The Truth of Shadows

by Jacob Peppers

  Eventually, he topped a rise and saw a town in the distance and without knowing how, he knew that he had reached Celadra. Somewhere within that place, the one who had taken Sonya waited. He, and who knew how many others. Somewhere, too, there might be a healer, one Alesh could find to cure the infection coursing within him. If, that was, such a cure was still possible.

  Those who had taken Sonya would have laid a trap for him, that he knew. They would be lying in wait, ready to pounce, and in his weakened state it would not take much at all for them to bring him down. He had passed the last town over a day ago, and were he to turn around, he knew he would not make it there before the fever overcame him. So, with a slow deep breath to steady himself, he began down the hill toward the town of Celadra and whatever fate awaited him there. There was nothing else to be done.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “What does it even mean, anyway, stealing? It’s just a word, idn’t it. Like ‘criminal’ or ‘king.’ Just a word.”

  “Yeah,” Rion grumbled, “just a word. Like ‘execution’ or ‘torture.’”

  Katherine was unable to repress her sigh. Marta had roused a short time ago while they were loading her onto the two horses Darl had stolen from a farmhouse. Katherine was glad the girl was alive and well, but she would have just as soon she slept for a few hours longer. Since she’d woken, they’d been riding south, and the entire time Katherine had been forced to listen to her and Rion bickering like two children about the morality of stealing. If it continued much longer, she was sure she’d have to really start considering the morality of murder.

  “Right, exactly my point,” the girl said. “I mean, sure, stealin’ can be bad, but if you ain’t got it, and you need it, is it still bad? Speakin’ of, did I ever tell you the story about how I stole the sun once?”

  “The sun?” Rion said, incredulous.

  “That’s right, the big one, up in the sky there.” She pointed at it then, as if they all might have thought she’d meant some other sun. “But I put it back, so it wasn’t really stealin’. Borrowin’, maybe.”

  Rion made a disgusted sound. “You didn’t steal the damned sun,” he snapped.

  “No,” the girl said, “that’s what I’m tellin’ you. I borrowed it. The same ways the dark-skinned fella there borrowed the horses.”

  “Somehow I doubt the farmer will see it that way, or the soldiers, when they find us.”

  “Well, least they can see,” Marta said. “On account of I returned the sun and all.”

  Rion hissed and was opening his mouth to speak, but Katherine beat him to it. “Enough, both of you,” she said. “You didn’t steal the sun, Marta, that’s a lie just like all the others.”

  The girl looked ashamed, refusing to meet her eyes, and Rion laughed. “Of course she didn’t, thank the gods someone is—”

  “And you, Rion,” she said, “why don’t you just let it go? First of all, yes, Darl stole some horses, but soldiers are already after us, and the gods know they can’t kill us twice. So why don’t you just shut up and either say something productive or don’t say anything?”

  He opened his mouth as if he intended to protest, but in the end he only scowled. The girl too, remained silent, and Katherine breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Finally. Peace. None of Rion’s incessant complaining or the girl’s outrageous lies. Of course, it couldn’t last, and less than five minutes later, Marta was speaking again.

  “The moon. Now, that might be fun.”

  “What’s that?” Rion asked, and Katherine cringed. Seconds later, the two were back in a heated debate about whether or not it was possible to steal the moon and—since that wasn’t stupid enough—what a person would do with it once they had it.

  Darl raised his hand where he rode ahead, motioning for them to stop. He led his horse to the side of the road and hopped out of the saddle, frowning down at something Katherine couldn’t see. After a moment, he turned, beckoning them forward, and Katherine hopped off her own horse, all too happy for an excuse to escape her two companions, if even only for a moment.

  She heard them dismounting as well and turned. “You had both best stay here—I’ll see what’s going on.”

  “Stay here?” Rion asked, shooting a scowl at Marta.

  “That’s right,” Katherine said, “the soldiers might come, and we wouldn’t want to all be grouped up, if they did. Besides,” she continued, meeting his eyes, “there’s less chance of one of us being killed that way.” Or one of us becoming a murderer, as far as that goes.

