Demonbane (Book 4)

by Ben Cassidy

Within two minutes the only light was the distant blood-red glow of the fires that burned throughout Vorten.

  The City of Light was dark.

  The building was a carpet store.

  Rugs, many of them made in the exotic patterns and textiles from the Spice Lands to the far south, hung in rows down the center of the darkened store. At the front of the store windows looked out into a street.

  “Stay behind me,” Maklavir whispered. He crept down the center of the store, his sword out in front of him while his free arm curved protectively back in front of Kara.

  Kara hunched her shoulders under the blanket she was wrapped in. “You sure you don’t want me to go first?”

  “What? No, of course not.” the diplomat hissed back over his shoulder. “Don’t be absurd.”

  A shot rang out from the street. There was a yell, then a sharp scream.

  Maklavir stopped mid-step and crouched back against a hanging carpet.

  Kara rolled her eyes, then pushed past the diplomat. She peered out one of the windows.

  “Please, Kara,” Maklavir said in a hurt voice. “You’re making me look bad.”

  “You don’t need my help with that,” she responded quickly.

  Another shout sounded from the street. There was more screaming, the sound of a woman’s voice.

  “Down!” said Kara suddenly. She shoved Maklavir back.

  “Oh, so now you want to hide?” Maklavir pulled on his lace cuffs. “Really, Kara, I don’t think that—”

  A group of figures rushed by the windows.

  There were three men, large and imposing. One dragged a young woman by her hair. She wept and screamed. Another of the men had his burly arms wrapped around a small girl, who was biting furiously at his arms and kicking like mad.

  “Great Eru,” Kara whispered. She turned. “Mak—”

  He wasn’t there.

  Startled, Kara looked around, just in time to see Maklavir burst out the door of the shop and into the street.

  “Cads!” he shouted, brandishing his sword.

  The three men stopped in their tracks. They turned to face him.

  “Oh no,” Kara said under her breath. She jumped up.

  “Unhand those women immediately!” Maklavir ordered. “By Eru, I mean it. I’ll cut you all to pieces if you don’t.”

  One of the men, a short man in a brown vest who appeared to be the leader, gave a broad smile. “You and what army, fancy-britches?”

  The other men released the girl and the woman, then yanked wooden clubs from their belts.

  Maklavir stormed a few steps forward, the blade of his sword lifted. “Cowards! Have you no honor? No decency?”

  “Not much, guv’nor,” the first man replied. He pulled out a large knife.

  The other two men began to circle around Maklavir to either side.

  Kara appeared in the doorway of the store. She glanced quickly at the situation in the street. “Hey!” she called.

  Every eye turned towards her.

  Kara dropped the blanket from her shoulders.

  The three men stared wide-eyed at her.

  So did Maklavir.

  The young woman on the ground scrambled up out of the snow, and slammed her elbow between the short man’s legs as hard as she could.

  The ruffian fell back with a gasp. He dropped his knife with a strangled curse.

  Maklavir blinked, then turned and swung his sword at the closest thug.

  The long blade caught the man across his forearm. He howled in pain, then scrambled off down the street dripping blood.

  Maklavir turned.

  The last thug came at him with his club raised high to strike.

  The woman snatched the knife out of the snow and flung it at the second thug with all her might.

  The blade cut across his knee, causing the man to curse and stumble.

  Maklavir jumped forward and stabbed with his sword.

  The blade caught the man a glancing blow in the side of the ribs.

  The thug stumbled back with a shouted curse, then turned and quickly limped off down the street after his friend. He trailed blood behind him.

  The last man took one look at Maklavir’s long blade, then turned tail himself.

  In just a few seconds the street they were in was deserted.

  Maklavir stood panting, his breath puffing out white in the cold night air. “Well,” he said, half to himself, “that didn’t go the way I was expecting it to at all.”

  The girl ran to the woman with a sobbing wail.

  She took the child in her arms, and shushed her gently.

