Vengeance

by Gail Z. Martin

  He had made adjustments to the wording, more on gut feel than out of specific knowledge, trying to adapt it to opening the Rift instead of a portal to the After. Although we might be needing that if this doesn’t go well.

  As he chanted, Rigan watched the sky. He had not been entirely truthful when he told Trent his plan. He suspected that a working of the magnitude of opening a Rift would require not only blood magic, but the shedding of lifeblood. The blood witches used the poor wretches they snatched from the street or the criminals they pulled from their jails. Rigan intended to use himself as the source to get his friends home. He hoped Corran would forgive him, eventually.

  Rigan felt the magic rise around him. He sensed the interest of creatures lurking in the shadows and saw the reflected light in their eyes. Magic and fresh meat were an irresistible call to the monsters of the Rift, and Rigan knew they were surrounded. Trent had been right; if this didn’t work, they would never make it back to the cave.

  Rigan continued his chant, taking comfort in the mostly familiar words, imagining that he could hear Corran’s voice rising and falling with his own. He anchored his magic in the air around them, unwilling to take a chance on the tainted ground beneath their feet, afraid that the taint that spilled out of the Rift might somehow twist his magic.

  The air stirred around them as power rose. Rigan felt it raise the hairs on his arms and make the back of his neck prickle with primal fear. He felt it tighten his stomach and speed his heart. He pulled hard on his anchor, channeling all of his magic into a single focus, willing the air to shimmer and ripple, to open into a portal home.

  He saw something begin to sparkle and raised the sharp knife over his forearm. But before he could draw the blade across his flesh, a deep, guttural growl came from the trees.

  One of the bat-faced black vestir bounded from the shadows. It shouldered Trent aside, ignoring his lit torch and his sword, shoving him toward where the air twisted and bent. Rigan turned the knife he intended for himself, rising from a crouch, expecting to feel the impact of the monster as it bore him to the ground with a crushing weight and tore him to pieces.

  “No!” Moving faster than Rigan thought possible, Mir staggered to his feet, placing himself squarely between the charging monster and his friends. The creature swiped a massive paw, throwing Mir out of its way, tearing open his belly with its long, sharp claws.

  Mir stumbled toward the circle, holding his entrails in with both hands, gasping in shock and pain. Blood spilled down over his hands, soaking his tattered clothing, pooling on the hard, dry ground. “I knew we wouldn’t make it…”

  A sound like thunder made the ground quake, a blinding light made them look away, and then a thin, fiery tear opened in the air like a rip in the fabric of the universe, and in the distance, Rigan heard Aiden shouting for them.

  “Now!” he yelled. Trent dove through the opening and Rigan pushed Mir through before plunging into the Rift himself.

  He landed in a heap on the other side, on the dead, poisoned grass of the clearing. Trent struggled to his knees, and Mir lay sprawled a few feet away.

  “Rigan!” Corran shouted.

  In the next moment, Rigan felt himself pulled into a bone-crushing embrace, barely able to breathe. “Thank the gods you’re back!” Corran said, and Rigan could feel his brother shaking, and the moisture of his tears with his face buried in the crook of Rigan’s neck.

  “Thank you,” Rigan managed, too overwhelmed and stunned to say everything in his mind. Gradually, clarity returned. Rigan leaned against Corran, and felt warm, wet heat soaking through his shirt.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Corran seemed to suddenly remember, and he pulled back, revealing his bloody forearm and the clean slash. “I knew it was going to take blood to bring you home,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave you there.”

  Rigan gave a shaky chuckle, afraid to admit how similar their thoughts had been. If the monster had not attacked and Mir had not been sacrificed, Rigan would have drawn the blade through his own flesh to satisfy the cost of passage.

  Aiden laid a hand over Corran’s arm, and the cuts healed as they watched.

  “Mir—” Rigan began.

  Aiden knelt next to the spot where Mir lay on the dry, brown grass. “He’s dead. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Rigan’s breath caught, and he struggled for composure. “We need to do right by him. We owe him that.”

  “Someone might notice us riding home with a corpse,” Aiden observed.

