by Jon Sprunk
Caim took in a deep breath, and let it out slow and steady. In the space between one breath and the next, he fired.
The bowstring thrummed against his forearm as the arrow flew. He followed its path across the hall. A perfect shot. In his mind's eye, Ral slumped dead on the throne, his eyes turned misty with the fog of death. The image was so real he almost believed it had already happened, until the torchlight surrounding the dais flickered and the arrow dipped to the side, not much, just a hand's breadth, but enough to miss its mark. Instead of taking Ral through the throat, it sliced a furrow across the sleeve of his jacket.
The hairs on the back of Calm's neck tingled as he remembered another night, in Ostergoth's castle, and another perfect shot ruined at the last moment. Sorcery. His hands tightened around the stave of the bow.
Levictus.
Everyone in the hall looked up. Josey's eyes blossomed wide. The lordlings lurched to their feet and retreated from the dais. Their mutterings swirled up to Caim. Some of the Brothers drew weapons, but none moved to protect their liege. As for Ral, he hardly moved except to grimace and press his left hand against his chest.
Caim snatched another arrow from the bundle at his feet. Sweat drenched his shirt. Tremors chased each other through his stomach like a pack of angry dogs. But his hands were steady.
"Let her go, Ral!" he shouted. "Or the next one goes through your heart."
The assassin's dry chuckle ascended to the gallery. "We've been expecting you, Caim, but you're a bit late. Release my betrothed? No, I don't believe I will. The city is mine, and these good nobles were just swearing their loyalty to me. It would go better if you laid down your weapons and surrendered. Perhaps I'll grant you an imperial pardon."
"I don't think so. There are five thousand angry citizens outside the gates. Your pet soldiers won't be able to hold them off forever."
Ral stood with his hands at his sides, seemingly at rest, but Caim knew how fast the man could move. He kept the arrow centered on Ral's chest.
"Not forever. Just until reinforcements arrive from the outer garrisons. Then your little rebellion will be crushed in time for my coronation and subsequent wedding to this fine lady."
Calm's gaze flickered to Josey, and fingers of dread closed around his heart. In concentrating on Ral, he hadn't noticed Markus's arrival. Bandages peeked over the collar of the man's uniform, which was now white instead of red. Waxy scars dimpled his face as he stood behind Josey, one arm around her waist and the other holding a dirk to her slender throat.
"You should have joined me," Ral said. "You could have been my viceroy, a man of wealth and power, but you have proved too untrustworthy. I'm afraid you'll have to die."
He nodded to Markus. "Or perhaps you'd prefer to watch her bleed to death before your eyes first?"
Caim pulled the bowstring back another inch, making the bronzewood creak. "You won't kill her. You need her too much."
"Are you certain about that?"
Ral lifted a finger. Josey gasped as a line of blood trickled down her neck. Markus's burn-scarred lips curved upward in a grin.
Caim cursed under his breath. His plan was falling apart. Rather than rescuing Josey, he had placed her in even greater danger. Retreat wasn't an option. Come morning, Ral's hold over the city might be impregnable. He could shoot, but Markus might kill Josey out of hand. They were at an impasse, and he was out of options. The string strained against his fingers.
The clack of boots on the marble flagstones stole everyone's attention. All heads turned as a soldier in militia livery dashed into the audience hall. An angry clamor followed in his wake. Ral took the opportunity to descend a couple of steps. Calm's aim didn't waver.
"The outer gates have fallen!" the militiaman shouted.
Ral swore a vile oath. "What of the bailey?"
"We hold it yet, but it may not stand for long."
Caim smiled. "Looks like your plot is unraveling around you, Ral. Maybe you should give up now and save everyone the trouble."
As Ral opened his mouth to speak, a metallic twang pricked at Calm's ears. He threw himself aside as the baluster before him shattered in a shower of marble shrapnel. Caim reaimed and let fly. The arrow sped like a diving falcon, but Ral ducked behind a powdered dowager. The missile passed over their shoulders to thud into the leg of the vacated throne.
