Ghost in the Blood (The Ghosts)

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “My lord,” said one of the mercenaries, “we’ve got to…”

  Caina straightened up, snatched the mercenary's hair, and ripped the ghostsilver dagger across his throat. The mercenary fell, choking and clawing at neck. The second mercenary whirled and charged at her with a yell. He met Ark instead. The heavy staff smashed into the man’s face. The mercenary staggered, and Ark swept his legs out from under him. The man fell with a groan, and Ark’s brought the butt of the staff onto the mercenary’s head.

  There was a crunching noise, and Caina and Ark were alone with Icaraeus.

  “You,” hissed Icaraeus, glaring at Caina. He backed away, sword and dagger held ready. “I remember you. You were the one at the White Road Inn. You have caused me a great deal of trouble.”

  “Surrender,” said Caina.

  Icaraeus laughed. “I think not.”

  “It’s over for you,” said Caina. “One way or another, it’s over. If you want to live, throw down your weapons. Otherwise we’ll kill you where you stand.”

  “Surrender?” Again Icaraeus laughed. “I have allied myself with a mighty power. One that will give me what is rightfully mine, one that will give me vengeance upon the Emperor and his servants. And you want me to surrender?”

  “A mighty power?” said Caina, letting the scorn into her disguised voice. “If you think Agria and her petty tricks are a mighty power, then you’re even more deluded than we thought.”

  “How little you know, Ghost,” said Icaraeus. “Pray that you die before you learn the truth…”

  The sudden tightening of his eyes was Caina’s only warning. She threw herself sideways as he flung the dagger at her face. Icaraeus sprang forward with a yell, sword in both hands, and came at Ark. Ark bellowed in challenge, swinging his staff to meet Icaraeus’s attack. Icaraeus twisted, sidestepped, and brought his sword looping for Ark’s skull. Ark barely managed to get his staff up in time.

  With a surge of alarm Caina realized that Ark was overmatched. He was just as strong as Icaraeus, but Icaraeus was faster, and at least ten years younger. And Icaraeus had a sword, while Ark had only a quarterstaff. Again Icaraeus struck. Ark blocked in time, but the sword struck so hard that chips flew from his staff.

  Caina rolled to her feet, silver dagger in hand, and lunged at Icaraeus. He disengaged with fluid grace, launching a single thrust to knock Ark off balance. Caina slashed at him, and Icaraeus parried. He rolled his wrists, spinning the sword around, and Caina jerked back just in time to avoid getting gutted. But not in time to avoid catching Icaraeus’s elbow across the face. She staggered back, while Icaraeus spun and drove his sword in a plunging thrust for Ark’s gut. Ark swatted the blade aside with a blow from his staff, but she heard it grate along his mail coat, and saw him wince with the blow.

  Caina found her feet, and Ark backed away, staff held in a guard position. Icaraeus followed, his sword point swaying and dancing like a serpent’s head. They didn’t have to kill him, or overpower him. They just had to distract him until the Legionaries could break into the mansion.

  She scooped up Icaraeus’s fallen dagger with her left hand, gripping it by the blade. She caught Ark’s eye, and he nodded.

  Icaraeus laughed at her. “Throw it! You know that you can’t hurt…”

  Caina obliged and threw the blade into his face. As before, it left no scratch upon his skin. There was a green flash, and the dagger twisted and writhed like a leaf in flame.

  But this time the green flash was right before his eyes. Icaraeus snarled and stepped back, blinking, waving his sword back and forth to ward off any threat. He didn’t see Caina step forward and stab. He jerked back, but the silver dagger tore a smoking gash across his ribs. An instant later the length of Ark’s staff caught him across the gut. Icaraeus fell back against the wall with a thump, one hand clutched to his side.

  He twisted away with a snarl, sword held out before him.

  “You’re going to want to take those bracers off,” said Caina. “That wound will kill you otherwise. Painfully. Like Tigrane.”

  “Not that you deserve any better,” snarled Ark. The sounds of fighting outside were getting closer.

  Icaraeus lifted his left hand, palm out, his lips moving. For a moment Caina thought he was asking for mercy. Then she felt the sudden tingle, saw the green light swirling around his hand, heard his voice rise to a climactic howl.

