The Silver Portal (Weapons of Power Book 1)

by David J Normoyle

  “I’m sorry. My place is here. This is all I can do for you.”

  “Coward,” Suma said in a quiet voice. She didn’t mean it, not truly. She just didn’t want to be left alone.

  Lucii blinked. “I deserve that. I’m afraid to really stand up to my father and unwilling to give up my inheritance. This is all I’m prepared to do for you. It’s not nothing. Father is unlikely to trust me ever again. You could have done worse in a brother.”

  Could have done worse. She didn’t like the way he’d said that. Had he considered going along with what the Duke wanted? Suma decided she didn’t want to know. She wanted to apologize for calling him a coward—after all, he had rescued her—but the words caught in her throat. She couldn’t thank him, either. He was doing the best he could for her, but she couldn’t thank him for throwing her out into the night to fend for herself.

  Lucii handed the holdall to her. She saw the axe’s handle sticking out and pulled it out of the bag.

  She held out the axe. “Keep that. I never want to see that again.” What possessed me to pick up the cursed thing that night in the garden? Just a few short days before, she had been very excited at attending her first banquet as a woman. Look where the axe led me.

  “No.” Lucii’s hand twitched, but he made no move to take the axe. “If it’s left here, getting control of the axe will be a fire under Father’s backside. If it’s gone, then he can forget about it.” He considered. “Hopefully. Plus, it’ll attract redbirds and Armentells like flies to shit. With you,” he hesitated, “it may cause problems, but it could also help you. Save you, even. It bonded to you for a reason.”

  “You heard the Duke. A spell was miscast. There was no reason.” She held the axe up to him, willing him to take it.

  Lucii’s face hardened. “Keep it,” he ordered. There was plenty of his father in that command, and Suma returned the axe to the holdall. Lucii tightened the ties on her bag then kissed her on the forehead. “Mezziall protect you.” He then gestured her onward. “Your carriage awaits.”

  Suma slipped the straps of the holdall around her shoulders and trudged down the dark street. Before she reached the carriage, she glanced behind her to find Lucii already gone.

  Her fingers brushed the handle of the axe. She didn’t want it, yet she had become tied to it. Because of it, she had been cast into the wider world, but it might also provide her only protection.

  From that point on, they journeyed together. The axe belonged to her, and she belonged to it.

  Chapter 13

  A distant sign creaked eerily in the wind. Pools of shadow hid everything and nothing. Lukin crept along the narrow street, trying to look every way at once. Soirbuz had never seemed scary to him before. Sure, the night concealed cutthroats just as in any other city, but the patrolling redbirds kept most of the crime under control.

  However, the redbirds had become the ones to fear, and in Soirbuz one couldn’t go five paces without tripping over someone in a scarlet cloak. When Flechir had told Lukin that Maylan’s stable was to be their fallback meeting place if anything went wrong, Lukin thought the old man was being overly paranoid as usual.

  After what he’d heard, Lukin couldn’t return to the Oakseed, so he’d have to wait at the stable and hope Flechir found him. I will just have to endure the old man’s smug condescension. If Flechir didn’t arrive... No point thinking about that. The old man never let me down before.

  High above, clouds drifted across the moon, not allowing too much light down onto the city, though dawn wasn’t far away and Lukin feared the coming daylight more than the looming shadows. Because the eagle-crests could track his ring, they would no doubt begin tightening a noose around him.

  Lukin glanced down at his hand. What does it matter how I got it? It’s mine. The Lord Protector had said each weapon bonded to the first person who touched it. The ring had already saved his neck several times, helping him become the master thief he was. He wouldn’t give it up easily.

  A hand wrapped itself around Lukin’s mouth. He jerked away, struggling to escape, but he was held tight. Caught already.

  “Quiet, fool,” a voice whispered in his ear.

  Flechir.

  He relaxed, and the old man released him.

  “No need to be so rough.” Lukin rubbed his neck.

  “What have you done now? The streets around the Oakseed are swarming with redbirds. Been there since the afternoon,” Flechir said.

