by Nathan Long
Ulrika started forwards, but Raiza stopped her and nodded towards the roof of the temple. There was a man there, crouching at the corner and watching all approaches.
‘He is easily dealt with,’ said Ulrika, as they moved out of his line of sight.
‘He will not be dealt with,’ said Raiza. ‘It is not enough to spy on these fools. They must never know we were here.’
Ulrika bridled at her tone, but nodded. She was right. ‘Very well.’
They darted into the lee of the tenement and flattened themselves against the wall, then sidestepped along it until they reached the narrow gap between it and the temple. Raiza looked around the corner, then slipped into it with Ulrika following. They looked up. A row of shattered windows pierced the temple wall about three body lengths above the ground, but the wall below them was of smooth, unbroken stone.
‘Difficult,’ said Raiza, rubbing her chin.
‘Not at all,’ said Ulrika. She pointed to the wall of the tenement, all crumbling brick and warped timber. ‘We can climb there until we are opposite the windows, then leap the gap.’
‘Aye,’ said Raiza. ‘But for that.’
She pointed between the two buildings, and for a moment Ulrika thought she was indicating something at the far end of the alley, but then, using her witch sight, she saw a nearly invisible shimmer of purple only a few feet from her face. It curved out from the temple wall like a soap bubble, and cut the alley in two – a magical ward of some kind. She cursed. She was sure she would have noticed it if she had been on her own, but she was trying so hard to impress Raiza that she was distracting herself.
‘Have you a way to pierce it?’ she asked.
Raiza shot out her hand and pulled back her sleeve to reveal her sinewy left wrist. Encircling it was an odd bracelet that appeared to be made of ancient parchment, folded into overlapping braids, and written all over in a script Ulrika did not recognise.
‘A gift of Mistress Evgena, who is wise in such things,’ said Raiza. She turned towards the swirling shimmer and slowly extended her hand. ‘It parts the winds, but does not break their flow.’
Ulrika watched as Raiza inched her fist towards the transparent skin of the ward. As the bracelet neared it, the purple swirls began to curdle away from it, like candle smoke struck by an eddy of wind, then warp around it. Raiza stopped and tensed her arm and the iridescence slowly drew further and further back. Her arm trembled with effort, and Ulrika saw that her face was set and hard.
After a moment, a ripple-edged gap as high and wide as a halfling, but narrowing to a point at each end, had formed in the bubble. Raiza lowered herself carefully to one knee, so that the widest part of the gap intersected the plane of the ground.
‘Crawl through,’ she said, through clenched teeth. ‘Do not touch the sides.’
Ulrika crouched forwards until she was kneeling beside Raiza, then paused. This was going to be awkward. There was very little room to get past the swordswoman without bumping her arm or touching the surface of the ward.
She unbuckled her sword belt and slid it through the gap ahead of her, hissing with nerves. Nothing happened. She got down on all fours, then lowered herself almost flat. Her shoulders were perilously close to the wavering sides. She drew them in as best she could and elbow-walked slowly forwards, one awkward squirm at a time.
‘Your hips!’ rasped Raiza.
Ulrika froze, keeping her body exactly where it was, then listened for cries or alarms. Nothing. She let out a breath.
‘Less wiggling,’ Raiza continued. ‘You are not quite the boy you pretend.’
Ulrika growled at the jibe, then inched forwards at a snail’s pace until she heard Raiza grunt behind her.
‘Good. You’re through.’
Ulrika drew her legs up carefully, then stood and began buckling on her sword as Raiza rose to a crouch and slid one foot forwards. Her arm was shaking now, and her already-pale face was ashen. She ducked and edged around her own fist like someone slipping through a curtain while holding a heavy-laden tray.
‘Well done,’ said Ulrika as the swordswoman stepped from the gap and slowly drew her arm back to let the ward flow closed behind her. ‘Now do you have an equally clever way to climb a sheer wall?’
‘You will get me there,’ said Raiza, nodding wearily. ‘Then I will get you there. Lace your hands and put your back to the wall.’
