Shadowbane tap-4

by Eric Scott De Bie

  With their attention on the ailing man, the guards did not notice as Kalen moved around a stack of refuse and shot across the street. One of them looked over his shoulder, but Kalen stepped inside before the black eyes could focus.

  In the main audience chamber of the Dustclaw tavern, listening to one of his thieves try to justify a botched take, Warchief Duulgrin blew out a rumbling, bored sigh.

  The half-orc chieftain had never liked this rotting pustule of a city, with its dull monotony of daily muggings, alley beatings, and hiring out bodyguards for con men and playpretties-and occasionally having one of those clients beaten for skimping on payment. He longed for the days of glorious battle, leading hundreds of screaming orcs to crush opposing armies who dared enter the lands of Many-Arrows.

  Duulgrin had chosen exile rather than death as punishment for his failures. But now he wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake. Aside from the rare grand-scale gang war to punctuate the monotony, Duulgrin felt utterly wasted in Luskan. Which was why, when the two Calishites dragged the madman-thrashing and moaning incoherently-into his throne chamber, the half-orc chieftain of Dustclaws was in the foulest of foul moods. Ah, this was a welcome distraction.

  He dismissed the fast-talking thief at his feet, who scurried away, and then he turned to the newcomers. “What is this goblin filth? Bring him!”

  His voice lacked the deep resonance of his orc forefathers, pitched instead rather high, like that of an oversized weasel. Duulgrin’s tone had led many to underestimate him over the years, which he’d always used to his advantage.

  The Calishites-Duulgrin hadn’t bothered to learn their names-cast the bloody man down before the warchief’s throne. The half-orc flexed his fingers, feeling his iron knuckle duster rub coarsely across his skin. This small pain comforted him-he liked the agony of battle.

  “Feh-feh!” the madman was saying. Something awful had happened to his face-some sort of impact that had pushed all his piercings into his flesh.

  “What, by Gruumsh’s lost eye?” Duulgrin asked.

  “Feh-feh.” The madman pulled a shard of silver, stretching his cheek until blood welled and the piercing came loose. This, he tossed aside. “Feh!”

  Duulgrin scowled. “Take this broke-wit from my sight,” he said, waving.

  The chieftain turned, but a hand fell on his ankle. He looked down and there was the madman staring up at him through blood red eyes. “Feh,” the man said.

  “Feh?” Duulgrin bent lower toward him.

  “Feed,” said the madman, showing a dozen bloody teeth. “Feed.”

  And he closed his teeth on the half-orc’s bare foot.

  It hurt, aye, but it was not the pain that angered Duulgrin-the pain woke his warrior’s instincts. It was the disrespect the half-orc could not tolerate-not in front of his men, not even were he alone. He had not commanded the blood and blades of three score cutthroats for a dozen years by showing a weakness like mercy.

  He kicked the madman away, shattering his jaw with a wet crack.

  “Feed, eh?” Duulgrin stepped down, crushing one of the madman’s hands under his boot. He bent down and pulled the ailing man up by the collar. “You want to feed, do you?”

  The man moaned in pain and confusion. “Feed!”

  Duulgrin roared and slammed his forehead into the madman’s face with an audible crunch. The man yelped and his head fell back. Duulgrin butted him again. And again.

  If the piercings cut him, the half-orc didn’t show it-all he felt was the thrill of inflicting pain, of blood spurting in his face. His father’s rage had taken him-the old way of the orc once more rising in his veins. The madman moaned, and Duulgrin laughed.

  Finally, he pulled back and shook his head. Blood flew. “You like the taste of that?” he said. “Eh? How do you like it?”

  The madman-his face reduced to ground meat-burbled a reply.

  “Aye?” Duulgrin leaned down. “Feed, perhaps?”

  Blood spurted from the ruined face like a geyser, coating Duulgrin’s nose and mouth. The half-orc reeled back, startled. The taste was foul beyond foul, tinged with rot. He wiped blood from his eyes and glared around the room-at his men, at his mistress, at the fool thief who’d tried talking his way out of the half-orc’s wrath. Duulgrin growled, blood trickling from his lips.

