Darkblade Guardian

by Andy Peloquin

  The Hunter cocked his head. “And what are our two choices, then?”

  “Either we keep stubbornly trying to find our way alone, or we work together to take the bastard down.”

  “Ilanna!” Ria’s voice held a note of shocked surprise.

  Truth be told, Ilanna couldn’t believe what she’d just said, either. The words had slipped from her mouth before she’d given it real thought, but now that they were out, she realized that truly was the best option. The Hunter doubtless had valuable resources of his own—how else had he reached Baronet Wyvern before she had, even without the Night Guild at his back. She could make use of those resources and the skills he clearly possessed to help put an end to the murders.

  Hell, they don’t call him the Hunter for nothing!

  “An intriguing proposal.” The Hunter’s bemused smile returned. “And why, pray tell, would I want to work with you?”

  “Because you’re one man, but I’ve got hundreds of eyes, ears, and minds to call on.” Ilanna met his gaze with calm confidence. He might be the Hunter of Voramis, but she was Master of the Night Guild, with a reputation equally as fearsome as his. “If we combine our knowledge and skills, our chances of finding the killer doubles.”

  “Your people have a nasty habit of trying to kill me.” The Hunter shot a glance at Jarl and his hand went to his chest—evidently Jarl’s steel-backed punch had done more damage than the assassin cared to admit. “Yet you expect me to trust you?”

  “Who said anything about trust?” Ilanna snorted. “You don’t seem the type.”

  “Neither do you,” the Hunter shot back, though with more humor than anger.

  “So that’s settled.” Ilanna shrugged. “We don’t fully trust each other, but we both want to achieve the same end, so working together is the smart play here.”

  The Hunter’s expression grew pensive, and he remained silent for a long moment. Finally, after what seemed an endless ten seconds, he nodded. “So be it.” He held out a hand. “We find the murderers and put them down.”

  Ria and Jarl both stiffened behind her, but Ilanna stepped forward and gripped his hand. “Like the dogs they are.”

  Ilanna could feel the power in the Hunter’s hand as he shook. It reminded her of Jarl, the way the huge Pathfinder had to be gentle else risk breaking her in his iron-vise grip. Once again, his piercing gaze fixed on her, and it felt as if he stared into her very soul. She concealed a shudder but broke off the grasp quickly and stepped back.

  “A word, Ilanna?” Ria rumbled behind her.

  Ilanna held up a finger to the Hunter. “One moment.”

  The Hunter swept his hand in a magnanimous gesture. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Ilanna followed Ria out of the room and into the hallway. The tension in Ria’s posture shouted at Ilanna long before the words ever left the Ghandian woman’s mouth. “This is insane, Ilanna. He’s the Hunter of Voramis, for the Watcher’s sake!”

  Ilanna smiled. “Which makes him the perfect person to have on our side, rather than risk working against him.” She held up a hand to stop Ria’s next words. “We’ve got the whole Night Guild trying to figure this problem, yet he’s made just as much progress on his own. Think about that!”

  Whatever Ria had prepared to say never came out. Her mouth snapped shut and her brow wrinkled as she contemplated Ilanna’s words.

  “You know the legends of the Hunter as well as I do. You know what sort of man he is, what sort of killer he is.” Ilanna spoke in a low whisper. “He already knows where we live, for the Keeper’s sake. He waltzed into the bloody tunnels like he owned the place! The last thing we want is to antagonize him. And, if working together gets us to the killer faster, then I’m all for it. Him, I can keep an eye on, but I can’t stop Duke Phonnis from pushing the King to come after us.”

  “It’s been one day, Ilanna!” Ria said. “Surely Duke Phonnis can’t expect miracles, even from you.”

  “In that one day, Ria, there’ve been four bodies.” Ilanna held up four fingers for emphasis. “Three children, including one of our Foxes, and a damned nobleman. That’s the sort of body count that’s guaranteed to give Duke Phonnis’ arguments real weight.”

  Ria growled in frustration.

  “Listen, I know you’re looking out for me, for all of us.” Ilanna gripped Ria’s strong shoulder. “But right now, I think this is our best choice. If he wants the murders to stop and he’s willing to work with us to put an end to them, then I’m willing to take the risk. Besides, if he wanted to kill us, he’d have done so by now.”

