The Pearls

by Deborah Chester

  Shadrael smiled a little. “Isn’t it late to be asking that question? Who will command her armed escort?”

  “I told you I don’t know! What can it matter?”

  “If I know the commander, I have the advantage on him.”

  “Better for you if you don’t,” Vordachai said sharply. “You wouldn’t enjoy slaughtering one of your old friends.”

  Shadrael shrugged.

  Vordachai frowned at him, then looked again at the corpse. “I—by Gault, you’re damned cool when you kill, aren’t you?”

  “What of it?”

  Vordachai shifted his gaze away from Shadrael’s steady one and finally seemed to pull himself together. “She’s already two weeks on the road. I could find out who commands her escort, but it will take too long to help you now. I do know that she’s got a full squadron of cavalry.”

  “Not the Imperial Guards? Any predlicates? Regular army?”

  “Cavalry.”

  Annoyed, Shadrael snapped open the map and glared at it. “A fortnight of travel should put her in Chanvez by now. That means she’s what? Another two weeks, three perhaps, from the first Trau checkpoint?”

  “Probably.”

  Shadrael crushed the map in his fist. “Why didn’t you wait, say, another twenty days to tell me? I have as much hope of catching up with her as—”

  “Told you I’ve been hunting your miserable hide in every rat-infested hole in these mountains,” Vordachai said irritably. “If you’d take your home with me, as I’ve generously offered more than once, you would have been to hand.”

  Shadrael stared at him hard. “You don’t want something like me in your home.”

  “Uh, no, perhaps not.” Vordachai cleared his throat uneasily. “She isn’t moving that fast perhaps. A retinue of that size, plenty of attendants, bound to be moving slowly. And anyway, you can catch up with her once she’s in Trau.”

  “Trau is a filthy land, all marsh and bad roads. And I’ve men to hire and provision.” Shadrael pointed at Vordachai’s purse. “Hand it over.”

  Vordachai clamped a thick hand on his money and scowled. “Why, you thief, you won’t be paid until the job’s done.”

  “I don’t carry an officer’s commission these days, and my men don’t stay with me from loyalty to the Imperial Seal. Money!”

  Grumbling, Vordachai dug out a few coins.

  Shadrael scornfully refused to take them. “The whole purse,” he said.

  “What?” Turning scarlet, Vordachai closed his fist on the coins. “That’s an outrage! You haven’t more than twenty men here. What—”

  “Do you think I’m fool enough to pit twenty bandits against a hundred trained cavalry? Use your head for something besides a helmet stand!” Shadrael said angrily. “If she’s as important to the Light Bringer as you say, she’ll be well guarded by the best. I’ll need at least a company of my own, preferably two.”

  “Where are you going to scrape up that many men around here?” Vordachai asked, squinting suspiciously. “You dare not recruit in Kanidalon, and I can’t give you any of my warriors.”

  “That’s my business.” Shadrael pointed at his purse. “Hand it over.”

  “The cost of hiring a hundred men at—”

  “Don’t bargain with me, you skinflint. It’s a small price to pay for Ulinian freedom, remember?”

  Grumbling, Vordachai tossed him the purse. It was heavy, and the coins inside made a satisfying chink when Shadrael hefted it in his hand.

  “That’s to be considered an advance on the nine hundred, mind,” Vordachai said with all the sharpness of a man whose treasury is smaller than his expenses. “And she must be brought safe to me. Unharmed and—and untouched.”

  Shadrael shot him a black glare, hissing slightly through his teeth, but Vordachai meet his gaze sternly and did not back down.

  “Whatever you are is one thing,” he said fiercely. “But I know the kind of men you lead. Guard her well, brother. The upstart won’t pay for damaged goods.”

  Shadrael said nothing.

  “Then it’s settled.” Fresh excitement flashed across Vordachai’s face, and he held out his hand once more. “Seal our bargain, brother.”

  Shadrael said nothing, made no move to shake hands.

  Turning red, Vordachai allowed his to drop. “I—I suppose it is not safe for me to touch you.” Vordachai’s voice held a trace of hurt. “The fearsome donare of our family, something we never expected.”

