“You think I’m afraid of them?” Torsten looked up but never let the knife shift. “This man killed Sir Wardric Jolly! He left his body to rot in that carriage!”
Nobody answered.
“Reach into my pocket,” Redstar said.
“What?”
“Wardric was nothing but a lap dog. Why would I kill him? Now, reach into my pocket and find the answers you already know.”
Torsten pressed against Redstar’s throat with his elbow and did as instructed. He removed a stack of letters.
“What is this?” Torsten said. “What are these.”
“Correspondence between Yuri Darkings and the rebel afhem. A lot of yammering about the Glass Kingdom’s fortunes fading and the unworthy heirs of Liam the Conqueror. Riveting stuff really, but I’ll let you decide.”
Torsten leafed through them with one hand. Some were written in ink on parchment, the seal of the Darkings house at the top. Others were etched into dark gray sheets of paper made from the black palms of the Shesaitju beaches, signed by Afhem Muskigo. Page after page. He spotted instructions that Torsten was planning to head to Marimount, ways to avoid Glass scouts as his armies were moved into position.
“Sir Wardric caught Yuri and his son sending a galler bird into Winde Port. He wasn’t able to stop them warning Muskigo of your ambush, but he detained them and sent for me. When I got there, I found his body and them fleeing.”
“And you just let them run?”
“I sent my wolves after them, but they haven’t yet returned. I had to make a choice. The traitors, or take advantage of our summoned wind and flame and charge on Winde Port.”
“A blessing called upon from Nesilia herself by the hero of Winde Port,” a Drav Cra warrior said.
“What did you say?” Torsten said. He yanked Redstar upright and stood, knife still at his neck. “This man is no hero!” He looked to his own men, whose faces were twisted by concern—even the King’s Shieldsmen watching. “He turns to dark arts and fallen gods. His every breath is an insult to Iam.”
“Torsten, put down the weapon,” Redstar said.
“Don’t you all see? Every word out of his mouth is a lie! These letters, forgeries meant to spoil a house that has loyally served the Glass for decades so he may deceive us all; just as he wore the face of Uriah Davies to fool me.” He flung the letters onto the ground.
“Wore a face?” Redstar laughed. “I am one with the magic of Elsewhere, but even I cannot wear a face.”
“Lies! Shieldsmen, I want you to arrest this traitor for the murder of Sir Wardric Jolly.”
The men of his order looked to each other, but not a soul moved. Torsten searched the faces for a familiar one. Sir Nikserof Pasic or any of the most celebrated Shieldsmen he’d led into the ambush, but there were none present. They were all dead or injured. And all that remained were men he hadn’t yet fought beside and whom he’d barely been a part of training.
“That is an order from your Wearer!” Torsten said.
“Control yourself, Torsten,” Redstar whispered. “Look to your God.”
“Look to my God? Look to my God? I’m going to do something I should have done back in the Webbed Woods. It’s time this kingdom is free of—”
Redstar slid his head forward, catching the side of his neck on the dagger. Blood leaked out, but the slice didn’t catch anything vital. As Redstar collapsed, Torsten knew what was coming, but he was too slow. The Arch Warlock whipped around, extended a hand, and all Torsten’s muscles became paralyzed. Redstar tore the blade out of his hand with a thought and Torsten couldn’t do a thing.
Northerners ran to Redstar to stop the bleeding. He pushed them away. The more blood, the stronger his hold on Torsten would be.
“I took Winde Port!” Redstar shouted, the rage in his voice making the very air vibrate. “With this power and faith you eschew, I took it. Perhaps, Sir Unger, you too have been swayed by Muskigo to betrayal. Perhaps that is why the rebel Afhem still lives.”
“I…” Torsten opened his mouth to speak, but Redstar closed his fingers, and with it, Torsten’s lips went rigid as stone.
“Do not speak.” Redstar turned to the crowd. “This is the man who you would follow as Wearer? A man who would kill your King’s unarmed uncle just because he’s too frightened to accept help from a goddess who loves all of you just as she loved Iam? How many lives among you did she just save!”
Redstar swiped his arm down and forced Torsten to his knees. He begged his muscles to move, but even trying made his entire body burn.
“Shieldsmen,” Redstar went on. “You charged with me. Clearly, your Wearer is broken. If I release him, he will kill me. So, I ask you, as the royal uncle and the only man who can lead this army effectively, arrest him. We will drag him before the King, and there, he shall be weighed justly for his actions. Perhaps even he can be saved of whatever it is that haunts him.”
His men seemed petrified as they looked to each other, none willing to make the first move. Then, finally, the blonde Shieldsman Torsten had scolded for drinking back at camp stepped forward. He was emboldened by alcohol, and Torsten dug through his mind to find a name with which to beg. He couldn’t.
So instead, he just struggled to squeeze a single word through his magically sealed lips, “P… please.”
The Shieldsman took Torsten by the arms. Redstar released those limbs of his magic so they could be wrenched behind Torsten’s back.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” the Shieldsman said, “but he’s right. He saved this city while you were gone. You aren’t thinking clearly.”
Redstar smirked. “Thank you, Sir Mulliner,” he addressed the Shieldsman.
