by Matthew Ward
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
A lantern’s glow suffused the tunnel mouth, casting distorted reflections across the ice-sheathed stone. They danced and skittered across the cavern floor, across the surface of the still, dark pool – rare sparks of light and life in a chamber long-bereft of both. A heartbeat after, the tunnel mouth fell into darkness once again. The reflections vanished. Not much of a warning, unless you were watching for one.
Mirika gripped her stone perch tight, and pinched her eyes shut. The lantern’s brief flare had destroyed her night vision, but even in the pitch-black depths, there was memory of light. Casting herself adrift from the present, she plunged a portion of herself into the past, seeking a time before the darkness reigned supreme. She found it centuries back, when the bronze finials had yet to corrode, and the now-silent stanchions blazed with flame. Mirika embraced that moment and opened her eyes.
For the first time, the cavern lay revealed in all its faded glory. Its foundations had been laid down as a tomb, the largest chamber in the Temple of Draconostra’s crypt. Colossal statues, each easily four or five times Mirika’s height, peered out across the darkness with empty eyes, their faces worn and cracked by the passage of time and the ingress of water. Swollen facades bulged from the walls, their facing stones distorted by the inexorable onset of ice.
The first intruder – curiously toy-like at that distance – stood in the tunnel mouth, darkened lantern still clasped in one hand. Other shapes fanned hesitantly out across the broken, mossy flagstones. Drawn weapons confirmed suspicions provoked by the doused lantern.
They knew she was there.
With a last glance downwards, Mirika ghosted back along the spine of the toppled statue that served as her perch. How the mighty had fallen. She doubted the long-dead Szarnos had been quite so noble of form or figure as that of the colossal graven likeness, but then tomb complexes were seldom commissioned by men and women of modest bents.
How long until the pursuers caught up? Depended on how cautious they were. A minute to skirt the pool. Another two to ascend the zigzag stairway and series of half-landings? Perhaps longer, now they were operating in the dark. Frostgrave had a knack for punishing the unwary. If the newcomers were who she suspected, they knew, and would advance accordingly.
Mirika reached the end of her makeshift path and dropped to the uneven dais. One entrance. One stairway to the burial vault of Szarnos the Great, the steps doubling back three times across the chamber. A choke point half a mile long, end to end. Mirika smiled. She’d have fun with this.
‘Hurry up,’ she whispered.
The fur-swathed figure kneeling beside the vault door didn’t even look up.
‘I am hurrying,’ Yelen breathed.
Her fingertips traced spirals across the flagstones, leaving charcoal sigils in their wake. Gutter magic, but effective enough against curses for all that. There was more to opening some doors than simply picking a lock.
Mirika peered at the door – a patchwork of granite and corroded bronze, a jagged serpent rune carved at its heart. Like the rest of the tomb, it’d come remarkably unscathed through the quake that had buried this section of the city. That was good news and bad. Good, because that surely meant the contents hadn’t been spirited away by another delver. Bad, because it also promised that the locks and protections were still intact.
‘How much longer?’
At last, Yelen met her gaze, lips twisting. Familiar impatience danced behind her cold blue eyes. Her hand dipped to her belt. Lock picks glinted. ‘About twice as long if you keep interrupting. Only the best for tyrants like Szarnos. And some of us are working in the dark, remember?’
Mirika winced at the reminder of what separated them. Outwardly they could perhaps have passed for twins, even with the handful of years separating them. Same dark braids. Same watchful eyes, though Mirika’s own were more grey than blue.
Same defiant scowl, when the need was there.
A sharp crunch of stone on stone sounded from below. A choked-off curse followed, the harsh waylander syllables echoing strangely about the stalactite-encrusted ceiling.
A little of the defiance faded from Yelen’s thin face. ‘How many?’
‘At least half a dozen. How much longer?’
Yelen scowled. ‘Too long. I haven’t even started on the lock. Unless…?’
‘No!’ Mirika shook her head, all too aware of what had gone unsaid. ‘I’ll handle this.’
‘Let me help!’
