Shadowbane: Eye of Justice

by De Bie, Erik Scott

  “Please.” Tay gestured to the couches. “Sit. Let us talk business.”

  The Knives leader grunted dismissively and sat on the couch opposite him. Shadowbane knew this man as Yaeshl the Ripper, a stupid, lesser cousin of House Bleth and a lieutenant in the Fire Knives. Street work was his trade, and he took his name from the barbed chain he kept wrapped around his arm.

  Slender serving women in colorful silks came to pour tea, but Yaeshl dismissed them with a glare. “Business without your steaming venom.”

  Several of the Shou bristled at the accusation, but Old Man Tay simply shrugged. “You think after the last three years, you are in any position to make accusations? As I understand it, you wish to declare yourselves our allies.”

  Yaeshl grunted. “Conspirators, you mean. Our guilds have waged war for too long. Jaundamicar is a broken man and the Fire Knives are dying with him. The Nine Golden Swords have become something you do not even recognize. The powers that be quake.”

  “When we gather our strength together, the powers that be will become us.”

  An alliance between the Fire Knives and the Shou intrigued Shadowbane. The guilds had been at each other’s throats for years now, culminating in the destruction of much of House Bleth’s power in the city. Now, two powerful lieutenants met to forge an alliance to end the gang war and cement their own power in the process. But was this an earnest offer of alliance or yet another trick?

  Regardless, Shadowbane saw an opportunity to expedite matters. He tensed, ready to—

  “Fire Knives, Nine Golden Swords,” a musical voice said. “You men and your blades.”

  The room erupted in a flurry of startled shouts and blades scraping free of scabbards. They cast about, looking for the source of the voice, and settled with widening eyes upon a slender moon elf in black leathers and a half mask standing in the corner of the room, poised as casually as though she had always been there. Her pale face contrasted with her dark garb and her midnight hair. At first Shadowbane thought her mask had no eye slits, but then he realized her eyes were simply the pure black of velvet.

  In response to the threat, her silver-painted lips curled. “Surely you can see I’m unarmed and mean no violence.”

  “Well, I mean it.” Yaeshl gestured to his men, who drew steel. The captain himself began unwinding his chain. “Name yourself at once, elf, or suffer the consequences.”

  Tay made no such threat or gesture, although several of the Shou palmed their weapons.

  The elf seemed untouched by the threat. “No need for steel. I am simply a woman with a proposition. Would the soon-to-be leaders of Westgate hear it?”

  She stepped forward and gracefully eluded the nearest Fire Knives thug who took the opportunity to reach for her. Like something not quite mortal, she twisted under his grasp, caught his wrist in her gloved hand, and pulled him over her leg to crash dazedly to the ground. The movement took less than a heartbeat and did not break her stride. The others backed away.

  “So eager to refuse my bargain, and you haven’t even heard it.” Her impenetrable black eyes scanned them. “I’d reserve judgment, were I unfortunate enough to be you.”

  She set a small, sword-shaped medallion on the table between the respective lieutenants and drew away with the same unnerving speed. Although she wore no visible weapon, the enforcers gave her a wide berth nonetheless. Half in the light, she was easier to see: she wore a laced black bodice, long leather gloves, and breeches laced with scores of buckles up the side of each leg. Her midnight hair was long and bound in a tail with silver cords.

  Now that he could see her face fully but for the mask, Shadowbane realized he knew her—not by name, but he remembered her very well indeed. They had met once, briefly, a year ago on Greengrass, the first night of spring. Was it fate that brought her to him? He almost interceded in that moment but managed to restrain himself.

  Both lieutenants stared at the medallion but neither made a move to touch it.

  “What is that?” Yaeshl asked.

  “Something you want.” The elf gestured to the table.

  “And which of us is it really for?” Tay asked in his eastern language. Shadowbane could pick up a few of the words—enough to understand the thrust of the question, particularly with the suspicious way he glanced at the Fire Knives.

  “Whichever will give me what I want.” The elf made the fluid Shou tongue particularly smooth. She put her gloved hands together and offered the old lieutenant a slight bow. “But do not take my word for it. See for yourselves.”