  Icaraeus was casting a spell.

  Caina sprang forward, dagger leading, but too late. The tingle exploded to a sudden surge, and wall of unseen force slammed into her and Ark, flinging them both across the room. Caina tucked her shoulder and rolled, slamming hard into the opposite wall. The impact didn’t break anything, but still the force of the spell knocked the breath from her lungs.

  Evidently Agria had not been the only one to learn a thing or two from Jadriga.

  Glass shattered, and Caina rolled to one knee. She held her dagger out, expecting an attack from Icaraeus any second. But he was gone. Through the window, no doubt.

  Caina scrambled to her feet, her legs protesting the movement, and glanced down at Ark.

  “Go,” coughed Ark. “Don’t let him get away.” He got to one knee, wavered, grabbed at the wall for support. “I’ll catch up to you. Go, damn it!”

  Caina nodded, raced across the room, and vaulted through the window.

  Icaraeus was not going to get away. Not this time.

  She spotted him sprinting across the garden, racing away from the battle raging before the mansion’s front doors. Caina tore after him, weaving and dodging past the bushes and tangled roots. Icaraeus leapt over the garden wall and vanished into the street. Caina smiled to herself and followed. He was running towards the river. Well, let him run. Hiram would greet him with open arms. Caina sprang over the wall, landed in the street, and looked towards the ragged bluff falling to the river.

  There was no trace of Icaraeus.

  Caina blinked in surprise. He couldn’t have possibly gotten away. Had he used a spell to escape? Perhaps, but Caina would have felt a spell that potent. Surely he would not have fled towards the Legionaries. Caina spun in a circle, searching…

  She saw the flap of Icaraeus’s rich cloak as he vanished into an alley. He wasn’t running towards the river, or the Legionaries, or even to the docks. He was running towards the Citadel. But that was insane. He would find himself trapped against the base of the Citadel’s high crag. Had he fled in a panic? No, he was too cool-headed for that. He was up to something.

  But what?

  No time to think about it now. Caina sprinted after him. He might have been faster than Ark, but Caina was faster than them both. Icaraeus cast a quick glance over his shoulder, snarling with fury. He kicked over a barrel as he ran, dirty rainwater spilling over the alley. Caina jumped over rainwater and barrel both, took three more running steps, and slammed into Icaraeus, her arms catching him around the waist.

  They both went down, Icaraeus’s sword tumbling away. He clawed at her, trying to knock her free, while Caina slashed at him with the dagger. She opened another smoking gash on his right shoulder, and he screamed with fury and pain. His head came up, his forehead slamming onto her chin, and Caina fell backwards. She crashed into the brick wall, and a wave of pain and nausea went through her. Caina tried to stand, expecting Icaraeus to leap upon her.

  Instead he turned and fled, throwing aside his entangling cloak. Caina staggered back to her feet, trying to keep her balance. She set herself, ready to keep after him…

  And hesitated.

  Even wounded, Icaraeus was too strong to fight by herself. She considered running back to get some of the Legionaries. No, that would take too long. And Icaraeus had something up his sleeve, some trick, some clever hiding place. She was sure of it.

  Why else would he flee towards the Citadel’s crag?

  She could try to fight him, and she would probably lose…or she could tail him. Even Tigrane hadn’t known where Icaraeus spent most of his time. If Caina could find his
secret hiding place, they would have him. She could double back, retrieve the Legionaries, and they would take down Icaraeus once and for all.

  Caina nodded to herself, returned the ghostsilver dagger to its sheath, and set off in pursuit.

  Chapter 19 - Black Vaults

  Shadowing Icaraeus proved harder than simply chasing him.

  A maze of old and abandoned houses lay between Icaraeus’s hideout and the Citadel’s crag. Caina raced down alleys, hid in doorways, ducked behind barrels, threw herself into shadows. Icaraeus kept looking over his shoulder. Yet his pace slowed, his breath coming hard and hot.

  Finally, as Caina his in a doorway, he stopped, turned, and began casting a spell. Caina recognized the words and the gestures, and she cursed. The spell would detect the presence of other minds within a few hundred yards of its caster. Fortunately, her shadow-woven cloak was proof against mind-effecting sorcery.

