She found an inn, the Lion’s Rounds. She’d passed several. This one suited her purposes. The Lion’s Rounds looked a little slower, a little emptier, a little off the main thoroughfare on a quiet corner but near a jumbled intersection of streets with lots of shadowed pathways to vanish into.
The common room was long and, despite the afternoon sunshine outside, poorly lit by a scattered collection of candles and lamps. A bar ran along the first half of the room near the entrance. A collection of half-full bottles, brown and green, stood on shelves behind it. Near the back was an empty fireplace, four tables each arranged with a pair of short benches on either side. A heavy, balding man stood behind the bar, leaning over an open ledger book. He muttered to himself and counted on his fingers, nodding and scratching a few marks on the book’s yellowed page.
Olinia cleared her throat and he squinted up at her.
“How much for the night?” she asked.
He eyed her up and down and scowled before answering.
It’s the clothes. No doubt he’s wondering if I have money. She plopped a silver piece on the counter. It spun and rang, catching the feeble light, and his eyes swung from her to the winking coin.
“That’ll pay for a night,” he said. The man had a smudge of black ink near the corner of his mouth, and it twitched as he spoke.
“That will pay for two,” Olinia countered, “and meals beside.”
They haggled for a short time, but Olinia had spent a week studying an Esterian captain in order to one day take his form, and they were legendary for their skills at trade. In the end, she paid two silver coins for three nights plus meals.
Business done, she found her room on the second floor and checked the stolen purse. The merchant had done well. At least until I robbed him. There were eleven more silvers inside, a handful of coppers, and four fat golds. An eagle with outstretched wings soared on one side of the coins and a man with a stern face on the other. She could live quite extravagantly on the sum for a time.
She tucked the golds into her boots and headed back out into the common room. Mugs in hand, a group of older men lounged against the bar. Two more patrons sat at one of the little tables, eating from a shared platter. Olinia took a table near the back and the serving girl brought her a leg of mutton, sliced potatoes, and a thick pile of green beans. She took only water with her meal and ate in silence.
“Oddest thing,” one of the older men said. He had a thick beard of curly grey and a wide neck and shoulders. “The army rode out last week as if Atraxas himself were after them.”
“Atraxas. By the Creator, Jorle, don’t be peddling those old religions in here,” the innkeeper threatened. He poured himself an ale from a fat pitcher.
Jorle raised a hand in his defense. “I’m just tellin’ you how fast they lit out. I’ve never seen the army muster an’ leave without spending a week drilling and all. Those boys were on the road within a single day.” He held up a thick finger. “One single day.”
“Why would they do that? Why would they leave so fast?” a younger, red-headed man with a huge overhanging brow and beady, deep-set eyes asked.
Olinia pegged the redhead as a blacksmith. With the maze of burns and white scars crossing along his thick forearms and hands and the heavy slabs of muscle in his arms and shoulders, he could be little else.
“It’s just the usual, they’re out foraging again. I heard the granaries are low. Probably some rich noble wants some wine for one of their winter moon parties.”
“More like fool moon parties. Damned nobles,” one of the others snorted. A nip of white froth spilled over his cup. “Krona should have just killed all of them when he took the city.”
“I tell you why,” Jorle spoke again. “I heard whispers of it delivering ale for the officers’ supply caravan.” He leaned in a bit, but his words were still loud enough for Olinia to overhear. “There’s an army coming. Invaders.”
“You’re so full of horse manure, Jorle, you and your damn stories. You been telling us for a year about invaders,” the innkeeper said.
“That’s right, I have, and it’s true. Every word of it. You’ll all know it for true as soon as the army gets back. Some of those boys like to come in here. They’ll tell you all about ‘em. I overheard something from one of the officers before they left. They have giants with ‘em, these invaders, and their leader is Ghanris reborn.”
“Ghanris,” the innkeeper snorted. “Two thousand years the man’s been dead and dust, let him sleep. He earned his rest.”
Jorle scowled. He took up his mug, tilted it skyward, and drained it, drops scattering from his white beard like rain. He held the empty mug toward the stone carving of a man’s face over the hearth. “To Ghanris, may his empire flourish again,” he said. He turned the mug over and slammed it on the counter with a bang. “If my news isn’t welcome here, neither is my coin. I’ll take my drinking elsewhere.”
One of the other men laughed. “You live two streets down, Jorle, you’ll be back in here tomorrow. Just like always. Last week, you swore off drinking.”
The rest laughed along with him.
Jorle gave them a reluctant, tilted smile and walked to the door. He bowed to the crowd with a flourish. “As I’ve entertained you sorry lot, you can pay my bill,” he said as the door banged behind him.
The men all guffawed and pounded down their own mugs before following him out. Even the innkeeper smiled as he collected their coins. Olinia considered asking him about the Man of Iron, or even what had happened to this town to divide it so fiercely. Innkeepers usually knew much of the comings and goings of their locale. Then she decided against it.
No need to call attention to myself here where I’m staying. Too much of a risk. She could ask easy enough a few blocks down with a different face and sleep safer for it.
