War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga

by Gail Z. Martin

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  To my husband, Larry, and to Kyrie, Chandler, and Cody.

  Thank you for making these books possible.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE LEFT A PERFECTLY GOOD army back at the camp?” Piran Rowse grumbled as the small group followed their guide on a rocky trail to the foothills behind Quillarth Castle.

  “For the same reason we left most of the mages behind,” Blaine McFadden replied. “The fewer people who know, the better.” He paused. “Besides, the soldiers needed time to secure the perimeter and spring any nasty traps Reese and Pollard left for us.”

  Blaine knew that Piran’s real complaint was being out in the open without cover from the soldiers. It had taken half a candlemark’s argument to point out that stealth with a contingent of twenty soldiers was impossible. Their goal was to find where the Knights of Esthrane had left magical items for safekeeping, items that might help the mages begin to reverse the damage of the Great Fire. And bringing a large force was sure to tip their hand and complicate matters.

  “It’s here somewhere,” Dillon, their guide, muttered as he moved inch by inch down what appeared to be the solid rock face of the cliff. The wind ruffled Dillon’s short-cropped, dark hair. To Blaine’s eye, Dillon looked like he belonged in a counting house, and before the Cataclysm, that was exactly where he had been. It made him an unlikely adventurer. Dillon’s hands played over the rough stone, lightly skimming the surface.

  “It’s a big cliff, mate. I hope you remember where the door is,” Piran said.

  “We’re close,” Dillon said, paying scant attention to Piran. “Just a little farther—here!”

  He pressed his fingers against the rock with his hands held in an unnatural position, and what had appeared a moment earlier to be solid stone shifted enough to allow careful passage inside.

  “When was the last time you went in there?” Blaine asked. At a few inches over six feet tall, Blaine stood taller than both Dillon and Piran. Blaine’s dark chestnut hair was tied back, revealing intelligent, sea-blue eyes. He was tall and rangy, but years of hard labor had built both muscle and resolve, and months of nearly constant skirmishing had further honed his swordsmanship. Piran was shorter and stockier, and he kept his bald head shaved clean, even in the icy cold. What he lacked in height he made up for in muscle, and in the fighting skills that came with years of soldiering.

  Dillon chuckled. “Me? Months ago. Sir Alrik showed me the entrance, and told me that if I went in against his orders, I’d never come out.”

  “That’s comforting,” Piran grumbled.

  Dillon looked at Piran with exasperation. “I took his meaning straightaway. He meant that the items weren’t for me. In fact, he gave strict instructions that I was to tell no one except Blaine McFadden or Lanyon Penhallow what I knew, and then he sent me away and told me to stay away until the war was decided, one way or the other.”

  “Alrik must have suspected that Reese and Pollard would come calling,” Blaine said grimly. “You were his inside man.”

  “Let’s see what Alrik thought was so important,” Piran said. He stepped in front of Blaine. “Sorry, mate. I go first. Thick skull, tough skin,” he said with a grin that made it clear he relished courting trouble.

  “And I’ve got your back,” Kestel Falke said with a jaunty grin. She had a dagger in each hand, better than swords for fighting in the close quarters of the crypt and its tunnels.

  “You’ll need me somewhere near the front, since I’m the one with the directions,” Dillon remarked.

  “We need to go in and get out as quickly as possible. The dreams were clear about the danger, and it grows the longer we stay.” Zaryae’s voice was quiet, meant to avoid attracting the attention of the two university mages in the back of the group. Blaine nodded to acknowledge her warning.

  “Just make sure your light shines enough to show the way. I’ve got no desire to bang into the rocks.” Xaffert’s curt tone managed to convey both displeasure and impatience.

  “Stop fussing. I’ve got a lantern. And keep your voice down.” Dagur brought up the rear, holding his partially shuttered lantern aloft.

  “Now, wait just a minute, lad! Where do you—”

  “Shut up, or by the gods, I’ll put one of these blades in your throat.” Kestel turned so that Xaffert could see the glint of her knives and the intensity of her glare. Xaffert looked as if he wanted to say more, then thought better of it. Dagur was barely hiding a snicker.

  The group that was heading into the crypt was small but hardly defenseless. Piran was a soldier, and a damn good one before his court-martial. Prison and exile had honed his skills far beyond what the king’s army had taught him. Blaine McFadden, the disgraced lord of Glenreith, had learned a thing or two about combat fighting to survive in the brutal Velant prison colony where he, Piran, and Kestel had been exiled for their crimes. Kestel Falke had earned her exile as a spy and assassin, though her looks and wit made her best remembered as one of the most popular courtesans at court. She, Blaine, and Piran had forged their friendship watching each other’s backs long before they returned to their ruined homeland, and it was an old habit that still served them well.

  Zaryae, a seer, had been part of a traveling troupe that had joined in Blaine’s quest. Dillon was the assistant to the king’s exchequer, back when such things as kings, kingdoms, and exchequers still existed. In the ruins of what remained, those days seemed a distant memory, or perhaps a half-forgotten dream. Xaffert and Dagur had been mages at the University before the Great Fire and before the kingdom fell, when the magic worked as it should. As a group, they were a most unusual delegation to be heading into the tombs of the ancient kings to steal back the keys to the future.

