She decided to stay where she was. All the two Sevenlanders could talk about was the armlet, and what they would do with it once they made it to Ishamael. Shawna didn't feel much like planning, or engaging in long conversations about strategy. She felt bleak, as if the hard won victory they had pulled from the teeth of the Red Swords was just the first in a long series of conflicts. The day was clear, but the memory of the storm was fresh in her mind, and the silence felt pregnant with future peril.
Shawna sat in her corner, looking out over the sea, and pondered on what might be out there.
***
Maarkov knew his brother was going to kill the poor bastard at his desk. Maaz had a real gift for corpse-making. Everything the bastard touched, passed, or looked at had a strange way of ending up dead.
“I don't know what you expected me to do,” pleaded the sea captain. “The attack was risky enough in the storm as it was, and there was no way I could follow after they burned my ship. She was crippled! They turned sorcery on my ship! Sorcery! How is a man supposed to deal with that?”
“Sorcery, was it?” Maaz asked, cocking his head to the side in a slow, dry movement. The expression looked more like a reptile regarding its future meal than a human considering an argument. Maarkov supposed that was fairly close to the truth. His brother had lost his human qualities long ago.
“They opened up the sky and threw lightning at us! All my sails went up at the same time, and in a driving storm, too. Nothing normal about that,” the sailor said, making a sign to ward off evil.
“Indeed,” Maaz said in an ingratiating tone. He was wrapped in a deep, hooded cloak, and had wound a scarf around his mouth to hide the rest of his face. Only his eyes regarded the captain across the desk from him, and those were as dead as a corpse. Maarkov had no doubt, though, that Maaz's teeth would be showing in a wide, friendly grin. It would be a lie, though.
Maaz's smiles had nothing to do with happiness.
This shabby office, a room in an out-of-the-way building in a corner of the Shundov Harbor, stunk of seawater and fish carcasses. The whole damned city smelled that way, truth be told, but one grew used to it after a fashion. A single candle burned in the room, throwing long, dancing shadows on the walls. Maarkov lounged against the wall near the door, behind the sea captain whom Maaz was interrogating.
“I saved that boat from the storm, after, and barely made it back here. Lucky we had spare sailcloth enough to rig something, or we'd have died out in the blue. Thirteen of your boys survived,” the man went on, hunched over his hat. Maarkov couldn't blame the man for his discomfort. Maaz's presence had that effect on people.
“And the commander of your expedition?” Maaz asked.
“He left for the Orrisan ship. Never came back.”
Maaz sighed and placed his hands on the table. “I see. Who is in command of the unit now?”
“A young officer named Havram. Seems like a good sort. He was very courteous, see?”
“How wonderful,” Maaz said. “Tell me, Captain—why in the Six Hells have you come here today?”
The captain stiffened at Maaz's tone, and Maarkov bent his ears more in the direction of their conversation. He reached down and fingered the hilt of the long, thin sword he wore at his hip, and watched his brother out of the corner of his eye. When that tone entered Maaz's voice, there was likely violence to follow.
“I...ah...well, I'm still owed payment, see? And damages.”
“Damages?” Maaz asked, feigning an interested tone.
“Aye. I lost a full rig's worth of sailcloth to this expedition—something that the original offer won't cover—plus a fortune in hull and deck repairs. Not all the men that died on that voyage were Imperial military, either. What am I to pay their families?” the captain asked, mustering his courage to make his case. Doubtless, he thought he was speaking to some Imperial functionary, perhaps a governor. He couldn't be more wrong.
“You misunderstand me, Captain. How did you make it here, to this room? Who sent you to me?” Maaz asked.
“The Lieutenant sent me to the Imperial Registrar, who gave me this office as a place to seek recompense,” the man replied, shooting a dubious glance in Maarkov's direction. Maarkov would have feigned a smile at the man, but he didn't care enough to try. He met his stare with a flat expression.
“I see,” Maaz sighed. “Did they give you a name?”
The captain looked sideways at Maaz. “No, sir.”
“Very well. You shall have your recompense, Captain. So shall the families of your dead crewmen,” Maaz said.
“They will?” the captain asked, obviously surprised by this turn of events.
“No,” Maaz smiled, “I was lying.”
“Lying? What...what is this?” the man asked, but Maaz looked up and caught Maarkov's eye.
That was his cue.
Maarkov pulled his sword from his belt and stepped into a long lunge, sticking the man through the back. The captain gave a pitiful cry of surprise as Maarkov's blade exited his belly, and he leaned over the desk, gurgling in pain. His hands scraped at the wood, and he grunted as Maarkov pulled the sword back the way it had come, twisting it at the end to widen the wound. Maaz watched it all happen with intense interest.
The captain cursed and sputtered, blood leaking onto the dusty wooden floor. He tried to rise, but Maarkov stuck him through the hips. Cutting the muscles there ended that little rebellion, and the bastard slumped back into the chair. The man coughed and hissed, and finally his shoulders relaxed as he started to lay his head down.