Caim reached for another arrow, but Ral was already darting across the crowded hall. He threw down the bow and vaulted over the broken balustrade. His knives cleared their sheaths before he hit the floor. Heels stinging from the impact, he raced after his adversary.
"Caim!" Josey screamed as Ral and Markus hustled her through a side exit and slammed the door behind them. Three Brothers took up positions in front of the exit with weapons bared.
Caim smiled as a familiar feeling spread through him, a tingling that started in the tips of his fingers and vibrated up his arms until it coursed through his entire being. Sparks of light glimmered on weapon points and flashed from rings of mail, igniting his blood. An insistent pressure throbbed behind his breastbone as his powers awakened, but this time he welcomed it like a long-lost brother. It was time to put aside the veneer of civilization and revel in pure barbarity.
With a snarl, he launched himself at the soldiers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
osey's breath rushed from her lungs in a gasp as she thrust out her hands to cushion the impact with the wall.
Ral didn't give her time to recuperate before he dragged her along the candlelit hallway, raving as he devoured the passage in long strides. "This doesn't change anything! One madman can't change the course of history."
Josey was too jubilant to care what Ral said. Ever since her assault at the cabin, she had been terrified to discover what Ral and Markus would do next. But when she'd seen Caim in the Grand Hall, her heart had jumped. He had come for her! She looked around for some means to get away from her captors, but there wasn't much hope of that. Ral was much stronger than he looked, and Markus followed them with a squad of Sacred Brothers.
She was racking her brain for a plan when the corridor opened into a wide anteroom. Display stands and trophy cases crowded the floor. A menagerie of stuffed animal heads on the walls seemed to watch as Ral hustled her through.
"We'll go north," he said. "Assurances have been given. Whatever else they take, I'm to have the capital. I've done my part. Then, after the city's been tamed, I will return to begin my reign. He'll see who's the better man!"
"You sound frightened." Josey couldn't help herself from taunting him, trying to hurt him as she had been hurt. She didn't know whom he meant by "they," but she hardly cared anymore. She was tired of being yanked back and forth between hands like some tawdry carnival prize. "You should be. Calm's not going to show you any mercy."
"He had his chance two nights ago and fled like the coward he is."
Despite his bluster, Josey didn't believe a word of it. Caim was like a force of nature, as unstoppable as the tide. However, if Ral could get outside the city, he might be able to take her beyond Calm's reach.
Ral stopped on the other side of the trophy room and pointed to one of the sergeants. "You come with me. The rest of you wait here." Then to Markus, "Do whatever it takes, but stop him. When I return, you'll have everything I promised, lands and title."
Markus glanced at Josey, his scarred face rigid with tight lines. Clearly, he wanted to object, but he merely nodded. "He won't get past us. Phebus speed your journey and hasten your return. My liege."
With the barest nod, Ral dragged Josey along. He thrust her down another corridor. She looked around for something, anything, to slow their progress. She dragged her heels, only to have Ral tighten his grip to a painful, viselike clamp and pull her all the faster. She scratched his hand and received a slap across the face.
When they passed a steep flight of stairs, Josey bit down hard on Ral's knuckles. Blood filled her mouth as the skin split beneath her teeth. An unholy screech erupted from Ral. He sho
ved her away. Josey kicked off her slippers and dashed up the steps. The hard stamp of boots pounded close behind.
The staircase turned back on itself twice before letting out in a narrow passageway of bare stone. Josey hiked up her skirt and ran. She passed a bas-relief carving on the wall depicting a regal griffon in the same style as the design on the cellar floor at the earl's manor. The floor was caked with thick dust. Cobwebs drooped from the ceiling. She needed someplace to hide. She turned a corner and ran past several closed doors. She grabbed at their handles, but they were all locked. Her breath burned in the back of her throat as she came to another flight of steps. Josey rushed up them without a pause.
The stairs rose on and on above her in a dizzying tunnel of steps and railings. As she rounded a heavy stone newel post, a sinewy hand grasped her ankle and wrenched her to a standstill. She kicked and clawed. They had molested and abused her, killed her foster father and oppressed her people. She would not give in! But the grip wouldn't let go. Ral pulled himself up her body, crawling over her in a disturbing imitation of a lover's ardor. She didn't see his other hand until it smashed into her cheek. The buffet knocked her against a wall and scattered her senses. She slumped, hardly aware as he draped her over his shoulder.
