Warlock's shadow ta-2

by Stephen Deas

  For a moment, the thief-taker paused. He stared at Tasahre and then at Berren. The fighting on the deck faltered, and then Berren saw Tasahre stiffen. Her head snapped towards the doors beneath the spar-deck. A man was coming out. He was old, not a greybeard yet, but his face was weathered and his hair was thinning. His clothes were rich and the hilt of his thin sword was jewelled. To Berren, his face seemed pained. Around his throat, a black scarf of shadow fluttered in the breeze, and he walked as though the shadow was a knife held at his throat. Master Sy bared his teeth and almost leapt straight at him, but Tasahre was looking straight through this man that Berren knew must be Radek of Kalda — for behind Radek, something else had stepped out of the gloom. It wasn’t even a man, but a creature, a creature made of the shadows themselves. Berren’s throat tightened. A silence stilled the deck. The fighting stopped, although the commotion on the docks behind Berren went on.

  ‘Radek!’ hissed the thief-taker.

  ‘Warlock!’ Tasahre had her swords in her hands again. The shadow-thing pointed a wispy tendril at her.

  ‘It is my day, monk,’ hissed the wind. ‘Abyss-Day. Fall on your swords and die!’

  No one moved. For a moment, Tasahre stood frozen. Then she raised one sword towards the sun. ‘Look above you, demon! Your power is not greater than mine, not today, not under this sun.’ She took a step towards him and flared with light. ‘End!’

  That was as far as she got before the thief-taker let out a roar.

  ‘No! You’ll not stop us, not now, not even you!’ The thief-taker lunged at her. Tasahre darted sideways, caught the next swing with her own blade, and then the two of them were a blur of swords. Around them, Radek’s soldiers surged forwards. On the docks behind Berren, that fight was breaking up. The crowd of men who’d first come down Hammersmiths’ weren’t after a fight any more, just an escape, bolting for the tiny alleys that wound up the hill from the other end of the docks.

  Kill her!

  The command rang inside his head.

  ‘Syannis!’ Berren thought he heard the justicar’s voice from somewhere in the midst of the chaos behind him. At the steps to the ship.

  Kill!

  He had no choice. The sword-monk was going to kill his master. He had to stop her! A little part of him screamed and screamed, but there was a piece missing from inside him, and so the rest of him didn’t hear. The rest of him knew, with a cold certainty, what he had to do, no matter how much it pained him.

  Kill!

  There were men running up the steps, the heavy boots of the Emperor’s soldiers. But Berren was already halfway across the deck.

  34

  SWORDS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES

  Tasahre jumped away from Master Sy, holding her swords out towards him. ‘Drop your weapons,’ she called in a voice that rang the air.

  ‘Do it,’ shouted Kol. He was standing at the top of the steps, surrounded by the Emperor’s soldiers who were swarming aboard. The thief-taker’s men were crowding together, forming a circle around Master Sy. Their eyes darted from side to side as they fought, looking for an escape. Radek still stood frozen by the spar-deck door. Berren ignored them all. His eyes were set on Tasahre.

  Kill!

  The Emperor’s soldiers were pushing Radek’s men out of the way. Swords came out. One of Radek’s soldiers jabbed at one of the Emperor’s and got skewered and then suddenly there was fighting all around Berren again. Once more the thief-taker’s men surged forward. Master Sy and Tasahre were staring at each other.

  Very slowly, Tasahre put her swords down onto the deck. Berren skittered away from one of Radek’s sailors who swung at him with a hook. The sailor came at him again. This time Berren blocked it with his waster, jumped at the man and clocked him on the head, dazing him long enough to dart past.

  ‘End this, thief-taker,’ said Tasahre. Her voice was calm, yet it still carried across the fight.

  Kill! Berren dived out of the way of a soldier with a halberd. One of the Emperor’s men came bellowing past. The thief-taker howled with rage.

  ‘And why should we? So you can send us to the mines? Do you know what this man did to us? Did to all of us? He killed our fathers. He killed our mothers. He killed our brothers, our sisters, our sons, our daughters. He killed our king and our country. He killed our faith. He killed everything!’

  The thief-taker lunged at Tasahre. As he passed her, he snatched up one of her short curved swords in his spare hand. Tasahre leapt straight up into the air. Master Sy stabbed at her, but she curled and twisted away from his steel. Then she was back on the deck, facing him.

