Tiel gave him no respite. He ran after him, kicking out as Cutter tried to stay out of his way. Cutter couldn’t move fast enough and the halfling connected with his ribs.
Cutter decided to try the trick he’d used on Jana. He grabbed hold of Tiel’s foot as it came flying at his head and wrenched it to the side. To his surprise, Tiel didn’t react as Jana had. He heard the ankle pop and Tiel screamed in pain. Cutter kept hold of the ankle as he tried to get to his feet, but Tiel was hopping backward, trying to pull his foot away. Cutter knew he wouldn’t be able to hold onto it, so he yanked upward with all his might, watching as Tiel flew through the air and landed on the ground, groaning at the pain.
Cutter staggered to his feet and stumbled over to pick up his blades. He took a deep breath and turned around—
To find Tiel standing up, pulling off his gloves. He threw them aside and raised his hands in the air.
Cutter initially thought he was going to beg for his life.
Then he noticed that Tiel’s hands had started to glow. A faint orange haze surrounded them. As he watched, tiny flames flickered over his skin.
The halfling advanced on Cutter, his hands held out before him. Cutter backed up until he bumped into another tree. He was about to dart around it when Tiel lurched forward and grabbed hold of Cutter’s wrists.
Cutter screamed in pain as heat surged through his arms. He tried to pull away, but Tiel held his wrists in a tight grip. Cutter’s skin blistered, smoke curling upward and attacking his nostrils with the smell of charred flesh. He could see Tiel’s veins through his skin. They looked like tiny rivers of glowing lava.
He dropped the Khutai blades, sagging to his knees as the pain increased, his entire arms feeling like he had thrust them into red-hot coals. Still, the halfling didn’t let go. Tiel grinned. “Didn’t know I could do that, did you? I could say something about having a fiery temper, but that would be too obvious, and I do so hate being obvious.”
He released Cutter’s wrists and made a grab for his throat. Cutter saw him coming and dodged to the side. Tiel lunged and grabbed hold of the tree by mistake. His hands were glowing white hot. The tree trunk burst into flame, the fire crackling up to the lower branches.
Cutter pushed himself to his feet and staggered away. The halfling stared up at the tree, keeping his hands on the trunk as the foliage caught fire. The humid breeze fanned the flames. They rose higher and spread to another tree.
“See that? That’s what I’m going to do to you.” Tiel turned to look for him, saw him trying to get away. “Where are you going?” asked the halfling, releasing the tree and limping after him.
There was nowhere for Cutter to go. He stopped and faced Tiel. His skin was raw and bleeding, thin layers of flesh hanging from his wrists. He could see bone through the blackened skin. He couldn’t move his fingers. The pain was excruciating, a pulsing, throbbing bloom of torment. He staggered, almost passing out. He managed to keep himself awake, but fell to his knees. Tiel grinned as he approached.
“That’s right. That’s where you belong. Cowering at my feet.” The halfling held out his hands. Cutter could see the distortions of the hot haze wavering above them. He could feel the uncontrolled heat on his face. It dried his eyes out, forcing him to blink furiously and raise his arms to protect himself.
Tiel stepped closer.
Bren reached the Tain manor in only a few moments. Tiel had wanted their hotel room to be close by, just in case anything went wrong. But Bren had no idea what the halfling had in mind if things didn’t go according to plan. Maybe run in and stab Saidan himself? Bren smiled at the picture this conjured in his head. For someone who had wanted his father’s approval for so long, Tiel had made the leap to assassinating him and taking over the business with remarkable ease. But Bren couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t been with Tiel very long, but he knew that over the years, Tiel had repeatedly gone to his father to beg acknowledgement. All he wanted was to be accepted as a Boromar. Saidan had always refused.
Did that mean Tiel was delusional? That he wasn’t really Saidan’s son? Bren had no idea, although there was a resemblance between the two of them. Bren reckoned that Tiel simply got tired of being rejected, had decided to take matters into his own hands. Bren didn’t really care. It would probably mean a pay raise for him.
