by Jason Howard
Lanthos paused. He seemed to look at all of them individually, making eye contact with each person. His more subtle message was that they were important enough not just for the words of a king, but also his gaze. When his eyes met Zac’s, Zac was overwhelmed anew. A short time before he had been a slave, dung under the boots of the lowest of the low. Now Lanthos met his eyes like he was a man of import.
“Never forget,” Lanthos said, looking right at Zac. “You are no longer a citizen of Ascadell. You are more now. You are the only hope against the coming darkness, the only weapon that can cut through an endless night. You are Nightblades. Whatever you do, from now until the day you die, even after your duty to me is finished, you will own the glory of being a Nightblade.
“If your mission succeeds, you will be rewarded for your service with wealth and fame beyond your wildest dreams. If you die in this mission, you will die with that mantle, that honor, and you will take it with you to The Afterworlds, where even the Parent Gods will recognize it. Your new title is irrevocable. I vest it with the highest authority of the throne of Ascadell. I charge it with the most responsibility and importance I have ever given to any title. Make the word Nightblade a holy word, to be spoken of in legend long after your names are forgotten.”
No one spoke. They just watched as Lanthos turned and left.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Nightblade
In ancient myth, the weapon was wielded by the god named Shadow. It not only aided his stealth by making his skin like that of a chameleon, but also amplified his charisma and guile. Although he often caused mischief, he also rewarded many mortal men and women for serving him, and was considered one of the goodly gods. His closest followers were called Nightblades. They learned the way of shadows, protecting innocent lives from criminals in the night. Sometimes they murdered those that seemed like goodly citizens, those thieves and tyrants that never stole or killed openly or with their own hands, but through the actions of others or with the ink of a quill.
Zac woke up, restless, in the barracks hall of Castle Sal Zerone. The barracks hall was an unadorned stone hall with bunk beds on either side of it, and small windows that let in sharp shafts of sunlight. The only remarkable thing about the barracks hall was that it had enough beds for most of the Ascadellian Army. It stretched farther than he could see. If the Ascadellian Army ever had to seek refuge in the castle during a siege, they would be able to.
Right now the army was spread throughout Ascadell and Raezellia in a series of fortresses and bases. The Nightblades were the only occupants of the enormous hall, which had been built ages before and expanded during the Fifty-Year War.
The mission was to start the next day, and today they were allowed to have one last day of freedom to get their affairs in order. Zac had no affairs to get in order. Neither did Artem. They left the castle anyway, deciding to go for a morning run.
The city was creaking awake—they could hear a horse trotting (later the cacophony of hundreds of horses would replace that single trotter), and could smell a blacksmith starting his forge. Sooty smoke was unfurling from the chimney.
People greeted them by their names. Zac and Artem waved back at them, now accustomed to their local fame. One group of young boys had crowded around them—Artem felt a painful pang as he remembered Luven and the little boys of his village. A door flew open and the sound of wood thudding against stone echoed in the street.
A man stumbled out of a rowhome and tripped down the steps. His head thunked as he collapsed onto the street. He stood wordlessly, no expression of pain on his face. A young girl ran out after him.
She yelled, “Come back, Daddy!”
Her mother came out and clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her close. Her mother’s eyes and posture were charged with fear.
“Let him go,” she whispered. “That’s not Daddy anymore.”
A bruise swelled under the mother’s left eye. The single tear she’d shed mixed with blood from her cut lip.
The father staggered down the street.
“What’s wrong with him? Did he hurt you?” Artem asked.
“He’s . . . he’s got Soulbane,” the mother said.
“Let’s find out where he’s going, I want to see what these bane things are all about,” Zac said to Artem.
“Why? That seems like a bad idea—”
But Zac was already running. Artem groaned and took off after him.
The bane rounded a corner and Zac realized that he was headed for the city gates.
They came around the corner and saw him talking to the city guards who were getting ready to open up the gates.
“Stop him!” Zac yelled. “Bane!”
The guards turned confused expressions toward them, then looked back at the man. They took a closer look into his eyes and saw the purple glaze. Their first reaction was to leap back, afraid they’d get infected. The man took this moment of hesitation to run away from the city gates and into an alleyway. Zac and Artem chased him, dipping under a clothesline and darting into a small garden. Shades of stone blurred as they ran. They followed the glimpses of the man until they rounded a corner and found a dead end—he was gone. Artem and Zac exchanged a look. The wall of rowhomes to their left and right led to a small clearing with a single tree and the city wall.
“Where the hell did he . . .”
“The tree branches,” Artem said, pointing to the upper branches, which were wavering. He had climbed the tree, which was tall enough to help him scale the city wall. Zac and Artem followed suit, climbing the tree as quickly as they could. Once they were atop the wall they could see the bane beyond the wall, running away.
“Jump and roll?” Zac asked as he looked out at the grasses two stories below.
Artem nodded grimly.
“I almost broke my ankles last time,” Zac said. “This is a bad—”
“Come on,” Artem said with a smile. “Do not be like a chicken.”
Zac chuckled at Artem’s awkward phrasing of the old saying.