Ulrika raised a sceptical eyebrow, then did as she was told. There was very little room between the temple wall and the skin of shimmer that surrounded it. If she threw Raiza at a bad angle, she would break it and the cultists would know they were there. On the other hand, that would mean the sneaking was done and the fighting could begin, and Ulrika was beginning to long for a fight.
Raiza stepped back as close to the shimmer as she dared, then set herself as Ulrika dropped into a deep, braced squat.
‘Ready?’
Ulrika nodded. Raiza took two quick steps forwards, put her foot in the stirrup of Ulrika’s hands and sprang as Ulrika heaved with all her might.
She craned her neck as the swordswoman shot straight up, skimming past the stone surface of the wall. For a second Ulrika thought she hadn’t thrown her high enough, but at the top of her arc, Raiza shot out a hand and caught the sill of one of the windows by her fingertips, then pulled herself up.
After some manoeuvring, the swordswoman turned in the window and began unwrapping the red sash she wore wound about her waist. When she was done, she tied one end around her sabre’s brass scabbard, then braced it sideways in the narrow window so the tip and hilt caught on the edges, and threw down the rest of the sash.
The fringed end stopped a few feet higher than Ulrika could reach. She backed up like Raiza had, then ran at the wall, leapt, kicked and caught the sash in two hands. Her shoulders jarred against the wall as she flopped against it, but her grip held, as did the sash. She got her legs under her and walked up the wall to the window, where Raiza handed her in and put a finger to her lips.
Ulrika nodded. Flickering purple lights and voices raised in invocation came through the ruined room’s missing door. Whatever was going on, they were close to it. She waited while Raiza belted on her sabre and retied her sash, then crept with her across the room, which seemed to have been the office of some Salyak administrator before the siege, and peered out the door.
Beyond it was a pillared gallery that overlooked a large, high-roofed room. The room was not the temple Ulrika had been expecting, but the remains of a hospital ward. The cots had been shoved to the walls, leaving a wide space in which more than two score people in cloaks and hoods stood in a loose ring, chanting and facing inwards, their hands stretching forwards.
Ulrika rose a little so she could see over their heads, but she already knew what she would find. A circle of blood was painted on the floor in the middle of them, and within it lay a terrified girl, her naked flesh covered in strange calligraphy and her hands and ankles impaled by iron spikes that had been driven down through the flagstones. Six purple-flamed candles flickered around her, and a tall, crook-backed cultist stood at her head, leading the others in the cacophonous chant. Ulrika growled as she saw that the girl was not the first to die that night. A pile of naked bodies lay beside the circle, all bleeding from the palms and feet.
Her eye flicked back to the leader as he raised an empty glass bottle over his head, shaking it in time with the chant. Ulrika frowned. The cultist at the kvas distillery had carried a bottle too. She had thought he had just toyed with it unconsciously, but now she wondered. Had it some meaning?
As the chorused voices of the cultists crescendoed, Crook-back stretched out his arms and turned the bottle upside down over the girl. She shrieked and bucked as if she had been stabbed, and then, to Ulrika’s horror, her torso began to lift off the ground like a tent in a high wind. Unfortunately, also like a tent, she was pegged at four corners, and though her body rose, the spikes tore cruelly at her hands and feet.
Ulrika growled and stepped forwar
ds, her hand dropping to the hilt of her rapier, but Raiza caught her arm.
‘We are here to discover their leaders,’ she said, ‘not interfere.’
‘But they’re killing her!’ Ulrika whispered.
Raiza only looked at her. ‘You are far too human,’ she said.
Ulrika jerked away from her. ‘And you are far too cold!’ She started forwards again. Behind her, the swordswoman half-drew her sabre.
‘Will your vow to the boyarina break at the first testing?’
Ulrika stopped, her fists clenched. Had Raiza only threatened violence, she might still have gone forwards, but a vow made was stronger than steel, and cut deeper when broken. She cursed and stepped back, her jaw clenched.
‘It will not break,’ she said.
Raiza nodded and sheathed her sword. They returned their attention to the ceremony.
The crook-backed cultist was lowering the bottle towards the wailing girl as his followers shrieked their chant, and the unnatural updraft that lifted the victim off the ground was growing stronger, threatening to rip her hands and feet from the spikes. A strange white glow was pulling out of her body, stretching and fighting like a snail being pulled from its shell.