  “We can’t leave him here like this,” Trent said.

  “Plenty of rocks in this field,” Calfon said. “We can raise a cairn. I know you don’t have your special pigments, but surely two undertakers can send his spirit to the After without fancy paints.”

  Corran nodded. “Aye. We can do that.”

  Trent, Ross, and Calfon began fetching rocks, while Polly and Elinor sidled closer, offering to help with the ritual. Corran and Rigan raised their voices in the chant, but the litany seemed lonelier than ever on this windswept plain.

  “Thank you,” Rigan said as Mir’s spirit hesitated, then moved toward the After, tinged with relief and regret. They finished the chant and stood, then they all helped to stack the rocks over Mir’s body.

  “We need to get out of here,” Calfon said. “All that magic is going to get noticed—the wrong kind of attention. Can you ride?”

  Corran looked at Rigan, silently echoing the question. Rigan nodded. “Yeah. I might not be able to walk, but I think I can stay on a horse.”

  Trent looked as unsteady as Rigan felt. Polly ran to help him, even as Elinor moved toward Rigan. Corran drew back as Elinor reached them, and she wrapped her arms around Rigan, drawing him into a deep kiss.

  “Save it until we’re safe,” Ross ordered. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Keep the damned monsters away from my warehouses and vineyards!” Merchant Prince Kadar raged.

  Wraithwind, his blood witch, regarded the tirade impassively. “My lord, you wanted to increase the monsters in the rural areas to draw out the hunters so they would be easier to catch. Those are also the areas where your lands are located. Monsters are not precise.”

  Kadar balled his fists and tried to rein in his temper. Wraithwind was an idiot, but he also possessed the magic to swat Kadar like a fly. “Can’t you send the monsters into Tamas’s or Gorog’s lands instead?”

  Wraithwind shrugged. “I certainly can—but we’ve had no reports of hunters in those areas. If you wish to capture or kill the Valmondes and their fellow conspirators, then the monsters must go where the hunters have been seen.”

  “The harvest is coming before long. I need workers for that. I can’t run vineyards if my workers are dead or too frightened to show up. The last time you called the monsters, those bloody hunters torched one whole field of vines! And half the winery burned. Do you know how many barrels we lost? I can’t just make new to replace them! The wine has to age.”

  Wraithwind adjusted his spectacles and nodded, as if agreeing that Kadar’s observation was, indeed, a problem. “A very unfortunate loss and a waste of a good nest of monsters,” he said. “We barely got a few nights’ use out of them. It takes a toll on the Balance to open the Rifts so often.”

  “Unfortunate? That wine makes the money to keep you supplied, and those vines are our future. And that’s another thing,” Kadar snapped. “My managers have been telling tales about dead areas in other fields, places where nothing will grow—and those zones are getting bigger. What sort of dark magic is that?”

  The witch frowned and tapped his spectacles as he thought. “Oh, the taint. It’s an unfortunate result of opening so many Rifts. Part of what’s on the other side begins to spill out, and that realm holds more than monsters. It belongs to Colduraan, after all.”

  “Surely you don’t believe the Elder Gods are real,” Kadar said, condescension thick in his voice.

  “Assuredly, I do,” Wraithw
ind replied. “The Rifts lead to one of the Realms Beyond, where the First Creatures still dwell. Like Colduraan, they favor those who work blood magic. The Ancient Ones have their own magic, torn from the chaos before the worlds were created. He Who Watches, She Who Waits, Shadow of Night—the beings told of in the old lore, they’re all quite real, and we have gained their attention through the amount of blood magic being done.” He smiled. “They have a taste for blood.”

  “I care nothing for your fantasies,” Kadar snapped. “Can you fix the taint?”

  “Fix it? No, at least not without putting a stop to opening the Rifts. I keep telling you,” he chided, “magic has a price.”

