Shadowlith (Umbral Blade Book 1)

by Stuart Thaman

  Palos smiled. “Always eager to better yourself,” he mused. He stood at the side of Jarix’s large bed and stared at the wound on his son’s chest. The wrappings were stained brown with old blood. Jarix was strong, and his chest was healing.

  “Let me change the dressing,” Palos said. “Lie still.” He grabbed a handful of bandages from Jarix’s nightstand. Using a knife, he cut the bandages to the appropriate length and then spread a layer of ointment on them. “Has Wilkes been here yet this morning?” he asked, wondering why the old man was not there to look after Jarix.

  “I have only just awoken, Father,” Jarix replied. “Perhaps he is in the library with Alster.”

  Palos peeled back the cloth from Jarix’s side, and the boy winced, but did not cry out. Looking at the wound closely, Palos wasn’t entirely sure what he expected to see. The flesh was torn and bruised, a splotched mixture of red, black, and purple.

  “Servant!” Palos called loudly. A young woman came running from the hallway at once. She held a basket of bread in her arms, and the aroma filled the room the moment she stepped inside. “Find Wilkes,” Palos commanded her sternly. “If he is not resting in his room, you’ll likely find him in the library. Be quick about it.”

  The servant curtsied and darted from the room, taking the pleasant aroma with her.

  Palos returned to his work, carefully wrapping his son’s chest with the bandages. He had to prop Jarix forward as he tightened the bandage behind the boy’s back, and Jarix’s face betrayed the pain he felt.

  When he finished, Palos helped Jarix lie back on his sheets. “You’ll be up and moving in a few more days,” Palos said. Jarix’s eyes drifted shut as he tried to block out the pain throbbing in his chest.

  “Wilkes!” Palos called again into the hallway. “Where are you?” He had given the old tutor strict instructions to attend to Jarix’s wound every hour without fail, and Palos’ commands were always followed.

  Palos stepped into the hallway to begin looking for the old man himself when he saw the serving girl running toward him. She held her basket, but she trailed a line of bread loaves behind her on the floor. “What’s happened?” Palos bellowed, suddenly feeling his blood raging through his veins.

  The girl ran to him and collapsed in some combination of bow, curtsy, and exhaustion. “I-” she began, stuttering and tripping over her words.

  “What is it?” Palos yelled. He grabbed the woman by her shoulders and lifted her from the ground, knocking her basket from her grip in the process.

  “He’s dead,” the servant girl sobbed violently.

  Palos dropped her next to the basket and took off down the hallway, charging toward the back of the estate where Wilkes had lived ever since he had agreed to teach and raise Alster some fifteen years ago. “Summon Captain Holte!” Palos shouted to another servant as he ran past the man, nearly knocking him to the ground.

  When he reached the small room, Palos could already smell the stench of rot emanating from within. The door was slightly ajar, and Palos threw it open with a snarl. The old tutor was lying on his cot with his head resting on his pillow, but his corpse was nearly unrecognizable.

  The man’s flesh was shriveled and taut. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in months. Wilkes’ bones poked at the underside of his skin, threatening to break free. Almost all the mass had been sucked from the man’s chest. Carefully, Palos pricked the man’s wrist and waited—but it did not bleed. There was nothing left of Wilkes but skin and bones. No muscle, blood, or tendon remained.

  Palos shut the door behind him. He wasn’t well-versed in the realm of shadows, but the corpse before him conjured up memories of a similar one he had seen displayed at a trial when he was younger. Many years ago, a shadowlith had been captured and tried for murder at Karrheim. Palos knew shades were not strong enough to inflict physical wounds on anyone, but they were still dangerous. They skulked through the night, spying and inciting panic, sometimes driving victims to insanity. Palos was one of only a handful of people who had seen the shadowlith burned at the stake for murder. He had never been fully convinced of the man’s guilt, but it didn’t matter. Being accused of controlling shades was guilt enough in most eyes.

