Jager sat down with a sigh, leaned against the wall, and winced in agony. He slumped forward, and he saw a rat sitting in the darkness, staring at him with beady little eyes.
“Bugger off,” he said, picking up a loose stone and throwing it at the rat. The rodent scampered away, out of sight of Jager’s lantern, but he suspected the creature would lurk in the shadows. Likely the smell of blood drew it, and the miserable rodent would wait until he keeled over before gnawing on his fingers. It saw him only as food.
Perhaps there was wisdom in that. Tarrabus Carhaine only saw Jager as a tool to be used and then discarded. The Comes of Coldinium did not know Jager existed at all.
But perhaps Jager could use them against each other.
The High King’s nobles and the war chiefs of Kothluusk had warred against each other for generations. For Tarrabus to consort with them was treason, and for him to hire assassins of the Red Family was a crime against both the High King and the laws of the church.
If Comes Corbanic learned that Tarrabus had brought Mhorite orcs into Coldinium, he would turn against the Dux. He might even try to arrest Tarrabus, or bring his men to attack the Dux’s soldiers. If Tarrabus was arrested, if it was proven he had conspired with the High King’s enemies, he would be tried for treason. He would no longer have authority over the Constable of the Iron Tower, and Jager might have a chance to free Mara.
Of course, Tarrabus might refuse to yield, and Jager’s actions could touch off a civil war within Andomhaim.
But so what? Andomhaim, the High King, and the nobles had never done anything for him. All he cared about was saving Mara. And if to save her he had to touch off a conflict that would make the War of the Five Princes look like a summer tournament, then he would do it with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.
He needed to find his way back into Tarrabus’s domus, obtain proof that the Dux had conspired with the Kothluuskan orcs, and find a way to get that proof anonymously to Comes Corbanic.
Tonight.
But how? Using the dagger and fleeing the domus had put the Dux’s guards on high alert, to say nothing of the Mhorite orcs. They would be on guard.
Which meant the best way for Jager to get into the domus was to go back through the secret door in the catacombs. They would not expect him to go back in that way.
Or they would be waiting to kill him.
Either way, it was a risk he had to take.
There was no other choice left.
The plan came together in his head. He needed to wait a few hours for the guards in the mansion to grow lax, for the initial shock of his escape to wear off. That was just as well, since he had to return to his caches in the dwarven ruins and equip himself with the appropriate tools.
Jager set off down the gallery, the dead silent in their niches around him.
He heard a skittering noise and spun.
Two rats darted out of the light of his lantern.
“Damned rats,” muttered Jager, turning towards the dwarven ruins.
###
Ridmark walked in silence, his staff in his right hand.
The catacombs stretched around him, dark and silent. Niches in the walls held skeletons, some wrapped in their grave clothes, others little more than dust. An air of antiquity hung over everything. Yet Coldinium had only been built a century and a half past. Coldinium’s catacombs felt old to Ridmark…but he had walked in places far older. The ruins of Urd Arowyn, thousands of years old. The stone circle upon Black Mountain had stood for millennia before humans had ever set foot upon Andomhaim.
This world and its conflicts were ancient beyond reckoning, and humans were newcomers. Shadowbearer was a high elf, and the legends spoke of him bringing misery and woe for countless millennia. Whatever he planned with the Frostborn and the empty soulstone, he had been plotting for thousands of years before Ridmark had even been born.
How could Ridmark presume to defeat such a creature?
“I think,” said Morigna in a low voice, “I think I can see him.”
“Or your rats can see him, you mean,” said Calliande.
“Yes, the rats,” said Morigna, her eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. “They…can smell him. Blood, a lot of blood. Smells like Gavin carved him up. He…is walking away from them.” She grunted and made an irritated gesture. “The rats are following him. If they do not get distracted. They think primarily about food.”
“Calliande,” said Ridmark.
She shuddered, no doubt thinking about rats, and cast her seeking spell again. “He is close. Less than a quarter of a mile away. So close I fear that if we make too much noise, he will hear us.”
