Plague of Shadows

by Michael Wisehart

  “For all that effort,” Abiah said, looking out at the amassing force, “we didn’t seem to do that much.”

  “It’s not about winning,” Ayrion said, hoping Abiah’s defeatist attitude didn’t spread to the others. “There’s no way we could survive an all-out attack. The only way to beat a much larger force is to fight them a little at a time, which is exactly what we did, and quite successfully, I might add. Tonight is not about winning; it’s about surviving until the sun comes back up.”

  Abiah stared out the window. “I’d say they won’t wait much longer before ripping a hole through the wagons. And when they do, they’ll have a right nasty surprise waiting on them.”

  Ayrion took a step closer to the window. “Looks like they’re getting ready to break through now.”

  Abiah hopped up from his stoop and limped down the front stretch of windows. “Ready your barrels!”

  Ayrion raced to the end of the balcony and shouted down to those inside. “Get those doors shut! They’re coming!” He rejoined the bowmen at the windows and watched as the vulraaks pulled one of the wagons over, leaving a gaping hole in their barricade. White bodies poured through the opening and up the steps. A loud thud reverberated as the doors below shut and the heavy bracer was dropped into place.

  The sound of the vulraaks beating against the doors sent a shiver up Ayrion’s spine, but with no form of battering ram, he didn’t see how they were going to do much damage.

  “How sure are you that this stuff will light?” Ayrion asked.

  Abiah grinned and pulled out a tin mug he had hidden behind some boxes he was sitting on. He dunked it in one of the casks and held it out to Ayrion. “Go ahead. Try it.”

  Everyone on the balcony turned to watch. Ayrion felt like he was about to be the butt of a joke. But not wanting to look weak in front of his men, he lifted the goblet and took a swallow. His first reaction was to inhale, but he’d somehow lost his breath. The liquid felt like it was melting his insides on its way down. His eyes watered, and he coughed so hard, he thought he’d spit out a lung.

  Those watching laughed.

  Abiah slapped him hard on the back. “Goes down smooth, doesn’t it?”

  “For the love of Aldor, what was that?” Ayrion asked, still trying to catch his breath. It was even stronger than the rovers’ musca. If that was possible.

  “That would be a Sidaran specialty—black briar. You like? It’s distilled from the roots of a rare prickle plant that grows along the outer edges of Reed Marsh. Not many can afford such a luxury. I’d never be able to sell something like this in my tavern.”

  “Well, it’s certainly flammable. Whatever you do, don’t drop a torch in one of those barrels, or we won’t have to wait for the vulraaks to kill us.”

  Abiah leaned his head back and roared. First bit of laughter Ayrion had heard from the man since the mines. It almost seemed unnatural, considering what he’d lost. But he figured everyone coped in different ways.

  Ayrion turned to the men and women standing around. “And don’t let me catch you helping yourselves to it, either. Last thing we need is a bunch of drunken archers shooting each other instead of the vulraaks.”

  Abiah saluted. “You have my word, General.” He turned and limped back down the line of men. Ayrion could hear him mumbling under his breath as he went. “Hate to see such good stuff go to waste.” At the end of the row, he finally turned. “Ready your barrels!”

  Those standing on either side of the casks bent, ready to lift.

  “Torches at the ready!”

  Those standing at the windows held out their torches.

  “Burn ’em alive!”

  The men heaved with all their might as they tipped the ends of their barrels. The dark liquid cascaded like a waterfall over the creatures below. Those with torches dropped them out the windows and watched as the contents of the barrels transformed into liquid fire before reaching the ground. The creatures’ screams were bloodcurdling as their bodies ignited into an inferno that lit the entire square. They tried to run, but there was nowhere to go.

  Ayrion couldn’t believe how well that had worked.

  “Ready the next barrels!” Abiah yelled as he marched back down the row.

  Bek joined Ayrion at one of the windows and looked out. “What in the name of Aldor is in those casks?” He walked over to one of the open barrels and looked inside, eyes wide. “Is that black briar?”

  “That it be,” Abiah said, joining them in front of the cask.

