by Matthew Ward
“You see?” said Kasvin.
Hawkin heard it now, billowing beneath the words and yet somehow always beyond grasp. She clung to the name. Not one she’d heard before. “Shalamoh? You mean the Merrow?”
Kasvin laughed. “He and I sought answers only the other could give. We traded.”
“Did he have a choice?” she spat.
Kasvin drew nearer. Close enough to touch. Resolve melted. “Shalamoh loves only knowledge. I told him what I’d seen of the Black River. He revealed my purpose, inked in books laid down in the Age of Kings.”
“Let me guess: a harlot able to command any price?”
Cold breath brushed Hawkin’s ear.
“I am the poison in a miser’s soul,” Kasvin whispered. “The blade at a child-beater’s throat. The tide that drowns a faithless lover. I am vengeance. I am death.”
Something cold and wet slithered over Hawkin’s hand. She cried out as another brushed her shoulders. A third wended about her ankle and drew tight. She recalled the sinuous weed beneath Coventaj, dancing at Kasvin’s touch. Before she could stop herself, she opened her eyes.
There was no weed, only a whisper of movement that might have been its retreat into the shadows, and the smothering blue-green of Kasvin’s eyes.
Except… those eyes no longer enraptured. Nor did suffocating desire rise to meet them. Only the growing confusion in the pit of Hawkin’s stomach and the smirk frozen on Kasvin’s face.
“I don’t understand.”
The smirk widened. “Follow me.”
Aware she’d little choice, Hawkin accompanied Kasvin from the strong room and up sagging stairs. The warehouse itself was familiar enough – one of the many along Silverway Dock. One of Lord Zarn’s. She’d cased it by slipping in among the work gangs. The loading floor was silent, the gantries and catwalks empty. A fortune in wares crated and ready to go, unguarded.
Another door waited at the top of the stairs. The only light in the office beyond came from brooding, purpled skies filtered through leaded windows and flecked orange from a burning warehouse. Hawkin glimpsed cargo barges and pontoons tied up at loading piers, forming a network of bridges. Or rather one long, T-shaped bridge connecting the ends of the lopsided horseshoe-shaped harbour with the nadir of its curve. Dockworkers ran south across the bridge, weapons in hand, to join others spilling into the harbourside streets. Others milled about bonfires, waiting for the call to battle.
Shadows shifted by the manager’s desk. Hawkin stumbled back. “Lord Akadra? I didn’t see you there.”
“No… backbone,” he slurred, the words dredged from somewhere distant. “Just… like a… vranakin.”
He hunched over the desk and stared myopically at her. Powdery makeup on his cheeks had cracked and flaked, revealing fibrous tendrils shifting beneath his skin. For all the contempt in his words, Hawkin heard confusion in his voice… pleading. And the smell. The stench of silted waters was stronger than ever.
“Don’t disturb his lordship.” Kasvin closed the door. “He’s barely holding together, and I might need another speech out of him yet. Something fiery, but dignified. A repudiation of old sins, perhaps. Men so often seek redemption as death draws near, so all will believe it.”
Hawkin backed away from both. “What have you done to him?”
Kasvin shrugged. “He was given to the Black River long ago. It gave him back.”
“So he’s like you?”
“Does he look it? The Black River has no sons, only daughters. What little of him remains belongs to me, doesn’t it, Lord Akadra?”
Looking for all the world like a man on the brink of tears, he gave a shuddering nod.
“Do you feel sorry for him?” asked Kasvin. “You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t feel sorry for anyone,” Hawkin replied. And yet there was something pitiable about the broken old man. “Why do you need him?”
“Because his son is destroying the people of this city.” Kasvin’s voice, normally so carefree, turned hard as stone. “He’s killing us, bleeding away hope and purpose and all the while insisting he serves our interest. You know how many die before their time in Sothvane and Narrowfen? Six years, Viktor Droshna has ruled like a king, promising deliverance from war and sorrow, and all the while he takes our children and our lives and leaves nothing but scraps!”
Chest heaving, she steadied herself against the desk.
“I act for the dead,” she said softly. “For children who die starving. For those brutalised for the crime of misplacing their papers, or lingering after the wrong tick of the clock. For the mothers who mourn their daughters, and widowed lovers whose future lies entombed. I hear them all, Hawkin. They cry out for retribution, and I must obey.”
