Downshadow

by Erik Scott De Bie

  Myrin shouted more words of power and multicolored stars burst into being in Kalen’s eyes, dazing him. Rath might have struck in that moment, but the dwarf, too, staggered.

  “That isn’t helping,” Kalen hissed, as he and the dwarf recovered in the same breath.

  As Rath fell into a defensive stance, Kalen stabbed high. The dwarf ducked and turned a flip backward, kicking Kalen’s hand up. The glowing bastard sword spun up into the darkness.

  Rath twirled back, kicked off the wall, and lunged forward, sword leading—and hit air where Kalen had been standing.

  Kalen leaped after Vindicator, caught it, and slashed down. He cut open the back of Rath’s robe.

  Kalen landed two paces from the dwarf, and they stared at each other.

  Then Rath leaped back, avoiding a beam of frost from Myrin’s wand.

  “Stop!” Kalen cried, but it was too late.

  Myrin’s face was drawn and haggard, and she collapsed to her knees. Blue tattoos sprouted all across her skin, as though the runes were taking over her body. Her wand sagged toward the floor. She stood near the room’s window, where the portal had deposited Kalen.

  As Rath surged to her, blade low, Myrin pointed the wand with her shaking hand.

  A burst of flame emerged from her wand and struck Rath’s sword. The blade turned red almost instantly, and Rath hurled it at Myrin. The girl gasped and dodged, and the glowing blade flew out the window.

  The dwarf’s iron hands caught Myrin by the throat and wrist, holding the wand wide.

  “Stop!” Kalen said. He held Vindicator level, pointed at Rath.

  “Take another step, Shadowbane,” Rath said, tapping his fingers on Myrin’s cheek.

  “Kalen!” Myrin croaked. “Just cut through me if you have to! I’m not important!”

  “Myrin,” Kalen said. “Myrin, don’t be afraid. I’m going to save you.”

  “What Fayne said, Kalen! I’m not—gkk!”

  Rath squeezed her throat tightly enough to cut off air. The knight waited, breathing hard, never taking his eyes from the dwarf’s face.

  “I wonder.” Rath regarded Myrin for a single heartbeat then looked at Kalen. “Which is more important to you—justice or her?”

  Kalen said nothing. Vindicator dripped silver-white flame like blood onto the floor.

  The dwarf grinned. “Let us see.”

  He hurled Myrin out the window. She screamed and fell away, arms whirling vainly.

  Kalen ran and leaped, sword leading. Rath slid a step to the left, his hands raised, but the knight went past him into the night.

  Lightning flashed and an awful screech, as of metal on stone, joined the thunder.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Rain tore the night to shreds, and lightning bathed the high clock tower in light bright enough to match the day.

  Kalen hung from the tower, his right hand on the hilt of Vindicator—which he’d wedged between two stones. A struggling Myrin hung from his left.

  “You idiot!” Tears fell from Myrin’s eyes as she beat at him with her free hand, trying to break his grip on her wrist. “Just let go of me!”

  “Stop that,” Kalen said. He swung her a little one way, then back the other way, like a pendulum—like the amulet on Fayne’s breast …

  Rath’s head appeared in the window.

  Kalen kept swinging Myrin, wider and wider. Her feet kicked at the rain-slicked tower stones, but Kalen knew she wouldn’t find a hold. There was no ledge between them and the palace roof below. Only Vindicator kept them aloft.

  Kalen gritted his teeth and pulled. Myrin swung over open air—and back the other way.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Are you insane?”

  Kalen kept swinging her. Wider—wider. “Listen to me,” he said.

  “Just drop me!” she sobbed. “I don’t want to kill all those people—”

  “Listen,” Kalen snapped. Myrin gaped. “The ring … laced in my sleeve. Put it on.”

  Myrin moaned. “Just let me go!”

  “Put it on!” Kalen roared over the rain and thunder.

  Then Vindicator shook. Myrin bounced and shrieked, and Kalen gasped at the strain. He looked up, and standing on the broad hilt of his sword—and his gauntlet—was Rath. The dwarf had scrambled down the wall nimbly as a spider and perched on Kalen’s sword. Rain streaked around him.

  “Interesting plan,” the dwarf said.

