The Conquerors Shadow

by Ari Marmell

  “Just curious.”

  “Well,” Ellowaine said, standing up and brushing snow from her knees, “I think you’ll be fine.” She reached down, helped the Terror of the East to his feet. “It’ll bruise up right nicely, but I doubt anything worse will come of it.” She poked a finger at his cheek. “That’s going to leave a nasty mark, though. Where’d you pick that up?”

  Corvis thoughtfully prodded at the scab on his cheek, the wound he’d been noting absently for days now, and frowned. Where had he picked it up? During his escape from Audriss’s camp? No, he’d snuck up on most of the guards he’d killed, and the one he’d actually been forced to duel never landed any blows. He’d fallen several times on his way back to his own people, but never face-first. So when …

  Corvis’s eyes grew so wide that Ellowaine spun, expecting to see a horde of the enemy charging her unprotected back. “What? My lord, what is it?”

  But if he heard her at all, his face showed no sign of it.

  It couldn’t be that. Could it?

  “Khanda?”

  /Oh, so you’ve finally deigned to remember that I’m here, have you?/

  “Stow it. Why red?”

  /Excuse me? And she says that head wound isn’t serious?/

  Through gritted teeth, Corvis asked again, “Why are you red?”

  Somehow, he got the impression the demon shrugged. /That’s the color of the stone I was imprisoned in. Kind of fitting, in a way. I—/

  “Could you change it? Could you decide to be—oh, say, green?”

  /I don’t like green./

  “But could you do it?”

  /Well, sure. Why, have you decided I clash with your wardrobe?/

  Corvis closed his eyes and exhaled. Of course …

  “Things change. Sometimes when you want them to, sometimes when you don’t. But things do change.” That’s what he’d hallucinated, what he’d told himself in Tyannon’s voice. A part of him, apparently, had already figured it out, was just waiting for the rest of his brain to catch up.

  They were in very deep trouble.

  “We have to find Losalis and Seilloah,” he snapped at a truly puzzled Ellowaine. “Now.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Not too bad,” Corvis acknowledged, his tone somehow conveying both impressed and mildly disgusted with equal faculty. He directed his mount to shift aside, clearing the dusty road so that yet another caravan of lumber and stone, smelling of sweat both human and equine, could trundle on past.

  Tyannon raised her hand to her eyes, shading them from a sun that poured a cascade of brilliance over the world despite autumn’s rapidly growing chill. For the length of several deep breaths, she stared at the outer wall of the city. It was, so far as she could tell, just a wall like any other.

  Which might be why she finally responded with, “It’s a wall. Like any other.”

  “My point exactly!” Corvis seemed almost to pounce on the comment, like a ravenous cat. “Just a few months ago, these walls were so many heaps of broken rubble. The buildings beyond weren’t much—better …” His commentary trailed off at the sharp narrowing of her eyes.

  “My point,” he continued quickly, determined suddenly to move the topic away from his prior activities, “is that the place looks pretty damn near to normal, doesn’t it? They’ve done a remarkable job of rebuilding. Maybe Lorum actually grew enough of a spine to keep the whip on the backs of the Guilds.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe the Guilds are financing the recovery on their own?” she asked darkly, her brow still furrowed and her gaze still clouded. “Why would you just assume that, if they’re doing something helpful, it has to be because the regent’s forcing them?”

  “Tyannon, do you know what city this is?”

  Again she shaded her eyes to examine the looming structures. “No,” she admitted finally. “I can’t say that I do.”

  “And that, again, is my point. You’re a nobleman’s daughter, Tyannon, highly educated, yet this city isn’t major enough for you to even know its name. When was the last time the Guilds voluntarily spent this sort of coin anywhere that wasn’t a major financial center?”

  Tyannon grumbled and turned away, unwilling to concede the point but unable to argue it.

  The sun coasted slowly overhead as they stood within the shadows of the walls, waiting for the day’s traffic to subside before making their own entry through the narrow gates. And finally, Tyannon’s curiosity wrestled her irritation into submission.

  “Why does it matter to you, anyway?” she asked softly.

