Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

  CHAPTER

  12

  The road was quiet. On one side was a small bakery. On the other was a smithy known for its owner’s teaching abilities rather than his actual work. Six men approached from the east. They showed no weapons, but their rust-colored cloaks hid much of their bodies. They split, three on one side, three on the other, and then hurried down the road. Each of the groups had a member carrying a small pail of paint.

  On the sides of both buildings, hidden so as to be glimpsed only in passing, was a smeared circle of ash. The men with the pail wiped it with their cloaks, then dipped their brushes into the dark red mixture. It looked like blood when they began drawing their symbol. They painted an unfilled outline of a hawk’s talons, followed by three drops dripping from the foremost claw. The others stood about, watching for guards of both the royal and seedy kind.

  They did not see any, for they did not look up. Crouched on the roof of the bakery waited Veliana and two of her men.

  “This deep down Warden Street?” Veliana muttered as she watched them paint. “Have they truly grown so bold?”

  “They’ve gone unchecked,” said Walt, crouched beside her. His face was tanned and lean, his smile missing many teeth. By no means was she friends with him, but he was skilled in battle and reliable when it came to matters of stealth. For those reasons she kept him close. Crouched shoulder to shoulder with him atop the roof, she wished the man would at least take better care of his teeth. Someday his breath would give them away, she just knew it.

  “Unchecked?” Veliana said, her voice deeply bitter. “I’m surprised they haven’t encountered the rest of the guilds slicing through our territory. They’re like wolves fighting over a dead deer.”

  “Tonight that changes,” said Walt. “Tonight the deer shows it’s not so dead after all.”

  “They move,” said Vick, the other man atop the roof with them. He was young, with short blond hair and a scraggly mustache that failed to thicken no matter how long he went without shaving.

  Veliana watched as the six men bolted around the buildings. She unsheathed her daggers as beside her Walt readied a crossbow.

  “Six on three,” he said. “I’ll get two before they turn. That leaves four for you and Vick when you’re on the ground. Think you can handle that?”

  “Don’t insult me,” Veliana said as she leaped off the roof. Her silent landing went unnoticed. High above her a crossbow bolt whistled through the air. It struck one of the Hawk thugs square in the back. He lurched gracelessly to the ground. The remaining five spun. A second died, a bolt piercing his throat. The others charged, weaving from side to side in an attempt to thwart the crossbowman.

  Vick should have been rushing alongside her, and Walt should have been firing more bolts from the roof. When neither happened, Veliana risked a look behind, just in time to see Walt’s body hit the ground. Her heart sank at the disgusting sound it made. She had only a moment to glance up and see Vick sneering down at her before daggers cut at her slender frame. She batted them away, but with four to her one, she was sorely pressed.

  The Hawks spread out farther, trapping her in the center of a diamond. Desperate, she lunged at one of the men, thinking that if she could kill him quickly she might escape. Her skill was great, and the man would have died under her assault, but then she felt a great weight slam into her. Stunned, she looked down at the bloody bolt protruding from her shoulder. Blood poured across her clothes.

  Her daggers faltered, her meager blocks batted aside like children’s defenses. Something hard struck the back of her head. She had just enough time to curse Vick’s name before blacking out.

  When Veliana awoke, she was blindfolded and shackled to a wall. She felt uncomfortably warm, which made even less sense when she realized she was naked. As the rest of her senses came into focus, she heard the popping and crackling of a fire. That explained the sweat that covered her body. But where was she?

  “Wake her up,” she heard a voice say. Hoping to hear anything she could use, she kept her body still and pretended to be asleep. To her left she heard rustling, and then something sharp, like a needle, stabbed the tip of her forefinger. She cried out. The sound was just barely coming out of her mouth before a fist struck her. Blood dribbled down her lips. Her tongue ached where she’d bit it.

  Someone yanked the blindfold off her face. With blurred vision she looked at her captor. She saw the gray of his cloak and the short swords swinging from his hips. The way he stood before her, as if she were a peasant in the presence of a man who owned the world, told her who it was before she ever saw his face.

