Starlight's Children

by Darian Smith

  She straightened her back, fear and determination fighting inside her. “You're not having my children,” she called out to the darkness. “I won't let you.”

  The footsteps stopped. It was halfway to the landing and she could make out a shape, but nothing more. The shape shook as it wheezed with laughter.

  Magda's eyes narrowed. “The Bloodhawk is on his way.”

  The laughter stopped. The figure crept forward, reaching out as it did so to scrape its claws along the wall. The sound grated on Magda's bones, sinister and deep.

  The creature would have to pass her to get to the children. The top of the stairs was the best place for her to make a stand. She cast around her for something to fight with. There had to be something, anything that could be used as a weapon.

  Light from the aperture at the end of the hall caught her attention. It cast shadows from the gate and the wheel that held Marbella's chains. There was a weapon. A living weapon.

  Magda ran for the end of the hall. The monster on the stairs quickened its steps but she had a head start. She hit the gate at a run and pushed through it, hand already fumbling in her pocket for the key to the cell.

  On the other side of the door, Marbella heard the key in the lock and screamed obscenities. Her chains rattled like the sound of endlessly shattering glass.

  The key jammed and Magda could hear her attacker at the small gate. It crashed open.

  She turned the key and the door burst open from the inside and the stench of feces and sweat poured out into the hall. Magda stumbled back and collided with the claws of the monster. Pain stabbed through her shoulder.

  Marbella stood framed in the doorway like an avenger from a demon realm. She shook her arms and screamed, the shackles like giant bracelets.

  Magda hurled the key to the madwoman. “Save us!”

  Then her chest filled with ice, and darkness claimed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The alley was dark when Brannon approached. He pulled a candle from his pocket and lit it from the street lamp before making his way to the orphanage. Little had changed since he'd been here last, inspecting the place Eaglin's body was found. It still stank. Garbage still lined the walls except for the area directly in front of Lady Magda's doorway, but its detail was lost to the night. The moon was high but its light weak, barely a glaze over the dark treacle of shadow. The candle flame did little more than offer a guide for Brannon's feet.

  As he grew closer, goosebumps raised on Brannon's arms. The orphanage did not have the look of a house with guests awaiting his arrival. There were no lights, no sounds. The building was lifeless, hollowed out like a child's doll bereft of stuffing. An unlit lantern hung on a hook beside the door. Brannon touched the candle flame to its wick and put the candle away. The door was ajar.

  A horrible thought uncurled in Brannon's mind. The frost wolf was still somewhere in the city and what little they knew of it was that it targeted children. From the pattern Magda had discovered, it seemed particularly to be targeting vulnerable children from poor neighborhoods. And there was no greater concentration of vulnerable poor children than an orphanage.

  He pressed his fingertips to the cold wood of the door and pushed. Light from the lantern spilled into the house and highlighted a pair of feet in a dark stain on the floor.

  “Blood and Tears!” He drew his sword, unhooked the lantern with the other hand, and hurried inside.

  The woman on the floor was a stranger. She was dead. The physician part of his mind saw that immediately from the amount of blood on the floor around her and the pallor of her skin. The soldier part of his mind watched for the source of the threat.

  He moved deeper into the house, keeping his footsteps soft, eyes and ears straining for signs of movement. The lantern flame flickered and the shadows loomed. Something rattled up ahead. “Magda?” he called. “Is that you?”

  A woman's manic laughter rippled through the house. The rattling grew louder.

  “Hello?” Brannon moved toward the sound.

  “You can't find them,” the woman's voice chanted, singing the words like a nursery rhyme. She twirled unsteadily out of the shadows, a length of thick chain with an unlocked manacle at the end in her left hand. She jangled it as she moved, creating a rhythm for her to dance to. Her clothes were filthy and her hair was matted with bits of food mashed into it. Her face was streaked with blood and filth. She took a few steps forward, then stopped to gaze at her hand, twisting and swirling it in front of her like a snake. It was red with blood. “Children, children, children. Where are the children?”

  Brannon let his sword point drop low and held up the lantern. “Who are you?” he called to the woman. “Where's Magda?”

  She snorted and shook her head as though tasting something bitter. “Magda, Magda, Magda, Magda. Save them. Yuck.” She raised her hand to her face and licked the blood from her palm. “Voices.”

  “What voices?” Brannon crept forward.

  The woman squealed and struck the sides of her head with her fists. The chain in her hand rattled frantically. “Voices, voices, voices! Drink! Shut up!”

  “Stop that. You'll hurt yourself.” Brannon set the lantern on the floor and moved closer, his hand outstretched. “What happened here? Where is everyone? Where's Magda?”

  She stopped hitting herself but seemed unable to answer the questions. Instead she tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. Her tongue lolled out of her open mouth. The chain in her hand swayed back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.

  Brannon frowned. He'd seen cases of delirium before but usually accompanied by fever from infection or disease. As far as he could tell, the woman was, despite her poorly kept appearance, essentially physically healthy. Her mind, however, was clearly broken—and not in the kind of hysteria brought on by the fear and trauma of witnessing a murder. This was deeper. Longer lasting. It seemed that Lady Magda's orphanage housed more than just children. “Do you live here?” he asked, gently. “Who takes care of you?”