  Kara came out into the snow, the blanket pulled around her again. “What on Zanthora was that?” she fumed at the hapless diplomat. “Tuldor’s beard, Maklavir, I gave you a perfect distraction.”

  “What?” Maklavir’s face visibly reddened. “Oh, that. Well, yes, it worked very well, I thought.”

  Kara gave him an exasperated look. “Except you didn’t do anything. You just stood there and stared like everyone else.”

  Maklavir rolled back his shoulders. “Well, now you’re just not making sense. Great Eru, woman, you had no clothes on. What exactly were you expecting me to do?”

  Kara sighed. “You’re impossible, Maklavir.”

  “You know, many women would consider it a compliment of the highest degree,” said the diplomat sourly. He sheathed his sword.

  “This doesn’t get back to Joseph or Kendril,” Kara said with a raised warning finger. “I mean it, Maklavir. Not a word.”

  Maklavir put a finger over his lips. “My lips are sealed.”

  “Please,” the young woman begged, “we must get off the street.”

  As if to accentuate her words, another scream echoed down the cobblestones, followed by a shout and then a gunshot.

  “Right,” said Maklavir. He looked over at the carpet store. “Back inside there. Quickly now.”

  They quickly shuffled into the store as more gunshots sounded all around them.

  Maklavir closed the shop door behind them. He glanced out the window and frowned at the flames that leapt high into the sky just down the street.”Fire,” he said. “Looks like the opera house blaze is spreading.”

  “There are fires all over,” the young woman said. She huddled the little girl to her chest and stroked the child’s hair. “The city’s gone mad. There are armed men roaming the streets, breaking into houses, looting, pillaging, carrying off the women—”

  Kara gave a surprised look. “The women?”

  She nodded. “All the women, even the little girls. Armed men are dragging them north, up towards the plaza.” She shuddered with horror. “They’re doing something…terrible to them up there, I just know it. There are constant screams coming from that direction, and other noises that are…even worse. Singing of some kind, or chanting…”

  Kara shuddered. “I’ve heard enough chanting tonight already to last me a lifetime.”

  “There are whispers.” The young woman lowered her voice, glancing fearfully at the windows as if faces would suddenly appear. “Others I met in the street, they say that the Indigoru has risen, that she’s come in flesh to seek vengeance on Vorten and all Zanthora. They say—” Her voice faltered slightly. “They say that Despair has come.”

  Maklavir and Kara both felt icy fear snake into their stomachs at the mention of the word.

  Outside, another gunshot sounded.

  The young child whimpered, pushing herself even deeper into the folds of the woman’s dress.

  Maklavir leaned down. “What’s your name, lass?”

  The young girl stared wide-eyed at him. A long few seconds passed. “Ilsa,” she said at last, her voice barely audible.

  “Ilsa, eh?” Maklavir smiled. “That’s a beautiful name. I’m Maklavir, and this is Kara.” He looked up at the young woman. “Is this your mum?”

  Ilsa nodded, her eyes still watching Maklavir fearfully.

  The young woman looked first at Maklavir, then at Kara. “I�
��m Greslin,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even thank you. We owe you our lives—”

  “Posh,” Maklavir said with a wave of his hand. “You don’t owe us any thanks, Miss Greslin. We did what any decent human being would have done.”

  “We can’t go out there,” Kara said as she pulled back the curtains at the window. “Not with armed cultists running free in the street.” She looked back at Maklavir. “I hate to say it, but I think going back down into the sewers might be our best choice.”

  Maklavir nodded slowly.

  Ilsa moaned and clutched her mother tightly.

  Kara moved towards the back of the store. “One thing’s for sure. I have to find something besides this old blanket to wear,” she said as she went. “Maybe there’s some clothes back here somewhere. Give me two minutes.”

  Maklavir cleared his throat. “Ilsa,” he said gently, “have you ever been to the Ice Gardens?”

  The girl peeked out from behind her mother’s dress.

  “It’s one of my favorite places,” Maklavir continued. “I love the ice flowers they had there. When I saw them, years ago, there was a whole garden of flowers, made entirely out of ice. Do they still have those?”

