Ghost in the Ring (Ghost Night Book 1)

by Jonathan Moeller

  He had not been sure what to expect when he met the woman in the flesh.

  Perhaps she would be a broad-shouldered ox of a woman, the sort of woman who would be mistaken for a man at the first or even third glance. Certainly, that fit some of the tales about the terrible Balarigar. Or maybe she would be a woman of stunning beauty, capable of beguiling the men around her into doing whatever she wished. That would explain why a man like Kylon Shipbreaker followed her.

  To his mild surprise, she was neither.

  Caina Amalas Tarshahzon Kardamnos was a young woman of average height and lean build. Her black hair, blue eyes, and noble birth marked her as yet another scion of House Scorneus, but the damned troublemakers seemed to be everywhere. She was pretty, certainly, and he would have no objection to bedding her with or without her approval, but her mouth was too thin and her features too sharp for her to be exceptionally beautiful. Frankly, he could not decide if she looked like a Szaldic peasant girl or a Nighmarian noblewoman, but certainly she had the eyes of a noblewoman. They were large and blue and very, very cold, and did not blink as they met his gaze.

  That was the first indication that there might be something odd about her.

  Few people could meet his gaze any longer. Most of his own men could no longer do it, and only a few of his fellow Hounds.

  The second indication was that he could not sense her at all.

  It surprised Razdan how much that alarmed him. He had only been a mavrokh for two and a half years, had only possessed the enhanced senses and the spirit’s abilities for that long. Yet he had grown accustomed to sensing the presence of others around him. He could see Caina, and he could smell her, but his mavrokh could not sense her presence at all.

  The silence stretched on and on.

  “How old were you,” said Caina in High Nighmarian at last, “when you killed your father?”

  He blinked in surprise, a little flicker of alarm going through him.

  Perhaps some of those rumors about the Balarigar were true.

  “What makes you think I killed my father?” said Razdan.

  Caina raised one black eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  It was aggravating that he could not sense her at all. He could smell her easily enough. She had washed and bathed recently, though he still smelled Kylon’s scent on her. Likely she had lain with him earlier. She was a little afraid of Razdan, but not as much as she should have been.

  But none of it, no hint of her emotions, showed on her face.

  She looked perfectly calm. Perhaps she was too stupid or too overconfident to realize just how frightened she should have been.

  “Obvious?” said Razdan. He needed to find out more about her before he acted. He leaned back in his chair, watching her. “Enlighten me. Why is it obvious?”

  “The townsmen say you took your father’s place about two and a half years ago,” said Caina. “That would be just after the day of the golden dead. Vlad Nagrach died unexpectedly. Everyone thought he had at least another ten or fifteen years left in him. But he died, and you took his place, and you displayed yourself openly as a Hound of the Iron King.” She smiled a little. “Was he your first kill as a mavrokh? Or one of the first?”

  “The second,” said Razdan, irritated that she had guessed the truth. There had been an initiation ceremony, and the Temnoti and the Syvashar had brought his first victim, some peasant woman or another he had killed and then devoured to seal his transformation into a mavrokh. After that, Vlad Nagrach had been his second kill. By the name of Temnuzash, it had been satisfying to watch the horror on the old tyrant’s face, to listen to his shrieks as Razdan had devoured him alive.

  He was beginning to suspect he would enjoy doing the same to the woman in front of him.

  He was also beginning to suspect that killing her might not be nearly as easy as killing his father had been.

  “I suppose there have been many others since then,” murmured Caina. “It is easy to kill when they cannot fight back, is it not?”

  “That is of no consequence right now,” said Razdan, “and of no consequence to you.” He tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair, watching that calm face. “So you are a valikarion, hmm? You need only look at me, and all my secrets are revealed to you, is that it?”

  “Not at all,” said Caina. “I’m merely observant, and I can make deductions from the things I observe. Being a valikarion has nothing to do with it.”

  “If you are a valikarion,” said Razdan, “then where is your valikon? The Arvaltyri of old always carried valikons for their glorious battles against the Iron King.”

  “Elsewhere,” said Caina with a faint smile.

