The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2)

by Phil Tucker

  Careful, thought Tiron. He stood immobile, ignored, painfully aware of how treacherous the ice was on which Iskra walked.

  "All who wish to ascend to the highest good share the same interests," said Iskra. "I'm confident that we have more in common than you might have thought."

  Ylisa didn't respond, but rather studied Iskra carefully, her eyes growing heavy-lidded, her full mouth pursed. Then she laughed, as if Iskra had uttered a great witticism. "How delightful! Then we should meet to discuss this common ground."

  "Time is regrettably short," said Iskra, smiling in return. "I meet with your father tomorrow morning."

  "Then, unless it's too inconvenient, perhaps we can arrange for a private audience later tonight."

  "That would be most appreciated," said Iskra.

  "Very well. I shall have you sent for when the time is right. Good evening, Lady Kyferin. I do so look forward to our talk."

  "As do I," said Iskra, curtsying once more.

  Ylisa nodded and turned away. The crowd closed behind her and obscured her from view.

  Ord stepped up breathlessly. He'd been hovering to the side waiting impatiently for his chance to approach. "It's Hannus. I've lost him."

  "Lost him?" Tiron's hand dropped to where his sword should have been. He craned to look over the sea of heads. "What are you talking about?"

  "A man bumped into me and nearly knocked me over. I think he was trying to provoke me into a fight. When I turned, I saw Hannus leaving the hall hand-in-hand with that serving girl. I ran after them, but I couldn't find him in the crowd. I decided it best to come tell you, rather than risk losing myself too."

  "Damn it," said Tiron. He rose to his tiptoes. Of course dozens of people were staring right at him. "Stay with Iskra. Don't leave her side, no matter what."

  He then plunged forward into the crowd and made his way to the entrance of the hall. What had come over Hannus? Had he taken Tiron's words too literally and decided to pursue his own private amusements at the cost of his sense of duty? Tiron hurried out into the forest hall and looked around angrily. That would teach him to keep his wisdom to himself. What kind of commander told common soldiers to do what they wished? Homesick, drunk Hannus had probably decided to avail himself of a winsome smile. That serving girl had been strikingly beautiful.

  Tiron rubbed his face, angry and frustrated. Damn it.

  Iskra and Ord emerged a few minutes later, along with the stream of guests who were continuously departing the hall. "Any sign of him?" she asked.

  "None," said Tiron. "He's young. Perhaps he had no head for alcohol."

  He looked to Ord, who shrugged. "I've never seen him drink before."

  Tiron took a deep breath, then sighed. "We can't risk splitting up to search for him."

  "You would no doubt be arrested for walking through the palace without permission," said Iskra. Her expression darkened. "It's also possible that there's foul play at hand here. Either way, we had best inform the chamberlain and return to our quarters. There's nothing we can do now."

  Tiron spat out a curse and grimaced apologetically at Iskra. "I thought that girl was too attractive. And the way the wine hit Hannus wasn't right. By the Ascendant, I'm a fool."

  "Enough." Iskra's voice was sharp. "We need to find the chamberlain, confess our problem, and pray that Hannus is indeed just enjoying himself most inappropriately. Come."

  The three of them threaded their way back into dining hall.

  A loud knock on their door caused Tiron to turn from the balustrade. It had been two hours since they'd returned, and Iskra had insisted they all rest in anticipation of a long day tomorrow. Ord had stretched out on a rug near the door, but Tiron had been unable to relax. He didn't recall when he'd last slept, but his anxiety would not stop gnawing at him. Hannus had not returned.

  Ord had started to climb to his feet when the door burst inward, knocking him down. Agerastian palace guards ran into the room, a couple of them pinning Ord to the floor, the candlelight glinting on their drawn blades.

  "What is this?"

  Tiron's bellow startled them for a moment, but then a captain stepped forward and sneered at him. The same page from before was by his side, and translated his Agerastian. "The Lady Kyferin is under arrest for attempted murder of the emperor."

  The door to her chamber opened and Iskra strode forth, belting on her night robe and blazing with fury. "Unhand my guard."

