Sons of Plague

by Kade Derricks

  Above the Line, he was revered and honored by many. Feared by all. He’d been ruthless against his enemies, not even sparing so much as their infant children. Now no one dared raise an argument against him.

  From Olinia’s perspective, he’d ruined Washougle. He didn’t save the poor. He wrote them off when he built the Line and condemned them to a lingering death.

  A priest appeared near the courtyard’s edge, hooded in a white, almost-glowing cloak. Six armed men followed him, each holding a torch and spear and surrounding a shackled and hooded man. The prisoner’s chains clattered over the uneven stones, popping and sputtering and rattling, the silent courtyard’s only sound. At the altar, the priest stopped. Prodding with their spearpoints, the guards goaded the prisoner up beside him. They placed their torches in a set of notches in the altar’s base. The light from their torches formed overlapping halos with the altar in the center.

  The priest removed the prisoner’s hood and paused to look out over the crowd.

  “Murderer, rapist, thief. Condemned, we bring you here tonight to serve a glorious purpose. By your sacrifice, you may atone for your sins, a way to balance the scales,” the priest said. He moved near the prisoner, and Olinia saw that the man’s mouth was gagged. His eyes bulged and his head jerked as he tried to speak. Dirty streams of tears trailed down over his cheeks.

  Two of the guards seized the prisoner by the arms and then kicked him behind the knees, forcing him to kneel. A third guard wrapped his hands around the man’s head and brought it back at an excruciating angle.

  The priest took an elongated dagger from within his robes, holding it high. Olinia had never seen its like. Darker than midnight itself, the dagger seemed to be carved from a black crystal. The crowd held its breath. The priest closed his eyes, praying low and quiet, and the crystal started to hum, a low-pitched tone that echoed off the courtyard’s ancient stones.

  Then the tone began to rise in a wailing, inhuman screech, higher and higher until Olinia thought her ears would bleed. The priest brought the black blade down in a vicious arc. It stabbed the kneeling prisoner in the center of his chest, just above the breastbone. The man cried out once behind his gag and then fell silent, slumping back.

  The humming sound died at once. The guards and priest edged away from the body.

  Someone in the crowd shrieked, and a black mist rose like smoke from the dagger’s hilt. It gathered into a rough sphere above the dead prisoner’s head, swirling like a churning storm, until finally it coalesced into a man-shaped thing with a head, shoulders, and arms. Its lower body fell away formlessly below the shoulders like a curtain of thick shadow, the evening breeze ruffling it.

  The eyes were the creature’s most startling feature, shining bright like golden coins reflecting sunlight.

  “Shade, you are summoned by the blood sacrifice on behalf of Tarn Baldon. You are commanded to seek Tarn’s murderer and devour him. You will find me when your task is complete, and only then will I dismiss you back to your cursed plane.”

  The Shade nodded slowly. Its golden eyes looked out over the crowd, and Olinia felt her blood go cold. Shifting into the mist again, it melted down close against the ground. The priest nodded, and the guards extinguished their torches, plunging the courtyard into sudden blackness.

  A woman in the crowd screamed; the swirling mist swept through the gathered citizens and vanished out into the city, heading straight for the little house near the Line where Olinia had killed Tarn.

  The crowd dispersed quickly, many racing home as fast as their legs allowed. One old woman was almost trampled, and would have died if a pair of guards hadn’t intervened.

  Olinia shivered. She suddenly wanted to be very far away from this place. She made her way toward the Lion’s Rounds quickly, keeping always to the lighted pathways.

  If that thing is made of shadow, then staying in the light should help.

  I wonder if that’s what its other victims thought.

  On the way home, she saw lanterns hanging from a rickety peddler’s wagon. The peddler himself, an ancient man with a long, crooked nose, waited beside his wares. He eyed Olinia expectantly as she approached, rubbing his hands together and then blowing into them.

  “Evening, young miss,” he said. “Interest you in anything?”

  “Do you sell candles?” she asked.

  “I do.” he smiled and pointed to a shelf nearby. “Finest candles in Washougle. Very bright.”

  Olinia picked out a dozen of the longest.

  “Go to the ceremony tonight?” His smile flashed a gold front tooth. “I’m sure a sweet lass like you has nothing to fear.”

  “No, I’m not worried about the Shade. I’ve nothing to do with anyone’s murder.”

  “Of course not. Still, you aren’t the first to stop by with that look in your eyes. I’ve sold at least fifty today alone. There’s no shame in it.”

  “Truly?”

  “Shade hunts are great for business.” he winked and smiled wider. “Usually, I’m not open anywhere near this late, but when they perform the ceremony for summoning I always get a few in here afterward. Looking for some last-minute supplies. Skeptics or foreigners. People like yourself who’ve maybe just seen the ritual for the first time. Pity it only lasts a night.”

  “The Shade always gets its man within a night?”

  “Rarely, one will take four or five, but most get their quarry within a single night.”

  “How come it isn’t always just one night?” Olinia asked as she handed her coins over.

  The peddler shrugged. “Who knows? Great for business when that happens, though. After a while, people start thinking maybe the Shade will just take anyone and say they’re the killer. People get nervous, scared to leave their homes at night. Then I really sell candles.”

