The fire spread to the hallway, licking at the varnished wooden walls.
Caina had no time to watch its progress. She hurried to the common room and looked around. The men had vanished, no doubt in search of whoever had killed their fellows. Caina ripped a tapestry from the wall and threw half of it into the fireplace, leaving the other half to dangle upon the floorboards.
As the flames spread, she ran across the room and opened the door under the stairs. It opened into the innkeeper’s richly furnished room, lit by a single lantern on the table. A writing desk sat near the door, covered with papers.
Icaraeus’s papers.
Caina seized them. There was a ledger, and something that looked like a journal, and she took them both. A leather satchel lay against the wall, and she dropped the papers, books and all, into it. Men began shouting, and Caina heard the heavy thud of running footsteps on the stairs. No doubt someone had noticed the fires, and the slavers had come to the conclusion that they were under attack.
She ran back into the common room, surprised by how quickly the fire had spread. A pair of mercenaries ran down the stairs, taking no notice of her, and escaped into the night. Tigrane’s angry bellow rang down the stairs, followed by Icaraeus’s cold voice giving rapid orders. Caina hurried back into the hallway, ducking low to avoid the thick black smoke billowing from the bedrooms. She entered a room still untouched by the spreading flames and went out the window.
The drum of hooves came to her ears, galloping away to the north. The slavers were making a run for it. Caina slipped around the inn, saw the horsemen pounding towards the road.
And then, for just a moment, she saw Lord Naelon Icaraeus himself.
He sat atop a horse not twenty feet away, turning his head to shout something at Tigrane. His sword was in its sheath, his whole attention diverted away from Caina, and he wore no armor.
Perfect.
Her hand plunged to her belt, coming up with a throwing knife. She stepped towards him, arm and shoulder flung back, blade clenched between gloved fingers. Her whole body snapped like a bowstring and sent the knife hurtling towards Icaraeus.
The blade flew true and plunged into Icaraeus’s exposed neck.
Or it would have, had it not bounced away with a green flash. For a moment the bracers on his arms flickered with the same eerie light, the strange sigils shining with a sickly emerald glow. Pins and needles erupted over Caina, her skin crawling. She knew that feeling.
Sorcery. Some sort of sorcery to turn aside steel had been laid upon those bracers.
Icaraeus turned in the saddle, face tight with anger, his eyes falling upon Caina.
“My lord!” shouted Tigrane, “we must go, they’ll be upon us at any moment!”
Icaraeus jerked the reins and slammed his heels into the horse. The beast galloped into the night, Tigrane close behind. Caina stared after them for a moment, and stooped to retrieve her throwing knife. The blade had been warped, almost as if it had been thrust into a forge and left to melt.
So the rumors had been true.
She shoved the ruined weapon into the satchel.
It was time to go. She doubted Icaraeus and his gang would return. But the fire would be visible for miles, and sooner or later someone would come to investigate. Caina had no wish to be found. Besides, she had come here to seize Icaraeus’s papers, and she had them.
Caina grinned.
Freeing the slaves had been a bonus.
One of Icaraeus’s men had taken her horse, so Caina walked into the night, her cloak blending with the darkness.
Chapter 2 - The Circlemaster
Caina entered the woods and came to the dead tree where she had hidden her supplies.
She had thought the situation might turn sour, so she had hidden a store of useful items beforehand. Food, water, some additional weapons. And a new disguise, since her old one had burned to ash with the Inn.
But first, some rest. After eating some dried meat and bread and drinking some water, she drew out a heavy woolen cloak. The shadow-cloak was useful for concealment, but did nothing to keep away the chill.
Caina wrapped herself in the cloak, lay down, and went to sleep.
###
She had nightmares.
Caina often had nightmares. She was used to them. Halfdan had told her just as flesh bore scars, so too did the mind bear nightmares. And Caina had seen many things to leave scars upon her mind.
The dead men in Maglarion’s library. Her father, slack and glassy-eyed in his chair. Her mother, screaming with hatred. Maglarion standing over Caina’s naked flesh, knives glittering in his hands. A man burning alive, begging as sorcerous fire turned his skin to ash.
