by Jon Sprunk
“This is not well done,” Deumas said. “Kobal and I were the ones sent to retrieve him from Sirion. I tell you, shalifar, this is not the empire we once knew.”
Balaam turned his head slightly. No one was close enough to overhear their words, but the shadows were everywhere. “I was not aware of this operation.”
Deumas nodded toward the dais. “Lord Malphas now directs the Talons.” She lowered her voice. “Be wary, shalifar. That serpent has long fangs.”
With a nod, Deumas turned and left the hall. Balaam returned his attention to the audience. The Talons were the Master's instruments, to be used as he desired. It should not have rankled him that the majordomo was given control over his team, and yet…
“Enough!” Oriax shouted as Malphas continued to read from a long list of goods and materials. “I do not understand. What does this have to do with treason?”
Lord Malphas rolled up the parchment. “This is a list of the resources that have been placed under your command. Resources that have been squandered and wasted in a fruitless campaign.”
“Wasted?” Oriax tried to rise to his feet, but the soldiers held him down. “I have won dozens of victories, captured many towns and fortresses. Virtually the whole of Einar is under my—”
Lord Malphas began to answer, but movement stirred on the throne. The crowd murmured as the Lord of Shadow leaned forward in his stony seat. The hall's ruddy light played across his oiled scalp and the long bridge of his nose. Bony shoulders shifted under his mantle of burgundy chased with silver and gold thread.
“Towns and fortresses?” The Shadow Lord's voice was measured, but it resounded through the hall. “You were charged with subjugating the human nations of Arnos and Hestria.”
“Master, I—”
Oriax flew back onto the floor and rolled over. A titter passed though the assembly, but no one spoke. Even Malphas stood silently, hands folded within his sleeves, but Balaam thought he saw a look of satisfaction cross the majordomo's face.
The Shadow Lord extended a finger. “You have failed, Lord Oriax. And the cost of your failure is death.”
Oriax climbed to his knees and dared to meet the Master's gaze. “I would gladly die for my empire and my Master. But grant me the final honor of a proper death as befits my station.”
“You dare to—,” Lord Malphas started to berate.
But the Shadow Lord nodded. “It is granted. Choose your executioner.”
Oriax craned his head, but none of the nobles would meet his gaze. The hall was silent. Then Balaam found himself stepping forward. “I will serve as your second, my lord.”
Eyes followed him as he crossed the floor. Balaam stopped before the dais and bowed. Then he drew his sword and turned to the kneeling lord. The soldiers stepped away.
Oriax closed his eyes, head bowed, as the kalishi sword lifted above his head. Balaam inhaled a deep breath and held it. His mind was still, his nerves calm. Yet, Deumas's words haunted him. This is not the empire we once knew.
Oriax nodded, and the blade fell.
Balaam stepped back. He used his cloak to clean his sword and returned it to the scabbard. Then he laid the cloak over the general's headless body. He stood there for a time as the body discorporated into fine gray ash.
“Balaam.”
He looked up. The hall was empty save for the two figures on the dais. Abraxus, the last Shadow Lord, stood up slowly and beckoned with a veiny hand. “Come. We have been waiting.”
As Balaam strode forward, he hoped Malphas would depart, but the majordomo remained at the Shadow Lord's side. Balaam concealed his disappointment as he went to one knee at the bottom of the steps. “Master.”
“Rise and tell me what you found in Liovard. Is my daughter dead?”
“Yes. The temple was in shambles.”
“It is as I feared, but I had to be sure. I cannot trust all that I hear anymore. How did she die?”
“It was the scion's doing, Master.”
Balaam obeyed with a full account of his investigation in Liovard. He would have gladly stopped before reporting Lady Sybelle's final moments in this world, but he was bound by duty. As he related her fateful last words, Abraxus slapped his thigh. His face was a gray mask.
Lord Malphas tsked. “A great loss to our cause, my lord. A tragedy beyond words. Shall I arrange the funereal rites for your beloved daughter?”
