Ghost in the Blood (The Ghosts)

by Moeller, Jonathan

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  An hour later Caina, Halfdan, and Ark stood in a half-circle around Tigrane, Jiri and Radast watching from a cot. The lights had been extinguished, and only a single dim lantern threw illumination upon their prisoner. Tigrane sat slumped in a wooden chair, face crusted with blood, his arms and legs bound with thick rope. The ugly charred cut from the silver dagger gaped through a tear in his tunic.

  “I think you hit him too hard,” said Jiri.

  Ark’s voice was cold. “I wanted to hit him harder.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Halfdan, tapping a small amount of gray powder in a cup of water. “This will wake him up.”

  He waved the cup under Tigrane’s nose. A moment later Tigrane shuddered, mouth working. He let out a long groan and lifted his head, looking around with bloodshot eyes.

  “Ah,” he rasped. He coughed and spat out some half-dried blood. “I see I have been captured. Though…you’re not Legionaries, are you?” He frowned. “So…you must have snatched me off the street during the fight.”

  Halfdan said nothing.

  Tigrane’s bloodshot eyes wandered over them, looking at their masked faces. She saw the gears working behind his eyes. Despite herself, Caina felt a twinge of admiration. Not many men could retain the ability to think things through in such dire circumstances.

  His eyes fell upon Caina.

  “You,” said Tigrane. “I remember you, or at least that mask and cloak. You tried to kill His Lordship at the White Road Inn. That means…that means…” He swallowed, and a twitch of fear went over his face. “That means you’re Ghosts.”

  “The Emperor has no Ghosts,” said Halfdan, his voice unrecognizable behind a thick Kyracian accent, “only those who watch from the shadows.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Tigrane, licking his cracked lips. “So…one of you must be that locksmith His Lordship wanted dead.”

  Caina frowned. Tigrane was a little too clever.

  “I don’t suppose Icaraeus told you why he wanted the locksmith dead,” said Halfdan.

  Tigrane shrugged. “He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. His Lordship has clients, and they paid him to do the deed. His clients didn’t say why.”

  “Perhaps the locksmith offended Lady Palaegus in some way, hmm?” said Halfdan.

  Tigrane blinked in surprise, and let out a long sigh. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

  “Shadows never sleep,” said Halfdan.

  “So,” said Tigrane, “since you haven’t cut my throat, and since I’m not rotting in the Citadel…I guess you want something from me.”

  “You’re a clever fellow, Tigrane,” said Halfdan. “Are you clever enough to tell us what we want to know?”

  Tigrane barked out a laugh. “Do you know what His Lordship does to people who betray him?”

  “A better question,” said Ark, voice full of anger, “is what we’re going to do to you.”

  “I’m getting older,” said Tigrane, “and you hit me right hard. Might have cracked something important. Rough me up too much and I might die on you. Hard for me to tell you anything useful then.”

  “Violence really ought to be a last resort,” said Halfdan. “I hope we can avoid it entirely.”

  “Aye?” said Tigrane. “All right. Give me a thousand gold coins and my freedom, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Do not presume to barter with me,” said Halfdan. “You are guilty of slave trading and taking service with a traitor to the Empire. Both crimes carry the death sentence. You are not of high birth, and to judge from that accent, not an Imperial citizen. So in your case, a death sentence means crucifixion. Your friends the Legionaries captured? They’ll get dragged before the Lord Governor, they’ll be found guilty, and they’ll end their days screaming on a cross as the crows peck at their faces. And if you annoy me too much, you might end up there alongside them. And I sincerely doubt Icaraeus will lift a finger to save you.”

  Tigrane said nothing, but the muscles in his jaw kept trembling. Caina supposed he no longer found Vardan’s warnings about crucifixion quite so laughable.

  “But,” said Halfdan, “if you cooperate, I’ll have you put on a ship and sent to Anshan. You’ll have no money, of course, but you’ll have your freedom. And your life.”

  “Throw me penniless into Anshan?” said Tigrane. “At my age? I’ll end up a beggar.”

  “Probably,” said Halfdan. “But, tell me. Which sounds better? A beggar? Or a crucified corpse?”

  Tigrane sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where is Icaraeus?” said Halfdan.

  “I don’t know,” said Tigrane.

