Shadowdance 05 - A Dance of Ghosts

by David Dalglish

  “I was a monster!” he shouted. “I thought you were too, but you fought for something. You bled for others. You’re bleeding again, Watcher, so tell me, who’s it for?”

  Simply breathing hurt, but Haern forced himself to his feet, stumbling backward to gain some space. Ignoring the pain, he stood tall and stared down the giant man. In his mind, he replayed that horrible moment when Senke had lurched forward, a blade piercing his chest. The way the pain had overtaken him. The way the life had left his eyes. Haern needed that rage again. He needed to remember why, no matter the cost, this man must die.

  “A monster?” he asked. “Is that what you want? Then raise your swords, Ghost. I’ll show you a monster.”

  Before either could move, Delysia stepped between them, a hand outstretched toward each.

  “Enough!” she cried. White light shone from her palms. “This fight ends now, I swear it. Drop your blades. The moment either of you moves against the other, I will take your life.”

  Haern could hardly believe the anger in her eyes. This was the man who’d killed her best friend … yet now she’d threaten murder to protect him? He couldn’t abide it. He couldn’t allow it. This man … this Ghost … deserved death. Every bone in his body knew it, every pounding of his heart screamed it.

  “Get out of the way, Delysia,” he said. “This must end; you have to understand that. I won’t let him live. If not now, then tomorrow, or the day after. Even if I have to hunt him down like an animal, he will die.”

  Opposite him and Delysia, Ghost remained tense, swords raised before his chest. The look on his face was impossible to read. He was waiting for the right moment, Haern decided. Watching for the perfect opening to attack.

  “Haern,” Delysia said, and he heard the pleading in her voice. Haern tightened the muscles in his legs, preparing for a leap. She wouldn’t hurt him. There was no way she’d choose to take his life to protect that monster.

  “No,” Ghost said, before Haern could lunge. “I won’t let you carry that sin, Delysia. That belongs to another.”

  Ghost launched forward, his speed surprising even Delysia. Haern panicked, convinced the man would kill her, and he raced across the ground as fast as his legs could carry him. As he watched, Ghost collided with Delysia before she could enact a spell. Instead of striking her, the giant man pushed her hands so her beam of light flashed harmlessly into the trees, then shrugged her aside with his elbow. Speed hardly slowing, Ghost continued on, eyes locked on Haern’s. Refusing to slow, Haern drew his blades and thrust for the man’s chest. He felt the anticipation building in him, the seductive excitement of battle. This was it. This exchange would define them, reveal whose skill was greatest. As his swords closed in, he was already mentally calculating the defenses Ghost would take and how to counter them.

  Instead, Ghost spread his arms, ensuring an opening.

  Haern’s sabers jammed between his ribs, pierced both lungs, and then tore through the flesh of his back. Ghost’s body slammed into him, but Haern let out a scream and pushed his legs to remain standing. The other man draped over him, his weight entirely supported, as warm blood poured across Haern’s hands, down his wrists, and to the ground below. Lifting his head, Ghost coughed more blood, spewing it across Haern’s cloak.

  “The better monster,” said Ghost with the last of his ragged breath.

  In the distance, as if in another world entirely, Haern heard Delysia scream.

  Haern shifted so Ghost dropped to his back, the sabers easily sliding out of him. So very still, he lay there, blood dribbling from his lips. From the corner of his eye, Haern saw Delysia rushing toward him, healing light already glowing on her fingertips. He thought of Ghost surviving a second time, stealing away his kill, denying him his retribution.

  “No,” Haern said, and he lifted a bloody saber and pointed it her way. She froze, the tip hovering inches away from her neck. “He dies.”

  Delysia met his gaze, and her fury nearly overwhelmed him. Pure stubbornness kept him there as he listened to the wet coughs of Ghost dying. Slowly, the priestess stepped forward, until the tip of Haern’s saber pressed against her throat. Ghost’s blood dripped upon her, the scarlet startling against the paleness of her flesh and the white of her robes. Not once did her eyes leave his.