All these things made frequent appearances in her nightmares.
But tonight, she dreamed something new.
A girl stood before her, no more than eight or nine years old. She wore a gray dress, her hair held in place with a silver comb. The child’s face was solemn, her eyes haunted and grim.
“Who are you?” said Caina.
The girl said nothing.
“What do you want?” said Caina. “Are you lost?”
The girl raised her hand and pointed.
Caina looked, and caught a brief glimpse of a bottomless black pit, a pit filled with everlasting darkness. Then Caina was falling, the crawling shadows reaching up to devour her whole…
###
Caina awoke with a shudder, her heart racing. She sat up in alarm, expecting to see the gray-clad child or the yawning black pit.
But there was nothing but the woods, silent and filled with chill dawn mist. The dream had been so vivid, even beyond her usual nightmares. She almost expected to see the solemn girl in the gray dress waiting for her.
But the woods were empty and silent. And Caina had work to do.
She rose to practice her forms. She had learned open-handed fighting from some very skilled teachers, and had practiced every day for years. The movements had become reflexes. Open-palm strike, closed fist, high kick, sweeping kick, the left dodge, the right throw, followed by the throat strike and the wrist throw. She started slow, and then went through the movements faster.
When she had finished, her heart raced beneath her ribs, sweat stood out on her forehead, and she felt much better.
Caina pulled the rest of her supplies from the dead tree and sorted through them. She could not very well walk about in her nightfighter clothes, and some men viewed a woman traveling alone as an invitation.
So she dressed as a man, in heavy boots, rough trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, and a steel-studded leather jerkin. A sword and a dagger in battered scabbard hung from her belt, and the woolen cloak went over her shoulders. She rubbed the sweat from her brow into her black hair, letting it fall in a greasy curtain over her face, and scooped up some dirt and rubbed it over her jaw and cheeks. When it was done, she looked like any other ragged, unemployed mercenary, a man too poor and too violent to rob.
The heavy gold ring, her father’s signet ring, hung from a cord around her neck.
Her shadow-cloak and nightfighter gear went into a pack. Caina scooped up the pack, slung the satchel with Icaraeus’s documents over her shoulder, and set off.
###
The Emperor’s Legions had built the broad paved road, and Caina started south. To the east stood the woods, empty and silent, and to the west stretched the great blue expanse of the sea. A plume of black smoke stained the sky to the north. Caina wondered how much longer the White Road Inn would smolder.
About eight miles later the Ragman’s Inn came into sight, perched on the bluffs overlooking the beach. It looked nowhere near as fine as the White Road Inn. Countless winter storms had battered the place, and it looked on the verge of falling to pieces. From what Caina had heard, the place was notorious for bad food, vermin-infested rooms, and unscrupulous patrons.
But it was cheap. And the innkeeper knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Caina opened the door and stepped into the gloomy c
ommon room, the boards creaking beneath her boots. A few men sat in corners, watching the door. The innkeeper, a gaunt man in a greasy apron, walked towards her, asking questions in Szaldic.
“Piss off,” snarled Caina in accented Caerish, keeping her voice disguised, “or speak a proper tongue.”
The innkeeper glared, but switched to Caerish. “What’s your business here?”
“My business?” said Caina. “I want something to drink, that’s what I bloody want.”
The innkeeper eyes flicked to her satchel. “Courier?”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but aye,” said Caina. “Running messages to the city for some lord. Fat fool doesn’t pay me enough to walk all day. So, a drink. Or do you just serve horse piss?”
The man sneered, but produced a clay cup of mixed wine. Caina handed him a copper coin and took a sip. She did not care for wine, and this stuff was particularly bitter. Grimacing at the taste, she glanced over the common room, and crossed to a table in the corner.
A man in his middle fifties sat there, staring into his wine. His lank gray hair had been pulled into a tail, and he wore the rough clothes of a common laborer. Muscle corded his arms, and ugly red scars marked his hands and forearms. His disguise was perfect, but Caina recognized him at once. She would have known him anywhere.