  Ark growled and started to draw his sword.

  “I don’t know! But I know where he’ll be,” said Tigrane. “Once we had taken the slaves, we were to meet him tomorrow night at the usual place.”

  “Which is?” said Halfdan.

  “An old mansion,” said Tigrane. “At the base of the Citadel’s crag, overlooking the harbor. Lady Palaegus owns it, but she never uses it. We use it to hide slaves. It’s the best place. We’d sometimes hide them in Lady Palaegus’s cellar, but there was never enough room. Lady Heliorus’s mansion was too open, and Lady Chlorus’s just wasn’t large enough.” He shrugged. “I suppose you can ambush His Lordship, the way you ambushed me.”

  “This mansion. What happens to the slaves after that?” said Halfdan.

  “I don’t know,” said Tigrane.

  Again Ark growled.

  “I don’t know!” said Tigrane, a note of frustration in his voice. “His Lordship won’t tell us, and I’ve tried to figure it out. It makes no sense. Young men with strong backs, and pretty young girls who are still virgin, that’s where the money is. Yet we take old men and children and Lady Palaegus pays a high price for them. I thought maybe she was reselling the slaves, perhaps to mine owners in the mountains…but no one would pay that kind of money. She’d have to be selling the slaves at a loss.” There was genuine bafflement in his pained voice. “But why would she do that?”

  “Perhaps she is using the slaves for sorcery,” said Halfdan.

  “Maybe,” said Tigrane. “But between the three of them, we must have sold His Lordship’s clients two thousand slaves over the last five years. Surely she couldn’t have used them all for some kind of witchery…could she?”

  “If she did,” said Halfdan, “it’s not the kind of sorcery you ever want to see.”

  That was an understatement. Caina had encountered the kind of sorcery that drew its power from death before. It was nothing she wanted to see again.

  “Icaraeus’s clients,” said Caina in her disguised voice. “The noblewomen. Tell me about them.”

  “Them?” Tigrane shrugged. “Bored noblewomen who turned to sorcery. Bah. Look what comes of leaving women idle.”

  “So Agria Palaegus and the others truly have sorcerous powers?” said Caina. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to see how Tigrane would answer.

  “Aye,” said Tigrane, voice quiet. “I’ve seen all three of them cast spells. Palaegus seems like the strongest of the three. At least she’s the one usually giving the orders. The other two seem to listen to her.”

  “What about their teacher?” said Caina.

  Tigrane seemed to shrink into himself. “Their teacher?”

  “Jadriga.”

  Tigrane actually shivered. “I don’t want anything to do with her. Aye, Ghosts, I don’t doubt that you can take down Icaraeus and Lady Palaegus. But if you have the sense the gods gave a gnat, you won’t go anywhere near Jadriga.”

  “Why not?” said Caina. “She’s just a woman. Sorcerous powers or not, she still can be killed.”

  “Perhaps,” said Tigrane. “But not by you, Ghost. Not by any of you. I saw her use her powers, once. We’d captured a band of slaves from further up the river, brought them to Lady Palaegus’s mansion. They were bolder than most, managed to kill a bunch of my lads and make a dash for it. But they ran into Jadrig
a. She got this look on her face, started muttering under her breath…there was this flash. Like green fire. And when it cleared, all the slaves were dead. Thirty-seven of them, killed by one spell. And not just dead…they’d been ripped apart. Like they’d been mauled by wild beasts.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen any sorcerer do anything like that, not even one from the Magisterium.”

  “Power or not, she will be called to account for her crimes,” said Caina. Assuming they could figure out a way to kill her. “I have only one more question for you. Agria Palaegus is a widow.”

  Tigrane frowned. “Aye?”

  “Did she kill her husband and daughter?” said Caina.

  “Ah,” said Tigrane. “You mean, did she pay us to kill them? No. They were both dead before His Lordship began supplying Lady Palaegus with slaves.” He grunted. “I do think that she killed them, though. Bet she enjoyed it, too. That all?”

  Caina nodded, and glanced at Halfdan. He nodded back and touched Ark’s shoulder.

  “Good,” said Tigrane. She saw the cunning glitter in his eye. He thought that he had gotten off easy. No doubt he would return to the slave trade as soon as he arrived in Anshan. “If we’re done with the questions, I could use some water. All that talking…”

  Ark stepped forward and backhanded him.