‘You can help me by getting that door open.’ Mirika took a deep breath, knowing she’d spoken more harshly than she’d intended. It was too easy to fall back into old habits. She squeezed Yelen’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, little sister. It’s only the Gilded Rose. I’ll be fine.’
* * *
Yelen set to work on the lock, her thoughts more on Mirika’s retreating footsteps than the mechanism. It was always the same. Fewer than three years separated them, but Mirika always insisted on playing the big sister, always watching out for her. It had been comforting when they’d been younger. Now…?
The irony was, Mirika could have opened the vault in moments. But no, she had to show off.
With an effort, Yelen returned her attention to the lock – to the sounds of metal scraping on metal. Twelve tumblers, and what she knew from bitter experience to be a deadfall trip. One false move, and she’d trigger whatever precautions the designers had chosen to install. She’d heard of whole complexes sinking into the snows, ancient scuttling mechanisms tripped by a delver’s single mistake.
Drunken old Azra claimed to have survived such a disaster where the rest of his band hadn’t. Perhaps it was true, perhaps it wasn’t. Azra loved to tell stories almost as much as he loved his liquor. But Yelen had nearly lost an arm to one such trap just weeks before. The false tumbler in the door at Koroz Sanctum had collapsed the doorway, sealing the chamber beyond. Master Torik had been furious when they’d returned empty-handed. Yelen had just been glad to return with both hands, and endured the old man’s scorn and the fall of his fist in silence. Not that Mirika had seen the latter. Torik was always careful not to upset his prize pupil.
Yelen’s hands trembled as the old, familiar anger surfaced. At Torik for his hateful manner. At Mirika for excusing it. And at herself, for allowing the situation to continue. Deep down, the old man was afraid of her. Damn right. She could snap him in half, if she wanted. Just like she could open this vault without this rigmarole of lock picks and skeleton-craft. Maybe she would.
At least this commission was the last. Then they’d be free. Of Torik, and of…
Bleak laughter echoed around Yelen’s thoughts. The sour taste of sulphur crept across her tongue. Her fingers slipped. The tumbler shifted the wrong way. Heart leaping into her throat, Yelen steadied the hook pick and forced the anger back down. She had to concentrate. She glanced down at her wrist. A waste of time – her skin was covered. The tattoo was concealed.
Hand still trembling, she eased the pick back to resting position. Something heavy clunked into place behind the door. Yelen held her breath, waiting for the rumble of stone on stone that would betray the collapse to come. Nothing happened. The only
sounds were her own frantic heartbeat, and the intruders’ footsteps on the stairs.
At her feet, the charcoal sigils glowed dull red, flecks of orange flaring at the edges as the vault’s curse ate away at the warding. Taking a deep breath, Yelen set the hook pick moving again – this time, in the correct direction. But the laughter? The laughter remained.
* * *
The rope hissed through Mirika’s gloved hands. The stale air of the tomb rushed across her face like a stiff sea-breeze. Above her, the robed statue peered out into the dark, its noble features haunted by some unspeakable malice, the end of the rope tied tight around its outstretched hand. Below, the vanguard of the Gilded Rose crept up the stairs. Two shadows clad in leathers and furs, their cloaks cinched at the neck by golden rose-shaped brooches. Each carried a naked blade. Each moved with the caution of a man whose night vision was not all it could be.
Mirika grinned with exhilaration and anticipation. Done right, delving was deathly dull. Keep to the correct paths. Don’t stray into the wrong districts. Know when to run. Get your prize. Get out. Those were the delver’s rules – the rules for turning a profit while keeping your parts and pieces intact. But this? Tweaking the noses of your rivals? There was joy in that. More to the point, she and Yelen had a reputation to build if they wanted to prosper in the frozen city. Reputations didn’t forge themselves.
Her feet struck stone half a dozen steps below the two shadows. Too loud.
‘What was that?’ The larger shadow turned. The time-shifted light revealed a craggy face that had seen the losing end of one too many brawls. Yet if his face suggested too many bouts lost, it surely wasn’t for lack of fortitude – the man was built like a mountain.
