by Tom Lloyd
Narin scowled. ‘Not sure entirely, but we’re investigating a murder, two in fact.’
‘Murderers are not that unusual, despite the efforts of your brethren.’
‘I know, but the victims were killed by a hellhound. From what I can tell, those don’t just crawl out of the Crescent at night – they’re summoned from a realm of demons, and that means there’s someone in the city doing the summoning.’
Sorote leaned forward. ‘You have my attention, Lawbringer.’
‘Now, I don’t know what your interest is exactly, but I’m guessing whoever’s behind this you’d be happy to kill, kidnap or steal from. We’ve only just started looking for whoever did it, but given the mess that was made I don’t think we’ll find Astaren at the end of this path. The victims were innocents so far as we can see. If you’re the ones to punish what went on instead of the Lawbringers, that’s a betrayal small enough for me to live with.’
‘Perhaps it would be best if you didn’t try to guess my motives,’ Sorote said gravely. ‘Your expertise is dealing with criminals, after all. I would not wish you to think me petty or self-serving.’
‘My apologies, I hadn’t meant that – I just wanted to be clear that, given the information you’ve asked me to gather, there’s still some value in protecting me.’
‘And protect you I will, my friend, in so far as I am able. The Imperial caste is trained to mediate and negotiate – once Lord Vanden returns to the city, something I expect to happen very soon, I will approach him on your behalf. As I intimated previously, I believe I have a solution to his concerns.’
‘What about Kine’s family?’ Narin asked with a grimace. ‘A group of them already tried to kill Rhe and myself earlier today.’
‘They have come over from House Wyvern’s lands even before the birth?’ Sorote frowned. ‘I hadn’t expected Lord Vanden to have the balls – ahem, so to speak – to demand their involvement. Wyvern custom gives him that right, of course, being the higher-ranked party, but it is surprising. Warriors on a blood feud I cannot negotiate with, but perhaps Kashte would be willing to watch your back? Even when honour demands your blood, they will hesitate to draw on a gold collar.’
Narin shook his head before the minor prince could comment. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve already got Irato doing that. The man might not be subtle, but I should probably try to limit the chaos I’ve caused. I don’t think getting an Imperial caste caught up in fighting on the streets is the way to do that.’
‘It seems there is still hope for your political acumen,’ Sorote said. ‘So, Master Lawbringer – I would offer you another drink, but I suspect there is someone you would like to get back to.’
‘You’re right. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Are you … are you sure Vanden will be willing to negotiate?’
‘Of course,’ Sorote said with a smile. ‘He’s a nobleman and a relatively minor one at that. A Wyvern such as Vanden considers his influence, wealth and honour in all things. It will simply be a case of listening to his bluster and offering him something of greater worth than the bride he has lost. Lady Kine will never be able to show her face in polite society of course, she will have to enter the House of the Sun with a black mark on her caste tattoo, but neither of you are fools. You know the consequences of staying in the city and you’ve made no suggestion that you might flee.’
Narin stood stiffly. ‘We’re aware of what it means.’
‘Then so long as you can keep a measure of discretion, the situation can be managed with none of you dying. Her patronage in the Imperial House will be dependent upon you however, am I clear?’
‘I understand.’
‘Good.’ Sorote beamed at him. ‘Lawbringer Rhe continues in good health, I trust?’
Narin was startled at that. Rhe? Is he still what you’re interested in? I’m certain you’re the one who suggested anything involving demons and the unnatural was given to me to investigate. If that’s what you’re after, why does Rhe still matter to you?
‘He is unhappy with people trying to kill me, but that’s a tune I’ve heard before,’ Narin said.
‘You have confessed your sins to him?’
‘Of a fashion.’
‘And his opinion?’
‘You can never tell with Rhe. Even after all this time with him I’m never certain. I know he doesn’t approve, but exactly what he’ll do about it I can’t say. He’s no typical nobleman so if he chooses to speak out for me, nothing will stop him, but I suspect he thinks I’ve failed him.’
