Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)

by Michael Watson

  As before, the tunnels had all the charm of martial design, built of rough stone blocks with little eye for ornamentation. Pieterszen was correct in it being ‘straight on’ as all the side passages were long bricked off with newer masonry. Tyrissa’s footfalls echoed up the tunnels, as if she marched with a unit instead of alone. Soon she came to the square base of a tower’s interior that reached up into the shadows. A wide stone stairway hugged the walls to ascend the tower at harsh right angles. Pairs of blocked-off arrow slits were set into the walls at each corner landing. They ceased being bricked over halfway up the tower and lent Tyrissa narrow glimpses of the city outside. An unlocked trap door and short ladder were at the top of the stairs. Tyrissa gently swung the door open and peered out. The tower’s top was open to the sky, with only weathered columns at each corner to suggest that it once had the same pointed roof as its twin at the northwest corner of the university. Not wanting to make a beacon out of herself, Tyrissa wrapped the gloworb in a spare dark cloth before climbing out into the night.

  By the Khalan calendar the date was the twenty-fourth of Ironskies and the night’s low ceiling of oppressive, deep gray clouds complied with the name. From here Tyrissa could see most of Khalanheim spread out to the south, the main streets outlined by pale lines of light from the night lamps. Fire engulfed a building near the southern edge of the city, the flames leaping high into the air and casting a harsher orange glow into the night. To the east, down the hill, the blades of the windmills spun in the night winds of the Rift, fading in and out of the night lamps’ light like tethered ghosts.

  With the modern additions and comforts dulled away by the darkness, the university’s fortress past reemerged by night. It was an illusion of security. The complex had dozens of entrances, many without gates or locks and it would be impractical to guard them all. Tyrissa had proved that herself when she slipped in and reached the library unseen. The Talons focused on guarding the observatory itself, the round tower of pale, smooth stone that rose twice as high as the squat, old thing Tyrissa occupied. Many of the tower’s windows had light shining from within, a shadow crossing by every so often to mark the passing of a guard.

  Tyrissa’s lone vigil stretched from one hour and into two. She paced a circuit around the old tower, running one hand along the tops of the battlements, her fingertips coming up with a layer of grit that she brushed against her trousers, leaving little darker streaks in the charcoal colored fabric. Aside from two pairs of Talons patrolling the gardens around the base of the observatory, the university slept. Not once did they look up to see that they had an extra set of eyes watching over the grounds. Smoke rose into the sky from the now doused fire on the south side of the city, the riftwinds carrying the haze westward. But the water brigades would find no rest tonight, as another fire had started near the center of the city, in Crossing. Tyrissa looked closer at the strings of streetlights that intersected at Crossing Square, making sure the fire was far from the home she shared with Liran.

  Nothing continued to happen. Doubts began to build up in her mind over the last hour. Could I be wrong? Was the trap on the wrong side of being too obvious?

  Then came the sound of metal against brick, then again and a third time. Tyrissa looked down along the northern rooftops and saw a trio of shadows creeping along the tiles. The shadows resolved into cloaked men, each with a compact crossbow and a brace of bolts across their backs. They crawled to the central peak of the roof and spread out, two lying flat and the last crouching and keeping his eyes on the tower looming above them. In the courtyard below, a pair of Talons patrolled though the low hedges of the gardens, oblivious. The prone crossbowmen took careful aim, anchoring their weapon against the peak of roof tiles.

  “The roof! Snipers!”

  Her warning was too late. The crossbows snapped in unison and a mortal scream pealed out below as one of the Talons jerked and fell. His partner ducked below the hedge row and yelled toward the tower, the words unintelligible. Dark shapes flowed through the gardens as the rest of the Thieves made themselves known, two descending on the remaining Talon and silencing him with a flash of steel. The rooftop snipers reloaded and were joined by a fourth, his arrival announced by the flutter of wind-tossed cloth. Vralin landed on the rooftop, as if carried by an invisible hand.