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  It never is, Flechir thought. “Stay,” he said. Flechir disappeared into the darkness then returned a few moments later, leading two horses. He handed across the reins of one and mounted the other. “Follow,” he ordered.

  Lukin glared at Flechir’s back as he mounted his horse. Flechir had fallen back into giving orders as though he’d never stopped. Lukin wasn’t the same boy he had been when they’d arrived in Soirbuz a year before. Flechir is just going to have to realize that.

  Lukin trotted his horse forward until it caught up. “I’m not a child anymore.”

  “Then stop acting like one.”

  Lukin seethed in silence. Just a few moments in Flechir’s company was enough to set him on edge. I’m not a bloody child anymore. He repeated the mantra over in his head.

  As they moved out onto the paved main streets, the horses’ hooves sounded too loud. Wisps of fog curled around the corners of the streets, creating a shock of cold, damp air as they rode through them. Lukin was leaving behind the only place he’d ever been able to call home. And with the clerics after him, he didn’t know if he would ever be able to return.

  Lukin quickly realized they were heading for the Wolf Gate. “The gate guards are on the lookout for me,” he told Flechir.

  “Of course they are.” Flechir didn’t turn. I give the boy some freedom, and he gets us into a world of trouble, he thought.

  Lukin silently ground his teeth, and for the first time, he regretted being able to hear someone’s thoughts.

  The most direct route to the Wolf Gate took them through the main square. Lukin assumed Flechir would avoid it, but he didn’t. Lukin didn’t comment on the choice. What’s the point? It isn’t like the old man has ever listened to me.

  At least he led them along the north side of the square. The Domed Temple dominated the south side of the square, supposedly the biggest religious structure ever created. But like all of the Lord Protector’s temples, it was more military than religious in purpose. In Uniteia and Ziallia, priests were rarely armed and were mainly concerned with their followers’ souls. Zubrios’s clerics were more foot soldiers than priests, and the temples were more barracks than churches.

  Day and night, the main square in Soirbuz swarmed with redbirds, and as they passed, Lukin was unsurprised that the activity seemed more frantic than usual. No one questioned them, though, and they continued on to quieter streets.

  Riding in silence gave Lukin time to reflect on everything he had learned in Pormustin’s manor, and he realized another of his questions had been answered, if indirectly. The four compasses in his head. If he held one weapon out of five, that left four others unaccounted for. And he was willing to bet that one was to the north of him, one east, one southeast, and one southwest.

  Approaching the Wolf Gate, Flechir dismounted and gestured for Lukin to do the same. Lukin couldn’t imagine how they were going to be let out.

  Then Flechir addressed one of the two robin-crests by name. “How are things, Trell?”

  “It’s a busy night, Flechir,” Trell replied. “Maybe come back another time?”

  “Is Stg there?” Flechir asked.

  Trell frowned. “I’ll get him, but he’ll say the same. Not tonight.”

  “Stay back,” Flechir whispered, “and don’t let the horses get away.” He slapped his horse’s reins into Lukin’s hand.

  Trell returned with two others, and they spread out in front of the gate, three robin-crests and one sparrow-crest.

  Torches on either sid
e of the gate created a pool of light like a stage already set. Flechir stepped into the light, onto the stage, to face the sparrow-crest. Flechir’s scabbard slapped against the side of his leg, and the smile on his face was as thin as a coat of paint. Despite the cold night air, sweat prickled up beneath Lukin’s clothes. He also felt useless. Flechir could have given him a sword if he’d suspected it would come to fighting—Lukin had never learned to use it to the old man’s satisfaction, but surely his help would be worth something.

  “Stg, how are you?” Flechir said. “That was some card game we had the last time I saw you. I hope you didn’t spend all the money in a single night.”

  Stg had a puckered scar in place of one eye, and when he grinned, the smile continued grotesquely up his cheek to the scarred eye. “There aren’t enough pretty whores in the city to spend it in one night.” The fingers of his sword hand flexed open and closed.

  “Didn’t think the pretty ones would take up with an ugly soul,” Flechir said.

  Oh mama, oh mama, oh mama, Trell was thinking.

