Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  Gods, she hoped the Umbarians left them alone.

  There was a window at the end of the hall. Caina looked into the alley and saw that it was deserted. Shadows flickered overhead as the Adamant Guards jumped over the alley, and a booming crash echoed through the house as they pounded through the trapdoor in the roof. Caina pulled herself onto the window sill and closed the shutters behind her, sliding the ghostsilver dagger back into its sheath. She took a deep breath, braced herself, and jumped.

  It was a long way down, but she had been able to time her leap properly. Caina hit the ground, and she let her legs collapse beneath her and rolled down the alley, the tumbling motion bleeding away her momentum. She picked up a fair collection of bruises, but she didn’t break any bones. Caina came to a stop against the wall with a grunt, shoved back to her feet, and took two running steps forward.

  The sudden tingle of a spell was her only warning.

  Caina cursed and threw herself against the wall, and a naked man appeared in front of her with a flash of silver light, slashing a dagger. The blow that would have opened her throat instead bounced off the wall, and Caina scrambled backward, yanking her ghostsilver dagger from its sheath. The Silent Hunter snarled, his scars flaring with silver light, and vanished as the pressure of his arcane power washed over Caina’s skin like jabbing needles.

  She couldn’t see him, but she knew where he was.

  Caina threw herself to the right, swinging the ghostsilver dagger. The blade bit into something unseen, and the hilt throbbed with heat. The Silent Hunter reappeared, eyes wide with shock. When the Umbarians created their assassins, Caina wondered if the Umbarian magi bothered to inform the Silent Hunters of the dangers of ghostsilver.

  Given how surprised the Silent Hunter looked, Caina thought Umbarian magi had neglected to mention it.

  Before he recovered, she drove the ghostsilver dagger into his throat. He tried a stab at her neck, but the strength had gone out of his limbs and she seized his wrist to deflect the strike. The Silent Hunter fell, dying, and Caina broke free and sprinted from the alley. If she got back to the street, she could vanish into the alleys, or retreat into the sewers, and link up with the others at the Shahenshah’s Seat.

  Caina ran into the street and turned, her blood going cold.

  A dozen Adamant Guards sprinted towards her from the direction of the Desert Maiden, their armor flashing in the dawn. Caina turned towards the Bazaar, hoping that she could outrun the Guards and knowing that she likely could not.

  Metal flashed overhead, and three Adamant Guards jumped from the roof of a nearby house, landing in front of Caina. The fall would have killed a normal man, but the Guards handled the impact with ease. Caina looked between them, still running. If she hit the Adamant Guard on the left, perhaps she could weaken the man long enough for her to slip past and reach the Bazaar.

  Or, more likely, the other two Guards would skewer her upon their blades.

  Again the vials of Elixir Restorata flashed through her thoughts.

  The Guards spread out, blocking her path, and Caina skidded to a halt. The dozen behind her slowed, moving in a ring around her. It was fifteen against one, and she wondered why they didn’t attack, why they didn’t simply kill her or overpower her. Then she saw the grim wariness in their cold faces, and wild laughter threatened to burst from her throat. Of course they were cautious. They were hunting the Balarigar, the bane of the Slavers’ Brotherhood, the thief who had dared Callatas’s Maze and survived, the shadow-cloaked figure who had destroyed the Widow’s Tower and the Inferno. The Adamant Guards thought they were facing the Balarigar, not a terrified woman with a ghostsilver dagger and a few clever tricks.

  One terrified woman with a ghostsilver dagger…and a vial of Elixir Restorata that would kill them all.

  Her left hand dipped into her satchel, closing about the lead-lined pouch holding the crystalline vials.

  “Balarigar,” said one of Adamant Guards in a cold, dead voice. “You shall surrender yourself to us.”

  Caina opened her mouth to say something that would buy her enough time to drink one of the vials of Elixir.

  She never did find out what she would have said.

  There was a blur and a flash of silver light, and suddenly one of the Adamant Guards in front of Caina lost his head, blood spurting from the stump of his neck. The Guard fell with a clang of armor, and before Caina could react, another Adamant Guard fell dead.

