Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  But that wasn’t what had come out. Because Vraki’s hands weren’t the right ones.

  If you knew anything about the Crown Conspiracy, you knew his name. And once you knew his name, you knew the stories.

  He’s a prodigy, they say, born beloved by the Lady Merchant, never has to pay a Barter to get his power. They say he engineered the Crown Conspiracy by drawing black spirits into our world. They say he gutted his favorite consort when she didn’t cheer loud enough for him at a friendly duel. They say he…

  Well, they said a lot of things about him that I didn’t believe.

  Of course, if you knew him, you knew those were just stories.

  You also knew the truth was worse.

  “Whatever it was,” Liette said, pointing off into the distance, “it had to have been big.”

  Across the square stood a pleasant little house that would have been decidedly more pleasant without the giant fucking hole torn in its side. Past the hole, I could see a devastated kitchen where something had charged through. And past that, I could see another hole in another house behind this one. And another, and another, leading to a hole in the township’s walls that it had punched through during its escape.

  It wasn’t the devastation that made my blood run cold. A jagged tear and shattered timbers, I could have chalked up to anything. But these holes were warped, fluid, as though the wood and stone itself had bent impossibly of their own volition to get out of the creature’s way, appalled at what they had seen.

  Only one creature could have done that.

  Fuck me. I knew the Crown Conspiracy was reckless. I knew Vraki was desperate.

  I didn’t ever fucking think he’d try to summon a Scrath.

  If you’d have asked me to explain what one was, or why knowing one was out there in the Scar made me want to turn around and run as far as I could in the opposite direction, I wouldn’t have answered.

  I’d have simply gestured to its handiwork—to the people made into trees, to the terrifying perfection of its devastation, to the way creation tried to escape its approach—and if you had any sense, you’d not ask again.

  “This can’t be real.”

  As it turned out, though, sense was a rare commodity out here. Liette, over her nausea and her terror alike, now crept warily toward the site of the summoning. Keeping a distance from any of the corpses—and pointedly avoiding their gazes—she studied the ruin.

  “This is unlike any magic I’ve read about,” she whispered. “What was it intended to accomplish?”

  “It didn’t,” I replied. “Something went wrong.”

  “Like what?”

  I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t tell her that the fact that the Scrath escaped meant the summoning had gone wrong and Vraki had lost control of it. I couldn’t tell her any of that because when I thought about her asking how I knew that, I couldn’t think of an answer that I could ever tell her and still have her look me in the eye.

  “Too much collateral damage,” I settled on saying. “A summoning done right is clean. Relatively, anyway.” I walked among the corpses, glancing around the blackened, polished earth. “But a summoning for something this big takes an immense amount of magic. Magic that even Vraki wouldn’t have.”

  “Perhaps he used a focusing object,” Liette offered.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I just found one.”

  She held in her hands what had once been an obelisk. Or something like one. It was broken into three pieces and useless now, but it had once been a focus, a rare object that could occasionally amplify a spell. But you didn’t see these in respectable places like the Imperium. You only ever saw them in places where magic hadn’t been refined, among shamans and hedge wizards and…

  “Haven,” I whispered. I pointed at writing that had been chiseled into the stone’s surface. “This came from Haven. This is one of their insane religious ramblings.”

  “Let’s keep an open mind, shall we?” Liette scoffed. “Just because something is religious does not necessarily make it insane.” She studied the writing and hummed. “Though this particular something is decidedly fucking nuts. Haven doesn’t part with its treasures willingly. Or at all, even.”

  “Then they’ll be looking for them.” I took the fragments from her, slid them into my satchel. “Which is a good reason for us to get going before they…”

  She wasn’t listening to me. Or looking at me. What she was doing was making me miss the times when she was doubled over, vomiting.

  Liette approached one of the people, a tall tree-corpse planted in the earth, and removed an inkwell from her belt and a quill from her hair. She daubed the quill as she studied the corpse’s face, looking for an appropriate surface upon which to scrawl.

