Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  In The Gilded Chateau, when Baronet Wyvern had tried to flee without paying for his pleasure, she’d caught a glimpse of black dots on his shoulder. She’d written them off as nothing more than moles or beauty marks. But what if they were actually tattoos? When she added that to the link to Shalandra and the Night Petal, all evidence pointed her squarely in the Baronet’s direction.

  “Send for Master Serpent at once,” she told Darreth. “Tell him I want him and three of his best to come with me. We’re going to pay Baronet Wyvern a visit.”

  “Of course, Guild Master.” Darreth bowed, a little smile on his lips. “Forgive me, but I already took the liberty of sending a runner to fetch Master Serpent before he got too far. He should be—ah.” He grinned wider as the door opened and Errik strode in. “There he is.”

  “What’s going on, Ilanna?” Errik asked. “Shaw’s getting ready to head out—”

  “Let him lead the Hounds,” Ilanna cut him off with a shake of her head. “You’re coming with me.” She filled him in on Darreth’s discovery and the evidence linking Baronet Wyvern to the murders. “Grab three of your best and meet me in The Gardens in half an hour.”

  “Of course, Master Gold.” Errik rushed from the room with a nod to Darreth.

  “Darreth.”

  Darreth had turned to leave, but Ilanna’s call stopped him. “Guild Master?”

  “As always, words fail to convey how impressed I am with your work.” Ilanna stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, my friend.”

  Darreth blushed and swept a deep bow. “Of course, Master Gold.”

  Ilanna rolled her eyes as the man scuttled out of the room. He still refused to call her Ilanna, even in private. She turned to Ria and opened her mouth to speak.

  “I’m coming with you,” Ria said before Ilanna made a sound. “Chantelle’s dead because of the Baronet, and if you even think of trying to talk me out—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Ilanna smiled. “I was just going to ask if you’d like to run the Hawk’s Highway with me. Sunrise isn’t far off, and there’s no way I’d rather greet the morning than up there with you.”

  Ria grinned. “Of course.”

  “You going to tell me what’s so important about the City of the Dead and the mountain?” Ilanna asked in a casual tone.

  Ria’s grin froze, and her eyes grew suddenly distant. “It’s…unrelated to these murders. A matter for another time.”

  “You know I’m not going to let it go, right?” Ilanna cocked an eyebrow. “If something’s troubling you—”

  “It’s not about me.” Ria shook her head. “When all this is over, I will tell you, you have my word.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that promise.” Ilanna strode around her desk and pulled out her Hawk gear from the drawer. “For now, I fancy a bit of a run.”

  * * *

  Ilanna hated that Ria was barely breathing hard by the time they reached the entrance to The Gardens. Evidently, the duties of House Phoenix gave Ria more time to run the Hawk’s Highway or train with Errik, while Ilanna felt trapped behind her desk most days. Ria didn’t tease her in words, but her grin spoke volumes.

  As Ilanna dropped to the street, four figures detached from the pre-dawn shadows and strode toward her.

  “Master Gold.” Errik nodded. “Ready on your word.”

  Ilanna studied the three Serpents: Tassat, Sys, and Kalla numbered among Errik’s best.

  Errik suddenly grinned. “And, I hope you don’t mind, but I invited along an old friend.”

  A fifth figure loomed in the darkness, and Ilanna’s eyes flew wide as she recognized the man.

  “Jarl!” She felt like squealing and throwing her arms around Jarl, so she settled for the latter—a girlish squeal lacked the dignity of her station as Master Gold, but in the present trusted company, she could afford to let down her guard long enough to pull her friend into a tight hug.

  “Didn’t forget me, I hope.” A huge man with sloped shoulders, a blocky head topped with shaggy blonde hair, and a broad smile on his rugged face stepped toward her.

  “Never!” Ilanna’s face felt like it would split in two from smiling so hard. “I see training the Pathfinders has kept you in good shape.”

  The Pathfinders belonged to House Hawk, but instead of stealing, they built and repaired the ladders, ropes, bridges, and walkways of the Hawk’s Highway. Jarl’s size made him too big to dance across tightropes or slip through windows, but it served him well for hauling supplies across rooftops. His sharp mind was responsible for the expansion of the Hawk’s Highway across all of Praamis—even into The Gardens and Old Praamis.

