The Night Parade

by Scott Ciencin

  “Krystin,” Ord said, “am I boring you?”

  She glanced up from the locket, her eyes only half open, as she heard a noise from the table. For a moment she thought the serving dish had moved of its own accord, then she dismissed the thought as ludicrous.

  “No, of course you’re not boring me,” she said. “I’m sorry. I must be terrible company. Do you want to sup with the others?”

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he warned. “I intend to recite the tale of how I was first indoctrinated into the Harpers at our secret base in Berdusk, the Twilight Hall, as many times as it takes to get a smile from you, even if it’s one that’s totally manufactured.”

  Without warning, he reached over and gently touched the corner of her mouth, causing her to smile broadly and look down in embarrassment. She heard the lid of the covered dish slide a few inches, then convinced herself that she was hearing sounds from another table.

  “I got it the first time,” she said. “Storm Silverhand did not realize that the floors had been mopped, and as she approached to pin the symbol of the Harpers upon your breast—the silver harp sitting within the crescent of a silver moon—she slipped and impaled you with it. Thus you earned your first scar in the service of the Harpers.”

  “It was an auspicious beginning, I was told by Burke.”

  “I fully agree,” she said, reaching for the covered dish. Her mind did not register that the dish shuddered ever so slightly before her hand closed upon the lid’s knob. She drew the curved metal covering from the plate and revealed a pair of intertwined, pulsating abominations. The creatures turned their lazy heads in Krystin’s direction as she screamed.

  Less than a hundred feet away, at the table that appeared to be occupied solely by a young man who spoke discreetly to himself, a second man suddenly appeared. The shock of Krystin’s scream had destroyed the concentration Lucius needed to maintain his spell of invisibility. The mage cursed himself for committing such an amateurish mistake and immediately restored the magic that kept him unseen. The momentary lapse was all that Alden had needed. His blade was drawn and already slicing through the air before Lucius had completed his spell. A second after Cardoc disappeared, Alden plunged the blade deep into the man’s chest and a spray of blood spattered the clean white tablecloth. Lucius reappeared, his fingers moving, his lips shaking as he tried to complete another spell in a hushed whisper. The blade had missed the mage’s heart and was lodged just below that vital organ. Alden reached up and twisted the blade, causing Lucius to bellow in agony as he fell forward, the weight of his body driving the blade deeper into his chest. His hands clawed the tablecloth, which now contained an ever-widening blossom of rose-red blood, and he fell to the ground, the cloth falling upon him like a shroud.

  “Assassins!” Alden shouted as he stumbled back, the word drawing the undivided attention of the visiting mercenaries, traders and wanderers who had gathered for eveningfeast. Although the word had been spoken in Common and had counterparts in almost every language, the sight of Lucius Cardoc’s still form, covered by the white sheet that was now soaked red, conveyed the meaning all too well. Hundreds of people bolted from their chairs and a panic erupted. Soldiers from the east spied emissaries from rival countries and attacked them without warning, deciding that they were the assassins in question. Once new blood was drawn, a frenzy began. Drawn swords, oaths to gods, and promises of agonizing death filled the outdoor eatery. Minor scuffles and disagreements sprang up as the walkways became congested with people trying to escape the random knife or arrow that certainly would be loosed by the assassins.

  Only a handful of people within the crowd understood that there were no assassins; not the sort that had been imagined, anyway. These individuals were capable of the same emotions as the humans that flooded past, but, in truth, they were not human. They were emissaries of the Night Parade, and their moment of retribution had come.

  Two members, a red-haired man whose flesh was covered in sweat and a lissome, dark-haired woman with eyes that housed terrible secrets, stood together in the shadows provided by the tents housing the chefs and their delicacies. The couple held hands and watched as their hand-picked warriors needled their way through the crowd and found Erin Shandower lying on the ground. The Slayer had been kicked and stepped on by the crowd that was hurrying to leave the killing ground.