  Ilsa gave a slow, shy nod.

  “Good.” Maklavir looked steadily into the girl’s eyes. “Now listen to me, Ilsa. I know things are scary right now, and I know that you’re afraid. I am too.” His eyes continued to hold hers, his voice steady and calm. “But I promise you that I will protect you and your mother as long as I am alive. No harm will come to you, not as long as I am here with you. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” Maklavir gave his trademark disarming smile. “Stay close to your mother, Ilsa. You’re both safe with me.” He looked up at Greslin. “You said the plaza was to the north?”

  The young woman nodded. “Just a few blocks from here.”

  Maklavir rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That means we’re on the other side of the river. We must have somehow come underneath when we were in the sewers.”

  A screech, sounding almost unearthly in its tone, echoed down the street outside the windows.

  Greslin and Ilsa cowered into the shadow of a hanging rug.

  Maklavir ducked back.

  A second later a group of shadows flitted past the store’s windows. There was the sound of breaking glass, then more shouting.

  “Come on,” Maklavir whispered to the entwined pair. “I think it’s high time we got out of here.”

  Chapter 17

  Bronwyn felt sick.

  She stumbled over the icy cobblestones at the far end of the Plaza. Behind her the chanting of the cultists and renegade militia intermingled with the screams of the women that were being brought forward to the makeshift altar in the middle of the square.

  And killed, one by one.

  Bronwyn glanced over her shoulder. Dannon stood at the head of the improvised altar, a bloody knife in one hand. The snow was stained red all around him and the altar. Dead bodies lay in a heap behind the altar, scores of them.

  The pile was growing larger minute by minute.

  Indigoru was gone. The goddess had left to the north. Fires were burning brightly up there already, as well as in the south.

  It made sense. Bronwyn could see what Indigoru was doing, could glimpse the plan. The chanting that now filled the square, words that had not been uttered aloud in centuries, were clear enough to a witch trained in the art of spellcraft like she was.

  It was brilliant. It was glorious. The rise of the Seteru, the new dawn of the old gods come in flesh, the time of Despair. Bronwyn had waited all her life for this moment, had plotted and planned for it, had waited eagerly for her reward as a faithful servant of the Seteru.

  So why was her stomach so sick? Why were her hands shaking uncontrollably? Why was the sound of the screaming women behind her echoing over and over in her brain and piercing to her very soul?

  The chanting. The sound of it should be filling her with joy and expectation. Instead she wanted to clap both hands over her ears and scream to drown out the words.

  What was wrong with her?

  Bronwyn stepped up into an alleyway at the edge of the Plaza, then ducked into the narrow side-street.

  She hadn’t expected this. She had known the Seteru were a capricious lot, easily angered, petty, vindictive…but this?

  Indigoru was killing the women of Vorten. All of them. When would it stop?

  Bronwyn had expected something different. A new age of worship, a reward for faithful service, the women of Vorten coming to worship the goddess of fertility and desire once again with open arms and singing lips.

  “I serve the goddess,” Bronwyn whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself. Her body trembled violently. “I serve the goddess, and bear the secrets of—”

  She stopped mid-sentence as the nausea caught up with her. She bent double and was sick in the darkness of the alley entrance.

  Bronwyn stood back up. Her legs felt weak and shaky. She wiped her mouth.

  The screaming and chanting continued.

  The square was a broiling mass of people.

  Townsfolk, many carrying bags and satchels jammed full of goods, kept up a steady stream towards the western gate. Many were injured, some bleeding visibly. Children wailed and cried, horses neighed loudly with the smell of blood and smoke in their nostrils.

  Then there were the soldiers, the militiamen who had answered the scattered summons to assemble. There were fewer than a hundred in the square right now. Most of the small units from the trained bands had already been dispatched to the north and south, where the fighting was heaviest.

  Kendril could hear the sounds of fighting from both directions. It was intensifying, raised to a fever pitch of gunshots and cannon fire. His fingers itched to hold a sword, to smell gunpowder and to lead men into fire and blood. He hated standing around like this, doing nothing.

