Wrath of the Fury Blade

by Geoff Habiger

  “I take offense at the insinuation that I am a fence, Constable,” Rhoanlan huffed. “I run a respectable business.” He folded his arms across his chest.

  Reva knew that he was a fence, one of the biggest in the city, and Rhoanlan knew that she knew. But Reva didn’t care about what she considered petty theft. Elves needed to be more careful with their valuables if they didn’t want them stolen.

  “I know you do, Rhoanlan,” Reva said with a smile. “But you should be more careful where you do your appraisals. Anybody could just walk in here.”

  “Nah,” he gave a dismissive wave. “Inspector Thaenwell paid me a visit a few days ago and he didn’t find anything. And he won’t now either.” He scooped up the jewelry and dumped it into a metal box. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “What can you tell me about Pfeta fey Orung?”

  “Only what everybody else knows, Inspector. They’re a bunch of self-centered elves who like to poke around in musty old libraries looking at their family shrubs.”

  Reva knew all that—it was what everybody who wasn’t a member of the order thought of them. “What about their heraldry?” She pulled out the two enamel pins and set them on the table.

  Rhoanlan picked up one of the pins and looked at it casually. “Well,” he said, “they have three orders. The Sai Acharn, the first order, has a really ugly gold-colored acorn on a field of green. Not really all that original. The second order is the Bloedan Sapönrae. They aren’t too original either, but their color choice is better: a red oak leaf on a black field. Very patriotic, that color combination.

  “These,” he held up the pin, “are from the third order, the Knehtlaar Quercus. As you can see, a green tree—I guess it’s supposed to be an oak, but the shape is all wrong, in my opinion—and a blue field with these stars around it. Fifteen stars. You have to be able to trace your family shrub back at least fifteen generations in order to be considered for this exalted order.”

  Rhoanlan’s choice of words and emphasis on exalted conveyed the disdain he apparently felt about Pfeta fey Orung.

  “What about these pins? One of the stars is black, not white.”

  “Really?” Rhoanlan pretended to look at the pin again. “Shoddy work-elfship. I’ve seen better craft from halpbloeden tinsmiths.” He looked up at Reva, his head cocked slightly to the right.

  Reva pulled out a Skip, but Rhoanlan gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She put the Skip back and slipped a gold Hawk out of the pouch and set it on the table. “Can you take a closer look for me, please?”

  The coin disappeared in a moment and Rhoanlan made a great show of setting his loupe to his left eye and examining one pin, then the other. “Nope,” he removed the loupe. “The order has always been cheap when it comes to these pins.”

  Damn greedy bastard, thought Reva. Rhoanlan knew a lot of things about what went on in the city. He’d never failed to give Reva good information when she needed it, which is why she always kept other Inspectors away from him. You had to protect your sources. His information usually only cost a Skip or two, maybe a Hawk for really important information. If he wanted two Hawks for this info it had better be worth it or she’d tip Thaenwell off about the jewelry.

  She set a second gold coin on the table. “Maybe if you look at them in better light?”

  The second coin disappeared as quickly as the first. There was no better light in the shop; it was all the same diffuse, murky light that came through the grimy windows. Rhoanlan made a show of standing up and moving to the window, though instead of looking at the pin, he glanced out the window in both directions. He then moved past Reva to the door and bolted it locked.

  Reva instinctively grabbed for her dagger, her senses on edge. Was that somebody at the window?

  She relaxed a bit as Rhoanlan sat down again. Even so, when he spoke his voice was quieter than it had been.

  “What would you say, Inspector, if I told you that there was a secret cabal of dark elves who actually control the city and have been working on a plan for thousands of years to overthrow the King and seize power for themselves?”

  Reva couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh come on, Rhoanlan,” she finally said. “That’s just a wild conspiracy theory spread by nutheads to blame anything bad that happens in the Kingdom on some mysterious cabal. It’s a fairy tale—a myth.”

  “Folks thought the Tenz River Troll was a myth until you and Seeker Rubus managed to actually kill the beast.”