  Her chin dropped and she met his gaze. Her eyes narrowed and her upper lip curled in a snarl. “Starlight,” she growled. The chain in her hand whipped forward and wrapped around the sword in Brannon's hand. She jerked it like a leash and the blade pulled free and clattered to the ground.

  Brannon swore and dropped into a hand-to-hand combat stance. The chain lashed again and he dodged. The manacle at the end struck a painting, punched a hole through the canvas and cracked the wall behind it like a broken rib.

  He moved forward, but she twisted the chain in her hands, swinging it in a figure eight in front of her like a shield. He dodged back again, narrowly avoiding the fast-moving metal as the madwoman took a step forward.

  “You don't need to do this,” Brannon said, spreading his empty hands wide. “I just want to know if Magda and the children are okay.”

  The madwoman grunted and let go of the chain as it swung upward. It flew in a gray streak and collided with the ceiling before crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap. She turned and fled up the stairs.

  Brannon scooped up the lantern and his sword and hurried after her.

  At the top of the staircase, the strange woman turned right and ran through an empty doorway. Wooden shards lay across the floor—all that remained of a door that had burst beneath some great force. Brannon followed her into a large room scattered with children's toys and games. Stuffed animals, wooden horses, and rag dolls lay abandoned throughout the room. A large dollhouse, split down the middle and hinged for access, was open in one corner, tiny furniture askew as if thrown about in an earthquake.

  The woman was already on the far side of the room. She pulled open a window and climbed up onto the sill.

  “Wait!” Brannon called.

  She slipped through the opening but, rather than falling as he'd expected, she landed lightly, turned around and beckoned him to follow.

  He hurried forward, set the lantern on the floor, and climbed out after her. The lower level of the house
extended beyond the upper portion here, providing something like a balcony. The madwoman stood next to the guttering and pointed across the city.

  “Stolen,” she said.

  Brannon followed her finger with his gaze. The city at night was a jumble of shapes and shadows, the streets threaded with light and movement as citizens moved from taverns to home or less savory locations. They were the veins and arteries of Alapra, never entirely quiet as long as the city was alive. Some were clearly visible, lit by the gas lamps that kept the city's main arteries from clogging with crime in the night. Others were more like small capillaries, prone to bruising under pressure.

  A block away from where Brannon stood, one such small street crossed a larger one and at the intersection a chain of small figures passed through the light of a street lamp. Children. But they didn't move like children. Even from a distance, he could see the stiffness in their steps, limbs slow and unwilling to bend. They moved in single file, as though in a trance.

  “Blood and Tears!” A glance over the rooftop showed a drop he wasn't prepared to risk. He turned and clambered back in through the window. He took the stairs three at a time, leapt the corpse of the woman in the hallway and hit the front door at a run.

  The pavement was horribly uneven in the dark. Every step risked a twisted ankle but he ran as fast as he could. No matter what had happened to Lady Magda, he would not allow her orphans to be taken. The frost wolf had stolen more than its share of Kalan children. No more!

  He reached the intersection he'd seen but the children had already moved on. He paused to play what he'd seen in his head. The streets looked so different from above compared to when he was actually in them. They'd turned. And the lamp had been on their right. He followed the pattern. The road seemed empty but he followed it anyway.

  The cold night air scratched at his lungs as he pulled deep breaths in with each step. He wasn't as young as he used to be. Running had never been his thing. “Give me a nice long fight any day, rather than endless Hooded running.”

  The street ended in a T-junction. He desperately looked right and left, peering into the shadows for clues as to which direction the orphans had taken. A house midway down the left turn had a light in the window. It was enough to see the last few small figures turn a corner yet again.

  “Wait!” he shouted.

  They ignored him and kept moving.

  Brannon pushed harder, letting urgency lend strength to his burning leg muscles. He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter, the steel as unbending as his resolve.

  He turned the corner ready to fight the creature that had murdered so many adults and mesmerized their children.

  He stopped dead.

  The street was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ylani pulled her cloak around her tighter, bracing against the chill in the night air. She was relying on the shadows to cloak her intentions as she waited. The armory was close enough that she imagined she could smell the steel and oil inside. A small window was set in the wall next to the door and Ylani could see the man inside resting his head heavily on his hand as he sat at his desk. Night shift was a curse for any guard—a long stretch of boring inaction if all went well, but a high-risk situation if it didn't.

  Ylani had no intention of allowing this particular night shift to remain boring.

  The men from the gambling den loitered nearby. They'd come when requested, as she'd known they would. The Instinct had guided her choice of players and these men were used to paying their debts. A bit of heavy lifting in a late-night enterprise was a better option for them than actually handing over hard-earned money. The legality of the enterprise was of much less concern than the opportunity to spend their cash on alcohol, whores, or, more likely, another game of chance back at the Den of Flames.

  Three rough men from the docks and a noblewoman were an odd grouping on a street corner, though, so if they didn't make a move soon, their presence would be noticed. Even the most dimwitted and sleep-addled guards could spot a team casing a joint.