  “Excuse me, here comes another one.” The peddler laughed to himself and ran a thumb down his long nose. He looked beyond Olinia. “Candles for you, good sir? Nothing like a little light to chase away the shadows.”

  Keeping to the light from the hanging streetlanterns, Olinia hurried toward the inn, her heart skipping a beat anytime she passed through a gap in the light. Getting back to the Lion’s Rounds took longer than it should as she skirted wide around a couple of streets that weren’t so well lit.

  Since turning fifteen, no human enemy had frightened Olinia. Sword or dagger, she’d proven herself time and again in duels, both mock and in tournaments, and her brother had been her only real rival. Even the Fleure hadn’t frightened her. There were a rare few who could match her skill, northerners or citizens of the capital, famous duelists all, but even against them she could hold her own, and if not, she could always use her ability to simply change faces and disappear.

  This was something else, though. What if the Shade could see through her disguises? It was a creature of shadow magic. Who knew what powers it might possess? Fighting such a thing might not be physically possible, either. A sword or axe or dagger might not harm it.

  How do I fight a creature of shadow? The candlelight might help keep it at bay, but she needed to kill the Shade before it caught her unawares. Or could it even be killed?

  Back in her room, Olinia lit six candles, standing them upright in a little circle around herself. She laid out her dagger and a short sword she’d stolen from one of the city guards. She half expected the Shade to show up in her room at any moment, to leap from the shadows, barrel through the little circle of light, and try to devour her. It was just after midnight before she finally dozed off.

  She slept in a chair with her head propped up on the back with one of her rolled-up shirts for a pillow.

  She woke before dawn, shivering and drenched in sweat. In her dreams, the Shade had been chasing her. Over and over she saw the gagged prisoner they’d sacrificed and the black mist pouring out of the dagge
r’s crystal hilt. She saw the Shade take shape and form. Its soulless gold eyes locked on hers. Hungry and remorseless.

  It came for her then, and though she ran beyond all measure of endurance, it always caught her. It took her. It swallowed her, over and over.

  Olinia shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a nightmare. I’ve got to pull it together if I’m going to get out of this. Panic will only lead to bad decisions and make it all worse. The candles were low now, mere stubs, and one had fallen over and snuffed out. She reached into her supply and lit a new one to replace it. She leaned over, setting it down, and then she felt it.

  The room had changed.

  The air was suddenly clammy and cold, far colder than it should have been. She’d left the hearth going and the windows shut tight, but her breath still fogged the air. She rose and started for the hearth, then stopped just inside the gentle halo of candlelight.

  Something shifted in the shadows to her right. She looked closer, leaning in, and then she saw them. A pair of golden eyes watching her. Her thumping heart missed a beat. The Shade.

  It’s found me already.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Thick and the Thin

  Cagle lay in a shallow ditch, muddy and cold, waiting for the battle to come. Three thousand of his men, along with Zethul and the rest of the dwarves, all waited alongside him.

  Three times they’d encountered the enemy since leaving Crow’s Bay, and each time, Cagle had taken his army around them without offering battle. And each time, the men from Washougle had raced to circle ahead of his army and prepare some crude fortifications.

  The soldiers would be grumbling by now. Complaining about all the time wasted on earthworks after the hard march. They would be questioning their leader’s competence. He could only imagine their commander’s frustration. He’ll be ready to chew nails.

  Today, he’ll get the fight he wants, though it won’t go as he hopes.

  Their position was good. Cagle and his men were six miles from the enemy’s last camp, down in a notch among a line of hills that would act as a natural funnel, and they’d dug a narrow ditch just deep enough to sit down in. Ahead of them lay a river, broad and calm. It curled around their right flank, narrowing into a series of frothing whitewater rapids. On the left, the hills rose ever higher into a bare ridge of sawtooth mountains.

  The enemy would have to use this pass if they wanted to get ahead of the Karthans again. They would be tired from travel before arriving. The sun would be in their faces, the river at their backs, and Cagle’s army would be charging down a little grade. The Iridin wouldn’t know what hit them.

  “I see him,” Cagle said.

  Zethul was at his left. The dwarf fastened on his heavy helmet, as did his fellows. He stood on tiptoe to see over the ditch’s edge. “You sure? I can’t see anything.”

  “He’s there among that grove of ironwoods. Running hard. I can just make him out.” Cagle pointed.

  The dwarf squinted and stared toward the trees. He chewed on a piece of peppered jerky he’d taken from a pouch around his waist. “I still can’t...wait, I do see something moving. You sure it isn’t a deer or elk? That has to be almost a mile away.”

  “A mile? No, that can’t be righ...” Cagle’s voice trailed off. He could see the fringe waving on the scout’s buckskins. No one could see that far. He studied the distance again. He’d picked this spot himself. The river snaked along half a mile ahead of them and the ironwoods were at least twice as far. His hand crept to the green tattoo seared into his chest.

  What is this thing doing to me?