Then, so suddenly Ulrika almost missed it, the bottle jerked down of its own accord, tearing from the leader’s hands, and the open mouth of it struck the girl square on the sternum with a crack like a pistol shot, then stuck there. The girl screamed, a high bloodcurdling shriek, and the white glow ripped free of her body and was sucked into the bottle.
With a cry of triumph, the bent cultist corked it and held it high between his two hands as the staked girl flopped to the ground, dead and shrunken. The cultists cheered, basking in the white glow that pulsed inside the bottle.
Ulrika turned away, shaking, her mind flashing back to the girl she had found in the cellar in the ruins. There had been a bruised purple circle on her breast she had not known the cause of. Now she did.
‘They must all die,’ she said.
From below came a ringing voice. ‘Seven souls tonight, devoted!’
Ulrika looked back. It was the crook-backed cultist, speaking as he slipped the glowing bottle into a leather sack that already contained a handful of others.
‘Seven souls nearer to the hour of awakening,’ he continued. ‘The hour when all your dreams will be fulfilled. And tomorrow night, the last great hurdle to victory shall be cleared. The master’s most trusted acolytes will steal the Viol of Fieromonte from its hiding place, and the fall of Praag will be assured! All hail the master and the coming of the queen!’
Raiza inclined her head towards the crooked man as the cultists repeated the invocation.
‘We follow him,’ she said.
Ulrika nodded.
Crook-back held up his hands for silence. ‘But,’ he said, dropping to an ominous whisper, ‘we humble ones still have much to do to prepare for her coming, and we are beset by dangers on all sides. Only last night, our brothers in the Novygrad were attacked by a fiend who deprived us of a score of souls. What its intent was, none can say, but we cannot allow it to prevail.’
Ulrika smiled as the cultists muttered anxiously. She was tempted to reveal herself just to watch them flee in terror.
The crooked man thrust out a hand. ‘But do not fear, friends,’ he cried. ‘The master protects us all. Not even the undying can stand before him. Still, you must be vigilant, and report any stirrings in the shadows so he may deal with them. Have I your word on it?’
The cultists murmured their assent.
‘Very good.’ He turned and looked at them all in turn. ‘Now, hear me. Those lost sacrifices must be made up. We have many bottles yet to fill, and only days to do it. I call upon you to redouble your efforts. There are girls everywhere in this city. Reap them in the name of the master and for the glory of the queen.’
‘All hail the master!’ intoned the crowd. ‘All praise the coming of the queen!’
Ulrika growled under her breath. More dead girls. She would not allow it.
‘Bring these chosen at the appointed time,’ said the crook-backed man. ‘You will be informed of the next meeting place in the usual way. Now, go. Be vigilant and fruitful, and may the blessings of the Lord of Desire inspire you!’
‘We shall do the will of the Lord of Desire,’ murmured the crowd, bowing low, then turned away from the circle and started filtering towards the various exits.
Ulrika and Raiza paid them no mind. They focused entirely on the bent cultist, watching as he slung the sack of bottled souls over his hunched shoulder and started towards the temple door. Two hulking cultists fell in behind him, then stepped out the door to check the street. When they gave the all-clear, he started forwards again, then paused on the threshold and waved his hand.
A tension Ulrika hadn’t realised was pressing at her chest and eardrums suddenly released, and the air seemed to thin.
‘He has lowered the wards,’ said Raiza, then turned. ‘Now to the rooftops.’
Ulrika followed her to the office window and stepped up onto the sill. The walls above it were not smooth like those below. Crumbling brick and decorative pilasters made easy handholds. Ulrika expanded her senses as they climbed, searching for the man who had been watching from above, but his heart-fire was descending through the building, and the roof was empty when Ulrika and Raiza pulled themselves onto it.
They padded quickly to the other edge and looked down. The crook-backed cultist and his guards were leading three horses from a ruined building opposite the temple. The crooked man slung his pack over the saddlebow and they mounted and started off west towards the river.