  Ria’s scowl deepened, but she had no argument.

  “Trust me,” Ilanna said in a pleading tone.

  “I do.” Ria thrust a finger at the doorway. “It’s him I don’t trust.”

  “You have my permission to watch his every move.” Ilanna grinned. “I’m counting on it, in fact.”

  Ria nodded, and the tension drained from her shoulders.

  “Thank you.” With a smile, Ilanna turned and strode back into the room, Ria on her heels.

  She had to squeeze past the hulking form of Jarl, who had placed himself between her and the Hunter. When she re-entered the late Baronet Wyvern’s bedchambers, she found reinforcements had arrived.

  “Look, your friends were kind enough to join us.” The Hunter smiled at her, cool and collected despite the four Serpents and a glowering Jarl looming over him. “I take it you weren’t expecting Baronet Wyvern to be happy to see you.”

  “You mentioned a connection to the Chasteyns.” Ilanna folded her arms. “What do you mean by that?”

  The Hunter hesitated, and for a moment Ilanna thought he wouldn’t answer.

  “Lord Chasteyn was his primary competition,” the Hunter said finally. “The two of them were at odds in the narcotic business. Lord Chasteyn is bringing wishleaf into Praamis, while Baronet Wyvern dealt in crushweed.”

  Ilanna’s eyes narrowed. She’d known of the noblemen’s side businesses—House Scorpion dealt with both of them to keep the brothels run by House Phoenix stocked with narcotics and opiates—but how had the Hunter known? Mere hours had passed since he left the Night Guild, and that sort of information couldn’t be readily available at this time of night. Clearly he’s got the right sort of contacts.

  “And you think he was killing Bluejackets to tarnish her reputation, thereby discrediting her husband and knocking him out of the running?” Ilanna asked.

  “I believe so.” The Hunter tapped a finger to his lips. “Or, perhaps, maybe we were simply supposed to think that way.”

  “Someone interested in discrediting Baronet Wyvern, then.” Ilanna pondered his words. “Someone trying to muscle in on his business.”

  The Hunter thrust his chin at her. “I’d have thought you would be the one to blame for his death, had I not seen the surprise in your eyes upon your arrival.”

  “Me?” The statement caught Ilanna by surprise. “Why would I want someone as insignificant as Baronet Wyvern dead?”

  “From what I hear, he’d drastically increased his importing of crushweed recently.” The Hunter folded his arms over his chest. “Were you not aware?”

  His smug, self-satisfied expression twisted a dagger in Ilanna’s gut. House Scorpion was supposed to be monitoring and regulating the amount of crushweed Baronet Wyvern brought into Praamis. “If he was trying something, my people would certainly have handled it before it ever needed to be brought to my attention.”

  The Hunter inclined his head. “Fair enough.”

  A thought occurred to Ilanna. “What of Lord Chasteyn? If, as you say, Baronet Wyvern was his direct competition—”

  “Why would he kill the Bluejacket?” The Hunter raised an eyebrow. “That would reflect poorly on Lady Chasteyn.”

  “And thereby onto him.” Ilanna drew in a sharp breath, her frustration mounting. She was missing something, a piece of the puzzle she hadn’t found yet or wasn’t seeing properly. That knowledge only made the growing irritation worse. “A third part
y, then. Someone who wanted to turn the tables on the Chasteyns and Baronet Wyvern both, to discredit the former and replace the latter.”

  “Perhaps.” The Hunter’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Or maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong.” He crouched beside the corpse, his gaze fixed on the bloody mark in Baronet Wyvern’s chest. “Until we understand the point of this symbol, we’re not seeing the full picture.”

  Triumph surged within Ilanna, and a confident smile spread her face. “You mean to tell you don’t know what it means?” She felt a glorious smugness that she’d outdone the mighty Hunter of Voramis in this one thing at least.

  The Hunter glanced up at her. “You do?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “But before I tell you, I will require an answer from you.”

  “To what question?” The Hunter stood, tension written in the lines of his shoulders, the tightness of his expression.

