without a second of hesitation, he darted into the middle of the Royal Mile, threading through the passers-by.
But the case was still open from where Jakub had shown Henwright. Now, with the boy running with it, the case flew open completely.
A dead, naked, bloody mage boy fell out and landed on the cobblestones, slapping down like a piece of meat.
A woman saw it, and she screamed, drawing the attention of the dozens of shoppers around her.
At that second, Witas had reached the mana box, and he put the key against the receptable and twisted it. When he did, the box exploded.
A boom rang out over the Royal Mile, and a stream of fire and shrapnel burst from the box, sending Witas people flying back.
CHAPTER 69
It was pandemonium. Some men shouted, others drew hidden blades and looked around for their enemy.
Women shoved their husbands away from them and dropped whatever they were carrying. Like their partners they also drew daggers, and some even had palm-sized blaster staffs.
Children cowered in shop doorways, others lay on the ground, staying still as if the blast could still touch them.
Screams, wails, a chorus of groans. Shrapnel and brick had hit those near the mana box station, while the people furthest back, although unhurt, had felt their bodies flush with adrenaline and sending them into fight or flight.
The cobblestones were covered in shards of metal, in crumbled brickwork, layers of dust. Shoppers fled from the area. One man tripped over Trout’s body and hit the cobbles, smashing his nose, and then the passers-by trampled over him as they fled too, and the man cried out as boots and heels smashed over him.
As Jakub looked for Witas, he saw movement to his right.
“No you don’t,” he said.
He stuck his foot out, catching Henwright as he tried to flee. The instructor tried to push himself up, but Jakub kicked him in the ribs, digging his boot deep.
“Move again and it’ll be the sword next.”
It had only been seconds, but he could barely process anything. He felt like he had been caught in the blast, like he’d been hit and it had scrambled his head.
First the boy had tried to steal the case, without realising it was open.
Next, Witas had tried to open the box; Jakub had seen him put the necromancer’s key against it.
So, was it trapped? Was it rigged to explode no matter who opened it? Or did you need to do something else as well as using the key, and Witas’s failure to do that had triggered a trap?
He wasn’t going to get close to answer there, kneeling at the edge of the alley with his sword pressed into his old instructor’s back. Even if he had the answer, it wouldn’t reverse time.
He needed to make sure Witas was okay. He was right next to it when it blew.
The Royal Mile shoppers who could still move had fled from the blast area now. The only ones left behind were the wounded; those caught in the explosion and who’d taken shrapnel to their faces, chest, legs.
Then there were the ones hurt by the panic itself, the people who had tripped and then been trampled on. Finally, there was Trout, his naked body covered in dust now.
There was no sign of Witas.
Jakub heard shouts and the sound of boots from his left and right.
“Last chance to run, Jakub,” said Henwright. “Yes; I heard about you and your new friend. They are putting posters of you up in taverns and shops, you know. I told the guardship artists what you looked like and helped them draw your likeness. As a concerned citizen, it was my duty.”
“That’d be convenient for you, wouldn’t it? If I get caught, nobody’s going to know what you tried to do. Or what you have done. I wasn’t the first you se
t up, was I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mason D’Angelt said the warlocks were ambushed. Someone knew where the warlocks were going, and they must have been fed that information from the academy. You knew they were going to take Abbie.”
“You can sit here all day with your sword in my back, young one. Or…you can leave before the guards reach us.”
There were two sets of them; six coming from the west of the Royal Mile, eight from the east. Those were just the first to respond, too. With the explosion and the screams, every guard in Dispolis was going to make their way to this side of the city.
Henwright had a point; it was leave now, or give up. Let them catch him.
No doubt they’d try and pin this on him, too. After all, they already thought he and Witas had slaughtered ten of their guards.
“Damn it, Witas. Where are you?”
Without Witas, his story was weak. He was a guy expelled from the academy – why should anyone believe him about all of this?
He needed Witas to talk to Irvine, and he needed evidence, which had been Trout.
Problem was, Trout was in the middle of royal mile now, covered in stone and dust, with two more dead people on top of him.
And the guards were pounding own the cobbles, getting closer.
Jakub made a split-second decision. “Henwright. Look at me.”
The instructor turned his head, and Jakub smashed the hilt of his sword into his nose as hard as he could, knocking him out.
CHAPTER 70
Jakub ran out into the Royal Mile. Debris was scattered everywhere, and people lay dead or injured on the cobbles. Dust mixed with blood, while cries from the wounded competed against the pounding of the guards boots as they hurried toward the blast zone.
The mana box station itself was destroyed; the boxes were buried, and the structure had been torn apart.
Jakub needed time to search for Witas. He had to stop the guards.
He looked at the corpses around him, and he thought about his shade.
Was this what a Raiser did? He couldn’t help thinking that this was a twisted use of necromancy, one that went against all the values the academy had instilled in him.