That was, if Cutter failed in his plan. Bren frowned. He didn’t truly know why he had given Cutter the information. Because Tiel deserved what was coming to him? When had that ever been an issue? No. He’d given Cutter a chance. A small chance, because he knew what Tiel was capable of when he took off those gloves. But at least Cutter could die with some self-respect.
And what if he succeeded? Bren reached into his pocket and touched the dragonshard. If Cutter succeeded in killing Tiel, then what Bren was doing would be for nothing. He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged the thought away. No one would mourn the loss of Saidan Boromar. In fact, he’d probably be doing the world a favor.
The carriage came to a stop at the end of the long driveway. Bren climbed out and looked around. Immaculately groomed lawns spread out around him. A footpath, flanked on both sides by marble statues, led from the drive and up to the huge house. Bren had a close look at the statues and was amused to find out that they were statues of past members of the Tain family. Somebody certainly thought a lot of themselves.
A huge ogre stood at the front door, checking invitations as the guests arrived. A valet approached the carriage, but Bren waved him away and told his driver not leave. Bren wandered off the path and into the gardens. Guests strolled across the lawns, sipping wine from crystal glasses while they waited for the dinner to begin.
Bren sauntered around to the rear of the house. He found a secluded area where the servants came and went, walled off from the rest of the grounds. Bren took off the expensive jacket Tiel had insisted he wear, and dropped it on a stone table. He took one last look around. The black clouds overhead were limned with gold as they slowly enveloped the sun. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He took a deep breath, smelling the dampness in the air, hoping he would be finished before the storm hit—not because he didn’t want to get wet, but because he wanted to watch it.
He passed through a gate into the rear courtyard. As he’d suspected, servants scurried around like headless chickens in preparation for the night’s supper. No one even gave him a second look.
The back door of the house led straight into the first of four kitchens. Each kitchen had five brick ovens lining the back wall, and each oven had three sweating chefs tending to the food. They shouted and cursed each other as they tried to organize their courses, fighting over space inside the ovens. Bren smelled spiced meat and roasting vegetables. He smelled something else—a fragrance that reminded him of mulled wine in winter. He looked around and saw a chef making a red wine sauce. He watched as the chef poured wine into the pot, then some into his mouth.
Pity no one would get a chance to eat all this before things started going bad.
He left the kitchen, pushing his way through a group of men and women complaining about being forced to work in the kitchens while wearing their most formal serving clothes. They feared ruining them before the dinner started.
The chaos of the kitchens faded behind Bren, and he located the door Tiel had told him about. It opened onto a set of stairs descending into pitch darkness. He closed the door behind him and felt his way gingerly down the steps. When he reached the bottom, he knelt and fumbled around behind the bottom step. The everbright lantern was exactly where Tiel had said it would be. He picked it up and opened the shutter, the squeak of metal on metal sounding abnormally loud in his ears. White light blossomed through the darkness, revealing a narrow corridor stretching ahead of him. He started walking, then swore loudly as he stubbed his toe against something. He lowered the lantern and saw that the floor was made of old, chipped flagstones. Some of them had risen from their bedding.
The passage stretched the length of the house. Smaller corridors o
pened off either side, tunneling beneath other portions of the mansion.
The corridor he sought was close to the end of the main passage. It opened into a large basement room. Bren held up the lantern to look at the beams of the low ceiling. This was it. The dining hall was directly above him.
Bren lowered the light and shone it about the room. Crates and boxes lined the walls. Old trestle tables were piled into a corner. Tiel had told him to look just inside the door to his right.
He swiveled around and saw a square crate. He placed the lantern on the floor at his feet. The box wasn’t big—the same length and height as his arm.
Tiel had been very specific. Don’t try to open it. Just lift it up.
Bren did so, raising the crate into the air and placing it aside. The box had no bottom. Bren got down on his knees and stared at what he revealed.
It was some kind of machine, made from brass and copper and a few other metals he couldn’t identify. It squatted on the floor in a way he found slightly disconcerting. A hole gaped in the front, a black circle shaped to look like a screaming mouth.