Ulrika and Raiza loped after them, leaping from roof to roof with the Sorcerers’ Spire silhouetted in the distance by the two moons that rose behind it. Ulrika smiled as she ran and the night wind kissed her face. The bliss of unfettered movement, of having the grace she had once only dreamed of, filled her, and she nearly forgot why they followed the men, only revelled in the doing of it. She shot a look at Raiza as she ran beside her. The swordswoman’s face was as grim and emotionless as ever. Ulrika’s smile faded. Was this what awaited her down the road of her eternity – the loss of all joy? Would she too someday become as cold and unfeeling as a machine?
The cultist and his guards veered their horses into a northbound street. Raiza and Ulrika changed course to follow, but as they leapt a narrow alley, Ulrika saw something moving out of the corner of her eye and turned her head. A figure in cultist’s robes was bounding after them over the roofs, moving as swiftly as they were, and hurled something in Raiza’s direction.
‘Look out!’ Ulrika cried.
Her words had the wrong effect. The swordswoman slowed and turned to see what was the matter, and ended up directly in the path of the spinning object. Ulrika thrust out a desperate hand and shoved her, sending her windmilling aside, and the thing struck Raiza’s wrist instead of her heart. It was a dagger-sized shard of onyx.
Raiza shrieked in a voice Ulrika would not have expected to come from her, and crashed to the roof, clutching at her arm.
‘So fall all who seek our destruction!’ screeched the cultist, then turned and ran away across the roofs.
Ulrika sprang instinctively after him, snarling and drawing her sword, but to her shock, he increased the distance between them. It was impossible a normal man could be so fast and strong. His leaps were longer and stronger than hers. He was getting away!
‘Face me, coward!’ she cried, but he did not slow.
She sprinted gamely after him as he pulled ahead of her, sailing over streets and clearing chimneys with feet to spare, but then he disappeared over a high, steep-roofed tenement, and when she reached the peak and looked around, he was gone. She ran to each of the edges, looking down into the streets and alleys and extending her senses to search for his heart-fire, but she couldn’t feel it. He was already out of range.
With a curse, Ulrika turned and ran back the way she had come, retracing her steps as
a giddy violin played a wild tune somewhere far in the distance, barely audible over the sounds of the city.
‘I lost him,’ she said as she leapt onto the roof where she had left Raiza.
The swordswoman didn’t look up. She was slumped against a chimney with her sleeve pushed back to reveal her left wrist, and she was staring at it. Ulrika stared too, her heart constricting. Raiza’s hand and forearm were withered and shrunken. The muscle that should have covered her bones was nearly gone, and her skin hung loose from them like wet tissue. She could hardly contract her fingers.
‘Ursun’s teeth!’ said Ulrika. ‘What happened?’
‘Only a scratch,’ Raiza whispered dully. ‘Only a scratch…’
She trailed away and looked at the onyx shard that lay beside her. Ulrika swallowed. The thing had been black before, she was sure of it. Now it pulsed red at its core.
‘What is it?’ she asked, kneeling.
Raiza shook her head. ‘I know not. But it is worse than silver. It… it took a part of me – part of my essence. Had it struck my heart–’ She shuddered and looked up at Ulrika. ‘You saved my life. I will not forget.’
Ulrika reached out to help her up. ‘Come. I will see you home.’
Raiza accepted her arm and stood, but shook her head. ‘I will return on my own. Go after the hunchback. Follow him to their destination if you can. We must win something from this night.’ She stooped and picked up the sharp shard of onyx with her right hand. She moved like an old woman. ‘I will speak to the boyarina of this cult.’ She glanced at her withered wrist. ‘I believe I can convince her now of its danger. Now hurry.’
Ulrika saluted. ‘I’ll find him,’ she said, then turned and leapt to the next roof.
But she didn’t find the crook-backed man. In the time it had taken her to chase the assassin and return to Raiza, he and his men had vanished. She searched all the neighbouring streets and alleys from the rooftops, then dropped down to the ground and tried to follow them by scent. For a few blocks that worked, but then the trail led to the Grand Parade and was drowned in the smells of all the other horses, carts and people who had passed and were still passing along it.