  The door of the fish store had been jammed open. Messengers scurried in and out. Two soldiers lounged just outside the entrance, halberds in hand. Their faces looked both tired and frightened.

  Kendril glanced sharply at both of them as he entered the store.

  Great Eru, they were boys, not men. Probably never seen a real day of battle in their lives.

  He stepped into the bustle of the store.

  “Where is Tuttleman’s Company?” Dutraad roared. He scribbled furiously on a sheet of parchment. “We need his men at the Wobble now or we’re going to lose the whole bridge.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” panted a heavy-set man wearing no uniform. “We’ve had no word from him yet. There are reports that the Seteru’s in the north, sir, in the Docks. And there are at least two more fires down by the south gate—”

  “Does it look like I have time for fires right now?” Dutraad snarled. He whipped out the parchment and handed it to a nearby adjutant who wore a purple scarf tied around his upper arm. “Get that down to Colonel Jommaney in the Vines. Then get back here and give me a full report on his situation.”

  The adjutant saluted sharply. He dashed past Kendril and out the open door of the store.

  Dutraad lifted his eyes. “I don’t have time for you right now, Ghostwalker.”

  Kendril looked down at the map, a frown on his face. “They haven’t attacked across the Central Bridge yet?”

  “It’s the one Void-cursed place they haven’t hit,” Dutraad said brusquely. “Give me some good news. Have your Ghostwalker friends killed that demon yet?”

  Kendril leaned over the table. “That demon used to be your wife, Baron.”

  Dutraad gave Kendril a cutting glance. “She’s not my wife anymore, Ghostwalker. I have bigger problems to worry about at the moment. Vorten is falling to pieces. No one’s seen the Lord Mayor. We’re barely holding the western side of the river, there are refugees continually streaming out of every gate possible, and the north and south bridges are being continually assaulted by the enemy, who we didn’t even
know existed until a few hours ago.” Dutraad shook his head, his mouth curling into a self-deprecatory sneer. “Three years. That’s how long I’ve known Kane. Three bloody years. I’ve had him over to more feasts and dances at my estate than I can count, for Eru’s sake.” The Baron stood, his face white and haggard in the golden candle light. “And now he’s mobilized my own regiment against me. Against Vorten.” He banged his hand hard down on the table. “It’s madness.”

  Kendril rubbed his eyes, realizing just how tired he was. “They’re hitting the north and south bridges?”

  “And raising bloody chaos everywhere else.” Dutraad slapped a finger down on the map. “The residential section is burning to the ground. We can see that much just from here. To the north in the Docks there are sounds of fighting and multiple fires as well. Cultists have crossed the Wobble several times already. There are pockets of them still fighting and looting in the Shackles.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Kendril murmured. “They’re attacking north and south. Why not hit the Central Bridge? It’s an obvious target.”

  Dutraad turned from the map with a shrug. “Eru only knows. They’ve made no move to cross, and I’m certainly not going to tempt them. I have enough on my hands already.”

  As if to punctuate his words, a bloody and dirty gendarme appeared at the door. “Sir! Remnants of Colonel Gleetulmann’s company straggling in from the south. They’ve been pushed off the Hound.”

  Dutraad pinned the gendarme in his implacable gaze. “They can’t abandon that bridge! Where’s Gleetulman?”

  “Dead, sir.”

  “Then get me his second, or whomever the Void else is in command. I don’t care if it’s a sergeant. Just get me someone.”

  The gendarme saluted and disappeared.

  Outside in the square came the sound of increased shouting and clopping of hooves on the frozen cobblestones.

  Kendril’s eyes stayed fixed on the map. “Something’s wrong,” he said in a low voice. “None of this makes sense.”

  “I’ll say something’s wrong.” Dutraad turned back towards the Ghostwalker. “This city used to be my home. Now people I’ve known for years are pillaging and plundering it in the name of a demon who has possessed the body of my wife. Tell me how any of that makes sense?”