The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4)

by H. Anthe Davis

  Sarovy looked to Ardent, but she seemed as lost as he was. “You think on that,” she said, “and if you need material assistance, just give us a list. Mages, though, we don't really keep those in stock.”

  “But you can find them, right? You're Taradzureni, like Presh? He said so. Taradzur has a university, something like our Citadel. Maybe you could check it. We'd only need eight mages to be comfortable.”

  “Eight is a tall order.”

  “Is it?”

  “Plan your magic and we'll see what we can do.”

  Mako dimpled at the Enforcer, then went distant, gaze sliding off to the corner of the room as she thought intensely at her absent partners. By now, Sarovy was used to it, so the Enforcer's dubious look amused him.

  “Well. It will be nice if they can manage such a block,” she said finally, “though I won't count on it. Maybe you can draft some of the Crimson's mages. Take that business off of us.”

  “We'll see,” said Sarovy. “But they might all be White Flames now.”

  Ardent sat forward again. “Explain that to me. I never thought the Imperial Light had splinter sects. Well...I didn't know much about your Light at all, to tell the truth.”

  Sarovy considered it. “I'm not entirely certain myself. We could ask Warder Tanvolthene, but he claims to have been just a hireling, and Messenger Cortine is still comatose. Of the rest of us, I am unsure whether any has had much contact with the White Flames.”

  “Rallant,” said Mako.

  He glanced to her, surprised, and found that her focus was with them again. “Rallant's had contact with them,” she repeated, “and the Wyndish and Imperial Courts. I've been listening in on his chats with Linciard—told him that was the only way they were allowed to have them. They're not doing anything untoward,” she answered Sarovy's dubious look, “more like an extended debriefing.”

  “Neither of you mentioned this to me,” said Sarovy stiffly.

  “Because you'd say no, and I don't have the training to pull knowledge from his brain but he'll spill it to Linciard for a smile and a kind word. Soft skills, captain. If you two want to know, I'd suggest you sit in with them once Linciard's back. I'm sure you'll hear something interesting.”

  A part of him wanted to be angry—to stand up and shout at her for circumventing his authority. The larger, saner portion reminded him that this was why he'd picked Linciard for the lieutenancy in the first place: his interest in others, his easy way of making connections. He couldn't back off from that program just because the connections went both ways. “You're guarding his mind?” he prompted tightly.

  Mako glared. “Of course. I'm a professional. And I was going to cut him off if we had no results, get Edar to soundproof the cell, but I've learned a lot.”

  “And when were you planning to report your knowledge?”

  “Well… I've been busy...”

  “After this mission,” Enforcer Ardent cut in blandly. “Provided all is well.”

  “Indeed,” said Sarovy, and touched his silent earhook like a talisman.

  *****

  Linciard squeezed his eyes shut as the dark woman pulled him toward the wall, bracing for an impact that didn't come. Instead, motion and sound rushed around him as if he'd stepped into a windstorm, plucking and whispering and tugging his war-braids like a thousand little hands.

  He staggered forward, finding the ground fractionally lower than he'd expected and first smooth, then tacky. He didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to see whatever was making the men behind him gasp and exclaim. If he could have gone temporarily blind for this endeavor, he would have been happy.

  But his nerves signaled danger as the woman dragged him onward, so he cracked one eye open, intending just to stare at the ground. Except it wasn't ground: it was white fiber carving a shoulders'-width path through a smoky ochre night, with more spider-strands veering through the sky at all angles to converge at some point below.

  At least it wasn't the blackness that had gaped beneath him at the Old Crown ambush. Still, it unsettled him. He wasn't afraid of heights; most of his youth had been spent shimmying up trees with a saw in hand, or climbing the uprucks and low cliffs that made back-country Wyndon nigh impassable. But here in the Shadow Realm, suspended on an inch-thick stretch of goop, he felt vertigo like never before.