  "You are under arrest by order of the high chamberlain. Come with us." The captain's harsh message was undercut by the page's quavering voice. "There is no escape. Your man was found dead with a stolen blade, deep within the emperor's private gardens. There is to be an inquest, but until then, you must come with me."

  Iskra shot Tiron a look filled with fear and alarm. Hannus was dead. They'd murdered him. This arrest was a setup.

  Soldiers began to stride toward Tiron, their expressions wary, fanning out as they approached. Tiron had but seconds left. He looked past them to Iskra once more, put as much emotion as he could into that glance, then whirled and ran to the balustrade. The soldiers yelled and bolted after him, but Tiron didn't hesitate. He placed both hands on the stone top and vaulted out into the darkness, the shocked yells of the soldiers following him as he fell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tiron bit back a yell as he plummeted down. There was no time to have second-guessed his jump; he had acted on pure instinct, up and over without even time for a prayer before he smacked down into the pond, sending startled swans hissing and flapping their massive midnight wings in every direction. He spread out as he fell, trying to arrest his descent through the water, but even so his rear hit the stone bottom of the pond with jarring force. Gasping, he stood, wiped the water off his face, and ran.

  A fool might have stopped to gape up at the balcony, to see if the guards were going to leap down after him, and in doing so waste precious seconds. Tiron simply bolted across the grass, kicking his way through flower beds and leaping over knee-high hedges till he reached the far palace wall. Guards in the gardens had heard the yells and were converging on him without knowing what he'd done, but Tiron was in no mood to explain. He knew the garden layout, had studied it for hours over the course of the day, knew that the wall on this side was only chest height but dropped a fearsome dozen yards to the street below. He had no idea how he'd reach the street without breaking his legs. He'd deal with it when he got to the top of the wall.

  The guards weren't wasting any time. Out of the corner of his eye he could see them sprinting toward him, arms pumping, blades flashing. Tiron gritted his teeth and put on a final burst of speed, cleared a final hedge and then leaped, his booted sole catching the smooth wall with just enough friction to propel him up and over the top. When he landed, he planted both palms flat, hoisted himself up with a hiss of pain as something tore in his side, and then fell into a crouch. He had only seconds. A man to his right was almost on him.

  Tiron looked down in desperation. Single-lane road, clay-tiled three-storied buildings on the far side. Palm trees.

  No time. Tiron threw himself forward and out just as a blade swept through where he'd been crouching. Roaring, he sailed through the air, turning his shoulder just in time before he smashed into the roof of a second-story extension. Tiles shattered, wooden supports snapped, and with an almighty crash he plunged into the extension itself, falling in a shower of clay shards and shattered wood onto a divan. He bounced off it, hit the floor, and lay there groaning. Pieces of the roof continued to fall around him for a few seconds, and the floor lurched down an inch, then he hard shouts and the barking of dogs from deeper inside the building.

  "Damn," he groaned.

  Shaking his head, blinking away the dust, he turned onto his side and pushed himself up to sitting. If his body hadn't been mostly scar tissue, tendons and hard muscle by this point, he'd not have survived the fall.

  He was in a dining room of sorts, all of it drowned in shadow. A naked man with a curved blade appeared in a d
oorway, eyes wide, his pot belly gleaming with oil. Tiron didn't want to know who he was, didn't care to explain. He hoisted himself to his feet, extended his palms, and pointed at the stairs.

  "I was just on my way out."

  The man swung his blade around and gripped it with both hands with a rather intimidating amount of skill. No amateur here.

  "All right," said Tiron, backing up into the extension. "I'll take the quick way down." He turned, booted open a window, stepped outside onto the ledge, gripped it with both hands and dropped.

  He'd intended to hang for a moment, gauge the distance, then let go, but a blade thunked down between his fingers, nearly severing his thumb just as arrows were fired from the palace wall to thok into the extension's ruined framework. Tiron heard wooden beams crack even as he let go. He fell, and realized to his horror that the entirety of the extension was falling down with him. There was a sick, lurching second of freefall, arms cartwheeling, during which he locked eyes with the potbellied warrior who was falling mere feet above him, and then everything hit the street with a resounding crash.