‘From what I hear, he is not a man to fully comprehend the lengths one will go to for love.’
Narin blinked at Prince Sorote – as calculating and cold-blooded as any nobleman he’d ever met. ‘I suppose not.’
But Rhe only doesn’t understand, he added privately as he made his goodbyes. You do, you’re just not someone who’d care. I’m not sure which is worse.
CHAPTER 12
The daylight had long since faded by the time the bells rang for Smith’s Zenith. Administrator Serril looked up from his work and noticed the quiet for the first time. It was well into the evening, four hours till midnight and almost as many since sundown. From outside came the soft whisper of falling snow while behind him was the comforting hiss of his stove as the coals burned low.
Even before nightfall the cold of day had deepened to a harsh bite. With few people bothering to meet their appointments, Serril had sent half of his tattooists – the ones who’d arrived, anyway – home early and the rest had finished up not long afterwards. He turned to face the stove and pulled the black iron door open to let the remaining warmth escape into the room. He would be heading home soon and had left the stove to die down in anticipation. His lodgings was a pleasant house on the edge of the merchant streets of the Imperial District, but better for the long, hot summers than bitter, brief winters.
‘With luck the fires will all be lit,’ he muttered as he set about ordering his desk ready for the morning. ‘A good thing it’s not far. The snow must be deep by now.’
To confirm his suspicion he went to the doorway and opened it on to the darkened corridor beyond. It ran to three sides of a square around a central courtyard typical of the Imperial District, the shutters that lined it all closed and barred. The difference in temperature was like a slap to the face and Serril physically recoiled before he crossed the corridor and unlatched the nearest shutter. Pulling it open invited in a blast of freezing air and for a moment he could see nothing through watering eyes.
At last he blinked the tears away and looked out at the blackness beyond, trying to gauge how deep the snow was. It glowed bright on the ground, lent a lambent shine by the gas lamps of the major streets and the arcane illumination of ancient buildings. Little enough to see with on a normal day, but the pristine covering of snow that lay like gently rolling hills gathered every last glimmer.
‘More than a foot,’ Serril noted, mournfully. ‘Almost two. I suppose I should be glad it’s eased, at least.’
What fell now were tiny glinting motes that sailed through the air on a faint breath of wind. Serril watched them a while, captivated by their serene progress, before the cold numbed his cheeks and drove him back inside. He closed the shutter and latched it again, but before he could reach the warm sanctuary of his office, a creak came from down the end of the corridor.
On instinct he turned and looked, but he was the last person in the building and it was pitch black.
‘Is anyone there?’ he called, to no avail.
Outside came the distant, haunting howl of some sort of dog – faint, but enough to make him flinch in the gloom. Serril glanced back at the now-fastened window. The breeze was weak, but coming from the east. With the city silent under the snow’s assault, it was perhaps those great wolf-like beasts the nobles of House Wolf kept as hunting dogs – their howls carried for miles, Serril knew.
He reached for his office door when the sound came again, the creak of wood under a foot. For a moment he was frozen, but a
t a third faint creak Serril whirled around. Now the corridor was not entirely black. There was some sort of light in the darkness at the far end; a pair of red flames. As he watched they moved slowly, drifting forward like eyes as the wooden floor groaned under the weight of their owner.
Behind them a second set appeared and a deep panting sound cut through the air. Cold dread filled Serril’s gut as he watched the lights draw closer, then his wits returned and he bolted through the door into his office. Inside, the lamps had dimmed, the stove’s orange light flickering uncertainly. Serril hauled the door closed behind him, just as a grey figure appeared behind it.
Serril stumbled backwards into the end of his desk as the thin, insubstantial figure crept closer, hands clawed and reaching. Serril howled in fear and scrambled back, falling to the floor in his panic to avoid being touched. Long, emaciated features blurred faintly as it moved, hanging robes drifting in a breeze that didn’t touch Serril’s skin. Ghost or demon, every movement was deliberate and painstakingly slow – its pale eyes blank and blind as it sought him in the air ahead of it.