  “I depend on those vineyards for my livelihood,” Kadar thundered. “I can’t have monsters and that bloody taint causing problems.” He glared at Wraithwind. “Can your magic increase the production of my vines to make up for the ones we’ve lost?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Do it,” Kadar snapped. “I don’t care about the Balance, and I don’t care about the Cull. Keep the monsters away from my warehouses, my vineyards, and my workers, make my grapes grow, and do what you need to find those damn hunters!”

  He slammed the door to the witch’s workshop behind him and stalked back to his rooms. Merely talking with Wraithwind was enough these days to put him in a foul mood. Why is it so hard for everyone to understand? Kill the hunters, eliminate the threat, go back to making a tidy profit. Must that damned witch make everything complicated?

  “I take it that your meeting didn’t go well with Wraithwind,” Joth Hanson’s voice came from the doorway. Kadar realized he had heard and ignored several knocks and that Hanson was indeed due for their briefing.

  “Come in and sit,” he snarled. “Don’t try my patience.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hanson said smoothly. “Though I’m not surprised that the witch does. He’s certainly not the most gifted of his kind, though he was the most affordable.”

  Kadar scowled at Hanson, who appeared not to notice. “It’s not only what we pay him; it’s also what his magic costs me. You heard about the warehouse and vineyard?”

  Hanson nodded. “Though, to be fair, my lord, that’s not exactly the witch’s fault. The hunters burned the building and the vines.”

  “And how is it the hunters are still alive? I thought Aliyev put a bounty on their heads big enough to attract the best rat catchers around. Jorgeson’s supposed to be on their trail, and so are your men. How can a handful of outlaw tradesmen elude so many so-called professionals?”

  Hanson winced at the dig but recovered quickly. “My lord, we’ve nearly caught them on several occasions.”

  “That isn’t good enough.”

  “Agreed. But I have had spies in the countryside, gathering stories of where and when these hunters have come to the rescue, and I’ve been plotting their movements on a map. We believe they work within several days’ ride of wherever they’re hiding, and I think we’re close to finding them and destroying their base.”

  “I don’t care about their base,” Kadar said in a low, deadly voice. “I want them eliminated.” He threw his hands in the air. “I have more important things to worry about. The last message I had from my man in Aliyev’s court said that the trade agreement with Garenoth is in danger because Ravenwood did not meet its last shipment.”

  “Did your contact know how it fell short?”

  “Raw materials,” Kadar replied. “Grapes. Corn, lumber—the kinds of things that are difficult to harvest with monsters running around killing the workers.”

  “My lord, they’re your monsters.”

  Idiots. I’m surrounded by idiots. How is this so difficult? “I didn’t tell Wraithwind to put the monsters in my vineyards and kill my harvesters,” he grated. “I told him to lure the hunters so we could get rid of them.”

  Hanson opened his mouth to reply and shut it again without saying anything.

  “I’ve got no love for the terms of the Garenoth agreement, even if Aliyev tossed Tamas and me a bone with a slightly sweetened percentage,” Kadar continued, pacing. “We could have done better, if Machison hadn’t been the elder Gorog’s lap dog. But not meeting the shipments will damage us all.”

  “I’ve brought you a report on the latest smuggling shipments,” Hanson said as if he were searching for good news. “Your profit was handsome on these shipments.”

  “What of the smugglers that were killed? I heard those shipments did not get delivered.”

  Hanson fidgeted. “There have been incidents, m’lord. We believe hunters are to blame. Several smugglers were killed near a cemetery, and there was an altercation in a warehouse from an intruder. A few of the smuggling captains have expressed concerns. We promised them safe passage and an easy job.”

  “Hunters, again,” Kadar fumed. “I don’t think those deaths by the cemetery were an accident at all. They knew. Somehow, they knew about the smugglers, and they’re trying to make it look like it had to do with the monsters.” He shook his head. “And the intruder—another hunter trying to undermine us?”

  “Why would the outlaws care?” Hanson asked, genuinely puzzled.

  Kadar cursed. “Because they’re Guild men, at the bottom of it. And the Guilds can’t stand free trade. It cuts into their inflated prices.” He stopped and then turned to Hanson with a wary expression.