Maaz reached out his hand just as the man was hovering on the brink, and the man's body went suddenly rigid. Veins popped to the surface over every inch of the man's skin, and his muscles contorted so violently that he twisted on the chair, but his eyes stayed locked to Maaz.
“Oh no, you can't die just yet,” Maaz hissed, looking the body in the eyes. “You'll serve a purpose before I send your worthless soul to the Void.” Maaz held out a thin, gray finger, and gestured toward it with his other hand. A cut appeared there, leaking dark fluid that barely resembled blood, and Maaz pressed it to the captain's forehead. The man uttered a nonsensical wail of pain, but Maaz paid him no heed as he began to draw something on his head.
“There are rules in place, you see—rules more ancient than either of us, Captain. There are routes to power that few have the gall to tread, but for everything...a price,” Maaz said. He leaned back and regarded his work, then nodded as if he'd just built a sturdy section of wall. Then, he held out his hands like a puppeteer, and gestured at the man’s contorted body.
Sizzling lines began to appear on his skin as Maaz's magic burned complicated paths and patterns across it. The captain uttered another wail, and then grunted like a beast in a feral rage. Maaz continued his work, deaf to the man's bleating, and regarded him one last time as the magic faded. After a moment, Maaz raised his hand and clenched it into a fist.
The sailor's body went suddenly still.
“Where is the Third Sign of the Nar'doroc?” Maaz asked.
“It is above the sea, below the sky,” whispered the captain, but Maarkov wasn't sure if the man still occupied his own skin. He'd seen enough strange things to last a lifetime—two, even—in his brother's service, but the revulsion still came anew every time. “It is on a ship, and in a box.”
“To where does it travel?”
“West, to the land of seven tribes. West, to the city of magic,” the thing replied.
“Where is the child I seek?”
“She is over the sea, and under the sky. She is on a ship, and in a cabin.”
Maaz paused for a moment. “Is she with the Nar'doroc?”
“She is with a part of it,” the thing whispered.
“Very well,” Maaz said. “Begone.”
The body of the man went limp and slid to the floor, rolling in the blood that had spilled from it. Maarkov chanced a look at its face, and shivered at the expression of fear that was frozen there. Maaz ro
se from the head of the desk and walked around to look at it, then shook his head and sighed.
“Gather up the men left under Grant's command, and kill them. Kill the crew of the ship, too. We'll hire out more men and restock it for the journey.”
“You mean to follow them?” Maarkov asked.
“Of course I mean to follow them,” Maaz snapped. “It's obvious that I can't count on anyone else, isn't it? We shall go to the Sevenlands. We leave as soon as you get the ship prepared.”
“You want to chase them into the west? That...thing...said that they're traveling to the city of magic. We both know that means Ishamael. What do you think the Conclave will do if they catch you traipsing around the countryside, eating people as you go?” Maarkov asked. “Is this thing really that important?”
Maaz gave him a withering look. “My dear brother, allow me to fill your mind with something other than swordplay and the running price for Shundovian whores.” Maarkov stiffened, but he was used to this sort of vitriol from his brother. As much hatred as Maaz spit at him, Maarkov sent it right back. He despised his brother.
He was, however, bound to him forever.
“How about I fill your neck with steel instead?” Maarkov asked. Maaz ignored him.
“Nothing could be more important than this, Maarkov. All of our preparations over the long years have been leading up to possessing the Nar'doroc, and we cannot allow the threads to sever now.” Maaz looked to the west, as if he could see the Sevenlands through the wall. “The ancient weapon, sundered into seven pieces—seven signs of power over the world. No, Maarkov—there is nothing more pressing. Make our preparations. We hunt as soon as they're complete.”
THE END
Of
BOOK ONE
Of
The Seven Signs
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Knife in the Dark
Book Two of The Seven Signs
Revised Edition
Copyright © 2016 Daniel Wesley Hawkins. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this ebook via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
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For those who have been there, and those who are still here.
The Golden Mug
“Land! Land to the west!”
Halfhearted cheers greeted the call from the lookout, if only for the relief of sighting land after so many days of being at sea. Dormael didn't join them. He couldn't blame the crew of Seacutter for their unenthusiastic attitude—after all, many of their crewmates had died on the journey. More had perished later of wounds taken in the fight, and there had been a ten day stretch which had seen at least one body a day given over to the care of the deep. The mood aboard ship was somber.
Dormael had to admit to feeling responsible for their deaths, at least to some degree. The Galanians had been chasing them for weeks prior to their departure, but everyone had assumed they'd be safe once they made it to sea. They had underestimated the Imperials, and the dogged lengths to which their commander—Colonel Grant—had been willing to go. After a desperate naval battle, they had escaped by the skin of their teeth, leaving the Imperial ship crippled to the mercy of the storm. Dormael had no idea if the ship had been taken by the Sea of Storms, but he had seen the thing burning as it was carried away by the swells, and he wouldn't have wagered on its survival.
