Shadowborne

by Matthew Callahan

  The door burst open and troops flooded into the room just as the brothers reached Will’s hidden place in the cross section of the beams. Will braced himself against the wall and then crawled along on his belly until his eyes were just over the edge, staring down the three stories to the men below.

  They were equipped with clubs and armored in metal and leather, far better armor than the men who guarded them when they first arrived. There were fourteen in all, each peering intently around the room. One was distracted by the rough-handled bundle in his arm: Ynarra. Her eyes were tear stained and she was holding a hand to her cheek. The nerves in Will’s stomach turned to pure anger.

  “Spread out and find them!” one of them barked. The leader, Will assumed.

  The men dispersed in groups of three except for the one holding Ynarra and one who closed and locked the door before standing imposingly in front of it. Mad was silent, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. They waited impatiently as the men scoured the room, shoving aside furniture and flipping their beds over. The contents of the room were scattered and thrown haphazardly. After a few minutes, they reconvened in the center of the room after calling out their lack of findings.

  The leader turned to Ynarra and began to speak too quietly for Will to hear. Ynarra was shaking her head frantically and pleading with him.

  “Madigan, they think she’s hiding us.”

  “If they touch her…” The steel in his voice was full of anger and indignation as he shifted into a crouch.

  And, as if Mad’s words had been an invitation, the leader backhanded Ynarra across the face. She collapsed to the floor and curled into a sobbing ball.

  The roar that erupted from Madigan was all rage and fury and spite. With the rope twisted around his arm, he raced along the beams and began to climb down faster than Will had imagined possible.

  “They’re in the rafters!” The shout from one of the men proved to be a futile warning as Madigan swung down and barreled into the troops. The noctori blazed to life in his hands.

  As soon as Madigan had their attention, Will withdrew a fang into his left hand and grabbed a rope before propelling himself forward off the ledge. He braced himself as the rope went rigid with tension and arced him toward the wall. Catching the wall at a run, he raced along the side as more shouts rang from the troops. Gauging the final distance, Will pushed off and leapt, swinging down to kick one of the soldiers with the full force of his weight. As the man went flying, Will released the rope, withdrew his other blade, and set himself against the men.

  It was the first time in his life he had engaged in any combat where he was so well and truly outnumbered. Growing up, Jervin and Madigan would team up against him at times, but Will had never before faced more than two opponents. Will finally understood what it meant to have been personally trained by the Master of Blades.

  As he and Madigan spun and wove between the men, time seemed to slow down. Every move Will made was calculated and precise, whereas the troops moved as though they were battling underwater. Will flowed amongst them with ease, his fear and trepidation suddenly replaced by total confidence, amazed by his own speed.

  When they had first arrived at the Nordoth and been set upon, both he and Madigan had been injured, unprepared, and utterly exhausted. Now they had had weeks of rest and recuperation. The difference showed.

  The strapped leather armor that Will wore was flexible yet strong and allowed him to use his limbs to deflect the clubs with greater ease. While Madigan tore through his opponents, Will’s own fell to the ground screaming as the dragon fangs pierced their armor as if it were paper, delicately caressing flesh with their anguishing kiss. Within no time at all, over a dozen groaning men were strewn throughout the room. The last had forced Ynarra to her feet and was gripping her tightly.

  Madigan was in a low stance, the noctori held above his head in preparation to strike as Will stepped next to his brother. The man yanked Ynarra’s head back by the hair and sank his fingers into her throat as she gave a choked cry.

  “Drop your weapons!” he sneered over Ynarra’s struggle for breath.

  Will stared from Ynarra to the cruel man whose fingers were digging into her throat. Madigan released a feral snarl next to him and when the man turned his focus toward his brother, Will shot his hand out, the fang leaving his grasp and spiraling through the air. The butt of the hilt struck like a battering ram against the man’s throat. He gasped and fell to the ground, twitching and writhing as his hands shot to his neck. A moment later, he faded from consciousness.