  “They say it can make a grown man sweat.”

  Abiah glanced at Ayrion with a wicked grin, and Ayrion finally nodded. The taverner quickly produced the same mug he had offered Ayrion earlier and dipped it in, handing it to Bek.

  Bek took a swallow, and his eyes bulged. He spit half back into the barrel, the other half across the floor. “Hot flaming—”

  “Help! Vulraaks! They’re inside the walls!”

  Chapter 64 | Ayrion

  EVERYONE ON THE SECOND floor rushed to the railing.

  A young boy, blood running down the front of his tunic, stumbled into the main room from one of the back corridors. “Help! They killed my brother!” The boy’s legs gave out, and he dropped to the floor.

  “Keep that liquid flowing!” Ayrion yelled as he ran for the stairs. Bek was right behind him.

  Abiah didn’t need prodding. He was back to shouting out orders by the time Ayrion and Bek managed to make it down the stairs and push their way through the crowd of onlookers.

  Zynora was there with the boy, hands glowing as she pushed some of her healing magic into him. A number of people scooted back, those not having been around long enough to know she was a wielder. The little boy’s eyes opened.

  “What happened?” Ayrion asked. “You said the vulraaks are here? Where are they?”

  The boy pointed behind him in the direction of the east corridors. “They’re in the cellars. Father told me to run and get help.”

  Ayrion looked at Bek and Tameel. “Remember what I was saying about that Blind?” He ripped his blades from their sheaths and ran down the corridor. “On me!” Behind him, he could hear Bek shouting for more to follow. How had the vulraaks managed to get in? They had made a thorough sweep of the entire building. A few of the creatures must have found a place to hide when they had searched the first time.

  Rounding the next corner, Ayrion could hear the sounds of battle ahead. Defenders were fighting their way out of a stairwell on the left.

  “What’s going on?” he shouted down the hall.

  One of the men turned, blood running down his left arm. “They just came out of nowhere, sir. We were loading more of the casks for Master Abiah, and the next thing we know, we’re being overrun.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “This is all that’s left. The rest are dead.”

  Ayrion counted five men. “How many of the creatures are down there?” He pushed his way to the front of the steps and found his answer. He thrust his blade through the mouth of one creature that was working to get around the arm of one of his people. The creature squealed and fell backward into those coming up.

  The entire staircase was covered in vulraaks. This wasn’t just a few who’d been in hiding. This was an entire contingent.

  “Get behind me!”

  Bek and the fresh recruits pulled the five men back as they barricaded the cellar with their bodies, fighting to keep the creatures from entering the keep.

  “Where are they coming from?” Ayrion drew his blade from one creature’s chest and plunged it into another.

  One of the men beside him was yanked right off his feet and pulled into the cellar stairwell before Ayrion could grab him.

  “I don’t know,” Bek said, keeping his hatchets swinging, cutting off limbs as fast as they poked up out of the darkness below. “There must be some tunnels under the Justice House we didn’t know about.”

  Ayrion dodged a set of claws aimed at his neck and cut the vulraak’s arm off
at the elbow. He kicked the rest of the body back into the others. “Fantastic! That might have been helpful to know before now.”

  “Don’t look at me. I told you I’ve never been in here before.” Bek spun around and lopped off the next vulraak’s head with a single stroke, splattering the side of Ayrion’s coat with blood.

  Ayrion was getting winded, and his fighters looked ready to collapse. They had already fought several waves of the creatures, and the vulraaks were fresh. It was pure self-preservation alone that had kept them swinging their weapons.

  He stabbed the legs of the next two and slit open the chest cavity of the third before shoving it back onto those still trying to reach the top. “We better think of something fast, because we’re about to be overrun.”

  The vulraaks continued coming. Ayrion and his men were already being forced back into the main corridor and away from the open stairwell. They couldn’t let them get a foothold. If they didn’t manage to stop the creatures here, it was over.

  “Move! Out of the way! Coming through!”

  Behind him, Ayrion heard Tameel shout, “Get down! Get down!”