  Reva nodded to acknowledge the point. The troll had been a legend in the city for years; it was used to scare young elves in order to keep them from playing in the river. But a series of deaths along the river and port the previous year had been unusually vicious and brutal. She and Cas had tracked the creature, using information provided by Rhoanlan, to its lair, where they killed the troll. She and Cas had received a commendation from the Mayor and a letter of thanks from King Aeonis himself after that case.

  “Fine,” Reva admitted. “But come on, a thousand-plus-year plot to overthrow the King? That’s a bit far-fetched, even as conspiracy theories go. If dark elves were plotting anything, why haven’t they struck sooner?”

  Rhoanlan shrugged. “I am not a dark elf, so I cannot fathom what they think or do. What I do know is that Pfeta fey Orung has a rotten core—a black heart, you might say.” He started to laugh, but Reva just crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him. She wasn’t paying him two Hawks for jokes.

  “There is another order within Pfeta fey Orung. A secret order. They don’t have a name, and membership is limited to only those elves that can trace their ancestry back to dark elf blood.”

  He picked up one of the pins and pointed to the black star. “The only way they identify themselves is by this black star on the pin. Maybe that’s why these pins are so poorly crafted. Whenever they get damaged, which they do frequently, the enamel wears off. If anybody not of the secret order notices the black star, they can just say it’s bad crafting.”

  Reva thought back to Aescel looking at the pins. He said it was just the result of poor crafting. Was he telling me the truth? Does he know about this secret cabal? Is he a dark elf? Is that why he was reluctant to let me pursue this line of inquiry? She shook her head. No. Not Aescel. “OK, so let’s assume this secret order exists.”

  “It does,” Rhoanlan said emphatically.

  “Then why would somebody be killing its members?”

  “Who wouldn’t? They’re dark elves, our mortal enemies! Are we not taught from an early age about our wicked and evil cousins? About the many wars we have fought, the atrocities they’ve perpetuated? If anything, the Purity Laws teach us that even one drop of impure blood is enough to taint somebody. If it’s good enough to label somebody as halpbloeden, why would it not also be true for dark elves?”

  Reva had to admit that made sense. It also meant that anybody who found out about this secret order would have motive to kill both the First Magistrate and Lady Ochroma. But it did confirm that these murders were linked.

  “What about masks?” she asked, apparently from the upper branches. “Does Pfeta fey Orung use any masks?”

  “Masks?” asked Rhoanlan. “I thought we were just talking about order pins.”

  This is getting expensive, Reva thought. She sighed loudly, reluctantly pulled out a Skip, and set it on the table. It just sat there while Rhoanlan gave her a “You’ll need to do better than that” look. She glared back and gave a pointed look at the box that held the stolen jewelry. With a slow motion Rhoanlan made the Skip disappear.

  “Masks, did you say? I think they use a mask in their initiation rituals. It’s worn by the head of the order and is supposed to be a representation of Basvu, or some other woodland deity.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “The current one is all green with twigs and leaves jutting from it.”

  “Current one?
There have been others?”

  “Sure. Each new head of the order likes to have a new mask crafted to suit their own interpretation of ‘god.’” He emphasized ‘god’ with a gesture of his hands. “I don’t know what the earlier masks looked like. Honest.”

  Reva picked up the two pins. She now knew that there was a secret dark elf order within Pfeta fey Orung and that members of this secret order were being targeted. Of course, she had no real proof of the existence of this secret cabal, so getting anyone to believe her would be impossible. It’s not like I can go to Pfeta fey Orung and ask to see a list of members of a secret order to see who the next victim might be.

  The killer’s mask could be related to the order, or not. It could just be something the killer picked up in a shop not unlike Rhoanlan’s in order to hide his features. But she was sure that the mask had some kind of significance for the killer. She just didn’t know what. As with most investigations, when you answer one question, you inevitably find more questions.

  Pocketing the pins, she gave her thanks. “Áeorias, Rhoanlan. I don’t know exactly what this all means, but it’s certainly more of the picture than I had before.”

  “Always a pleasure to help, Inspector.” He patted the pocket into which the coins had disappeared.