  “To the question that has been plaguing me since I first heard of your arrival in my city.” Ilanna’s smile grew. “Why are you really here? What brings the Hunter of Voramis so far from home?”

  The doubt had been nagging at the back of her mind since she’d learned that he hadn’t been hired to take down the Night Guild. It had grown to full-blown curiosity after their meeting earlier that evening. He’d taken the deaths of the Bluejacket and other children far more personally than she’d expect from someone with his reputation.

  Something told her that the answer to her question would be a fascinating one.

  Chapter Thirty

  The question caught the Hunter off-guard. The Guild Master—Ilanna, the big one said her name was—stared at him with a burning intensity in her dark green eyes.

  What in the bloody hell am I going to tell her?

  She’d proven clever enough that he’d have to come up with a very convincing lie. Right now, any deceit on his part would just widen the rift between them, make it impossible for either party to come close to trusting each other. They’d come to an uneasy peace, yet perhaps she and her Night Guild could actually be of use to him.

  Her people knew their way around the sewers, and she seemed to know every dirty secret—well, almost every one—concealed by the nobility of Praamis. The way her assassins had slipped into Baronet Wyvern’s bedroom from the rooftops spoke of a skill and experience that could come in handy when tracking down the demon and the killers that served him.

  But to recruit her help, he’d have to give her an idea of what he was hunting. He might hate what the Night Guild represented, but he refused to send her people to their deaths at a demon’s hand. He was better than that, even if they weren’t.

  He almost found himself wishing for the voice in his mind. He knew what it would tell him—that he could trust no one, and that everyone intended to betray him—but arguing with that voice had always helped him to understand the conclusions he reached. Now, since Enarium, the voice had fallen silent, no longer necessary now that he remembered Kharna’s mission. Which meant he alone had to make the decision of what to do now.

  He drew in a deep breath. Kiara had learned the truth and accepted it. Evren had, too, as had Father Reverentus, and Hailen, when he’d been old enough to understand. Graeme had actually laughed—“That explains so much!” the fat alchemist had said.

  But what will she do? His eyes traveled over the people beside the Guild Master. What will they do?

  Their weapons couldn’t hurt him—they wielded steel, and the only source of iron in the room was the hasp holding Baronet Wyvern’s wardrobe closed—but he’d rather not have to fight the Night Guild and the demon if he could help it.

  Fuck it. He set his jaw, conclusion reached. Give them the truth, and let the dice fall as they may.

  “What I’m about to tell you is going to sound like the ravings of a madman.” He spoke in a slow voice, a wry smile on his lips. “But I will prove that I am telling the truth.”

  The Guild Master, Ilanna, cocked her head. “You have my attention.”

  He held her gaze. “How much do you know about the demons that once roamed this earth? During what you call the War of Gods.”

  Ilanna frowned. “Stories and legends.”

  “Perhaps.” The Hunter inclined his head. “Yet perhaps not.” He smiled at her incredulous look. “If I told you demons were real and living amongst us, you would call me a madman, wouldn’t you?”

  Ilanna shrugged. “The Illusionist’s touch manifests in many ways.”

  “Then I won’t waste my words.” He smiled. “Do you have a lamp or light?”

  Ilanna narrowed her eyes, but drew out two glass globes from her pouch. When she held them together, one glowed red and the other blue, filling the room with a strange mixed glow.

  “Hold it up to my face.” He stepped closer to her.

  The movement elicited a growl from the hulking blonde man and a snarl from the warrior woman behind the Guild Master. The four assassins tensed, hands on weapon hilts.

  The Hunter spread his arms wide, his hands fully visible. “My face.”

  Ilanna hesitated a moment, then lifted the glowing globes to illuminate his upper body and head.

  “Now watch.” The Hunter grinned and, turning his attention inward, shifted the flesh and bones of his face. His features changed from the hard, scarred visage he’d worn since leaving Lord Anglion’s mansion to the boyish and freckled face of Gladrin Silvertongue, a face he hadn’t worn for years.