  Though the shadowlith’s execution had been a horrible thing to witness, it was a different memory of a different corpse which flitted through Palos’ mind when he looked at Wilkes’ body. One of the accused shadowlith’s cohorts had been discovered several days after the burning, and his body had been exsanguinated as only a shadowlith’s body could. Shades could be killed, Palos remembered, but that had little effect on the shadowlith who had created it. According to the secret trial he had witnessed behind the closed doors of Karrheim’s dungeon, bodies only shriveled and looked like Wilkes’ when their shade had been fully obliterated, not merely killed.

  A knock came on the door followed by a gruff voice Palos knew well. “You in there?” Captain Holte called from the other side.

  “Come in,” Palos replied. “Just you.”

  Holte entered the room and shut the door behind him. If the sight of the corpse frightened him at all, he didn’t show it. “You found him like this?” the captain asked. Holte had served as the head of Palos’ small handful of guards for nearly twenty years. The estate had never seen much need for armed guardsmen, so one of Holte’s only duties was protecting Palos during his trips to Karrheim. At the estate, Holte maintained a watch over visitors and helped control the general order among the compound’s several hundred workers and residents.

  “Yes,” Palos said. “How long do you think he has been dead? I just saw him yesterday.”

  Holte took his short sword from his belt.

  “I already checked,” Palos said. “He doesn’t bleed.”

  Holte sighed and slid his sword back into its scabbard. “You know what this means, don’t you?” the captain asked, his voice low. He shook his head, trying to clear the bewilderment from his mind.

  Palos checked to make sure the door to the room was still locked before he spoke again. “Wilkes was a shadowlith,” he said at length. “I never did trust the old bastard.”

  “It did seem strange that your wife’s best friend offered to stay here after her passing. Perhaps he had some other motivation, and then someone found out about his little secret,” Holte said quietly. “Whoever it was decided to kill his shade last night.”

  Palos wasn’t sure if he should be terrified or relieved. The knowledge of a shadowlith in his presence shook him to his core, but he did feel some shred of relief knowing the sorcerer was dead. “This shade hunter, whoever it might be, is certainly powerful. We need to be on alert,” he concluded.

  “I’ll organize a search at once,” Holte replied. “The man might be dangerous. We need to know—”

  Someone knocked rapidly on the door, stealing the attention of both men within the room.

  Palos looked back to his guard. “Bury the body far from here,” he whispered. Palos opened the door several inches and saw the estate’s caretaker waiting on the other side. Careful not to let the caretaker see the body, Palos shut the door behind him as soon as he exited.

  “Your son is missing, my lord,” the caretaker blurted out, his head bowed slightly.

  “What?” Palos roared, feeling his rage engulf him. “Jarix!” he screamed.

  The man shrank back against the wall. “No, my lord, Jarix is asleep in his chamber, it is Alster who is missing,” he said.

  Palos stopped mid step and stood awkwardly with one foot raised. “Alster?” he asked, the violence mostly gone from his voice.

  “Yes, my lord,” the caretaker confirmed. “He was not in his room and has not reported to the library. I’ve checked with the maids and the cooks. No one has seen him since last night.”

  Palos began to wonder whether the morning’s events were connected, but he quickly shook the notion from his mind. The thought of Alster being a shade hunter nearly made him burst into laughter in spite of the turmoil around him.

 
“Stay vigilant today,” Palos told the caretaker. “If you see anything out of the ordinary at all, I am to be the first person you tell, understood?”

  The caretaker nodded and left.

  “Alster has gone missing,” Palos told Holte when they were alone once more.

  Holte scratched his short beard. “A ransom?” he asked. He pointed back to the exsanguinated corpse. “I’d bet these events are related.”

  Palos nodded. “I’m almost certain they are. Station people around the perimeter. I expect a ransom note to be coming from this shade hunter in the next few days,” he said.

  “Most certainly,” the captain replied. “I’ll need gold for additional men.”

  “You’ll get it. Do whatever it takes to find this man,” Palos said solemnly. “And send a messenger to Karrheim. Tell King Gottfried what has transpired here. I do not expect him to act, but he must at least be told.”

