Soulbinder

by Sebastien de Castell

  “It is an eagle, boy,” he replied, smiling up at the hunter flying in lazy circles through the air like a buzzard anticipating his next meal. “A bird is something that flitters around before you shoot it for food. An eagle makes you his dinner.”

  He pointed absently towards me. Unlike him, I didn’t have any armour, just my leather coat and riding chaps to keep myself from getting scraped up every time I fell off my horse. “I like your hat,” he said, nodding at the Daroman frontiersman hat I wore to keep the sun off my face, and off the black marks around my left eye. “Those silver glyphs going around the brim are … cute. Do they do anything?”

  I shrugged. “The man I stole the hat from said they’d bring me luck.”

  Arke’tan smiled again. “Then he overcharged you. This fool has paid me rather a lot of money to end you, but I would have done it for free had I known you were Shadowblack. I’m going to send a bolt of lightning straight through that filthy left eye of yours.”

  The bird … eagle, rather, let out a caw for emphasis, as if it understood the conversation. “You think the bird knows …” I began.

  “Of course he knows what you’re saying,” Reichis chittered in reply, then added, “idjit.” The squirrel cat means “idiot” when he says that, but we’d been in the borderlands for a few months, and he’d taken to talking like a gap-toothed frontiersman. “The eagle’s his familiar. Whatever that overgrown skinbag hears, the bird hears.”

  I glanced down at Reichis, who looked a little ridiculous holding his paw just above his eyes to shield them from the harsh sunlight reflecting off the snow and ice so he could scowl at the mage’s eagle. If you’ve never seen a squirrel cat before, imagine a drunken god had gifted a slightly tubby two-foot-tall cat with a big bushy tail and furry flaps running between its front and back legs that enable him to glide down from treetops and sink his claws and teeth into his chosen prey—which is pretty much everything that moves. Oh, and then that same god gave his creation the temperament of a thief. And a blackmailer. And probably on more than one occasion, a murderer.

  “I bet that guy’s eagle doesn’t call him ‘idjit,’” I said.

  Reichis looked up at me. “Yeah, well, that’s probably because I’m not your familiar, I’m your business partner. Idjit.”

  “You think that’s going to make a difference in about five minutes when the marshals tell us to draw and that eagle snatches you up and rips out your entrails?”

  “Point,” Reichis said. He patted me on the leg. “All right, so you’re a genius, kid. Now go blow this guy away so we can eat that ugly-lookin’ bird for supper.”

  I let my hands drift down to the powder pouches at my sides. Merrell nearly fell on his arse and the two marshals instantly had their crossbows aimed at me in case I was about to cheat the duel, but Arke’tan ignored the gesture entirely.

  “He ain’t afraid of you blasting him,” Reichis said. Well, he doesn’t really speak—he makes squirrel cat sounds—but the nature of our relationship is such that I hear them as words.

  “Right,” I said. “Intransigent charm shield?”

  “Gotta be.”

  I peered across the gap between us and Arke’tan. I couldn’t see anything on the ground. I’d picked this spot intentionally because it’s pretty damned hard to keep a circle intact when all you can draw it in is ice and snow. I couldn’t see anything, so that left only one logical possibility.

  “Say, fellas? You all mind if we move just a few feet to the right? I’ve got the sun in my eyes here and we can’t have an unfair duel, right?”

  The older of the two marshals, Harrex I think his name was, shrugged his bony shoulders and nodded towards Arke’tan.

  The mage just smiled back and shook his head. His eagle did a little dive towards us and turned up just a few feet away from my face.

  “They got here early and laid down copper sigil wire under the snow then poured water on it and waited for it to turn to ice,” I said to Reichis. “Guess you were right that we should’ve camped out here last night.”

  “Idjit.”

  Harrex pulled out a sundial and held it out in front of him. “Well, gentlemen, I reckon we’re just about there. In a minute it’ll be mid-morning and marshal Parrius here will start the countdown from seven. You both know the rules after that?”

  “Kill the other guy?” I offered.

  Reichis glared up at me. “That your plan? Make jokes until that mage can’t blast us on account of he’s laughing too hard to speak the incantations?”