  She turned her head just as Kylon killed the third Adamant Guard in front of her. His face was calm and focused, and she sensed the prickle of elemental sorcery around him, the power of wind and water that made him faster and stronger than a normal man.

  The other Guards charged to meet the new threat, and Kylon moved in a blur.

  Previously when they had fought the Adamant Guards, Kylon had barely held his own. Their sorcerous augmentations matched his speed and strength, and the Guards were veteran warriors, well-trained and experienced. If not for Morgant’s intervention, the Adamant Guards would have killed Caina and Kylon on that day.

  On that day, though, Kylon had not carried a valikon of ancient Iramis.

  He moved through the Adamant Guards like a storm. The touch of the valikon’s ghostsilver blade disrupted the spells upon the Guards, and they stumbled, the massive weight of their armor dragging them down. Kylon whipped the valikon back and forth, inflicting minor cuts with the razor-edged sword, but even the minor cuts were enough to disrupt the spells. The Adamant Guards wavered, and in those moments of confusion and hesitation, Kylon killed them, the valikon’s blade slashing throats and taking off heads. Caina started to help him, but it wasn’t necessary. Kylon killed a half-dozen Adamant Guards in as many heartbeats, his strength and skill and the valikon driving through them like a scythe through wheat, and the surviving Adamant Guards fell back, fear flashing over their cold faces.

  The Adamant Guards fell back, and Kylon met Caina’s gaze.

  “We should run,” he said.

  “Best advice I’ve heard all day,” said Caina, and she sprinted after him as he darted into an alley.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the Adamant Guards pursued.

  ###

  With the full power of his storm sorcery, Kylon could run faster than a charging horse, but he slowed his pace enough for Caina to keep up.

  It was just as well, since he would need his strength to fight.

  His arcane senses extended around him. He felt Caina’s emotions, hard and focused. He felt the cold, distorted presences of the Adamant Guards, their auras warped by the spells bound into their flesh. He also detected the cold, calculating emotions of the Silent Hunters as they stalked their prey.

  “Where?” said Caina, breathing hard as she sprinted.

  “The harbor,” said Kylon. “Nasser went to prepare the ship.” Caina nodded and pointed left, and they darted around a corner. She knew Istarinmul far better than Kylon did. “We were attacked on the way. Adamant Guards. Must have known we were coming…”

  Caina coughed out a laugh. “Wager they didn’t expect you and Morgant and Nasser.”

  “Or Annarah,” said Kylon. “She spoke a Word of Lore, and the Silent Hunters became visible and couldn’t disappear again. We cut our way free, and Nasser and Laertes went to ready the ship. Morgant insisted that Annarah go with them. She would have come to look for us as well, but…”

  “No,” said Caina. “This is my fault. I must have made a mistake, I must have…”

  “Not now,” said Kylon. They turned another corner and came to a main street at the edge of the Quarter, sloping down towards the Alqaarin Harbor, a vast half-circle of water filled with the masts of hundreds of ships. “Blame yourself later. After we escape.” Beyond the half-circle of water waited the wide blue expanse of the Alqaarin Sea, a stark contrast to the arid land of Istarinmul. If they could get to the Eastern Fire, the galley would make for open water and safety. The Umbarians might be able to commandeer a ship and follow them, but by then Ky
lon and the others would be well away.

  If they could get to the Eastern Fire.

  The Umbarians were ruthless, and Cassander Nilas excelled his peers in that quality. Kylon had no doubt that the Umbarian magus was behind the attack. His hand tightened against the valikon’s hilt. Kylon would dearly like to meet Cassander again now that he carried a valikon. The Umbarian magus’s warding spells would be useless against the valikon’s edge, and Kylon wanted to hunt him down and kill him, regardless of the cost.

  He glanced back at Caina as she sprinted behind him.

  Later. He could kill Cassander later. Kylon had to get Caina to safety first, and he could not do that if he got himself killed in a rash attempt to avenge himself upon Cassander. The valikon was powerful, but so was Cassander.

  “Which pier?” said Caina.