The sense of pride in Redstar’s voice as he spoke the name Torsten couldn’t find made Torsten feel ill. Never in his life had he wanted to kill someone so badly. Even Muskigo he respected for his prowess, but Redstar was a trickster demon in human form. Whether or not anything he said about Wardric was true, he could have told Torsten on the docks about what happened with the Darkings. He could have revealed the truth then, but instead, allowed Torsten to make this spectacle.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Torsten,” Redstar said. “But you are in need of help. He leaned down, his breath hot on Torsten’s ear. “Pi may breathe now thanks to the Buried Goddess, but it seems Iam favors me now, too,” he whispered. He turned to walk away, releasing his mystical hold of Torsten’s body.
Torsten had been waiting for that exact moment. “I’ll kill you!” he roared. Sir Mulliner tried to restrain him, but Torsten used his massive body to tear free. Another of the Shieldsmen who’d been drinking with Sir Mulliner grabbed him, but Torsten tossed him aside like a doll. The man’s face smashed against a rock.
Sir Mulliner ran to his friend, and Torsten tore the sheathed longsword off the Mulliner’s belt while he was distracted and sprung at Redstar. He didn’t get far. The pommel of a sword bashed against the back of his head and knocked him face first into the snow and dirt. The last thing he realized before he spun into oblivion was who had taken him down like the raving lunatic Redstar made him seem.
One of his own men. A King’s Shieldsman, but not Sir Mulliner or another relative stranger. It was Nikserof, a man of the old guard with whom Torsten had endured a crucible of blood, barely able to stand from his wounds. Nikserof watched in horror, and as Torsten’s vision began to go fuzzy, he knew that he’d given him no choice.
XXX
THE THIEF
Gray mist swirled around Whitney as he was jarred back to consciousness. There was no telling how long he’d been out, but nothing looked as it had just moments ago. Where there were night skies, there was now a vibrant red expanse, as if fire filled the heavens. Strangely, the sound of waves was still there, though he no longer felt wood beneath him. Instead, dry chalk billowed with each movement as he coaxed himself to rise.
Before him, the shore of an endless ocean stretched out to the horizon. The fog rolled along it like the wheels of a chariot. But somet
hing about the water was… off. It was black—the color of old blood.
“Where the…” Whitney exhaled.
“How did we?”
Whitney spun toward the accented voice behind him.
“You!” he shouted, then lunged at Kazimir with abandon. “This is your fault!”
Somehow, he tackled the impossibly fast upyr and brought him down. Whitney mounted him and was able to drive one fist into his nose. Kazimir caught his next punch, and while he waited for his hand to be crushed, Whitney noticed the blood pouring from Kazimir’s nose. Whitney was so stunned to see it, he allowed Kazimir to push him off.
The upyr wiped his nose with the back of his hand. The look on his face would have given Whitney enough joy to sustain him for a lifetime, had he known where the yig he was.
“No, this isn’t possible,” Kazimir said. “Not again.”
“All things are possible here,” said another voice.
Whitney whipped around again toward the voice. It was frail and withering.
“Oh great,” Whitney said. “Who the yigging exile are you, now?”
The man was nearly doubled in half he was so hunched over. A robe hung down, whipping back and forth in the black waters along the shore. He stood beside a tiny rowboat that somehow didn’t float away despite not being moored. A hood covered his head, casting a deep shadow over his face. If he even had a face.
“You may call me the Ferryman,” the stranger said.
“Right, and I’m the world’s greatest thief,” Whitney replied.
“I know exactly who you are, Mr. Fierstown.”
Whitney took a step back, eyes wide. “Then you’ll know that’s not my name anymore.”
“A man cannot escape who he is. I’ve been waiting for you… both of you.”
The mysterious new presence nearly made Whitney forget the upyr behind him.
“Yeah? Then who is he?” Whitney said, pointing to Kazimir.
“Who is he… that is a question with a far longer answer,” the Ferryman said.
Whitney shot a glance at Kazimir. The upyr’s gaze drifted downward.
“He has gone by many names,” the Ferryman continued. “Haven’t you?”
“What do you want, old man?” Kazimir asked.
Whitney stepped forward and threw open his arms. “Can everyone take a deep breath and explain what the yig-and-shog is going on? Where is Sora? Where is Tum Tum? Where is—”
“Whatever your mystic friend did has sent us to Elsewhere, you fool,” Kazimir said. “The world between worlds.”
“We’re…” Whitney paused to take a deep breath. “Dead?”
“Some would say so. Some would say not. Much like him.” The Ferryman stepped up onto the tiny boat and lifted a long oar just like the ones gondolas used to navigate the canals of Winde Port.
“Now join me,” the Ferryman said. “The Sea of Lost Souls is no place to linger.”
Kazimir approached without a fuss. “You didn’t keep me here last time, spirit,” he grumbled as he climbed up. “You won’t this time, either.”
“Give me one good reason for getting in that boat with him,” Whitney said.
The Ferryman raised his hand. Spectral arms reached up through the shallow water, dozens of them, pawing at Whitney’s ankles. They passed through his flesh and bone, yet he could feel a chill with every one.
Whitney was on the boat so fast he wasn’t even sure how he got there.
“Well put,” Whitney said.
“Let’s make this quick,” Kazimir said.
“No need to rush,” the Ferryman said as he pushed his oar through the water. “We have eternity.”
The sea lapped against the sides of the boat as they moved forward. Specters teemed beneath the surface, their moans like broken lutes playing on a loop.
“Shog in a barrel,” Whitney said as fog enveloped them like a shroud of death.
Winds of War Page 33