‘The frozen hells with this,’ growled the other. He was shorter, swarthier than his companion, and his beard prickled with frost. ‘I can’t see a damn thing.’
The lantern in his hand flared, bathing the upper stairway in greasy light. The interplay of ancient and present-day luminance cast strange shapes across the ice that sheathed flagstones, statues and rubble alike. But this was Frostgrave. Ice was never in short supply hereabouts. Only the pool at the base of the stairs was free of it. Whatever liquid rippled gently beneath the icicle-strewn chandeliers, it wasn’t water, that was for sure.
Mirika shielded her eyes and severed the connection with the past. The shapes faded along with the long-vanished light.
The brawler’s laughter echoed around the chamber. ‘Mirika Semova. I thought it had to be you.’ The voice was a poor match for the mangled face, each elucidated syllable dropped into position with a scholar’s precision.
She swept her hand down, shifting her feet and making a quarter-turn to transform the motion into a florid bow. Her sword, she left in its scabbard. ‘You were expecting someone else, Darrick?’
He shook his head. ‘The boss isn’t happy at you for stealing the Markriese crown out from under us.’
Mirika snorted. ‘I didn’t steal it. We got there first. Finders keep, remember?’
The other man snorted and started down the stairs towards her, blade levelled and his expression hard. He was a stranger to Mirika. Fresh muscle bought in after the Markriese job, perhaps?
‘Enough talk,’ he rumbled. ‘I don’t get paid if we don’t get the bauble. And I like getting paid.’
Darrick set a restraining hand on the swarthy man’s shoulder. ‘No. We wait for the boss, as agreed.’
Mirika frowned, her pulse quickening. That changed things. ‘Magnis is here?’
He shrugged. ‘Like I said, he’s not happy. Wanted this one to go without a hitch.’
Mirika was struck by the sudden urge to peer over her shoulder. Just how close were the others, anyway? She should have checked. ‘Walk away, Darrick. No one needs to get hurt.’
He sighed. ‘Sadly, I also like getting paid.’
The swarthy man tore free of Darrick’s grip. ‘Then let’s to it!’ Leaping forward, he hacked down at Mirika like a woodsman splitting timber.
Darrick shook his head. ‘Oh dear.’
The steel arced down. A dull, watery rumble filled Mirika’s ears as she reached into the timeflow, increasing her personal tempo a hundredfold. The sword slowed inches from her brow, the whip-quick motion suddenly turgid.
Mirika darted aside, lantern light taking on a ruddy hue as her personal timeline snapped clear. Ducking clear under his weapon arm, she rammed the heel of her palm into the swarthy man’s back, releasing her grip on the timeflow as she did so. Red light snapped back to greasy yellow.
Her blow, accelerated by the inrush of time, struck like a battering ram. The swarthy man shot across the stairway with a whumph of suddenly-expelled air. He struck a granite column with a crack, rebounded and collapsed.
Mirika spun on her heel, vision blurring with fatigue. It’d pass, given the chance, but if he rushed her now… Fortunately, Darrick hadn’t moved.
‘He’s new, I take it?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I tried to warn him. Killed a yeti with his bare hands, so I understand. Easy to underestimate a slip of a girl with something like that under your belt.’ He stepped closer. ‘Speaking of which, I don’t suppose you’ll go easy on me, for old times’ sake?’
Mirika laughed and shook her head. Slip of a girl, indeed. She’d nineteen winters behind her. ‘I don’t have any old times, Darrick. Just this moment. As often as needs be.’ At last, the tiredness was passing. Not enough to pull the same trick again so soon, but that didn’t matter. She drew her sword with a flourish, and pulled on the timeflow just enough to slow Darrick’s reactions relative to hers. ‘Shall we?’
* * *
A man’s bellow echoed up the stairway, the musical ring of steel on steel chasing it along. Mirika’s laughter followed both, carefree… or possibly careless.
Yelen wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. Her back ached from the half-hunched pose demanded by the lock’s placement, and her arms felt heavy as lead. But seven tumblers down, and she still wasn’t dead.