  Ynarra, released, inhaled deeply and stepped away from the fallen man. She looked to Madigan, her bruised face lighting up with happiness.

  “Are you alright?” Madigan’s voice was strained with concern and the exultation of battle.

  “Yes,” Ynarra said. She smiled and curtsied, then quickly turned and opened the door, darting from the room before Madigan could say another word.

  “Impressive,” said a gravelly voice from behind them. Shocked, Will and Madigan spun. A dark-skinned woman clad in mottled black and green stood before them, a dark cloak upon her shoulders. Her arms were crossed but she had a long staff strapped to her back. In the bright room, her emerald eyes glowed unnaturally. “The Crow certainly doesn’t disappoint.”

  Madigan raced forward brandishing his noctori. He was struck by an unseen force and flew backward to the ground. He cried out as he tried to struggle to his feet, unable to do so. Will raised his remaining blade and risked a glance at his brother. He was lying rigid and immobilized in an unnatural position on the ground.

  Will turned back to the woman and made to rush forward to engage the stranger, only to discover that his legs seemed fastened to the ground. A sudden panic gripped him and he struggled to keep himself from surrounding the area in his Shade. Instead, he tightened his grip on his remaining blade and raised it protectively.

  “That won’t be necessary,” the woman said, raising her hand and motioning for Will to stop. The room became shrouded in a pale haze of dust. “Friends shouldn’t fight.”

  Friends? Will had never seen this lady in his life and, after her men ambushed them, she had the audacity to call them friends? Through the haze, he could see that she was smiling.

  “Who the hell are you?” Will’s voice was ice, even to his own ears.

  She spread her hands. “I am Cephora, young William Davis. I come at your request to aid you in your journey.”

  19

  The Street of Ash

  Madigan gave a sudden, sharp inhale and sprawled to the ground as whatever had been gripping his body released. Immediately, the force that had been pinning Will’s feet to the ground also dissipated and the air around them cleared. Able to move freely, Will gave the stranger a wary eye but did not lower his guard. “Cephora?”

  The woman nodded. “Prime of the Seekers.”

  Madigan jumped to his feet and brandished his noctori, glaring at the woman harshly. “What the hell was that?” He looked ready to spring at her again.

  Cephora spread her hands and smiled before clasping them behind her. “You are not the only ones with talents, gentlemen.”

  “I did not request your aid,” Will said, his voice sharp as he spat the words. While he was trying to give Cephora his full attention, some of the men on the ground began to stir and he side-stepped so none were at his back.

  “No?” Cephora said. “I received word from the Crow that the descendants of Jervin Thorne were intent on a risky venture that would most likely end in their demise, were they not guided properly. I stand before you as your guide. Was I mistaken?”

  “Davis,” said Madigan. “Jervin Davis.”

  Cephora gestured that the matter was inconsequential. “Thorne, Davis, separate names, same person. I’ll not be amending my own understanding of the man this late in the game.”

  Madigan and Will locked eyes and Will shook his head. They did not know this woman. Was it some ploy by the Crow? If they opened up to her the
re was no telling how she might behave. But if she truly was here to help, he didn’t want to risk turning away an ally. He and Madigan would be back on their own. They couldn’t afford to throw an opportunity away. “These men, they’re yours?” Madigan said.

  She laughed and shook her head. “These men are barely even men. Prisoners awaiting the execution block who offered to sacrifice the remainder of their lives to serve Undermyre by engaging the pair of you. A last glimmer of honor for an otherwise miserable existence.” She shook her head and stepped forward, glancing down at the bodies littering the room. “And yet, somehow you managed not to strike down a single one. Very interesting.”

  Will spun and looked at the men on the ground, groaning and rolling as they began to regain consciousness. “They offered themselves?”

  Cephora nodded. “You could say they viewed it as their penance.”

  “To what end?” Madigan said. His eyes had not left Cephora. He was still tense and ready to strike, like a cat waiting for the opportune moment to pounce on its prey.