  “No,” I said, realizing what she was doing. “Corpsewrighting is bad enough when the corpses aren’t ravaged by unspeakable, unknown magic.”

  “The fact that they are is reason enough to find out,” Liette replied, settling on a spot on the corpse’s cheek. “We’ve never seen this kind of magic before. We have to know how it worked. Only the dead can tell us.”

  “Woman, I can tell you.” I spread my arms out, gesturing to the devastation. “Someone cast a spell, summoned something horrific, and then this shit happened. It’s not a scientific inquiry to figure out that—”

  “Second law.”

  My brow furrowed at her curt words. Because I knew she wouldn’t be dissuaded. Curiosity I could curtail, but she loved her oaths more than she loved me.

  The Laws of the Freemakers, myriad as they are, are no more rigid than they are in their second law: the law that commands them to defy empires, to aggravate revolutions, and to pursue their quest for knowledge no matter the cost.

  “That which is forbidden…” she began.

  “Is mandatory,” I finished. I looked around—the township was clear, and if it would give me an edge to finding Vraki, I could stomach a little forbidden art. “Just hurry it up.”

  “Wrighting is a delicate art,” she replied, snootier than a woman about to scribble on a corpse should sound. She reached out with her quill. “If progress could be rushed as you wish it to be, then we’d all be—”

  That’s when the corpse grabbed her.

  Its blackened fingers wrapped around her wrist, seizing her. She was screaming, but I only knew that because of her open mouth and the fear on her face. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the corpse’s own wail.

  “WHERE ARE THEY?” it screamed. “PLEASE, SAVE THEM!”

  “SAL!” she shrieked, fighting to get free.

  I rushed up behind the corpse—if it even was one—and jammed my sword through its ribs. It came out the other side of blackened flesh, but the thing didn’t so much as drop an octave.

  “THEY TOOK THEM! THEY TOOK THE CHILDREN!” it screamed, dragging Liette closer to it. “HE SAID THE SUMMONING NEEDED A VESSEL! HE TOOK THE CHILDREN!”

  Liette fought as hard as she could, just as I fought to dislodge my sword, but the corpse was oblivious to either of us. But it didn’t bite her or claw her or anything you’d expect a corpse to do. It took her by the shoulders, forced her to look at it. And in the light reflected off its pallid eyes, I knew this was no corpse.

  This thing was still alive.

  “SAVE THEM!” he screamed. “​S​a​v​e​t​h​e​m​s​a​v​e​t​h​e​m​s​a​v​e​t​h​e​m​s​a​v​e​t​h​e​m​s​a​v​e​t​h​e​m…”

  My sword came free. Blood, blackened and thickened to a burnt stew, followed. The corpse—now truly one—slumped over as its life ebbed away and its voice with it. But its words still lingered in my head.

  Children. Vessels. Tribute.

  Vraki had done worse than what I had thought he was capable of. He took more than just lives.

  I looked to Liette, but her eyes were still on the corpse. Her mouth hung open, at a loss for either words or breath, as her body trembled upon shaking legs, arms wrappe
d around her where the corpse had touched her.

  “Liette,” I said, reaching for her.

  Her eyes turned to me, and in her glasses, I could see the horror in her eyes magnified. She looked at me, me with my dripping blade and the black life staining my skin, and shook so hard I thought she might fall to pieces. My hand fell, my voice with it. I froze. I had been looked at this way before.

  But never by her.

  She turned. She ran. She disappeared behind a house.

  I didn’t call after her. I couldn’t find the words to do so. Despite all that we’d seen together, I sometimes forgot she wasn’t like me. She hadn’t seen what I’d seen. And she’d never seen anything like that. I couldn’t blame her for running.

  “Do you hear that, Brothers?”

  Until I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Then I could certainly blame her.

  I crept to the edge of the public house, peered around its corner at the main street that led back to the town gate. I caught sight of naked flesh, black tattoos, red cloth, and crucially, a brand of a great, crimson eye.