  “Show me,” said Razdan, leaning forward. “Perhaps you really are a valikarion with a valikon. Or perhaps you are a skillful deceiver, and this is all nonsense.”

  The faint smile didn’t waver. “I am an excellently skilled deceiver, my lord boyar. And, no, I’m not going to show you my valikon.”

  “Why not?”

  “For the same reason,” said Caina, “that you aren’t going to transform into your wolf-form in front of me.”

  Razdan smiled at her, showing his teeth, and his mavrokh snarled in his thoughts. “And why won’t I do that? We are alone. I could transform and rip out your throat before your husband and your pet battle magus could rescue you.”

  “You could,” said Caina, “but that would be like drawing a sword at a parley. If you transform, you’ll find out just where I have hidden my valikon…and my husband and Lord Sebastian are very fast. Maybe faster than you are. They might kill you before your szlachts can transform and join the fight.” She reached for the table, and Razdan tensed. But instead of a weapon, she held up a corroded old silver coin. “Do you like to gamble?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Razdan.

  “Because if you transform and I summon my valikon, that’s what you’re doing, my lord,” said Caina. “Gambling.” She tossed the coin to herself and slapped it against her palm. “A fifty-fifty chance, most likely. Either we kill you, or you kill me.”

  Razdan almost did it. The fact that this foreign woman would dare to challenge him to his face was infuriating, and it certainly enraged his mavrokh. He wanted to transform, leap across the table, and rip out her throat with his jaws while his claws tore open her chest. He started to call his mavrokh, let its power transform him into the pure fury of the beast…

  No. Control. His rational mind needed to govern this confrontation. This woman looked harmless, fit either only as a concubine for his amusement or a meal for his mavrokh, but he suspected she might be the most dangerous foe he had faced since becoming the Boyar of Kostiv.

  And even if she was not a valikarion, Sebastian Scorneus was still a battle magus and Kylon was still a stormdancer.

  He had the irritating feeling that she guessed just what was going through his head.

  “Very well,” said Razdan once he had mastered himself. “But you have not summoned your valikon. I assume that you then have a reason for speaking with me?”

  “Yes,” said Caina.

  “Well?” said Razdan. “What is it?”

  Another irritating thought occurred to him.

  He couldn’t decide what color her eyes were.

  They were blue, obviously, but what shade of blue? The water of the river? The ice of the river when it froze? Or the ice upon the mountains? The steel forged in the southlands? It was an absurd thought, and one utterly unlike Razdan. He had no use for poetry. Yet he realized his mind had gone in such a strange direction because he could not sense her presence.

  But they were cold eyes, were they not? The eyes of someone accustomed to killing.

  “Simply to talk,” said Caina.

  “Talk?” said Razdan. “I am a mavrokh, a Hound of the Iron King. You are a valikarion, or you claim to be. We are natural enemies as the hawk and the mouse are, as the…”

  “As the wolf and the sheepdog?” said Caina.

  He
inclined his head in acknowledgment of the metaphor. It would be a mistake to see her as a mouse.

  “As you say,” said Razdan. “Then what do you wish to discuss?”

  “The Boyar’s Hunt,” said Caina.

  He smiled at her, leered really, and let his eyes flick up and down over her body, imagining what her unclad form would look like while running for her life in the Hunt. It failed to draw a response from her.

  “I see,” said Razdan, “you have spoken with Sophia Zomanek.”

  “I have,” said Caina. “And the burgomaster, and Ivan Zomanek, and the families of the other girls and women you selected for the Hunt.”

  “Did you, now?” said Razdan. He sneered. “Come to judge the customs of Ulkaar, Nighmarian?”

  “It seems quite a few of the people of Ulkaar judge the custom of the Boyar’s Hunt as well,” said Caina. “I spoke to all the families of those chosen for the Hunt, but I failed to learn what I wished.”

  “And what did you wish to learn?” said Razdan.

  “Why?” said Caina.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you bring back the Boyar’s Hunt?” said Caina.

  Razdan smirked. “Have you a theory, valikarion? Have you looked at me and deduced the truth?”