  Reva walked to the door and placed her hand on the bolt.

  “Inspector,” Rhoanlan said, “the dark elves have worked for a long time on whatever their goal is. They won’t sit aside while they are killed by an unknown assailant, and they certainly won’t want the Constabulary sticking its nose into things.”

  “Actually, Rhoanlan,” Reva said, pulling the door open, “I’m sort of hoping they won’t.”

  Seventeen

  The afternoon dragged on for Ansee. After seeing Senior Inquisitor Malvaceä and the other elf enter the storage room, Ansee had been unable to concentrate on the sword pedigrees he was supposed to be examining. To make matters worse, Roya’s decision to work in the archives to make sure that Ansee didn’t damage his precious pedigrees had meant that Ansee couldn’t investigate the storage closet for the secret door that had to be there.

  Every sound coming from the direction of the stone forest caused Ansee to look up, thinking it might have been Malvaceä and the other elf returning. At one point Ansee was convinced that he’d heard the sound of a door closing, and maybe footsteps, but he couldn’t be sure. Ansee must have been staring off into space, trying to catch the sounds, because Roya had snapped his fingers a couple of times and asked him if he was all right.

  By the time Roya announced that it was time to finish for the day, Ansee had only been able to examine half of the pedigrees. He’d been staring at a distant bookshelf, trying to work out what Malvaceä might or might not know, and didn’t put up much protest when Roya put the pedigrees away.

  Ansee did remember to ask Roya if he could return in the morning to complete the research. Roya had hesitated, probably still mad from the earlier ink spill, but had finally agreed to let Ansee return. Ansee had then left Pfeta fey Orung.

  Ansee so badly wanted to go to his flat. He was hungry and tired from being up all last night, and spending the day looking at all the sword pedigrees hadn’t really been stimulating. Also, Ember, his pet fire salamander, was probably very upset with him right now. She had plenty of water and she’d recently been fed, so she wasn’t going to starve. But if Ansee didn’t give her some attention every day, she got testy and would start destroying things in his flat. Ember never let her tantrums get out of hand—she seemed to know better than to destroy the entire building—but Ansee had come home on other occasions to find that a favorite scroll or book had been reduced to ash.

  Although worried that he’d come home to find piles of ash strewn around his flat, Ansee needed to find CI Lunaria to tell her that he’d seen Inquisitor Malvaceä enter a secret room at Pfeta fey Orung. So, despite his fatigue, Ansee had returned to New Port to report on what he’d seen. Unfortunately, when he got to the Stable the Inspector was not there. Nobody seemed to know where she was or had seen her since the morning. He thought about telling First Constable Aescel the news, but when he checked, the First Constable was having a conversation with Constable Inspector Pflamtael. Reva had explained that CI Pflamtael was very ambitious and that he was the one trying to get them off the case. He didn’t want to interrupt the First Constable and the Inspector, possibly giving him any more excuses to take the case. Ansee dropped his notes on his table and left the Stable. He checked with the duty Constable, but she didn’t know where Reva was either. Frustrated, he decided that he’d go to Reva’s house to see if she was there.

  Ansee walked down the hill toward King’s Bridge. He was walking through Merchants Grove, passing people enjoying the warm afternoon at the many cafés along the road. There were even some travelers, adventurers, by their dress. How else to explain the two humans, a halfling, and a dwarf all dressed as if going into battle while sitting at an outdoor café?

  Ansee sighed. Everybody seemed to be enjoying the late afternoon. The high temperatures from the past few days had lessened some, though it was still warmer than normal. But people were out enjoying the brief respite from the heat. Ansee normally enjoyed this time of day on his balcony, eating a light meal with a glass of sweet wine while Ember lay across his shoulders, warming the aches in his neck away.

  If the life of a Seeker in Acer Division is always this hectic, thought Ansee, maybe I should go back to Nul Pfeta. At least I had regular days there.

  Ansee walked past a cacao house, its outdoor seating area filled with patrons enjoying chilled cacao drinks and light snacks. He thought the place was rather odd—none of the tables and chairs seemed to match—but it seemed popular with folks.