  And, to my credit, I managed not to shit myself.

  I turned and sped back, quick as I dared and quiet as I could, to the town square. Liette was gone. And I didn’t have time to search for her.

  Not with Haveners coming toward me.

  I remembered seeing a building there, one of those frontier-style deals with the big-ass doors designed to keep outlaws out. I found it, pushed myself in, pressed the considerably-big-ass-but-not-nearly-big-ass-enough-to-keep-those-maniacs-out door shut and barred it. I slipped down to the window, pressed myself against it, pulled the Cacophony out, and checked to make sure I had a shell chambered.

  I suppose, if anyone was watching, they might have thought this looked a little much.

  But if anyone thought that, they probably didn’t know the kind of men I had just seen. That was understandable. You never understood the hounds of Haven until you saw them work. And then, usually, you were dead.

  Liette understood. And I hoped to whatever would listen that she knew to stay out of sight.

  Through a hole punched in the window’s glass, I heard them coming: feet dragging across the dirt, the crackling of flame, a racking cough. And then the ragged, lunatic voice.

  “Ah, behold,” a shrill and distinctly feminine voice cackled, “the perversion is discovered.”

  Three men came striding into the town square, naked but for their trousers and boots and the thick red bandanas tied around their eyes. Every inch of bare skin was covered in bloodied wounds, broad sigils of an eye weeping blood etched into their chests. They held burning torches, even though it was a clear, sunny day.

  Men like these didn’t use fire for its light.

  At their center was a woman, bent and ragged beneath her red robes, even though her skin was fair and youthful. It wasn’t age that made her need to lean on a staff. And it sure as fuck wasn’t age that had gouged out her eyes and left two gaping red holes behind, either.

  The process of becoming one of the few and revered Sightless Sisters, Haven’s bloodhounds, was a mystery, but no one ever came out of it looking prettier.

  With her empty sockets, she looked over the black circle at the center of town and smiled, her grin full of sharpened teeth.

  “We are blessed in filth, Brothers,” she hissed. “A ripe trove of decay to be purged. The Seeing God is pleased with our service.”

  I’ve never begrudged anyone a belief in a god. Personally, I’ve known too many people to believe that anyone out there is looking out for them, but the Scar’s a tough place. People who can’t get by with whiskey get by with gods. There used to be a hundred or so little cults to one deity or another promising salvation from the beasts and outlaws of the world. That was before Haven threw up its walls and went from a quaint collection of hamlets to an army of witch hunters eager to incinerate anyone not of their faith.

  “What is it, Honored Sister?” one of the men asked. “I cannot see.”

  “No?” the woman replied. “Permit me to illuminate.”

  There was a faint hissing sound. And in those black pits that used to be eyes, fiery lights kindled. Like lanterns, they cast a red glow as she swept her gaze across the square.

  “The air is quiet. The sun is cold. Even the birds think the place too foul.” She rapped her staff against the hard black earth. “But this magic could not be wrought by mortal hands, no matter how unclean. Can you not feel it, Brothers? A fiend was summoned here by seven souls.” She paused, searching the air through those fiery sockets. “It left. Two followed in pursuit. A third lurked nearby and left. The remaining four took lost lambs from this humble place of living. And they used the Seeing God’s treasure to do it…”

  Whatever rituals turned Haven’s gentle temple maidens into the cackling, maimed Sightless Sisters were a mystery to all but them. All that was known was that it left them completely unhinged and with a peculiar gift for sniffing out anything magical, be it mage, Dust, or even a relic.

  Like the one I was carrying.

  Fuck.

  “A great power was beckoned here,” the Sister muttered. “A great heresy was created.”

  “All magic is heresy,” another man grunted. “‘The foe that hides must see the light. The beast that creeps must fear the day. The man who speaks unclean must be burned clean of lies.’”