“Can you see where he is, Mistress Morigna?” said Azakhun. He had donned his masked helm of dwarven steel, his deep voice hollow and metallic.
Morigna shrugged. “A gallery lined with the dead, like all the others. There are loose bricks upon the floor…wait. He went into a…a vault. Two galleries intersect there. The rats can see…I think it is a sarcophagus, with a statue of a winged angel upon it.”
“I know where he is, Sir Ridmark,” said Azakhun. “Mistress Morigna, can you guess which direction he is going?”
“East,” said Morigna. “Definitely east.”
“Then he is going into the ruins of Thainkul Balzon,” said Azakhun.
“Why?” said Calliande.
“Perhaps he is meeting his patron there,” said Ridmark.
“Surely he could find a safer place to do it,” said Caius. “The traps of my kindred are deadly, and one false movement would bring him death.”
“He might wish to conceal his stolen goods there before moving on,” said Azakhun. “The traps are indeed deadly, as the apostate said, and dread of them and the Hunter keeps all but the boldest away from Thainkul Balzon.”
“Which means,” said Ridmark, “he doesn’t trust whoever hired him. He’s going to hide it in Thainkul Balzon, and then go to meet with his backers.”
Morigna scowled. “Probably he wants to ask for more money.”
“Perhaps,” said Ridmark.
“Then we need not confront him at all,” said Gavin. “Morigna’s rats will see where he hides the soulstone, and once he leaves we can simply take it back.”
“I think it would be better,” said Kharlacht, “to take him alive.” Ridmark looked at the orc. “If we take him alive, we can make him tell us who hired him. It is still a long journey to Urd Morlemoch, and the more knowledge about our enemies that we possess, the stronger our position.”
“Kill him and take the soulstone,” said Morigna.
Caius raised his eyebrows. “That is rather brutal.”
“He stole from us,” said Morigna, “and took something of terrible power, all in the service of men and creatures that threaten the world. We would be well without our rights to kill him. And if he is dead, he poses no further threat.”
“I agree,” said Azakhun. “I do not presume to command, only to advise. But a thief has forfeited his rights, and the gods of stone and silence frown upon those who steal from their fellows. Kill him and reclaim your stolen goods.”
“The Dominus Christus counsels mercy,” said Caius.
“The Dominus Christus!” said Morigna, her voice rising with annoyance. “Tell me, Brother. Will the Dominus Christus descend from his throne to reclaim the soulstone? To stop the Frostborn? If he had wanted this thief spared, he should not have let him become a thief.”
“Jager saved my life,” said Calliande.
Ridmark looked at her. “When?”
“During the fight at the Crow’s Helm,” she said, voice quiet. “One of Mournacht’s spells stunned me for a few moments. Everyone else was fighting the Mhorites. One of the Kothluuskans would have killed me, but Jager took him first.”
“What?” said Morigna. “Why would he do that? It gained him nothing.”
“Perhaps he was trying to gain your trust for later treachery,” said Kharlacht.
“No,” said Rid
mark, frowning. “If Calliande was slain…it would have been to Jager’s advantage.” He did not want to think on that, how she might have died in the Challenge against Imaria, slain for Ridmark’s crimes. “If she had been killed in the fighting, there would have been no one to stop Imaria from bringing any number of false charges against us. In the chaos Jager could have escaped with ease.”
“A man may be a thief,” said Caius, “but that does not mean he is a murderer.”
“We will decide what to do when we find him,” said Ridmark. “Come. Azakhun, walk with me. All of you, do not speak unless it is necessary. I do not want to alert our quarry.”
He lifted his leather wristband and led the way, the others following him.
###
Jager descended the stone steps, the light of the glowstones ahead stabbing into his eyes.
The dwarven ruins awaited.
He suspected the builders of Coldinium’s catacombs had stumbled into the dwarven ruins by accident. The dwarves had not yet founded their Enclave when the catacombs had been excavated, and therefore had not been there to warn the Comes when the workmen found the ruins.
