Frostgrave_Second Chances

by Matthew Ward

  The archer scrabbled at the stairway’s edge with his free hand, but his fingers found no purchase on the ice-locked stone. ‘Please…’

  Mirika stamped on his fingers. The man’s wailing cry ended in a splash as his body struck the rippling black waters of the pool far below. Then she reached into the timeflow one last time, and went to confront the master of the Gilded Rose.

  * * *

  The tenth tumbler yielded in the same moment Mirika’s pained cry echoed up from below.

  ‘Told you.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Wedging the picks in place to prevent her work coming undone, Yelen hurried away from the vault and peered down into the darkness. Twin spots of lantern-light glowed on the stairs. One partway up, one at the very foot. As she watched, the closest lantern went out.

  Choking back the instinct to call out for her sister, Yelen glanced back at the vault door. The charcoal sigils glowed white-hot. Moments left. Maybe not enough. But what about Mirika?

  A bowstring sang out. A scream split the air. A man’s scream. Yelen’s shoulders slumped in relief. Mirika was still alive. Still doing her part. Relying on Yelen to do hers.

  Yelen turned towards the vault, and found a dagger-point at her throat.

  ‘I don’t want to kill you, love.’ The woman didn’t sound much like she cared either way. Even in the poor lichen-light, she looked weary, well-worn. The patch over her right eye was mildewed, its corners turning up at the edges, the hems of her greatcoat moth-eaten and as ragged as her straw-blonde hair. But the dagger gleamed as only a beloved possession could. ‘Up. Up. Up. Hands where I can see them.’

  Yelen complied, the gesture spurred on by the dagger pressing at the soft tissue under her chin. ‘How did you get up here?’

  The woman shrugged like a carrion-crow resettling on its perch. The point of the dagger didn’t move. ‘Hid in the shadows while your sister clobbered Darrick and Marcan. She ran straight past me.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want my help?’ The languid syllables dripped across Yelen’s thoughts.

  ‘Be quiet.’

  The blonde woman shrugged again. ‘You asked.’ Her free hand danced across Yelen’s tunic and trews, tugged the short dagger from her belt, and tossed it to the floor. ‘Maybe you feel like talking a bit yourself? Door’s got a deadfall, I take it?’ Yelen glared at her, but offered no reply. ‘How many tumblers? Does it have a false threshold? A jangler’s tilt?’ Receiving no more of a reply than before, the woman sighed. ‘Look, you cooperate, I’ll tie you up. Otherwise, I’ll have to give you a little tap on the head to keep you docile. ’Less you struggle, that is. Then you get the blade. You know how it is.’

  ‘Hardly matters.’ Had the voice possessed physical form, it would have been examining its fingernails, or engaged in some equally trivial activity. ‘Dead or bound, you’ll not be able to stop them. Nor help your sister. And that’s if she’s telling the truth. But of course…’

  The blonde woman leaned closer and grabbed Yelen’s shoulder. The point of the dagger drifted downwards, running across Yelen’s ribs to rest against her midriff. A single hazel eye gazed unblinking into hers. ‘What’s it to be, love?’

  ‘Yes. What’s it to be?’

  ‘I told you to shut up!’

  Yelen slammed her forehead forward. Dark spots burst behind her eyes, a dull pain rushing in close behind. The woman shrieked, and collapsed like a sack of tubers, her dagger skittering away across the flagstones. On the second attempt, she propped herself up on one elbow, a second dagger appearing like magic from beneath her greatcoat. ‘That’s it, love. You’re getting the…’

  The woman fell silent as Yelen’s boot connected with her temple. She collapsed once again, this time going still. Shaking her head to clear it, Yelen kicked once, twice, three times more, and then flung herself at the lock.

  At her feet, the first of the sigils burst into dust.

  * * *

  Mirika doubted that Magnis even saw her coming. Riding the timeflow to a spot immediately behind him pushed her dangerously close to her limits. But it was worth it to hear his breathing quicken as the blade of her sword settled against his throat – to see the supercilious expression falter as her arm slipped under his, pinning him tight.

  ‘Hello, Cavril.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Semova.’ The close-cropped blond moustache creaked into a knowing smile. The words were measured, spoken seemingly in ignorance of a life hanging by a thread. Cavril Magnis wasn’t the type to remain flustered for long.