  “The scripture is clear, Brother,” the woman muttered. “But there is heresy and there is blight. One follows the other, as birds follow carrion. A great evil has been unleashed here”—she slowly craned her lights about—“and it has not left.”

  For one single, breathless second, she looked directly at me. My eyes met her red sockets and the fiery lights fixed upon me. I ducked down.

  Fuck.

  Like I said, no one knows much about the Seeing God. But what we do know is that he gave his followers something. Something old and powerful. Something that the brightest scholars in the Imperium couldn’t explain. And something that I very much could do without trying to murder me at that moment.

  Now what, exactly, the powers did seemed to vary from follower to follower. But one constant is that they could sniff out magic sure as a bird finds corpses. But she couldn’t have sensed the Cacophony, could she?

  The gun grew warmer in my palm, as if in answer. Wouldn’t have surprised me if the fucking thing was calling to them. That’d be just like him.

  I drew his hammer back. I held my breath. I waited for the sound of footsteps approaching, of glass breaking, of doors shattering.

  What I heard, instead, was a racking, wheezing cough.

  “Sister?” one of them said. “What is it?”

  “Too much foulness in the air,” she snarled. The lights sputtered out and her sockets went dark again. “I cannot find the source of the taint.” She swept a ragged hand out over the village. “Seek, Brothers. Find the perversion that offends our Lord’s sensibilities. And should it elude you”—she hissed through rancid teeth—“burn it out.”

  Footsteps. Grunting. Movement. I poked my head up and saw them wandering off, spreading out in search. What does and doesn’t offend a Havener is fairly vague, but while their mysteries are long, their attention spans are short. They have a thousand questions, but only one answer, and I knew I didn’t have long before they found someone that wasn’t me.

  I had to find Liette.

  When I was sure they were gone, I eased the door open and scampered out, hurrying back to the main street. I didn’t hear anyone following me, no shouts of alarm or holy scriptures recited or whatever makes them all hot. The public house was the tallest building in the township. I could get to the top of it and make for the roofs, find Liette from above. We’d make our way out from there.

  Great plan.

  Sure would be a shame if, oh, say, a bunch of Revolutionaries happened to arrive just then.

  The groan of metal wheels. The shrieking of iron. The roar of an engine. The cloud of black smoke hera
lded the beast’s arrival as a great monster of metal and smog came barreling over the horizon, heading straight toward me. An iron carriage mounted on great wheels that chewed up the earth beneath it, belching flame and smoke from vents on its side, roaring as it came forward.

  I knew what it was before I saw it. But the damn thing moved so fast that, in another second, I could see the sigil branded across its front. A cog with two crossed sabers.

  A Revolutionary Iron Boar.

  So, I said I didn’t believe in a god and I mostly meant it. I don’t think there’s a benevolent being out there to keep us from doing wrong and protect us from harm. But then, not all gods are benevolent, are they?

  And if you had told me, right then and there, that there was a divine being of immeasurable power and he used every ounce of it to exclusively fuck with me?

  Now that I’d believe.

  FIFTEEN

  STARK’S MUTTER

  The first Iron Boar was unleashed a mere ten years ago. Mounted on wheels that chewed up the earth, a great iron monstrosity belching flame smashed through the gates of an Imperium garrison and flooded it with enough Revolutionary soldiers to kill half of the conscripts within and capture the rest. It was a surprise to the Imperium, who until that point thought that the Revolution’s mechanists had reached the limits of their ingenuity.

  Of course, we later learned that, to make the damn thing, the Great General had forced two thousand laborers to work themselves to death to mine the iron. Sixty skilled workers were killed forging it. The three machinists who had designed it were later branded counterrevolutionaries and hanged themselves. All told, the Revolution had killed over two thousand of its own to kill just over a hundred of the enemy.

  But that was a fact. Facts don’t matter in war. Legends do. And two legends were born that day. One was the Iron Boar itself, an engine of such speed and terrible destruction that every Imperium garrison in the Scar ordered itself fortified. And the other?