Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

  “Did you know of their involvement?” Maynard asked.

  “Know? Of course not,” Pelarak said. His normally smooth voice was sharp and abrupt. “They are whores and adulteresses, slaves to their sex and disobedient to Karak’s commands. They live their lives outside the temple to atone for their sins. I had thought my command to remain neutral in your troublesome war sufficient, but perhaps I should have tattooed it into their flesh instead of merely asking.”

  “I lost several guards,” Maynard said. “And my daughter, Pelarak, my daughter!”

  Pelarak sat down atop his bed and rubbed his chin. His eyes seemed to clear, as if the clouds had parted in his mind.

  “You know who did this,” the priest said.

  “I believe I do.”

  “Then who?”

  “The Kulls,” Maynard said. “I have reason to believe it was the Kulls.”

  “Forgive me, but I am not familiar with the name,” Pelarak said. “Are they a lesser family of Veldaren?”

  “They don’t live in the city,” Maynard explained. “And lesser doesn’t describe what they are. Theo Kull is the head tax collector at Riverrun. He does all but steal from the boats traveling down the Queln River to the Lost Coast. I control much of the lands there, and it’s been a point of contention between us who I pay taxes to. By paying here in Veldaren, I avoid the triple amount he takes in Riverrun. He knows the courts are no friend of his, at least not the ones that matter.”

  “How does your daughter come into play?” Pelarak asked.

  “A few months back, Theo sent in some of his mercenaries to claim all my assets in Riverrun to pay my supposed debt. I have my own mercenaries, however, and they are of far greater skill and number. The Kulls wanted my large stretches of bountiful land around the city, plus my stores of valuables. They can’t get to them, not with my guards, but if those guards were suddenly sworn to my daughter Alyssa instead of myself…”

  The priest made the connection.

  “They hope to use her to supplant you, and when that happens, through debt or loyalty, obtain what they desire in Riverrun.”

  “Those are my thoughts,” Maynard said. “And not just Riverrun. What if they want everything I’ve built, every scrap of coin I’ve earned over my lifetime? I’ve thwarted them twice now, though with the faceless aiding them, I don’t know how much longer I may last.”

  Pelarak resumed his pacing. His fingers tapped against his thin lips.

  “I do not know why the faceless women might have chosen to aid Theo Kull in this matter, though I suspect the land near Riverrun may be the reason. Regardless, I will punish them accordingly. Fear not; the hand of Karak has not turned against you and the Trifect.”

  “Not good enough,” Maynard said, standing to his full height. He was a good foot taller than the priest, and he frowned down at him with an outward strength he struggled to match in his heart. “You have stayed neutral for far too long. Not once have I heard a valid explanation for doing so. These thieves are a danger to this city, and they represent the total opposite of the order Karak claims to love.”

  “You speak of Karak as if you were intimate with his desires,” Pelarak said. “You demand our allegiance to your war. What do we stand to gain, Maynard? Will you offer us tithes, making us no better than the mercenary dogs you employ?”

  “If you will not see reason,” said Maynard, “then perhaps self-preservation will suffice.”

  He pulled a letter from his pocket and handed it over. Maynard felt his heart pounding in his ears, but he would not let such a cowardly sign show. This was it. He had crossed a bridge, and that letter was the torch to set it aflame.

  “That letter is to be read aloud seven times a day to the people of Veldaren upon my death,” Maynard said. “And it matters not how I die, by poison, blade, Kull, or Karak.”

  “You would announce our existence to the people,” Pelarak said as his eyes finished skimming over the words. “You would blame their troubles on us? To force our obedience, you threaten to tell lies and half-truths to the city? We fear no mob.”

  “You should,” Maynard said. “My people will be among them, and I assure you, they are excellent at inciting violence. Once people die, the king will be forced to send his soldiers. Tell me, how does one win over a city after slaughtering its people and its guards? Even better, how does one preach to a city after one’s death?”