  “Might be our best shot. No way I’m going to be able to blast through that shield.”

  “So what do we do?”

  I looked over at Arke’tan and watched the smile on his face widen as he stood there, calm as could be, waiting for the duel to begin.

  “Seven!” marshal Parrius shouted out.

  I looked down into Reichis’ beady squirrel cat eyes. “How about we switch dance partners?” I suggested.

  “Six!”

  “You’re saying I go after the mage?” Reichis had a smile on that little fuzzy face of his. He might be greedy, he might be a liar, a thief, and a blackmailer, but the little bugger loves to fight, and he’s got a death wish the likes of which you’ve never seen.

  “Five!”

  “Don’t screw around, Reichis. You know what to do.”

  “Four!”

  Reichis gave a little shake. His fur changed colour from its usual mean-spirited brown with black stripes to pure white, making him almost invisible against the thick carpet of snow. I flipped open the metal clasps on my pouches.

  “Three!”

  Arke’tan brought the fingers of both his hands together in a kind of steeple shape. I knew the somatic form, even if I couldn’t cast the spell myself. I winced at the thought of what it would do when it hit me.

  “Two!”

  Arke’tan winked at me. The eagle pulled around from his last circle to get ready to dive after Reichis. The squirrel cat got down on all fours and pressed his back feet against the snow, digging in for leverage.

  “One …” Parrius said, a little too much enthusiasm in his voice for my taste.

  Well, this was going to be one for the poets. Although I suppose it would only be interesting if I won, since the “tale of the incredibly powerful war mage who killed a completely unknown spellslinger with barely enough magic in his hands to light blast powder” didn’t sound particularly epic.

  There’s usually only two ways to lose a duel: end up on your knees begging for mercy, or on your back waiting for your ancestors to collect your corpse.

  “Begin!”

  I was about to discover a third option that was even worse.

  2

  Fire and Lightning

  The first tiny blue sparks of lightning formed around Arke’tan’s fingers just as the eagle began a downward dive to kill Reichis. I could almost taste the electricity in the air that preceded the bolt and I prayed that Arke’tan was just arrogant enough to want to follow through with his threat. I jammed my hands into the pouches at my side, letting the forefingers grab some of the red and black powders that awaited there even as I dove to the ground. I watched the lightning bolt tear past where an instant ago it would’ve hit my left eye. Good aim.

  Reichis was kicking up a tiny snowstorm behind him as he raced toward Arke’tan screaming “Die, you stupid pigeon!”

  The eagle was just about on Reichis when I threw the powders up in the air in front of me as my right shoulder hit the ground. Inert and innocent as babes on their own, the two powders had a hatred for each other that created a deadly explosion on contact. The magic’s not in the blast, you see, that’s just the effect of the powders themselves. The magic’s in the hard part—aiming the direction of the blast, and not blowing your own hands and face off in the process. My hands each formed the necessary somatic shape: bottom two fingers pressed into the palm, the sign of restraint; fore and middle fingers pointed straight out, the sign of flight; and thumb pointing
to the heavens, the sign of, well, somebody up there help me.

  “Carath Toth,” I said, uttering the two word invocation. Only the first one was needed, strictly speaking. Toth was a bounty hunter who’d tracked Reichis and me a few weeks ago. Now my powder was suffused with his blood, and saying his name gave the spell a little extra kick.

  A blast of red and black fire, the flames intertwined like black snakes, followed the direction of my forefingers as they shot out at the eagle, leaving a haze of smoke in their wake. I missed the birds heart but got one of his wings, sending him careening into the ground a few feet away from Reichis. The squirrel cat didn’t stop to look, though. Just kept those little legs pounding towards his goal.

  “Shadea!” the mage screamed, his hands unconsciously relinquishing the somatic shape for his next spell. Hurts when your familiar gets hit, don’t it? I thought maliciously. I had nothing against the eagle, you understand, but he was trying to kill my business partner.