  Corvis had to physically wrench his gaze off the city’s gates. “Because,” he told her slowly, his eyes as expressionless as the death’s-head mask he no longer wore, “if someone’s actually, finally in charge—if it’s the right someone—maybe everything I’ve done hasn’t been entirely in vain.”

  “WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, my lord,” Losalis intoned in his deep, rich voice, “you have gone absolutely stark-raving mad.”

  Corvis, Losalis, Davro, Seilloah, and Ellowaine hurriedly assembled on a small rise overlooking Mecepheum. The battle raging below them was enormous, two opposing tidal waves of blood and steel crashing one against the other. Clouds of steam rose where hot blood splashed into cold snow, and the field was already thick with the dead and the dying.

  “I know it sounds a bit reckless,” the Terror of the East assured his second in command. “It’s not a decision I’ve come to lightly. But it’s the only way. I have to get inside the city.”

  “My lord,” Losalis pressed, “every last person in Mecepheum, native or otherwise, would be more than happy to kill you on sight. They think you’re behind all this, remember?”

  “And you’re not exactly inconspicuous,” Davro added, grasping one of the bone spikes between his thumb and forefinger and wiggling it. Corvis grimaced as his entire body shuddered.

  “Believe it or not, I’d figured that much out for myself. I don’t intend to wear the armor. Not at first, anyway.”

  “You’re carrying that monstrosity with you?” the witch asked incredulously. “Corvis, you haven’t been hiding a spare pack mule in your coin purse, have you?”

  The warlord cast her a scathing glance. “You, Seilloah, have been hanging around with Khanda and Davro too long. No, I’m not going to carry it. I’ll just have Khanda shape it into something inconspicuous until I have need of it, like he did …” Corvis couldn’t quite repress a shudder at the agonizing memories. “… last time I came here.”

  /Your wish is my command, Master./

  “Thanks ever so.”

  “I don’t understand,” Losalis said gruffly. “What do you hope to accomplish with this?”

  “Audriss is already inside Mecepheum. I’m going after him.”

  Ellowaine looked up sharply from where she’d stood brooding off to the side, a sudden spark in her eyes. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

  “I know what he’s after.”

  “He’s after the whole city,” the ogre protested.

  “True. But something else as well, and he can’t afford to wait for the city to fall to get it. I’m going into Mecepheum, finding him, and killing him.”

  /Hey, Corvis. Do you know what cities have a lot of? People. All Audriss has to do is follow your example and take off his armor, and you’ll never find him. It’d be like looking for a needle in a whole bunch of other needles./

  “Not at all. I know who Audriss is.”

  Before any of his stunned companions could find the presence of mind to speak, the Terror of the East moved on to other subjects.

  “All right,” he told them, either missing or ignoring the various widened eyes and gaping jaws, “here’s how it’ll play out. I’m going inside. Losalis, I wish I could take you with me. I can’t easily think of anyone I’d rather have at my back. But I need you in command out here.”

  The large man scowled, one hand idly scratching at his beard. “I’m not happy with it,” he admitted. “But you�
�re in charge.”

  “Good.” Corvis nodded. “Seilloah, you’re with me. I know they’ll miss your healing out here, but I absolutely must have all the magic assistance possible. We don’t know exactly what Audriss and Pekatherosh are capable of, and Rheah Vhoune’s around somewhere, too.”

  The witch nodded in turn. “Just give me a few minutes. I want to make sure Losalis’s healers have a good stock of my salve before we go.”

  “Make it quick. Ellowaine, you’re with me, too. I need someone watching my back, and you’re just about the best we’ve got. Hell, you saved my hide once today already.” Deliberately, Corvis locked his gaze with her own. “But Ellowaine, until and unless I say otherwise, your job is to keep Audriss’s goons off me. The Serpent himself is mine.”

  “But—”

  “Swear to that, or I find someone else.”

  Sullenly, she swore.

  Corvis faced the last member of the motley little band, and a strange, sad smile crossed his face. “Davro, as you yourself pointed out, some of us aren’t entirely inconspicuous. There’s no way I can take you with me.”

  “See how disappointed I am.”