  Ahead, the armoured woman stiffened and spun around. The chain links of her armour rustled like metallic leaves as she slid the bastard sword from its shoulder-mounted scabbard. It made Mirika’s short sword look like a toothpick. Her eyes drowned in darkness, her close-cropped hair black as night, save for a streak of silver running about her temples.

  ‘Step away, delver.’

  Mirika drew the blade closer to her captive’s throat. ‘Actually, I’m comfortable here. Aren’t you, Cavril?’

  Magnis extended a hand, palm outward, in the woman’s direction. ‘Let her be, Kain. It’s fine.’

  Kain’s posture shifted. Not enough to suggest ease, but her grip on the widowmaking sword relaxed just enough for Mirika to believe she wasn’t about to embark on a headlong charge. But her expression didn’t alter. The coal-black stare didn’t even flicker. ‘Of course.’ She upended the sword and set the point against the flagstones.

  Magnis cleared his throat. ‘Miss Semova. Mirika. I assume there’s something you want of me? Otherwise you’d be gone by now.’

  Mirika leaned closer, her lips brushing his ear. ‘Order your lackeys out of here.’ Kain’s scowl darkened a few shades at the word ‘lackey’. Mirika offered her a sweet smile. ‘We were here first. It’s ours.’

  Magnis snorted. ‘And when you say “ours”, you of course mean you’ll deliver it to that haggard old fool.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I suppose not. And if I refuse?’

  Mirika drew the sword closer so that the steel kissed Magnis’ skin. ‘You’re a scholar. You’ll work it out.’

  Kain edged forward, but halted at another gesture from Magnis.

  ‘I thought you didn’t kill.’

  She paused before replying. The better to show a confidence she didn’t entirely feel. ‘At least two of your lackeys just tried to kill me. I’m reconsidering.’

  The corner of Magnis’ mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. ‘You’d miss me if I weren’t here.’

  His tone invited agreement, craved it, even. But then, Cavril Magnis had always been a silver-tongued devil. At least, compared to most of the outcasts and robber-kings seeking their fortunes in Frostgrave. He was even handsome, if in a soft, decadent way that suggested he’d snap if caught in a strong breeze. Even now, days into an expedition, he’d barely a hair out of place. To look at him, he could be standing upon the veranda of his agreeable mansion, some five hundred leagues to the south, in the softest and most indolent stretch of the heartlands.

  With an effort, Mirika kept the threat in her voice. ‘Keep this up, and I guess we’ll find out.’

  Magnis sighed. ‘So sad. You’re wasted in this blighted city, working for that cantankerous old fool. Which reminds me. I have a counter offer. Instead of slitting my worthless throat and thus breaking hearts in every tavern for miles around, why don’t you sign on with the Gilded Rose? And your sister, naturally.’

  ‘I already have an employer.’

  ‘Hah. “Employer” suggests that you’re paid, but Torik doesn’t have two crowns to rub together, so that can’t be the way of things. What is it he has on you, I wonder?’ The smile turned sly. ‘What secret are you hiding? Or… maybe it’s not you. Your sister, perhaps?’

  Mirika bit her lip, not daring to speak for fear of giving anything away. Magnis’ guesses were already too close to the mark.

  Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice. ‘I’ll pay you, and pay you well. Look at
Kain over there. A Knight of Dawn doesn’t come cheap, even when you can find one who’ll take the coin.’ At last, Kain’s gaze flickered, transferring briefly from Mirika to regard Magnis no less coldly. Again, Magnis didn’t seem to notice, a man at ease with his station in the world, even with a sword at his throat. ‘Think of a number, then double it. I can afford it.’

  Mirika shook her head. ‘You’re mad.’

  Magnis laughed. ‘Not at all. You’ll earn every crown.’

  Despite herself, Mirika was tempted. Certainly, the Gilded Rose always had coin for new hirelings. They weren’t even a bad bunch, by the standards of delvers. The frozen city attracted all sorts, but most of those who survived were desperate, wild or worse. And Cavril Magnis certainly wasn’t desperate. Unlike most of the magi, mystics and luminaries that composed the self-appointed elite of Frostgrave’s scattered encampments, he hadn’t come to the frozen wasteland in search of a fortune. He already had one waiting back home, or so rumour said. That meant he was in this for the chase, for the excitement. Just like she was. Would it really be so bad to say ‘yes’?