  Pelarak stopped his pacing and focused his eyes on Maynard’s face with a frightening intensity. His old voice was deep and firm as a buried stone.

  “Every action has its cost,” the priest said. “Are you prepared to pay?”

  “When his patience ends, every man is willing to pay a little bit more,” Maynard said as he opened the door to leave. “My patience ended years ago. This war must end. Karak will help us end it. I’ll await your answer a week from now. I pray you make the right decision.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Maynard heard the priest say just before he closed the door. “Perhaps we have remained neutral for far too long.”

  And then the door closed, and without another word being spoken to him, Maynard was led out of the temple, out of its grounds, and back to his home, left with nothing but guesses as to what the cunning priest planned.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Two of the men jumped as Veliana kicked open the door to the small room, abandoning their dice and reaching for their blades, but Kadish Vel slapped an open palm atop the table to stop them.

  “No bloodshed,” the man said. “Put your swords away. Veliana did not come here to slit our throats.”

  He saw the rage burning in her eyes and thought perhaps he was wrong, but he would not admit so openly. His thugs sat down, their hands lingering on their hilts. Veliana remained standing, though she at least had the decency to close the door behind her before she continued talking. Behind her were the people drinking and eating in the tavern, and far too many were staring.

  “What game do you play, Hawk?” she asked him.

  Kadish Vel, master of the Hawk Guild, smiled at the question. It was no secret he liked games; he would let the puppet of the Ash Guild explain further lest he reveal more than she already knew. When he smiled, his teeth flashed red in the dim light. His underlings claimed it was from the blood of women he dined upon in the waning hours, a rumor he himself had started. In truth, it was because of his love of chewing crimleaf, an expensive habit few could indulge as much as he did.

  “I play many games,” Kadish said, winking. Veliana slammed a fist atop his table, scattering dice to the floor. He ignored the outburst. “You seem distraught. Did you lose this mysterious game you are referring to? I don’t remember playing with you, and I must say that sounds like something I would remember.”

  Veliana glared, making Kadish only smile all the wider. He adjusted the eye patch he wore over his right eye. In truth he could see just fine, but he liked the way it made him look. Let the other guildmasters try to be stealthy and secretive. Kadish preferred to be well-known, and liked. It helped with the survival rate.

  “Enough,” Veliana shouted. “Why are your men pushing into our territory? You know damn well everything south of Iron Road is ours, yet for the past week I keep finding your bird’s eye scrawled over our territory markings.”

  “You know the manner of guilds,” Kadish said, waving a dismissive hand. “The strong take from the weak. If you are so worried about lost homes and bazaars, then do your job. Defend them. Not here,” he added when he saw her reach for her daggers.

  “But you’re not stronger,” Veliana said. “If war breaks out between us, we will bury you in days. Pull back, now, or you’ll suffer our wrath, you spineless little shit.”

  If Veliana expected the insult to rankle him, she was wrong. Kadish let out a laugh, feeling amused all the way down to his leather boots.

  “Do you really think me so blind?” he asked. “Yes, open warfare between our guilds would devastate us. James is so good at recruiting,
after all. I mean, he got you, didn’t he? Perhaps even into his bed. But it’s time you, and all of your pathetic Ash Guild, realized what world we live in. Instead of you making threats and demands, how about I ask some questions, and you give me some answers? Just a yes or no will do. The Serpents, have they also taken some of your territory? And everything along the eastern wall, does the symbol of the Wolf begin to cover your Ash?”

  “It’s all just a farce,” Veliana said, her voice calming. A deadly seriousness had replaced her anger. “Take our territory, all of you, it doesn’t matter. Soon all symbols will be the Spider. You know that, don’t you?”

  “You know nothing,” Kadish said, scratching the skin below his eye patch. “And you can’t see the future. I, however, am smart enough to view the present. As long as you hold out on Thren and his Spider Guild, you are lost. We’ve accepted his plan, and will move the moment the Kensgold arrives.”