  Jarl grunted, eloquent as always, but his huge hand squeezed hers before he stepped back.

  Ilanna swallowed the momentary happiness and focused on the business at hand. “We need Baronet Wyvern alive long enough to answer some questions. After that…” She shrugged.

  Errik nodded. “Tassat, Kalla, go in through the rooftop. Sys, you’re with me around back.” He smiled up at Jarl. “As for you, big man, you’re getting Ilanna through the front door.”

  Jarl grinned and cracked his knuckles.

  Without a word, the four Serpents slipped into the shadows. Ilanna waiting a minute to give them enough time to get ahead and into position, then nodded to Jarl and Ria. “Let’s go.”

  They strode through The Gardens, wary for patrols, but moving at a steady pace toward Baronet Wyvern’s mansion. The five-story, solid stone fortress-like manor and its surrounding gardens were dark, the gates closed. Baronet Wyvern had returned from the party hours ago, and he’d be asleep in bed until late morning.

  He’s in for a rude awakening, then.

  Ilanna, Ria, and Jarl scaled the wall using the grappling hooks the Pathfinder set in place and strode up the white paving stone pathway toward the front door. No guards greeted them or tried to halt their progress—a courtesy of the Serpents’ poison-coated darts.

  She nodded to Jarl. “Do it.”

  The huge Pathfinder lifted one massive foot and drove his boot into the wooden double doors. The steel locking mechanism snapped free of the door in a spray of splinters and clattered across the tiled floor within. Jarl shouldered into the mansion with Ilanna and Ria on his heels.

  A grey-haired majordomo glided from a back room but, after one look at them, squawked and fled. Jarl wore a huge pair of brass knuckles and carried a metal-studded club, while Ria wielded her assegai spear and long dagger. Ilanna carried multiple daggers concealed around her person, but she didn’t bother to draw them. She needed no more than her reputation as the Master of the Night Guild to frighten the enemy she’d come to see.

  They moved quietly up the plush-carpeted stairs toward the Baronet’s bedroom on the third level. At Ilanna’s nod, Jarl kicked the door, and the force of his blow tore it free of its hinges.

  Through the doorway, Ilanna could see a body lying in a heap on the floor, and the Hunter of Voramis crouching over it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Explain,” the Hunter demanded. “Why would Baronet Wyvern want to kill Bluejackets?”

  “I’m certain he has little reason to hate the orphan children personally,” Liak said with a shake of his head. “In this case, it’s all business.”

  The Hunter narrowed his eyes. When it came to gold and commerce, people could do far worse than kill.

  “Baronet Wyvern has built his fortune on importing shalanite stone and Shalandran steel. Both very valuable commodities, due to their limited availability outside the City of the Dead.”

  Liak seemed to realize that he’d splattered ink on himself, and set about wiping up the mess with a filthy rag as he spoke. “However, the Hidden Circle has learned that he is not content with his incomes from his trade with Shalandra. He has sought new means to expand his earnings.” He raised an eyebrow for emphasis. “Less than legitimate means.”

  The Hunter’s gut tightened. He’d met—and killed—more than a few noble
men that supplemented their income through illegitimate means, everything from blackmail to brothels to smuggling opiates to human trafficking. Wealthy men around the world were all the same; they wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever added to their fortunes.

  “However,” Liak continued, “with the Night Guild controlling most of the extra-legal trades in Praamis, the Baronet’s options are somewhat limited. He has, therefore, taken up smuggling powdered crushweed into Praamis and distributing the narcotic to his fellow nobleman. Quite an increase in recent months, actually, which put him in direct competition with the Lord Chasteyn. It seems House Chasteyn supplements income they derive from trade agreements with Drash by smuggling in the equally potent wishleaf.”

  The Hunter’s jaw clenched. “So Baronet Wyvern is killing Bluejackets to tarnish the Chasteyn’s reputation? Mess up his trade agreements with the Drashi?” An oblique attack, yet one that could prove surprisingly effective. A vast majority of the business on Einan was conducted based on a noble house’s word of honor.