  Kalen couldn’t spare a glance at Myrin, but he felt her taking the ring from his sleeve. He prayed the dwarf wouldn’t notice.

  “I don’t imagine my standing here hurts you—you can’t feel it, can you?” Rath raised one foot, keeping balance. “But even nerveless fingers can’t hold you up when they’re crushed.”

  Kalen gritted his teeth against the storm and the pain in his straining arm. “Make an emptiness of myself … in which there is no pain …” He kept swinging.

  Rath stomped.

  Kalen felt it—less than he should have, but no amount of spell-plague could mask the jolt of a broken forefinger. Just one finger—the dwarf was cruelly accurate. Kalen swung and almost fell, but kept a hold. Myrin gave a cry halfway between a scream and a sob.

  “Put … it … on,” Kalen hissed at Myrin.

  Rath grinned. And crushed his middle finger. One at a time.

  Against the slipping agony, Kalen shut his eyes. “No pain—only me.”

  He kept swaying, swinging back and forth as though he might hurl Myrin to safety—as though any building was near enough or high enough. He could not reach the palace wall from this angle, and his hand was slipping.

  “Kalen!” Myrin cried. “Just drop me! You can—”

  “Put it on!” he shouted.

  “Put what on?” Rath saw the ring and sneered. “Humans. So romantic, even to the end.”

  He crushed the third finger, almost sending Kalen down. Only by the Eye’s grace …

  Kalen coughed harshly. “Have you got it?” he managed.

  Fear clouded Myrin’s face. She was swinging away from the tower. “Yes, but—”

  “Good.”

  And he let go of her.

  Myrin swung to the side before she started to fall, her eyes wide and her face startled. Her expression changed to shock, and then heartbreak. She drifted into the rain and vanished without a sound.

  The dwarf frowned. “I don’t under—” Rath started to say, but Kalen, continuing his swing, hauled himself up and grasped the dwarf’s ankle in his free hand. He planted both feet on the slippery tower wall.

  “Fly,” Kalen dared him.

  With a fierce kick, he wrenched Vindicator free.

  For one horrible, perfect instant, they were gliding, falling a little as if they had tripped. Vindicator was arcing, end over end, through the air beside them.

  Then Kalen’s guts rose up into his throat, and the two combatants were streaking down, wrestling in the air. The dwarf punched him soundly across the face and the world blurred. He held on.

  They ricocheted off the palace roof—crashing hard, bones snapping—tumbling madly like dolls. Kalen tried to jump but the dwarf held on. Kalen rolled and wrestled and prayed and …

  Hit.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  For a long time, nothing existed but darkness.

  Darkness, and rain like knives.

  Then pain—sharp, stabbing agony that came from every broken limb and ounce of flesh. He had survived the fall—somehow, crashing against roofs and shattering almost every bone in his body.

  Rath awoke on the cobbles of Castle Ward, in the shadow of the palace, and coughed up blood before he breathed. This magnified the pain a hundredfold. He couldn’t feel his body. He was—

  Alone.

  That couldn’t be. Shadowbane had fallen with him. They must have hit something else—some building. Otherwise, Rath surely would have died.

  But who had landed on the stone first? Who had borne the brunt of the fall?

  Rath saw a silhouette emerge from the mist.
No—he saw the sword first. Saw the silver flames rising from it, the fog boiling away. Shadowbane, he thought for a moment, but …

  It was Myrin. She walked toward him, the sword held awkwardly in her frail hands. Blue runes covered her skin, but they were fading as she strode forward. Her magic was unraveling, leaving only mortal hatred in her eyes.

  “Taking vengeance,” Rath said. He burbled. “I slew him and you avenge him. Fitting.”

  His sword lay on the cobbles, where it had fallen from the window. The hilt, still sizzling from Myrin’s fire spell, sent up steam as rain fell on it. It was only a hand’s length from his grasp.

  A black boot fell on the hilt. Rath looked up.

  Shadowbane loomed over him—stooped, bent, but not broken. His damp cloak draped around him. His helm dripped black rain.

  “Kalen,” Myrin whispered.

  He reached toward her with his unbroken hand.

  Myrin’s face softened. “Kalen, no.”