  Now, in darkness, they moved toward what Blaine hoped might help them rebuild the kingdom. They had restored the magic that was broken in the war, or at least made it possible for the power to be harnessed once more. The Cataclysm that had leveled the castle and killed the rulers had left the kingdom in chaos and anarchy. Blaine believed it would be much easier to rebuild if they could bend the power of artifacts made before the Cataclysm to their will.

  “By my reckoning, we’re moving back toward the castle. Given the steep angle, we could end up underneath it before too long,” Blaine murmured. They had each brought lanterns, making it possible for them to move through the dark and winding passageway.

  Kestel had secured one of her knives and now held a lantern in her left hand and a knife in the right. Her red hair was bound up for battle, and her cuirass and plain-spun tunic and trews were the practical attire of a trained assassin. “Obviously, this wasn’t supposed to be the main entrance,” she said. “Too bad so much of the castle collapsed, or it would have been much easier to get there from inside, but there’s too much rubble in the way.”

  They walked in silence, weapons ready, expecting ambush at every turn. Suddenly,
Piran stopped and held up a hand in warning. “Do you hear that?”

  Blaine listened carefully. “Voices. Up ahead.”

  “We’re the only living things down here,” Zaryae said, breaking her silence.

  “But the voices—” Piran protested.

  Zaryae shook her head. “Not alive. But very strong.” Zaryae’s black hair was plaited into a long braid, framing angular features and large, dark eyes. Her dusky skin and faint accent hinted that her homeland had been the Lesser Kingdoms.

  Blaine fingered the two amulets that hung on a leather strap around his neck. One was the inscribed obsidian disk that had helped him return magic to the control of men. The other was a passage token given to him by a long-dead soldier, one of the talishte Knights of Esthrane. For those with power, they were validation of Blaine’s identity, and safe passage among powerful friends.

  The passageway ended in a solid wall of rock. Piran swore under his breath, and began to feel his way along the stone surface as Dillon had done outside. Suddenly, a section of the rock swung away, opening into darkness.

  “I didn’t do that,” Piran said, taking a step back. “I swear, I didn’t do that.”

  Blaine could feel the tingle of magic all around them. Before the Cataclysm, his own slight magic enhanced his dexterity in a fight, giving him better-than-mortal speed, but nothing nearly as quick as the talishte. His magic had come back, though the restored magic was unpredictable. Now he wished for all the advantages he could get. Old magic flowed around them here, and another power he could not name.

  Zaryae placed a warning hand on Blaine’s arm. “The spirits are strong—can you sense it? Old and powerful. We must be very careful.”

  “I think you’d better let me go first,” Blaine said, edging past Piran. “Let’s hope, between the disk and the Knights’ token, that I pass muster.”

  He stepped out into an ornate tomb. The lantern’s flickering light revealed walls covered in an elaborate mural that told the story of the rise and fall of the mage-warrior Knights of Esthrane. One wall was blank, leaving the end of the story incomplete.

  In the center of the tomb was a catafalque. Blaine held his lantern aloft and stepped closer for a better look. It was the bier of a warrior, clad in battle armor. The pediment and bier were austere, bearing only the carved figure, and a name: Torsten Almstedt.

  Piran gave Xaffert a shove to move him forward out of the passageway. Dagur followed cautiously, gesturing to Kestel and Zaryae that it was safe to step out. Kestel began to walk slowly around the room, taking in the story of the murals. On the other side of the room was a door, and beyond that, Blaine guessed, lay passageways that led farther down beneath the castle.

  “Knight Alrik had us hide the items down here right after Penhallow and his servant, Connor, left,” Dillon said, glancing around himself as if afraid someone else might overhear. “The Knight said Penhallow had already been through some of the items down here and figured out which ones were most important. Alrik had us bring down any magic items that were left above.”

  “Where did you put them?” Piran asked, looking around the room, which was bare except for the catafalque.

  “There’s a library, down the hall that’s outside that door,” Dillon said nervously, and pointed to the closed door on the other side of the tomb.

  “So the Knights had already hidden the big stuff before Reese captured Lynge,” Blaine mused. “Do you think Lynge betrayed them before Reese killed him?”

  Dillon drew a long breath. “I doubt it. No, Lynge didn’t know what the Knights had done. Reese and Pollard destroyed a lot of the castle, but that closed off the inside passageways to the crypts underneath. When I fled the castle, I kept a watch on the cliffside passageway we just came through. I never saw Reese or Pollard or any of their men near it.”

  “From what’s here, I’d say that Almstedt must have founded the Knights of Esthrane,” Kestel mused. “But from the murals, it looks as if he died before they were betrayed.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Zaryae warned. “Our host is watching us, deciding what to make of us.”

  “Our host?” Piran questioned.

  Zaryae nodded, and inclined her head toward the catafalque. “Torsten Almstedt.”

  The room grew suddenly cold. Outside the door, Blaine heard the low rumble of voices and the clatter of boot steps. He reached for his sword, sure they were about to be attacked.