  No weakness.

  He spat the blood back in the madman’s face. The man fell back to the floor, twitching but making no more noises.

  Duulgrin shook his head once to clear some blood from it, then grinned at his men. “Back to your posts,” he said. “Don’t bring this bloody shit into my house. You come through those doors again, you bring me something I want, not just something to kill. Though”-he grinned, blood trickling over his chin-“this gave me something to do.”

  He could see the big men trying not to tremble.

  “Now get out.” Duulgrin waved to the corpse. “Take that with you.”

  The two Calishites dragged the mess no longer recognizable as a man out the doors, leaving a trail of blood.

  Duulgrin gestured to the thief. “Now, where were we?”

  The back door to the alley opened and the two guards hobbled out, the bloody body between them. They stepped down from the threshold and walked three paces into the alley. They hefted, swung the corpse twice, and tossed it against the opposite wall.

  The first Calishite paused and looked around warily. “Hold.”

  “What is it?” said the other.

  “Nothing,” the first said. “A mirage.”

  The second one grunted. They went back inside.

  After a moment, a shadow-which had slipped out behind them-nodded, satisfied there were no onlookers. Then Kalen parted from the wall and moved toward the corpse, his hand on his dagger’s hilt. He hadn’t found Myrin anywhere in the tavern. Kalen had found holding cells, but they were all empty. Nor had they looked like anything that could hold Myrin, with her magic. No, someone else must have her.

  He’d also spied on the chamber of the gang chief in time to see the guards bring in the hapless madman. Based on that performance, Kalen never wanted to face Duulgrin himself. Fortunately, Myrin hadn’t been there. If she had … well, then he would have fought all of them.

  The Dustclaws didn’t have her, which was one gang down. They had, however, been kind enough to leave a dwarf-crafted dagger unattended-a match to the one on Kalen’s belt. Now, it was time to move on. Still, he couldn’t shake his unease regarding the madman’s fate.

  He crouched next to the corpse. Something had happened to that man-something that couldn’t be explained with a single blow to the face, no matter how hard Kalen had struck him. Perhaps the body would yield up clues.

  He shot a look both ways down the alley-no one was approaching-then scanned the dead man’s body for hints as to his fate. Had it been a spell that broke his mind? The madman lay on his chest against the wall, his shirt ridden up around his midsection. His clothes were badly torn in a way they had not been when Kalen had attacked him and half a dozen red-yellow welts rose from his back.

  Bites? Rabid dogs might have caused this, but the slavering madness took hold slowly, not suddenly. Vermin of some kind? He’d seen spider venom that could do awful things to a man. Or were they plague sores?

  Kalen wondered if this had something to do with the supposed plague that had led the Waterdhavian Guard to quarantine the city. These wounds, however, looked like insect bites more than anything else. He raised his scarf over his mouth and nose just in case, then he reached to lift the shirt away from the welts for a better look.

  The flesh puckered oddly around the injuries: red and inflamed, but also hard. It looked vaguely … crystalline. He tapped his dagger against it.

  No sooner had he touched the body than the flesh began to sag away from the bones. He drew back, but the damage had been done. Like a soapy bubble, the skin burst, letting brackish blood and pus flow, along with an odor of putrescence that made him cover his mouth and nose. Though the madman hadn�
�t been dead more than a few moments, his body looked as if it had been rotting for tendays.

  Rotting from the inside.

  Kalen froze, his eyes going to the madman’s back, and tracing among the wounds. He could have sworn the flesh had moved, as though something lived under the surface. A great abscess had formed on the corpse’s back, where the flesh had begun to blacken. Kalen drew his dagger, but before he could prod at the necrotized mound, he heard footsteps out in the cobbled street. Time to go.

  He drew a clay flask from under his cloak, tossed it through the back door of the Dustclaw tavern, then walked away. The flask broke and flames spread. Kalen walked on, his cloak drifting around him in the sea breeze.

  A pair of Dustclaws came around the corner, racing toward the fire. They stopped after seeing Kalen and their faces twisted with rage. They raised their weapons.

  “Good,” Kalen said. “I was worried this would be easy.”