  The effect on the people in front of him was instantaneous and violent. The hulking thug’s eyes flew wide, his face going pale. Ilanna’s breath caught in her throat and she took a half-step back. The Ghandian woman ripped her short-handled spear free of its sheath and leapt toward him, rattling off a stream of words—curses, by the sharpness of her tone—in a language he didn’t understand.

  The Hunter quickly stepped back, out of range of the woman’s forearm-length spear, but felt four steel blades pressing into his spine and sides.

  The Guild Master stared at him, stunned, for a long moment. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again, but no words came out. The Hunter kept perfectly still, arms spread wide, making no threatening move. The umber-skinned woman stood guard in front of Ilanna, teeth bared.

  “Okanele!” she growled. “Cursed creature of Inzayo Okubi!”

  The Hunter’s smile widened. “Good to see you believe me now.”

  Ilanna’s jaw worked, and finally she managed to spit out. “H-How?” She swallowed, blinked, and rubbed her eyes. “Tell me that was a trick.”

  “No trick.” The Hunter shook his head. “The legends speak of the ancient demons summoned by Kharna to invade your world.” Right now, he didn’t think his audience was in a receptive mood to hear the truth of Kharna and the Devourer of Worlds—one world-shattering revelation at a time. “But what they didn’t mention was the half-human offspring they sired. The Bucelarii.”

  Ilanna seemed at a loss for words, and even the stream of curses from the Ghandian woman had fallen silent. The huge brute and the assassins hadn’t moved. All eyes were fixed on the Guild Master, as if awaiting her cue.

  “I’d be happy to give you a lesson on the Bucelarii and their history another time,” the Hunter said with a grin. “For now, suffice it to say that I am the last of my kind still alive on Einan.”

  “Last…of your kind.” Ilanna seemed to struggle with the words. “The Bucelarii.”

  “Yes.” The Hunter nodded, a movement that caused the assassins at his back to push the daggers harder against his spine. “But while the Bucelarii are all but extinct, the demons that sired them are not. They hide in plain sight among you humans.”

  “Us humans,” Ilanna echoed.

  “That little trick I showed you with my face, I inherited that from them.” He morphed his features back to the hard, scarred features. “They can do more than just hide their faces, however. Which makes them very difficult for me to hunt.”

  “You’re…hunting demons?” Ilanna managed to say with only a
momentary pause.

  “Demon, singular,” the Hunter replied, his tone light, tinged with humor. “When I received word from my contacts in Praamis that bodies were piling up, I came here to find the demon I knew was hiding among the humans in this city.” His smile turned wry. “For a short time, I thought you could be a demon.”

  Ilanna’s eyebrows shot up. “Me?”

  This seemed to snap Ilanna from her stupor, as he’d hoped. In the few interactions he’d had with her, the Hunter had seen she responded strongly to threats and insults. Her quick rejoinders and barb-tongued remarks seemed to burst from her when others would have gotten defensive or hesitated. An admirable trait in a leader, he had to admit.

  “You’ll be happy to know I’ve determined that you’re not the demon I’m hunting.”

  Ilanna snorted. “What a bloody relief!”

  The Hunter chuckled. “But I found traces of the demon in the sewer tunnels, right after your men accosted me.” He shot a glance at the assassin Tassat, who stood to his left and held his dagger’s tip between the Hunter’s ribs, a short thrust from his heart. “It confirmed my suspicions that there is a demon in Praamis, and he is responsible for these murders.”

  “A demon?” Ilanna’s expression grew incredulous. “You’re telling me a demon did this?” She thrust a finger at Baronet Wyvern. “That a demon murdered the Bluejacket, my Fox apprentice, and all the others?”

  “A demon, or those who serve him.” The Hunter nodded. “The one thing I’ve found about all the demons I’ve encountered across Einan is that they tend to gather violent, bloodthirsty men like them to their cause. Where demons are hiding, death and destruction are sure to follow.”

  “All the demons?” Again, the Guild Master seemed to struggle with this revelation. “More than one?”

  The Hunter nodded. “At last count, I’ve taken down eight demons masquerading as humans, and another twenty or thirty in their true monstrous forms.” He said it in a solemn tone. “As Bucelarii, it is my sworn duty to rid Einan of the demons’ curse.”