Bren stood up and listened. He heard voices above him. Tiel had told him to wait until he was sure everyone was seated before inserting the dragonshard into the machine.
He wouldn’t have long to wait.
Wren stood up in his seat as Col guided the skycoach through the thickening clouds.
“Will you sit down? Khyber, you’re worse than a child.”
“I’m just trying to see.”
“See what? Skyway’s a big place. How do you think you’re going to find him?”
As he uttered these words, the skycoach slipped out of the clouds and Wren saw Skyway spread below him, everything lit a strange, apocalyptic yellow color as the sun tried to filter through the heavy clouds.
The first thing he saw was smoke rising above a distant building. He peered closer and saw that something on the roof was on fire. He was too far away to see it, but he reckoned he’d found what he was looking for.
“Aim for that!” he yelled, pointing. “I’ll lay odds it’s Cutter.”
Tiel lowered his hands to his sides. The white-hot glow faded. Cutter looked up in puzzlement.
Tiel lashed out with a fist. The blow hit Cutter in the eye, sending him sprawling to the ground.
“You didn’t think I was just going to kill you, surely?”
He kicked Cutter in the ribs. A sharp pain told him that one of them snapped. He doubled over in pain—
And brought his face directly into Tiel’s swinging foot. The halfling’s boot caught him full on, snapping his head back and nearly breaking his neck. His cheek burst open. An eye ruptured, the white filling with blood.
The pain was worse than anything he’d experienced. He couldn’t take it any more. His body shut down, trying to save him from the agony.
He dreamed of Rowen, seeing her lying in her room beneath the sheet. Only she wasn’t dead. She was shaking her head in disappointment.
“You said you would avenge me. You promised.”
“I tried.”
“You failed.”
Then he was standing in the crypt, laying her on the slab of stone. He turned away and he remembered his thoughts as he tried to bury the pain of her death.
Fight it, he had told himself.
Hide it.
Push the pain away until you need it.
You couldn’t tame the beast. You could only chain it. And you knew. Knew that one day that chain would break and it would rise up and devour you, grown and fattened by the energy you’ve pumped into it in your attempt to keep the shackles strong.
But that day was far away.
Cutter’s eyes opened.
That day was now.
Tiel had wrapped his hands around the human’s neck. Cutter felt the heat in the halfling’s fingers as they tightened around his throat, the pain flaring through his skin.
Cutter surged to his knees with a roar. Tiel kept a grip on his throat so that the halfling was pulled to his feet. The heat intensified, Tiel realizing he had to finish the job. Cutter fumbled in his pocket, ignoring the excruciating pain.
He found what he was looking for. Exactly where he had deposited it during his fight with Jana. He pulled it out and flicked it open. The blade of the razor flashed orange as it reflected the glow from Tiel’s hands.
Cutter tightened his grip on the bone handle, screaming at the agony shooting down his arms, and slashed out. Tiel released one hand from Cutter’s neck and grabbed hold of his wrist. Cutter screamed in pain as the heat flared into his raw skin, Tiel’s fingers sinking into his flesh until he touched bone. Blood sizzled and spat as Tiel tried to force the razor into Cutter’s face.
Cutter thought of Rowen and pushed everything he had into his arm, forcing it away from himself and toward Tiel. The halfling’s eyes widened. Cutter grabbed hold of the halfling’s arm with his free hand and slowly pried the fingers away. One by one they loosened, until Cutter held the halfling’s arm out of the way.
Then he slashed out with the razor.
Blood sprayed into the air. Tiel looked confused. The heat faded from Cutter’s neck, the halfling’s grip weakening. Cutter staggered backward, breaking the contact.
Blood pulsed rhythmically from Tiel’s neck. The halfling lifted a hand into the red spray, almost as if he were feeling for rain. He studied his hand, then looked at Cutter. His eyes went to the cutthroat razor Cutter held.