  “If Father did not want what I am, he should not have put me into the army,” Shadrael said coldly.

  “Well, he got little return for the exorbitant price of your commission,” Vordachai retorted. “When you were named praetinor, we thought for certain you would soon be a general and make us all rich. Instead, stripped of honors and discharged, that’s you. Knocked down to a common thief.”

  “Which you now need,” Shadrael replied tonelessly. “Urgently.”

  “Aye, so I do.” Vordachai eyed him and shook his head with a sigh. “All these years, and you’re still as stiff-rumped and prickly as a—”

  “You’d better go,” Shadrael said.

  “Yes.” Vordachai glanced at the dead informer and grimaced. “When next I see you, there will be celebrations and feasting, all the bounty at my disposal offered in your honor.”

  “Don’t feast until the girl is in your stronghold.”

  “Take her to Muhadim, and tell her nothing.” A grin was already spreading across Vordachai’s face. “By Gault, I cannot believe this day is at hand. If anyone can bring this off, you can. Until we next meet, Commander.”

  “Until we next meet,” Shadrael responded.

  As soon as the warlord had ridden out of sight, ex-Centruin Fomo emerged from the brush, skirted the corpse of Jutak, and came up to Shadrael’s stirrup. “Do we let them ride out of here?” he asked hoarsely, his eyes curious in his scarred, battered face. “Do you want them ambushed beyond the creek?”

  Shadrael was already thinking of how to best find the men he would need quickly. The dangerous task Vordachai had offered him made Shadrael’s heart quicken, as though he were stepping forth to commit an act of shul-drakshera. He liked the chance of striking revenge against the emperor who had stripped him of rank, career, and future regardless of the fact that a man with no soul could not unswear his shadow vows as required.

  Abduct the Lady Lea, sister to Caelan the Light Bringer. Shadrael grinned to himself. Young and perhaps innocent. Unaware of what was about to befall her. Oh yes, he would enjoy escorting her into darkness. He would enjoy it very much.

  From down the hill, he could hear his brother’s voice raised in a bawdy song.

  “You fool,” he murmured. “I would have done this for no coin at all.”

  “Commander?” Fomo asked.

  Shadrael shot him a glance. “Let the warlord and his men go,” he said, and began to issue his instructions swiftly.

  Chapter 2

  Remaining in the shade of a tree, Shadrael waited impatiently for dusk. In his mind, doubt and determination were mingling together. With the short time available to him, he had but one sure way to summon extra forces, and that was to use magic.

  Cut off from the shadow gods, Shadrael could no longer dip from their power, power available to anyone sworn to them, anyone with the talent and courage to take it. Now there was nothing but a dwindling, carefully hoarded reserve of magic left inside him, hoarded the way Vordachai guarded his treasury of gold.

  And when it runs out? asked a little voice in the back of Shadrael’s mind. What if it’s already gone?

  He shook the little voice away as he might empty a scorpion from his boot.

  When the magic ran out, he would be a walking husk of a man, as doomed as the shadow gods themselves.

  Until then, he had a job to do, a chance to strike back at Light Bringer, who had shattered his world and future.

  Shadrael tilted back his head to gaze at the darkening sky. Stars were coming out, hanging abo
ve him, looking almost close enough to touch. Standing up, he untied the horse he’d borrowed and set it free, knowing it would bolt anyway. Nickering nervously, the animal trotted off into the gathering shadows.

  He stretched up his hand, and murmured a word that seemed to suck away the air.

  Every sound stirring in the brush and scrub—every singing insect, every scuttling mouse, even the breeze—went absolutely still and silent.

  He spoke the word again, even more softly, and felt the old power swell inside him in response. A spangle of fire shot from his fingertips straight up into the air. With it went a little boom of sound that echoed through the hills and canyons.

  Turning slightly to his left, he shot the signal again, a flare of multihued light going up and up before it faded in a cloud of white smoke that hung in the air. The boom echoed again.

  He repeated the signals, one for each direction of the compass, before he stopped and let his arm drop heavily to his side. It felt numb from shoulder to fingertips. He could not even flex it.