  Why are they all afraid of an old man? another robin-crest thought.

  “After a game of cards with you, even the pretty whores find me delightful looking,” Stg said.

  “After all the money I lost, I figure you owe me one favor,” Flechir said.

  “Any other night, no problem. Word has come down from high. Very high.” Stg glanced over Flechir’s shoulder at Lukin. “They are after a teenage boy. A thief of some sort.”

  I knew the boy stole that ring, Flechir thought.

  Shows what you know, Lukin thought back, though, of course, Flechir couldn’t read Lukin’s thoughts.

  “You know what refusing me means?” Flechir asked.

  “You never shared your background, but any idiot could tell you were a soldier.” Stg drew his sword, and the three behind him drew theirs. The screech of blades being drawn hung in the night air for several heartbeats. “Didn’t know you were good enough to face all four of us.”

  “You must have suspected.” Flechir drew his sword. “You sneaked your fifth man out so he could collect reinforcements. You would have just faced me with all five if you felt confident.”

  “A soldier doesn’t get as old and ugly as me without being able to sense when he’s outmatched,” Stg said. “So our plan to keep you talking isn’t going to work?”

  Lukin glanced behind him, wishing Flechir would hurry up with whatever he was planning.

  “Did you draw straws to decide which of you went?” Flechir asked in the same infuriatingly calm voice.

  “That Dyston was always a lucky bastard.” Stg matched Flechir’s calmness.

  Trell broke the silence with a scream, dashing forward with his sword raised over his head. Flechir shifted sideways, his blade flashed, and Trell went down clutching his throat, never having gotten the chance to attempt a single strike.

  The other three clerics attacked together. Lukin had sparred with Flechir countless times, and he knew the old man went easy on him, but he hadn’t realized by how much. Flechir spun off to one side, wide of the outside man—flowing like a shadow—and struck downward at the back of the redbird’s legs, who crashed to the ground with a scream. Unlike Flechir, the redbirds wore armor, forcing Flechir to strike for unprotected parts of their body.

  Flechir raised his sword to block an overhead swipe from Stg then jumped back to dodge as the other guardsman jumped forward, slashing at Flechir’s midriff.

  Lukin went for Trell’s sword, but just as he bent down, the clash of metal from Flechir blocking another of Stg’s strikes spooked one of the horses, and it reared. Lukin’s arm was almost wrenched off, but he managed to hold onto the reins. The rearing of the first horse caused the second one to prance backward.

  Lukin dug his feet in and leaned back as the two horses tried to pull him in two directions. The reins burned into his hands, but he was never going to let go. Lukin had absolutely no doubt that Flechir could kill with a look, and the old man would use that power on Lukin if he lost the horses.

  Gradually, the horses calmed, and Lukin was able to regain control of them. He ended up twenty paces from the gate, though. He turned back to see Flechir stabbing the remaining robin-crest and twisting away from Stg’s thrust. However, Stg was too close to completely avoid, and his strike caught Flechir in the side. Flechir struck with his left hand, burying a knife in Stg’s good eye.

  Lukin hurried over.

  “Sorry, old friend,” Flechir said as he wrenched his knife from the sparrow-crest’s eye.

  Blood and brain came out with the knife. Flechir didn’t pause to clean it, returning the bloodied blade to the scabbard on his thigh then rushing toward the gatehouse.

  “Lead the horses through as soon as the gate opens,” Flechir ordered.

  The only redbird still alive dragged himself away, moaning loudly, his legs twisted at a strange angle, leaving a trail of blood on the street behind him.

  “Now,” Flechir ordered as the gate opened.

  Lukin charged through the gate, pulling the horses behind him. As soon as he was through, the gate began to close, and for a moment Lukin thought he was going to be stuck outside without Flechir. As annoying as the old man was, Lukin didn’t want that.

  He needn’t have worried, though. Flechir squeezed out before the gate finished closing, and he vaulted onto his horse. Lukin climbed onto his and followed as Flechir galloped off.

  They hadn’t gone too far before Flechir slowed. Lukin directed his horse alongside Flechir’s, and they settled into a fast walk.