Olinia knew her brother thought her reckless and carefree. He was right enough; she liked to improvise instead of planning. But he didn’t appreciate the great lengths she went to in order to perfect her masks. The hours watching her target, practicing their vocalizations, their mannerisms, their choice of words or tone.
In truth, she preferred it that way. If Cagle, who knew her better than anyone, didn’t realize how methodical she could be, no one else ever would.
Let them underestimate me at their own peril.
CHAPTER 10
An Implacable Foe
A week had passed since Olinia crossed the Line and still she felt no closer to the truth. She’d used a half-dozen disguises and asked at least a hundred merchants, midwives, washerwomen, and tradesmen. None knew anything about the Man of Iron. Few enough were willing to talk about the capital or the Karoon.
One man claimed to have killed one. “Lizard people, they are. With a mouth full of shark’s teeth and three long claws on their hands and feet,” he said. He paused to spit a wad at a small brown spider.
“No armor at all? They sound horrid. It must have been terrible fighting such creatures,” Olinia said, fanning herself. Today she’d taken the form of a highborn lady.
“Mmm, terrible indeed. They fight with only a cloth around their middles, claws and tooth and tail scratching and beating away at you.”
“But they walk upright and talk, you say?”
“They walk upright, and they hiss at each other, but I wouldn’t call it talking. They are savage and wild beyond anything you’ve ever seen. Me and a few of my friends wanted to scout around the capital. The old men say there was gold and precious gems just lying loose in the streets, and every home was as wealthy as a kingdom. The Karoon don’t care about such things. We camped for a few days near the outer ruins. Didn’t find anything. But we stumbled across a pack of the lizards and they killed three of my friends before we even knew they were there. I gutted one on a spear and then wrestled with another until I finally had to run. I never looked
back.”
The scars he showed her along his forearm were real enough, and she couldn’t find anyone willing to contradict him. Most of the old-timers got a far off look in their eyes when she asked or even hinted about Irid, quickly excusing themselves and finding something else to do.
A full week of searching gone now, and all she had to show for it was a few stories.
At least she’d learned Washougle’s granaries were dangerously low. Her brother would be better off bypassing the city altogether. According to most everyone, they barely had enough to make it through the winter themselves.
Shouting merchants sold food on every corner. It seemed an odd contradiction with the rumors. When she looked deeper, though, she noticed how lean their supplies were. None of them seemed to have more than a few meals’ worth for sale. There were no sacks of flour or salt, no crates of fruit, no barrels of grain or oil.
She did find the source of Washougle’s food. To the city’s east, in a protected valley, were a few prosperous farms. These were owned either by the nobility or Marshal Krona himself, and they seemed just able to meet the city’s needs.
The nobles surely take their share first of course.
In her room, changing into the dull grey-and-brown clothing of a woman of modest means, she asked herself why Cagle had sent her chasing myths. If anything, Washougle was in worse shape than Crow’s Bay. He didn’t ask me to scout the defenses or even the soldiers’ activities. Only this Man of Iron he’s become obsessed with. He’s always been prone to pride. Pride and stubbornness, our family traits. Though Olinia thought her father hung the moon, she knew he too had the same weakness. But has Cagle become so enamored with his own success to ignore the enemy?
For the sake of her people, she could only pray not. Pray, and be there to remind him whenever his head swelled too far.
Every night, Jorle held court at the bar. In his own way, the man was royalty; at least to the patrons of the Lion’s Rounds. Given time, she’d pieced together some of his history. He’d been a guard commander when Washougle was still a united city, fighting at the shoulder of Krona, the city’s current master. He spoke often of how they fought off the gangs while they created the Line and abandoned the southern half of the city.
“Krona and I stood together when all else broke apart around us, sixty armed and desperate men falling on us like waves pounding the shore. Only we were rocks, not some shifting sand to be washed aside, and they broke all around us.” The exact number of men varied from fifty to ninety depending on how drunk Jorle was that evening.
“One of them, a bear of a man, swung a club at Krona, and he ducked and I took the brunt of it,” Jorle would continue. Usually, he paused to take a chug on his beer at that point. The man knew how to work a crowd. “But I’ve never begrudged him for it. He saved my life twice that day, and I saved his a few times, as well. The club knocked me out cold, and when I came to, Krona was being hailed as a great hero. He never forgot me, though. Not Krona. After we finished the Line, he went on to overthrow the old ruling council and appoint himself Grand Marshal, and then he looked me in the eye and thanked me for saving his life. Then he gave me a lifetime contract to haul goods for the city.”
Jorle’s version of the town’s leader was positively messianic. It sickened Olinia to hear it. Melios’s tale seems truer, but I guess it all depends which side of the Line you’re on.
Another fruitless day gone, Olinia sat alone at her table near the wall, considering her next moves, when Jorle finally came in. As usual, he gave her a small nod. Of all the regulars, he was the only one who seemed to notice her. The rest had stopped seeing her after the third night. He sat down at his customary stool and the innkeeper passed him his mug.
Jorle smiled in thanks and downed it quickly.