Josey struggled to keep her eyes open even as a gray blankness threat ened to overtake her. She was swung around several times, then carried down some stairs and through a winding passageway. Ral's shoulder ground against her stomach, making her want to throw up. It was over. She had lost. Now Caim would never find them.
Then, a gust of freezing wind blew up her dress. Raindrops splattered on her back. Josey shivered despite her fogginess. When she lifted her head, she saw not the pavers of the outer courtyard she expected, but sloping gray tiles. They were on the roof, of a side wing by the look of it. The bailey wall loomed in the darkness like the spiked back of a slumbering monster. Torch fires blazed beyond the rampart, where a great mass of people swarmed. Flashes of steel and iron. No sounds reached her between gusts of wind, but she imagined the cries of pain and death.
Ral came to the end of the roof and stood at the edge of the abyss. There was nowhere to go. Cursing, he turned back, but something gave him pause. He set her down and drew his sword, pressing the tip against her back.
"Don't move a hair on that pretty head, Princess," he breathed into her ear. "I wouldn't want you to fall to your death."
Josey swayed in his grip. The tiles were ice cold under her feet. The rain saturated her sodden gown to penetrate her undergarments. At a nod from Ral, the sergeant took a position behind the door back into the palace and lifted a black-headed mace with wicked flanges. They're waiting for someone to come through the doorway.
Talons of fear constricted around her throat. Caim!
Josey tried to wriggle free, but Ral tightened his grip and jabbed her with the sword point. Blinking back raindrops, she watched the open door with growing trepidation.
Blood dripped from Calm's knives as he stole through the palace corridors. The shadows flew before him, a malevolent whirlwind of darkness and death snuffing out the candles along the walls with their passage. Caim saw just fine. The ache in his side was gone. He felt rejuvenated.
The Sacred Brothers in the throne room had fallen to him in a handful of heartbeats. Driven by anger, it took him almost as long to kick open the locked door. The screams of the nobles as they fled reminded him of another slaughter. His parents' faces hovered before him. Their mouths moved, but no sounds emerged, only the pained expressions they'd worn the last time he saw them, a lifetime ago. An image of Josey imprinted over the carnage of his father's estate, her body sprawled on the cold palace tiles, Ral's sword protruding from her chest. Her eyes stared up at him in horror. He slashed the air and the figment vanished, but his fury redoubled, so hot he felt he might explode at the slightest touch.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt at the entrance to a spacious room. Rows of glass cases covered the floor beneath the stiff heads of a dozen hunting trophies. Five men awaited him.
Markus stood sideways, his sword leveled at Caim. "It's over. You're done interfering with our plans."
The other Brothers flanked Caim with careful steps. One sported a crop of gray hairs sprinkled through his short beard and a row of stripes on his sleeve. He had probably seen all sorts of action from tavern brawls to brutal murders.
But he hasn't seen anything like me.
"Nice suit," Caim said to Markus. "Did it come with a leash?"
Markus sneered through the mass of burns encrusting his face. "I'm grand master now, and soon I'll be a lord."
Caim let his hands rest at his sides as the soldiers moved in. The veteran Brother lifted his hand as a prelude to attack.
Then, the darkness exploded.
Shouts resounded off the high walls as the Brothers were under assault by hundreds of tiny mouths. Caim watched without malice or mercy as the soldiers fell, one by one, and were consumed. All except for Markus, who stood in a shrunken circle of light, untouched. He slashed at the darkness around him as his men cried out for help, but he did not budge from the circle.
When the shadows finished their feast, they parted before Caim as if they knew his mind. Perhaps they did. He didn't know and he didn't care. The remains of the soldiers lay in huddled masses, their flesh gnawed away down to the bone.
The color fled from Markus's marred features as he stared at Caim. "What kind of devil are you?"
Caim slunk forward, his knives held low.