  Tiron grunted, full of dull, beating pain. But it was nothing he wasn't used to. He tried to move, and found that he was pinned. He got his hands under a beam and shoved it off him, then got his feet beneath him and stood, head ringing, timber and plaster cascading off him. Soldiers were yelling in Agerastian from high up the palace wall.

  Tiron stepped out of the wreckage and saw the potbellied man's corpse, a spar of wood extending right out through his chest. His belly gleamed like wet metal in the moonlight. "Rough deal," said Tiron, bending down to take up the man's curved blade. It was heavy, the hilt wrapped in well-worn leather, and the balance was strange. Still, it looked like it could cut a pig in half. He'd take it.

  Thok thok thok. More arrows were spat down from the skies. Tiron ducked his head and ran, his stride wobbly. Pain flared in his left knee and his right hip, and blood was running down the back of his neck. His elbow was jammed, and he was sure the wound in his side had been torn open again. He'd never thought he'd be as grateful for years of warfare and the abuse it had put him through as he was now. He swallowed down the pain, wiped the dust from his eyes again, and pounded down the street.

  Think. He couldn't just keep charging down the center of the street. Guards would be converging on him from the palace gates. He had to hide. Regroup. Plan.

  He stumbled to a stop and stood swaying, then turned to consider the building before him. Some kind of shop. Massive wooden shutters had been lowered to cover the display window. A heavy wooden door stood to the window's left. There were two stories above, one of the an oh-so-popular extension.

  Tiron heard distant shouts. They were hunting him.

  He stepped forward and swung the heavy blade at the door handle. It cut deep into the cheap wood. He smashed his shoulder against the door and almost blacked out as every wound screamed at him, then shoved the tip of the blade into the jamb and wrenched the door open with brute force. He didn't look right or left as he strode inside, just powered down the hall, through a storage room to the back door. He threw the cross bar aside and went outside to find himself in an alley. He ran down it.

  He spent the next half hour getting lost. He stayed in they alleys, working his way ever deeper into the heart of the city, skirting squares, avoiding avenues, occasionally climbing a wooden ladder to a flat roof where he'd stop and catch his breath. It was on one such roof that he finally stopped, squatted, and then toppled over onto his side. He lay there gasping, his lungs burning, and finally righted himself.

  Hannus, dead. A setup, a ploy to get at Iskra. An assassination attempt on the emperor was a clever move; everyone would believe it of the Kyferin widow. Tiron could hear it now: the whole story of Gate Stone and a second Black Gate spun to fool a credulous emperor in dire straits, all of it so that they could get an assassin in close and end the war.

  Tiron stood and stepped up to a rain barrel. He dunked his head in the water, let the icy coldness sink into his head till his nasal passages ached, then pulled out with a gasp. The fuzzy thinking has been replaced by shocking fresh clarity. Who could he turn to? He didn't even speak Agerastian.

  Orishin.

  The scribe could advise him. At the very least, he could translate for Tiron. But where would Tiron find him at this time of night? The only point of reference he had was Orishin's market stall, but how would he find that one square amongst the hundreds that dotted this sprawling city?

  Tiron closed his eyes and focused, trying to remember. A rose-colored building with a great dome. That had stood to one side of the market. There were hundreds of squares, but only a dozen such buildings. Now, how to get there from here?

  Tiron cast around. He needed height from which to examine the city. A block away, a slender tower rose like a finger pointed at the Ascendant. That would serve. He took a deep breath, wishing that he was in his Ennoian clothing with a belt he could slide the curved blade into before he realized that, no, this robe was perfect. It gave him a modicum of cover.

  He went down the ladder, hurried over to the base of the tower, then paused in the shadows, examining it. It was too slender to be a home. A lookout spot? Perhaps. There was no light up top, but then a sentry wouldn't need to illuminate himself. He'd want perfect night vision up there. Tiron stepped up to the door and pushed it open.

  Who would assault a watch tower? A mad Ennoian, was who.