  Unless Icaraeus was strong enough to penetrate the cloak's protection.

  She pulled the cowl tight and waited.

  He finished the spell, and Caina felt the sudden tingle. Her shadow-woven cloak stirred around her, rippling as if in a sudden breeze, though the air remained still. Icaraeus remained motionless for a moment, still breathing hard.

  Then he nodded to himself and walked away. Caina breathed a sigh of relief. Her cloak had baffled the spell.

  Caina followed him. Keeping unseen was easier now, and she prowled after Icaraeus as he drew closer to the Citadel and Black Angel Tower drew ever closer. Icaraeus clawed at his arms as he walked, yanking the bracers free.

  Evidently Icaraeus knew enough to avoid Tigrane’s fate.

  At last Icaraeus reached the base of the crag. The Citadel towered overhead, its walls grim and silent, its battlements lined with war engines. Black Angel Tower loomed like a dark sword against the night. Icaraeus walked to the cliff face, and Caina frowned. Was he going to climb up? Did he have allies within the Citadel?

  Something shiny appeared in Icaraeus’s hand. He thrust it against the rock, and a doorway-sized section of stone opened aside without a sound. Caina glimpsed stone steps vanishing into the darkness. Hidden passages below the Citadel? She had never heard of them, and Halfdan had never mentioned them. If Icaraeus had indeed discovered some long-forgotten catacombs beneath the Citadel, they would make a perfect hiding place.

  Icaraeus strode into the passage, and the stone door swung shut behind him.

  Caina ran the remaining distance. She scrutinized the spot where the door had been. It was perfect – no lines, no cracks in the stone. It looked like any other weather-worn cliff face. Wait…a glitter of metal in the stone.

  A keyhole.

  Caina reached for her lockpicks, and a sudden inspiration struck her. She reached into her belt and drew out the rune-carved key she had taken from the dead slaver in the tenement, the key that unlocked the slave collars. She thrust it into the hidden lock and turned.

  It worked perfectly. The stone door swung open, and again Caina saw the stairs descending into darkness. Far in the distance, she saw a faint glimmer of eerie blue light.

  She hesitated. For a moment she debated going back for Halfdan and the others. But what if this wasn’t Icaraeus’s secret refuge? What if he was only using this passage as an escape route?

  No, Caina had to keep going. Besides, the door looked as if she could open it from the other side. Caina took a deep breath, pulled the key free, and stepped into the stairwell. The door swung shut behind her, leaving her in darkness, save for the distant blue light. Caina made her way down the stairs, moving silently, feeling the rough stone wall for support.

  Three hundred steps later the stairs ended in a stone arch, and she found the source of the blue light. It came from a glowing glass sphere mounted atop a rusted iron stand. Beyond the sphere Caina saw a forest of thick stone pillars supporting dozens of lofty groin vaults. The stonework was massive, ancient. The underpinnings of the Citadel, Caina realized, reared countless years ago when the Empire first took Marsis from the Kyracians.

  The forest of pillars was silent, and Caina saw no sign of Icaraeus, or of anyone else. She did see more lights, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim glow. After a moment she saw a dozen of the glowing spheres on their rusted iron stands, stretching in a line through the pillars. In the far wall Caina glimpsed the faint outline of another archway, leading deeper into the earth. Caina started towards it, keeping in the shadows, just out of the spheres’ light.

  As she drew closer to the archway, Caina noticed two things.

  The first was the cold breeze blowing from the archway. It carried the faint smell of rotting meat, of decaying flesh. Something had died down here, Caina realized, and not long ago.

  The second was the presence of sorcery. Faint and distant, it tingled against her skin, and Caina shuddered. An echo, she thought. Someone had cast a mighty spell down here, recently, and the echoes still lingered.

  She crossed the vast floor and came to the stone archway. An iron portcullis hung suspended by a chain, ready to drop in an instant. A high, vaulted passageway stretched into shadow, still lit by the glowing spheres at a regular basis. The stench of rot grew stronger, accompanied by the smell of excrement. Did the city’s sewers run through this place?

  Or perhaps Icaraeus kept his slaves down here.