  “To aid me in determining what you were capable of.”

  “And to do that, you wanted us to slaughter them?” Mad said as his temper flared white hot. “You put Ynarra, an innocent, in danger just to test us?”

  Cephora waved her hand again and shook her head. “The method is not my own but rather our mutual host’s. While I do not necessarily approve of his methods, they served their purpose. Such is the way of things.”

  Will muttered under his breath at her words. So, the Crow hasn’t forgotten us. But it was worse than that. He had brought in a stranger and found ill-trained men to send to their deaths. And after abandoning the brothers for a month, he had caused pain to the one person who had been kind to them since their arrival.

  Will’s lips curled in distaste. “And what is to come of them now?”

  Cephora stared at Will as the young man stood bristling. “That is not for me to decide. As I said, I was merely summoned to help you. The happenings of the Nordoth are outside my control.”

  A knock at the door caught Will so off guard that he flinched and spun, blade at the ready. But rather than another angry force or surprising stranger, Ynarra entered carrying a tray with a bottle and three glasses. There was a bright red welt upon her cheek. She smiled and set the tray down on the table before curtsying and turning to leave.

  “Ynarra,” Madigan began, “are you alright?”

  “Oh,” she said with a quick smile at him, “quite alright, thank you!” And then she spun and walked quickly out of the room.

  Cephora chuckled and crossed to the tray, lifting it and gesturing toward the library. “Come. Let’s go chat and see if we can’t start anew. There is much to be done.”

  Will didn’t move. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Mad didn’t either. Instead, Mad extinguished his noctori and turned his back to the retreating figure. “We’ll pass.”

  Cephora stopped in her tracks and cocked her head back to them. “Oh?” she said. “Come, one drink.”

  “We were actually just leaving,” Madigan said. He walked back and retrieved Will’s fang from the still-unconscious man.

  Cephora sighed and looked at the bottle, whispering to herself, “And not even a brief moment’s respite.” She turned back to face the brothers. Setting the tray of glasses aside but grabbing the bottle by the neck, she walked toward the room’s entrance. “Very well, then. Let’s be off.”

  Will glanced to his brother as Cephora closed the distance. “What?”

  Cephora smiled at him. “I said I was here to help you on your journey. If you’d prefer to leave now, then we leave now. But a bit of refreshment before the road never hurt.”

  “We’ll be fine on our own,” Mad said.

  There was a sharp, single knock at the entrance to the room before the doorway opened quickly. Four new strangers entered with crude clubs. They began making their way around to each of the injured men on the floor and Will felt something tighten in his throat.

  Cephora sighed and gestured to the door. “Come, if you wish to leave the Nordoth, we shall leave the Nordoth. There is an inn on the edge of town that will serve far better for conversation than this secluded tower.” And she stepped from the room, bottle clutched firmly in hand.

  “Mad?”

  “I don’t trust her,” he said, watching the club-bearing men as they began dragging the injured toward the center of the room.

  “But if she really is here to help…?”

  Mad shook his head and retrieved his pack from beneath the stairs. “One drink. One.”

  Will nodded. Together, weaving amongst the remaining men on the floor, the pair followed in Cephora’s tracks. To Will’s surprise, the hall was far cleaner than it had been the last time they peered outside of the room. There was still a covering of dust and a sense of decay, but the contradictory pristine filth of the floor was gone.

  Cephora smirked as they joined her. “Good choice. The inn serves the best spirits in the city. You won’t be disappointed.”

  In silence, the three descended through the long, spiraling halls and stairs of the Nordoth. Cephora took them a different path than the one they had taken when they first arrived with Ynarra, a far narrower path that wound with incredibly steep stairs. To Will’s surprise, they reached the bottom level of the fortress in a fraction of the time and made their way outside into the hazy daylight of the courtyard. How did I not find that staircase before? That would have made planning an exit infinitely more feasible.

