Demonbane (Book 4)

by Ben Cassidy

  “Despite what you may think,” Madris said, “Olan is a loyal and committed Ghostwalker. He knows the value of his own life, and he is committed to seeing things through here regardless of the cost.”

  “No one knows the value of their own life until they’re required to give it,” Kendril responded bluntly.

  “That is true,” Madris agreed. “I am trying to warn you, Kendril. Your friends may have to pay the ultimate price to defeat Despair, and you may have to be the one to make that call. If they are not as committed as we are, then they should leave now. Things will only get worse from here. I feel it in my bones.”

  “They are committed.” Kendril could hear the doubt lingering in his own voice. He thought of Maklavir, of Joseph and his commitment to Kara.

  Madris was right. They weren’t Ghostwalkers.

  “There is a reason why our order operates in teams,” Madris said, as if sensing Kendril’s thoughts. “We all have a common purpose, we all have made common vows with a similar understanding of the dangers we face. But you…you chose to go your own way.”

  Kendril made a face. “Guess I’m not much of a team player.”

  Madris chuckled softly. “That would be an understatement.” She leaned forward in her chair, rubbing her bad leg with one gnarled hand. “Still, you have gathered a team of sorts around you. This crisis will test just how far you and they are willing to go.”

  “I’m willing to go all the way,” Kendril protested. “And so are they.”

  Madris nodded slowly. “Hopefully we will not have to test the truth of those words.”

  “Despair will not come to Zanthora.” Kendril’s eyes simmered with dark fire. “Not today. Not on my watch.”

  The older Ghostwalker smiled. “The way you say it, Kendril, I actually find myself believing you.”

  Without another word, Kendril turned and strode out of the room.

  A loud pop echoed through the abandoned dining hall. Maklavir took a step back as champagne bubbled out of the bottle he held, fizzing out onto the floor.

  He sighed heavily. “Lukewarm. What a waste.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage,” said Kendril. He walked up to the table, yanked out a chair, then sat down. He kicked his booted feet up. “Find any good tidbits?”

  Maklavir held up a biscuit. “Better warm and covered with butter, but as you can see,” he gestured broadly to the scattered mess across the length of the large table that had only been half-cleared, “the servants seem to have lost their motivation to clean up.”

  Kendril shrugged nonchalantly, then leaned forward and sifted through a stack of cold meat cuts on a nearby plate. “Most of the staff is gone. I’m beginning to think the whole household was in this cult.”

  Maklavir poured the champagne into a pewter mug. “Except for Dutraad?”

  Kendril nodded. “Apparently.” He pulled out a cut of beef and slapped in on roll. “Cheers.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not drinking,” Maklavir said. “It’s almost mid-afternoon. Shouldn’t you be on your sixth mug of beer for the day?”

  “Been busy.” Kendril took a tearing bite of his sandwich.

  Maklavir held out the bottle.

  Kendril put up his hand. “Sparkling wine isn’t my style.”

  “You mean sophisticated and elegant?” Maklavir set the bottle down. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

  Kendril swallowed his bite. “I need grenades.”

  Maklavir looked over the rim of his pewter mug. “Excuse me?”

  “Grenades. I know you have them. I saw you making them in the forest outside Stefgarten. I want a few.”

  “Yes, if I remember correctly,” Maklavir said as he took another sip of his champagne, “the last time you used a grenade you brought down an entire underground temple on our heads.”

  Kendril smirked. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

  Maklavir sighed. “If you call this living.” He stared down glumly at the pewter cup in his hand. “Champagne out of a mug. Surely that’s forbidden in the Blessed Scriptures somewhere.”

  “You could ask Joseph. He’d know.” Kendril tossed down his makeshift meal onto an empty plate. “Grenades, Maklavir.”

  The diplomat stared contemplatively into the mug of bubbling wine. “I don’t have any.”

  “Don’t give me that. You blew up half the stable last night.”