  Kill!

  Berren pushed past a soldier and one of the thief-taker’s men, grappling each other with knives in their hands. He was yards away now, yet he paused. He’d seen Master Sy take three armed men down in as many blows; Tasahre didn’t even have a weapon, yet she ran right back at him and she was so unbelievably fast. The curved sword stabbed out, so quick that even Tasahre couldn’t have avoided it, yet somehow she did; her foot caught the other sword off the deck and kicked it into the air and into her hand. For a moment, the two of them stood, swords in guard, facing each other.

  Kill! Now!

  He clenched his teeth, gripped his waster. The screaming inside him was getting louder, starting to break through. ‘Master! Tasahre!’ They were going to kill each other. He knew that look in Master Sy’s face. There was no coming back from wherever the thief-taker was.

  A dark stain was spreading out across Tasahre’s robe. She hadn’t dodged Master Sy’s blow after all. The other monks and the overlord’s soldiers surrounded them all now. The fight was petering out, Master Sy’s men pressed close around him, tense but not yet defeated. As far as Berren could tell, the ones that had fallen had fought to the death.

  ‘Prince Syannis.’ Tasahre held her one sword straight out in front of her, pointing at Master Sy’s face, just like she and Berren had done in the practice yard. Whatever wound she’d taken, she wasn’t showing it. ‘Hold.’

  ‘Syannis! This fight is done.’ That was Justicar Kol again. ‘I can’t save you, not from this, but you can save your men. You can save your boy. He’s right here, you know.’

  Master Sy held still for a moment. Berren kept walking, slowly, slowly closer, fighting to hold back each and every step.

  ‘I know the story.’ Kol spoke slowly and clearly. The Emperor’s men were swamping the ship now. Most of Radek’s soldiers were down, the rest had surrendered their arms. Radek himself still stood paralysed by the spar deck door, the scarf of shadow around his neck. Kuy, if that’s what the other shadows had been, had vanished, but Berren knew he wasn’t far. He felt the presence inside him, the guiding words, the desire he had no choice but to serve. ‘You think I don’t know half the men here? Of course I do. Came from the same place you did, one by one. Good men, most of them. Now look at them. You did this. They made lives for themselves here. It could have stayed that way. Now put your bloody sword down.’

  Berren was in front of the thief-taker’s men, who had formed in a wall around Master Sy, against the edge of the ship, penned by Kol’s soldiers. They held their swords and their clubs ready. Their faces were hard. Whoever they were, they were set on dying. As Berren came close, one of them lunged.

  Come! Come to me! Berren lurched. For a moment, he was confused, as the silent scream inside his head faded. Come to me — so much easier. He pushed his way between the Emperor’s soldiers, watching over his shoulder all the time. Everyone was looking at Tasahre and Master Sy, waiting to see what the thief-taker would do. His eyes were wild. They moved from one face to another. He barely seemed to recognise Berren. His gaze moved to the ropes that ran down to his own ship, and then back to Radek. Berren could see the thought forming in his head — Radek’s corpse on the end of his sword or a way out — which one?

  Come, Berren. Come here! Come to me!

  Radek. But Tasahre must have seen it in the thief-takers eyes before he even knew it himself. She launched herse
lf at him a moment before he would have jumped. Sparks flew between her sword and Master Sy’s, but she forced him back, further and further towards the edge of the ship.

  As Berren reached the frozen Radek, Master Sy seemed to falter. Tasahre stepped in to finish him. As she did, Master Sy slipped inside her guard to take her down, exactly the way he’d shown to Berren.

  And exactly the way Berren had shown to Tasahre. Her weight shifted. She danced around the thief-taker. The pommel of her sword cracked him on the back of his head. For a moment, as he staggered, he was helpless. Tasahre was right behind him, sword poised to run him through.

  Kill! Kill Radek! Now! Kill him now!

  The warlock’s demand tore though him like a hurricane. Berren screamed. ‘Tasahre! No!’ Even as he screamed, his hands had snapped his waster high over his head. Radek didn’t even flinch. And then he brought the wooden stick crashing down on Radek’s skull.