  Perspiration ran down his body, sheeting his brow and pooling beneath his clothing. Even so, he felt triumphant. The summons would reach men from the old cohorts, disbanded men who, like him, had been struck off without pensions or honor. It would summon other things, as well. Lurkers, perhaps a few skulks. The use of shadow magic, increasingly rare, would draw them like a shivering man to a fire.

  Now all he had to do was ready himself and the few men already at his side. With any luck, they could be on the march at daybreak, and the others would join them on the road.

  But when Shadrael turned and started down the hill to the inn, he staggered a little and had to wait a bit before he descended. He moved carefully, conserving his strength, closing his mind to the fear that he’d used too much magic, wasted too much of it, and all because he wanted to abduct the lady before she reached Trau.

  He wanted no part of that distant marshy province with its cold and snow, if he could avoid it.

  Cautiously he made his way, giving the proper signal to the lookout behind the inn. He went through the rear entrance, going upstairs to his room, where he ordered a lackey to bring him hot water. It arrived, eventually, lukewarm instead of hot, and the boy who brought it gave him a sullen, defiant look before slouching away. Downstairs in the taproom came the muffled noise of singing and laughing.

  He frowned, well aware that if they were carousing they weren’t getting ready to move out. But he did not stop his preparations.

  Pouring the water into a basin, he soaped his beard, shaving his face clean with swift expertise. After that, he changed razors and hunched over a scrap of mirror while he cut his hair close to his skull in the army style. No long, romantic locks for an enemy to grab, or to blow in one’s eyes during a battle. When he finished, the reflection staring back at him looked like a stranger. He was a tall man, well muscled and fit, his belly lean and his legs strong. He’d kept himself disciplined since his discharge, other than adopting filthy clothes and an unkempt appearance in order to look indistinguishable from the other bandits in the Jawnuth foothills. Now he saw an older face staring back at him, a weary, disillusioned face. Beneath a pair of heavy, formidable brows, his deep-set eyes were as black as Beloth’s dead heart.

  He dragged out his duff box, a battered old campaign chest that had followed him across the empire and back again. Raising the lid released the smells of oil and camphorda, bringing a host of memories that he grimly shoved away.

  He pulled out his armor and began the process of buckling it on. Of course, when he’d been a legion commander he’d had a bafboy to care for his armor and help him, but one of the first lessons an officer learned was how to get into armor unassisted, and Shadrael had not forgotten. He wanted no help tonight. His memories floated too near the surface for him to endure chatter or questions.

  The breastplate was heavy, black leather over steel, and custom fitted. He was glad to find that it still fit, after three years put away. In fact, if anything it was a little loose. The weight pressed hard on his shoulders, and he took a moment to remember how to breathe, how to shift his weight in it, how to balance himself. The knowledge, ingrained in him after a lifetime’s training, was still there.

  The shoulder guards were black plated steel with vicious spikes projecting from the points of each shoulder. They restricted his arm movement somewhat, but since archers had become frequent auxiliaries in the army, it was necessary to wear extra steel to guard his heart from a well-placed arrow.

  Belting on his sword, Shadrael loosened it in its scabbard and settled the short, sturdy weapon on his hip. Balancing it on the opposite side was his long, needle-tipped dagger. Ornate of hilt, its pommel stone was a baleful, glowing blood amber, rare to Ulinia, but much prized among army officers with the means to buy one. Blood amber was considered good luck, a protector of sorts. Shadrael hung his throwing blades on their belt hooks, and tucked his small, fang-point axe into his belt at the back, snug against his armor. He tightened his wrist greaves, sliding a tiny throwing knife tighter in its sheath along the inside of his left forearm, then gathered up his heavy gauntlets and helmet with its officer’s crest of stiff black horsehair.

  His medal of praetinor ad duxa—conferred on him by Emperor Kostimon—hung at his throat, providing the only color besides the eagle insignia of his rank inscribed in gold over his heart and the tiny flash of silver bars beside it to show his victories.