  He drew his two long daggers.

  We lie forgotten in the rush of fire and battle, but no matter.

  We feast contentedly.

  The corpse quivers and pops open with a hiss.

  Our thousand chittering voices fill the air.

  We hunger.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  22 KYTHORN (EARLY MORNING)

  Dawn broke and the sun rose over Luskan like a scalding brand.

  The dark things of night fled as sunlight returned with Luskan’s sweltering heat wave. The filth in the streets began to sizzle within moments. Not that the buildings would catch fire-the weather was too dismal and damp most of the year for flames to take hold, as though the city were too damned to burn. If a good fire got going, it would do little more than scar one or two houses, leaving blackened heaps of wood and stone.

  Summers such as that of the Year of Deep Water Drifting dealt cruelly with the city of thieves. On the longest days, the breezes off the Sea of Swords faltered and the streets grew bakingly humid. Clean water was hard to find and more precious than blood.

  Worst of all, the vermin of Luskan-flies, lice, rats, and all manner of things that crawled and clicked-grew bold in summer. Far outnumbering the population of the city, they feasted on the rotting vegetation, the buildings, and the people alike. The chittering, scratching, biting barrage drove folk in Luskan mad.

  As the sun climbed, Kalen shuffled along an alley off the Street of Storms. In Luskan, it was common practice to defile the signs to say something foul that one scoundrel or another had found amusing once upon a time: streets and avenues of Rutted Souls, Stlarner Heroes, Giant Tluiners, and the like. Sometimes, real wit prevailed and the gangs chose to add or alter a letter or two to corrupt the meaning of the sign. The Dragon’s Teeth became the Dragon’s Teat, while Old Swords became Mold Sores. Kalen found the sign for the Street of Storms-with an added expletive for offal-rather amusing, if crude. It was the way of Luskan to taint its own legacy.

  He remembered he’d gleefully taken part in that very desecration, once.

  He’d done far worse in his time in Luskan.

  Kalen was tired. He’d ridden hard for four days, fought his way through guardsmen and thugs alike, set a gang tavern on fire, and his body was finally starting to feel the toll. He didn’t actually feel the aches in his body that indicated weariness, but his limbs weren’t doing exactly what he told them. That meant he needed sleep-or that he was about to die. Either way, he couldn’t very well collapse in the street, if he was to find whoever had Myrin.

  Myrin had to be alive. It would be a waste to kill her, if only because of that special talent that she brought to the city: magic.

  He moved past various takes happening in broad daylight on the street. An angler dipped a hook toward an unattended pouch, while the victim gazed up at naked flesh in the windows above. Likely, those were nymphers, who lured a mark into bed while an accomplice stole his possessions. Down an alley, Kalen saw a burst of light which sent a man reeling. The thief-a “flash”-ran off with a purloined loaf of bread under his arm.

  But these were mundane tricks. Real magic proved a valuable commodity.

  In Luskan, those who could work the Art were few and far between. Most rose to leadership in one of the gangs or carved out a piece of the city for themselves. The Dragon, who ran Luskan’s Shou gang, was rumored to be a wizard of some skill. His enforcers wore shifting tattoos that enhanced their strength and speed. The only other mage Kalen knew of was the necromancer who held court in the tower called the Throat. A legion of corpses clawed out of the ground at his command. Kalen hoped he would not have to cross either of those Captains.

  Having seen Myrin exercise her own wizardly tricks, her ability to absorb magic and channel it herself, Kalen thought she could disrupt the entire balance of power in the city. And what if she had come by more of her memories in the last year? She could possess far greater power than he remembered.

  Another thought came hand-in-hand with that. Would she be someone different?

  “Worry later,” Kalen murmured. “Rest first.”

  His priority was shelter: somewhere to bandage his wounds and sleep. For this purpose, he searched for an unoccupied, preferably condemned building in which to hole up. It would be easy enough, as much of Luskan was abandoned, leaving hundreds of empty buildings. The city could easily house four times as many folk as lived there, but one did not tend to live long in Luskan.