  “Nineteen, right in the center of the harbor,” said Kylon. “A straight run from here.” They were on the main street leading to the harbor, and the houses on either side of the street gradually gave away to the squat warehouses that lined the waterfronts of every nation in the world. “Just a little further.”

  “Assuming the Guards don’t try to stop the ship from leaving,” said Caina.

  “Let them try,” said Kylon. The street leveled out, leading into the dockside maze of warehouses. The was already a good amount of traffic in the streets as porter slaves went about their work unloading cargoes from the docked ships, while teamsters drove loaded wagons into the city proper, their donkeys and oxen snorting with annoyance. All of them cast wary eyes at Kylon and Caina, at the weapons in their hands. None of them tried to stop Kylon.

  “Look out!” said Caina.

  Metal flashed atop one of the rooftops, and the aura of an Adamant Guard brushed against Kylon’s senses. He whirled as at trio of Adamant Guards leaped from the roof of a nearby warehouse, swords in their hands. Kylon gauged the angle and spun, swinging the valikon with both hands.

  The blade sheared through the neck of the Adamant Guard on the left, the soldier’s own momentum driving the sword through his flesh and bone. The body clanged against the street, the head rolling away towards the harbor. The other two Guards landed and charged at Kylon. Screams and shouts rang out as the porters and teamsters hastened to escape the fighting. The two Guards fanned out around Kylon, watching his blade. Evidently they had realized that the valikon was deadly to them, and knew to keep away from its reach. He could not attack one without leaving himself open to the other. Around them the porters and the teamsters scrambled to get to safety.

  The chaos gave Caina the perfect opportunity to strike.

  She glided behind the Adamant Guard on Kylon’s right, driving her ghostsilver dagger toward his neck. The Guard sensed the danger and whirled at the last moment, and the stab that would have entered his neck instead skidded down the side of his left arm. Caina ducked beneath the counterattack, but the contact of the ghostsilver dagger had been enough to disrupt the spells upon the Guard, and the armored man staggered with a grimace of pain.

  Then it was Kylon’s turn to strike.

  He surged forward, sorcery driving his limbs, and thrust the valikon. The hasty blow was not as accurate as he might have wished, but the blade sank halfway into the Adamant Guard’s neck, blood sheeting down his armored carapace. The soldier collapsed with a groan, and Kylon whirled just as the remaining Guard came at him, sword flying. He retreated, parried, ducked, and Caina’s arm snapped back and hurtled forward, sending a throwing knife towards the Guard’s face. The Umbarian soldier flinched, likely thinking that Caina had just sent a ghostsilver blade at him, and dodged the knife. That left a hole in his defenses, and Kylon drove the valikon under the Guard’s armpit, the blade sinking into his heart and lungs. He ripped the sword free, and the Guard fell, joining the other two upon the street. Kylon looked around, but there was no sign of any other Guards.

  That wouldn’t last.

  “We’d better go,” said Caina, shaking blood from her ghostsilver dagger. “If we linger too long some of the watchmen might try to arrest us.”

  “Aye,” said Kylon, stepping over one of the dead Guards. “Then the Umbarians will kill them to get at us. We…”

  A hoarse cry rang from the direction of the Bazaar. Kylon turned his head and saw a dozen Adamant Guards sprinting towards them. He and Caina could likely reach the Eastern Fire before the Umbarians, but they would have a fight at the ship. At least Talazain’s crew was entirely Saddai, and the Saddai hated the Umbarian Order, which meant they would not side with the Umbarians.

  Caina turned to follow him, and then stopped, her blue eyes wide as she stared at the charging Umbarians.

  “That’s…” she started to say.

  Kylon saw what had caught her attention.

  A huge shape lumbered in the midst of the Adamant Guards, nearly twelve feet tall, cloaked head to foot in black rags. It was vaguely human-shaped, though much thicker and squatter, and despite its bulk and lumbering gait it moved fast. It fact it was mving faster than the Adamant Guards, leaving them behind as it charged.

  Its cowl looked right at Caina. Kylon could not sense emotions from the giant creature, not quite, only a constant thrum of bloodlust and pure, insane rage. He also felt a powerful necromantic aura around the thing, the power washing over his arcane senses like rancid grease.

