The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books)

by Matthew Sprange

The light became brighter and voices louder as they ventured into the more populated areas of the Citadel. The corridor widened suddenly and opened onto a long balcony. Hugging the wall as he moved out into the open, Lucius saw they were in one of the keep’s large halls, the balcony running along three sides of the immense space to a long, wide staircase that ran to the ground floor.

  The hall’s floor was a war of order against confusion. Soldiers tried to assemble in tight ranks as their commanding officers gave them instructions for deployment within the city, while officials ran between desks, clutching bundles of parchment. To one side, wine and steaming food were being served to a group of richly dressed men and women – high-ranking members of the city’s government, Lucius supposed – while messengers and runners wound their way through the milling crowd, passing in and out of the many doors that lined the hall.

  Across the hall, on the other side of the balcony, Lucius saw another two of their assassination teams. He saw their leaders picking targets out from among the crowd and wished them luck striking a few Vos officials down before being discovered and forced to retreat. Beside him, Elaine hissed, and gestured to the wide staircase.

  In his full Final Faith regalia, the Preacher Divine had appeared, wreathed in white and trailing his red cloak behind him. Leaning on his staff, Alhmanic mounted the first few steps, then turned to face the churning mob, stretching out his arms to either side.

  “Silence!” His voice rang out across the hall, its deep tone cutting across all other conversation. Officers stopped giving orders; officials and servants instantly halted their own discussions mid-sentence.

  “This is a time of trial, my friends,” Alhmanic said, once he was sure everyone was paying him his due attention. “The criminal elements of the city have turned against us, as we knew they would. But they have made a grave error! For our prey have revealed themselves. Now, instead of sending our brave men into the darkest and dirtiest regions of the city, we can strike them down in a single evening!”

  “Would like to see you try,” Lucius heard Elaine mutter, and he smiled.

  “Remember this, all you of Faith,” Alhmanic continued, unaware that a number of assassins had already marked him for a dead man and were even now taking aim. “You do God’s work this evening, and your actions are blessed. Together, we will make this city a true child of the Empire, elevating Vos beyond our weak, decadent enemies in Pontaine.”

  The Preacher Divine went on, but the attentions of Lucius and Elaine were caught by Heinrich, who pointed out a single Vos officer. Wearing the gold epaulets and braid of the military, along with the cropped beard common among the higher ranks, he seemed unremarkable, perhaps no higher than a captain in rank. While that made him a viable target nonetheless, Lucius looked back at Heinrich quizzically.

  “That’s the Commander of the Citadel, I am sure,” Heinrich said.

  Elaine frowned. “You certain?”

  “The description fits.”

  “The uniform doesn’t,” Lucius pointed out, remembering the last commander he had faced, a rich and respected baron. The post of the Citadel’s commander was highly sought after, even though Turnitia was still technically outside the Empire’s borders. It was generally presumed that it would one day become another Vos city, in name as well as fact, and that meant there were plenty of opportunities here for an ambitious noble. As effective ruler of the city, the commander could do pretty much as he pleased.

  “I would say he has learned the lesson of his predecessor,” Heinrich said with a rare smile. “He is not drawing attention to himself.

  Holding up a hand, Heinrich caught the gaze of a leader in one of the other teams. The two assassins exchanged hand signals for a moment, then the other gave a nod of assent. Heinrich grunted.

  “Dressing down will not help the commander now. Come, we should move on.”

  Creeping along the wall, Heinrich led them to a thin spiral staircase set into the wall and started to descend, sword in hand and ready to spit anyone who should happen to be moving upwards. As Lucius set foot on the first stair, a shriek of pain behind made him look back.

  The assassins had started their attack, launching a barrage of knives and arrows at selected targets among the crowd below. Lucius followed an arrow as it lanced through the air and smacked into the Preacher Divine’s shoulder with a wet thud. The big man went down with a howl, dropping his staff and clutching at the wound as he rolled down the staircase.