  He crept up the spiral staircase, moving as silently as he could in the darkness. Round and round he went, till finally he reached the final curve that led up to the top floor. There was no door, just an archway. Tiron considered his approach, then straightened, pushed his shoulders back and strode up into the night air.

  The view of the city was stunning, but he ignored it and moved instead toward the guard. The man was leaning on one elbow, gazing idly out toward the harbor, but he stood up quickly like any guard caught at ease by a superior. The man frowned at the sight of Tiron and asked him something sternly in Agerastian.

  "Look," said Tiron, pointing at the palace, and when the man did so, he punched him in the jaw with everything he had. They both fell to the ground, one unconscious, the other overbalanced.

  Tiron cursed under his breath. He was in bad shape. Still, the man wasn't moving. Slowly Tiron pulled himself back up and leaned on the parapet, just like the guard had been doing. Now, where was that dome?

  For several minutes he examined the city. There were a dozen of the huge, copper-plated domes, and he spent some time trying to gauge which might be the right one. They'd walked for a while from the square to the palace, at which point they were high above the harbor. He narrowed the choices down to two potential domes, marked a route to the one on the left, and descended back to the streets.

  Some minutes later, he emerged into a square. The rose-colored building looked gray in the light of the moon, the dome glittering sullenly, but it was the central plane tree and the closed stalls that Tiron focused on. He'd guessed correctly. Still, he felt no sense of triumph. He still had far too much to accomplish. He strode up to Orishin's stall, and sure enough, he saw the translator asleep underneath it, wrapped in blankets and with his head resting on a fine tasseled pillow.

  Tiron crouched down and poked the man in the side with his blade. Orishin cried out and sat up, banging his head on the underside of his stall and then turning to Tiron. His eyes widened in fear and he began to scrabble back, speaking urgently in Agerastian.

  "Hey, hey!" Tiron cut off his babbling. "It's me. Tiron. Keep it quiet."

  "Ser Tiron?" Orishin stopped his awkward scuttling away and peered at him. "It is you! I thought you were a demon come to claim me for my sins. But - what has happened? You are covered in blood!"

  Tiron touched his face. His fingers came away sticky. "Hannus is dead. He was framed by Ylisa. They killed him and made it look like he was trying to kill the emperor. The chamberlain has had Iskra and Ord arrested."

  Orishin blinked rapidl
y as he processed that. "Oh, no."

  "Oh, yes. Now you're going to help me get her out."

  "I am? But how? The prison is heavily guarded. Yes, we must. But how? Let me think."

  Both men stared at the ground, each deep in thought. Tiron racked his brain, trying to think whom they could approach. "I've got it," he said. "We've got to get to the Vothak Academy."

  Orishin opened his mouth to protest, then went still. "Yes. Very good. They are loyal only to the emperor, and they are strongly in favor of this war. Any truce will depend on their being killed for heresy. But how can they help?"

  "I don't know yet. But we met three of them earlier tonight. Al-Vothak Ilina, in particular."

  Orishin tugged at his beard. "The academy is not too far from here, but they will not let two strangers inside at this hour, no matter how wild a tale we spin."

  "Can we break in?" Tiron thought his own proposition over. "No, bad idea. I doubt Sin Casters would treat intruders gently."

  Orishin sat up. "There is one man who might help us. It is a dangerous gamble, however. He could just as easily arrest us both."

  "Captain Patash?"

  "The same. He is a very intelligent man, and the fact that he was willing to lead Lady Kyferin to the Hall of Peacocks instead of the Hall of Pigeons speaks in his favor. His help is far from guaranteed, however."

  Tiron scratched at his jaw. "Do you know where to find him?"

  Orishin nodded eagerly. "He passes through this square on patrol every two hours. He's due to come by soon again. That's how I've come to know him. He stops by my stall on occasion to discuss international affairs."

  "All right. I'd best remain out of sight at first, though." Tiron scanned the square. "Let's do this. I'll wait in that alley. When he appears, tell him you need to speak to him in private and lead him there. We'll talk. If he agrees to help, good. If not, well, at least we'll have some privacy."

  Orishin nodded, eyes wide. "Please, try not to hurt him. He is a good man, a friend of mine."