  Arke’tan aimed his second blast just as I was getting back to my feet, forcing me to dive again, this time flat on my stomach. I felt the electricity pass just over my head and I knew I wasn’t going to evade a third bolt.

  Reichis bridged the gap towards the war mage and gave a feral growl as he leaped up into the air. Arke’tan nearly fell back despite the fact that there was no way in hell the squirrel cat was going to be able to breach the shield. But the shield wasn’t the target. The instant Reichis hit the ground he started digging ferociously, tearing through snow and ice to where the fragile circle of copper wire holding the spell must be buried.

  Arke’tan was just starting to figure it out when I fired another shot at his familiar.

  “Carath Toth,” I said.

  “No!” Arke’tan screamed. He fired a different kind of spell this time, some kind of blessing or protection that enveloped the eagle and dissipated my blast into airy red nothingness. Nice trick, I thought.

  “Now!” Reichis growled to me.

  I saw the crease in the snow where he’d been digging. That was my opening. But I wasn’t in the right line to send a bolt through the hole in the shield.

  “Damn it,” I said, as I got to my feet and ran towards Arke’tan.

  I saw him look down at the ground, his hands forming a new and ugly shape this time. His eyes went from the hole to Reichis, and then up to me. He aimed the spell towards me. Too soon, damn it, too soon. I wasn’t in line with the gap yet.

  “Carath Moron!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, aiming my fingers at Arke’tan as if I’d really been casting the spell. Reflexively he changed the configuration of his fingers and formed a transient shield. A mistake, since I hadn’t actually fired and his warding would only last a second without copper to anchor it. Arke’tan’s mouth went wide as he realized I’d tricked him. I was now in line with the gap in his shield. The “moron” part wasn’t necessary, but when you’re an outlaw with a price on his head, you take your fun wherever you can.

  With the opening in the shield now visible as a stuttering shimmer, I whispered, “Carath Toth” one last time. The powders slammed against each other in the air. Aiming down the line of my fingers, I sent the explosion through the gap before Arke’tan could get another warding spell up. The bolt took him square in the chest and right through the decorative plating of his armour. For a second the war mage remained standing, ignorant of the fact that his body now lacked the vital organs necessary for life. The blast had left a hole big enough for me to see right through him, to where Merrell was kneeling behind his champion. I walked towards him as the mage’s body figured out what had happened, and fell to the ground.

  If that all sounds too easy, it wasn’t.

  Besides, we’re still not at the part where I screwed everything up.

  if you enjoyed

  SOULBINDER

  look out for

  THE FIFTH WARD: FIRST WATCH

  by

  Dale Lucas

  A member of the Yenara City guard has gone missing. The culprit could be any of the usual suspects: drug-dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, or humans being typical humans.

  It’s up to two reluctant partners—Rem, a miscreant who joins the Watch to pay off his bail, and Torval, a maul-wielding dwarf who’s highly unimpressed with the untrained Rem—to uncover the truth and catch the murderer loose in their fair city.

  Chapter One

  Rem awoke in a dungeon with a thunderous headache. He knew it was a dungeon because he lay on a thin bed of straw, and because there were iron bars between where he lay and a larger chamber outside. The light was spotty, some of it from torches in sconces outside his cell, some from a few tiny windows high on the stone walls admitting small streams of wan sunlight. Moving nearer the bars, he noted that his cell was one of several, each roomy enough to hold multiple prisoners.

  A large pile of straw on the far side of his cell coughed, shifted, then started to snore. Clearly, Rem was not alone.

  And just how did I end up here? he wondered. I seem to recall a winning streak at Roll-the-Bones.

  He could not remember clearly. But if the lumpy soreness of his face and body were any indication, his dice game had gone awry. If only he could clear his pounding head, or slake his thirst. His tongue and throat felt like sharkskin.

  Desperate for a drink, Rem crawled to a nearby bucket, hoping for a little brackish water. To his dismay, he found that it was the piss jar, not a water bucket, and not well rinsed at that. The sight and smell made Rem recoil with a gag. He went sprawling back onto the hay. A few feet away, his cellmate muttered something in the tongue of the Kosterfolk, then resumed snoring.