“You’re late, Jorle,” the innkeeper said. “I had to keep these boys from stealing your spot.”
“I’ve news, big news, boys,” Jorle said. “One of the guards along the Line was found murdered.” He leaned down until his beard touched the bar. The others grew silent and leaned in. “They found him a few days ago behind his house. Took a dagger right through the neck.” Jorle held two fingers to his throat.
“Murder is hardly news. Half the Grind murders each other every year. Most of the guards are no better than the gangs. I heard they let a few thugs into our side every now and then, just to remind us how badly we need them.” It was the redheaded blacksmith who spoke. He never seemed as if he liked Jorle much.
Usually, Jorle stammered and railed against the blacksmith, but tonight he only smiled as the others talked among themselves. Finally, they grew silent, and one asked him what made this murder special.
“It was Krona’s brother-in-law, Tarn, that got murdered. They’ve searched the city for some hunter woman he was last seen with. Found nothing. Almost like she was a ghost. And now Krona has the priests summoning the Shade to find Tarn’s killer.”
This brought stunned silence to the bar. No one, including the contrary blacksmith, spoke. Like an orchestra violinist beginning a solo, Jorle let the silence hang a few moments, then continued. “The Shade’s coming tonight, and he’ll be out hunting the killer. I delivered some crates to the old courtyard. I’ve seen them preparing.”
“The Shade is a rumor. It isn’t real,” the smith said, but the look in the man’s eyes didn’t hold much conviction.
“It’s real,” Jorle said. “I’ve seen it catch its prey once.” Every eye turned to him. “The Shade found the man in the market. Third evening after the summoning. The Shade always finds its prey in the evening, when the shadows stretch long and black.”
“I heard they take their prey whole,” one of the others said.
“There is no they. Only one can be summoned,” Jorle said. “Light help us if they ever summoned more than one at a time. You know what it takes to feed one.”
The innkeeper and most of the older men took a drink and then studied the contents of their mugs.
“What does it eat?” the smith asked. “I haven’t heard.”
“Every day the Shade hunts, it has to be fed a life. A human life,” the innkeeper said. His face darkened with disgust.
“By the Light, who would do such a thing? Who would give up their life to avenge a murder?” the smith said.
“There are still people across the Line, down in the Grind. Life is cheap there. Some of those...people...would give up another willingly just to buy their way over to this side,” Jorle answered.
“That’s just talk,” the smith said.
“They use prisoners now, murderers and the like, someone condemned to death anyway,” one of the men said. “Might as well feed them to the Shade and get some good out of them.”
“That’s true,” Jorle said with a nod. “Thank the Creator.”
“Have you seen one before? A summoning?” This time it was the blacksmith again.
“I have...once. Only they weren’t using prisoners then. It was a boy not more than ten, some kin of the murdered. About the same age I was at the time. When they brought him into the Old Courtyard he cried and wailed for his mother. I’ve never seen another summoning. I never want to.” Jorle finished his ale in silence.
Instead of banging it down as usual, Jorle eased his mug to the table. He skipped his customary salute to Ghanris and left quickly, as if he’d forgotten something.
Olinia inspected her plate again, appetite suddenly gone. What had Jorle said? The Old Courtyard. She didn’t like the feeling of being hunted. Especially by some mysterious beast. She very much wanted to see this Shade for herself.
It was the work of a few questions to find the Old Courtyard, and Olinia was quite skillful in asking. In truth, it wouldn’t have taken even that much effort if she’d bothered to think for a moment. There were throngs of people streaming through the streets toward
the stone courtyard like salmon spawning upstream.
The thought of what was to come horrified Olinia. If what Jorle said was true, then someone would die tonight so they could give birth to some vengeful spirit, and these people all wanted to watch. She drew her cloak tight against the cold.
A vengeful spirit sent to hunt after me. How does one hide from a spirit?
Olinia saw at once why it was called the Old Courtyard. It lay near the base of the Citadel, a towering fortress, where the city’s rulers held court. The courtyard’s outer ring was made of gray stones stacked and mortared in a long oval, seats rising up five rows high. Several sections of the ring were broken or missing. A second ring of low stones, not even a foot tall, weathered and moss-covered, lay arranged in a circle almost fifty paces across. In the middle stood what could only be called an altar, a single huge stone, far larger than the rest and carved with a shallow bowl in the center. There were old runes carved over the altar’s sides, each corresponding to a single large rune on the surrounding stones.
The crowd grew and grew until Olinia had a hard time seeing over the men sitting in front of her. There was an idle wooden cart all alone in a missing section of the outer ring, and she climbed into the back to get a clear view.
The last light of day faded, and the pattering noise of the crowd died along with it.
A group of pikemen arrived, surrounding a tall man in heavy armor. He was big, his head unarmored and like that of a bear, black-hair shaggy with streaks of pure white. This would be the city’s ruler, Marshal Krona. For some reason he seemed almost familiar. Jorle claimed he was death itself in battle. He’d killed two dozen men by himself storming the Citadel to overthrow Washougle’s council and then, after conquering the city, he’d thrown open the storehouses to the starving people.
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