  But then there was Yelen, as always. She had no future with the Gilded Rose, not as things stood.

  ‘The answer’s no,’ Mirika said. ‘Now, you going to call off your dogs, or do I slit your throat?’

  Magnis sighed. ‘I’d hoped to avoid this. Kain, please don’t kill her. She really is something quite special.’

  Mirika frowned, suddenly aware that something was off-key. ‘Have you forgotten the sword at your throat?’

  He laughed. ‘Ah yes. About that.’

  He faded into nothing, leaving Mirika clutching at empty air. She swore softly under her breath. An illusion! And she’d fallen for it! He had to be here somewhere, but where? She glanced around, but caught no sign. A clink of armour dragged her back to more immediate concerns.

  ‘Well then.’ Kain’s lips twisted into a malevolent smile. ‘Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard?’

  Banishing her self-recrimination, Mirika pivoted on her heel and reached into the timeflow. A mistake. The world lurched and spun. She’d pushed herself too hard, too fast. The Clock of Ages sought its due. She gritted her teeth, forcing back nausea. It’d have to wait. The job wasn’t done. Moment by meticulous moment, she hastened her tempo until every second crawled by in the span intended for two. It’d be enough.

  Mirika sprang at Kain, her sword-point aimed for the join between breastplate and pauldron. A shoulder wound. Painful, certainly. Incapacitating? Maybe. Fatal? Probably not. But it’d slow her.

  Steel chimed against steel. Mirika’s blade clattered away, slowing as it tore free of her altered tempo. Kain’s sword, point down against the flagstones a heartbeat before, was now held crosswise in front of her body, the broad steel angled to deflect a strike the Knight of Dawn couldn’t possibly have seen coming.

  Mirika didn’t realise she’d lost her grip on the timeflow until Kain’s mailed fist closed around one of her braids. Her head snapped back, nausea flooding in as her tempo abruptly realigned. The light of ages slipped away, plunging the chamber into darkness.

  ‘Run out of tricks?’

  Kain yanked on Mirika’s braids. Her head jerked back. The rest of her body followed, reeled in like a gaffed fish. She barely saw the mailed fist that slammed into the side of her head, shattering already precarious balance. She hit the flagstones, her wrist folding beneath her. Bones snapped like rotten boughs, the agonised scream ripping free before she realised it was her own.

  * * *

  ‘Mirika!’ Yelen twisted away from the vault, heart in her throat.

  The scream had been her sister’s. Hadn’t it? She strained her ears, listening for a clue to what had transpired below. The scream wasn’t repeated. Its absence only made things worse.

  ‘It certainly sounded like her. By the way, have you forgotten something?’

  ‘No!’ Yelen dived for the lock, already knowing she was too late.

  The hook pick, no longer held in place, pinged free of the lock housing. A series of grinding clicks sounded from within the door – the hard-won victories over the tumblers undone as they rumbled back into place. To Yelen, they sounded like they were sealing her in, not out. Trapping her in a lifetime of servitude. Without what lay inside, she’d never be free. And without Mirika…

  She choked back a sob. No, she had to be stronger than that.

  Two paces away, the woman with the eyepatch groaned and shifted against her bonds. The last of the charcoal sigils flared white, its remaining moments burning away. Yelen glanced from one to the other, and back to the outer darkness of the cavern. She could repick the lock now she knew the tumblers’ patterns – she could even restore the sigils – but it would all take time. Time she didn’t have.

  Time Mirika didn’t have, if it wasn’t already too late.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want my help?’

  Yelen clenched her fists. To the frozen hells with it, anyway. ‘Open the vault.’

  At once, she felt the voice slither free from its nest in the base of her mind. She gagged as the sour taste of sulphur crowded her tongue.

  ‘At last.’ A honeyed chuckle rippled across her thoughts. ‘Place your hands on the stone.’

  Yelen did as she was bidden, her breathing quickening as the waves of the timeflow washed over her. The sounds of the cavern grew muffled, distant – subsumed by the booming, sonorous pulse of the Clock of Ages. She lost herself in the rush of it, of nerves set afire. It was the sensation – the power – she’d envied ever since Mirika’s talent had first blossomed. The talent she’d always lacked, except in that one, small way.