  He opened his mouth, perhaps to disagree, but Katherine started away, ignoring Rion’s groan from behind her as Marta started up again. She made it to Darl and followed his eyes down to something lying in the grass on the side of the road. “What is it?”

  He frowned. “A broken shaft from an arrow or crossbow bolt.”

  Katherine frowned. “But what is it doing here, in the middle of nowhere? We haven’t seen a single traveler on the road and—” She cut off, realizing whose blood it most likely was staining the grass at the base of the tree, whose flesh the arrow must have pierced. She turned to the Ferinan who watched her with a troubled gaze. “Alesh.”

  He nodded. “I believe so.”

  “Well,” she said, swallowing. “At least…I mean, at least he got it out, right? And he isn’t here, so he must still be alive…” She trailed off, all too aware of how weak her argument sounded, even to her own ears.

  “Yes, or at least he was.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked in a breathy, scared voice. There was something in the Ferinan’s tone that she did not like.

  Instead of answering, he knelt and picked up the piece of wood, lifting it to his nose and smelling it. With a frown of disgust, he tossed it away, nodding. “As I feared. Infection—you can smell it.”

  “Infection,” Katherine repeated, and the word had never seemed so full of dire portent as it did then. “How…how bad?”

  He regarded her, his expression somber. “Bad. Another day, perhaps two. If something is not done…”

  He did not finish, and Katherine did not need him to. His meaning was clear enough, and she found herself remembering the dream, remembering Deitra telling her how important it was that they find Alesh. She stared down at the blood-stained grass, at the wooden shaft, and felt an unreasonable hate for that small sliver of wood. To think that the world’s hopes, its chances of surviving, might be destroyed by something so simple…it was almost more than she could stand. Then her eyes caught on the blood, and she felt a flare of hope. “The blood. It’s still wet.”

  The Ferinan nodded. “Yes. The Son of the Morning must have passed here only a few hours ago—I suspect some time in the night.”

  “We’re close then,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s find him.” She walked back to her horse, climbed into the saddle, and the two cut off their bickering enough to study her.

  “What was it? Why does Darl look so worried?” Rion asked.

  “It’s nothing. Alesh is close—let’s go.”

  ***

  The town of Celadra was quiet, too quiet, and Rion found himself thinking of Strellia, the memories of a whole town out to kill him and his companions still fresh in his mind. “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “So you’ve said,” Katherine said. “But it doesn’t matter what we like—Alesh is here. Somewhere.”

  “Yeah?” Rion asked, glancing around at the empty buildings, at the abandoned street through which they led the horses. “Where is he then?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she led her horse forward to where the Ferinan rode up front. “I don’t think she likes you,” Marta said from beside him.

  Rion scowled. “Oh? And I suppose she just loves you then, is that it?”

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be she does. Definitely likes me more than you anyway—you talk too much.”

  Rion’s face heated. “I talk too much? Gods, you haven’t stopp
ed talking since we found you.”

  The girl said something else, but Rion wasn’t listening, too busy watching as Darl and Katherine stopped in front of a small building, its sign marking it as a healer’s storefront. Frowning, he rode up to them.

  “—would have come here,” Katherine was saying.

  “Perhaps,” Darl agreed. “We had best check at any rate.”

  Rion suddenly felt very vulnerable, out in the open as they were. “You sure we should stop?” he said, studying the town around them. “I mean…if Alesh is here, surely he’ll hear us and come out.”

  “Unless he can’t,” Katherine said.

  Rion frowned. “And what does that mean? Why wouldn’t he be able to—”

  “Enough, Rion,” Katherine snapped. “Just…wait here with Marta. We’re going to check it out.”

  With that, she dismounted, the Ferinan following suit. The two hitched their horses to a post made for the purpose and soon they were disappearing into the healer’s shop, the sound of the door closing behind them echoing like a thundercrack in the stillness. “I don’t like this,” Rion muttered to himself. “Not at all.”