  Elsewhere, the agents of Vos were falling with knives in their throats and backs, or else impaled on arrows and bolts. Gradually, they began to recover, officers ducking behind their own men as they assembled rough shield and crossbow lines, while others charged past the wounded Preacher Divine up the staircase to assault the balcony, but after their initial strike the assassins had already retreated. The two teams split and headed deeper into the interior of the keep to continue murdering ranking members of the Vos military and government.

  Nodding his satisfaction, Lucius dived into the spiral staircase before anyone thought to look in his direction. As he trotted down the stairs, circling around and again, he started to gain on Elaine, ahead of him. She passed by an entrance leading into the hall, just as a shadow clouded the threshold.

  A Vos soldier shoved his head inside the narrow space, having seen movement inside. He spotted Lucius rushing toward him and looked up, alarmed. Fumbling with his scabbarded sword, hindered in the enclosed space, the soldier opened his mouth to shout a warning to his allies in the hall, but was cut off by Lucius’ blade burying itself deep in one side of his chest. Lucius caught his fall and lowered him to the floor, glancing through the entrance to the hall.

  It had started to empty, with officials running for their lives and soldiers eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades on the assassins. No one was looking his way, and Lucius heaved the soldier’s body further into the staircase, lest it be spotted.

  There was nowhere else to stash the body, and Lucius knew it would soon be discovered. Trusting to fate, he carried on down the winding stairs into the foundations of the keep. As they opened into a wide, dank corridor, Lucius was greeted by Elaine’s withering stare.

  “For the love of all that is holy,” she whispered. “Keep up!”

  He shrugged in reply.

  Further along the corridor, Heinrich hissed at them to both be silent and, exchanging looks, Lucius and Elaine moved forward to join him.

  Deep beneath the Citadel, the corridors were walled with rougher stone, giving the walls an irregular appearance. The air was cool and damp, with fewer of the slow-burning torches bracketed to the walls. No doubt that helped provide an atmosphere of despair to those incarcerated within, but Lucius was thankful for the shadows they provided.

  Advancing cautiously up the corridor, they were soon brought to a halt by a raised palm from Heinrich. He glanced back and held up two fingers, then made a slicing movement across his throat. Two guards ahead.

  Straining into the gloom, Lucius picked out a set of alcoves a few yards ahead, though it took him a few more seconds to make out the forms of two soldiers, partly hidden in the recesses on either side of the corridor. Before he could ready his weapons, Heinrich and Elaine were already padding ahead, hugging the walls.

  Deciding that this was a task best left to professionals, Lucius hung back, ready to support either should their slaying go awry. He need not have worried.

  The two assassins moved slowly but with intent. Swords drawn, they held the blades back behind them, careful not to reveal their presence by an inadvertent flash of torchlight from the naked metal. They froze for a few seconds when the soldiers exchanged a few words, indistinct from where Lucius crouched, but the tone was one of complaint, perhaps a mutter about their shift patterns, locked into the dungeons while their colleagues swept through the city restoring order.

  When the assassins moved again, it was as one, and with speed. As Elaine dashed the last few feet to her target, Heinrich copied her motions on his
side of the wall. Lucius heard a gasp from the guards as each saw the other’s attacker, but the assassins whirled like tightly wound springs, their blades sweeping through the air to embed themselves in the soldiers’ stomachs. In the same movement, Elaine and Heinrich grabbed the soldiers’ mouths while twisting their swords, holding the men rigid with pain yet silent.

  They lowered the dying men to the floor, then slit their throats. The assassins pushed the bodies further into the alcoves, clearing the way. With luck, the bodies would not be found until the shift change.

  Pushing on, they were soon in the heart of the dungeon complex, passing cells filled with the misery of the city: traders who refused or were unable to pay their fines, beggars who had not given up their profession, murderers, rapists and drunkards, as well as those that Vos simply found unpleasant or inconvenient. Each cell was secured by a thick wooden door, the only view to the corridor outside through a tiny window set with metal bars. Lucius had spent time in one of these cells, and he did not envy those incarcerated within, oblivious as they were to his passing and that of the two assassins.