They took two fast steps and lunged out. Their legs windmilled in the cool air until they landed and somersaulted forward, rolling off some of the momentum, then stumbling violently to their feet.
The man was disappearing into the far off trees.
“Well, we have been bested—he got away,” Artem said.
Zac remembered that Althos was out in the woods.
‘Althos, you still out there hunting?’
‘Yeah, no luck so far, but I found a scent—’
‘There’s a man that just leapt over the west wall of the city, and he’s running. Can you follow him and tell me where he’s going?’ Zac asked.
Althos told him that yes, he would head westward, on a course that would take him deeper into the forest and hopefully intercept the man (or at least his scent). Zac could feel Althos using their psychic connection to sense where Zac was so he could get an idea of where the man was.
“Althos is going to track him,” Zac said to Artem. “Let’s go.”
“What are we going to do if we catch him?”
Zac hadn’t thought of that. “Uh . . .”
“And why not just let him go? He’s a bane now, we can’t bring him back to the city.”
“I just want to talk to him,” Zac admitted. “And then kill him.”
Artem was taken aback by the second part. “Kill him? He’s still a man, and in a few weeks we’ll return with the cure for the banes.”
“Maybe, but if we don’t then he’s just a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse.”
“But murder—”
“It’s not murder! He almost murdered his wife, did you see her face? Right now he doesn’t even care about that little girl—his daughter. We could learn something useful just by talking to him.”
Artem thought about that. No one else had bothered to try and talk to a bane. Most people just let them run into the woods because they were afraid of getting sick if they got anywhere near them. But Zac and Artem kne
w, from the explanation that Ivor had given them and there brief encounters with Roen, that Soulbane wasn’t spread by air or contact like regular diseases. It was spread by magic.
Zac started jogging. Artem reluctantly followed. It wasn’t long before they crossed paths with Althos.
‘I’ve got his scent,’ Althos thought to them.
Althos’s muscular legs pushed him powerfully forward.
‘This way,’ Althos thought to them.
They followed Althos, who had grown strong and was now hard to keep up with—more than once Zac only had the clue of his scaled tail whipping around a tree trunk to let him know of a sharp turn.
They came to a mossy rock, the abutment sudden below their feet. Artem stopped Zac with an extended arm . It was then that Zac noticed the roar of the waterfall, and saw the stream of it next to them—he had almost fallen in.
‘Damn! You could have warned us!’
‘You didn’t hear that?’
‘No, I don’t have super dragon hearing, alright?’
‘I’m not a dragon.’
Zac shrugged. ‘With those eyes you’re not exactly a sheelak either.’
Althos put his snout to the mossy stone and walked to the edge. Water sprayed up and foamed next to them.
‘This is the end of the trail—he jumped.’
Zac and Artem looked over the ledge and down to the water far below. Swaying tree branches batted at the rising foam. And then they saw a movement between some of the branches—just a fleeting glimpse—but there he was.
“We’ll never catch him,” Artem said.
“Unless we jump,” Zac added. “He lived, so it’s got to be deep enough.”
‘My wings can slow us,’ Althos thought to them.
Zac cocked an eyebrow.
‘They can. I’ve been practicing gliding with them.’
‘Not with all our weight on you.’
Althos conceded this with a facial expression.
“This isn’t worth it,” Artem said.
Zac shrugged, then leapt from the ledge.
‘Artem just cursed out loud,’ Althos thought to Zac.Zac laughed out loud and psychically to Althos as the waterfall’s rising mist welcomed him into its cool embrace—and then the water swallowed him.
Zac got to the shore in time to see Artem diving, and Althos flapping hard and unevenly plummeting toward the water.
‘Hardly a glide, my friend.’
‘It’s a glide!’ Althos protested, but then flopped into the water after losing control. ‘You threw me off, I had it,’
When Artem resurfaced and got to Zac he slugged him hard in the arm and said, “You’re crazy! I don’t know why I’m following you.”
“Curiosity.”
Zac sprinted into the woods with his friends close behind him.
Artem said, “Maybe a little curiosity—but mainly, I have to keep you from getting into too much trouble, waterfall jumper.”
Zac couldn’t argue with him there.
Althos was leading them soon, taking quick whiffs of the man’s scent as they ran—the trail was fresh.
They emerged into a clearing. The river rushed past, and a mossy, tree-covered mountain was at the far edge. In the midst of the clearing, they saw the bane they’d been following—and twenty other banes of various ages and genders, all naked. They had surrounded the clothed man in a ragged semicircle and were looking at him with excited, purple-glazed eyes.
Zac, Althos, and Artem quickly pulled back into the trees and hid. The banes closed in on the newcomer, who raised his arms away from his sides and closed his eyes. Then the banes grabbed at him. Artem rose to help, disgusted by what he took to be a cannibalistic frenzy. Zac grabbed him and whispered for him not to do anything stupid—they were way outnumbered.
The naked banes grabbed at the man’s clothing, some even using their teeth to rip it off of him. They moved like animals, but there was a ritualistic familiarity to the way they relished the ripping of the fabric.
‘Help!’ Althos thought to Zac.
Zac turned, startled. Althos’s nose was quivering, and he was desperately waving his stubby arms in front of his face.