  Swiftly he lifted his fingertips to his lips and forehead in salute as he whispered a prayer to the shadow god that could no longer hear him: “Let war come. Let my sword bite deep in thy service. Strengthen me, O Beloth, that I may forget the ties that bind men to men, honor to honor. Help me serve only thee in my quest to shatter the reign of Light Bringer. May thy shadows return forever. Saeta.”

  Giving himself a curt nod, he kicked down the lid of his campaign chest and strode out with his head high and his ferocity upon him like a mantle.

  At the head of the rickety stairs, the inn’s lackey almost bumped into him. Yelping in alarm, the boy jumped out of Shadrael’s way, staring after him with a face pale and frightened, while making a warding sign with his fingers.

  Down in the taproom, there came a fresh roar of laughter and much shouting. No, Shadrael thought, it did not sound as though Fomo had the men ready.

  By the time he reached the bottom step and saw the innkeeper gasp at the sight of him and bolt white-faced in the direction of the kitchen, the babble of voices—a few annoyed, but most whooping with wild laughter—rose up in even louder commotion over the sound of snarling and then a shrill, animal cry of pain.

  Pausing in the doorway to the taproom, Shadrael saw his men gathered around a gaunt individual named Wilbis, who was holding a cloth sack that twisted and squirmed. A shrill, keening howl came from it again, punctuated by a bark.

  “Hold ’im!” someone said eagerly. “Don’t let ’im get away from you now!”

  Laughter rippled through the group. In the flicker of firelight shining from the enormous hearth, they looked like savages in their long hair-braids and face tattoos. Perhaps a handful had put on armor and sword, their amulets swinging on leather cords from their necks. The rest wore ragged tunics and soft leather footgear designed for stealth. None had so far seen Shadrael in the doorway.

  His brows knotted together. If the fools had sold or gambled away their boots and armor, he thought grimly, he would march them until their feet bled and let them curse their stupidity with every burning step.

  Wilbis hefted his bundle like he would a sack of tanf-roots. “Let’s test his drakshera, eh?”

  Eager shouts rose among the company. Someone produced a rope, and ex-Centruin Fomo—instead of putting a halt to their purpose—slung it over a rafter for them.

  In moments they had the dog out of the sack, tied by its hind legs, and hoisted it upside down by the rope. Small and white with a brown head, the dog snarled and snapped, twisting and struggling all the while, as the men danc
ed around it, teasing it and laughing.

  Wilbis pulled a knife. “Let’s dance for his eyes, eh?”

  “Aye! Aye! I’ll wager four—”

  Shadrael stepped into the taproom. “Let the dog go.”

  His cold, quiet voice silenced the group. They turned and stared at him, some with mouths agape, others with defiance. Shadrael met them, glare for glare.

  Fomo, standing over to one side, cleared his throat. “Line up,” he said hoarsely.

  Shuffling and coughing, the men scrambled into a ragged line while Shadrael advanced into the room. These brutes were veterans of the Madrun campaigns, blood sworn in the rituals of Faure and Alcua, and as seasoned and tough as soldiers came. They had served him in the now-disbanded Eighth Legion under Emperor Kostimon’s banner, and once they had been keen, fearless, and fit, able to march seven leagues a day and fight the next morning.

  Now they faced him, ragged and stupid, grown slack and soft from too much ale and not enough hard marching. They had lost that hard-honed edge of alert obedience. Even the few in armor, standing at attention, could not keep their eyes from wandering sideways, as though trying to gauge his reaction. A few were staring frankly, openmouthed, as though they beheld a ghost instead of a legion commander. The rest looked sullen and rebellious, in no mood to serve him or anyone else.

  A general atmosphere of guilt, embarrassment, and defiance hung over the room, while the dog swung on its rope, whimpering, and no one obeyed Shadrael’s order.

  Shadrael raked them with a steely eye, his temper beginning to pulse a little harder. It was said in the army that you never gave the men quarter, for leniency led to independent thinking, independent will, and the eventual decision to disobey. Well, for three years they’d had leniency, and a share of the spoils they stole. And now they did not have to march a third of the way across the empire on his orders. They could sit here and rot their minds and guts in this taproom until their money gave out. He had no military authority over them. He had nothing at all, except his force of will.