  One of the upper windows of the tower slammed open above them, glass rattling in its frame. Another crossbowman appeared in the window and rained down three rapid shots faster than anyone could reload. The wet sound of one shot hitting its target cut through the scattered shouts from the gardens below. The kneeling Thief returned fire but hit only stonework. One of the prone snipers let his crossbow slide away as he curled around his wound.

  Vralin paid no mind to his wounded ally. He crossed the rooftop in a single too-long stride and launched into the air as if fired from a crossbow himself. The Windmage ascended to the top of the observatory tower in a graceful arc, landed atop the dome, and slipped into the gap around the protruding telescope.

  How am I going to get some answers out of him?

  The man in the tower window retreated into the building after exchanging another round of shots with the Thieves on the roof. A second sniper went down, a bolt stuck prominently through his leg. The third turned to help him and the first wasn’t moving at all. Cloaked shapes swarmed up to the main entry to the tower, a set of arched doors on the north side. They kept to cover and no one approached. A series of white flashes leaked through the windows flanking the entryway. Then the doors swung open and a man wearing a Talon uniform waved the waiting Thieves inside. An inside man. The pack of cloaked figures drew steel and charged into the tower.

  A surge from below and a wind from above. And she stood far from the action, powerless to do anything but watch. It would take too long to make her way down to the gardens and there were far too many of them to make a difference.

  If Vralin flew in, he’ll fly out. She could catch him then, though she ignored the nagging question of what would happen if she did. Tyrissa waited at the corner of the old watchtower, glancing down to reassure herself that the drop to the rooftops was only somewhat dangerous. The minutes stretched on, demarcated by distant shouts and shattering glass from the lower levels of the tower. White smoke drifted out of the open entry doors to coil through the bare, brown skeletons of the hedgerows and around the feet of the two Thieves that kept watch outside. Tyrissa spared a look at the city as she waited and saw that more fires had broken out in scattered places across Khalanheim. The Thieves were carrying out their promise in full.

  A window on the east side of the tower shattered outward, glass shards raining out into the night air. Vralin followed, gracefully diving out the window, a short sword in one hand and a dangling sack held in the other. Animated creeper vines pursued him out of the window and came close to ensnaring the Windmage in mid-air, but Vralin twisted about and cut away the nearest tendrils. He rolled as he hit eastern rooftop and stood slowly, looking dazed from the hard landing.

  This was her best and only chance. Tyrissa leapt over the wall of the tower, landed in a crouch and launched into a sprint, her feet ringing off the roof tiles. As she ran she saw a figure appear in the broken window that was now fringed with limp vines. The same man as before, he lifted his crossbow and sent another volley of shots thrumming at Vralin. Sudden, fierce winds whipped out across the rooftops, lifting away loose tiles and causing the bolts to careen off course. Showers of fragmented tile work jumped into the air as none of the bolts struck true. Vralin sheathed his blade, shouldered the sack, and darted to the outer edge of the roof. She was almost on him and reached a hand over her shoulder to her staff. He didn’t seem to have seen her. She had one good chance.

  Twenty feet below this side of the roof lay a street that was little more than an alleyway on the east side of the university’s walls. The gap to the row houses across the alley was short enough to jump, if you were reckless. Or a Windmage. Just as Tyrissa drew near, her staff whirling forward in a sing
le debilitating smash, Vralin leapt across the gap to the neighboring buildings as if it were nothing. She struck the roofing tiles, the force cracking them into pieces.

  Vralin landed on a thin balcony crowded with clothes drying on a line. He spun in place and a dart streaked her way. Tyrissa barely caught the glint of metal flying through the darkened air and threw herself to one side, landing dangerously close to the edge of the roof. She cried out in pain as the dart went deep into her left shoulder. With that, Vralin wasted no more time with her and turned away to climb up to the flat, connected rooftops of the row houses. He vanished into the night.

  Tyrissa clenched her jaw and pulled the dart out, a wash of blood following in its wake. She pressed a palm against the flow, fingers griping the dart’s handle and teeth still held tight as the wound closed itself, the skin and muscle underneath stitching themselves back together with all the pain of the initial wound. Tyrissa pushed back from the edge of the roof and waited for her Pact to work its magick. Behind her, the courtyard still rang with the metallic clash and guttural shouts of the melee in the tower.

