The Hunter's Gambit

by Nicholas McIntire

  Long shadows suddenly spread across the Square. In the lamplight, Aleksei could make out three figures. Three figures to match three heartbeats.

  A standard night’s watch.

  Aleksei watched the men walk the length of the Square. As they turned back towards the Market district, he struck.

  “Guards!” he cried out.

  They all immediately looked in his direction, but he was already gone. The moment the words left his mouth, Aleksei was moving again. He stopped a dozen paces from the nearest man and cried out again.

  The guard turned towards him. In the depths of the shadows, Aleksei prepared himself.

  If this was going to work, he would have to take them one at a time.

  When the man was within a pace, Aleksei lunged forward, clapping his hands on either side of the guard’s head. The man opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound escaped.

  Even in the darkness of the shadows, Aleksei could see the black tendrils of the Mantle burning crimson as they dipped into the man. Tiny talons of black shot across his eyes, red tendrils snaking out of his open mouth, licking at the air.

  And then it was over.

  The Mantle receded, flowing up Aleksei’s arms and leaving the man cold and colorless.

  Aleksei removed his hands from the man’s head, leaving two streaks of crusted blood. He looked down at his palms, perfect once again, smooth and whole.

  “Great gods!” a voice rang out.

  Aleksei looked up and realized the remaining men had spotted him. One had already drawn his sword and was rushing towards Aleksei, the other not far behind.

  Instead of drawing his own sword, Aleksei dropped down next to the corpse of his victim and drew the man’s belt knife.

  He waited until the first guard was within range, then flicked the knife underhand. For a moment it just hung in midair, tumbling end over end. And then it stopped, only the hilt visible around the rivers of blood that gushed from the man’s left eye.

  Aleksei didn’t wait for the last man to reach him. He came to his feet and stepped out into the moonlight. The man had his sword drawn, but Aleksei ignored it. He waited until the guard committed to his swing and sidestepped the attack. His hand closed on the man’s throat and it was over.

  The guard’s body collapsed in a nerveless heap on the cobbles, as colorless and cold as the first man. A pang of sympathy tried to struggle up within him, but withered as it reached the surface. He didn’t have time or patience for emotion at the moment.

  “Tamara?” he whispered softly into the night.

  She appeared after a long moment. She looked pale, as though she were about to faint. He could tell she’d been crying.

  “Are you alright?” he asked gently.

  She nodded, blinking away her tears, “It’s just…I wasn’t expecting….”

  Aleksei said nothing. He knew that look in her eyes. It was fear. Fear of him. He had seen it before in the eyes of the Bondar brothers at his father’s farm.

  Rather than respond, Aleksei turned back to the nearest guard and began to strip him.

  “What are you doing?” Tamara demanded, startled even in the midst of his small massacre.

  Aleksei didn’t look back at her, but instead stripped off his tattered leather coat. “I didn’t have time to get properly dressed before Bael attacked the Palace. If we’re going to get out of the city, I have to look the part. They’ll never believe I’m one of them if I’m walking around barefoot in the middle of winter.”

  His mention of the cold reminded her how chill the air was, and how much her soft feet were suffering on the icy cobbles. She stepped on the hem of her gown, hoping that it might put some barrier of warmth between her frozen toes and the street.

  As Aleksei pulled the dead man’s uniform off of his limp body, Tamara found herself staring at the black undulations of the Mantle. If the night air was cool, those strange, twisting black symbols across his muscular shoulders and arms made her feel as though she stood on sheets of ice.

  They almost looked like they were clutching at him, clawing away at his flesh.

  And yet they were part of Aleksei Drago, one of the kindest, most courteous men she’d ever encountered. The man had certainly become a decided paradox since she’d first met him.

  Aleksei pulled the dead man’s shirt over his head, hiding the writhing markings from her. He swiftly buttoned up the front, then pulled on the officer’s wool coat. Finally he pulled off the man’s boots and stamped his feet into them.

  “Where to now?” Tamara whispered.

  “Well, we still have to find a way out of the city gates. Any chance you can fit into one of those uniforms?”

  Tamara glanced down at the two men. An idea leapt out at her. “I have a thought.”

  Aleksei watched her for a long moment before shrugging. “Let’s hear it.”

  “There are several access points in the city to the sewer system below. What with the invasion, I doubt there’s been time yet to place guards there. The system drains both to the east and west of the city, beyond the gates.”

  Aleksei’s face lit up at the suggestion. “That’s brilliant. How do you know this?”

  “I’ve been instructed in city affairs since childhood. One would hope it might prove useful at some point, no?”

  Aleksei’s offered her a proud smile. After a moment of consideration, he looked at the two other corpses and began to pull off the smaller one’s boots.

  “What are those for?” she whispered.

  He finished yanking off the left boot, “I’ve asked some pretty harsh things of you tonight. But even I’m not going to make a princess walk barefoot through leagues of sewage, Highness.”

  “And you have my thanks for that.” she breathed as she took the boots from the Knight and slipped her delicate feet into their cool, hard confines. It felt like she was standing in a pair of large leather buckets.

  “Can you walk in them?”