“My daughter.” Abraxus pursed his lips together. “A more wily creature was never born. If she'd had the opportunity, she would have usurped my throne long ago.”
“A lady of many…moods,” Malphas ventured. “Perhaps a muted affair. The city shall mourn her passing in silence, as befits the daughter of your mighty house.”
Balaam ignored the majordomo, understanding what his Master meant. “We should prepare.”
Abraxus met his eye with a jaundiced gaze. “Indeed. One who could overcome my beautiful Sybelle, even besotted and weakened as she had become, is a dangerous foe. I want you to find him. Find him and bring him here.”
Balaam exhaled as the command settled over his shoulders like an ill-fitting coat. “Master, is that the wisest course? An enemy as powerful as this one, it would be better to slay than capture him.”
The Shadow Lord looked up toward the arched ceiling, and Balaam bowed his head. He shouldn't have said anything. A weapon did not ask where it should be pointed; it only served the purpose for which it had been made.
“There are forces moving,” Abraxus said, “but I cannot see them. I can only sense them on the edges of my awareness, shadows within shadows….”
His voice trailed away, and he stood that way, saying nothing, for a span of many breaths, until Balaam wondered if he should say something. Then he remembered how long it had been since his Master had left this citadel. Years, perhaps decades. Balaam thought back to the early construction of Erebus, the army of slaves toiling on the wastes. Hundreds died each month, only to be replaced by others, and then by their children. But Abraxus had remained here since the laying of the first foundation. And now an entire city had grown up around the palace, even though their people were fewer with every passing year. A city in search of a people. Caught up in his own reverie, Balaam started when the Shadow Lord spoke again.
“We face a terrible question,” Abraxus said. “The crusade does not progress as we had hoped. We are losing ground on every side. It is no secret there has been trouble in the east, but with the loss of Eregoth…”
Not the loss of your daughter, Master?
“Pardon me,” Balaam said. “But perhaps if you took a hand personally. Just an appearance in the field would bolster—”
“No. My place is here, seeing to the completion of the citadel.”
“A wise policy,” Malphas murmured. “To control the campaign from a central location.”
Balaam said nothing as Abraxus continued. “But the Light is strong in this world. Our power diminishes with every passing year. We need the scion alive. Do you understand?”
Balaam bowed his head. He didn't understand, not fully, but he knew his duty. “It shall be as you command. I will find the scion and bring him here.”
“Good. Go at once.”
When Balaam looked up, the Shadow Lord and Malphas were gone. Balaam considered the black throne, and all the losses their people had suffered since coming to this realm. This is not the empire we once knew.
Balaam turned and departed.
“You okay, boss?” Aemon asked.
Sitting on his bed shirtless, Caim nodded as the needle pushed through the skin of his shoulder, and he tried to think about something else.
Dray came over carrying his gear and bedroll, all bundled up. “Fuck me! You got more scars than I ever seen.”
Caim looked down at his body. The scars were like a roadmap, tracing the violent history of his life. Knife wounds, punctures, burn marks, and enough stitch tracks to sew a fair-sized quilt. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten most of them. The fights and jobs all blended i
nto a crimson fog.
Malig bit into an ice-pepper as he pointed to Caim's side. “Is that one from a spear?”
That one Caim remembered like it was yesterday. Carrying Josey over the side of the pier, the sudden pain like a mule kick in the back, and then the icy cold of the bay waters closing over them. “Crossbow.”
“Damn.”
When Aemon finished his amateur doctoring, Caim eased into his shirt and laced his jerkin over the top of it. The back was a little damp from the blood, but it would dry out on the road. “You three head out to the stables and get the horses,” he said. “I'll meet you there after I settle our bill.”
Caim buckled on his knives as the clansmen left the room. A touch of the weakness he'd felt at the storehouse still lingered with him. His balance was slightly off, and a chill had settled into his bones. Maybe he was coming down with something. Just what I need when we've got who-knows-how-many days of travel ahead of us.