  He curled his fingers, beckoning.

  “Kalen, please. He’s a monster, but he doesn’t—you don’t have to—”

  Kalen said nothing—only held out his hand.

  Myrin looked at Rath once more, then put the hilt of Vindicator in Kalen’s hand.

  “Turn away,” Kalen said.

  Myrin shook her head.

  “Turn.”

  “No!” Myrin backed away. “I want to see what you are. What we are!”

  Kalen looked only at Rath. He focused on the dwarf silently, ignoring Myrin’s heaving breaths. Then she turned away and darted into the mist, vanishing into the night.

  “For Cellica,” Shadowbane said, as though in explanation.

  Rath smiled, tasting blood in his mouth.

  Kalen wrapped both hands around the hilt gingerly, reversed Vindicator, and held it ready to plunge into the dwarf’s throat. He paused, his eyes unreadable.

  “What will it be, knight?” Rath did his best to smile. “Vengeance … or mercy?”

  Kalen coughed once and steadied himself.

  “Justice.”

  The sword screeched against the stone.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Lunatic swordsmen cause havoc in Downshadow!” the broadcrier was yelling at the entrance to the Knight ’n Shadow. “Same culprits suspected in damage to Timehands! Watch …”

  He trailed off and gaped at a gray figure standing before him—bare headed, bare handed, clad toe to chin in black leathers. Bandages wrapped his right hand and a sword was sheathed at his belt. In the dawn light, his brown-black hair was glossy and his chin dark with stubble. His eyes burned like light off snow.

  “Boy,” he said to the broadcrier. He took a hand out of the scrip satchel at his waist—in it gleamed five gold dragons. “Do you want these?”

  The broadcrier had seen so much coin before, of course—this was, after all, the City of Splendors, where coin was king and blood was gold. But never had he owned that much wealth himself.

  The boy nodded. The knight handed the coins over, and they quickly disappeared into the broadcrier’s belt pouch. Then, his bandaged hand shaking, the knight unbuckled the black-sheathed sword from his hip and held it out as though presenting a gold scepter.

  “Hold this for me.” The knight nodded to the tavern. “When I collect it from you again, I shall give you twenty more dragons.”

  “And—” The boy shivered. “And if you do not?”

  The knight smiled. “Then wear it well, and do not try to run from it as I did.”

  The boy nodded and took the knight’s sword in his hands. It pulsed with inner strength—neither good nor evil, only powerful. Waiting for a worthy hand.

  Without another word, the knight strode past the boy.

  Fayne waited for him, legs crossed on the table. She was in a good mood.

  She didn’t care about being private or unnoticed; she wore her most beautiful red-haired half-elf face and her most revealing black and red harness, which was more leather straps than fabric. A dozen men had come to her with propositions, but she’d casually ignored each of them until they’d gone away. She’d had to fend off one with a charm to make him run away in terror. After her display of magic, no one bothered her.

  She was waiting for one man, and one man alone. She hadn’t slept that night, and neither had he, she knew. This would be their last meeting.

  He came, just as she had anticipated, at about dawn, when the street lamps were being doused and the shadowy dealings in unused alleys gave way to legitimate business in the streets. The Knight ’n Shadow was mostly empty at dawn, though a few Waterdhavians had come for morningfeast before going about the business of the day.

  He was dressed in leathers but carried no sword and wore no helm. His brown stubble defined his strong, tense jaw. His right hand was bandaged. His left was bare.

  “Last place you expected this, eh?” Fayne asked.

  “On the contrary,” her visitor said. “Drinks and sly glances are your favored weapons. Why should I expect anything less than your element?”

  “Mmm.” She nodded to the two goblets of wine on the table, one before her and one before an empty chair. “Drink? ’ware, though for—”

  Kalen seized her goblet—not his own—drained it in a single gulp, then sat down.

  Fayne blinked at him, then at the goblets. He’d ruined her game, and it offended her.

  “My apologies,” Kalen said. “Was one or the other meant to be poisoned?”

  “Very well,” she said, keeping the anger he’d roused off her face. “We don’t have to play this game, if you don’t want.”

  Kalen shrugged, then belched in a way rather unbefitting a paladin.