  One chance and she was too slow and had missed it. Pulling away her bloodstained hand, she looked at the dart that almost killed her. A few inches in one direction or another and it would have struck her heart or neck, wounds she doubted her healing could overcome. She turned the dart over. The handle had a distinct design, like a thin cyclone of air. Tyrissa’s blood went cold.

  It was the same design as the knife imbedded in Tsellien’s neck.

  Tyrissa left her questions for later. She stood and let the dart fall from her hand to clatter against the rooftop. She set her staff on her back, the metal clicking to the harness under her coat. She took two strides, leapt across the gap to the balcony and hauled herself up to the roof.

  She would make another chance. If she had chase down the wind, so be it.

  Tyrissa could feel him ahead across the darkened rooftops, a tenuous sense of magick, an invisible trail in the air. Vralin ran straight for the Rift, descending the giant’s stairway of linked homes from the heights of the university to the creaking mills that lined the great canyon. Tyrissa hardly needed to see the faint flickers of cloth and shadow in the distance to give chase, and ran after him with reckless abandon. She let the Pact guide her. If it was going to pull her through life towards a destination unknown, it might as well make itself useful. The rooftops flew by as she vaulted over vents and dividers, her boots crunching through grime and dirt. In that weightless moment at the peak of a jump the city of Khalanheim seemed to stretch out around her like a tapestry crafted of light and shadow. There were more fires now and those multiple isles of red-orange light lent the night sky an appropriate bloody glow.

  Against all odds she was gaining on him. As the rooftops leveled out at the base of the hill, Tyrissa saw a second shadowy outline of a man spring up from nowhere to join her quarry. Vralin stopped and spun in place, and soon she could hear the distinct ring of steel on steel. He was popular tonight. Two shadowy silhouettes swirled around each other and though her view was blurred by distance and motion, Tyrissa could see and hear that not all of their exchanges ended in a neat, ringing parry.

  As she drew near, girding herself to join the fray, there was a desperate, guttural shout from the dueling shadows. A blast of savage wind containing all the condensed strength of a summer storm tore across the rooftop. Tyrissa felt as if she ran straight into an invisible padded wall. Her skin flushed with warmth and her gut tightened into a knot, as her Pact absorbed the magicks on the air and spun them into their opposite. Wind into Earth. The gust threw Vralin’s assailant aside to crash against the sculpted gable of the row house. In a blink, he vanished into the darkness of the rooftop, adding a second brief sensation of magick in Tyrissa’s head. Another Pactbound, one of the Shadow.

  Vralin stood alone on the rooftop, finally still for a moment. His breath came in ragged gasps, with one hand pressed to his side. The other held a thin dueling sword, its point drooping downward. The sack of whatever he stole from the observatory sat near his feet, its contents about two feet long and egg-shaped. When Vralin turned to watch Tyrissa hop over the low dividing wall and raised his weapon to greet her, it was the first time she saw him move with anything less than a perfect, airy grace.

  “Persistent aren’t we?” Vralin never met her gaze for more than a split second, preferring to eye the shadows and corners of the rooftop. A gentle breeze swirled around them. Tyrissa could feel the wind seeping into her skin, the weight in her gut growing in response. Vralin had to notice how the winds weakened and died around her. Perhaps he didn’t see her as a threat. Perhaps she wasn’t.

  “You have a lot to answer for,” Tyrissa said, waving her staff in front of her in a loose, defensive posture, ready for the slightest hint of an attack. She hesitated, suddenly unsure of what she even wanted from him anymore. If that Shadowpact would come back they could overcome Vralin together, split the difference.

  “You have no idea.” Vralin’s patted at his belt, searching for another throwing knife and coming away empty. In the faint light cast up from the street below, Tyrissa could see that blood darkened his free hand and his clothes bore a collection of tears and cuts from a dozen close calls.