Hawkin went still, wary of offering provocation. “Why?”
“Because someone should have done it for me after Konor strangled me!” For a moment, Kasvin looked years older, coiled up with rage and heartbreak. But only a moment. “That’s why the Nameless Lady sent me back.”
“Konor Zarn?” The connection was inevitable, given the building in which they stood – to say nothing of how Kasvin’s wreckers targeted his ships. Hawkin couldn’t imagine the sot having either wit or courage for the deed, but she supposed liquor would have supplied both. “Some vengeful spirit you are. He’s still alive.”
Kasvin’s smile turned chill. “For now. My reward for settling Droshna.”
“Is that you, Alika?” Lord Akadra swayed side-to-side as he murmured. “I’m so very cold.”
“Then do so.” Hawkin wondered why she cared. “Sing with your barren heart, and wrap Droshna around your finger as you did me.”
Kasvin shook her head. “You presume a heart to ensnare. He’s a scion of the Dark, and the Dark seeks only to be whole. It knows nothing of love. It already is all that it seeks to be. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be enough.” She flung a hand to the window, encompassing the dockside. “They have to win freedom. They have to want it. Bestowed as a gift, they’ll only cast it aside. A piece of us longs to be dominated, to be spared the burden of choice. To be one, as all were once one in the Dark. So we embrace tyrant after tyrant and scream injustice when their nature stands revealed.”
Hawkin grasped little of Kasvin’s meaning. But she understood being used, especially of late. “As you did?”
Kasvin glared. “You can go now.”
Lord Akadra stared up from the desk, and regarded Hawkin with broken grin.
She shivered. “As easy as that? With the tale I could tell?”
Kasvin shrugged. “And who’d believe you? Your past is full of broken trust.”
That truth stung more than it should. “Then why tell me at all?”
“Because one voice in Otherworld’s mists screams louder than any. Love betrayed. Poison pressed to her lips… salt tears on her forehead.” Kasvin snorted. “Your sobs woke her. What would have been a gentle death in sleep became agony in the waking.”
Hawkin swallowed to moisten a dry mouth. Vona. She forced a glare. Better to brazen it out and defy the aching, solid lump her heart had become. “I’d no choice.”
“Do you suppose that matters?”
She clenched her teeth to still a trembling jaw. “So I’m to make amends?” The hoped-for sardonic tone fell short. “Join your cause, maybe? Redeem myself?”
“There is no redemption. The Black River will take you, sooner or later. By my hand, or by someone else’s. Ask yourself how you want to live before that happens.”
Hawkin swallowed again. Raven’s Eyes, but she was shaking. With sorrow. With guilt. With fear. She couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. “As if you care.”
“No,” Kasvin replied. “But I almost did, once. Before I heard Vona cry out for justice, I actually thought you and I might be friends. This warning is a gift to the woman I thought you were.”
“Well this is romantic.”
Even shouted, Anastacia’s words barely pierced the now-familiar chant of “Feed our own!” bellowed
from behind the Harrowmoon Street barricade.
Unfortunately, the same effort that carried the words to Josiri also laid them plain before his hearthguard, and no few constables and knights in his cordon. Ignoring Sergeant Brass’s lugubrious smile, he decided humour was the better part of valour.
“Yes, dear.” He offered an empty smile. “You didn’t have to come.”
He’d argued against it, for Anastacia was still pale from misadventure the day before. For all that the healing touch of Sidara’s magic had kept her walking around, her blood remained at low ebb. But like most arguments, he’d lost, and the Stonecrest hearthguard had gained another member – albeit a temporary one who’d wrung every last drop of glamour from one of Jaridav’s spare uniforms. The golden Trelan phoenix had twice the glory with her perfect scowl above the tabard.
More than that, the double-faced constabulary line felt woefully fragile, even with fifty knights of chapterhouses Lancras and Fellnore stiffening the ranks with broadsword and shield. To the north, the dockworkers visible atop the tangled, rope-lashed mass of furniture, wagons and shipping crates. To the south, a triple line of black-uniformed Drazina with shields, swords and crossbows ready – infantry to break the barricade and cavalry to run rampant behind – blocked the confluence of Harrowmoon Street and Altranner Row.