  Tasahre’s stare flicked to him. She hesitated. The horror on her face burned his eyes. He turned, finally, to see Radek slumped around his feet, his head staved in, his blood pouring out all over the wooden deck. He gasped and stepped back in horror. What have I done? He looked for the warlock’s voice inside his head, but Kuy was gone, vanished without a trace as though he’d never existed.

  ‘Berren!’

  Berren span around to Tasahre, and as he did, the thief-taker lashed out. The tip of his blade sliced across the exposed skin of the sword-monk’s neck. Always strike where you can see flesh, Berren. That way you know there’s no hidden armour. Berren screamed again.

  ‘Tasahre!’ She staggered. Blood poured down her robe, half of it already stained dark. It dripped from the cloth onto the docks. The thief-taker took a step away. He looked at what he’d done, looked shocked, then turned on Berren. His eyes were wild.

  ‘Come on, Berren! Run! Run! We have to run!’

  The nearest of Kol’s soldiers snatched at Berren, half grabbing his shirt. Berren tore himself away. Tasahre fell to the deck. The thief-taker was backing quickly away, back towards his little ship.

  ‘Tasahre!’ He was the first one to reach her. He’d never seen so much blood. The thief-taker’s sword had cut halfway into her neck. He grabbed her hand. Squeezed.

  ‘Berren!’ The thief-taker was at the edge of the deck now, beside a rope down to the other ship, looking at him, holding out his hand. It was covered in blood. So were his arms, his shirt. All about, the fighting began again, the Emperor’s men and the last of the thief-taker’s. At the top of the steps to the docks, Berren glimpsed the yellow of another sword-monk pushing forward. He knew the look, the tension. He stared back at Master Sy.

  ‘…’ Whatever words Tasahre had left, they died in a gurgle of blood.

  ‘For the love of the sun, Berren, come on!’

  ‘You! You … You killed her!’ If he’d still had Stealer, Berren would have stabbed the thief-taker without a thought. Stabbed him in the heart, over and over until he stopped moving and then stabbed him some more.

  Tasahre’s hand shuddered and fell slack.

  The thief-taker’s men were folding, crumpling inward, abandoning the fight and jumping over the side. The other sword-monk was almost on them.

  Inside Berren, something broke. He jumped up onto the empty spar-deck, leapt across the water onto the docks and ran. Amid the screams and the clash of steel, he thought he heard the warlock. Laughing.

  35

  THE ROAD TO VARR

  ‘Berren!’ That was Master Sy, as he fled, but Berren didn’t stop. The sword-monk ignored him and went for the thief-taker, or else to Tasahre, Berren didn’t know, and for the moment he didn’t care. All that mattered was to get away. He landed hard on the docks, rolled and sprawled, thumped his elbow and his knees and got straight back up and ran on. The soldiers still on the waterfront seemed too stunned by what they’d seen, or else Berren looked too fierce. Whatever the reason, they were too slow and too late. Berren barged though them, past them, back to Hammersmiths’ Passage at the end of the Emperor’s docks and into the empty streets beyond. He didn’t stop racing away until his legs were burning and his lungs heaving and he was all the way up the hill and on the edge of the festival crowds in Deephaven Square itself.

  There were soldiers here too, always were, standing guard around the centre of the city’s wealth. And there he was, hands and shirt covered in blood that wasn’t his. He darted for the nearest shadows, up against the sides of the Golden Cup of all places. He took deep breaths. His heart was pounding so hard it felt as if he was going to explode. It was still light. He had to hide. Hide until dark, until no one would see the blood all over him.

  Tasahre. Master Sy.

  What have I done?

  He’d gone to the docks to tell Master Sy that the witch-doctor had sold Kasmin, and he hadn’t even managed that. He started laughing and the laughs turned at once to sobs. He sank into the deepest shadows he could find and held his head in his hands.

  Later, as the sun finally set, he looked back down the Royal Parade. There wasn’t much to see, but he could hear the distant sounds of celebration echoing up from the river, just as they sounded out from the square and the streets up on The Peak. He couldn’t go back down there, not like this. The thief-taker was … The thief-taker was a murderer. He’d killed a sword-monk. He’d killed Tasahre. They’d hang him now, or they’d chop off his head and send him in bits to the mines, and Berren would cheer as they did it.