  Bredin, the muscular man with a rope burn on his arm, pushed himself up off the wall where he'd been leaning. “How long should we wait, ambassador?”

  “As long as I require.” Ylani scowled and kept her voice hard. This one needed to be dominated. Like a subordinate dog in a pack, he would be reliable if he knew his place. “And don't use my name or title. Ever.”

  He nodded, suitably cowed. “What should we call you, ma'am?”

  “Mistress Mercury,” said a familiar voice. Marrol stepped out of the shadows, Magus Nycol at his heels. “That's what we called her during the war. Beautiful, poisonous, and almost impossible to catch. She was quite the legend. Always slipped away when the enemy was closing in.”

  The thug chuckled. “I like that.”

  “Mostly it was down to showing up on time and not blabbing unnecessary information to people.” Ylani pursed her lips at her brother. “I'm glad you decided to join us at last. I thought perhaps you were waiting for sunrise so the guards could get a really good look at us.”

  Marrol poked out his tongue. “We had to hire a carriage without a driver. Unless you wanted to carry the boxes all the way back to the Blue Rose yourself. And if you don't want the men knowing your name, why'd you tell it to them?”

  “I didn't,” Ylani sighed. “I ran into Sir Brannon while recruiting.”

  Marrol's playful expression vanished. “Does he suspect?”

  “No. But there's no chance he won't think it was me once they realize the swords are missing. The trick will be ensuring they can't prove it.” The prospect of disappointing Sir Brannon saddened her. My, how things had changed since the war! Who would have thought she'd ever feel guilty about upsetting the Bloodhawk? She sighed. “So where's this carriage you brought us?”

  “Right here.” Marrol pointed to an empty space in the street. “Nycol has it sorted for us.”

  Magus Nycol shrugged. “I'm good at hiding things.” He waved his hand and the air shimmered like a mirage. Ylani caught a brief glimpse of two black horses harnessed to a large carriage painted black to match and trimmed with gold. A moment later the street was empty again.

  Bredin and his friends gaped.

  “That looks more ornate than the usual hirable transport,” Ylani commented.

  “Let's say we borrowed it,” her brother said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let's get on with it.”

  Marrol and the sailors were the muscle of the operation and remained hiding in shadow as Ylani and Nycol approached the armory together. As they stepped into the light around the entrance, Ylani stumbled and leaned against the mage's shoulder as they walked.

  “Excuse me,” she called out in a slurred voice. “Excuse me, mister!”

  The guard peered out at them. “What do you want?” he said through the glass.

  Ylani giggled. “My friend and I are a little drunk and I've gotten turned around. Can you tell me where the . . .” she let her voice drop and mumbled inaudibly.

  The armory guard pushed the window open and leaned out to hear her better. “The what?”

  Ylani feigned a trip and lurched to the side, pulling the man's gaze with her.

  Nycol stepped in close to the guard and breathed onto his face. Tiny particles of light glittered like dust in a sunbeam, transferring the spell from the mage to his victim.

  The guard's eyes widened. He gasped, struggling for air, and then slumped to the floor.

  Ylani straightened up. “You didn't kill him, did you? We agreed: no killing.”

  “He's fine. I know what we agreed. I still think you're foolish to leave witnesses.” Nycol signaled the others to join them. “And that includes your little friends here.”

  “I am the representative of the Nilarian government in this country. Do not take it upon yourself to kill anyone without my express permission. Under any circumstances. I have no intention of restarting the war. Is that clear?”

  Nycol gave a little bow. “Of c
ourse, ambassador.”

  “And don't call me by my title here.”

  He laughed. “You started it.”

  “Everything okay?” Marrol approached and hesitated, sensing the tension. He looked back and forth between them.

  “Yeah,” Ylani said. “Just clarifying the next steps.” She took a set of lock picks from her pocket and moved to the door. It'd been a long time since she'd needed to work a lock, but those old skills from her spy days had never quite faded away. It was just a few moments before the door gave a satisfying click and swung open.

  The first chamber inside was laid out as a sorting station, with measuring implements and with images painted next to doors that indicated what kind of weaponry or type and size of armor lay beyond. This was a storage station for quick arming of temporary militia, not those who were regular men-at-arms. Palace guards, magistrates’ men, and full-time soldiers all had their own armor and weaponry and they cared for them personally, but in the war, men and women with little or no training were called upon to defend their country. Cities like Alapra built extra armories, and blacksmiths worked tirelessly to fill them, ready for use at a moment's notice. Ylani could imagine what this room would be like in a time of crisis. Men and women measured, fitted, and allocated swords, ready to fight the invaders.

  To fight Nilarians.

  Ylani's countrymen died on the blades that were stored and given out here. It felt obscene that now her own country's swords were imprisoned here as well.

  “We have a couple of hours before the next scheduled check-in,” she said.

  They found the Nilarian swords stashed in an unmarked room at the back of the building. They'd been kept separate from the simple, Kalan swords, probably to avoid being given to simple Kalan soldiers. Ylani suspected that King Aldan intended these weapons to go to the elite in his forces, should they be handed out at all. They represented a significant advantage in the battlefield and he would want to be certain of where that advantage was placed.