  Maklavir slapped the mug back onto the table. Champagne sloshed out of the rim. “And you blew up a thousand-year old temple. Explosives aren’t just another toy to be tossed around willy-nilly, Kendril. They require care, attention to detail, proper handling—”

  “Talin’s Ashes, Maklavir, they’re weapons, not works of art.”

  The diplomat crossed his arms sulkily. “Then let’s see you make some.”

  Kendril kicked his feet off the table. “Do you have any idea how bad things are going to get here? Give me a couple grenades. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  Maklavir raised his mug again. He took a slow, pensive sip.

  Kendril narrowed his eyes. “Maklavir?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  The Ghostwalker grabbed the half-eaten sandwich again. “I think I’m needing that beer more and more.”

  Joseph appeared in the doorway to the dining hall. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, his face etched with exhaustion. He came up to the table, but didn’t sit down.

  Maklavir put down his mug. “Any luck, old chap?”

  Joseph rubbed a hand across his face. “I think so. I’m not sure.”

  Kendril straightened in his chair. “You’ve got a lead?”

  “Kind of.” Joseph reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. “I have a ticket.”

  The carriage had barely stopped before Kendril had already thrown open the door and leapt down to the snow-covered cobblestones.

  He was followed a moment later by Olan, who dutifully turned to help Madris out of the vehicle.

  Kendril turned. He pulled up his cloak against the whipping wind that was scattering loose snow across the steps of the town hall.

  The winding street opened here into a small plaza, and was thick with sleds, horses, and carriages. Less than a block to the north the looming shape of the Great Library rose above the surrounding buildings.

  Kendril swept the street with a suspicious glance, searching instinctively for threats.

  Joseph got out of the carriage right after Madris. He shuddered in the bitter cold.

  “Remember,” Madris warned, “we use deference and diplomacy. No insults, no threats.”

  “Whatever,” Kendril mumbled. He motioned to Joseph. “Come on, let’s move.”

  The grizzled scout nodded, then followed Kendril closely up the icy stone steps.

  The city hall was large, but was crammed ingloriously tight between the surrounding townhouses and stores that dotted the street and plaza. Unlike the magnificent Rajathan-style of the Great Library, this had a more utilitarian feel to it. Red brick and white plaster trim and cold steel bars over the ground-floor windows bespoke the authority of the modern bureaucracy of Valmingaard.

  Two gendarmes met Kendril and Joseph at the top of the stairs. One of them held up a hand.

  “I can’t allow you inside armed like that,” he said with a concerned glance at the many weapons hanging from Kendril’s belt. “Give up your pistols and swo—”

  “You want them?” Kendril growled. He fingered the handle of one of his guns. “Feel free to take them off me.”

  The gendarme stopped, blinking in surprise.

  Kendril pushed right past him and headed into the city hall.

  Joseph scurried after him.

  “Wait!” called the gendarme. “You can’t—”

  “Kendril,” Joseph warned as they hurried down a richly carpeted hall, “you’re going to get us shot.”

  “I’m tired of all this nonsense,” Kendril responded in a heated tone. “You want Kara back alive, right? Then hurry up and wa
tch out backs.”

  They turned a corner.

  Two gendarmes scrambled to their feet from where they had been sitting by a large pair of open doors. They stood and blocked the passage, their halberds held at the ready.

  “Ghostwalker business,” Kendril snapped. He pushed past them.

  Joseph gave an apologetic shrug and followed his friend.

  From the open doors ahead came the booming voice of the Lord Mayor mingled with the shrieking tone of Baron Dutraad, and interspersed with the calmer and deeper tones of Captain Potemkin.

  “I can’t just arrest them, your lordship,” the Lord Mayor was saying. “They have the authority of the King himself—”

  “I’ll see them hanged,” Dutraad shouted. “By Eru, I’ll see you all hanged. I demand you let me go this instant.”

  “Please have patience, Baron,” the mayor said in a placating tone. “As soon as our messenger gets back from Varnost—”

  “You don’t have that long.” Kendril stepped into the room and tossed a pile of papers down onto the long, highly polished wooden table.

  The two gendarmes rushed in behind him, their weapons raised.