  “Move,” she said. That was it, but her voice carried such authority, Haern trembled. He pulled the weapon back, and he suddenly felt aware of what he’d just done.

  “Del,” he said. “Del, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  But she was already past him, ignoring his words and kneeling down next to Ghost, who had begun convulsing. Despite the miracles she could perform, Haern knew the man was too far gone. Knitting back torn flesh would do nothing for the terrible blood loss Ghost had already suffered, and that ignored the damage to the lungs. It seemed Delysia knew it too, for she did not bother attempting. Instead, she put her forehead against Ghost’s, and the man’s gaze turned toward her. Amid the convulsions of his body, he tried to say something, but all that came out were dying gasps. Delysia was praying, though Haern could not hear what. Suddenly, she leaned back, and she stared right into Ghost’s eyes.

  “Lawrence,” she said, brushing her fingers across his face. “Your name was Lawrence. You may die, but it won’t be nameless.”

  It seemed an immediate change came over him. Ghost’s convulsions stopped, his mouth closed, and with gaze unmoving from Delysia’s beautiful face, he slowly let out one last gasp and then lay still. Delysia bowed her head, once more pressing her forehead to his, and then she slowly rose to her feet. Her back was to Haern, her shoulders slumped, her long red hair like a shroud. With Ghost’s passing, it seemed the forest had fallen unnaturally quiet.

  “He came to me,” Delysia said softly. “Came hoping I’d kill him. What have you done, Haern?”

  “I took the life of a terrible, loathsome murderer,” Haern said, voice rising. “Have you forgotten what he did to you, to Tarlak? That man killed Senke, butchered him like a piece of meat, and then mocked me for it. He called me a monster, even as Senke bled out at his feet. That Ghost was alive at all is my fault, and consider this me correcting that error.”

  She stepped toward him, and when he reached for her arms, she shoved him away.

  “He was so close,” she said. “So close. How could you? How could you!”

  Her fists rained down upon his chest. There was something he was missing, he realized, but he felt too angry to bother, too frustrated to care. Would Delysia have him spare the life of every single thief and murderer he went up against? Would she have him live a secluded life free of his role as the Watcher? When he came back from Angelport, she’d given him her blessing, said she understood the bloodshed.

  “I kept you from making a mistake,” Haern said as her blows slowed, came to a stop. “That’s all. I had to do it. If you spared his life, I’d only take it again. He deserves no better for what he did to me, what he did to you.”

  “I forgave him, Haern; don’t you get it? Of course he deserved no better. Lawrence was a poor, broken thing on his knees, and I forgave him. But you just couldn’t let it go, could you? You couldn’t let it go…”

  “Of course not!” Haern said. “People like him don’t change, Delysia. They don’t escape their pasts, and they don’t magically become better men. Those with blood on them keep it all their lives. He killed our friend, Del, our family, or do you not remember?”

  “I remember,” she said, stepping away from him, her arms crossed over her chest. “I remember when a little boy knelt before me days after helping kill my father.”

  It was a cold knife she stuck into him.

  “This isn’t the same,” he said, anger growing white-hot in his chest.

  “It is. I forgave him, just like I forgave you.”

  “He wasn’t yours to forgive!” Haern screamed. “Do you think Senke meant nothing to me? Ghost’s life or death, it wasn’t in your hands, his hands, Karak’s, Ashhur’s, no one’s hands
but mine. I left him alive. I failed to kill him. That he somehow survived was—”

  “A gift?” asked Delysia. Haern froze, and he felt his heart leap into his throat. “Not from the gods, but from you. Is that right, Haern?” Tears began to swell in her eyes, and though she knew her next words would hurt, she said them anyway.

  “Your father would be so proud.”

  The image of her jerking forward, an arrow piercing her chest, flashed before his eyes.