  No. He was a murderer. He’d killed a man he didn’t even know, and he didn’t even know why, except that he’d had no choice, none at all. The warlock had made him do it, but no one else would know that. Kol would hang them both.

  He couldn’t see where he was going. There were too many tears in his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed he was crying until now.

  He couldn’t go back to the temple. They’d all hated him there anyway, all of them except Tasahre, and now he was a murderer and she was dead and it was his fault. If it hadn’t been for him, she’d be alive. If he hadn’t used the warlock’s magic to talk to Velgian, if he hadn’t gone to the docks, if he’d stayed at the temple like she wanted, any of those things and she’d be alive. If he hadn’t …

  He’d see her everywhere now, he knew that. And he wouldn’t see her with his hand on her cheek, but with blood spraying out of her neck.

  Evil, that’s what he’d seen.

  Tasahre. Gods! Why? Why?

  He slipped away, across Deephaven Square, around the back of the Golden Cup. He tried to ignore the delicious smells and the raucous sounds that came out, the salacious laughter of fat old men with pockets full of gold, groping the girls who worked there. Tasahre was right. The city was rotten.

  Or maybe it was the thief-taker who’d told him that once.

  He pushed his way down the Avenue of the Sun to Four Winds Square, oblivious to the drunken crowds that surrounded him, and made his way out into the back streets, into The Maze. This was his old home, the place where he always used to go when he needed somewhere safe. He had money. He could buy food, hard biscuits and salted meat and other things that would last. He could carry enough to keep him alive for the first few days. He could hide out in the Maze then slip out through the Reeper Gate in the dark and make his way towards Bedlam’s Crossing. The nights were warm enough and there were woods to hide in during the day. He could be there in three days if he walked hard, maybe four if he had to dodge anyone on the road. Then he could buy himself some deck-space on a barge going up the river. He could have done the same from the river docks in Deephaven but he wasn’t going to chance that, not from outside the witch-doctor’s door. He wondered what the city would do to punish a murderer. Something slow and painful. Khrozus! Would all the way to Varr even be enough? A barge would take a month to get there, which made it seem a very long way away. Yet Berren knew there were other places that were even further.

  He fingered Prince Sharda’s token. No. That’s where he was going.

  The night wo
re on. The docks heaved with revellers. Reeper Hill was choked with men staggering between a parade of carriages. He made his way out to Wrecking Point, stumbling in the dark down the path to the broken stone cliffs at the edge of the harbour. It took an hour of searching, but the sword was still buried where he’d left it. He wrestled with it to pull it out of its scabbard. Brown streaks marked the blade; he wasn’t sure whether they were blood or rust. The leather in the belt and harness was cracked and hard but it was still a sword and the edge was sharp. Berren put it on. Swords. He’d wanted to have one for as long as he could remember. Now he did, mostly what he wanted to do was take it off and throw it high into the air, away into the sea. But he couldn’t. They were bound together now, him and the sword, like it or not.

  He sat still, staring at the waves. Deephaven had been his home. For all its sins, it had given birth to him. The city and the sea. He’d probably miss the water. The sound of it, even the smell of it. The jaunty river men and the surly mudlarks, the rainbow breeds of sailors from across the oceans, the warm sultry nights and the winters where people didn’t freeze to death. The colours, the way the markets always held something he’d never seen before, every single day. Yes, he’d miss all of that.

  But not the thief-taker with his hands covered in blood. Not Tasahre, lying soaked in crimson, head lolling sideways. Not the shadow-thing that called itself Saffran Kuy.

  He kicked himself. He was going to Varr. He was going to serve a prince, a real prince, not someone who got kicked out of his palace a decade and then some ago. If the worst came to the worst and this Prince turned out no better than the last, there was always work on the city walls. The whole world could work on the walls of Varr and they’d still never get finished. Apparently that was a joke. He’d heard it said and heard people laugh, too. Didn’t see it himself.

  The sky started to lighten. Nights were short in the summer. Over in the city the crowds were thinning as people either staggered to doze in a temple to the sun somewhere or else passed out in the streets, fodder for the press gangs. He got up. When he tried to walk, the sword and its scabbard kept getting between his legs and tripping him up. In the end he wrapped the sword back into its bundle and ran across the city with it slung across his back.