  “Your sword is no use here,” Dagur said. He lifted his face to the magic like a hound scenting his quarry. “Not against the dead.”

  A fine mist appeared from nothing, coalescing between the catafalque and the door to the hallway into the translucent image of a man dressed like the figure atop the bier. The ghost was a man in his middle years with the bearing and stance of a warrior. Almstedt’s form may have appeared insubstantial, but here in the crypts, in his place of power, Blaine was certain the ghost could be dangerous. He was just as sure that the sword in Almstedt’s hand would be as deadly as any blade in the world of the living.

  “We’ve come to reclaim the items Sir Alrik left here for safekeeping,” Blaine said, stepping forward.

  Almstedt’s sword swung through the air, narrowly missing Blaine. The blade barred Blaine from moving closer to the door. Almstedt’s gaze swept over Blaine. His gaze lingered on the two amulets at Blaine’s throat, the disk and the passage token.

  “My name is Blaine McFadden, Lord of Glenreith,” Blaine replied, willing himself to meet the ghost’s gaze. “Nidhud, one of the Knights of Esthrane, is our ally. He gave me this token when I traveled to Valshoa to bring back the magic. Some of the Knights took sanctuary there.”

  Almstedt listened without showing emotion. He died long before King Merrill’s ancestor betrayed the Knights. In his time, the Knights were the left hand of the king. They had no need of sanctuary, Blaine thought. If he exists as a ghost, does he know what’s happened in the world he left behind?

  “Tell him why you’ve come,” Zaryae urged.

  “We brought the magic back—almost,” Blaine told the ghost. “It’s not like it was before the war. The magic that returned can be harnessed, but it’s brittle… not quite right.”

  “I fail to see what’s causing the delay,” Xaffert fussed. He was a sallow-looking man with thinning brown hair and a monocle, and right now he was indignant. “Alrik was the rightful owner of the pieces, and we’re acting in his stead.” He moved as if to go around Almstedt’s sword, but the ghost shifted once more to block his path.

  “I think it would be best to wait until our host wants us to proceed,” Dagur cautioned. “And from the sound of it, the corridor’s not a healthy place to be right now.” Shouts and footsteps echoed from the rock, as well as the clang of swords.

  “I thought you said no one else can get in down here,” Piran whispered. “It sounds like there’s a battle going on just outside the door.”

  “There is,” Dillon replied. “The ghosts of the people buried down here are restless. They relive the battles and the betrayals that killed them. Alrik told me that’s how Geddy, Lynge’s assistant, was killed.”

  “Now you tell us this?” Piran said, eyes wide.

  Dillon’s expression was somber. “The ghosts don’t reenact their battles all the time,” Dillon replied, keeping one eye on the ghost who blocked their path. “When we brought the pieces down here, Alrik was constantly fussing about the time. He must have known when the ghosts were likely to be active. Maybe he figured the spirits could protect the items better than we could.”

  By the sound of it, the spectral battle beyond the door was drawing to a close, and in a few moments, the tomb was silent. Almstedt lifted his ghostly sword and gestured toward the entranceway, gliding effortlessly through the door.

  “I guess he’s going with us,” Blaine commented.

  They moved into the cool, dark passageway. Despite the sounds of pitched battle they had heard just moments ago, nothing in the corridor suggested that anyone had pa
ssed this way for quite a while. Almstedt’s ghost stood in a passageway to their left.

  “He knows the way,” Dillon directed. “And keep your wits about you. There are ghosts aplenty. I’m glad I never knew that when I lived in the castle up above. I might not have slept well, knowing what goes on down here.”

  Wide passageways carved into rock led in several directions, and it seemed to Blaine he had entered an underground city. As they passed the entrances to other chambers, Blaine glimpsed rooms filled with catafalques, and other, larger areas where it looked as if rooms from the castle above, and even whole sections of the city of Castle Reach, had been re-created.

  “Alrik told me that the kings and nobles weren’t sure they would pass on to the Sea of Souls, given their deeds,” Dillon whispered to Blaine. “So they made sure their accommodations here were comfortable and familiar—just in case.”

  “Can you imagine the secrets buried here?” Kestel murmured, her green eyes shining. She pushed a strand of red hair back into the braid that kept it out of her way. “I wish we could explore.”

  “The library’s just ahead,” Dillon interrupted.

  “Let’s be quick about this,” Piran said. “I don’t like this place. The sooner we’re done and out of here, the better.”

  “In here,” Dillon indicated, using a key from his satchel and opening the door to a room not far from Almstedt’s crypt. A warren of corridors led off into darkness. Blaine looked at the flickering light in his lantern and shuddered at the thought of being lost in those dark passageways among warring and treacherous ghosts.

  “Let us handle this,” Xaffert said as they walked into the room. Xaffert was dressed in clothing that had seen better days. The richly woven brocade of his tunic was badly worn and snagged, stained in places, and his trews were mended awkwardly. Whether the clothing was what remained of his scholarly belongings or, more likely, something he had looted from a deserted villa, Blaine did not know. Xaffert wore his motley outfit with strained dignity, as if the loss of his status and the University itself was almost too much to bear.