Hooray.
At her feet, the charcoal sigils blazed like fire. The serpent rune on the door glowed. Minutes left, if she was lucky. Not that she and luck had more than a nodding acquaintance.
‘Not that I’d notice another curse, anyway,’ she muttered, raking the lock’s innards with the diamond-toothed pick. A tumbler clicked. Eight down. Four to go.
The laughter faded from the back of Yelen’s mind.
‘And I thought we were becoming friends…’ The feminine tones flowed like spiced honey through her thoughts, at once mocking, soothing and hinting at a threat to come.
Yelen swallowed. The taste of sulphur remained. ‘Shut up. I’m concentrating.’
‘Why bother? It’ll all become dust soon enough. Or it can. Let me assist you.’
‘I don’t want your help.’
‘Really? That’s not what you said at Koroz.’
Yelen took a deep breath and steadied herself against the door. She couldn’t argue with the truth. ‘That was different. Mirika would have died.’
‘And she might yet today. She’s so reckless.’
Yelen glanced down at her wrist, and at the hidden tattoo. ‘She’s not the only one.’ She fought the sudden urge to scratch at her wrist. ‘Korov was a mistake. I want nothing from you.’
The laughter returned, sweet as mead and cold as ice. ‘That’s what you always say. I can wait.’
And with that, Yelen felt the presence slither back into the depths of her mind. Trying to likewise banish the sounds of swordplay from her thoughts, she returned her attention to the lock.
* * *
Mirika shook her head and hefted the lantern she’d taken from Darrick. Her sword was still unblooded. She was a delver, not a killer – she stripped Frostgrave of its treasures, not her competitors of their lives. Bruises and embarrassed memories were another matter. Those she gladly gave out to all-comers.
The arrow’s telltale whistle came too late. The broadhead s
liced a hot, sharp trail across Mirika’s upper arm and sped away into the darkness. Yelping with pain, she flung the lantern aside and dived face-first onto the stairway’s flagstones. She winced as her knees cracked against stone. Another arrow whistled away over her shoulder.
Mirika pressed a hand to her wound. Only a scratch, although Yelen would be unlikely to see it as such. Another lecture waited. Still, she’d been lucky. Blinded by the loss of her lantern, she called forth the light of times past and peered down the stairs.
‘Where are you?’
The archer stood on the half-landing overlooking the tunnel mouth, staring vainly into the darkness.
Scrambling to her feet, Mirika took the steps three at a time. The archer nocked and fired, the wild shot accurate beyond his wildest dreams, his arrow flying true for Mirika’s heart. She reached into the timeflow just long enough to slow the arrow’s tempo, and struck it aside with the flat of her blade. As time snapped back to normal, she launched herself into space.
Boots slammed into the archer’s chest. He staggered backwards, missed his footing and abandoned his bow in a mad scramble for a handhold. When Mirika hauled herself upright, she found him dangling from the fingers of one hand.
‘Please, help me!’
Mirika stepped closer, her right knee stiff from the awkwardness of her landing. It was only a dozen or so feet from the half-landing to the pool. Of course, the archer couldn’t see that. ‘You just tried to kill me.’
His eyes widened. ‘A mistake… Magnis wants you alive.’
Mirika glanced down the last run of steps. Two figures approached the foot of the stairway, one a man in fur-lined silk robes, trimmed with golden cloth, a lantern held at arm’s length, as if he expected the flame within to bite him. The other was a woman, clad shoulder to foot in chain and plate, the blue and gold heraldry on her breastplate scuffed beyond recognition.
Darrick hadn’t lied. Cavril Magnis had indeed shown up in person. Mirika had no idea as to the woman’s identity. A bodyguard perhaps, hired to replenish the ranks after the Markriese debacle. It didn’t matter. Mirika already felt the dull claws of temporal fatigue tearing at her. She’d done too much, too swiftly. There was no cheating the Clock of Ages. You could borrow, but not steal. If she was to end this, she’d have to do so now.