  “That’s not fair,” Haern said, and he felt his face flushing, felt as if his mind were raw. “Don’t you dare be that cruel. All my life, I’ve wanted to be better than that, to be anything other than what he’d have me be. I’ve clung to Ashhur’s teachings, but nightfall in Veldaren is not a place for mercy and forgiveness. It doesn’t work, Delysia, you know that; you can’t be that naïve.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, every word, and he knew it the moment they left his lips. Delysia stared at him, and it seemed her entire body had grown rigid. He reached out to her, wanting to hold her, to find some way to tell her that he knew he was being stupid, but she slapped his hand away. He reached again, and she repeated the slap, pointing a finger at him, her green eyes wide, the tears in them long since fallen and gone.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “You just … stay away from me for a while.”

  “Delysia,” he said, but what else did he have to say? That he was sorry he’d killed Ghost? But he wasn’t, and he wouldn’t lie to her. She’d sense it immediately and just distance herself further. The priestess weaved through the trees, heading for the distant path.

  “Delysia!”

  She paused, and he watched her take in a deep breath before she turned to face him.

  “You once told me that as long as I was there for you, as long as I could forgive you, you would endure,” she said. “That you’d remember who you were and believe you were still worth saving. You wanted me to be there for you, but I’m not sure I can. If I’m so naïve, if I’m not part of your world, then I can’t be the one to help you remember who you are. Someone else has stolen that place from me.”

  He started toward her, but her glare held him back.

  “You have a body to bury,” she said, and then she returned to the road, leaving him alone in the silence.

  Haern felt his anger bubbling up, overwhelming him, keeping his anguish at bay. Like a statue he stood, watching Delysia until she was gone. At last, he could control himself no longer. Turning to Ghost’s corpse, he drew his sword again.

  “Why couldn’t you stay dead?” he asked it, falling to his knees and plunging the sword into Ghost’s unmoving chest. Ripping out the blade, he jammed it in, again and again. “You bastard! You were dead, four years you were dead, so why now?” He beat the corpse with his fist, punctuating his words. “Why … now!”

  There was gore all over him, and Haern leaned back, feeling so tired, so very tired.

  “I’m not him,” he told the quiet forest. “I’m not the same. I’ve only done what was necessary. I’m better than him, better than he could ever be!”

  But there was no one there to argue, no one to call him a liar or believe his words to be true. So, alone Haern stayed, pulling up the soft earth to bury Ghost, using the man’s swords to mark his grave. By the time he was done, the night was deep, the cicadas in full rhythm. Hiding from the stars, Haern slept wrapped in his cloak, but even its comfort was meager, for it stank of drying blood.

  CHAPTER

  29

  It was a meeting Alyssa could put off no longer. She went to her room and sat down on the bed beside Nathaniel, who’d been waiting there per her request.

  “Is everything all right?” her son asked. Alyssa wrapped the boy in her arms, holding him against her as she struggled for the right words.

  “It will be,” she said. “I promise, it will be.”

  That was it; she had nothing more for him, but she’d wanted him close for a moment, to remind herself why she did what she was about to do.

  “Go on,” she said. “And tell one of the servants to find Lord Victor and show him to my room.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Nathaniel said. He slipped off the bed, and she heard his feet pad across the carpet to the door. It creaked open, he spoke softly to someone, and then silence. Alyssa sat amid it, trying to keep her heart steady.

  “Zusa?” she asked. “Are you there?”

  Only more silence. Good. She didn’t want Zusa near, not for this. That would come later. One struggle at a time.

  The door opened, and she heard a man clear his throat.

  “Milady?” asked Victor.

  “Shut the door,” Alyssa said, hands squirming in her lap. Victor had been visiting nearly every day since he’d come with Antonil’s help to free her from John and Melody’s imprisonment. She now did her best to greet him warmly, but still she felt uncomfortable in his presence. Too much of his true self remained guarded, and what she could glimpse was tainted with frightening zeal.

  When the door was shut, she heard his heavy footsteps lead toward her, then pause in the center of her bedroom. He had nowhere to sit, and she knew he would not be presumptuous enough to sit beside her on the bed.

