The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  He found the little shoe-picker messing about behind the training room sword racks with one of his friends. The boy’s smile dropped when he saw Morghiad, which was quite a satisfying reaction. The friend rapidly made excuses and left.

  “Hello,” Gironar said in a highpitched voice.

  “You know why I am here.”

  “No?”

  There was no time to be dallying with courtesies. Morghiad grabbed the boy by the throat and shoved him against a wall, high enough so that his feet dangled in the air. It was terribly convenient that Gironar was both shorter and weaker than he. Well, perhaps not convenient so much as inevitable.

  Gironar squeaked.

  “Tell me why you sold the horse.”

  He coughed. “What horse?”

  Morghiad squeezed tighter. “You know.”

  “I don’t – I-”

  Morghiad hoiked the boy up another few inches.

  “Alright! Alright. It was Mirke who told me to.”

  “Mirke? You’re lying.”

  “No! No! I swear it. He told me to. He said I was to take the horse down to the market and sell it right away.”

  “Why?”

  Gironar’s words were starting to run together with panic.

  “Idon’tknowIdon’tknow! He just said togetridofit!”

  “Did you see Artemi Fevtari?”

  The boy managed to squeeze out a, “No,” and Morghiad believed him. It appeared that Mirke had done more than simply lie about the events of the previous day; he had a scheme he was trying to hide.

  “What did you do with the money you got for the horse?”

  “I can’t bre-”

  Morghiad adjusted his grip only slightly. “I. Want. My. Money. Back.” Or what little he could get.

  “Alrightit’sinmypocket!” Gironar flailed wildly in an attempt to indicate it, or get it out. It was hard to tell which.

  The boy was released once he had handed over the single sovereign he had earned from the sale of the horse, and Morghiad was left to think on whatever strange practices were happening here. He doubted very much that Artemi had asked Mirke to sell her horse. All of it, the discarding of personal possessions, not seeing her closest friend, instructing someone else to sell her horse - it was all far too unsentimental for her. And she had apparently arranged all of this before

  she had known that death was so near. Therefore, if something had happened to her, or if she had run and told him to cover her tracks, then Mirke knew the reason for it.

  Morghiad did not want to confront the stable master too soon, however. If Mirke did know where she was, then he could warn her away before Morghiad reached her. And... and if he had done something to her, then making him fearful could potentially worsen her situation or leave her lost in obscurity until it was too late. Ulena was needed.

  He found her in the library with

  her head hanging heavily over a textbook, short twists of hair jutting out in all sorts of unexpected directions. She did not look terribly pleased to see him there, and a set of frown lines dimpled her rounded features. “You again?”

  He tried to force a smile as he whispered, “Artemi has gone missing. Her things have been sold or thrown away. I think something may have happened to her.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but moved back in her chair very slowly. “Gilkore said she’d left.”

  “I think Gilkore is lying.

  Yesterday, after you saw her horse, Mirke had a cadet take it into town and sell it, but he told me that Artemi had ridden off with it. She hadn’t. No one even bothered to take the saddle.”

  This time Ulena’s voice became very quiet. “That’s ridiculous. If Mirke and Gilkore are trying to hide her disappearance then why would they bother? Wouldn’t the other staff know?”

  “I don’t know.” What could she have told them that they would have agreed to keep secret? They certainly would have behaved differently if they knew she and Morghiad had been

  sleeping together. No, he was confident they did not know that. What else? What could they want that they couldn’t already use her for at the school? It was not something he wished to think about. His wife. “But could you ask around her other friends. Maybe try Linfar...” The name made his stomach twist unexpectedly in this new context. “...Or anyone who might have seen her when she got here.”

  She nodded sagely, and he left her to her book musings. Truly, he wanted to see her run from her seat and get to the task he had set her, but he was aware how any untoward

  actions could raise suspicion. There was no reason to believe his movements were being watched closely, especially given his apparent hatred for the girl he sought, and he intended to keep that particular advantage.

  Morghiad was going to head to the master of this whole mess. Mirke could well have been acting alone, but if Gilkore had claimed Artemi asked him for permission to leave, then he was guilty of purveying false information too.

  There was a short wait outside his office, where Morghiad felt as if he were in line to be punished for another exam paper misdemeanour. But Gilkore soon invited him in by his usual shout of half-affected interest.

  “Ah, Lord Calyrish. Good to see you here. Not in trouble again, are you?”

  Morghiad gave a weak smile and settled himself into the leather chair.

  “Well, what is it you wished to speak to me about?”

  He cleared his throat. Not too much suspicion; it was bad enough that he had a marriage to conceal. Better to pretend he still despised her. “Captain, I hear you finally got rid of Miss

  Fevtari. What did she do, steal food?”

  The captain blinked. “Well, she got rid of herself, lad. Decided she’d had enough.”

  “Enough of me?”

  “Well, you two have certainly had your fights over the years, eh? Maybe it was that. We’re better off without her.”