  The attack came without warning.

  A green-clad figure leapt from a corner of the cacao house’s roof, swinging a black blade that glowed with a dull red light, like a dying fire. The long day yesterday, followed by a long night, and then an unproductive day spent at Pfeta fey Orung, had deadened Ansee’s reaction. He saw the figure, observing to himself that it was dangerous for somebody to jump from the roof like that. It seemed to take even longer for him to see the blade and make the connection that this sword-wielding figure was attacking him. The blade came down in a high arc, driving toward his right shoulder. By the time Ansee made that connection it was too late for him to react. The blade struck at the point where his neck joined his shoulder, intending to sever head from body.

  Ansee should have died. His sluggish reaction to what was happening should have been the last thing he experienced. Instead, his life was saved because of two years of service in Nul Pfeta. Working in the ghetto had many challenges, not least of which was the fact that the Constabulary was more often viewed as an occupying army rather than a police force. This was primarily the fault of the Constables, Ansee knew (though nobody else seemed to draw that conclusion), due to their brutal approach to law enforcement there. This meant that any halpbloed who thought that he could get away with it would throw rocks, masonry, or anything else that was handy at the Constables. These objects certainly hurt, and a well-aimed throw could knock a Constable out or could even kill if they were thrown hard enough. Since you never knew when these missiles would come, or from which direction, Ansee had taken to casting a protection spell every morning that would not be activated until a trigger—such as a physical threat to his body—happened. The spell would then instantly activate, protecting Ansee from harm. The spell and trigger both taxed him some mentally and could make casting powerful spells more difficult, as the triggered spell was held in a ready state in his mind. Taxing, yes, but it was a hell of a lot better than getting hit in the head with a rock.

  Now Ansee’s protection spell—a shimmering coat of translucent red light that floated less than a hand’s width from his body—activated a split second before the black blade struck. The blow was still powerful—it had a lot of phys
ical force and magical enchantment behind it—and it managed to get part of the way through Ansee’s magical barrier. It cut in, drawing a gout of blood that arced across half a dozen patrons at the cacao house and forcing Ansee to the ground. Had the magical barrier not activated, the blade would have cut through him with ease, neatly cutting off his head and severing his left arm and shoulder from the rest of his body.

  Now, despite the lingering effects of the fatigue that were quickly being replaced by adrenaline, Ansee’s training took control and he managed to move with the blow, dropping to the ground and rolling a few paces away from his attacker. He looked up from the dirt and fine gravel of the road to take in his assailant.

  It could only be the killer he and Reva had been trying to find. He stood two paces away, recovering his swing after its deflection by Ansee’s spell. He appeared exactly as Cedres had described in the interview that morning. He wore dark brown riding breeches with black boots that came up to mid-calf. Ansee noticed that the boots were old, the leather starting to fade and crack in places. He wore a leather tunic that was finely worked to create a pattern of vines and leaves that seemed to fall from each shoulder. The leaves appeared to be oak leaves and were painted a dark green color. Along the neck and arm openings the armor’s edge was black. Under the armor the killer wore a shirt of dark green that appeared to be made from silk by the way it glistened in the light. Ansee’s eyes lifted to the killer’s face. As expected, it was covered by the mask Cedres had described. Gold-colored hair flowed from behind the mask.

  All around Ansee chaos reigned. Elves in the street were running away in every direction. Elves who’d moments before had been enjoying their cacao were now standing hurriedly, knocking over tables and chairs in a panic to get away.

  Ansee’s shoulder burned with pain. He wiggled his fingers and was relieved when they moved. That meant that the blow had not cut any major nerves, but he could feel blood soaking his shirt and armor. He quickly ran through his options and didn’t like how things looked. He was injured and losing a lot of blood. At the same time, he was practically unarmed. He carried his regular service dagger (not one of his personal daggers, but the standard issue one), but he had never carried the required sword. He had never gotten a feel for using the sword and for his own personal safety—and the safety of others—he didn’t wear it.