  “Just a short run,” said the woman ahead of him. She had an accent but not much; so far none of the Shadow Folk, no matter how strange they looked, had been incomprehensible. Nor was there any evidence of baby-eating or any of the other ridiculous things the rumors said about them. By and large, they seemed like professionals.

  Linciard still felt wary of them, but that was more out of sympathy for his edgy men than because of the Shadows themselves. The Light priests had always said that the Dark offered anything a man could want, then devoured the fools who accepted—but they were being paid short wages here, and put to work, so it wasn't like that.

  Anyway, Messenger Cortine had also said they should all be converted, so pike what the Light priests thought.

  Focus, Erolan. No time to let your mind wander.

  He looked up just enough to see a branch in the road ahead of them, one side cutting sharply left. The woman took it, and then they were running with their backs to the convergence point, no other strands heading this way—just a great black wall.

  The white strand ran out just short of it, replaced by a bumpy-looking black arc that led into a weird dark bulge. Linciard braced himself as they crossed it, feeling the material shift underfoot, then followed his guide face-first into the bulge.

  It was like stepping through a curtain of water, unresisting but clearly a change. The woman drew aside immediately and he moved with her, looking around at the chamber they'd entered. Like a bubble squashed against a wall, it stretched perhaps thirty feet wide and ten deep, its floor flat and roof curved. A lantern on a pole cast eye-shaped orange splotches across the ten or so Shadow Folk awaiting them; through the translucent side-walls he saw other lanterns, other gatherings.

  As his men came through, he turned from the sights to do a head-count. They looked uneasy in the sullen light, the whites of their eyes showing starkly; calling their names made most of them shake it off, but he had to go over and grab a few by the shoulders and talk them back to reality. Worry spiked his heart as one man burst into tears, but before he could ask that the man be sent back, he stifled himself and muttered that he was ready.

  Reluctantly accepting that, Linciard eyed their hosts. “What now?”

  The dark-skinned woman smiled and beckoned them over to where agents were sorting through a pile of baggage. “Rest of your kit. I'm Enforcer Zhahri, Ardent's first lieutenant; behind you is Enforcer Ticuo, her second. We'll be serving as oversight. These agents will go with you to assist. What we want from you is to subdue the Crimson patrol non-lethally—we don't care how. We have two steel-folk here to take out the mage, unless you know a better way.”

  Linciard shook his head. “Not used to fighting mages. So these are Seething Brigade, human? How many, how well-equipped?”

  “Ten plus the mage. Light infantry: crossbows, swords and small shields. They're supply-hunting, so if the typical pattern repeats, they'll try hauling goods out once they decide the building is clear, at least half of them stowing weapons.”

  “Like we were doing when you ambushed us at Potter's Row.”

  Zhahri's lean face tightened. “Enforcer Ardent has instructed us not to discuss our scuffles except in terms of tactics.”

  Wincing, Linciard held his hands up. “Sorry, that's what I meant. Wasn't looking to antagonize. So we wait until they think it's safe, then you put us in there and we jump 'em?”

  “Basically. There's a main corridor with a double row of rooms. We'll open shadowpaths once the group has passed, and you can pick which spots you like.”

  He looked to his team. Four officers, himself included, all of whom had done their time in the infantry before taking up the lance. Eight other
men, plus who-knew-how-many Shadows. “At least four rooms?” he said.

  “Six. Then the main storeroom at the end of the hall.”

  “All right. So. Kenner, Virn, Wolfsden, pick two men each, I'll take the others. Four teams: one in each room by the exit, one in a middle room, one in an end room. At least one Shadow per team. If the Seethers are smart, they'll move in pairs, so what we do is get to our positions while they're in the storeroom, let the first pair come back toward the exit, and grab one from each side. One pair in each exit room subdues that guy, the other pair prepares to grab whoever comes to investigate. If more than four come, the middle room folds in behind them; if they all come, middle grabs from the middle and the end room folds in. Put the metals in the other end room to rush the mage as soon as there's an alert.”