  “Oh, damn,” said Caina. “How did Cassander get that thing into the city? Or maybe he made it himself. I…”

  “What is it?” said Kylon.

  The huge shape put on a burst of speed, the black rags falling away from it, and Kylon saw a creature from a nightmare.

  It looked like an enormously muscular, fat man, albeit a man that had been stitched together from raw meat. In lieu of skin, it had plates of steel grafted all over its glistening body, albeit in a much more haphazard and random fashion that the insect-like symmetry of the Adamant Guards. Its huge, squat head was completely enclosed in steel. A crystal of green fire pulsed and flickered in the center of its chest, painting the meat around it a rancid emerald color.

  It briefly reminded Kylon of Sicarion, the Moroaica’s pet assassin, a necromancer who had extended his life by grafting stolen body parts to replace those he lost in battle. Yet Sicarion had been shorter than Kylon. The creature was taller.

  A lot taller.

  “Cataphractus,” said Caina. “Undead thing. The Umbarians use them as siege engines and shock troops. Stitched together out of corpses and steel. Run!”

  She raced for an alley, and Kylon followed her. He wondered why she had headed for an alley, and then realized that the creature, the thing she called a cataphractus, had started running, and its huge strides covered a large amount of ground with every step. In the open street, the undead thing would run them down with ease.

  They dashed into the alley, the cataphractus lumbering after them.

  ###

  Caina hoped to lose the cataphractus in the narrow alleys, or to at least negate its advantages of speed and power. Some of the dockside alleys near the Alqaarin Harbor were so narrow that the cataphractus could not walk through them. Caina expected the cataphractus to respond by climbing over the warehouses, or by circling to the piers and waiting for them.

  She did not expect the cataphractus to walk through the warehouses themselves like a child smashing his way through a sand castle.

  The undead hulk slammed into the wall of a warehouse and kept running, plunging through the brick wall with such force that the alley shivered beneath Caina’s boots. The creature kept running forward, ripping a slash through the warehouse’s roof as it did, and Caina had the brief, absurd vision of a man wading through chest-deep water, albeit water made of clay tiles.

  She and Kylon burst from the maze of alleys and into the broad street that curved along the piers of the Alqaarin Harbor. Hundreds of ships floated at the long stone piers, stacks of cargo waiting everywhere. Porter slaves labored to unload the ships, and dozens of them turned to look at the crashing sound coming
from the warehouses.

  “Pier nineteen!” said Kylon, pointing at a stone dock about thirty ships away. Caina saw a galley there, bobbing upon the waves, with a great deal of commotion on its deck. Hopefully Nasser had urged the captain to prepare for a hasty departure. “We…”

  The cataphractus burst from the wall of the warehouse behind Caina. Bricks erupted in all directions, and one slammed into her stomach, another bouncing off her right hip. A jolt of pain shot down her leg, and Caina stumbled backward and fell, barely keeping her grip on the ghostsilver dagger.

  The cataphractus towered over her, its vile, rotting smell filling her nostrils as something like melted fat slid along the steel plates of its armor. It raised one massive, armored foot, and Caina scrambled backward, trying to get her numbed leg beneath her. When the cataphractus’s foot came down, it would crush her to jelly…

  Kylon struck first, ripping the valikon across the back of the creature’s upraised leg. The cataphractus let out a furious, gurgling snarl and spun, driving a fist at Kylon. Caina sensed the flicker as the valikon disrupted the necromantic spells upon the creature, but the cataphractus did not seem to notice. The creature was simply too large and the spells upon it too powerful for the valikon to disrupt them as it did with the spells binding the Adamant Guards. Kylon dodged the massive fist and swung, trying to sever the creature’s wrist. The valikon rebounded from the steel armor plates, and the cataphractus lumbered after him. Caina flung a throwing knife, the blade sinking into the corrupted flesh, but the weapon seemed to have no effect.

  The creature was going to kill Kylon, and then it would come after her.

  Caina tried to stand again. Some feeling came into her numbed leg again. It was going to hurt damnably in about an hour or so.