  Last night, he’d been up for an hour reading reports from Felnasen before realizing he’d forgotten to light a candle. And it wasn’t just his vision that had improved. All his senses were stronger. He could hear the flapping of a moth’s wings. He could smell a cookfire from well over a mile away. It was more than that, still. He was stronger, noticeably so, quicker, too, and he found he needed far less sleep than before. His hunger had grown. He was eating two or three times more than normal, and of that almost exclusively meat. Yesterday, he’d been distracted thinking about these changes and had cut his hand sharpening his sword. Today, the wound had already healed without so much as a scar to show for it.

  Other than the tattoo, there hadn’t been any physical signs of what was happening to him. For that he was thankful, but the whole thing disturbed him just the same. He couldn’t tell if the crystal was still affecting him or if its purpose had been fulfilled. He might wake up one morning and find himself transformed into some kind of beast.

  At his request Meagera had tried to examine the marking closer, but any spells she cast to determine its nature just rebounded. It seemed the crystal’s protections from magic hadn’t faded.

  “I see him for sure now,” Zethul said. “He just crossed the river.”

  The scout ran directly toward them; Cagle raised a hand to wave him down. Within minutes the man joined them near the ditch’s center. Cagle passed him a canteen. Grateful, the scout nodded and drank his fill between panting breaths, then replaced the cork. He took a minute to steady his breathing.

  “How far back are they?” Cagle asked.

  “No more than an hour,” the scout said. “They’ve pushed hard all day.”

  “Good,” Zethul said. “The more tired they are the better.”

  “How many? And are they strung out or marching in formation?” Cagle pressed. The scouts had counted the enemy several times, but the numbers varied wildly. It was the kind of thing that drove commanders crazy.

  “Four or five thousand. All coming in a loose formation. Though the forest’s undergrowth should break them up some,” the scout answered. He took another long draw from the canteen.

  “Seems odd that they want to give us battle,” Cagle said. “With Huir’s men included, we’ve almost three times their number. Why not wait for us in Washougle behind prepared defenses?”

  “Maybe they were only sent out to slow us down,” Zethul said. “Or maybe they’re overconfident.”

  “Something doesn’t fit. We took Crow’s Bay quickly. How do they know anything about us? How did they even know we were coming?” Cagle didn’t like the unknown. The unknown had a way of biting you when you least expected it and ruining the best of plans.

  “Spies in Crow’s Bay? Or this could just be a raiding party headed that direction,” Zethul said.

  “Spies don’t make sense. According to Huir, Washougle has been raiding Crow’s Bay for years. You saw the people there. Most were too scared to venture out of the city. They wouldn’t spy for their enemies, and even if they did, what good would spies be if they never left the city walls? No, there’s something bigger at work here,” Cagle said.

  First the mysterious Voice of Iridia and now this army from Washougle. It’s almost like the Iridin had word of our coming.

  That was impossible, of course. He was being paranoid. Three months ago he himself hadn’t known he was coming. And Crow’s Bay certainly hadn’t been prepared. The closest deepwater port to the pass would have been his first obvious destination.

  “Go on and rejoin the main force,” Cagle told the scout. “Report to Felnasen and let him know we’re about to engage the enemy. Tell him to make camp early and wait for us to catch up as we planned.”

  “Yes, sir,” the scout said. He took up his gear and set out at an easy pace.

  The scout had just moved out of his sight when Cagle caught the first scent of horses. He saw them then, filtering slowly through the trees like a herd of elk. He nudged Zethul and the dwarf squinted into the distance. Minutes later, the first riders broke into the grassy clearing between the trees and the river.

  Cagle cursed his luck; this ambush wasn’t aimed at a few men on horseback. He needed to strike the heart of their
army, the foot soldiers, to be effective. His doubts were eased when the men on horseback stopped at the water’s lapping edge. They dismounted and allowed their horses to drink. Despite the distance, he swore he could almost hear them. Some laughed while others, older men mostly, grumbled and complained. A short time later, the first footmen emerged from the trees to join them.

  The soldiers stripped off their armor and lounged in the refreshing water. Half of them laid their spears and swords aside to drink. Cagle considered hitting them then while so many were unarmored and unprepared. If the ditch had been closer and they’d been on his side of the water, he would have.

  “They certainly seem relaxed,” Zethul said. “Pity we aren’t a few hundred yards closer. We’d cut through them like ripened wheat.”

  “I was just thinking that myself,” Cagle said.

  Could have also used archers. How many arrows could a good bowman get off before they got their armor back on and across the river? Six, seven, at least.

  “How close are you going to let them get?” Zethul asked.

  “A hundred yards, no more than that.”

  The dwarf gave him a sidelong look. “Pretty close.”

  “I don’t feel like running today,” Cagle said.

  “Women will do that to you.”

  “What?”

  “Sansaba. All those late-night lovers’ rendezvous will sap the stamina right out of you. Curved like she is, that woman is built to drain it all out of a man.”

  “We aren’t—I mean I haven’t—” Cagle protested. She had been in his tent often enough at night, discussing Iridia’s customs and what she knew of the country at length. He valued their time together, but it had been nothing more than that. Still, he could see how it would appear. What must the men think of their general?