  “Better off? She was the strongest wielder we had.”

  Gilkore reached across his desk for a candle and used it to light up his cigar. Until that moment, he had looked rather bare without it. “Lad, that girl was a danger. Do you have any idea

  what she’ll turn into, what she’ll become? I’ve seen the signs before. They’re not part of the team, those ones – laws unto themselves. No discipline – not like you and I – and no respect for authority. I had hoped she would learn, but she didn’t. You don’t want a woman like that on your side, believe me. She’d just as soon burn her friends if she decided it was the right thing to do.”

  There was no doubt that she had a rebellious streak to her, but kill her friends? No, Artemi was loyal enough to make him feel ill with the mawkishness of it. She had even

  decided to spare him the worst of deaths out of her fool belief that eisiels were real. There was a kind heart somewhere in amongst the thorns she had for him. “Where do you think she’ll go now?”

  Gilkore shrugged. “She’ll destroy herself before she learns to control what she has, if we’re lucky.”

  Morghiad did not like this man’s attitude one bit. He considered throwing the captain against the wall and threatening him, but that would probably not help. If he did not find any more clues about Artemi’s disappearance, then violence might be

  an option worthy of consideration. “No doubt she will.” He smiled as if satisfied with the outcome of the conversation and stood. “That is all I wished to know. Thank you, captain.”

  He nodded with approval. “Dismissed.”

  The door shut behind him with a cloud of cigar smoke, and Morghiad found himself lamenting his poor skills at obtaining information. He knew no more of Artemi’s whereabouts now than he had at his arrival in Hestavos. Gilkore had revealed nothing except a distrust and dislike of Artemi, but that hardly meant the captain had smuggled

  her away, even if he was hiding the truth. The walls looked impassively at him whilst he walked through the corridors; they were irritating. He kicked one just to make sure it knew how he felt about their unhelpfulness, and strod
e out of the building.

  The day outside was a typical Sunidaran one: hot, glaring sun and not much else. Morghiad could still remember a time when he had missed the rain and clouds, but the sensation of being desiccated alive had become more familiar to him than any other. He sought the shade and followed it beneath the woven awnings until he

  reached the gates once more, stopping to check that Tyshar was still there on the way. The horse had looked expectantly at him as he passed, but today would not be one for more adventures.

  He wandered aimlessly for a while, thinking of any clue that pointed toward her whereabouts and what it was that Mirke was trying to hide. He was caught. Anything he asked could force her to run farther, and anyone he threatened could bury her deeper in oblivion. Time was running out by the hour, and no one could know that her life depended upon his finding her.

  He wandered along the dusty roads for a while, and passed the many empty rows of shops that hugged the outskirts of Fate’s compound. At the end of one road, he stopped. It led no farther than to a row of old mansions that leaned against Fate’s walls as if hoping for some shelter from the sun. They mirrored the heap of rubbish he had so feverishly dug through the previous evening in an odd way. Their windows were entirely gone now, and their structure looked unconvincing, to say the least.

  He cocked his head to one side and listened to the noises of air blowing through the rafters. He remembered Artemi mentioning these buildings once. What was it she had said? Monsters from your worst nightmares. Something about them being haunted or full of horrors or some nonsense. Of course, these buildings were the only way into the school once the gates were closed, and she must have had to use them at night. On the two occasions that Morghiad had found himself locked out of the school, he had paid for a comfortable night at an inn. Artemi would not have been able to afford that.

  In the fierce light the desolate

  houses appeared to be quite innocuous, just shells of a former time. He looked around. The street was mostly empty, but of those people he did see, he hardly cared what they would think of him. Strange, how death could put things in perspective.

  He took a running jump at the wall and managed to reach high enough to grasp the bottom ledge of the firstfloor window. It took some effort to pull his weight up and onto it, but he relished the feel of blood pumping through his veins after several weeks without training. Zandrin would be expecting him back on drill in a week’s

  time; how unfortunate that his favourite student would not be able to attend. Morghiad hopped into the room as lightly as he could manage, and looked about it carefully.

  There was not much of a room to speak of. Most of the walls had been blown through by the wind, as had the ceilings and floors. Splinters of wood stuck out at all angles, and only the plaster that had bedded the tiles served as proof that they had once existed there. The place was filled with light... and rather a great deal of dust. He edged his way carefully around the sturdiest-looking beams, moving boot

  over boot and keeping his hands ready to grasp at the woodwork should he fall. He headed toward what he presumed was the hallway, and the entire structure seemed to creak beneath him. A breeze blew through at that moment, and Morghiad was sure he could see the walls wobble.

  In any event, it did not collapse before he found the withered remains of the stairs. All the way up the wood was riddled with beetle holes, so densely packed together that there could scarcely be any timber between them. He broke off a piece with his fingers, and frowned as it crumbled

  into the air before his very eyes. Had Artemi really been in here as a child? How had she not fallen and impaled herself on a stake below?