  Captain Potemkin raised a hand and the guards fell back a step.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the Lord Mayor blustered. “Captain, how can you allow—?”

  “We found them,” Kendril interjected. “We know where this mystery cult is. Tell them, Joseph.”

  “We think we know where they might be,” Joseph corrected. He reached down and picked up one of the pieces of paper that Kendril had tossed down. “I found these in Lady Dutraad’s room. It’s a series of letters, correspondence between her and someone who simply signs themselves as ‘B’.”

  “Now you’re ransacking my rooms?” Dutraad slammed his hand down on the surface of the table. “Ashes, you’ll pay for all the damage you’ve caused.” He looked over at the Lord Mayor. “And if they don’t, then you will. There are no charges against me, no reason to—”

  “‘B’ is certainly Bronwyn, or Brionne, or whatever the witch is calling herself,” Kendril said abruptly. “She set up times to meet with your wife, Baron. They had been having secret meetings going back for several months.”

  “My wife,” Dutraad said, his mustache quaking with rage, “is a victim in this whole affair. How on Zanthora you think that Mina could possibly be involved in any kind of—”

  “The cult of Indigoru,” Madris said as she entered the room, “is a mystery religion, Baron. It relies on multiple stages of initiation, secrecy, and pagan rituals. It undoubtedly has a hidden temple or meeting place somewhere here in Vorten. Your wife was a member.”

  “That’s impossible.” Dutraad leaned over the table, both hands splayed on its surface. “Don’t you think I know my own wife?”

  “Considering that you were apparently chasing after every young strumpet in Vorten and were sleeping in different rooms,” said Kendril with a cold gleam in his eye, “no, your lordship, I don’t.”

  Dutraad glared at the Ghostwalker with undisguised rage.

  “Please, Kendril, attempt to show some tact,” Madris sighed.

  “We’re past the time for tact,” Kendril shot back.

  “This…cult,” said Potemkin, who was still standing ramrod straight near the wall of the room, “where is it?”

  “The letters don’t say,” Joseph said. His voice sounded strangely quiet amidst the heated tones in the room. “We have times, and dates, but not a location.”

  “Then how does that help us?” The Lord Mayor clasped his hands behind his back in frustration.

  “It doesn’t,” Kendril agreed. “Until Joseph found these.” He motioned to his friend.

  The bearded scout pulled out a few slips of paper and set them down on the table.

  Everyone leaned in with interest.

  “What in Eru’s name—?” Dutraad began.

  “They’re tickets,” Kendril explained impatiently. “Ticket stubs, actually. The times and dates match those in the letters.”

  The Lord Mayor looked up at the Ghostwalker in confusion. “How—?”

  Kendril exhaled in exasperation. “Baron Dutraad, your wife, did she go to the opera often?”

  Dutraad squirmed for a moment, as if answering was physically painful. “Yes. It was her one true diversion in life. But…how is that important?”

  “Tuldor’s beard,” Kendril cursed. “Are you really all so stupid?”

  The Lord Mayor frowned deeply.

  “Kendril,” Madris warned again.

  Joseph picked up one of the stubs. “These are from opera performances that Mina attended. Performances that have matching times and dates to the meetings with the mysterious ‘B’ in the letters.”

  Everyone stared at the scout for a moment in startled silence.

  “The cult,” Kendril said, fire leaping in his eyes. “Don’t you see? They’re meeting in the opera house.”

  Chapter 10

  Kara grunted in pain as she was pushed down to her knees.

  Through the heavy linen bag that covered her head she could hear the echoing sound of falling water. The putrid reek of garbage and rot was so strong that it penetrated through the cloth to her nostrils. The ground under her knees was hard and slimy.

  Voices moved around her, soft and barely audible over the constant splashing of the water and Kara’s own heavy breathing, amplified inside the darkness of the hood over her face.

  She had been forced to walk, stumbling and tripping without being able to see where she was going, pushed and dragged until she had arrived here, wherever here was. She had heard a discordant sound like screeching violins at one point, far away and somewhere above her. She had been shoved down a long flight of stairs at some point, then turned her back and forth for several minutes.