  The dungeon was quiet, and Lucius presumed most were asleep, or else sunk into the deep depression or half-sleep he had seen in those locked away for months on end without any hope of release. From some cells, they heard quiet snoring, from others gentle moans, though whether they were from pain, loss, or despair, Lucius could not tell. As he passed one cell door, no different from any of the dozens of others in the underground complex, he stopped and cocked his head. Something had caught his attention, and he concentrated to find the errant sound.

  “Lucius,” someone whispered.

  He looked up at the cell’s door, and opened his mouth in astonishment.

  “Harker, is it?” he said, trying to place the man’s face, half-hidden as it was by the bars set into the door.

  “Gods be praised,” Harker said. “It is you! I thought you Council types had forgotten all about us! You freeing everyone?”

  Lucius hesitated for a moment, and then considered the options. He had been part of a widespread break from the dungeons before and while many had been recaptured or killed in the attempt, some had made it out of the Citadel. Back then, they had not had the advantage of the Citadel, indeed the entire city, in total chaos.

  “Hold on, Harker,” he said, as he began to study the door and assess its weak points. He was no locksmith, and any magical method he might employ was sure to attract attention.

  “What are you waiting for?” Elaine asked, appearing at Lucius’ side. He glanced around, and saw Heinrich a little further ahead, looking back at him with impatience.

  “They’ve got thieves here,” he whispered.

  She looked at him incredulously. “Well, of course they have. Where do you think they put all the thieves they capture?”

  Lucius ignored the sarcasm. “Elaine, we have an army down here, if we release them.”

  “And we have a mission to perform right now,” she shot back.

  “But–”

  “The answer is no, Lucius,” she cut him off, then looked up at Harker. “Sorry, Harker, there are bigger things going on right now. You’ll have to wait a little longer.”

  For a second, Harker was speechless, then he found his voice.

  “You’ve got to be kidding...”

  Turning to look at the door, Lucius briefly considered the lock and what it would take to blast it apart, but Elaine saw his look and grabbed his arm.

  “I said no, Lucius,” she hissed, jerking him back up the corridor. “We free them later, when the mission is done, or not at all.”

  He threw an apologetic glance at Harker, then glowered at Elaine.

  “This isn’t right,” he said. “We can’t just leave our people here. They could be dead tomorrow – probably will be after what has happened this evening.”

  Elaine released his arm, and moved forward, ignoring his protests. He started forward, intending to reiterate his point, but was brought up short by Heinrich’s hand on his chest.

  “Shut up, right now,” the assassin said dangerously. “You give away our presence and I swear I’ll kill you right here. And don’t think she will give a damn.”

  Anger suddenly filled Lucius, but he bit his tongue, chafing under both Heinrich’s threat and his intimation of knowing Elaine’s mind. He had little doubt the two assassins knew what they were doing, but leaving Harker and God knew how many others behind to rot in the cells seemed criminal. The freedom of fellow thieves was a greater priority than the deaths of a few Vos officials, he thought.

  Gradually, the corridors of the complex began to appear cleaner and were certainly better lit. They were leaving the cells behind. Elaine still led the way, and Lucius noticed she had become more focussed, as if she were hunting and knew her prey was close.

  His suspicions were confirmed when she drew up short at a junction, and peered around the corner quickly. She turned back to glance at Heinrich, smiling.

  “He’s here,” she said quietly. “Three guards with him.”

  “Officer of the Dungeon?” Lucius asked.

  Heinrich gave him a look of annoyance. “Of course,” he eventually said.

  Lucius nodded. When he had heard that Elaine was intending to go down into the depths of the keep rather than the floors above, he had guessed her intended target. The Officer of the Dungeon, a title currently held by a man known as Jonas Traugott, or simply the Thug to those who had been incarcerated by him, would always be a man much hated by thieves. Jonas had come into the city at about the same time as the Preacher Divine, but had already gained a reputation for brutality and cruelty, treating anyone born in Turnitia as though they were less than human. It was widely believed that his methods of extracting information had been the principal means by which the Empire had found the thieves’ guildhouse.