Serril scrabbled well out of its way, but the grey figure found something else instead. A slit-like smile stole across its face as its talons found the edge of the door. It scraped at the wood for a moment, Serril’s horror mounting, before catching hold of it and dragging the door open again. Beyond there was darkness – darkness and two burning eyes.
He tried to cry out, to shriek in fear or call for help, but the breath caught in his throat as a deep growl cut through the air. The darkness came closer and terror eclipsed everything.
‘Tell me about your children?’
The words spilled out before Kine knew what she was saying. Before she’d finished the sentence she knew it was a mistake, but in her exhausted state could do nothing but watch the cascade of emotions tumble over Enchei’s face. He trembled as though physically struck by what she’d just said, eyes low and hands tight in his lap.
‘My children?’ he said reluctantly. ‘All in the past, they are.’
‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Kine turned to check on Dov. The little girl lay peacefully in the crib beside her bed, sated at last by an awkward, uncomfortable feed. ‘I should have known better.’
‘No, it’s not your fault. Just not talked about ’em in a while.’
‘Please, ignore me. I’m just tired.’
Enchei shook his head. ‘Not much to tell,’ he said in a hollow voice, eyes staring down at the ground as though lost in another time. ‘I’m a renegade. Abandoned them, I did, along with all the others I walked away from.’
He looked up and she saw the pain in his eyes.
‘I had my reasons, good ones too, but that don’t make it feel any better. Never did. Left ’em fatherless when they were young. Of all the stains on my soul, that’s one of the worst.’
‘Only one?’ Kine said before she could stop herself.
‘I was a soldier. My girls might’ve meant the world to me, might’ve been the ones who deserved all I had to give ’em, but I was a soldier. You fail your family, it’s a cruelty but it’s not the end of their lives. You fail the men who serve with you, they die and you shatter more families than your own.’
‘What were their names?’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t tell you. I’ve not spoken ’em to another person since I left, I’ll not start now. The danger’ll never go away. Slim as any risk might be I’ll not speak their names again.’
Kine stared at him a long while, feeling the cold fingers of foreboding on her neck as she saw her future – or Narin’s, perhaps.
‘How do you live with such fear?’ she whispered. ‘The shame and humiliation I will bear. It is my fear for Dov I can barely fathom, let alone control. How do you do it?’
‘As best you can,’ Enchei said with a frown.
‘We’re not so different really, despite everything,’ Kine said in a small voice. ‘Dov will always be under threat, won’t she? I must live with what I’ve done to her, the danger I’ve forced on her.’
Enchei forced out a smile for her. ‘It’s not as bad as all that. She’s a baby; she’ll never feel the threat. By the time she’s old enough to know it, it’ll be long gone.’
‘My family will never forgive me,’ Kine insisted, ‘their honour demands my blood.’
‘Sure it does, you noble castes do like to make life difficult for yourselves. But you’re not alone and no one expects the likes of us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your brothers or cousins, they’re high caste so they think like high castes. There are rules and traditions; ways of going about everything, including satisfying wounded honour. Of those of us involved, save the Siresse, Narin’s the closest we’ve got to honourable and that boy won’t think twice when it comes to doing anything he can to protect you. Kesh, Irato and me, we don’t come close to playing fair and we know exactly how they’ll act before they’ve even done it. That gives us an advantage and soon enough your family will get the message that forgetting you’s the easier course.’
‘They’ll die before they leave me alive here.’
Enchei gave her a wolfish grin. ‘Aye, I’m sure some of ’em will, but I’m comfortable with other people dying instead of my friends. Always useful to have both parties with the same end in mind.’
Kine sank back on her pillow as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her body. ‘Narin said you had a cavalier attitude to life.’
‘Me? No, just to the lives of folk I don’t care about. I was a good soldier in my day and there’s already plenty for a man to worry about in this world. What happens to folk intent on hurting others has never figured much for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a whole host of ghosts in my shadow and I feel their presence every day, but few of ’em are that type.’