  “Is our ever-gracious host going to be wishing us well as we depart?” Madigan said as he surveyed the courtyard, his voice thick with sarcasm.

  “The Crow?” replied Cephora. “He moved on to other considerations as soon as he sent a dispatch for me. I doubt he even knew you were still present in the Nordoth.”

  “Of course,” Will said under his breath. Despite his frustration with the Crow, he couldn’t help but smile as they crossed the courtyard. It felt amazing to have open sky above him, even if that sky had the strange purple-orange hue of Undermyre’s.

  They crossed the empty courtyard and exited the gates on foot. They made their way down a stone staircase that had been cut from the mountainside, following the winding cart path by which they must have entered the fortress. As they descended, the city sprawled before them and Will marveled at how truly large the Nordoth was to tower over the decayed grandeur of Undermyre.

  The buildings began to rise around them, stretching taller than he had imagined possible when he gazed from their room in the heights of the fortress. The strange light from the foreign sky was augmented by glowing lanterns that floated along the streets, emitting their own pale light and bathing the streets in their shine. Each building was tall and narrow, as were the streets they navigated. Towering statues were everywhere, some broken, some whole, but all of them constructed with a meticulous attention to detail. There were carvings of creatures from the very depths of Will’s mind, fantastical creatures that beguiled his imagination. It was splendid and beautiful and sad beyond measure as every single structure seemed to be on the brink of ruin.

  The people of Undermyre were not at all as Will had expected. They were dressed in every manner of clothing, elements of every bygone era of his home springing to his mind. Everyone he passed was so terribly focused on whatever task they were undertaking that it was as if they were truly and utterly oblivious to the world around them. Such was the studious intensity that, on more than one occasion, he had to dart out of the way of someone so completely engaged in whatever they were doing that they nearly barreled into him.

  “Time is a different commodity here than you are accustomed to.” Cephora’s voice broke the long silence. Apparently, the look on Will’s face had given away his thoughts.

  “So we’ve heard,” Madigan said. His tone was still flat but Will could see that his eyes were as wide as his own.

  “Here, people do as they deem worthwhile,” Cephora continued as if n
ot having heard Madigan’s comment. “Petty judgments around such trivialities as clothing are almost nonexistent.”

  “So I see,” Will said as he passed a man in splendid Victorian formal attire conversing very loudly with a brick wall.

  “Things are not always as they seem, William,” Cephora said as they rounded a bend. “Ah, here we are, the Street of Ash.”

  She gestured wide to large double doors wedged between two gargantuan, strangely contorted buildings. The moniker was plastered just above the doors in a rigid script. Cephora pushed through the doors, Will just a few steps behind and Madigan taking up the rear.

  Loud music greeted him the moment Will crossed the threshold, so loud that he was momentarily taken aback. It was an electric vibration that set his body swaying lightly before he could respond. He found himself attempting to hum along to the song in real time, despite having no idea what it was.

  The room itself was wide and red and curtained, the floating lanterns swaying and dancing in time with the music. Madigan’s face, too, was alight, his head nodding and bobbing in a mirror of Will’s own as they continued inside. In front of them were small tables of people drinking and moving, the edges of the room littered with intimate hideaways and curtained alcoves. The walls were covered in balconies and bridges that stretched upward, the lanterns spinning and weaving amongst them all. In the center of the room was a dance floor, empty save for a single dark-haired girl moving in time with the music.

  A hearty laugh from Cephora broke their reverie. She beckoned them forward and they followed as she crossed the room, deftly maneuvering between the oblivious patrons, lost in the music and their own minds. Will’s eyes were drawn to the dancing girl the entire time. They stepped up to the bar and Cephora nodded with a smile toward the bartender. She waved in return and after a moment made her way over.

  “Welcome, welcome!” she said with a wide smile. “What’ll it be, friends?”

  Cephora leaned back and gestured to the brothers with a smile. “Go ahead.”