The common room was packed. Servers bustled back and forth between the bar and the tables. A faint haze smelling of rotten leaves hung in the air.
“Wow,” Kit said as she appeared beside him. “Too bad we're leaving. This place is full of interesting characters.”
“Nice seeing you again,” he muttered under his breath.
She patted his hurt shoulder. “Poor darling. Good work back there, by the way. I was wondering if you'd be able to pull it off.”
Caim started making his way through the crowd of people. He ground his teeth together when a laughing Northman holding two mugs jostled his shoulder. When he got to the bar, he waved to get the attention of the nearest bartender, but he had to wait a few minutes before someone saw him.
“We're heading out,” he said over the noise. “I need to pay up.”
While she went to find the owner, Caim put his back to the bar and surveyed the crowd. He didn't see any familiar faces.
Kit eased up beside him, mimicking his pose against the counter. “He's not here.”
“Who?”
“Svart. Last I checked in, he was laid up in some woman's shack with snow packed around his jaw. Malig thumped him pretty good.”
The innkeeper shuffled over. “You leaving?”
“Yes. How much for last night?”
The innkeeper put up two thick fingers. “You pay for two night.”
Caim held his gaze. After several heartbeats, he asked, “How much?”
“Two big-heads.”
Caim felt a sigh rise from his chest. A big-head was the northern term for a double-weight golden soldat. It was more than most people in Othir made in a fortnight. Up here, it was a gods-damn fortune. “You want to try again?”
“Eh? You no pay?” The innkeeper glared under thickset eyebrows.
Caim growled to himself. This whole place was a nightmare. He reached into his pouch and plunked down two large gold coins. He started to leave, but the innkeeper said something in the northern tongue that sounded like a curse and started rattling off to the tap-woman while holding up the coins. Caim started to argue that they weren't counterfeit when he saw the markings on the faces. They were Nimean mint. Shit. Those are going to stand out around here.
He turned to go and almost ran into a man blocking his path. Caim started to go around, but the man put up a hand. Caim stopped, his right hand slipping down behind his back. The man was lean, an inch or two shorter than him. He wore a motley collection of scuffed leathers with a pair of rawhide gloves tucked in to one of two belts wrapped around his waist. The only obvious weapon was a long knife on his hip, almost as big as a suete.
Caim waited, his legs tensed. Then Kit floated over. “Oh. You've met Egil.”
“You're Caim?” the man asked.
It took everything Caim had not to reply with the man's name and see how that grabbed him. This guy didn't look like one of Svart's henchmen, but Caim was done with guessing. “I don't know you.”
“Name's Egil.”
“What do you want?”
“It's more what I heard you want. It's a little thick in here. Want to talk outside?”
Caim looked over Egil's shoulder. Aemon and the others were already outside. He felt the shadows stir. Then Kit's hand passed through his arm. “Be good!” she said. “He's a nice guy.”
Another good egg, huh, Kit? Okay. I'll play along.
“All right,” he said. “After you.”
Egil pushed through the press of bodies. Caim watched for covert nods or signals to anyone else in the room, but didn't see anything suspicious.
Kit hovered in front of him, keeping pace as he headed to the door. “Teromich sent him. He's a real guide.”
“Now you care?” Caim whispered, and covered it with a cough as he put on his gloves.
She pouted. “That's not fair. I was trying to find someone like him when you met that Svart. Anyway, I came in time to get you out of that mess.”
He scowled at her description of the fight at the storehouse, and Kit blew him a kiss before she sank into the floor.
The wind hit Caim in the face as he exited. If anything, it felt colder than before. With no sun, he wondered how cold it would get on the wastes, and then he remembered where they were headed. The cold was the least of his problems.
Egil walked a few paces from the door. Light shined from the windows of the surrounding buildings—the brothel next door gave off enough for them to see each other.
“The trader, Teromich, told me you're looking for a guide,” Egil said. “He said I could find you and your men here.”