‘You are unlike any man I’ve ever met, Master Enchei,’ Kine said sleepily.
‘Aye I know, just don’t tell Narin that. He’ll get jealous.’
She ignored the barrack-room banter. Even in her fugitive and exhausted state, Kine could not help but keep to the customs of her House and caste. A lady would never even acknowledge such a comment, be it idle joke or something more inflammatory.
‘I am glad Narin has a friend like you,’ she murmured. ‘I hope one day we can repay your kindness.’
With her eyes half-closed she still noticed Enchei stiffen and stand. ‘Just bring that girl up happy,’ he said with a strange tone to his voice, ‘that’ll be enough for me. Sleep now, she’ll be hungry again soon.’
‘I should gut you where you stand!’
Sharish’s green-brown eyes flashed with anger as she advanced on Kebrai, a curved dagger in her hand. The Leviathan backed smartly away around the table, empty hands held out in front of him as the snarling woman reached for him.
‘Fucking fish-feeders, you and your damn schemes!’
‘What happened, Sharish?’ Sorpan demanded from his seat opposite Kebrai. ‘Didn’t you find him?’
The woman’s scarred brown cheek crinkled into a scowl as she turned the knife in Sorpan’s direction. He ignored the gleaming edge drifting dangerously close to his face.
‘I found him – found more than him!’ Again she turned to the Leviathan. ‘Kebrai, you pond-swilling worm, why didn’t you tell me Priest was going to be there too?’
In her frustration Sharish kicked the chair Kebrai had recently been occupying and sent it crashing into the wall behind before brandishing her dagger over the table at the big Leviathan again.
‘I didn’t know!’ Kebrai protested, sounding calm but clearly familiar enough with Sharish to treat her anger seriously. ‘Do you think my master bothers to keep me so closely informed?’
‘You get enough,’ she snarled, ‘don’t fucking deny it.’
‘What happened?’ Sorpan demanded. ‘Sharish – put the knife down and tell me what you learned!’
‘Who’re you to give me orders?’ she snapped, the blade waving ba
ck in his direction. ‘You’re not one of us.’
Before she could do anything more Sorpan had grabbed her wrist. In one neat movement he pulled himself up from his chair and twisted her hand back – not far enough to break anything, but her grip was sufficiently weakened that she couldn’t stop him plucking the knife from her fingers and tossing it away.
‘I’m not giving you orders,’ Sorpan said calmly as he released her, ‘but Priest isn’t going to like you carving Kebrai open when we’re in the middle of an operation. Tell me what happened and when you saw Priest. I hadn’t realised the ship had reached the city yet.’
‘It’s here – here or close anyways. My hounds were closing on that administrator’s scent and Priest had a phantom in the room already! Bastard knows how dangerous it is – you too, Kebrai!’
Sorpan frowned. ‘This phantom can harm hellhounds?’
‘No, but they could’ve turned on me,’ Sharish snarled. ‘The phantom carries Priest’s scent and if those demons think I’ve guided them into a trap they’ll claw my soul to shreds. They’re not tame and they’re not slaves.’
‘But they’re frightened of Priest, these famed predators of the other plane?’
Scorn blossomed on Sharish’s face and she shoved him away from her. ‘You’ve no idea, have you? Think you were top dog here? Did you reckon all your little tricks were enough to scare us? Priest …’
‘Does not like to share secrets,’ Kebrai interrupted loudly, ‘so that should be enough on the subject. To answer your accusations, Sharish: I did not know they were so close to the city, no. Priest does not answer to me and does not always give warning, but are you really so surprised? This is not the first time we’ve been watched from afar.’
‘More to the point,’ Sorpan said, interrupting before Sharish could reply, ‘Priest’s close to the city. It might be we should have some leads by the time the ship docks so, again – what did you learn?’
That seemed to temper the fierce woman’s anger a little. She nodded and went to fetch her blade – her manner calm enough to make it clear she would not be threatening them with it any longer.