She sat across from him.
His gray eyes narrowed. Then a corner of his mouth twisted.
“Should I fear the shadows?” he muttered, speaking in High Nighmarian, the formal language of the Imperial court.
“There are Ghosts in the shadows,” said Caina, reciting the countersign in High Nighmarian, “and let the tyrants tremble in their beds, for the shadows are ever watchful.”
“Indeed,” said the Halfdan, circlemaster of the Ghosts, Caina’s oldest teacher. He switched to Caerish. “Let take a walk along the beach. The air will do me good.” He downed the rest of his wine. “Vile swill. And the fewer secrets our friendly innkeeper knows, the happier we all shall be.”
Caina nodded, left her wine on the table, and followed Halfdan outside. They walked in silence down the bluffs until they reached the shore. The air here smelled of salt and seagull dung, and the constant roar of the surf would stymie any eavesdroppers.
“That is a good disguise, girl,” said Halfdan. “I didn’t recognize you at first. Though you make for an ugly man.”
She laughed. “That is the point.”
“By the by,” said Halfdan, “last night I saw a fire to the north. Sometime after that, I saw the master of the White Road Inn making for Marsis as fast as his legs could carry him, with his family and all his servants.” He looked at her. “You smell like smoke.”
“Things got a little out of hand,” said Caina.
Halfdan said nothing.
Caina sighed. “I burned down the Inn.”
“Did you? That’s a shame,” said Halfdan. “Old Oscar kept an excellent wine cellar.”
“Naelon Icaraeus was there,” said Caina.
Halfdan’s eyes sharpened. “He was?”
“In the flesh,” said Caina. “I thought that Icaraeus would have a courier there, maybe Tigrane or one of his other lieutenants. But Icaraeus was there, along with Tigrane and a dozen men. They’d taken over the Inn, kept Oscar and his family as captives in that excellent wine cellar.” Caina made a fist. “I almost had Icaraeus’s head. I should have had Icaraeus’s head.”
“What went wrong?” said Halfdan.
Caina reached into the satchel, handed Halfdan the twisted throwing knife. “The stories were true. Icaraeus has access to some level of sorcery. That’s how he’s been able to evade capture for so long. A brother of the Imperial Magisterium is aiding him.”
“Or,” said Halfdan, examining the ruined throwing knife, “a renegade, or a foreign sorcerer. Not every incident of illegal sorcery in the Empire is the fault of the Magisterium.”
“No,” said Caina, her hand twitching towards the ring on its cord, “just most of them.”
Dark memories welled up, and she pushed them away.
“But why seize the White Road Inn?” said Halfdan. “Utter folly. The place was popular with the local nobles. Someone was bound to notice something.”
Caina shrugged. “I heard Tigrane and Icaraeus talking. They said their client demanded additional slaves, immediately. Apparently they thought the reward worth the risk.”
“Apparently,” said Halfdan. “What else happened?”
“I killed a few of Icaraeus’s men, freed Oscar and his family, and burned the Inn down,” said Caina. “Icaraeus thought he was under attack, and bolted for his ship.”
Halfdan sighed. “You’re lucky to be alive. A pity you didn’t find anything we could use against Icaraeus. The Emperor would dearly like him brought down.”
“Oh,” said Caina, “I did find all his correspondence.”
Halfdan stared at her.
Caina grinned and handed him the satchel.
Halfdan took it and shuffled through the papers. “All of it?”
“Everything I could find,” said Caina. “There is also a ledger and a journal in there, I think.”
“Clever girl,” murmured Halfdan, pulling out a letter and glancing over it. “I’d hoped you would capture one of Icaraeus’s underlings at the White Road Inn. Instead you walk away with all of his correspondence. Well done.”
Caina felt a flush of pride. Halfdan was not the sort of man to hand out praise lightly. “Thank you.”
“But was it really necessary to burn down the Inn? Oscar had some superb wine.”