  “I can’t get down!” he said. “I’m up to my neck in vulraaks.”

  Ayrion was suddenly yanked backward off his feet and thrown to the ground by a pair of fur-covered arms. “What do you think you’re—” Before he could finish, a gale of wind billowed over their heads, pinning them to the ground. It slammed into the vulraaks emerging from the cellars and threw their bodies like ragdolls down the corridor.

  “Move! Clear a path!” Tameel shouted as he and a couple of men rolled three large casks toward the cellar entrance. Zynora pushed her way through to the top of the cellar stairs, her face pale and covered in sweat. She lifted her arms, reciting another one of her incantations, and another blast of air hammered the creatures on the steps, throwing them back into the darkness below. She collapsed into Tameel’s arms, and a couple of the fighters carried her back down the hall.

  Ayrion hoped she hadn’t pushed herself too far.

  “Roll them in!” Abiah ordered as he helped the men push the first of the barrels down the long staircase. One by one, the men shoved all three through the cellar door and down the stairs.

  A single archer stood at the entrance with a lit shaft, waiting for Abiah’s command.

  Ayrion grabbed Abiah’s arm. “Wait! Aren’t the rest of the barrels down there?”

  “Exactly,” the taverner said with a wink. “Now run!”

  By the time he turned, his fighters were already halfway down the hall. He spared a quick glance over his shoulder just as the archer released the flaming arrow down the stairs.

  The man turned and ran. The walls and floor shook from the force of the exploding barrels. Behind them, the ceiling collapsed around the cellar entrance, taking a swath of the corridor with it. The archer leaped just in time to miss one of the walls tumbling in behind him. The force and loose debris knocked the man from his feet.

  Ayrion and some of the others ran to help free him from the rubble. “What’s your name?” Ayrion asked the archer as he helped him to his feet. Apart from an ugly cut on his forehead, the man was surprisingly unscathed.

  “Taggert, sir.”

  “Well, Taggert, that was a brave thing you did back there. Don’t believe I could have done better myself.”

  The man saluted with his fist to his chest. “Had to be done, sir.”

  Ayrion patted him on the back. “That it did.” He turned and studied the damage behind them. He couldn’t believe how much force those casks of black briar had produced. Dust filled the corridor, blinding everything around him. “We need to get back to the main room,” he said, wiping the flumes of white powder from his eyes. “How many barrels of that stuff were down there?”

  “Quite a few,” Abiah said between fits of coughing. Once the cloud of debris began to settle, they could see that everything beyond that point had been completely encased in stone.

  “I’m just glad to see that tunnel sealed,” Ayrion said. “Now we know how Argon knew we were coming. His vulraaks have been right here with us the whole time.”

  Chapter 65 | Barthol

  “IT’S GETTING LATE,” Barthol said. “Do you still think she’s coming?” He looked out the front window of Commander Tolin’s home. The yard was dark, the moon barely casting enough light to see beyond the porch. He stared at the surrounding shadows, half expecting white-robed guards to come bursting out of the night to arrest them.

  “She’s the one who set up this meeting,” Tolin said. “I say we give her a little more time.” The words had barely escaped the commander’s lips when there was a heavy knock at the door. He looked at Barthol. “Good timing.” Tolin raised his lamp and crossed the room, sword bouncing in time against his leg.

  Barthol took up a position on the opposite side of the door. One could never be too careful nowadays. His fingers tightened around the dagger at his waist as Tolin reached for the knob.

  The door burst open. A large man grabbed the commander by the neck and pushed him back into the room. “Don’t move or I’ll slit your throat.”

  Barthol was so stunned, he never even pulled his dagger.

  The light from Tolin’s lamp reflected off a blade the man had pressed against the commander’s neck. The fact that Tolin hadn’t dropped the lamp in the scuffle spoke to the amount of combat he’d seen.

  The attacker might have had Tolin overmatched in both size and shape, but not Barthol. Barthol drew his dagger, slipped out from behind the door, and pressed the tip against the small of the man’s back. “I strongly suggest you rethink your position, friend. You seem to be at a disadvantage.”