  Shandower had retained consciousness despite the toxins in his system. The gauntlet that was fused to his flesh burned with a blinding, blue-white luminescence. Cords of green energy erupted from his clenched fist and wove themselves about his body. He looked as if he were being attacked by an army of snakes composed of emerald fire. The crackling green strands of energy disappeared within his flesh, and his body was racked with convulsions. After a few seconds, the shuddering stopped and Shandower rose, his face pale, his legs uncertain. The magic of the apparatus had burned the poison from his body. He was jostled by several members of the panicked crowd, then he raised his glowing fist into the air and shouted, “Come for me now, you bastards!”

  He was only vaguely aware of the figure that suddenly appeared at his back and the whistling of a sword through the air. Shandower heard something fall, a heavy object that dropped into a sack. Then he looked at his left arm and saw that his hand and half of his forearm were no longer there. The stump that remained spurted blood. Fighting off a tide of nausea, Shandower shoved his right hand over the wound, applying as much pressure as he could. The blood continued to flow, but not as quickly.

  He turned to find the pair of monsters who had taken his weapon, wondering why they had not taken his head rather than his hand. A giddy excitement overcame him as he found himself sliding down into shock. Shandower congratulated himself on the calm manner in which he was taking the loss of his hand, the butchering of his body. In another moment, he was certain, he would start laughing, then the screaming would begin.

  Suddenly another figure was beside him, a man.

  “Shandower!” Reisz cried, his initial shock quickly fading as he grabbed a tablecloth, tore off several strips, and wrapped them around the man’s bloody stump. Reisz hastily created a tourniquet by tying the edges around the wound and pulling them tight. He quickly explained that Myrmeen had left him to check on Krystin.

  “Our guard was relaxed,” Shandower said as he fought off the rising delirium that threatened to overcome him. “We didn’t think they would attack in public, when it was light.”

  “They’re still here,” Reisz hissed. “There’s no time.”

  Despite his pain, Shandower understood. They had to retreat as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  “Join the crowd,” Shandower said. “We must retrieve my weapon. Without it—”

  “Stop talking. I’ll get it,” Reisz said as he threw his arm around Shandower’s back and helped the man. They merged with the flow of people still trying to escape the pockets of violence that bloomed throughout the court.

  At a more remote table, Myrmeen had arrived to find Krystin and Ord fighting for their lives against a pair of skinless monstrosities. Startled, Myrmeen saw that the creatures appeared to grow and diminish as they fought to rake open the throats of her daughter and the thin, brown-haired young man who tried to act as her defender. The inhuman creations that attacked the young pair looked like men whose flesh had been stripped from their bones then replaced with rotted chunks of spoiled meat. Their eyes burned with a dull, blood-red glow. Ord swung his sword in wide arcs, keeping the monsters at bay, while Krystin stood ready with a pair of daggers. A man lay at their feet, apparently an innocent who had wandered into the creatures’ path in his attempt to flee.

  Myrmeen noticed that Krystin’s arm was bleeding from a very deep gash. The artery had not been severed, but the wound was a serious one. The girl looked as if she might faint at any moment.

  Shouting her daughter’s name, Myrmeen launched herself at the closest of the abominations, drawing her sword in midstride. She dropped to her knees and
swung her sword at the monster’s knees as the creature lashed out with its talons.

  A sharp crack filled the air as Myrmeen’s sword hit home, biting through the bone and cartilage of her victim’s right knee and the hard, leathery muscle of its left thigh. Neither limb was severed outright, but the creature toppled backward as Myrmeen yanked her bloody sword from the monster. Before she could cross to the second creature, who had not allowed its partner’s distress to deter it from its mission, Ord rushed forward, stepping between the creature still standing and Myrmeen, raised his own sword, and brought it down on the fallen abomination’s neck.