  A flare launched into the sky from the streets near the Rift, exploded into a ring of blue fire above the slowly turning mills. Vralin took that as a sign to leave, snatching up the bag while turning on a heel before running for the edge of the roof. Tyrissa sprang forward, swinging her staff low but only grazing his leg. Vralin stumbled with a growl, but leapt over the side of the roof, carried down to the street below on another blast of controlled winds.

  More bound by the laws of gravity, it took Tyrissa precious seconds to find a ladder down to the alleys behind the linked row houses, and then precious more to find one of the connecting tunnels that ran through the ground floors of some buildings. She emerged onto the empty, half-lit streets to see Vralin far ahead of her, running towards the mills and the Rift with a hitch in his step. Any attempt at staying hidden was now forgotten and he kept to the center of the street lights whenever possible. Though wounded and limping, he outpaced Tyrissa as if he weighed nothing at all, his injuries mere paper cuts. If anything, she felt slower, weighed down by the twist in her stomach but somehow steadier, her feet hitting the street with that innate assuredness she’d felt when traversing that Rift-side path deep below the city.

  The weight of earth, she thought, the surety of stone. If only she knew how to use it properly.

  Tyrissa entered the broad, half-circle plaza at the bottom of the avenue, the same one she visited this morning. Ahead, Vralin had stopped at the base of the mills to lean against the pole of a night lamp, notably staying well within the light. He drew back a sleeve to adjust something wrapped around his left arm, the details obscured by distance. A slim figure, wreathed in fire and trailing smoke, raced across the north side of the plaza at a speed well beyond that of a normal human being. It was Ash.

  The Windmage motioned up the street and bellowed out command, though Tyrissa couldn’t hear the words. Ash shook her head, prompting a vicious backhand from Vralin that sent her reeling. The flames that Ash wore as a shawl flickered like a candle in the face of a tempest. She pointed up the street and let loose a cord of white fire from her fingertips that snaked through the air and coalesced into a massive orb of flame that floated above the center of the plaza. Tyrissa blinked against the sudden searing light that bathed the baker’s plaza and banished away all shadows. It burned silently and a filled her with that tell-tale grip of frost running through her bones. Her head swam for a moment as she felt the forces of Earth and Water course through her in distinct circuits, like two dogs sizing each other up but never striking.

  Tyrissa circled around the orb at a generous distance, not wanting to risk further reaction with it. She was worried enough about what she had already absorbed tonight. Ash was gone by the time she circled around the orb. Vralin had
a hatch open on the underside of an ornate bracer that encased his arm. He shook out a cluster of pearlescent discs that hit the street in a series of sweet chimes. His breathing was loud and labored, and his face had a pale cast not entirely from the white magick fire that illuminated the area.

  Vralin gave her a dismissive glance before digging into a pocket to pull out a stack of crystalline discs, each about two inches in diameter. He carefully slotted them into the bracer, though there were so large they must have been sliding into his arm. Vralin closed the hatch and sighed with relief as some color returned to his face.

  “I’m being generous tonight, girl,” he called to her. “I made a deal for two, not three. Don’t press your luck.”

  Tyrissa kept coming in a slow march, staff readied. She wanted to ask him so much, wanted to scream out questions. Why this? How that? And most of all: what am I? But words failed her. Her mind was slowed in the lethargic grip of Earth, the frigid embrace of Water. A terrible amount of power pulsed inside of her and she had no idea how to control it. She didn’t know whom to be more wary of: Vralin or herself.

  “Very well.” Vralin hitched up the bulky sack on his back, shrugging against the weight of his prize. He extended one hand towards her, palm upward, fingers slightly curled. A hot gale kicked up from behind, carrying embers that flashed to piercing needles of cold on her back. An overpowering heat enveloped her, as if she were bathing in a bonfire.

  A surge of frost from within pushed back the embrace of fire. Crystalline shells of ice hardened into being across her skin like armor, then melted and flashed into steam only to be replaced by another shell.

  I cannot be burned.

  The winds at her back broke against an anchor of earth. The weight in her gut spread through her body, turning her legs into pillars that were one with the sculpted stones below her feet, one with the very earth below.

  I cannot be moved.