  “Matters appear to have settled down significantly,” Victor said after clearing his throat. “Muzien has not repeated his spectacle at the marketplace, and what information I can gather shows him carefully guarding anyone who pledges money to him for protection.”

  “Such a benevolent ruler,” Alyssa said, unable to hold back a bitter smile.

  “There’s some truth to that, sadly,” Victor said. “But we know better. His extortions are far from extreme, his greed bearable, because it’s not coin he wants. It’s power. If we bend our knee to him and offer coin for protection, does it matter if we give one or a thousand, so long as our knee is bent?”

  Alyssa shook her head, thinking of how the elf had sneaked into her room. He treated everything like an amusing game, and they were but interchangeable pieces. When Victor had come to her after Melody’s death, he’d tentatively suggested paying the protection money Melody had promised. He’d been so nervous, so fearful to offend, it had made Alyssa laugh in his face.

  A show of strength meant nothing if she could not back it up. There would be a time to resist the elf, but it wasn’t now, with her house in shambles. If she was to make enemies out of an elf who, by all accounts possible, now ruled the entirety of Veldaren, she’d do it when victory could be hers.

  “Have you heard any rumblings from John Gandrem?” she asked, trying to push Muzien from her mind and talk on matters more immediate.

  “None so far,” Victor said, and by his footsteps and moving voice, she could tell he was pacing. “He’s still upset, to be sure, but more that you’d question his honor. He really did feel he was doing what was best, but now that Melody is out of the picture, he’s willing to let bygones be bygones, you might say.”

  Alyssa sighed. She’d thought about executing John for his part in everything, but Victor had insisted she hear him out. John had calmly but firmly declared his respect for her and his love of her son. Everything he did, it’d been lawful and just, and had he not ordered his men to stand down come Victor’s attack to free her? Given her drastic lack of allies, Alyssa had allowed him to escape without major punishment, though she’d still banished him from ever setting foot inside her home again, as well as promising no further contact with Nathaniel until he came of age. It was a slap on the wrist in her mind, but at least it didn’t seem John was actively trying to replace her, nor spreading foul rumors or hateful speech.

  “Victor,” she said, trying to find the right words. She sensed him straighten up, as if he too sensed the importance of what she sought to say. “After everything that’s happened … are you still willing to fight against the guilds?”

  Victor cleared his throat before answering.

  “I am,” he said. “Perhaps not in the way I started, but my resolve has not broken.”


  Alyssa rose from the bed, and she walked in the direction of his voice, hand outstretched. His hand touched her arm when she neared, as if letting her know of his position, and she then put her fingers against the side of his face. She used it to see him, to remember the blue of his eyes, the strength of his stare. A man who would refuse to allow even death to deny him success. A man fueled by a righteous fury.

  “Let me hear you say it,” she said. “Tell me Muzien will not destroy us. Tell me you’ll have his head on a pike before the gates, along with all others of the damn guilds that have torn our lives apart.”

  “I swear it,” said Victor, and his tone gave her chills. “I swear it on the grave of my parents, swear it on the lives of every single one of my men who’s died bringing them to justice. Their time must end.”

  “And my son,” she said, voice softening. “Would you protect him as well?”

  It seemed he was beginning to understand what was happening, and he took both her hands in his.

  “He’s a smart lad, kind and honest,” Victor said. “I would be honored to raise him as my own.”

  Alyssa took in a deep breath. This was it, then. Her decision was made, her heart committed.

  “Then I wish to accept your offer of betrothal,” she said.

  “Wonderful,” he said, then after a pause, “Wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  She wished she could feel the same. Not that she’d expected love and romance to be the reason for a marriage, not since Mark Tullen’s death and Arthur Hadfield’s betrayal years ago, but this felt less like the joining of equals and more like her attaching herself to a train of horses stampeding down a hill.

  “Indeed, truly wonderful,” Alyssa said, not bothering to fake any enthusiasm. “I’ll contact Terrance and have him begin the preparations for a wedding. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you as well, in regard to any customs or requests…”

  “I do have one,” he said, interrupting her.