  “I put word out I wanted you brought before me,” Thren Felhorn said. “Consider yourself a gift from Kadish Vel and his Hawks.”

  “I hope you’re pleased with your present,” she said. She tried to turn her head to spit, but the shackles around her head and neck prevented it. Feeling horribly sick, she spat the blood from her mouth. Her stomach curled as it dribbled down her neck and between her breasts.

  “That’ll depend on your answers,” Thren said. A giant muscular man stood beside him. They were outside the city, somewhere on the northern side judging by the trees that grew within touching distance of the wall … the wall she was helplessly strapped to by buckles and shackles.

  “Will, clean her off,” Thren said to the giant man. Will obliged, cleaning the blood from her chest and neck with a clean rag. She expected him to fondle her breasts or let his fingers linger on her neck, but the man did no such thing.

  “Thank you,” she said. She felt her head clear a little. Two torches were stuck in the ground on either side of her, and their light disrupted her eyes’ attempt to adjust to the dark. She thought she saw another form standing beside Thren. It made no sense, though. She thought she saw a young man, someone twelve, maybe thirteen.

  “I’ve been patient,” Thren said. He crossed his arms and stood directly before her. “I’ve given James Beren plenty of chances to come to my side. Your Ash Guild is strong, and I hold more respect for it than for any other guild. Yet you and James did something stupid, girl. You plotted against me.”

  “No,” she said.

  Thren’s fist smashed her face. Will’s rag was there immediately, soaking in the blood she spat. The rage coupled with kindness only confused her more.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Thren said. “The Worm came to me last morning and told me everything you’d arranged for him to do … for a price, of course.”

  Gileas, Veliana thought as she felt her stomach sink. You bastard.

  “Is that why I’m here?” she asked. “Figure a little torture will help make your point to the rest of the guilds?”

  “What I want,” Thren said, leaning closer, “is you.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last.

  “I need the Ash Guild’s men,” Thren said, pacing before her. “All of the guilds must be united in this plan if we are to crush the Trifect come the Kensgold. For this to happen, the other guildmasters must trust me, and if they are to trust me, they must all join the plan willingly. The second I force loyalty, the other guilds will break away for fear of absorption and disbandment. Now, your dear James has proven stubborn. As satisfying as it would be to kill him, I cannot. Too many whisper of me doing such things as it is. I cannot dignify those mad ramblings with a kernel of truth.”

  “You want me to kill him,” she said, guessing where his thoughts were leading. “I take over, bend knee to you, and suddenly the Ash Guild is just a toy in your pocket, to be used whenever necessary.”

  “You’re smart, strong, and beautiful,” Thren said, not denying her accusation. “It wouldn’t be difficult for you to consolidate power should James die by your hands. You already have your reason for it. James had you contact Gileas, hoping to use him to sell information about our plan to the king. Doing so puts all of us at risk. Put an end to him. With but a word, I can declare the Ash Guild a friend, and the rest of the v
ermin will stop pressing your territory, stealing it away from you street by street. You can rule, Veliana. Do you have the strength to do so?”

  Veliana thought of betraying her guildmaster, and the very idea made her sick. He was a good man. A better man, worlds better, than Thren could ever be. And all for what? So Thren could rely on the Ash Guild’s aid when he launched his suicidal plan?

  “This is folly, Thren,” Veliana insisted. “We’re thieves, thugs, brutes. We’re not an army, yet you would have us launch a combined attack against all three leaders of the Trifect during their Kensgold, the one night when they’re at their most powerful? We’ll be slaughtered and broken.”

  Thren ran a hand through her long red hair.

  “Do not let loyalty cost you everything,” he whispered to her. “Either accept my proposal or suffer the consequences. What is your choice?”

  Any other street rat would have turned on their leader. Veliana was unlike any other member.

  “James has saved me a hundred times,” she said. “Kill me or let me go. I will not turn traitor and knife him in the dark.”

  Thren sighed.