  “Krystin!” Myrmeen shouted helplessly. Because of Ord, the creature would be upon the girl before Myrmeen could reach her. For an instant her gaze locked with that of her daughter. The absolute dread that Myrmeen felt at the thought of losing the girl whom she had gone through so much to find—the child who eventually might fill the empty hollow that passed for her heart—translated into an expression of undistilled love and primal fear. The expression startled Krystin, but she quickly recovered and moved forward to deal with the threat from which her mother could not save her.

  In those critical seconds, as the monster raced at her, Krystin reacted as she had been trained to by Myrmeen. She bent her legs slightly at the knee and planted them with exactly the right amount of space between her feet. Then she flipped both of her blades so that she held them by the sharp, cold metal of their flats. Staring at the creature’s eyes, she launched the daggers. Her wound made her flinch as she released them and only the first blade struck true, piercing the soft red orb of the creature’s left eye. The second blade opened a bloody rivulet across the right side of its face, then clattered to the ground. The skinless creature threw its head back and howled in pain.

  Myrmeen finally made her way past Ord and the member of the Night Parade that he had dispatched. Krystin was weaponless. Before the half-blind creature could retaliate for Krystin’s attack, Myrmeen drove her sword through its torso. The dying thing grabbed the blade’s hilt, and Myrmeen sawed it back and forth until the creature released its grip and fell back to lie beside its dead partner.

  She wondered why it had been so easy to kill this pair. Compared to the monsters they had faced in the alley behind the counting house, these two seemed like little more than a distraction, though a potentially lethal one.

  Ord stood, pleased with himself. “That’s one less of those murdering bags of filth that we have to—”

  “Shut up,” Myrmeen said, her chest heaving. Ord fell silent in surprise, a hurt expression clouding his features. He had stopped Myrmeen from getting to Krystin and she had nearly been killed because of him. Krystin, however, had not died. She had performed like a warrior. Myrmeen turned to her daughter. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Krystin was speechless. Myrmeen shook her head and added, “Come on. We have to see to the others.”

  Suddenly a high-pitched scream erupted from the opposite side of the court. Myrmeen looked up and noticed that, except for the men who had started fights with other humans, the number of people at the Lathe had thinned out considerably. She was able to see two nondescript men standing near a heavy bag glowing blue-white. The first man looked down at his hands as if they had betrayed him. Collapsing to his knees before the bag, the man slumped forward and landed to the parcel’s side. His partner, a heavier man who carried a recently blooded broadsword, looked down at the bag in alarm. When a tongue of green fire cut through the heavy sack and licked at the air before the second man’s face, he turned and ran.

  “The gauntlet,” Myrmeen whispered as she futilely scanned the area for signs of Shandower, Reisz, or Lucius. She assumed that if the Night Parade somehow had gained possession of Shandower’s weapon, they had taken it from his corpse. If that were the case, she would need the arcane weapon to ensure her friends’ safety as they retreated from Calimport and sought the Harpers in Berdusk for assistance. Her words were strident as she commanded, “Follow me.”

  Although many of the eatery’s patrons had left the area, a large number had remained and had formed a circle of spectators, settling less than two hundred yards away. From their vantage, they could see all that transpired without exposing themselves to danger. Myrmeen looked at the members of the crowd, the quick-tempered fighters who had started a handful of brawls and continued to battle even now, oblivious to all else, and even the eatery’s staff, who had come from the kitchen to watch the proceedings with interest. She knew that every person in the area could be a Night Parade abomination in human form.

  A figure appeared before her. She raised her sword instinctively, then lowered it again as she saw the look of concern in the eyes of the boy whose hair was the color of sawdust.

  “Alden,” Myrmeen said in relief. The young man seemed unhurt, despite the flecks of blood on his shirt. Lucius had been with Alden, and memories of the mage rescuing them from the ambush behind the counting house flooded her mind. “Where’s Lucius?”

  Alden shook his head and glanced at the earth. “Dead.”

  Fourteen

  The news struck her hard. Myrmeen thought of her private talk with Lucius and the revelation that he had a family that even the Harpers apparently knew nothing about. Who would tell them? she thought, and who would be there to comfort his children when they woke in the night? Myrmeen forced such thoughts away. She could not deal with them now.