  “Think again,” a woman’s voice said behind him. Before he could turn, Barthol felt the tip of a blade pressed against his back.

  “What say we don’t stand here in the doorway for all to see?” the mysterious woman said. “Might be kind of an awkward sight for the neighbors, don’t you think?”

  Barthol kept his blade pressed against the man in front of him, waiting to see who would move first. The knife at his back dug in.

  “Kerson, move forward, you oaf, so I can shut the door.” The man holding Tolin took two steps in, and Barthol quickly followed as they all paraded into Tolin’s front room.

  The door behind him shut. “Po, kindly relieve them of their weapons, will you?”

  Barthol started to turn. Who is she talking to?

  “My pleasure.” A thin man with straight black hair stepped around to Barthol’s side and held out his hand. Other than his scrawny size, there wasn’t much about him that stood out. He was about as plain as a potato. Po . . . potato. Barthol tried not to smile. This was his chance.

  Barthol spun away from the sharp point of the woman’s knife and grabbed Po, jerking him backward and using him as a shield against the woman.

  Just as soon as Kerson realized Barthol’s blade was no longer there, he spun as well, taking Tolin with him. Everyone was now facing each other in a small circle: Kerson with his blade against Tolin’s throat, Barthol with his blade against the potato man’s throat, and the mysterious woman—who turned out to be younger than Barthol would have expected and a good deal prettier—with her knife resting idly in her hand.

  She wore a long leather overcoat that reminded him of the one Ayrion used to wear, except for the color. Hers was deep red. A single braid of raven hair hung down the middle of her back, swishing as she looked the two men over.

  “Well, gentlemen.” She was smiling as though it were all in good fun. “It appears as though we are at an impasse. I’m open to suggestions.”

  “I suggest we start with who you are and why you’re in my home,” Tolin said, appearing unaffected by the blade at his throat.

  “Ah, the disgraced Commander Tolin, I take it.” She glanced at Barthol. “Which would make you Barthol Respuel. Former captain of the disbanded High Guard and Ayrion’s right arm.

  “I’m Kira, Clan Chief of the Warren Counc
il.”

  Barthol could see Tolin’s demeanor slip as he bared his teeth and slowly reached for his sword.

  “Ah,” she said, pointing her knife at Tolin. “None of that, Commander.”

  Tolin lowered his hand.

  “To my friends,” she said, “I’m Red. To my enemies . . . well . . . best you not find out.” She looked at Barthol, then back to Tolin. “For you, Kira will do nicely.”

  “So, that rabble of street whores, pickpockets, and murderers have elected a chief, have they?” Tolin said.

  The man holding the knife to his throat tightened his grip, forcing Tolin to raise his head higher.

  Tolin sneered. “By the looks of you, they chose well.”

  Kira leaned her head back and laughed. “You truly were Ayrion’s mentor,” she said. “You sound just like him.” She laughed some more. “Tolin, I like you. Ayrion always was a good judge of character.”

  “Can’t say as I reciprocate,” Tolin interjected. “Now that introductions have been duly exchanged, how about you tell me what you’re doing in my home?”

  “I believe I can answer that, Commander,” Amarysia said as she slid the front door open and stepped inside, her blonde hair hanging loose down her back. A robed individual stepped in behind her, their hood remaining up to conceal their face.

  “Ah, and the hussy makes her grand entrance,” Kira said, taking a step to the left to let Amarysia through. “Running a bit late, aren’t we?”

  Amarysia ignored the woman’s snide remark and moved farther into the room. “Kira has a vested interest in what we discuss here tonight. She was also a close friend of Ayrion’s. They grew up together on the streets.”

  Barthol looked at the young leather-clad chief. He thought it strange he’d never heard Ayrion mention her before. A character as colorful as she was would have come up in at least one conversation, surely. Then again, Ayrion had never been one to discuss much about his past.

  Amarysia looked at the skinny man in Barthol’s arms and smiled. “Po, it’s nice to see you too,” she said with a sly wink. “And with all your clothes on.”