  “As you say,” Holte replied.

  “Elsey!” Alster yelled. Fear gripped his chest and would not let go. He ripped his dagger from his belt and turned, searching the trees for the source of the arrow. At the door to the house, Elsey crouched low, afraid to run and afraid to stay still.

  Alster saw a hint of movement from a nearby tree. He didn’t know what to do. If Palos had found him, they would both be killed. If it was someone else, perhaps they had a chance.

  “Put the knife away,” a man’s voice called. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, especially with that.”

  Alster swallowed hard. His leg throbbed, and he knew the man was right. He would be useless in a fight, especially against an archer. He slid the knife back into his belt and held his hands open at his sides. “I’m sorry,” he said, but his voice was too weak to be heard. He thought of Alistair riding valiantly upon his war horse and felt ashamed. He felt like he had failed. They had been gone for less than a day and already been captured.

  A man rose up from behind the trees clutching a fine-looking yew bow. He was covered in leaves and mud, and his face was barely recognizable. “What do you want with my house?” the man asked. His voice was high-pitched, and his accent stressed all the wrong syllables.

  “Nothing,” Alster said. “We were just looking for some place to stay for a while. We thought the house was empty.”

  The man laughed. He unstrung his bow and slid it into the quiver on his back. He stepped closer, and Alster could tell the man was not native to western Vecnos. His eyes were a glassy shade of red, and his hair, what parts were not matted with dirt and sticks, was the color of smoldering fire.

  “We’ll leave,” Elsey said. “Just let us go, and we’ll leave.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alster repeated.

  “What are you doing out here?” the man asked. “You’re young. Where are your parents?”

  Alster imagined the kind of reaction Palos would have to finding two kids sneaking around the Lightbridge estate. More than anything, he felt relieved that the foreigner was not working for his father and tracking them purposefully.

  “We ran away,” Elsey said before Alster could think of a convincing lie to tell.

  The strange man studied them for another long moment before speaking. “I did the same when I was your age,” he explained. “If you help out, I’ll let you stay here tonight,” he said. He pointed behind him to a large stag with two arrows sticking out from its chest. “Drag this to the other side of the house and I’ll let you eat. I’m tired of moving it myself, and I need to wash all the mud off my skin.”

  A TRADE

  Alster sat on the lake shore in silence and watched Elsey work. It had taken her only a short while to tie the carcass to the horse and get the beast to drag it behind the house. When the man came out of his house after washing himself in the lake, he was wearing simple leather clothing and holding a long knife in his hand. He was tall and lanky, the opposite of Palos’ barrel-chested build, and his gait appeared more graceful than powerful.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked in Alster’s direction as he began to hoist the dead stag over a wooden arch to gut it.

  Alster wasn’t sure if he should lie, but he couldn’t think of any reason to hide his identity. After all, only a handful of people outside the estate even knew his name. “Alster,” he said. “And that’s Elsey.”

  “My name is Raibert,” he said as he spilled the stag’s innards onto the ground. “But I hate that name. Just call me Rai.”

  “How long have you lived out here?” Alster asked.

  “Since I was your age, I imagine,” Rai replied. “I left my home when I was fifteen.”

  Alster liked listening to the man’s foreign accent. He had only met a handful of people from other lands when they had visited the estate. He had never had the chance to speak with one at length before. “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Mournstead,” Rai answered. “I’m from the other side of the Rift.”

  Alster’s eyes filled with wonder. “What is like?” he asked.

  Rai gave a soft chuckle. “It isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen,” he began, his deft hands still gutting the animal. “You should be thankful you were born on this side of the Rift. Mournstead is the only city still standing in the east. Everything else was destroyed in the war.”

  “The First Conquest of the Shades?” Alster asked. Rai’s tale had him fully enthralled. He found himself inching closer to the strange man with every word he spoke.

  “Yes,” Rai replied. “Though I never understood why they call it the first conquest when there has not been a second,” he said.

  “Maybe everyone expected a second war,” Elsey suggested.