  “Where’s his body?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alden replied innocently.

  “Alden, we have to take Shandower’s weapon and leave. Have you seen Erin or Reisz?”

  “I haven’t,” Alden said, lying expertly.

  Krystin touched Myrmeen’s arm. “The glove was fused to his arm. If that’s the glove, then his hand is still—”

  “I know,” Myrmeen said in disgust, “but it has to be done.”

  Breaking from the others, Myrmeen closed the distance separating her from the gauntlet, which had become encased in a sphere of blue-white energy that crackled with strands of green fire. The power within the glove was blossoming out of control, and Myrmeen realized that Shandower had not been summoning the power, but had been holding it in check. She knelt before the weapon. The glove was empty. If they had taken his arm to separate him from the gauntlet, no trace of meat or bone remained. Myrmeen was afraid that her own flesh would melt away if she touched the arcane weapon, then decided that she had no choice if she was going to safeguard her daughter’s life.

  She reached out and touched the glowing metal. It was warm, but it did not burn her. Snatching the weapon from the ground, she turned and motioned for the others to follow.

  “Alden, do you know a place where the Night Parade will not follow? They know about you now. It must be a place you would not normally go.”

  “Yes,” he said absently. “I can think of a place.” She took a step in his direction and he moved back suddenly, absently cutting a glance at the weapon in her hands. Krystin and Ord had not moved at all. Alden shuddered as he looked around. “I suppose we should get out of here before more of those things arrive.”

  “Hold this for me,” Myrmeen said to Alden, her instincts alerting her that something was very wrong with the young man. She held out the gauntlet, and Alden shrank away, raising his hand before his face.

  “Go on,” Krystin urged. “Take it. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Alden said softly, sweat breaking out on his pale skin. A blanket of ochre hung above the city, beneath the clouds, and a soft breeze had gathered at the companions’ backs. Alden ground his hands together. “I don’t want to touch it. I’m afraid.”

  “Why should you be afraid?” Ord asked, suspicious.

  Unexpectedly, Alden ran, waving his right hand over his head. He was signaling someone, Myrmeen realized. She heard shouts and turned her attention to the crowd that had gathered nearby. A dozen men dressed in the armor of the local guard broke through the crowd, ordering them to disperse or face a penalty. Th
e crowd broke up swiftly and the soldiers shouted a command that Myrmeen did not recognize as they broke into a dead run, charging at Myrmeen with weapons drawn. She turned to run and saw a half dozen men who had been fighting at another table standing close, bows drawn, arrows nocked.

  They were trapped. Alden had stopped less than twenty yards from the group. He watched his former allies with his lips pressed together, his hands wringing anxiously, his expression dark and cold.

  “This could have been simple,” he said. “Why didn’t you just go along? They promised it would be quick, no pain. But they needed a human to carry the glove.”

  His fingers were twitching so quickly that they had become a blur. Alden shifted back and forth on his heels, moving with such incredible speed that he seemed to wink out of existence in one position and reappear in another. His teeth chattered, and his body shook with his inner conflict. He struggled not to say the words that had been left in his mind by Lord Sixx, but failed.

  “My masters have instructed me to give you a message before you die,” he said. “Death is only the beginning. We will take your souls and they will live on in torments worse than any found in Cyric’s kingdom.”

  “Bastard!” Krystin shouted as she flung herself at Alden. Ord grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back, noticing the bloody gash in her arm for the first time. The soldiers were coming closer.

  Ord glared at the young man. “What about your fancy words—sticking with your own kind?”

  Alden smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  Myrmeen thought of the ceremony they had performed, with all the Harpers touching the gauntlet. Alden had revealed himself afterward and had never touched the weapon.

  The blond youth’s expression suddenly changed. His cruel sneer dropped away and was replaced by a desperate, frightened look. “I only learned of my true blood today,” he said in a strangled cry before he turned and ran off, leaving them to face their enemies alone.