  Caina shuddered at the thought, and kept going. After about thirty yards the stonework changed from the massive, rough-hewn blocks of the Citadel to smooth sheets of lusterless black stone. It looked a lot like the stone of Black Angel Tower, and suddenly Caina realized that it was the stone of Black Angel Tower. She must have passed into the Tower’s subterranean levels. Caina looked at the black walls, uneasy. She had seen this place somewhere before, she was sure…

  Then she remembered. Her nightmares. In her nightmares she had fled down this same black passageway. Caina felt her heart pounding beneath her ribs. This was impossible. She couldn’t have seen this place in her dreams. She couldn’t have…

  The same way, she realized, that her dreams couldn’t have warned her about the mercenaries outside Radast’s workshop. What was happening to her? What was this place? Dread chewed at Caina, and for a moment she could not go on.

  Her mouth tightened. Icaraeus was getting away, and she could not allow that. Caina drew the ghostsilver dagger in one hand and a throwing knife in the other. The weight of the weapons made her feel better. She took a deep breath and walked deeper into the gloomy corridor.

  The passageway was utterly silent. Caina heard nothing but her own heartbeat, the rasp of her breathing, the faint scrape of her boots against the stone floor, and the whispering of the cold breeze. The black stone seemed to drink the light, like water vanishing into a sponge. The roof opened up around her, the walls pulling away, and she entered a large chamber. She could not see the walls or the ceiling, only a steady line of blue spheres marching into the darkness.

  That, and far in the distance, she could make out a faint crimson glow.

  Caina took a cautious step into the chamber. One of the blue spheres stood glowing on its stand a few paces away. Beyond Caina glimpsed something like pale ovals floating in the darkness, dozens of them, but she could not quite make them out. Curious, she started to reach for the glowing sphere, and then stopped herself. If Agria or Jadriga had made the spheres themselves, they might have laid detection and warning spells over them. Spells that would go off the minute her hand touched the glass. Instead Caina gripped the iron stand and slid it across the black stone floor, wincing at the noise.

  And in the light she saw faces, dozens of faces.

  All of them staring unblinking at her.

  Caina hissed in alarm and lifted her weapons. The faces made no movement, no response. They didn’t even as blink. Caina stared back for a moment, and then walked closer.

  People sat in the darkness, she saw. Men, women, children. Dozens, hundreds of them. Maybe even as many as five hundred. They wore ragged, soiled clothing, and
the enspelled slave collars glittered at their throats. This was where Agria and the others had been hiding their slaves. Trapped by the collars’ sorcery, the slaves had been ordered to sit here in the darkness until they starved to death. In fact, Caina saw a few slaves lying sprawled on the floor, eyes glassy in death. Enormous rats scurried over the corpses, gorging themselves on the dead flesh.

  Perhaps Zorgi’s son Peter stood among the children. Assuming he hadn’t starved to death.

  The very sight filled her with rage, rage enough to drive back her fear.

  It was monstrous. Yet it made no sense. Why would Agria and her friends spend a fortune on slaves, only to leave them dying in this black pit? Caina’s hand twitched towards the key in her belt, her mind racing. Could she free them all? Possibly. Yet many of the slaves looked too weak to walk. And certainly Icaraeus had men down here.

  And that red glow was closer. It didn’t flicker and dance the way a fire would. Instead it pulsed and throbbed, almost like a heartbeat.

  “I’ll come back for you,” said Caina. She didn’t know if the collared slaves could understand her, and she didn’t care. “I am a Ghost of the Emperor. We know you are here, we know that Icaraeus has taken you. I will come back for you.”

  She turned and walked towards the red glow.

  It grew brighter as she drew nearer, and soon she made out a high, pointed arch in the far wall. The air grew colder as she came closer, and the charnel stink increased. The tingling presence of sorcery against her skin sharpened.

  The archway opened into a great domed chamber, at least a hundred yards across. The ceiling vanished into darkness, and Caina realized that she now stood beneath Black Angel Tower itself. A ring of pillars stood in the center of the room, their sides ablaze with sigils of flickering green fire. Another ring of burning green sigils encircled the pillars themselves.

  And within the ring of sigils and pillars waited the shattered pit.