A storm about to break. That it hadn’t already, Josiri credited to the fact that while the Drazina would have gladly begun breaking dockworkers’ heads, their enthusiasm stopped short of trampling the constabulary cordon in between.
Which was precisely why Josiri had placed it there – far enough from the barricade that the intermittent barrage of half-bricks and bottles fell well short, but close enough to signal intent. Every minute of delay was one in which Altiris and Kurkas could find Hadon Akadra.
It wasn’t as though he’d the numbers to keep the peace by force. Two hundred constables, fifty knights and fewer than a dozen hearthguard, sandwiched between thousands.
Were Lieutenant Raldan’s reports to be believed, the picture was the same all along Silverway Dock. Six wagoner’s roads, three narrow residential streets and innumerable alleyways. All of them blocked. But Harrowmoon Street was the heart. The broad, arrow-straight road led south from the Silverway River, swung a sharp easterly turn through the city’s marketplaces and storehouse districts, and ultimately passed through King’s Gate. Tressia’s chief artery, and for that reason had drawn greater numbers of protesters and Drazina than elsewhere.
“A crossbow’s not a knight’s weapon.” Viara Boronav’s cheeks were almost as bereft of colour as Anastacia’s. A daughter of a highblood line did not expect to find herself in this position. But she’d joined the cordon readily enough. “Those Drazina are just jumped-up commoners… No offence.”
The last was offered with a chagrined scowl, belated recognition that both Stonecrest hearthguard and constabulary held more commoners than highbloods.
Brass spat on the cobbles. “Don’t matter, long as they get the job done.” He spoke with the gruff resentment of a man whose own failed transgressions lay long behind. “Not right, is it? Bloody dockers. Always think others have it better. We’re at war.”
His words found agreement nearby. Josiri exchanged a glance with Anastacia and stifled a sigh. So easy to see your neighbours as something other. A lesson learned hard in the Southshires.
“We’re at war with the Hadari,” he snapped. “If this turns to bloodshed, we’ve all failed.”
Brass stared at a horseman spurring from the Drazina lines. “That’s the case, I reckon we’re getting our fill of failure pretty damn soon.”
A pace or two distant, the rider hauled on his reins. Open helm offered clear view of Grandmaster Sarisov’s swarthy, moustachioed face.
“Lord Trelan.” Annoyance crackled beneath the greeting. “Commander Hollov tells me you refuse to withdraw.”
“I don’t take orders from commanders,” Josiri replied evenly. “Nor grandmasters.”
“Need I remind you the Lord Protector wanted this matter settled by dusk?”
As if this could ever end in mere hours. “Dusk isn’t yet gone, and rash actions help no one.”
Sarisov scowled. Much as Josiri had refrained from open agreement, Viara’s assessment of the Drazina had struck a chord. Good at taking Viktor’s orders, not so much at understanding the reason behind. Not like Essamere. In that regard, Sarisov – a younger son of a middling family – was no better than the men and women he commanded. A blunt instrument of simple desires. Back when Viktor had first founded the Drazina, Josiri had seen sense in that. Tressia had been on its knees, and loyalty was important. And Viktor’s insistence that Josiri take command of the constabulary had offered reassurance that rule of law would continue.
Yet in the years since, the constabulary had shrunk, while the Drazina had multiplied to meet the demands of garrison and checkpoint. Somehow, Josiri had never quite seen that before.
“I insist you withdraw,” growled Sarisov.
Was that a threat? Josiri, his own belligerence rising to meet the other’s, couldn’t be certain. Not that it mattered. Trelans were stubborn, and Josiri had seen worse than Sarisov.
He drew himself up. “The constabulary keeps order in this city, no matter how much your Drazina have usurped that duty. We wait.”
Sarisov’s scowl deepened. The grandmaster could invoke Viktor’s name all he wanted, but he’d never quite grasp the bond shared between Lord Protector and southwealder upstart. Josiri knew better. Viktor would be furious… but Viktor had been furious before.
“Raven’s Eyes…” breathed Viara.
Josiri tore his eyes from Sarisov and followed her gaze to the barricade.