  “These outlaw hunters, are we certain that’s really what they are?”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “It’s no secret Aliyev was angry with Machison, and it’s been whispered he gave Blackholt to Machison to get rid of them both. And these hunters—untrained, with scavenged weapons—manage to do what paid assassins could not, get into the Lord Mayor’s palace, kill Machison and defeat his blood witch?” Kadar shook his head. “Doesn’t that seem… unlikely… to you?”

  Hanson licked his lips nervously. “I hadn’t given it much thought, m’lord. But now that you put it that way, I guess they’d have had to be pretty lucky to do all that and escape.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Kadar replied. “What if Aliyev hired assassins to do the job and made it look like tradesmen-hunters? No one would suspect he was behind it, and it gave him the perfect excuse to get rid of the elder Gorog and take charge of the Garenoth agreement himself. There’d been proxy attacks to warn Machison before the coup, but that man was so full of himself, he thought they were all from me.”

  “Some were,” Hanson prompted. “I remember.”

  “But not all,” Kadar said, “and certainly not the stroke that killed him. No, now that I think about it, I was blind not to see it before. It has Aliyev’s mark—clever, devious, impossible to prove.”

  “Do you think Aliyev knows about the smugglers?” Hanson asked, and Kadar could hear the worry in his voice.

  “He may know that smuggling is going on, but there’s nothing in what those damned hunters interrupted to tie it back to me,” Kadar answered. “Still another reason we can’t let them poke around. Sooner or later, they’ll find a link. We can’t allow that.”

  “Despite their interference, your take from the last cargo run was handsome,” Hanson said, and Kadar knew the man was doing his best to placate his master’s mood.

  Even that did not cheer Kadar. “The smuggling profits are supposed to be in addition to the income my wines and grapes earn from the League trade, not a replacement for them. I’ve already heard from Aliyev about the reduction in the vineyard production. He’s worried we won’t meet our obligations.”

  “Have you spoken with Wraithwind—”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken with the witch. I get vague platitudes and muttered lies,” Kadar stormed. “What good is a witch if his magic can’t do what needs to be done? I’ve ordered him to increase the yield on the vineyards.”

  “I’ll have my contact arrange for the smugglers to land at a different harbor,” Hanson ventured. “One that takes them farther upriver, away from where the monster attacks have been. If the m
onsters keep the hunters occupied downriver, they won’t have time to interfere with the smugglers.”

  “Do it. And make sure there’s nothing to trace the cargo back to me.”

  “Is there anything else, m’lord?”

  “Find those hunters and bring me their heads.”

  Hanson bowed. “As you wish, m’lord.”

  Kadar waited until Hanson closed the doors behind him before he poured himself a generous measure of whiskey and sank into a chair by the fireplace. There had been more to his letter from Aliyev, something he did not care to share with either Hanson or Wraithwind.

  According to Aliyev, there was talk in the League about Ravenwood becoming undependable, because of the problems meeting the Garenoth agreement. If we defaulted, we’d lose our ranking, and all our trades and goods would suffer. Even if the other city-states think we might default, the next round of agreements to be negotiated might not go as favorably for us.

  Damn Aliyev! What game is he playing? He steps in to save the Garenoth arrangement, making himself a hero to King Rellan and rids himself of two problematic liegemen at the same time, as well as a pain-in-the-ass Merchant Prince. Aliyev has to be calling monsters of his own; Wraithwind certainly isn’t the only one. So why is Aliyev targeting my vineyards and the riverfront? Is he hoping to push me out the way he forced Gorog’s failure?

  He’s a ballsy bastard if that’s his game. Foul up my affairs too much, and he can’t make the shipments—and the whole thing comes crashing down. Does he have a replacement for me, waiting for me to fail? Is he hoping to seize my lands? There’s something in this that I’m missing, either a prize Aliyev’s chasing that I don’t see or another player who’s staying hidden.

  Bad enough if Aliyev is behind it, toying with the fortunes of the city-state for his own ends. But if there’s another player, then that’s even worse. By Colduraan and Balledec, I’ll get to the bottom of it! I’ll be damned if I’m going to be cut out of the game.