  “Davro, it’s entirely possible I won’t have the chance to say this later.” The ogre found himself mildly taken aback at the sudden sincerity in Corvis’s voice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I forced you into this. I’m sorry I risked destroying the life you’d built for yourself. Win or lose, whether I live or die, this battle is the last I’ll ask of you. When it’s over, regardless of the outcome, I release you from any and all vows. You’re free.”

  “Just like that?” Davro asked suspiciously.

  “Just like that. When we’re through here, you can go home. For good.”

  The ogre was clearly trying to fight off the enormous, cat-and-canary grin growing ever larger on his jaw. “Thank you, Corvis,” he said simply.

  /Oh, gods. Can we get moving already? If this gets any more cloying, I fear I may just have to vomit. And believe me, you do not want to see a half-digested soul. And the smell!/

  “All right, all right, we’re going.” Corvis closed his eyes in concentration for a moment, muttering under his breath the words of a simple transformation spell. A sudden surge of power flowed from the demon on his wrist, and the spell swelled, expanded, and strengthened. It wrapped around him in a phantom embrace. Metal and bone shrank, shifted, folded, and Corvis Rebaine stood in the snow, dressed in a hefty cloak, fur wraps, and thick leathers. Sunder hung loosely at his right hip, and Khanda perched tightly on his wrist, but every other detail of his garb had changed. Nothing about this lean, grey-haired warrior separated him from a hundred other mercenaries past their prime.

  “Lord Rebaine,” Losalis said, “I hate to bring this up, but if you don’t come out of there alive, how are we all getting paid?”

  “Oh, that little thing.” Corvis smiled, putting on his most reassuring face. “If I don’t make it out, Davro knows everything about your fee. He’ll handle it.” Then, ignoring the murderous glare the one-eyed giant hurled his way, he clasped Losalis’s good arm with his own. “Luck and Kassek’s favor, my friend.”

  “And to you, my lord.”

  “Ladies? Shall we?” And they were off, trudging through ankle-deep drifts of clinging snow.

  “My lord,” Ellowaine began, “I—”

  “Ellowaine, as of right now, don’t call me that. Let’s not draw attention.”

  “We can’t exactly call you by name, either,” Seilloah pointed out.

  “Oh, now you realize this?” Corvis asked sourly. “You couldn’t have thought of that back in Kervone, before you exposed me to that damn guard?”

  Seilloah’s glare was almost vicious enough to hide the slow flush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

  “All right.” The warlord shrugged. “Call me Cerris. I’m used to it.”

  “All right, Cerris,” Ellowaine said hesitantly. “Tell me how we get inside a besieged city without being noticed.”

  “Why, simplicity itself, Ellowaine. We’ll climb a tree.”

  “Oh, of course,” she retorted sarcastically. “How could I possibly have missed that? Seilloah, how did I miss that?”

  Seilloah just shook her head.

  “There,” Corvis announced cheerfully after an hour of leading his increasingly irritable companions around the perimeter of the raging battle. “That one should do.” He gestured at a towering, snow-coated conifer with a discouraging dearth of low branches large enough to support a corpulent pigeon, let alone a trio of encumbered climbers.

  Corvis had a solution for that, too, of course. He made liberal use of Khanda’s magic to levitate them, one by one, to the higher branches, where Ellowaine and Seilloah found themselves clinging to the trunk with quiet desperation.

  “What do you think, Khanda?” Corvis asked softly, standing atop a large limb. He peered, squint-eyed, across the bloodstained snow and crowded parapets, into the distant streets of Mecepheum. “It’s not very clear, but it is in line of sight. Can you do it?”

  /If it was just you, no problem. With your two tagalongs … Yes, I can do it, but I won’t be good for much immediately afterward. It’d help if I had a snack waiting for me on the other side./

  “No chance. We’re not here to kill the population. Besides, it’d draw attention.”

  /Fine, but if you get into a scrape I’m too exhausted to pull you out of, it’s your funeral./

  “You know, you’re really obnoxious in the face of danger.”