The protesters’ chant faded to a guttural cheer as two limp, bloodied Drazina were dragged to the summit and hoisted as trophies. Alive or dead, it was impossible to tell. A sergeant’s dagged chevrons hung from a torn tabard.
Josiri’s grasp on events, so certain a moment before, spiralled away. The cordon had failed. Had a constable elsewhere yielded to Drazina authority? Had the luckless sergeant found a route through alleyways or buildings otherwise missed? Irrelevant now. Because if there were two, there’d be more. And because…
“Faithless swine!” With a snarl, Sarisov wheeled his horse southwards towards the massing Drazina. “Get your rabble out of my way, or I’ll ride them down!”
He rode off in a clatter of hooves, outstretched hand raised in angry beckon. A triumphant cheer rose from the barricade at his back.
“That went well,” said Anastacia, her expression blank as she stared towards a barricade thickening with swords, cudgels and axes. “What do we do?”
Frustration sour at the back of his throat, Josiri raised his voice. “We get out of his way, and we go in behind.” Stepping clear of the line, he let his gaze travel, meeting the eyes of constable, hearthguard and knight. “We get the wounded out, and get them help. No fear or favour, and no questions. Am I clear on this?”
A chorus of voices roused to agreement. Knights and constables offered clasped fists in salute. Brass gave a reluctant nod; Viara an altogether more determined one. What was it about this damn city anyway? The best and the worst of human nature, all jumbled up so no sane man might tell them apart.
The first buccinas sounded and the infantry came forward.
Thirty-Three
Altiris crept to the alleyway mouth and peered across to the Tribute Street barricade, thick with attentive men and women. A glance back along the street revealed a thin constabulary picket. So far to the west – practically on the coast – no one expected trouble. “I know some of those faces.”
Kurkas grunted. “Don’t mean they remember yours. Midwintertide’s a lifetime ago.”
Altiris shook his head. Everything Kurkas had said was true, and backed by peril besides. Kasvin knew who he was, and from the steward’s account she was at the heart of the disturbance. “You’re a cheery soul.”
“You ain’t th
e first to say.” Kurkas eased his sword an inch back and forth in its scabbard. Weapons aside, both were in civilian garb once more. “You sure your head’s right in all this?”
Altiris had asked himself the same several times since leaving Stonecrest. “Worried you can’t trust me?”
“I ain’t judging. Not so long back, I cosied up with a notorious Southshires wolf’s-head. Turns out Halvor and me had more in common than I did with the Council. There’s more than one kind of loyalty.”
“Sometimes they’re the same,” Altiris said firmly. “Lord Trelan wants this stopped peaceably. Those in the docks need this stopped peaceably. We’re all on the same side.”
“Yeah?” Kurkas scratched beneath his eyepatch. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
The wind gusted, driving screams and hoofbeats from the eastern streets and making mock of Altiris’ assertion. He took a breath. “Let’s get it done.”
“Moment.” Kurkas eased his sword from its scabbard and peered back down the shadowed alleyway. “I hear you creeping about! Might as well come out. Be sociable.”
The alleyway offered up no answer, but felt too still, too silent. As if holding its breath. Altiris drew his sword. “You heard the man.”
A dozen paces back, where crates mouldered beneath a leaking gutter, the shadows shifted. Not dispelled by light, but withdrawing of their own accord. Hand tucked to his stomach, Constans offered a florid bow.
“Hold thy steel, the Jackdaw cried. A harmless knave am I.”
Kurkas’ blade drooped. “Touched in the head, more like, providing your own narration.”
Altiris sighed. “It’s from a play within a play. The Court of Four Winds, by—”
Kurkas narrowed his eye. “And the trick with the shadows?”
“What trick?” Constans straightened from his bow. “Your tired old eye’s seeing things, Vladama. Perhaps Josiri might lend you those eyeglasses he’s acquired. I’m told they work wonders.”
“Uh-uh.” Kurkas nodded meaningfully at his tabard. “Shouldn’t you be with the Drazina?”
“Shouldn’t you be with the constabulary?” Constans grinned. “Storming barricades isn’t really my thing. It’s so… crude. And then I saw you creeping around. I thought you’d like some help. Unless you’re planning on joining the protesters.”