  In short, Kara had no idea where she was. Of course, she had no idea where she had been when she had started, so not much had changed.

  Her legs had been unbound before she had left the closet she had been tied up in. They were still throbbing with pain, tingling and hurting with each step. Her hands were still tied tightly behind her back. She kept her fists clenched.

  She was still wearing the dress, ripped as it was. By now it was no doubt torn and covered with filth. Maklavir would be horrified when he saw it, especially after all the money he had paid for it.

  “Take the hood off her,” came Bronwyn’s voice from somewhere to Kara’s right. “She may as well go to her death with her eyes open.”

  The hood was torn from Kara’s head.

  She winced for a moment as the light of several torches assaulted her senses, but her eyes quickly adjusted. The wretched stink of an open sewer almost made her wretch. It was ten times worse with the bag off her head.

  Kara risked a glance around. She was in some kind of intersection for various sewer run-offs. Several flows of blackish-green water spilled from elevated causeways, thundering down into a brackish pool of sludge that filled the room. A stone causeway, covered with sludge and putrid slime, led from a walkway that circled the perimeter of the room to a raised area in the center of the lake of raw sewage.

  It was on this man-made island that Kara now kneeled. Directly in front of her on the raised area was some sort of stone altar. Candles were burning at its corners. A human skull grinned out at her from just below the stone edifice.

  All around stood robed, hooded figures. Their faces were cast in shadow. Some held torches. Others had swords, knives, and other weapons at their belts. There had to be at least a dozen of them.

  Kara set her face, determined not to show any fear. She shook her head and her tangled red hair spilled down around her shoulders.

  Several objects, small and sharp, scattered from her tresses, falling down onto her shoulders and towards the ground.

  Shards of ceramic pottery, caught in her hair.

  Kara didn’t think. She didn’t have time to. She opened her hand.

  As if by some miracle, one o
f the shards fell into her palm.

  She instantly closed her fist.

  “Prepare the altar,” one of the hooded figures ordered.

  Kara recognized Bronwyn’s voice, even though the witch’s face was hidden from view.

  Behind her back she clenched her hands even tighter.

  Three of the cultists moved to the altar, and started attaching ropes to iron rings set into all four of the corners.

  Bronwyn pushed back her hood and revealed her beautiful face. She knelt down next to Kara and gave a sympathetic smile. “I’ll take out the gag, if you promise to behave yourself.” She leaned over and pulled the tight cloth out of Kara’s mouth.

  The redheaded thief spat, licking her dry lips.

  “If you’re thinking about screaming, you can certainly go ahead and try,” said Bronwyn casually. “But as you’ve no doubt guessed by now, no one is going to hear you down here. And if you make too much noise, I have no problems with shutting you up again.”

  Kara glared up at the dark-haired woman. “You’re a monster.”

  Bronwyn beamed. “There, you see? I think it’s the least I can do to give you a chance to spout off a few insults before we bleed you dry. Seems somehow more civilized, doesn’t it?” She held up her dagger, twisting it in the torchlight of the dark chamber. “Also, I’m curious as to whether you’ll scream at the end.”

  Kara’s eyes fell on the altar and the acolytes who were feverishly preparing it.

  Bronwyn followed her gaze. “Ah, yes. Fairly self-explanatory, isn’t it? It was good of the goddess to provide you for the sacrifice. Saves us the trouble of having to snatch some young maiden off the streets, which always seems to raise questions regardless of how careful one is.”

  Kara looked back at the witch. “You sacrifice human beings to your gods?”

  “Ashes, no. At least, not most of the time.” Bronwyn rested her chin on her knee. “Usually it has to be chickens, dogs, that sort of thing. Hardly a fitting sacrifice for a Seteru, but killing a person can bring the wrong sort of attention very quickly.” Her eyes flashed with a sudden spark of passion. “All that will change, of course. It will be a new world tomorrow, a world where the Seteru are venerated again, and the false worship of Eru is put to an end. You’ll see. Well, not you specifically, but Rothland in general. It will be so beautiful, so very, very beautiful.”