  “What’s to like?”

  He turned to see the girl, Marta, beside him. She, too, was casting worried glances at their surroundings, as if she expected an army to materialize out of thin air at any moment. Not that she had much to worry about. Being invisible sounded like a pretty damned good trick just then, better than rolling the god’s eyes at dice every time, that much was certain.

  There was a scuffling sound from a nearby alleyway, and Rion spun, his hand reaching for one of the blades in his tunic. But he saw nothing. Just empty streets and alleys. Just your damned imagination, he thought. At least, this time. And the next? Would he turn around only to see a town full of people bearing down on them, moving in that eerie, silent way that the people in Strellia had? A cold chill ran through him, and he found himself holding his breath, trying to look everywhere at once. “Come on,” he said after a minute. “Let’s see if they need any help.”

  For once, the girl didn’t argue, but followed him silently through the door, apparently as eager to be off the street as he was. The inside of the healer’s shop was cast in a gloom only slightly marred by the dull sunlight filtering through the windows. The walls of the room were outlined with shelves on which sat a collection of herbs, vials, and mortars and pestles, enough to rival some of the best healers’ shops in the city, and Rion supposed that, so far away from civilization, a well-stocked healer’s would be a priority.

  A thin layer of dust coated everything, and of Katherine and Darl there was no sign save the imprint their feet had made on the dusty floor. Several doors branched off from the main room, leading to what Rion suspected were rooms set aside for patients too sick to go back home and that the healer—or healers—would want to see to personally. He saw that one of the doors was open and started toward it. As he drew closer, he could hear the faint, muffled sound of conversation from somewhere within. “Stay here.”

  As he walked, Rion was all too aware of the prints his own feet left on the floor, feeling as if he were trespassing in a place he did not belong. It was as if he were traveling through some great mausoleum in which only the dead were welcome.

  They were inside the room, huddled around the small bed. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Katherine started, turning to look at him. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Trying not to die,” he said dryly, “same as always. Anyhow, what are you looking at?”

  The Ferinan reached down and grabbed something, then held it up for him to see. Several strips of bandages, coated in blood as if they’d been dunked in a bucket of the stuff, and a half-empty vial of an amber liquid he didn’t recognize. “What’s all that then?” Rion asked.

  Darl met his eyes. “Someone came here to patch themselves up—there was a single line of footprints in the floor when we walked in. Whoever it was, they lost a lot of blood.”

  Rion felt his heart speed up in his chest, and he studied their worried looks. “That doesn’t mean it’s Alesh. It’s a town, after all, and this is a healer’s. Anybody that gets hurt would be brought here. Shit, for all we know it might have just been one fool farmer or another treated his mule badly and got a good kicking for it.”

  “One of the farmers—and mules—that we have seen cluttering the town?” Katherine asked, raising an eyebrow. “And never mind that—you were supposed to stay with the horses.”

  Rion snorted. “Gods, woman, what do you think’s going to happen to them? The town’s dead, all of it. They’ll be fine for a few minutes. Unless they maybe die of boredom.”

  “That’s not the point,” she began, “it—” But whatever she had been about to say was drowned out by the first sound of any significance they’d heard since entering the town. It was the sound of the horses. Screaming.

  The three of them rushed into the main room to see Marta slamming the door shut and throwing the latch. She turned back to them, blinking. “Any of you know some fellas in black armor and red cloaks?”

  Rion’s heart lurched in his chest. “Why?”

  “Well,” the girl said, “they just killed the horses.”

  Katherine turned and scowled at Rion, but it was Marta who spoke. “Why would they do such a thing? They were nice horses. They listened to my stories without calling me a liar.”

  “Your lies, you mean,” Rion muttered, but he was barely paying attention, his thoughts on the death of the horses, on what that meant.

  “Right,” the girl said. “Still, that don’t explain why they would kill them.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Rion snapped. “They don’t want us going anywhere.”