  Veliana could have screamed. The Kensgold was a gathering held every two to four years by the Trifect, a massive collection of merchants, servants, family members, and every lowborn fool with a scrap of coin wanting to partake in the egotistical showing of power and influence. There was food, ale, and enough mercenaries to overthrow a kingdom.

  “We can’t attack during their Kensgold!” Veliana insisted. “How can all of you not see that? We’re not an army, no matter how much Thren wants to pretend otherwise.”

  “And you’re not in a position to lecture anyone,” Kadish said. “If you’re not with us, well, then you’re just a corpse waiting to be picked clean. We’ll take your members, your streets, and if we must, your lives. We all want this war to end. Tell James we will not suffer him and his guild to keep us from that finality. Tell him if he wants to have a guild at the end of the month, pledge his men to Thren Felhorn.”

  “You know,” said one of the men beside Kadish, an ugly brute with scarred lips and a missing ear, “perhaps James might be more willing if we had his pretty lady here for ransom.”

  This time Veliana did draw her daggers, but Kadish stood and glared at his men.

  “This meeting is done,” he said to them. “We will not debase ourselves with such talk. The Ash Guild will see wisdom, I am sure of it. Good day, Veliana.”

  The woman spun and left, slamming the door behind her. When she was gone, Kadish rubbed his chin as his underlings snickered and made lewd comments. His mind raced through possibilities. If Veliana was so worked up that she’d storm into one of his own taverns to make empty threats, then panic was spreading through the upper ranks of the Ash Guild, if not to James himself.

  “They’re vulnerable,” he said. “Rasta, take a few of your boys and have them scour the Ash Guild’s streets. Find out just how badly they’ve been pressed, and which guilds are taking what.”

  “Planning something big?” the earless man asked.

  “Keep your mouths shut for now,” Kadish said. “But if James has lost more than we anticipated, perhaps it would be better to remove them entirely instead of waiting for them to finally bend the knee to Thren. Keep your numbers small, and move quickly. Even beaten and outnumbered, James is a dangerous foe. If we’re to gamble with our lives, I prefer the odds stacked firmly in our favor.”

  Rasta stood and left while the earless brute recovered the dice from the floor, shook them in his hands, and rolled.

  Aaron leaned against the wall to the open training room, holding back a wince of pain. His shoulder throbbed where Senke had struck him. Ever since the meeting the week before, and Thren’s promise to include him in all things, his father had made him spend hours training each day. Senke was his trainer, the wiry rogue second only to Thren in skill with a blade.

  “If you’d stop making mistakes, you wouldn’t hurt so much,” Senke said, pacing before him. “To your feet. It’s time to dance.”

  Aaron pushed himself off the wall, knowing Senke would continue whether he was ready or not. For hours they’d danced, blunted practice swords whirling and clanging as they parried, riposted, and blocked. Of all his teachers of combat, Senke was by far the best, as well as the most enjoyable to be with. He laughed, he joked, he said things about women that made Aaron blush. When it came to swordplay, though, he took the dance seriously. The joy would fade from his eyes like a fire buried in dirt. After an error, he’d explain to Aaron what he’d done wrong. Should he react too slowly, or too foolishly, that’d be corrected as well. Sometimes he explained in great detail what to do, and when. Most often, though, he smacked Aaron with his sword and let the pain do the teaching.

  This practice was particularly brutal. Senke wanted to hone Aaron’s dodging ability. Denying him the ability to use his sword in defense, or to strike back, Senke swung and stabbed with incredible speed. The problem was that Aaron’s initial reaction was always to block or parry, not dodge. Other teachers might have taken away his sword, but Senke would have none of it.

  “You’ll learn to control your instincts, otherwise they’ll control you,” the man said. Again and again the sword cracked against his shoulders, his head, and his hands. Whenever he tried to raise his sword, Senke’s other blade would shoot out, parry it away, and then slap him across the face.

  At last, when both were exhausted and dripping with sweat, Senke called the training done.