  “A shame. I will not kill you, Veliana. That was not part of the deal. Gileas required you as his price for telling me of your conspiring with Gerand. I had no intention of paying it, but then again, I never thought you’d refuse the position I offered you.”

  A shiver of disgust ran up and down her spine. Now she understood why they’d stripped her naked. They’d even healed the wound on her shoulder where the arrow had pierced clean through. She closed her eyes, trying not to think of the ugly man’s black teeth, twisted face, and stubby fingers. She almost changed her mind. Thren paused, as if waiting for her to break. When she didn’t, he put his back to her.

  “Remember, Aaron,” she heard him say. “Things will never go as you plan. Prepare for anything, and be willing to sacrifice everything, even beauty.”

  Veliana saw the boy standing next to Thren, staring at her with his blue eyes. She could not decipher his look, his face remarkably controlled. And then he spoke the words that sealed his fate to her.

  “Yes, Father,” she heard the boy say.

  If Gileas didn’t take her life, Veliana swore revenge. Not on Thren, not directly. She’d only fail against someone so skilled. But the boy, the groomed heir, him she could kill. Him she could make suffer. Maybe, just maybe, Thren might feel as helpless then as she felt now.

  Aaron took one torch, Will the other. They walked away from the forest, toward the western gate. The torches faded away and then died. In the starlight, she watched them pass a hobbled form approaching the other way. Her way. She didn’t want to imagine what they might do to James. She was their only real hope for easy manipulation of the Ash Guild. What might they do now? Crush it completely, perhaps. Or perhaps nothing. The rest of the guilds were doing a fine job of rending the Ash Guild to pieces.

  Veliana struggled against her chains. Their original purpose had been for the execution of criminals outside the city, who were left for wolves and coyotes to come and eat. While the punishment was gruesome, the spectacle was rarely witnessed and too random in its length. Fifty years ago the Vaelor line had instead instituted beheadings held before the castle steps. Quicker, bloodier, and a much better spectacle. Given how old the chains were, Veliana pleaded for one of them to break.

  They didn’t. From the corner of her eye she could see the manacle on one of her wrists. Black steel, clean and polished. Thren had brought his own chains. Of course he had. He wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake as letting her escape because of some rusted manacles.

  Gileas was getting closer. He was a fat shadow sliding across the wall, worse than any monster in her childhood stories.

  “Please gods,” she whispered. “Any god. Get me out. I’ll do anything, but get me out of here.”

  She pulled so hard on her bindings that her wrists bled. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  “Hello, girl,” Gileas breathed into her ear.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “Ooh, no, no, no,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered back.

  He laughed, not at all bothered. She was shackled and helpless. He had all night.

  “Nothing personal,” Gileas said as he pressed the tip of his dagger against her right eyebrow. “I’ll milk Gerand and the crown for all the gold I can, then take just as much from Thren and his ilk. I’ll turn the rats on each other, and grow so very wealthy from it.”

  He pressed the dagger into her flesh. Blood trickled around her eye. She blinked against its sting.

  “All night,” he said as he slowly dragged the dagger downward. “I have all night.”

  He cut her eyebrow, her eyelid, and then her eye. She screamed.

  Gileas rammed his mouth over hers, drinking in her scream like it was a fine wine. His smell hit her, followed by his tongue. It was slimy, wet, warm. She vomited into his mouth. He drank that too.

  He pulled back, smiled at her, and then flew to the side from a brutal kick to the head. He rolled along the hard ground, stopping only when he struck the wall.

  A woman wrapped in black and purple stood before Veliana, a serrated dagger in hand. She put her free hand against the vicious wound on Veliana’s face, her fingers gently touching the flesh. Blood pooled across the cloth around her fingers, yet strangely was not absorbed into it. Veliana looked into the white cloth over her rescuer’s face, seeing only the faintest hint of green eyes.

  “You made an offer,” the woman said to her. “Will you honor it? Swear to Karak your life, and I will take his.”