  He settled on the fourth building he’d been eyeing. It must once have been a butcher’s shop but was now unoccupied (unlike the first two, which had boasted squatters and a pack of wolfdogs, respectively) and provided an excellent tactical position (unlike the third, which boxed him into a corner from which he could find no escape). He counted three exits, including the roof, his preferred means of egress. Everything else was covered over in enough wood and stone to create a massive racket should anyone attempt to catch him unawares. A pair of simple snares, and he would have a relatively safe place to rest.

  He paused before entering the place and glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of it, but he could have sworn someone had followed him into the alley. No visible sign, however-only a feeling.

  Thieves learned to trust their feelings.

  Kalen pulled aside a loose shutter, pushed into the abandoned building, and immediately crouched low and to the side, his daggers drawn.

  Drawing pursuit had been part of the plan all along-light some fires, attract attention-but he hadn’t expected it quite so soon. After all, he’d only lit up one tavern and beat up a few bruisers. Chief Duulgrin was no doubt sore about it, but the Dustclaws weren’t known for their street smarts. Perhaps someone had been watching him from the moment he’d entered the city. But who would have known he’d be coming?

  That, then, was his best lead: whoever had anticipated his arrival and was having him shadowed might well be the same gang that had Myrin.

  He crouched, warmed by the anger that flowed inside him. He wanted someone to come through that window-wanted to plunge his blades into a foe’s flesh. He waited.

  And waited.

  Eventually, after half an hour had passed, Kalen gave in to weariness and niggling pain from his wounds. Slowly, he put the daggers away and set up his snare: another of the clay flasks of alchemist fire, balanced to fall out into the alley when disturbed. The liquid inside would burn on contact with the air, not needing a spark. Anyone who followed Kalen was in for a screaming surprise. It might not kill, but it would rouse him from slumber so he could prepare.

  Stalking room-to-room inside, one dagger drawn, Kalen found them mostly empty. One upstairs held a withered, sweat-stained bedroll and a pair of surprisingly intact boots. Someone must have lived here once, but no one had been here in a tenday at least.

  He was about to sheathe his blade when a scrabbling sound came from inside the closet at the end of the chamber. Kalen raised his dagger, which caught the murky rays of sunlight through the boarded-up window. He moved slowly to the door. Closing his fingers carefully around the la
tch, Kalen breathed in and pulled.

  A skeleton lunged out of the closet, its bony fingers scrabbling for his eyes.

  Kalen drew aside quickly and the inanimate skeleton tumbled to the floor, its bones flying in every direction. The skeleton’s jawbone bounced and rolled along the creaking floorboards, finally coming to a rest on the abandoned bedroll.

  “Skeletons in Luskan’s closets,” Kalen murmured.

  He peered down at the source of the scratching: a bulbous rat, newly freed, looked up at him with wide, red eyes. Greenish froth trickled from its mouth. Having grown up in this city-and learning from an early age to tell which animals carried afflictions-Kalen knew the rat to be both diseased and malnourished, and he didn’t like the way it looked at him.

  Kalen nodded to the skeleton. “You didn’t eat all of that poor blaggard, did you?”

  The rat cheeped, as though considering the question, took two weak steps forward, flopped on its back, and died. Freedom, it seemed, was a mighty curse.

  Kalen inspected the bones, which were bleached as though the skeleton had been there for decades. Probably a slaying spell of one sort or another. He found a few other rat bodies in the closet as well. Perhaps they had picked the body clean, though Kalen had never seen vermin that could do that so completely that they left the body in a standing posture. And how had they come to be sealed in the closet?

  A feeling of unease crept over him, as though what he’d thought was a good place to rest had turned suddenly very dangerous.

  Ultimately, however, he simply didn’t have the strength to move to a new hideaway. He needed to rest and he wasn’t likely to find a more defensible spot soon. He almost wished he had Vindicator’s familiar if uncomfortable grip in his hand.

  Almost.

  He resolved that, if more rats came to attack him in the night, his blades and four remaining vials of alchemist fire would just have to do.

  He picked up the jawbone and set it back by the skull. “You don’t mind, friend,” he said, “if I share your tomb with you.”