  Caina shrugged. “The most logical explanation is that you are a cruel and stupid man, that you are tormenting your subjects for no better reason than to slake your own lust and to feed the wretched spirit that you stuffed inside your skull.” The rage pulsed through him again, and the chair’s arms creaked in his fingers. “But I wondered if you had a better reason.”

  “I have the best of reasons,” said Razdan, his voice hard.

  “Oh? Do enlighten me.”

  “I am a Hound of the Iron King,” said Razdan, “a true vassal of Rasarion Yagar.”

  “It is a challenge to serve a dead man.”

  He ignored her disrespect. He would make her show fear before the end of this meeting, one way or another. “It was Rasarion Yagar who freed us from the yoke of the Kagari khans, Rasarion Yagar who raised Ulkaar to greatness. He showed us the path to power. The great god Temnuzash gave him the power to free us, and Temnuzash shall give the lords of Ulkaar the power to rule the world.”

  “Nadezhda the Warmaiden disagreed,” Caina said, her voice mild.

  “She is dead,” said Razdan. “Have you yet failed to realize the truth, valikarion? The Iron King shall return. The lords of Ulkaar will rise in power. We shall sweep aside both the Empire and the Umbarian Order, and the world will kneel to the Iron King.”

  “Indeed?” said Caina, raising her eyebrows again. “The Iron King will return? Most curious. I had not heard that rumor before.”

  Razdan blinked, and then rebuked himself. He was giving her information. The rumors about the Balarigar had claimed that the woman was a spy for the Emperor. The Empire was preoccupied with the Umbarian Order, but the Syvashar would still be furious if Razdan spilled the secrets of the Temnoti to an agent of the Emperor.

  “Let us not speak of rumors,” said Razdan. “You asked why I had reinstituted the ancient ritual of the Boyar’s Hunt? I did so because it is my right. I am a Hound of the Iron King. The people of Kostiv are mine to do with as I please…and I do not suffer outlanders to interfere with what is mine.”

  “Do you not?” said Caina. “I’ve already interfered.”

  Razdan smiled again, showing his teeth. “Your husband killed Varlov.”

  “Varlov would have killed us.”

  “Well.” Razdan tapped the arms of his chair again. “Perhaps Varlov was rash. Rudjak says that Varlov attacked you alone while the others hung back.”

  “They were wiser than Varlov,” said Caina.

  “So it would seem.” Razdan looked at the table and saw that she had set out cups and a carafe of wine, or at least the swill that passed for wine at the White Boar. He took the carafe, poured himself a cup, poured a second for her, and slid it down the table to her reach.

  “That’s very trusting of you,” said Caina as Razdan lifted the cup to his lips. “I could have poisoned the wine.”

  “Yes,” said Razdan, taking a drink. By Temnuzash, it was vile, but Risiviri was the only place in all Ulkaar to get proper wine. “But if you poison me, Rudjak and the others will simply kill you all.”

  “And the mavrokh will, no doubt, heal you from any poisons at once,” said Caina, taking a sip of her own wine.

  Razdan cursed again. Likely the wine had been another test, a way of probing the limits of his abilities. Still, all this talking made him thirsty.

  “Why are you here?” said Razdan at last. “Let us accept for the moment that you really are a valikarion. No doubt you are on some righteous crusade to rid the world of evil sorcerers. But there are far greater foes loose in the world. The Umbarians, for one. Kostiv is a distant corner of the Empire. Why come here?”

  “If you must know, it was an accident,” said Caina. “I don’t understand how it happened. Some freak of sorcery drew us here and deposited us in the forests to the north. The same thing happened to Sebastian.” She shrugged. “It is an unbelievable story, I know, but if I was going to lie to you, I would do a better job of it.”

  “I see,” said Razdan. Perhaps that was a way out of this dilemma. He decided to share some information. “In truth, I find your story believable.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because a few days ago, a large party of Umbarian magi and Adamant Guards passed near Kostiv, heading to the northeast,” said Razdan.

  Caina blinked. “No one in the town spoke of this.”