  Zhahri seemed to go over it in her head, then said, “Three Shadows per team. They won't come out to fight unless it's dire but they'll keep anyone you grab subdued.”

  “Sounds fine.”

  She flashed him a grin, startlingly white against her features, then gestured to the baggage. “Dig in.”

  Linciard peered into the first one and blinked at its contents: a selection of weird black helmets with mask-like faceplates that buckled into the shell. The next held truncheons, both wood and leather-wrapped metal; another had oblong shields that seemed to strap to the arm lengthwise like a protrusive vambrace. Also in that bag were main-arm gauntlets wrapped in enough studded leather to serve as weapons themselves.

  Intrigued, Linciard picked one close to his size and popped his bracer off to make space for it. He wasn't happy with any of his borrowed gear—only the chainmail hauberk properly fitted—so changing it was no loss. It was a heavier gauntlet than he usually used, less mobile in the wrist, much thicker leather, but considering how his fingers had been acting since Weshker had cut up his arms, he didn't know how well he could manage a truncheon anyway. Or a sword.

  He hadn't told anyone, and he wouldn't let it stop him now.

  The oblong shield strapped on easily, with enough overhanging his hand that he figured he could punch with it like some fist-blade. He managed the helm-buckle, barely, and by then the rest of his men were ready, most with truncheons and shields but Garrenson with a gauntlet too.

  They'd already split into their teams, he saw, leaving him with Tethrick and Landene—not his first picks, but they'd do. Three Shadows fell in with them, wearing gear that matched the helmets. As he watched, Kenner's team passed through one of the translucent walls and into a different shadow-bubble, Virn's team on their heels. Wolfsden's went the other way.

  “I want one of the exit rooms,” he told Zhahri.

  She nodded and motioned toward the flat part of the shadow-wall. “We're already there, we just haven't merged in. This way we can shift to another shadow if they leave a mage-light in a bad place. But get ready; our spies say the Seethers are in.”

  He hadn't heard any such notification, and glanced around speculatively. Most of the Shadows had split to assist the teams, but there was one stationed at each end of the room, wearing incongruous white-striped gloves and occasionally gesturing at the wall. Squinting, Linciard made out other stripe-gloved Shadows in the other bubbles, returning the motions.

  “Signalers,” said Zhahri, tracking his gaze. “We have a universal sign code. Essential for when we need to work through walls or between branches with no common language.”

  “You speak good Imperial, though.”

  She gave him a dry look. “That's not the only language. This isn't the only continent.”

  He opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say.

  Just then, the chamber shifted like a barge in a current, and he watched in amazement as the main wall thinned until it resembled smoky glass. Through it, he saw a small room that might once have been an office, its shelves now stripped bare, a flimsy desk and a few chairs the only furniture. The door on the side-wall was closed, but the stripe-gloved signaler had turned to Zhahri with a frenzy of gestures, and Zhahri held out an arm as if to keep everyone back.

  The chamber door kicked in. For an instant, Linciard saw an armored body, leading with sword and shield—

  Then the wall went black, the room gone.

  “Mage-light,” said Zhahri. Linciard nodded his understanding.

  They waited in silence until the view resolved again. A soldier was just leaving, the desk and chairs now reduced to splinters. Through the still-open door, a faint glow could be seen, but it wasn't direct enough to harm the shadows.

  “Quickly now—and quietly,” said Zhahri. One of the Shadow aides took Linciard by the arm, and they stepped on through.

  The air on the other side was crisp, giving credence to the Shadows' claims of darkness and frost. Immediately his earhook tingled, its connection reengaging, and he found himself with a faint sense of the other three nearby. He grimaced, hoping Mako wouldn't poke him; by the sounds of the Seether patrol, they were still very close.

  He'd emerged in the corner past the door, out of sight of any soldiers still filing by, and took a moment to breathe and quell his nerves before edging toward the opening. At his back, the rest of his team copied him.