  She spoke a word of command, and the medallion shivered on the table. It rattled back and forth with a life of its own, then rapidly grew into a gleaming sword.

  Shadowbane’s eyes widened in recognition: Vindicator.

  “This … this is the sword of Shadowbane.” Yaeshl’s tone was reverent. “The Eye of Justice will not move against us if we hold this. They cannot risk it.” He looked at the elf with increased wariness. “How did you steal this?”

  She shrugged. “By your tone, you imagine it was difficult.”

  Yaeshl scowled. “This stinks of a trap. What treachery? Who is your master, woman?”

  “I’m just a free-roaming fox.” She smiled. “But enough about me. Can we deal or no?”

  Yaeshl started to say something, but Tay spoke over him. “What would you have of us?”

  “Nothing. I’m in Westgate on business. I wish only that you stay out of my way.”

  Tay nodded, considering, but his counterpart in the Fire Knives returned a sneer.

  “I’ve heard enough,” Yaeshl said. “If neither Tay nor I knows you, that means you’re some noble wench who thinks she can frighten us with tricks your hired mage cooked up, or you’re an independent who doesn’t truck with the guilds, or—worse—you’re an adventurer.”

  All those present shuddered. “No need to get nasty,” said the elf.

  “Either way,” Yaeshl continued, “I’m not about to give you anything, woman.”

  Across from him, Old Man Tay wore an expression of benign disapproval, as though he were a teacher watching Yaeshl make a mistake.

  “Also.” The Fire Knives lieutenant grinned, exposing twin rows of yellowed teeth. “Seems to me you gave up all your leverage when you gave up the sword.”

  Although her posture remained consistent, abruptly there was nothing easy or relaxed about the elf. Her former mirth lapsed, and her expression became deadly serious. “I came to you in friendship. Remember that.”

  “Oh I’ll remember. It’ll make a fine story.” Yaeshl signaled his men toward her.

  Two Fire Knives struck at her from either side, but they hit nothing but darkness. Even Shadowbane, who had been watching carefully, had no idea where she had gone—until she appeared behind one of the men, grasped his wrist, and used his captured rapier to run the opposite man through. The Fire Knife collapsed, his eyes wide in surprise.

  The man she was holding shot an elbow back into her face, and the elf flinched back. She let the momentum send her to the floor, where she swept the man’s legs from under him even as she sprang back to her feet. She pounced on him like a cat and hammered his head against the floor with the pommel of her stolen rapier. She kneeled atop him and wiped away a trickle of blood from her nose, where her foe had struck. The shadows roiled around her feet.

  She looked up, fearsome joy on her face. “Come, lads. Don’t you all want a turn?”

  Shadowbane could restrain himself no longer. He asserted his will, and Vindicator glowed with gray light where the elf had set it on the table. The Fire Knives were watching the moon elf and so did not see the blade reacting, but the Nine Golden Swords enforcers did, and they hesitated. Perfect.

  Shadowbane tensed his arms and pushed himself upward, swinging his legs high.

  Oblivious to the glowing sword, the Fire Knives captain obliged the elf’s seeming lust for violence. “Kill that woman!” Yaeshl shouted, and his remaining men raised their blades.

  Glass shat
tered and shards rained down as Shadowbane broke through the skylight and descended upon them. His entrance startled the Fire Knives as well, who faltered in their rush at the elf. He landed on one of the Shou warriors, driving him into the floor, and kneeled on the stunned man, his cloak flying around him. He looked up in challenge.

  “Shadowbane!” cried one of the Fire Knives. The Shou might not have faced Shadowbane three years ago when he was last in the city, but the Fire Knives would certainly remember his armor and helm all too well. “Strike! Strike before—”

  Shadowbane raised his hand, and Vindicator boiled away into gray smoke. It reappeared in his hand, blazing with divine energy. Then he hurled himself at the nearest Shou warrior and brought Vindicator down into the man’s chest.

  The battle was joined.