“It was necessary at the time,” said Caina. “I’ll try to avoid setting any more buildings on fire in the future.”
“Do that,” said Halfdan. “Now, help me sort through this.”
They found a pile of stones fallen from the bluff, high enough to avoid the water, and with an excellent view all around, should anyone try to approach. Caina sat, and Halfdan handed her a sheaf of letters. She began to sift through them. Most of the letters had been written to Icaraeus’s brokers in the great slave markets of Anshan and New Kyre and Istarinmul, describing the “inventory” he would sell them. Caina shuddered to think of those luckless men and women, ripped from their homes, destined to die toiling under strange stars.
If Naelon Icaraeus ever crossed her path again, she would find a way to kill him.
“Gods,” said Halfdan, paging through the ledger.
“What is it?” said Caina.
“Icaraeus keeps detailed records,” said Halfdan. “He’s taken slaves from Varia Province, from the villages on the River Marentine, even from the city of Marsis itself. Maybe nine thousand, all told.”
“Nine thousand?” said Caina, aghast. “How is that possible?”
“He’s been at it for ten years, and he didn’t hand over all his slaves to Haeron and Maglarion,” said Halfdan. “It looks like he raids the back country, isolated villages, far from the Legion garrisons.” He shook his head. “And the circlemasters have only been aware of his activities in the Empire for the last year. We thought he fled to Istarinmul after the Emperor outlawed House Icaraeus. Instead Naelon’s become the scourge of the western Empire.”
Caina handed him the letters. “It looks like he sells most of them in Istarinmul, though. And in Anshan and New Kyre, as well.”
“And in Marsis,” Halfdan said, pointing at the ledger.
Caina blinked. “You mean he kidnaps slaves in Marsis.”
“Aye,” said Halfdan, “but he also sells slaves in Marsis.”
“But Marsis is an Imperial city,” said Caina. “Slavery is against Imperial law.”
“So is kidnapping free men and women to sell them as slaves,” said Halfdan, “but that doesn’t stop Icaraeus. Someone in Marsis is buying slaves, hundreds of them.”
“The Magisterium,” said Caina at once. “It makes sense. The magi provide Icaraeus with tools of sorcery, and in return,” her voice grew hard, “he gives them slaves to use in their e
xperiments.”
“No,” said Halfdan. “It looks like…here. He sells to the noble Houses of Marsis. Palaegus, and a few others.”
“The noble Houses?” said Caina. “But that is utter folly. A noble House couldn’t possibly hide hundreds of slaves. The Emperor would find out about it. Then he’d send us to deal with them.”
“It is folly,” said Halfdan, “but the noble Houses have no shortage of fools. Yet it is still a mystery. And I do not like mysteries.” He stared at the ocean for a moment, frowning. Caina let him think, gathering up the letters and returning them to the satchel.
“This is what we’ll do,” said Halfdan. “We will go to Marsis and investigate these noble Houses. If we can find proof that they hold slaves, we’ll deal with them appropriately.”
Caina nodded. She knew what that meant.
“And this is our best chance to find Icaraeus and his gang,” said Halfdan. He tapped the ledger. “It seems he can get more money for a slave in Marsis than he can anywhere else. Odds are he will return to Marsis sooner or later. When he does, we’ll have him.”
Assuming they found a way to negate his sorcerous protections. But Halfdan already knew that.
“How will we be disguised?” said Caina.
“The jewel merchant, I think,” said Halfdan. “Basil Callenius, a man eager to sell his wares to the Lords and Ladies of the Empire. You will be my daughter, Anna. I will speak to the Lords, and you will speak to their wives and their daughters, and we will see what we can find.”
Caina nodded. They had used the disguise in the past, to great effect. Just as she could play the part of an Imperial Countess or her maid, so also could she masquerade as a jewel merchant’s pampered daughter.
“Is there a Ghost circle in Marsis?” said Caina.
“Aye,” said Halfdan. “Not a large one. But effective enough.”
Ghost in the Blood (The Ghosts) Page 2