  From the archway, he heard more doors thump open, more wooden objects splinter; there was some mumbled banter, some laughter, someone snapping at them to be quiet. He wished he'd asked about ranks and nationalities; different folk fought in different ways, and if they were all Riddish, his team might be in trouble. But he wasn't sure how much the Shadows knew about Imperial regions anyway, and they had numbers on their side.

  Breathe. Listen. Wait, he told himself. That's all you can do.

  He did glance out once, across the hall, to see another helmed and masked soldier doing the same. They exchanged nods, then Linciard gestured for him to get back into hiding.

  Time passed. He caught snatches of conversation, the sound of metal on brick, the distinctive rip of nails from wood, then some argument. More scraping sounds, like someone was testing a wall, then several heavy thumps and the clatter of brick shards falling.

  “Trying to breach a tunnel entrance,” the Shadow aide murmured in his ear, making him twitch.

  “Do you need that defended?” he murmured back.

  “It is. But lethally.”

  Which wasn't what they wanted. And it seemed the Seethers weren't here for the supplies, since he didn't hear any dragging or crate-opening, just another hard thunk and a scatter of brick chips. “Problem?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, gonna get started. Tell the others to shade their eyes.” That last went out over the earhook as well, cued by thought.

  As confirmations echoed back, he stepped as light-footed as possible to the pulverized chair to pick up a wooden shard. Returning to the door, he peeked out to see the soldier opposite looking again, and raised a chunk to indicate his plan. The man gave a small salute.

  Linciard pitched the chunk of wood out the door, toward the exit. It clattered loudly off the opposite wall.

  Someone in the storeroom spoke, and the pounding halted. Linciard could imagine the scene: several guards peering from that doorway, trying to figure out what they'd heard. Carefully, he raised his hand beside the doorjamb and flicked a meaningless gesture that just passed the edge of it.

  Silence, then another low murmur from the storeroom. A scuff of boots on stone, a subtle change in the light of the hallway.

  Linciard shaded his eyes, anticipating their reaction, and had it confirmed as a wisp-light shot through the door and flared bright as day in the center of the room. The Shadow agent behind him hissed, and on impulse Linciard cried out sharply. Across the hall, someone gave an emphatic curse.

  The footsteps rushed. Dropping to one knee, he waited in the brilliant glare until a body moved through the doorway—then surged forward low and hard, hitting the bottom of a shield with his shoulder and powering through to slam the man's legs.

  The startled point-man went down
into the empty corner opposite, and he followed, letting his momentum land him on top in a momentary tangle of metal and limbs. A sword cut the air overhead, then shouts and impacts filled the room as his backup jumped the second Seether, giving him time to lurch up and stamp on the point-man's sword-arm. That hand popped open, and Linciard kicked away the sword then winced as the man's shield rang hard across his greaves. He planted a boot in the man's shoulder in retaliation, took another shield-strike to the hip, then backhanded him across the open part of his helm with the narrow Shadow shield.

  That dazed the man, at least for a moment. Pushing up, Linciard turned just in time to fend off another sword with his shield-arm, the point slicing up past its edge to carve a line in the leather of his helm. This new Seether had his shield up too, but Linciard bulled straight into it, slamming the man into the doorjamb then grappling at both arms until he managed to hook his fingers into the man's armor.

  The Seether shoved him back but he pulled his foe along, clearing the doorway and then heaving the man sideways with all his might as one of the Shadows rushed up to assist. Between them, they sent the Seether to the floor and the Shadow dropped on him to pin him flat.

  No more Seethers came. Linciard gave the room a quick glance and saw two Shadows keeping down the first one he'd felled and a Blaze man sitting on the other Seether's back while he thrashed and cursed. That Blaze gave him the go-sign, so with the other Blaze man at his heels, he chanced the hallway.

  It was a brawling mess, three Seethers trying to hold off four Blaze men, while in the room across the hall one Blaze sat punching his fallen opponent in the face. Further down the hall, a pair of legs disappeared into a side-chamber, and strange flashes of color and light filled the storeroom as fluid metallic figures flung themselves at someone unseen.