  “How many?” Darl asked, and the Ferinan spoke so rarely that they all turned to look at him.

  Marta hesitated. “Eight, maybe? It’s hard to say for sure on account of some of them went around back.”

  The three adults shared a look at that. There was no reason for them to go around the back of the healer’s. Unless, of course, there was a way out. Unless there was a way in. “See to it,” Darl said, nodding to Rion and Katherine as he hefted his spear. “I will watch the front.”

  “Shouldn’t we—” Rion began, but cut off at the sound of someone banging on the door to the shop.

  “Go!” Darl said. “Secure the door, if you can.”

  Rion started away, pausing to glance back and see the Ferinan and the girl struggling to push one of the large shelves over. It fell, sending glass vials falling to the floor where they shattered. Then they pushed it into place, and moments later the shelf’s bulk blocked the bottom half of the doorway.

  His attention was pulled away as Katherine grabbed hold of him. “You check that door,” she said, pointing to one of the closed doors. “I’ll look here.”

  Struggling to bring some semblance of order to his frantic thoughts, Rion nodded, opening the door she’d indicated and stepping inside. He cast his gaze around the room. A bed, a small nightstand, a shelf, but no door, no way out—and then a woman’s scream sent chills down his spine, and he rushed out of the room.

  A quick glance at the door showed that the Redeemers had broken it down, and the Ferinan was doing what he could to hold them off, his spear darting forward with incredible speed, like a snake lashing out, swift and deadly. But they kept coming even as the wounded among their number fell away. Rion couldn’t tell for sure in the chaos, but it looked as if dozens crowded the doorway, trying to climb over the makeshift barricade. More than eight, that was certain. Far more. The girl, Marta, stood a little way further back, slinging potion vials at the men there as if she were at some county fair trying to win a prize.

  Rion could do nothing to help them, so he said a quick prayer that the Ferinan was able to hold the door as he charged into the room into which Katherine had disappeared. This one wasn’t a bedroom but what appeared to serve as an office or study. A large desk sat in the room’s center and behind
it, a door. A door that was currently open and crowded with red-cloaked men pushing their way inside. Shit.

  Katherine screamed again, and Rion spun to see that one of the men had pushed her back against the wall. Both of the woman’s hands were clamped around the wrist of her attacker’s sword arm, desperately struggling to keep the steel at bay.

  Rion reached into his tunic, withdrawing one of his blades and—in the same motion—hurled it at the man. It flipped through the air, end over end, before it finally lodged itself in the Redeemer’s back, between his shoulder blades. The Redeemer bellowed in pain, stumbling away from Katherine and dropping his sword, pawing at his back in an attempt to withdraw the dagger that was just out of his reach.

  Katherine was gasping even as she reached down to scoop up the man’s sword, but Rion had no time to worry about her. Another moment, and the Redeemers crowding the doorway would be inside, and all the luck in the world wouldn’t save them then. So he did the only thing he could think of—a thing he’d tried, with only moderate success, to avoid all his life: he charged into battle.

  The red-cloaked man at the front was big, at least fifty pounds heavier than Rion himself. He was stepping inside to allow another of his companions in, so Rion charged into him, his shoulder leading, knocking him backward and forcing him out of the doorway to give himself an opportunity to close and latch it.

  At least, that’s what he meant to do. What actually happened was that the large Redeemer was only knocked back one step, but remained standing, caught by those behind him, while Rion himself bounced off as if he’d struck a stone wall. He stumbled and would have fallen had his back not struck the desk in the center of the room.

  The Redeemer grinned cruelly, then drew his sword, swinging it in a vicious downward arc. With a yelp, Rion rolled backward off the desk, narrowly avoiding the steel that cleaved deeply into the wood. He didn’t manage to get his feet under him after the desperate maneuver, and he hit the ground hard, cursing. He jerked himself back to his feet in time to see his attacker trying to pull his sword free of the oak desk. Before the man had a chance to get it loose, Rion lunged forward, jumping onto the desk and burying one of his knives in the man’s throat.