  She took a few steps and nearly tripped over her skirts. Aleksei caught her shoulders and steadied her.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She sighed, “I could manage it. But can I take them off for now?”

  “Just carry them until you need them.”

  Aleksei turned around and neatly stacked the bodies of the guardsmen behind a pile of broken crates.

  He wiped his hands on his trousers. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

  She nodded, realizing that her feet would soon be in the boots of a dead man. A man who lay with his confederates not five paces distant. She glanced over her shoulder as they walked away and shivered.

  Gods, she thought to herself, Jonas is bonded to this man?

  But the more she thought on that, the less it surprised her. In fact, she found it comforting. There had always been something unspoken about Jonas, as though it was impossible to be shocked by him because there wasn’t a thing in the world he wouldn’t do. After all, this was a man who had arrived on her windowsill as a bird.

  The idea of his Archanium Knight being the same gentle giant who had pulled her from the path of an assassin’s arrow a year before, the same towering farm boy who now wore deadly magic as a second skin, only served to match the same sort of sensibilities Jonas had always delighted in as a boy.

  Aleksei stopped in the middle of the street and started sniffing at the air. Tamara watched him as he turned his head this way and that, testing the air with his nose like an animal.

  She recalled the first time she had seen him. The confused, determined farm boy she had met then had undergone such a transformation since his arrival in Kalinor. And while there were moments that Tamara wished the farm boy would return, it was becoming powerfully clear to her just how important, and how vital, those changes were.

  Aleksei shifted direction, leading her east towards the industrial districts. The farther they went, the more nervous she became. This district would be under much heavier guard. No invading
army would want the defenders to retake the smithy or the grain silos.

  “Here it is.” Aleksei whispered, crouching in front of what Tamara finally recognized as a sewer cover.

  “Impressive.” she whispered as crouched next to him. While she had known that there were such entrances, the gods only knew how long it would have taken her to actually locate one.

  He smiled and pushed the cover away. The smell that wafted up nearly knocked Tamara back. She began to think this hadn’t been such a brilliant plan.

  “Perhaps we should reconsider the gates.” she muttered, slipping on the boots and lowering herself gently through the entrance.

  Aleksei bit back a chuckle, glanced around once more to make sure they hadn’t been followed, and jumped down himself.

  “This is disgusting!” Tamara gagged, standing a few paces away from him, up to her ankles in the Kalinor’s waste.

  Aleksei saw that her gown was dragging in the dross and drew his knife.

  “Aleksei?” she whispered quizzically as he took hold of her skirt and began to slash it.

  “Your dress is already ruined, and the last thing I want is for you to trip.”

  She could hardly argue with that.

  “So where do we go now?” she asked, holding her hand over her nose.

  “This tunnel heads east,” he said softly, tossing the rags of her gown to the side. “towards the Seil Wood. If we can get there, we’ll be safe.”

  She nodded, resigned to spending the next hour trudging through raw sewage in a ruined gown with the Hunter’s blood in her hair and crusting down her back.

  “Well then,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, “lead the way.”

  CHAPTER 44

  The Nature of Defiance

  THE DOOR SHUDDERED. Tiny avalanches of dust showered down around Ilyana, but she hardly noticed. Not three paces away, Toma was screaming hysterically. Her Knight looked as confused and upset as she did.

  “Quiet!” Ilyana shouted over the rumbling attacks sounding from the other side of the door.

  Toma either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. Ilyana looked away from the hysterical Magus. “Tamrix, either you do something or I will.”

  Toma’s Knight caught the murderous glint in Ilyana’s eye and moved swiftly to Toma’s side. He placed his thick arms protectively around her and began speaking in a soft tone that Ilyana couldn’t make out.

  Whatever he said had the desired effect, because a moment later the woman was merely sobbing into his shirt rather than shrieking her lungs out.

  Marrik was pressed tight against the door, shoulder to shoulder with Aya’s Raefan. At present, no one was exactly sure where Aya was.

  “This won’t hold much longer.” Marrik shouted.

  Ilyana nodded, thinking furiously.

  Only moments ago the Voralla had been a vision of peace and tranquility. And then the Demon’s Magi had appeared.

  The enemy had hounded them though the halls of the Voralla, Ilyana and her Magi constantly falling back against the assault. This, she now knew, was what the Lords of Parliament had so feared when they had imprisoned her. Not a force of Archanium Magi who could fight, but one that could defend.

  From the moment Demon’s Magi swarmed through the Voralla, Sammul’s acolytes had turned on Ilyana’s small band of defenders, hammering at their shields with spells from the Nagavor unlike anything she’d ever beheld.

  She had watched her friends cut down with spells of destruction so foreign to her that she could hardly believe they were being conjured by men and women she had known for years. Magi she had believed to be peaceful, loving students of the Akhrana.

  Magi she had even looked down upon for their weakness in the Archanium. Only now did it make sense. She knew the weakness of her own powers within the violence of the Nagavor well enough; she had just been shown their own inadequacies reflected back at her.

  It had only been by the grace of the gods that she and a few others had managed to lock themselves into a room with shielded doors. But even in the Voralla, such defenses could only last for so long.