  “So you beat Rath,” Fayne said, tracing her finger along the lip of her empty wine goblet.

  Again, silence.

  “And I suppose you know about Cellica,” she said. “I imagine the dwarf told you I stabbed her, did he? I thought he might. That was the plan, after all.”

  “He did not,” Kalen said. “But I had guessed.”

  “Poor puppy.” Fayne grinned. “Surely you didn’t believe all that romantic nonsense about me loving you.”

  Again, Kalen said nothing, but Fayne could see the vengeful wrath behind his eyes.

  “Ah, Kalen.” She smiled at him. “I knew—I knew the moment you went after the girl instead of me at the revel—that we would never work together.”

  He spoke, his voice grave. “Threatening to turn you in had naught to do with it?”

  Fayne laughed. “No, no, silly boy—in my circles, that’s just flirtation. No.” Her eyes narrowed. “You just don’t understand my very humble needs.”

  “Needs?” Kalen’s bloodstained teeth glittered at her. The look of it intrigued her.

  “Yes—your heart, body, mind, soul—everything.” She flashed her long lashes and feigned a kiss. “Is that really so much to ask?”

  “I might have given it,” Kalen said. “Before you killed Cellica—I might have given it.”

  “And what of Myrin, eh?” Fayne asked.

  She seemed to have struck him to the quick. Kalen looked down at the table silently.

  “Ah, yes, the girl between us,” Fayne said. “And how fares yon strumpet?”

  Kalen slammed his fist on the table, drawing wary glances. “Don’t insult her,” he said low. “A creature like you couldn’t possibly understand her.”

  “I’m sure.” Fayne didn’t bother looking around. “She’s not with you now?”

  Kalen shook his head.

  “You let her go,” Fayne said, clasping her hands at her breast. “Oh, how romantic! You really are such an insufferably good man—and an arrogant boor, besides.” She sneered.

  Kalen did nothing but stare at her.

  “You just have to make decisions on behalf of those around you, without consulting them,” Fayne said. “Rejecting that slut of a valabrar, for instance, so as not to hurt her. Deciding Myrin would be happier without you. Telling yourself it’s to protect
them, and not yourself!”

  “I do what I must,” Kalen said.

  “Gods defend us!” Fayne threw her hands up in the air. “The arrogance! The conceit!”

  “I know Myrin,” Kalen said. “And I do not deserve her.”

  Fayne couldn’t contain her laughter. This was just too much.

  “People never change,” she said. “Once a thief, ever a thief. Once a killer, ever a killer. Too much to expect you might stop hating yourself.” She blew him a kiss. “But what if Myrin wanted you anyway?”

  “I wouldn’t let her.”

  “How perfect!” Fayne said. “Oh, Kalen, the gods endowed you in many ways, but wisdom of the heart was hardly one of them.”

  “Whoever she is,” Kalen said, “whatever she is, whatever folk have done to her—Myrin deserved none of it.” His eyes blazed. “She is better than me—better than all of us.”

  “Spoken like a man who knows nothing of women.”

  Kalen shrugged.

  “Ah, Shadowbane, the arbiter of justice—but you’re working without all the evidence, love,” said Fayne. “You don’t know what that girl is. If you did, and you had the slightest love for good and justice, you’d march right out of here and take her to the Watch—or the Tower.” Fayne grinned. “Why not do that now? Or are you afraid they’d take her away from you?”

  Fayne saw Kalen’s hand clench, but the knight restrained himself.

  “But no—you don’t need anyone else.” Fayne winked. “You’re always alone, aye?”

  She could see Kalen trembling as he looked down at the table.

  “You really do love her, aye?” asked Fayne.

  “You know I can’t,” Kalen said angrily. “She hurts me too much, just by looking at me.”

  “You idiot.” Fayne laughed. “What do you think love is?”

  A timid barmaid stood at the edge of the room, and Fayne rolled her eyes and waved to her. Soon, tankards of ale came, and they raised them to each other, even toasted and clinked the tankards together and smiled. By all appearances they were merely young companions, dressed in the garb of sellswords, sharing drink and conversation.

  Through it all, the goblet of wine before Kalen went untouched.

  “What are you thinking about, lover?” Fayne asked.