  Red light crept across the door as the magic took hold, the timeflow doubling and redoubling through the conduit of Yelen’s flesh and bone. The bronze yielded first, peeling away and falling into dust as a thousand seasons of corrosion overtook it. The granite lasted longer, but beneath the assault of the writhing timeflow such distinctions barely mattered. Ten thousand, thousand relative years later, it succumbed. Cracks zigzagged across smooth stone, spreading and deepening into fissures. Dust ran between Yelen’s fingers, the vapour swirling about her feet.

  With a yawning, tortured groan, the door collapsed inwards. Yelen twisted aside. The lintel hurtled past her, smashing into fragments and hurling clouds of dust into the air.

  ‘As commanded,’ laughed the voice, coiling back into the depths of Yelen’s mind.

  The timeflow slipped from Yelen’s grasp, all at once distant, unreachable. The familiar sense of loss billowed in to replace it, as if a piece of her had been stolen with its departure – the piece that made her truly whole. The tang of sulphur receded. Then came the pain, her left wrist burning like fire.

  Gasping, Yelen propped herself against the ruined architrave. The pain would pass, just as the sense of loss would not. She trembled with withdrawal, and with guilt. She’d sworn never to do that again. She’d promised Mirika. But what was done, was done.

  The dust cleared. Beyond the wreckage of the vault door, a skeleton lay in silent repose. The scarlets of its silk robes had dulled with the passing centuries. Its flesh was long since eaten away. But gold still glinted at its throat and wrists. Gemstones on the tarnished crown glimmered in the lichen-light. And in its hands, folded across its emaciated chest like a priest in prayer, sat an onyx cube the size of a man’s fist, marked with the familiar serpent rune, just as Torik had predicted.

  Yelen sighed with relief and reached inside. ‘I’ll take that, Lord Szarnos.’

  Even in death, Szarnos the Great was reluctant to relinquish his prize, but Yelen was in no mood to be thwarted by a corpse – no matter the legends that had surrounded it in life. Bones snapped and scattered as she dragged the cube clear. Even through the glove, her skin crawled.

  All the while feeling the empty eye sockets of the skull upon her, she ran headlong for the stairs, haversack bouncing against her shoulder.

  * * *

  Mirika s
taggered to her feet, cradling her shattered wrist, urging her eyes to adapt to the lichen-light. Hot spikes lanced through her forearm with every breath. She trembled in a way that had nothing to do with Frostgrave’s habitual chill. Three years as a delver, and not a scratch. Now this.

  ‘How? How did you do that?’ Her voice sounded distant, unfamiliar. It belonged to a woman fearful for her life, not to her.

  Kain shook her head and stomped closer, the blade of her sword resting lazily against her shoulder. ‘You think you’re the first time witch to cross my path?’

  Now she was closer, Mirika made out the scars high on the knight’s left cheek and brow. Judging by the pattern, she’d been lucky not to lose an eye. As to Kain’s age, it was anyone’s guess. She moved with the confidence of an older woman, but the grace of her steps – in full armour, no less – spoke of a body not yet in its prime.

  ‘You need to learn that this isn’t a game,’ said Kain, ‘or you’re going to get yourself killed.’

  Mirika retreated towards the pool, hissing as the motion sent fresh agonies sparking up and down her wrist. ‘By you?’

  Kain advanced, side-stepping ever so slightly to cut off her retreat to the tunnel mouth. ‘Doesn’t have to be. Sit your skinny rump down, stay quiet, and let us collect what we came for. You’ll keep breathing, and learn a lesson. It’s a fair bargain. Take it.’

  ‘Is that what this is about? Teaching me a lesson for Korov, and Markriese and the others? I need that reliquary…’

  ‘Need counts for nothing around here. You keep what you can hold. You know that…’ Kain’s lip twisted in contempt. ‘Or you should.’

  Anger at the knight’s disdain burnt away a little of Mirika’s pain. Enough to focus on forming a plan. ‘Why does Cavril even want the reliquary?’ She edged further around the pool, choosing her next words with care. ‘You don’t know, do you? You’re just a good little mercenary, following your paymaster’s commands. I thought the Order of Dawn was good for more than that.’