  “That was the thought.” Liak nodded. “However, if only one Bluejacket has turned up dead, there is no pattern and thus nothing to point at the Baronet. The Shalandran poison could be nothing more than a coincidence.” He toyed with the feathers of his quill. “Though, to be fair, I would have considered Baronet Wyvern anyway. After all, given his proclivities...” He trailed off.

  The Hunter remembered the blackmail note sent by the Night Guild. “Young Lady Riandra’s blood is on your hands.” The Baronet had said the young lady’s death was an accidental overdose, but what if that had been a desperate lie to stop the Hunter from killing him? What if Baronet Wyvern really was a killer and Lady Riandra’s death had given him a taste for bloodshed?

  His hands balled into tight fists. The bastard! The thought of Baronet Wyvern killing children for the sake of business brought acid surging to the back of his throat. Time to pay the nobleman another visit, but one far less polite.

  “Thank you,” the Hunter said, and gave the alchemist a nod.

  Liak inclined his head. “It is no more than that token you carry demands.” His expression grew musing. “Tell me, do you intend to kill Baronet Wyvern?”

  The Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Would that be a problem?”

  “Oh, certainly not!” Liak shook his head as he reached for another of the parchments on his desk. “However, if someone were to have warning of the Baronet’s untimely demise before it occurred, they might be able to make a few shrewd investments—investments that would pay off as soon as news of the nobleman’s death became public knowledge.” He fixed the Hunter with an owlish gaze, quill poised over the parchment.

  The Hunter suppressed a grimace. Yes, men are the same all the world over. One man’s death is another man’s profit.

  He nodded. “If Baronet is the one behind these murders, he will not live to see the sun rise.”

  “Excellent.” Liak scribbled something on the parchment and set it aside to dry. “If there is nothing else you desire of the Hidden Circle, I will consider our transaction complete.”

  The Hunter cocked his head. “Transaction?”

  “Exchange of information.” Liak blinked, surprised. “Knowledge is coin, Hunter.”

  “Indeed.” The Hunter stifled a growl at the man’s callous attitude. “I will return if I have more questions.”

  Liak bowed from his seat. “Until we meet again, then.”

  The Hunter’s gut roiled as he turned away from the alchemist and slipped out of the window through which he’d entered, but it had little to do with the reek of the tanneries. Men who dealt in facts and secrets often forgot that they spoke of real people, real deaths, real consequences. As a killer, he faced the reality every time he shattered a bone or crushed a skull.

  His anger at the alchemist’s heartlessness gave way to fury over Baronet Wyvern’s actions.

  The nobleman murdered children in the name of profit. That is something I cannot forgive. He touched Soulhunger’s hilt. Tonight, I am the hand of the Watcher, and I deliver justice for the forgotten.

  The Bluejackets and the other children murdered by Baronet Wyvern would have vengeance.

  He raced toward the nearby alley and found the hanging rope ladder that led up to the rooftops. Less than a minute later, he was sprinting across the Night Guild’s strange highway, his steps leading in the direction of The Gardens. The blocky, stone-walled mansions of The Gardens were dark, leaving only the pale glow of the half-moon and twinkling stars to guide the way.

  The Hunter climbed over the wall with ease, raced through the darkened gardens, and scaled the side of the Baronet’s mansion to reach the third-floor balcony. Slipping through the still-unlatched window, he strode with a determined step down the hall that led to Baronet Wyvern’s office.

  He marched through the office and through the adjoining door to the nobleman’s bedroom. His fists clenched as he caught sight of Baronet Wyvern sitting slumped on the floor, back against his bed, a bottle clutched in his hand.

  “Baronet Wyvern,” he growled in a deep voice, “this night, you answer for your sins.”

  The Baronet didn’t move, didn’t speak. With a snarl, the Hunter strode around the bed and glared down at the man.

  The words never left his lips. Baronet Wyvern was dead. The metallic tang of blood hung thick about the man; long streams of still-drying crimson leaked from the eerie symbol carved into his bare chest.

  The Hunter’s gut clenched as he inhaled and found the stink of demon hanging in the air. Faint, but present—the demon hadn’t killed the Baronet in person, but one of his hooded minions from the sewer had.

  The Hunter put a finger to the man’s neck to feel for a pulse. Nothing. The body sagged to the side and slumped to the floor with a soft thump.