“That’s my razor,” he said in a gurgling voice. Dropping to his knees, the halfling locked eyes with Cutter. The blood slowed its pumping, slackening to a trickle that soaked his chest. He stood dazed for a few moments, then gravity took over and he hit the ground.
Cutter collapsed onto his back and stared up at the sky. The smoke from the fires in the trees drifted up into the storm clouds. He watched the smoke whisked about by the wind, then he heard a voice shouting something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He strained his ears.
Don’t… don’t do something. Don’t… don’t kill him. That was it. Don’t kill him.
He turned his head and stared into Tiel’s lifeless eyes. Too late. Sorry.
He looked to the sky again and saw the underside of a skycoach. A face peered over the side. Looked familiar. He knew that face.
Then it hit him. The half-elf. Wren.
Cutter smiled, then closed his eyes.
Bren listened to the growing hubbub above him, the sounds of laughter and talking. The clink of glasses and the rattle of cutlery. He reckoned all the guests had arrived by now.
He withdrew the shard from his pocket and lowered it into the machine. It pulled away from his fingers and sank deep inside.
After a faint click, the machine started to hum.
The third day of Long Shadows
Sar, the 28th day of Vult, 998
Wren peered over the edge and tried to see through the smoke as Col lowered the skycoach for a landing. “I think they’re both dead,” he called over his shoulder.
The skycoach bumped to the ground. Wren jumped out and rushed over to Cutter. The wounds on the man’s arms were grisly. He knelt to feel for a pulse, wincing as his fingers touched blistered skin. He could smell the charred flesh and fought to keep from vomiting.
He detected a faint flutter beneath his fingers. “He’s alive,” he said to Col, who approached with a pouch. Col fished around inside while Wren hurried over to the halfling—guessing he was responsible for Rowen’s death. He checked his pockets twice, but there was no sign of the shard. Where in Khyber was it?
Wren stood and scanned the rooftop. Had the shard been lost in the fight? He turned to Col. The man leaned over Cutter, pouring something down his throat.
“Healing potion,” he said in response to Wren’s look.
Cutter coughed and spluttered, spraying some of the potion over Col’s shirt. Col held Cutter’s mouth closed, forcing him to swallow what remained. As Wren watched, the wounds on his arms began to heal, the blackened fles
h sloughing away and being replaced by glistening red muscle and tissue. Skin crawled slowly over the raw flesh and closed across his arms.
Wren waited until Cutter’s arms were smooth and pink, then leaned over and patted him down. The dragonshard wasn’t there, either.
A shudder ran through the roof under Wren’s feet. He frowned and looked at Col, but the man was just as puzzled as he. It came again, vibrating all the way through his body, this time accompanied by a deep rumbling.
Wren stood, his stomach twisting.
“Is that thunder?” asked Col.
Wren walked over to the wall. The hotel grounds were silent. Something floated on the air … anticipation. A buildup of tension on the breeze.
Then another shudder ran through the ground. Wren heard the sound of breaking glass, the scream of a woman. A statue in the gardens toppled and broke apart when it hit the ground. Wren gripped the wall. Col moved next to him.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I’m not sure,” said Wren, “but I don’t think it’s a good sign.” He pointed to Cloudpool Park. The white cloudstuff that formed the park was changing color, turning from the fresh white of newly fallen snow to the oily black of tar.
“Not a good sign at all.”
The ground shook again, more violently this time. Wren tightened his grip on the wall. Guests ran from the hotel, crying out in alarm, looking around for the source of the disturbance. More statues fell over. As Wren watched, one of them fell on top of a dwarf, crushing him beneath its weight.
A horrific rending sound filled the air, like the tortured screech of metal magnified a thousand times. Then … everything moved.
Wren was reminded of the time a lift he traveled in malfunctioned and dropped a few floors.
Wren turned to Col, a look of horror on his face. “Did you feel that?”
But Col wasn’t listening. He stared up into the sky “The clouds just moved,” he whispered.
The Inquisitives [2] Night of Long Shadows Page 25