  Shadowbane slashed and cut, letting each attack follow through in a looping circle that parried seeking strikes. Every strike turned into a defense, which unfolded into another attack. He had learned swordwork well, but the holy sword of justice made it all too easy. Vindicator sang around him, an unstoppable scythe of death that sent thief after blood-spattered thief tumbling to the floor. He praised the foresight of the Shou adepts to imbue the room with a silencing ward, as otherwise he suspected the racket of the battle would have drawn the whole gang pouring into the chamber.

  One of the warriors hurled a carvestar in his direction—a steel disc forged to five razor-sharp points—but Shadowbane batted it aside with a screech of metal. The star dug into the foot of a Shou behind him, who dropped his sword low in shock. Shadowbane took advantage of his faltering defense and beheaded the man with a vicious backhand.

  Shadowbane glanced back, over the rushing blood from the man’s opened neck, to see the black-eyed elf moving among the Fire Knives, her rapier darting back and forth to set them on their guard. She led one into making a misstep, then kicked his closest leg out from under him and leaped over his falling body to engage the next of the Fire Knives.

  At his teacher’s behest, Shadowbane had recently been learning the graceful bladedance style, but he didn’t much care for it. It was fraught with too much misdirection, like a cat playing with a mouse. He much preferred the way Vindicator let him fight—dealing death without giving his opponents false hope. Still, to watch the elf fight like that thrilled him. Just like when they had first met, Shadowbane found himself impressed by her and also challenged.

  He would enjoy seeing what else that body could accomplish.

  The last of the Nine Golden Swords warriors—Old Man Tay himself—stalked cautiously toward him, a three-pointed knife in either hand. He thought they were called sai. Shadowbane easily parried a thrust of Tay’s left-hand sai, but the weapon tangled around his sword and wrenched it aside. Shadowbane pulled, but even with both hands he couldn’t twist Vindicator free.

  “Farewell,” the Shou captain said, and he thrust his other sai at Shadowbane’s throat.

  Shadowbane moved faster than any man should have been able to move. He flinched aside to let the sai go past, then removed a hand from Vindicator and caught Tay’s throat. The old man’s eyes widened as Shadowbane began to squeeze.

  He should have killed the old dastard—choked him until his tongue bugged from his mouth and his eyes rolled up in his head—but the elf cleared her throat with feminine grace behind him. Shadowbane brought his helm crashing into his captive’s face with a wicked crunch of cartilage as Tay’s nose shattered. Knocked senseless, the old man slumped to the ground and his sai scraped free of Vindicator’s blade.

  Shadowbane turned to the elf as she stood among the downed Fire Knives. The elf had stunned her foes, rather than slain them as Shadowbane had done. Recognition was written upon her face. She knew his armor and helm. Good.

  “One left,” she observed.

  Yaeshl the Ripper stood between two foes, glancing at each of them with equal trepidation. He’d unwound the barbed chain from his arm, which boasted a long steel bracer to keep the ugly thing from cutting into his flesh.

  “I think a man’s weapon reveals a good deal about his character,” the elf said, her words cold. “What does this one say, I wonder? Does he like being tied up, perhaps?”

  “Shut up, you fey-blood tart,” Yaeshl spat at her. “Think you can come in here, making demands, and have your hiresword enforce them?”

  “Hiresword? Surely you know Shadowbane, the scourge of Westgate.” She looked at the corpses at Shadowbane’s feet. “Somewhat more brutal than I expected.”

  “Dress your jack up however you like, he’s your man, sure enough.” Yaeshl’s focus remained on her. “Don’t even have the salt to kill, do you, wench?”

  The shadows stirred at the elf’s feet. “I fight my own battles.”

  Shadowbane saw what she was doing—distracting Yaeshl—and he took full advantage. He leaped two paces forward and brought his blade down in an overhead chop. Startled, Yaeshl managed to bring his chain up to tangle around Vindicator, which he wrenched from Shadowbane’s grasp with surprising force. The blade clattered against the far wall.

  “Too slow, would-be Shadowbane.” He drew the weapon back for a swipe. “Now—agh!”

  His words cut off in a cry of pain as the point of a rapier appeared through his upper arm, just above his protective bracer. Not only did the strike spoil his windup, but the uncontrolled chain lashed across his leg. The barbs bit into the leather and blood welled.