  His death might not shake the Vos government of the city to its foundations, but it would be a gesture greatly appreciated by every thief still free, and might shape the attitude of his successor.

  “He’s mine,” Elaine said emphatically, and Heinrich made a sweeping gesture with his hand, indicating the officer was all hers.

  Heinrich and Lucius moved up so they were just behind Elaine, as she reached into a pouch and produced a handful of small pellets. They averted their eyes as she threw the pellets down the corridor.

  Lucius was aware of a bright flash around the periphery of his vision, like a sheet of lightning, but there was no sound other than startled cries from ahead. Led by Elaine, Lucius and Heinrich charged around the corner, sprinting to the chamber that lay just ahead.

  The chamber was small, but well-appointed. Rich rugs covered the floor, and the scattered tables were strewn with clothes, bottles, books, and food. There was a finely crafted lute propped up against one wall; above it, a framed picture of some distant landscape. The chamber was a little palace within the heart of the keep, all of it paid for with the goods and belongings confiscated from those locked up in the cells behind him.

  Four men were present in the room, chairs fallen among them. They staggered about the chamber, hands clasped to their eyes, blinded by the explosion of light.

  Leading the charge, Elaine and Heinrich hit the men without mercy. Elaine dodged a clumsy blow as a soldier lashed out with his fist, his eyesight beginning to return. She buried one sword in his thigh, and passed him as he fell to the floor howling in pain. She had eyes only for the Officer of the Dungeon, easily recognised by the gaudy gold trim he had added to his plain red Vos livery, and the cluster of rings worn on the fingers of both hands.

  Heinrich’s short sword finished off the man Elaine had downed, and he moved on to the next soldier, who had recovered his wits enough to scramble for his spear. Heinrich stamped on the weapon, and the soldier jumped backwards to avoid a vicious thrust.

  Moving further into the chamber, Lucius ducked a chair thrown by the third soldier and leapt onto the central table, scattering bottles and plates. The soldier was
panicked by the sudden assault, but recovered well, reaching for the first thing to come to hand. Advancing on Lucius, he swung the lute, grunting with the weight of the unwieldy instrument.

  Jumping down from the table, Lucius blocked the lute with his sword, but it smashed though his defence and slammed into his shoulder, sending him reeling. He ducked another swing, but was forced to step back, knocking into the table. As the soldier swung the lute for the third time, Lucius raised a hand to ward off the blow, but the instrument had too much force behind it.

  The tortured strings cried out and were silenced as the neck of the lute shattered against Lucius’ skull in a shower of splinters. Staggered by the blow, Lucius reeled, flailing with his sword to keep the soldier back.

  The soldier dropped the tattered remains of the lute, grabbed Lucius and threw him against the nearest wall. The impact jarred Lucius’ sword from his grip, but he retained hold of the dagger in his left hand. Shaking his head to clear the fog, Lucius saw the soldier advance, fists raised. Lucius held out a hand as if begging for a moment to recover, and the soldier gave him a cruel grin.

  As the soldier took another step forward, Lucius pushed off from the wall and sprang for the soldier. He took a punch to the side of the face, but grabbed the man’s tabard and plunged the dagger into his neck.

  Blood spurted across the chamber and, for a second, they stood face to face, the man looking blankly at him as if not comprehending that he had just been killed. Then, the soldier’s eyes glazed and Lucius released his grip, allowing the man to fall to the floor.

  He saw Heinrich had already dispatched the soldier he had faced, and had now turned to watch Elaine.

  “Stop playing with him, Elaine,” the assassin said with a note of reproach.

  The Officer of the Dungeon was scared, Lucius could see, and he flailed desperately with a short sword, trying to keep his attacker away. Elaine had scored several hits on him, and blood flowed freely down his arms, legs and chest. Another wound was gouged into his cheek, and Lucius had no doubt Elaine was trying to make a point, prolonging the man’s agony in return for all the cruelty he had handed out to his prisoners.