The stairs ended in an unfinished gallery, stone niches lining the walls. A rough stone wall waited at the far end of the gallery, the light from the glowstones streaming out through a wide gash in the rock. Beyond he saw a massive hall of the dwarven ruins, the walls and floor and ceiling built from polished gray stone. Glowstones shone in the arches overhead, and hundreds of stone tiles, each about one foot square, covered the floor. Every tile had a gap of about an inch around it, and each tile bore a different dwarven glyph. Stepping on the right glyphs offered a safe way across the hall.
Stepping on the wrong glyphs brought a rather less pleasant result.
Here and there piles of bones dotted the hall, scarred and slashed from heavy blades.
Jager leaned against the wall for a moment, taking deep breaths. He knew the safe paths through the glyphs, had spent weeks triggering the tiles one at a time to learn the trapped ones. But he needed to concentrate to do it properly. After everything he had survived, it would be a cruel irony if he tripped and fell to his death on the blades of a millennia-old dwarven trap.
Mara needed him to live. He repeated the words over and over in his head, a litany to drive himself forward. Jager did not know how he would get back into Tarrabus’s domus, how he would find the proof he needed. The task seemed almost insurmountable.
One step at a time.
He took one more deep breath and headed toward broken stone of the wall, preparing to enter the dwarven hall.
“Jager.”
The voice sent a bolt of alarm down his spine.
Jager spun, reaching for the dark elven dagger, the weapon Tarrabus had called a soulcatcher.
Ridmark Arban stood at the top of the stairs, staff in his right hand. Calliande waited at his right, white light glimmering around her fingers, Morigna at his left, purple fire crackling in her free hand. Caius, Kharlacht, and Gavin all had their weapons drawn, and an armored dwarf in a masked war helm stood with the friar. Azakhun, Jager thought, given the dents in his cuirass.
For a moment they regarded each other in silence.
“Well,” said Jager at last, his mind racing for a plan, any plan, “you appear to be quite lost.”
“Given that you are about to climb into a trap-filled dwarven ruin,” said Ridmark, “we may not be the only ones.”
“Truly,” said Jager. “A pleasant coincidence, then. The exit is that way.” He waved his hand. “You may go about your business in peace.”
He was exhausted and in pain, but he would be damned before he showed weakness to a man like Ridmark of the Arbanii, to the son of a noble of Andomhaim.
Calliande stared at him, a frown on her face as Jager’s fingers coiled around the hilt of the soulcatcher.
The chorus of whispers started in his mind once more.
“I think you know why I am here,” said Ridmark.
“Actually, I don’t,” said Jager. “You should be dead. Tarrabus hates you, and the most honorable Dux of Caerdracon does not seem the sort of man to forget a grudge. I thought he would have crucified you by now.”
“He tried,” said Ridmark. “Calliande persuaded him otherwise.”
Jager made an elaborate mocking bow. “The Magistria must be most persuasive.”
“She is,” said Caius.
Calliande made no response, her eyes still fixed on the soulcatcher.
“Plainly,” said Jager. If he used the weapon, he could twist their shadows against them and escape in the chaos, as he had in Tarrabus’s domus. Yet the very thought made his skin crawl. And it might not be necessary. If he fled through the trapped hall, they would not be able to follow him.
Ridmark took one step down the stairs. “Should we dispense with the games, or shall we trade witticisms for a while longer?”
“I would prefer witticisms,” Jager said. “I’m ever so good at them.”
“The soulstone,” said Ridmark. “We would like it back. And we would like to know who hired you to steal it.”
“Or what?” said Jager. “You’ll kill me?”
“No,” said Ridmark. “Only if you make us. But it needn’t come to that. Simply leave the soulstone upon the ground, tell us who hired you, and then depart. We will let you go in peace, and seek no vengeance upon you.”
“Oh, you won’t, will you?” said Jager. Yet he almost believed Ridmark. He had seen the man fight, had seen him march out to fight Mournacht in a duel. This man did what he said he would do.
“Yes,” said Ridmark. “I will let you go in peace. Perhaps we can even aid you.”
Jager laughed. “I would like to see that.”