  Behind him, the elf danced back, her bloody sword dripping Yaeshl’s blood. She smiled.

  The Five Knives lieutenant roared and swung his chain at her, but Shadowbane grabbed his arm and wrenched him back. “Fight me, Knife.”

  Even as he spoke, he stretched out his will.

  “Pretender!” Yaeshl swiped at Shadowbane, but Vindicator reappeared in his hands just in time to block. The Fire Knives lieutenant gasped. “Gods.”

  Shadowbane thrust Vindicator’s pommel forward and slammed it into his chin. The Fire Knives captain staggered back, right into the elf’s blade. He stopped short of the actual point, however, as though the shadow of her sword struck him and not the sword itself. Regardless, his leathers parted and blood welled. She drew the blade back, and he fell into a heap at her feet.

  They stood in the unmoving room for a moment, listening to the groans of the wounded—sounds that would not escape through the magic warding the chamber. Before Vindicator’s gray flames, the shadows around the elf parted for a heartbeat, revealing her own shadow: a bulky, gnarled thing twice the size of an elf. It was her shadow and yet not.

  He remembered this from a year before, and it chilled and excited him.

  “Saer Shadow,” the elf said in greeting.

  Shadowbane said nothing. She knew his other face—his other self. The unworthy one.

  “Interesting,” she observed when he remained silent. She kneeled to check on Yaeshl, who lay still. “He’ll live. Perhaps we—”

  Shadowbane stabbed at her, and she twisted so that his blade cut along her side rather than through her heart. He came around for another blow, but the shadows coalesced around her, and she vanished just before Vindicator cleaved through the air where her neck had been. Shadowbane cast about and saw her step from the shadows on the other side of the room. She touched the wound on her side and her hand came away bloody.

  “Again, interesting,” she said as she fell into a defensive stance.

  Shadowbane said nothing. She might know his voice—or, worse, not know it.

  A gasp of pain drew their attention to a man crawling toward the door. One of the Nine Golden Swords enforcers had come around, and he was pulling himself along a trail of blood that stained the rug. He managed to pull the door open, ending the silence effect on the chamber, and cried out to his fellows in the language of the Shou.

  “Another time, then,” the elf said.

  He lunged toward her, Vindicator singing, but she danced into the shadows and vanished.

  Shadowbane cut Vindicator through the air a few times
, in case she had turned invisible, but he hit nothing but air. The sword glowed brighter, as though to express its frustration at her escape, but no matter. His blade would bathe in her blood soon enough. Something far away tugged at the sword—a distant summons that reminded him of his most important task. He hoped there would be time to hunt his quarry later.

  After all, now that Kalen Dren—the pretender to his name—was back in town, the man called Shadowbane would have his work cut out for him.

  He tossed the smoking Vindicator to the floor with a clash of steel on stone. The sword clattered to a rest, then boiled away into gray motes of smoke. Then and only then did he speak, addressing his words to his far-off nemesis.

  “I will make of you a darkness,” he murmured. “A darkness where there is no one.”

  Feet pounded on the stairs outside the sitting room, and his head rose. Other warriors had mustered, drawn by the cry for help. The door shattered under two heavy blows, and Nine Golden Swords enforcers stared—shocked—at the man who stood among the corpses. He had made his statement, indeed.

  Beneath his helm, Shadowbane smiled. He drew two long daggers from his belt.

  MORNING, 25 FLAMERULE

  LADY MYRIN DARKDANCE AWOKE SUFFUSED IN WARMTH and transcendent softness. She had slept the stormy night on thick feather blankets and pillows like magic. All in all, she felt as though she’d never slept in a more comfortable bed.

  Not that she remembered, anyway.

  A dream swirled in her mind, one that left her tingling, and she focused upon it, striving to remember. It was one of Umbra’s memories, with its hot desire and bleary consummation. They had been lovers, after all, and those memories dominated the ones she had absorbed. She resented the fact that she could only experience their lovemaking through the doppelganger’s body—she could only imagine how it had been for her.