  “Gods, what is Sammul doing? Why isn’t he defending us?” Toma moaned from her corner.

  Ilyana ignored the question.

  “We have to find a way into the Great Hall.” she shouted.

  “I don’t know if that’s going to work.” Raefan called.

  “It’s our only chance.” she insisted. “It’s the most defensible position in the Voralla. Sammul’s locked in the Vault. The Great Hall is the only other choice.”

  Marrik looked at Raefan and nodded his agreement. The other Knight sighed.

  “How do you plan on dealing with our friends out there?” he demanded, wincing as another bone-crushing blow slammed into the door, cracking the wood.

  Ilyana bit her lip. She had never tried to do anything like this before. She didn’t even know if it would work. But she had to try.

  “Marrik, you’re going to have to carry me. When I tell you to, open the door and run.”

  She turned and regarded Toma with a mixture of pity and disgust, “You might want to let Tamrix carry you if you’re unsure of your footing. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

  Toma had been quietly sobbing the last few moments, but she nodded her understanding.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, Ilyana, do it fast.” Marrik shouted.

  The wail of the Nagavor outside intensified. The enemy Magi had apparently grown tired of her little game.

  Time to change the rules.

  Ilyana plunged into the Archanium and swam through the miasma of spells for growth, healing, and middling shields. She passed the whorl for fire and kept moving. While she walked a lower meridian of the Akhrana, the spell she sought was still well within her abilities. More importantly, those amassed outside would never see it coming.

  Ilyana swam forward and wrapped a length of blinding brilliance around herself. From outside she could hear the cries of Magi and soldiers alike as her light spell exploded into existence.

  “Now!” she heard herself cry.

  And then she was being hoisted up. She could feel Marrik’s sinewy shoulder against her cheek. She weighed nothing to her Knight even as he sprinted down the hallway, leaving blinded men and Magi behind him.

  She sensed others ahead, though whether they were ordinary soldiers or enemy Magi was impossible to say. Ilyana unleashed her spell again mere heartbeats before Marrik rounded the corner, sparing him the eye-burning white by only the fraction of a moment.

  Marrik did not stop, which she hoped meant they had bought themselves another handful of seconds.

  “Marrik!”

  Ilyana heard the shout a second before her body hit the floor. She cried out in surprise and pain, losing her grip on the Archanium and opening her eyes to stare into the glare of an angry soldier.

  She rolled to the side as his axe clanked harmlessly off the Voralla floor. A moment later he collapsed to the ground, convulsing and gagging on his own blood.

  Marrik pulled his sword from the man as she came to her feet. It was only then that Ilyana understood their position.

  They were surrounded.

  Raefan was pinned against one wall with three swords pointed at his throat. Marrik stood over her, panting and staring down four crossbows.

  “Well done, Lady Magus.”

  She turned her head to see a man she knew by description, by feel, if not by sight: the Demon.

  “I’m impressed with your ingenuity. I doubt a tenth of your idiot friends could have done so well.” he said, an insolent grin plastered across his face.

  Her life was forfeit. Her eyes shifted to the soldier closest to her. His attention was fixed on the Demon; the threat neutralized.

  Marrik had taught her the basics of self-defense and though far from being adept, she was decent with a knife. If she could move fast enough, Ilyana thought she could get a hold of the soldier’s bel
t knife. She might have a chance to get to the Demon before he gripped the Archanium.

  She could think of no other option.

  Ilyana reached towards the solider. A wave of pain dropped her screaming to the floor before she’d so much as opened her hand.

  “You’d like me to kill you, wouldn’t you?” Bael said, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’m afraid I’ve already taken care of that technicality for you, milady.”

  He glanced at the men surrounding them, “Lock them up with the others. We’ll have our fun with them soon enough. And send some men to those poor wretches she blinded. Heal them if you can, or just cut their throats, I don’t really care.” He turned and grinned at her, “Farewell, little Magus. I’ll have this pleasure again very soon.”

  Ilyana hardly felt the strike against her head. She kept her eyes focused on the Demon, even as she sank into unconsciousness. Her hate blackened with her vision.

  The path was impossible to see. Every now and then Tamara would stub her toe on a protruding stone in the darkness, but even the sharp pain was a relief after trekking through two leagues of refuse and excrement.

  Still, she could think of a great many places she would rather be at the moment than walking blistered and barefoot through a shadowed Wood. Even the fact that Aleksei was leading her by the hand and seemed to know his way in the dark did little to alleviate her trepidation.

  At least it isn’t so bloody cold. She thought.

  The farther they walked, the warmer it became. If it would get just a little brighter, she would dare to believe that things were taking a definite improvement to the sewer.

  She had also just noticed a sound that had been growing steadily stronger for the last several minutes, but until now it had not filtered past her mind’s litany of complaints, wishes, curses, and prayers.

  “Are we near a stream?”

  “Yes.” came Aleksei’s voice.

  She realized a half-second later that he had stopped. Stepping back from the Knight, Tamara listened in the darkness for some sense of where the water was. She didn’t want to slip and add being soaking wet to her list of discomforts.