  It occurred to him that there really was no reason to be here, but his curiosity was something that would not settle down. It had become too frustrated from the lack of answers it had found today. Morghiad tested a step with his left foot. The wood held for a second, but then fell to the ground below in a surprisingly high-pitched plink of hollow things bouncing off one another. It only made him more determined to clamber to the next floor. He moved into the next room, which appeared to abut the outer wall of Fate’s. No obvious attempt had been made to cover the yellow render with tiling or plaster. It was simply a bare and unforgiving reminder of its situation. Carefully he picked his way across to the wall, and then peered upward to assess the next portion of his route. The timbers here appeared to be slightly sturdier, and a gentle push produced no movement. As quickly as he dared, he clambered onto one of the supporting beams and used it to thrust himself up to the joists above. There was a worrying sound of creaking and

  groaning around him, but the structure held. And then he saw something very curious indeed.

  There was a hole, just large enough for a person to fit through, in the bluff yellow wall beside him. Odd. He had never noticed a hole from the other side. Was this how locked-out cadets found their way back in? He crawled toward it and squinted at the darkness inside.

  The wall itself must have been a good couple of feet thick, and the inner lining of it was smeared in some sort of dried, black substance. He brushed his fingers against it and sniffed. The stuff

  smelled familiar, but whatever it was, it wasn’t blood. All that he could see of the room beyond was a dark grey, dim light.

  The hole was a squeeze for him to wriggle through, and after cursing more times than he ought to, he made it to the other side without sustaining too much damage to his clothing. His eyes adjusted to the relative darkness only gradually, but the reason he had not seen the hole from the other side soon became clear. He was standing inside a chamber with stone walls, and tied into those walls were many, many iron bars. Rows and rows of them. He

  could not think of any other way to describe it than as a prison. He reached out to touch the metal, and it felt just as cold and hard as he had expected it to. This was no hallucination.

  All of the cells were empty, even the one he was stood inside. Morghiad looked back at the hole. Had someone dug their way out of here? It certainly looked as if there were scrape marks around the edge of it. But it made no sense. He had never heard rumours of such a place existing inside the walls of the school. And what could it be used for? Punishment for not attending one’s lessons? He and Artemi had been in trouble enough times before now; surely they would have been sent here before most of the other cadets? Why hadn’t the hole been sealed?

  He approached the bars that formed the cell door. The lock was closed, but the metal was old and corroded. He kicked it once, forcing it to give out a rather satisfying rattle. Just a touch more force was needed. Morghiad withdrew his sword with a long scrape, primed it to hit the lock and then swung. The casing fell to the ground in three pieces and the door swung open immediately; there truly was nothing that matched Hirrahan

  steel. He re-sheathed and began his tour of the cells. Small shafts of light came from tiny holes in the ceiling above him, providing only just enough illumination by which to see. Though, the more he saw, the less he wanted to see of it. Short chains and manacles, which looked to have been made for small wrists, lay in some of the cells. Whatever this was, he doubted it had been constructed at a time before Fate’s had held children.

  At the end of the cell row was an ominously dark tunnel, which he imagined led to a long-forgotten accessway and a door that no one

  opened. As he passed one of the final cells, he saw something glisten on the floor. It wasn’t water, and it wasn’t glass or polished metal. It looked like... He reached through the bars and grabbed it between two of his fingers. The sensation he felt was unmistakeable. It was one of Artemi’s fire-gold hairs.

  His innards churned against his ribs as he clutched it. The hair still fizzled with her power as if it had fallen from her head only a moment ago, but there was no other sign of her. He checked the entire chamber again, twice, and found nothing more. The

  only explanation he could conceive of was that she had been here yesterday while he had been searching for her s
o frantically. Artemi had been only yards away from him.

  Why here?

  There were only two options. Either she had been hiding here, or someone had decided to lock her away for their own reasons. He frowned. The cell door was open, but that did not mean anything now that it was empty. If Mirke had attempted to place her here against her will, she would have put up too much of a fight for him to quell. It was a thought he found

  difficult to accept, but perhaps she had been trying to avoid her husband all along.

  He pocketed the strand of hair and edged into the darkness of the tunnel. It took some fumbling, tripping and stumbling, but soon he found himself at a wooden panel with a handle on it. There were no sounds coming from beyond, and so he pressed down to open the door. Light flooded in, and so did some rather familiar smells of old paper and cigar smoke. His breath caught as he stepped into the room. It was the storeroom attached to Captain Gilkore’s office.

  He waited, motionless for a full minute, until he heard the sounds of paper shuffling in the adjoining room. Evidently Gilkore was still working, and there would be no way out of here until the captain decided his work was done. In silence, Morghiad slipped back into the darkness of the prison tunnel. He huddled against the cold stone for some time, and it was only after he had partially drifted to sleep that he heard Gilkore leave.