  The body was still cooling, so the Baronet had died within the last hour or two. The killers had been in such a hurry they hadn’t had time to encase the nobleman’s head in plaster or burn those seven strange dots into his forehead. The Hunter’s nostrils picked up the stink of demon and blood, but no trace of poison.

  Keeper’s teeth! The Hunter’s mind raced. If Baronet Wyvern had been the one leaving the bodies, why would he turn up dead now, that strange symbol carved into his chest? Had one of the family members of his victims tracked him down and killed him? That felt too thin, too coincidental to be real. Most likely, the Baronet had been killed by one or more of the men he’d seen in the sewer tunnels.

  The question is why?

  At that moment, the door flew inward, ripped off its hinges by a powerful blow. The Hunter crouched, hand dropping to Soulhunger’s hilt, and whirled toward the door to face the new threat.

  And found himself face to face with the Master of the Night Guild.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Assassin!” Jarl roared and rushed through the door ahead of her. “Ilanna, stay behind me!”

  “Jarl, no!” Ilanna cried, but the huge Pathfinder ignored her.

  Jarl’s huge fist swung for the Hunter’s head. The blow, backed by the prodigious power in the Pathfinder’s huge body and the weight of his oversized steel knuckles, should have crushed the Hunter.

  But the Hunter was simply not there.

  The assassin moved in a blur, his cloak flaring out as he whirled out of the path of Jarl’s bone-shattering punch.

  Ilanna’s gut clenched. “Jarl, stop!”

  “Keep back, Ilanna!” Jarl roared, and swung another blow, trying to hit the moving Hunter. His fist struck wood instead of flesh and the thick post of Baronet Wyvern’s bed shattered, spraying splinters.

  Then the Hunter was flying toward Jarl and Ilanna heard a loud crack as the assassin’s elbow smashed into the huge man’s face. Jarl staggered, dazed, but struck out with a lucky punch that caught the Hunter in the chest. The blow knocked the Hunter backward, off the bed. Yet the assassin was too quick—impossibly so—and landed on his feet.

  “Jarl!” Ilanna leapt past the huge Pathfinder and
planted herself between him and the Hunter. “Stop at once!”

  “He’s—”

  “He’s not our enemy!” Ilanna raised her hands to stop her friend. She barely reached Jarl’s chest, but her voice had the desired effect.

  “What?” Jarl’s eyes narrowed as his gaze snapped from Ilanna to the Hunter and back.

  “Like she said, I’m not your enemy.” The Hunter’s voice was hard—Ilanna almost thought she detected a hint of pain, but he hid it well. “Right now, we both want the same thing. We want to find out who murdered Baronet Wyvern.”

  Jarl’s breathing slowed and the pulsing vein in his forehead diminished as he lowered his hands. Yet his eyes never left the Hunter; suspicion filled his gaze as he tracked the Hunter’s movements.

  The Hunter strode toward Ilanna and crouched beside Baronet Wyvern’s body. “Look.”

  Ilanna followed his pointing finger and saw the strange symbol etched into his chest. “The killer’s handiwork.”

  The Hunter nodded. “The question is why.”

  “And why not the rest of the ritual?” Ilanna added. “The plaster mask, the poison, the seven dots branded into the forehead.”

  The Hunter narrowed his eyes as he studied the body. “A clean death, a quick thrust to the chest.” He pointed to a stab wound at the upper edge of the symbol.

  “Just like with the others.” Ilanna and stood. “But this is a problem. All our indications pointed at Baronet Wyvern as the one responsible for the murders.”

  The Hunter nodded and fixed her with a curious gaze. “Mine, too.”

  Ilanna arched an eyebrow. “You found the Shalandran connection? The Night Petal?”

  “Yes,” the Hunter replied. “And his connection to the Chasteyns.”

  This came as news to Ilanna. “What connection?”

  A smile tugged at the Hunter’s lips. “You didn’t know?”

  Ilanna scowled. “Right now, we’ve got two choices, Hunter. Seems like we’ve both reached the same conclusion, which means we’re both on the wrong track of the real murderer. Or whoever did this to Baronet Wyvern, either to send us a message or to silence the nobleman before he sent us down the right path.”