Shawna had killed Colonel Grant—a fact which had elicited a subtle change both in her and Bethany. The two of them were closer now that the man had been sent screaming into the Void. Shawna had told him about it during one of the days when pain had kept them both bedridden. He had known Shawna to be an expert swordswoman, but he had assumed her to be the sort of Blademaster who enjoyed having the Mark to show her noble friends.
Dormael had been wrong about her, to say the least. He and Shawna had grown closer during the trip. She tolerated him now, even laughed at his jokes on occasion, and he didn't bristle at her company the way he had on the road to Borders. She had won his respect during the fight, and his friendship in the following days.
Those days had been spent healing from their various wounds, continuing Bethany's lessons, and training with Shawna. It was at her insistence that they started holding regular sparring matches, both to help their bodies heal, and to keep their skills sharp. Dormael had objected, until the first three times Shawna had bested him with nothing but her footwork. After that, he had stopped complaining. The crew of Seacutter had started taking bets on the matches, and fortunes were made in the rare events that Dormael or D'Jenn bested Shawna—which usually happened by luck.
Bethany had watched every match with intense delight. The girl's earlier rapport with the crew had vanished after her spectacle with the armlet. It had broken Dormael's heart to see her ostracized by the crew after they had treated her as one of their own. He had spent days talking to them, feeding them a tale about how the girl was a student on her way to the Conclave, and such things were to be expected of new wizards. Some of them had bought it, after a fashion, but most of them had kept their distance from the young girl. He understood their fear, as much as he hated the situation. The sight of her wrapped in the silver tendrils of Shawna's armlet, tossing flame and death in every direction, was something that would stay with Dormael for a very long time.
The sight of land coalescing out of the misty morning was a welcome one. Mikael had meant to head for Minsdurim, in the land of Duadan, but they had been forced to the south by increasingly dangerous weather. It had lengthened the trip, and they had spent somewhere around forty days at sea. Fate had brought them back to the land of Dormael and D'Jenn's own tribe—Soirus-Gamerit, in the southeastern corner of the Sevenlands. The port for which they were making was called Mistfall, and it sat at the easternmost tip of the coastline.
Mistfall was not the Tribal Seat of Soirus-Gamerit—the city in which the tribal leadership made its home—but it was the largest, richest city in the tribeland. Like many things in the Sevenlands, the harbor of Mistfall had been constructed with the help of magic. There were two giant breakwaters erected in the sea on the northern and southern side of the bay, each with a watchtower erected at the tip of their respective peninsulas. The watchtowers served not only to light the harbor’s location to lost ships at night, but also to house the capstans for the harbor chain that could be pulled taut to block the harbor in times of war. The claw-like shape of the breakwaters was what gave Mistfall the more common name that Sevenlanders used—the Crescent City. It was the busiest port in the entirety of the Sevenlands.
“Three more hours,” came a gruff voice from behind him.
Dormael turned from his survey of the water to regard Mikael, the Captain of the Seacutter. He had the hard-bitten look of a lifetime sailor, though he wasn't old, or unkempt. His hair was plaited in a multitude of small braids, after the Orrisan fa
shion, and stuffed into a cravat. Most of the rest of him was covered in a thick coat that buttoned almost to the knees, and he stood holding his hands to block the wind from the pipe he was attempting to spark.
“Until we've docked, or until we pass the breakwater?” Dormael asked.
“To the wharf, I hope,” Mikael grunted. “Not much traffic this time of year, anyway. We shouldn't have much trouble.”
“Put in at the Chapterhouse docks,” Dormael said.
“The Conclave Chapterhouse?” Mikael asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Aye. As long as you're on business for us, you can put in there for free.”
“There is another matter,” Mikael said, with an expression on his face like he'd swallowed a sour piece of fruit. “The price that Hadrick paid for your crossing was nice, but not enough to pay for the loss of sixteen crewmen. What am I to tell their wives, eh? The ones who had 'em, anyway. Their families are promised a stipend if they die at sea, but I can't pay out sixteen at once. These boys didn't sign on to fight damned Imperial soldiers, anyway. Those deaths are on you and yours.”
Dormael grimaced. “I understand. Listen...we didn't know they would pursue us over the sea. I'm sorry for your men.”
“I've grieved for my men,” Mikael said. “Right now I'm worried about their families, and how I'm going to keep this tub afloat without a mark to my name.”
“I see. The Conclave offers recompense for those who have worked in its interests. It's not widely known, but I can speak to the Chapterhouse Administrator here, and get you a promissory note.”
“Worked in its interests?” Mikael asked, shaking his head. “So, the Conclave hires mercenaries?”
“The Conclave does what it does. Just do your arithmetic, and I'll make sure you get paid.”
“And if I add in something extra for danger pay, and the damage to my ship?” Mikael asked.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 40