  Veliana could barely see Gileas out of the corner of her good eye. He was retching on the ground, one arm leaning against the wall to prop himself up. Blood continued pouring down her face, her neck, and her slender body. The eye was useless, completely useless. What did it matter if she swore her life to a nonexistent god? She wanted vengeance. She wanted to live.

  “I swear it,” she said.

  “Good,” the faceless woman said. Her hands were a blur about Veliana’s body. One by one the locks clicked open. Veliana collapsed into the woman’s arms, unable to stand.

  “Your name?” she asked as she clutched the woman’s shoulders, one eye crying tears, the other blood.

  “Zusa,” she replied.

  Gently she put Veliana to her knees on the ground and then turned toward Gileas. The Worm had stood and put his back to the wall. He still had his dagger. Clutching her sides gently, Veliana knelt and watched.

  “Uncalled for,” she heard the Worm say as the faceless woman approached. “She was given to me. Given…”

  He spun, his dagger lunging for Zusa’s chest. It never came close. Zusa slapped it away with an open palm, kicked him in the groin, and then slammed an elbow into his forehead. Gileas collapsed, grunting in pain. When Zusa grabbed his hair to yank his head back, he laughed.

  “Can’t stab a worm,” he said. “We just keep wiggling.”

  She stabbed anyway. Her blade punctured only air. Gileas’s clothes were an empty pile on the grass. Zusa kicked them away but saw nothing. She looked as startled as Veliana felt.

  “A worm,” Veliana said. “He can’t possibly be…”

  But there was nothing there. He was gone.

  “Come,” Zusa said, taking Veliana’s hand. “Follow me to my camp. You must meet my sisters.”

  The fire in the center of the camp had dwindled down to nothing. Zusa tossed on some branches while Veliana huddled against a tree, cold and naked. Winter was approaching, and the night air bit her skin. Zusa drew out two small red bricks and clapped them together above the fire. Sparks rained down upon the wood, instantly restarting the fire.

  Veliana knelt beside it, eager for its warmth. She kept her right eye closed, wishing she could slow the bloody tears she was constantly wiping from her face. She was stronger than this, knew she was, knew she had to be. But staring into the fire,
she kept seeing Gileas’s dagger, heard the sound of her flesh tearing as the blade descended, kept remembering the pain as it stole away the vision in her eye.

  “Where are your sisters?” she asked as shivers ran through her body. Her revulsion at Gileas’s touch remained strong, though it felt like the fire was slowly purifying her body of it.

  “They will return in the morning,” Zusa said. “I remained here to keep an eye on another charge of ours. I expected his idiocy to get him and his woman killed, but instead I found you tied to the wall.”

  “I was as surprised as you were,” Veliana said. She turned her back to the fire, her arms crossed over her breasts.

  “I’m not sure I have clothes appropriate for you,” the faceless woman said. “Perhaps I could go and retrieve the strange man’s…”

  “No,” Veliana said, suppressing another shudder. “I’d rather be naked.”

  Zusa tilted her head to the side. Veliana swore she could see green eyes studying her through the white mask across her face. Suddenly Zusa lifted the cloth and untwisted the wrappings about her head.

  Veliana startled at the woman revealed beneath the wrappings. She was gorgeous by anyone’s standards. Full lips, smooth cheeks, and vibrant eyes. Their deep color reminded her of pine needles. The woman ran a hand through her short dark hair, pulling out tangles, no easy task given how tightly it had been restricted and how covered with sweat it was.

  “You’re…” Veliana started to say, then realized how ridiculous it sounded.

  “I know,” Zusa said. “Trust me … I know.”

  She handed the wrappings to Veliana.

  “They’re not much, but you should be able to hide your nakedness.”

  Veliana started wrapping the black and purple cloth across her chest, pulling it tight to get as much coverage as she could. As she did, Zusa removed more and more of her wrappings from her chest and waist. Beneath she wore a dark shift, the color so thick she needed little of the extra cloth to keep her modesty. Veliana accepted the extra wrappings and continued looping them about her body. If she walked through the streets in broad daylight she’d earn herself many scandalous looks, but at least she was no longer naked.