  “You’re getting better,” the man said. “I know it’s tempting to show off how good you are at positioning your blades, but sometimes, especially with stronger opponents, it is best to just get out of the way. Once you’re reacting quicker, we’ll work on integrating those dodges into your normal defensive patterns.”

  And with that, Aaron was dismissed. His teacher gone, he rubbed his shoulder, part of him wanting to ask a servant to massage it for him. But massages meant pain, and pain meant failure, at least when it came to training with Senke. After all, if he would just dodge like he was supposed to, he’d not have a bruise on him. So he put it out of his mind as best he could, wiped more sweat from his face onto his sleeve, and hurried down the hall of the mansion. He did not skulk, and he did not try to hide. This time he had a specific place he wanted to go, and without bothering to knock upon arriving he stepped into Robert Haern’s room.

  The furnishings were few but expensive. The chairs were padded and comfortable, the walls painted a soft red, and the carpet a luxurious green. Robert sat on the bed, piles of books on either side of him. Aaron wondered how he could possibly sleep on it, then wondered if the old man even slept in the first place.

  “You’re here,” Robert said, smiling when he looked up. “I had begun to worry that Senke would knock all reason and wisdom out of you.”

  “My ears are clogged,” Aaron said. “The wisdom stays in.”

  The old man chuckled.

  “Good for you, then. Sit. We have old matters to attend to.”

  Aaron sat down, wondering what he could mean. Over the past week Robert had gone to great lengths describing the various guilds and their guildmasters. He’d gone beyond recent times and into the past, beating into Aaron’s head why their colors were what they were, why each symbol had been chosen, what the symbols looked like, how they were drawn, and every other possible fact that seemed totally irrelevant. No matter how obscure it was, Robert would frown deeply and reprimand whenever Aaron missed an answer.

  “In the darkness I might have taken away a light,” Robert had said that very first day they resumed tutoring sessions. “But here I have nothing to take from you, so instead I do this: for every error you make, I will treat you like a child. I will tell you tales instead of truth. I will dismiss your questions like foolish inquiry, instead discussing matters that only a boy would be interested in.”

  The threat had worked.

  “What old matters?” Aaron asked as he sat cross-legged on the carpet.

  “Do you remember that first day? I was to have an answer from you, but forgot after my … brief stay in the dungeons. I asked you why the Trifect would declare war on your father after he had built up an
alliance of guilds over the course of three years. Do you have an answer?”

  Aaron had not given the matter much thought. He went with his initial guess, hoping it would be right. Robert always insisted that Aaron would know the answer to all questions he asked, and no other answer seemed to pop out at him.

  “Thren became too powerful,” Aaron said. “He was stealing too much gold, so the Trifect forced this war with him and the guilds.”

  Robert chuckled.

  “A child’s answer,” he said. “Coupled with a child’s trust in his father. You couldn’t be more wrong, boy. Perhaps we should read the story about Parson and the Lion instead of discussing such adult matters.”

  “Wait,” Aaron said, his voice rising above a whisper. Robert seemed to notice, and he looked pleased.

  “Do you have a better answer?” he asked. “Since your first one was so embarrassingly wrong?”

  Aaron’s mind raced. He had to figure it out. Anything was better than the fairy tales.

  “Thren didn’t grow too strong,” he ventured, each sentence coming out as if stepping on ice to test its strength. “If he had, then the Trifect wouldn’t have openly opposed him. The Trifect weighs all options, and this war has cost them greatly. Thren would not have stolen as much in twenty years as they have spent in the past five.”

  “Now you’re making sense,” Robert said. “The Trifect does not take on strong foes. They weaken them, poison their insides and rot their hearts. Once their target is desperate and fearful, then they strike.”

  “But the Trifect forced this war,” Aaron said. He rubbed his thumbs together, as if trying to coax the truth out from an invisible coin. “And my father is not weak. Not then, and not now. The Trifect acted outside their normal behavior.”