  “What’s this?” said Tigrane, sputtering. “I answered all your…”

  Ark seized Tigrane’s gray hair, a dagger in hand. He held the point of the dagger below Tigrane’s jaw and leaned in close. “Listen to me. My friends, I think they went too easy on you. I want to cut off your fingers one by one and listen to you scream. So if your tongue doesn’t tell me what I want to know,” he jabbed the dagger against Tigrane’s throat, “I’ll pin it to the roof of your mouth. Understand?”

  “But I told you everything I know about Icaraeus,” said Tigrane.

  “No. Not that,” said Ark. Behind his mask, his eyes burned with rage and desperate eagerness. “You’re going to tell me about Hruzac.”

  “Hruzac?” said Tigrane, baffled. “I don’t…”

  “A seaside village north of here, in Varia Province,” said Ark. “You attacked it and enslaved its inhabitants.”

  “We…we did,” said Tigrane. “But that was a Szaldic village, what do the Ghosts care about…”

  Ark growled. “You will tell me what happened there. Now!”

  “It was a disaster, that’s what,” said Tigrane, sweat pouring down his face. “It…it was one of the first jobs His Lordship took from Lady Palaegus. I heard them talking. Jadriga herself wanted everyone from that village.”

  “Jadriga?” said Caina, startled. She had assumed that Icaraeus had targeted Hruzac at random. “Why?”

  “Do you think I was dumb enough to ask her?” said Tigrane. “His Lordship didn’t tell us the details. But it was a strange job. We were to take every last woman of childbearing age and every last child under thirteen years. And if we missed even a single one, we wouldn’t get paid.” He grunted in annoyance. “Don’t ask me how Jadriga knew who lived in Hruzac.”

  “What happened?” said Ark.

  “We set up a base in a nearby cove and attacked,” said Tigrane. “Encircled the place, killed the men, rounded up all the women and children. We had Jadriga’s witch-collars, so keeping them docile wasn’t hard. His Lordship sent one of his ships, and we loaded them up.”

  “And then?” said Ark. His voice had gone cold, colder than Caina had ever heard it.

  “It all went bad,” said Tigrane. “The Ghosts figured out that we were there. They roused the local militia and attacked. It was bad. I barely got out with my head attached, along with Rhicon and a few other lads.”

  “What happened to the ship?” said Ark.

  “Don’t know,” said Tigrane. “I figured the Ghosts took it.” He snorted in disgust. “Gods of the brine know, I never got paid a single copper coin for that raid. So I figured the slaves never got to Lady Palaegus. His Lordship was furious for weeks, and I knew better than to ask him about it.”

  Ark said nothing, still holding the dagger steady below Tigrane’s jaw.

  “Jadriga,” said Caina. “Does she often give you specific villages to target?”

  “No,” said Tigrane. “That was the only time. Wonder what was so special about Hruzac.”

  So did Caina.

  “When you were taking the villagers from their homes,” said Ark, his voice quiet, “did you see a woman named Tanya?”

  “Tanya?” said Tigrane, incredulous. “What, you think I ask the merchandise their names?”

  “A woman almost six feet tall,” said Ark, “with blue eyes, and black hair. She would have had a child, a boy, about a year old…”

  “You know, I do remember that one,” said Tigrane. “We’d usually have killed the baby, but our orders were to take all the children. And that woman…she was a beautiful one. Had some fight in her, too. She gave Rhicon a black eye, broke another man’s jaw. So we had to beat the fight out of her. Couldn’t hurt her too bad, but she was still screaming like dog before we…”

  Ark straightened up, reversing his grip on the dagger.

  Tigrane looked at Ark, frowning.

  And Caina saw Tigrane’s expression dissolve into horror as he figured it out. A sudden sharp stink flooded the warehouse. Tigrane’s bladder had let go.

  “She was yours?” said Tigrane, his eyes wide, the words tumbling out in terror. “It…it wasn’t personal, it was just business, I didn’t know she was yours, it was His Lordship and Lady Palaegus, you can’t blame me for…what are you doing, no, don’t, don’t, no, no…” His voice rose to an incoherent, terrified scream.

  Caina grabbed Ark’s arm. He glared at her, eyes wild and full of agony.