Markus turned and revealed a round shield strapped to his other arm. A little larger than a buckler, it looked like a relic from another century. Caim lunged with a double cut, low and high. The links of a mail shirt stopped his left-hand suete. The other was knocked aside by the edge of the targe. Caim spun away as Markus's sword whistled past his ear.
From behind the protection of his shield, Markus harried Caim around the room with an onslaught of vicious stabs. Caim stepped around a glass trophy case. Markus shattered it with a side-armed blow.
"You should have stayed away." He centered his sword point on Calm's chest. "You should have let us take the girl. Now you're going to die."
Caim launched a feint and counterthrust, but Markus batted it aside with the shield.
"You're already dead," Caim said. "You're just not smart enough to realize it yet."
Markus growled as he charged. Caim twisted away from the sword, but the shield's boss caught him in the chest and drove him back into the wall. His left arm was trapped between the shield and the room's partition. The broadsword fell, and he caught it with a desperate parry. Markus's stale breath blew in Calm's face as they strained against each other, chest to chest. The air was filled with their grunting and huffing.
Around the periphery of the room, the shadows quivered with agitation. Caim heard them hissing in the back of his head, eager to attack.
Back! he shouted at them. This is my fight.
But he couldn't push free. Markus was bigger, stronger, and he had the leverage. Moment by moment, he crushed the breath from Calm's lungs. Inch by inch, the sword's edge dipped closer to his head.
"Not so dangerous now, are you?" Markus smiled over the edge of his shield. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose. "Caim the Knife, the most feared man in Low Town, chopped up and gutted like a market hog."
Calm's chest burned. His right arm was shaking, and he'd lost feeling in his left. The sword fell a few more inches. He could see his reflection in the surface of the blade.
"I wonder," Markus said. "Will you scream like your lady-love did when I stuck her with my prick?"
Caim spat full in his face.
Markus drew back his sword as he blinked away the sputum. The motion made some space for Caim, enough to catch a breath of air.
Markus's eyes narrowed to bloodshot slits as he swung. Calm's knife flicked out. A heartbeat later, the sword clattered to the floor and Markus staggered backward, one hand pressed to the side of his neck. R
uby red arterial blood streamed down the front of his fine uniform. Disbelief and annoyance vied in his gaze as he slipped to the flagstones.
The blood roared in Calm's ears like a rushing flood. His hands shook from the exertion. He took a deep breath. The shadows had quieted at the edge of his vision. He could feel their impatience as he let out the breath. Flicking the blood from his blades, he resumed his hunt.
Caim jogged through a groined archway into another wing of the palace. As he passed a flight of stairs, distant sounds caught his ear: the slam of a door followed by a wailing roar. The storm.
Caim shook the excess gore from his knives as he turned onto the steps.
The shadows coursed before him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ur chariot awaits, Princess," Ral crooned into Josey's ear.
She tried to bite him, but he kept his arm well away from her mouth. The sharp point of his sword pressed into her back.
A carriage awaited in the bailey courtyard below, surrounded by fluttering torches held aloft by rain-drenched soldiers. Ral shouted to catch their attention, but his words were lost in the storm. Josey almost laughed at his predicament. Besides the door there was no other way off the roof except for a fifty-foot drop to unforgiving stone.
"Your lover," he said, "is dead by now, darling. A pity I didn't get the chance to cut his throat myself. Shall we go see the corpse?"
Before he could take a step, however, a shape appeared in the doorway. Josey didn't have to see the face to know who it was. A gasp broke from her lips, and relief, so long withheld, suffused her body and drove away the bitter chill as Caim stepped out onto the roof. He moved with his customary grace, but Josey could see his side was paining him by the way he walked. His long knives glittered in his hands, their blades stained scarlet. And he wore something new. The hilt of a sword jutted over his right shoulder.
While Josey took in the sight of her savior, a hulking figure moved from behind the door. She opened her mouth to warn Caim, but Ral mashed his forearm hard against her lips. The Brother swung. Josey's muscles went rigid as she witnessed what happened next, for she had seen it before in the cellar beneath her father's house.