  “Likely no one in the town knew,” said Razdan. “They remain huddled in their walls until winter passes, save for those few brave enough to dare the dangers of the haunted forest and venture forth to hunt.” He smiled at her again. “But my pack brothers were hunting the forest, and we watched them from afar.”

  “And you did not slay them for daring to trespass upon your lands?” said Caina.

  “You know better than that.” Razdan took another drink of the bitter wine. “The Umbarians do not care if we follow the old ways of Temnuzash. For that matter, I am sworn to the Voivode of Vagraastrad, and he supports the Umbarians. Finally, the Umbarians are not the sort to allow others to meddle in their affairs.” He offered her a thin smile. “As you already know, if the rumors of Caina Amalas and the Umbarians in Istarinmul are true.”

  She did not respond to the taunt. “Do you know what they were doing in the forest?”

  Razdan shrugged. “Some work of sorcery. We left them alone, and they left us alone. They departed to the south before your encounter with Rudjak at the Sanctuary Stone. Therefore, I am perfectly willing to believe that the Umbarians summoned you here by accident, and that offers a solution to our disagreement.”

  “And what is that?” said Caina.

  “You wish to return home, yes?” said Razdan. He set aside the wine cup. “To Istarinmul or Malarae or wherever the legendary Balarigar makes her dwelling. I can accept that. Take your husband and your sibling or cousin or whatever Sebastian Scorneus is and go. You did kill Varlov, but perhaps Varlov acted rashly. Leave Kostiv and never return, and I shall be satisfied.”

  Caina said nothing for a moment.

  “That would be acceptable.” She set down her wine cup, and those cold eyes met his. “I also wish to take Sophia Zomanek with me.”

  A snarl of anger went through Razdan, the mavrokh growling inside his head.

  “No,” he said. “The girl remains. You, Lord Kylon, and Lord Sebastian may depart my lands in peace, so long as you never return. But Sophia stays in Kostiv.”

  “Sophia has done me great service,” said Caina. “Ever since I found her, she has acted as a guide and a translator. I would reward such service. She will come with me when I depart.”

  “If you want to reward her, fine,” said Razdan. “Give her a purse of gold or a pat on the head, whatever you wish. But she will remain in Kostiv.”
/>   The blue eyes got colder. Now they reminded Razdan of ice more than anything else. “So she can run in your Boyar’s Hunt.”

  “Yes,” said Razdan.

  “The Boyar’s Hunt,” said Caina. “Such a fine and noble-sounding name. Though given that you plan to force yourself upon her and then kill and eat her, I suppose that calling the Boyar’s Hunt by its true name of murderous cannibalism might upset you.”

  “She should be honored,” said Razdan. “Of all the women and girls of Kostiv, she was one of the seven most beautiful, and only the most beautiful women are chosen for the Hunt.”

  “She appreciated the honor,” said Caina. “She appreciated it so much that she fled into the woods and risked death rather than face it.”

  “Foolish child,” said Razdan. “A quick death at my hands is better than what she would suffer if she fell into the hands of an ardivid or a wraith. And who knows? If she pleases me, perhaps I will spare her life and allow one of my szlachts to keep her as a concubine.”

  “A barbarous custom,” said Caina with a faint hint of contempt.

  That contempt made Razdan angrier than anything else she had said. “Barbarous? You dare to call us barbarous? Do not presume to judge your betters. You are a long way from Malarae, Nighmarian. Yes, you are so cold and so proud, but if you flee naked through the woods with the Hounds of Iron King hunting you, let us see how long that pride lasts. You will scream and weep and beg on your knees before the end, just like all the others.”

  “And what gives you the right?” said Caina. “What makes you better?”

  “Strength,” said Razdan. “I am a Hound of the Iron King, and I may do what pleases me.”

  Caina scoffed. “Does it? Many a bandit thought the same before meeting his end at your father’s gallows, I’ll wager.” She leaned back in her chair, her face still calm, but he was starting to smell some fear from her, which pleased him. But there was something else in her scent.

  Rage. She was furious at him. And still nothing of it showed on her face.

  Razdan smiled. “And my father thought the same until I killed him.”