Yet he wavered. He needed help against Tarrabus. Yet Ridmark was still a noble of Andomhaim, and Calliande a Magistria. Such people had brought nothing but misery and pain into Jager’s life.
“We can,” said Ridmark. “I think you have gotten in over your head.”
“Is that a joke about my height?” said Jager. “How gauche.”
“If you’ve stolen that soulstone in hopes of selling it,” said Ridmark, “you do not know how dangerous of a prize you have found. If you have been hired to steal it, your patrons will kill you the minute you hand it over to them.”
“Do you think so?” said Jager, keeping his tone light. Yet Ridmark’s words disturbed him. The Gray Knight’s guesses had been uncannily accurate.
“And if you have been coerced into stealing it,” said Ridmark, “we may be able to help you.”
“How?” said Jager, more of his anger seeping into his voice than he would have liked. “How can you possibly help me? You couldn’t save yourself from Tarrabus. How…”
“Then it is Tarrabus,” said Ridmark. “He has some hold over you, doesn’t he?”
Jager felt himself go cold. He remembered Tarrabus’s warning about seeking help from Ridmark. The Dux sought to turn Mara into a weapon, but if Jager asked Ridmark’s help, Tarrabus might kill Mara out of sheer spite.
“He is a ruthless and brutal man,” said Ridmark, “and he will kill you once he has the soulstone.”
And he would kill Mara, if Jager helped Ridmark. But perhaps Ridmark could help him. The man had defeated a female urdmordar when he was but a Swordbearer of eighteen, or so the tales went. He had survived in the Wilderland for five years. Well, so had Smiling Otto, but he had walls and mercenaries and a catapult. Ridmark had only a staff and a gray cloak.
Jager’s fist tightened against the dagger’s hilt.
No. He had trusted a knight of Andomhaim once, and it had cost Jager’s father his life.
“I am sorry about this,” said Jager. “Really, I am. But if I help you…it will cost me more than you can possibly imagine.”
He started to draw the dark elven dagger from its sheath.
And then Calliande gasped.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop! I remember! I’ve seen a weapon like that bef
ore. Jager, for the love of God, stop!”
He was struck by how beautiful she looked, so fierce and urgent and keen, her blue eyes ablaze with intensity. Of course, she was no match for Mara, but Calliande…he suspected if she gave a speech, men would cheer and raise their swords and follow her to whatever goal she sought.
“What?” he said.
“That dagger,” she said. “It’s called a soulcatcher.”
“I knew that,” said Jager, though he had only learned that a few hours before.
“Do you know what it does?” said Calliande.
“It commands shadows,” said Jager. “I’ve used it twice before, and…”
“If you use it a third time, here and now, you will regret it for centuries,” said Calliande. “Maybe even millennia.”
“What are you talking about?” said Jager, though he felt a surge of alarm.
Twice. One in Cintarra, and once in Tarrabus’s domus. The whispers. The whispers in his mind when he held the dagger…
“The dark elves used soulcatchers to steal the life force of their enemies and enhance their magical prowess,” said Calliande, her voice low and urgent. “But they loved cruelty, appreciated it as an art. Sometimes they gave soulcatchers to their slave kindreds, to the orcs and the halflings and the manetaurs. A dark elf could use a soulcatcher without harm. But if a mortal used a soulcatcher to command the shadows three times…”
Jager’s fingers trembled against the dagger’s hilt. “What? What happens after the third time?”
“He would transform,” said Calliande. “A soulcatcher was one of the ways the dark elves created their war beasts.”
“Are you saying,” said Morigna, “that if he uses that weapon, he’ll become a…what? An urvaalg? An urshane?”
“No,” said Calliande with a sharp shake of her head. “An urhaalgar.”
“No,” said Jager, shaking his head to cover the tremor in his limbs. “No.” His father had told stories of urhaalgars, as had his mother before her death. They spoke of creatures that flowed through the darkness like smoke, with eyes of bloody fire and talons that dripped poison. “You’re lying, the way Magistri and nobles always lie.”
Frostborn: The Master Thief Page 23