  Rai nodded. “After the war, eastern Vecnos was left in ruins. Everyone who had the means to leave headed west. That’s when the northern bridge was destroyed. All the people who had planned on crossing the Rift in the north were turned away. The remnants of Alistair’s army established the Blightstone Gate on the western side of the Rift at the only remaining bridge. The last of The Shadow King’s soldiers did the same on their side of the Rift. That is the way the world has been for almost five hundred years,” Rai said. He paused for a moment. “One day, a second war will break out, and I assume that war will be called the Second Conquest of the Shades.”

  Rai finished carving the meat from the stag and placed it on a smoke rack above a ring of stones. When he had a small fire going, he took a section of the ribs to another fire, presumably to cook them for that night’s dinner.

  “I was named after Alistair the Fourth,” Alster said after a moment. “I’m one of his descendants. My father is on the king’s high court in Karrheim.” He considered telling Rai about the shade he had killed, but he didn’t want the man thinking his dagger might be valuable and worth stealing.

  Rai nodded. “I figured you were nobility when I saw the horse,” he said, the glint of a memory passing behind his eyes. “That’s why I didn’t kill you when I saw you sneaking around my house.”

  Alster waited for the man to laugh or indicate some other way that he was joking, but Rai remained thoughtful. “Have you ever been to Karrheim?” Alster asked, hastily changing the subject.

  “Only a few times,” Rai answered. “People like me aren’t exactly welcome in there.”

  “If you were born in Mournstead, how did you get to this side of the Rift? I thought you said the only bridge left is guarded,” Alster continued. He didn’t want to annoy the man with so many questions, but as long as Rai was answering, he assumed he had not crossed any boundaries.

  “People like me are allowed to cross for a fee,” Rai told him. “It costs more gold than most people ever see in a lifetime, but it isn’t impossible, and the guards don’t ask where you got the money.”

  “Are you ever allowed to return?” Alster asked. His head swam with all sorts of wild visions. Now that he was free from his father’s estate, he wanted to see the world. He wanted to visit Karrheim and Mournstead, and the battlefields where Alistair the Fourth had slain The
Shadow King’s armies. He was only a dozen or so miles from home, but already he felt a sense of adventure the likes of which he had never before experienced.

  Rai turned to him and wiped the stag’s blood from his knife. “I’m not sure I would ever want to return,” he said solemnly. “There’s nothing left. Mournstead is a place of great sorrow and misery. The people there are not happy like they are here in the west. There are few animals to hunt, and food is scarce. The only thing Mournstead has in abundance is death. Death and shadows.”

  “Do you think the shades are still alive?” Alster asked cautiously. Elsey shot him a nervous look.

  Rai didn’t seem to mind the question. “There will always be shades,” he said. “When Alistair killed The Shadow King, he simply weakened the shades, he did not destroy them all.”

  “What does that mean?” Alster wondered. “How are they weaker? They still exist?”

  “When Alistair killed The Shadow King, he did not kill him entirely. He only killed The Shadow King’s physical form. Every shadowlith has a body, the human part of them, but also has a shadow, their shade. Alistair did not kill The Shadow King’s shade,” Rai explained.

  “How do you kill a shade?” Alster asked. Elsey gave him a stern look and shook her head.

  Rai smiled. “When you swing a sword or shoot an arrow through a shadow, nothing happens, right?” he began.

  Alster nodded.

  “Well,” Rai continued. “If you take that weapon first to Scalder’s Inlet, there is a natural spring there which can harden the steel into something which can cut a shade. Everyone in Mournstead knows how to kill a shade, though I’ve still never seen one outside the Rift.” He spoke with an air of superiority as though he was amazed Alster could be so ignorant.

  Alster’s hand instinctively went to the knife at his waist.

  “I suspect you may believe the legends more than most,” Rai said with another disarming smile. “If you like, I can tell you if that blade has the power to cut a shade.”

  Suddenly, Alster felt as though he might be in danger. It was late afternoon and shadows were everywhere, but something about Rai’s tone shook him more than he wanted to admit. “I don’t think it can,” he said reluctantly.