  “We might need him alive later,” said Caina.

  Ark let out a shuddering breath, and lowered the dagger.

  “Listen to me,” he said to Tigrane. “You were promised safe passage to Anshan. That’s fine. But if I ever see you out of this chair, if I ever see you walking…I’m going to kill you. I’ll make you tell me everything you ever did to your captives, and then I’m going to do it to you. Over and over again. It will take days. Do you understand me?”

  Tigrane managed to nod, weeping. Ark stalked away, glaring at the wall.

  Halfdan looked at Caina. “This abandoned mansion he told us about. Go examine it. Make sure he was telling the truth.” He glanced at Tigrane. “I really hope you were telling the truth. Because if my scout hasn’t returned by dawn, I’ll let my large friend do with you as he pleases. You won’t enjoy that.”

  Tigrane swallowed and looked at Ark.

  “Anything else you’d like to add?” said Halfdan, voice mild.

  The final wisps of defiance left Tigrane. “There are guards. Four patrolling the grounds, two more watching from the windows.”

  “Take your time,” said Halfdan. He looked at Tigrane. “Remember, dawn.”

  Caina wanted to talk to Ark, to try and calm him down. But she had her duty. For a moment she toyed with the idea of deliberately returning after dawn. But, no. As she had said, they might need Tigrane later.

  And whatever his crimes, Caina did not want to see a man tortured to death. Or more precisely, Caina did not want to see Ark torture a man to death. Ark had enough on his conscience. Caina didn’t want him to scar his soul any further.

  She gathered up her shadowed cloak and vanished into the night.

  Chapter 17 - Price of Power

  Crumbling grandeur surrounded Caina.

  Mansions lined both sides of the street, their façades pitted and cracked, their roofs decaying. Caina supposed that this had once been the fashionable district of Marsis, decades ago. Yet as the city expanded, the docks pressed too close, and the lords and wealthy nobles moved closer to the Citadel and Black Angel Tower. Now the mansions had been divided into tenements or converted into warehouses. Most simply stood abandoned. Caina caught the occasional glimpse of movement in the ruins, men sku
lking behind windows and in doorframes. Only those with reason to hide would come here, Caina realized.

  In retrospect, it was the ideal place for Naelon Icaraeus to stay out of sight.

  The mansion Tigrane had described stood at the very end of the street, overlooking both the river and the harbor. The house itself was only three stories tall, maybe a quarter of the size of Lady Agria’s residence. A thick belt of overgrown gardens ringed the crumbling house, heavy with bushes, young trees, and tangled shadows.

  Caina crept as close as she dared. After a moment she spotted the sentries that Tigrane had mentioned. Men patrolled through the overgrown garden, and two more waited on the roof, armed with crossbows. But the men in the garden made too much noise, and stumbled as they picked their way through the vegetation. And the men on the rooftops huddled near lanterns, which had undoubtedly ruined their night vision.

  Caina vaulted over the low wall and rolled into garden. She crept past the overgrown bushes and tangled trees, her cloak merging with the shadows. The air was heavy with the smell of rotting leaves and damp earth, but as she drew closer to the house, a new smell came to her nose.

  Blood. Rotting flesh.

  The smell came from a yawning window in the house’s foundation. Caina slipped through the window and dropped into the cellar. It was empty, save for some rusty chains bolted to the stone wall. Caina looked at the dirt floor, scrutinizing it in the dim moonlight. The earth had been disturbed.

  Her lips thinned in anger. A mass grave. No doubt Icaraeus buried any slaves here that died before he could sell them. Probably anyone that he needed killed wound up here, too. Had the attack at Radast’s workshop succeeded, no doubt Caina’s corpse would lie moldering beneath the earth.

  She crept up the stairs and examined the rest of the house. It stood empty, the dust disturbed by countless footprints. From time to time she saw patches of dried blood staining the floors. Stacks of enspelled slave collars rested against the wall. Caina saw no sign of any documents or ledgers.

  Apparently she had taught Icaraeus to keep his records under better security.

  Light glimmered on the third floor. Caina settled into the shadows of the stairwell and peered through the worm-eaten balustrade. High windows offered a grand view of the overgrown garden and the river. Two men sat at a crude table, a lantern between them, playing cards and drinking beer.