  Somewhere across the chamber, a multitumbler lock clanked and clacked. Rusty hinges squealed as a great door lumbered open. From the other cells Rem heard prisoners roused from their sleep, shuffling forward hurriedly to thrust their arms out through the cage bars. If Rem didn’t misjudge, there were only about four or five other prisoners in all the dungeon cells. A select company, to be sure. Perhaps it was a slow day for the Yenaran city watch?

  Four men marched into the dungeon. Well, three marched; the fourth seemed a little more reticent, being dragged by two others behind their leader, a thickset man with black hair, sullen eyes, and a drooping mustache.

  “Prefect, sir,” Rem heard from an adjacent cell, “there’s been a terrible mistake …”

  From across the chamber: “Prefect, sir, someone must have spiked my ale, because the last thing I remember, I was enjoying an evening out with some mates …”

  From off to his left: “Prefect, sir, I’ve a chest of treasure waiting back at my rooms at the Sauntering Mink. A golden cup full of rubies and emeralds is yours, if you’ll just let me out of here …”

  Prefect, sir … Prefect, sir … over and over again.

  Rem decided that thrusting his own arms out and begging for the prefect’s attention was useless. What would he do? Claim his innocence? Promise riches if they’d let him out? That was quite a tall order when Rem himself couldn’t remember what he’d done to get in here. If he could just clear his thunder-addled, achingly thirsty brain …

  The sullen-eyed prefect led the two who dragged the prisoner down a short flight of steps into a shallow sort of operating theater in the center of the dungeon: the interrogation pit, like some shallow bath that someone had let all the water out of. On one side of the pit was a brick oven in which fire and coals glowed. Opposite the oven was a burbling fountain. Rem thought these additions rather ingenious. Whatever elemental need one had—fire to burn with, water to drown with—both were readily provided. The floor of the pit, Rem guessed, probably sported a couple of grates that led right down into the sewers, as well as the tools of the trade: a table full of torturer’s implements, a couple of hot braziers, some chairs and manacles. Rem hadn’t seen the inside of any city dungeons, but he’d seen their private equivalents. Had it been the dungeon of some march lord up north—from his own country—that’s what would have
been waiting in the little amphitheater.

  “Come on, Ondego, you know me,” the prisoner pleaded. “This isn’t necessary.”

  “’Fraid so,” sullen-eyed Ondego said, his low voice easy and without malice. “The chair, lads.”

  The two guardsmen flanking the prisoner were a study in contrasts—one a tall, rugged sort, face stony and flecked with stubble, shoulders broad, while the other was lithe and graceful, sporting braided black locks, skin the color of dark-stained wood, and a telltale pair of tapered, pointing ears. Staring, Rem realized that second guardsman was no man at all, but an elf, and female, at that. Here was a puzzle, indeed. Rem had seen elves at a distance before, usually in or around frontier settlements farther north, or simply haunting the bleak crossroads of a woodland highway like pikers who never demanded a toll. But he had never seen one of them up close like this—and certainly not in the middle of one of the largest cities in the Western world, deep underground, in a dingy, shit- and blood-stained dungeon. Nonetheless, the dark-skinned elfmaid seemed quite at home in her surroundings, and perfectly comfortable beside the bigger man on the other side of the prisoner.

  Together, those two guards thrust the third man’s squirming, wobbly body down into a chair. Heavy manacles were produced and the protester was chained to his seat. He struggled a little, to test his bonds, but seemed to know instinctively that it was no use. Ondego stood at a brazier nearby, stoking its coals, the pile of dark cinders glowing ominously in the oily darkness.

  “Oi, that’s right!” one of the other prisoners shouted. “Give that bastard what for, Prefect!”

  “You shut your filthy mouth, Foss!” the chained man spat back.

  “Eat me, Kevel!” the prisoner countered. “How do you like the chair, eh?”

  Huh. Rem moved closer to his cell bars, trying to get a better look. So, this prisoner, Kevel, knew that fellow in the cell, Foss, and vice versa. Part of a conspiracy? Brother marauders, questioned one by one—and in sight of one another—for some vital information?