‘What’s wrong?’
Althos’s eyes closed, and he sucked in a gasp of air.
That’s when Zac realized what it was.
‘No, come on Althos!’
He reached to muffle the sound, but he was too late.
‘Sorry!’ Althos thought.
And then he sneezed hard. When the incredible sneeze had played out, Althos looked up at Zac sheepishly, his one protruding snaggletooth limned in saliva.
‘I get the sneezes when I’m nervous sometimes,’ Althos thought.
“Should we run?” Artem whispered. Whispering was a pointless measure. All of the banes had heard the sneeze and were staring at them.
“Maybe we’ll have to. But first . . . let’s try bluffing.”
Zac emerged from behind the tree and walked confidently into the clearing. He pointed at the man they’d followed, who still had a few errant scraps of clothing on his naked, sweating body.
“We followed you, and City Guardsmen are with us. We have this whole place surrounded with archers.”
The banes didn’t look the least bit worried. Zac wondered if they could worry. They fanned out slowly, to surround Zac. He noticed one of them melt into the trees, attempting a flanking maneuver.
Zac raised a hand, signaling Artem—but Artem was a step ahead. He and Althos had already snuck deeper into the woods and were circling back toward where the banes were disappearing behind the treeline.
There was a crunching noise—the banes still in the clearing turned to the treeline. A bane corpse was pushed from behind the trees, neck snapped, head lolling uselessly. They looked up at Zac, a tiny bit of respect in their eyes. They weren’t worried though, which gnawed at Zac a little.
‘Artem just told me that he’s going to use stealth and make it look like there are many of him.’
Zac wondered how that was possible, but he smiled and said, “So, now you believe me? Take a look around.”
From the opposite side of the clearing they all saw Artem flit between some trees. At the other side they saw the shrouded silhouettes of more soldiers.
‘Artem is using an illusion spell,’ Althos thought to Zac.
They all turned to their newcomer, and he rasped, “I thought there were only two.”
He was pale and shivering with fear now.
A bane corpse with a slit throat fell from the treeline. The others decided the flanking maneuver wasn’t going to work and came back into the clearing.
One of the female banes took a bold step toward Zac. She had scars all over her from self-inflicted scratches. The trails of dead white scar tissue formed rough shapes and symbols that might have been letters in ancient Elven.
Zac thought, how does she know Elven, and why in Father God’s name did she cut those words into her skin?
“You will be punished, but for now, keep your mouth shut,” she said to the bane that had led Zac, Artem and Althos to them. She didn’t take her eyes off Zac. Her tone changed, her voice slithering to Zac’s, “So, if you’ve come to kill us, then kill us. But we won’t be captured.”
She smiled and waited.
Zac shook his head and furrowed his brow, hoping to look confident and superior. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Shut up, chulgar,” she said offhandedly. “If you win, we’ll die with smiles on our faces. If we win, we’ll feast on your flesh while you scream. Let’s fight.”
Zac shook his head. “What do you dream about?”
She seemed a bit surprised by that.
“Fight or run, chulgar,” she rasped.
“Do the dreams get better?” Zac whispered. “I’ve been trying to find you, because I need to know.”
Zac’s eyes were pleading, and her demeanor changed. She stepped toward him.
“Stop, the others can’t know,” Zac said, eyes da
rting to the trees.
She nodded. “Yes, the dreams are wonderful once you change,” she assured. “I yearn for the darkness of night, I yearn to close my eyes and soak in Bareloth’s gifts, the smooth, sensual slumber that he gives us all. We dream of our desires being sated, of our skin afire with pleasure, of the greatest sex, and of the most delicious feasts. We dream of swimming in pools of ecstasy, of floating through caressing starlight, of waterfalls of molten, tantric pleasure.”
Zac acted relieved, but then he stopped and asked, “And what of the day?”
“We are his servants by day, waiting for his call. When he calls us, we will unsheathe our teeth, and feast on the lifeblood of this kingdom. And it will be glorious. His love for us will be justified.”
“So you don’t mind being his slaves?”
She recoiled. “You have much to learn dreamling.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just scared. I don’t know if I can love him.”
She softened again. “I understand. We were all scared. And the days are hard sometimes. He takes much from us, but by night he returns it tenfold with his gifts. We must all work to earn his love and to bring him power so he can bless us with more wonderful gifts. You will come to understand this.”
Zac nodded. “Thank you.”
She smiled, a loving smile, but something in her eyes was twisted and disgusting. Zac looked away, playing it off like he felt unworthy.
“If you can call off your armored dogs, we’ll let you live this day, dreamling. Come to me after your final birth dream. Come to me—we’ll remember you.”
She stepped to him and caressed his cheek. He closed his eyes and smiled gently. The main reason that he had closed his eyes was because he knew that she could see the whites of them, and would expect at least a little purple glaze.
“Thank you,” he whispered in a trembling voice. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me,” she admonished quietly. “Thank the Soul Father. Bareloth.”
Zac bowed his head, so he wouldn’t have to look up at her. “I thank Bareloth through you. In your next dream, thank him for me. I will trust him now.”