“How did you know it was me at the bar?”
Egil smiled. He was missing an upper front tooth. “He gave me a description. Not too tall, long scar on the cheek, and the meanest eyes he'd ever seen. You fit the bill.”
The man had a quiet, almost cautious, way about him, but he also sounded confident.
“We're going north.” Caim rolled his shoulders and felt the sutures pull. He didn't know anything about the wastes beyond what little he'd learned from Kas, but he had a suspicion that the farther north they went, the more dangerous it would get.
Egil made a small shrug. “All right.”
“You know these lands pretty well?”
“Been hunting and trapping them all my life. Hunting's slow this season, so I thought taking you all for a walk would be a nice change.”
A smile tugged at Caim's lips. “Okay. There's only one hitch. We're leaving now.”
“If you can wait a bit, I'll get my gear. Or we can stop at my place on the way out. It's not far from here.”
They agreed upon a price, which was less than Caim anticipated, and headed around to the back of the hostel where the Eregoths were leading the horses out of the stable. Caim made introductions as he swung into his saddle.
After shaking Egil's hand, Aemon said, “I wish we could have stayed longer. For the animals' sake. They're still a little thin.”
“That can't be helped,” Caim said.
They left the yard. Ice crackled under their steeds' hooves as they rode through the dark streets. Caim kept a sharp watch as they rode past rows of taverns and flophouses. A dog barked a few blocks away. Egil's house was small, little more than a wooden shack with a peaked roof. Caim and the others waited in the lane while he went inside.
“What's this guy's story?” Malig asked.
“Teromich sent him.” Caim looked over his shoulder. “He knows the Northlands, and we can afford him.”
“I hope he doesn't turn out to be another fucking setup.”
Caim nodded. The shadows were quiet, which he took for a good sign. And there was always Kit. She was probably looking over them. At least, he wanted to think so. She'd certainly been more attentive since they left Liovard, for better and worse.
The door opened, and Egil came out with a pack over his shoulder. A girl wrapped in a woolen housecoat stood in the doorway. She kissed him good-bye and closed the door as Egil walked over to them.
“Do you have a mount?” Caim as
ked.
“No,” Egil replied. “But I'll keep up.”
He led them through the dim streets past the outlying buildings and onto a wide, snow-packed road. Once they were beyond the town, Caim wanted to dig his heels into his mount's sides and take off, but he kept it to a steady walking pace. A wind blew down from the north, searing the insides of his nose and mouth.
They rode for several candlemarks, and the sky darkened from slate gray to charcoal. The wastes spread before them, a magnificent desolation bereft of even an occasional hill or wood to break up the monotony. The others couldn't see much beyond the light of the two lanterns they carried, but they weren't missing anything. They traveled on what passed for a road, an ice-encrusted trail broad enough for a pair of riders abreast. Egil walked at the head of the small company with one of the lanterns. Good to his word, he managed to keep up. In fact, from time to time he would range ahead of them. While Caim rode, fighting the urge to yawn, he studied their guide. Egil's coat was patched together from a variety of animal skins, the hood flapping on his back. He also had stiff hide gauntlets that came up nearly to his elbows and furry pants tucked into his boots. His only gear was his belt knife and the rucksack, yet he moved with the practiced ease of someone at home in his environment.
Caim was rubbing his gloves to work some warmth into his extremities when an amazing thing happened. Crimson pinpricks appeared in the sky. At first it was just a handful peeking through the inky veil of the night sky, but then more appeared until they covered the firmament like an array of twinkling rubies.
“Saronna's ivory teats!” Dray swore.
The others stopped and admired the view. Something bothered Caim about them, but he couldn't say what.
Then Aemon said, “They're all wrong.”
The familiar constellations were gone. This time of year the Sickle should have been right over their heads, but that space was empty save for a few red stars in a different pattern. Caim saw something that sort of resembled the Hind, but it was much too far north and its brightest stars were in the wrong position. A superstitious dread crept into his chest.