  /It’s that whole immortality thing. Makes one a bit blasé about it all./ A moment passed. /Say, are you going to tell them ahead of time what you’re planning to do?/

  Corvis concentrated once more, and they were swept by a sudden sense of falling, atrociously fast. The world blurred around them, and then they were standing inside the mouth of a dark and filthy alley off Mecepheum’s main boulevard.

  “Nope,” Corvis replied. “Gives them less time to worry about it.” Then, repressing a chuckle at the slackened expressions on the faces of his companions, he set out at a brisk pace.

  Even here, far from the walls, Mecepheum was clearly a community under siege. The street bustled with activity, the calls of vendors and the pervasive buzz of conversations replaced by grimly determined voices, shouted orders, and calls for help. The scent of the marketplace—that strange but universal mixture of bodies, meats, vegetables, and dyes—was absent, smothered by sweat, steel, and leather. Most of the citizens dashing back and forth carried water, bandages, and spare arrows for the soldiers on the walls. The snow, inches deep outside those walls, was almost nonexistent on the streets within, kicked aside and trampled into slush by the constant stir. On occasion, a gnome rose up—seemingly from solid stone—and darted from a darkened byway to drag away some unsuspecting soldier or citizen.

  Corvis, Seilloah, and Ellowaine went largely unnoticed in the hubbub.

  “My lo … ah, Cerris,” Ellowaine hissed, nudging him slightly to draw his attention from the crowd around him. “You still haven’t told us where we’re going. Or what we’re doing. Or who we’re looking for.” She waited expectantly, and Seilloah, striding behind them, stepped up her pace to be certain she could hear.

  “You’re right,” Corvis agreed. “I haven’t.”

  Seilloah snorted once, and Ellowaine began turning a vegetative shade of purple.

  “Ladies, listen to me.” Corvis dragged them to stand beneath a small awning protruding from a nearby shop. His voice cut through the bedlam of the surrounding throng despite his hushed tone. “Audriss has his demon, remember? I don’t think Pekatherosh is telepathic—Khanda’s not. But I don’t know. Khanda can warn me if I’m being magically probed in any way, but the two of you don’t have that defense. If I tell you what I know, and he sees us coming before we see him, it might warn him off. Trust me when I say this isn’t something we want him to know that we know.”

  Ellowaine frowned unhappily but nodded. Seilloah just shrugged. “Whatever you s
ay, Cerris.”

  “Right.” Somehow, he wasn’t precisely reassured.

  /You know, Corvis, you could just ask me if Pekatherosh can read your minds./

  The Terror of the East coughed once, embarrassed. “I, um, I guess I didn’t think of that. All right, Khanda, can Pekatherosh read our minds?”

  /How should I know?/

  With an inarticulate gurgle, Corvis lunged once more into the street.

  The minutes fled in droves as the trio maneuvered, wiggled, and shoved through the crowds, drawing glowers and curses as they passed. And then, abruptly, Corvis drew to a halt. “I realize you can’t do much with what I’ve told you,” he said to his companions. “But any preparations you feel the need to make, make them now. We’re almost there.”

  Ahead, looming from the surrounding structures, was the Hall of Meeting. His face radiating determination, one hand resting atop Sunder, Corvis stepped into the building’s shadow—and the shadow of a past he’d thought he’d left many, many years behind him.

  /How perfectly karmic,/ Khanda commented as though he indeed read Corvis’s thoughts. /You lost your last war in a Guild Hall, too. If this was any more symmetrical, I’d have to rethink my assessment of the gods. It seems they have a sense of humor after all./

  “You find this funny, do you?” Corvis asked angrily.

  /Corvis, my boy, you’ve absolutely no idea./

  For a brief instant, Corvis’s eyes closed in supplication to he knew not which gods, and then he deliberately pulled open the huge door and walked inside.

  THE NOBLES AND GUILDMASTERS were meeting not in the audience chamber downstairs, but within the confines of an upper-level room, large enough (albeit barely) to seat them all comfortably. The horseshoe-shaped table within was enormous, with sufficient chairs for all. The room possessed but a single door, a heavy hardwood monstrosity with iron bands and multiple bars, and the walls were twelve-inch stone. It was, put quite plainly, practically impregnable, and the various nobles and Guildmasters felt far safer making their plans here than they would downstairs.