  No sign of pursuit, and they won’t be able to track us in the night. Best to preserve the horses, Flechir thought to himself.

  “Where are we heading?” Lukin wasn’t going to just let himself be dragged from place to place with no say in the matter anymore.

  “North for now,” Flechir said.

  “I realize that.” The mental compasses were still strong in his head. “We should go east.” The pull was strongest in that direction. “But disguise our direction. They can track us with magic.”

  “Then north for now.”

  The renka-blasted, infuriating old man. “And I didn’t steal the ring. It’s mine.”

  Flechir turned his head toward Lukin. The approaching dawn painted the eastern sky a jumble of reds and yellows, but it was still too dark to make out Flechir’s features. That didn’t matter. Lukin knew exactly what his face looked like, accusing Lukin of being a child.

  “I did steal something.” Lukin reached down to his side and was almost surprised to find the satchel with the goblet still there. “But the Lord Protector would be after me even if I didn’t steal it.”

  Flechir grunted. Whatever I did in a previous life, it must have been grievous to deserve this boy. Flechir’s thoughts were surprisingly not as monosyllabic as his conversation. Less surprisingly, they revealed as much disdain for Lukin’s character as every other part of the old man did.

  “I never knew you could fight like that.”

  Another grunt. Course the boy didn’t. He’ll notice the hair color, tit size, and cheekbone angle of every wench in a tavern room within a few heartbeats, and he’ll travel for years without noticing anything important.

  “I’m the one with the jokes,” Lukin said. You’ve got to learn to stop replying to thoughts, he told himself.

  I’m older than I thought. Letting myself get injured after fighting one soldier and a few youths who’d barely learned how to hold a sword.

  Lukin glanced across at the old man, noticing how he leaned over with his elbow jammed against his side. Lukin hoped the injury wasn’t serious. He’d become practiced at handling Flechir’s jokes and disdain.

  Living without them would be much more difficult.

  Chapter 14

  Tonight, I hunt. Twig gripped a chimney pot in one hand and leaned forward, looking down upon the maze of streets and alleys below like a nocturnal bird of prey. The wind rattled along the rooftop tiles, and she p
ulled her cloak tighter. A cloudy, sullen day had given way to a dark, sodden night. The air was dry, but the rooftops were slick.

  Motion attracted her attention, a shadow drifting through the darkness, hugging the wall of one of the alleyways. She let go of the chimney pot and skirted along a ledge at the edge of the roof. The tiles were treacherous, but the ledge was safe. Her toes gripped the wet rock as she ran. She was used to traveling the roofs at night. That skill hadn’t come from the sword.

  A small yellow fire flared below, and for a moment Twig could see Feldman in the match’s light. Feldman’s thick neck supported a coarse, brutish face. Black stubble clung to a thick, square jaw. She would have fled to the other end of Blackstone to avoid him before.

  The yellow light disappeared as the match went out, replaced by an intermittent spot of red light as Feldman puffed on a pipe. He turned left into a narrow alleyway then right into another one, meandering without an obvious destination. The rooftops overlooking the smaller alleyways leaned close to each other, and all Twig had to do was take a large step across the black chasm from one ledge to the next. She could travel a long way across Blackstone without leaving the roofs.

  Twig felt better than she ever had before. Ten days’ worth of daily hot food had given her a new well of energy. The rain slid off her black cloak, and the new clothes underneath kept her warm. Being outside in the rain while still warm and dry felt strange and almost wrong. Her scabbard had been designed to go on the hip. Instead, she tied the upper part about her right shoulder and the bottom part to her left hip so it didn’t get in the way while she climbed. Best of all, worn under her cloak like that, with the hilt sticking out by the right side of her neck, all she had to do was raise her hood, and no one would notice it.

  She tracked Feldman by the red light of his pipe. He wasn’t moving quickly. However, when he crossed one of the main streets and entered the alleyways on the other side, she had to descend.

  She rattled a drainpipe, making sure it was secure, then wrapped her fingers underneath it and let herself fall, spinning around at the same time and kicking forward with her feet so the pads of her feet could gain purchase on the walls.