NIghtbird (Empire of Masks Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  Dorian stabbed out at a man fumbling with a canvas bag. He spitted the man and bag with his void lance, mildly curious about the black sand that spilled out. The other sailor swung his large ramrod like a staff. Dorian ducked the wild swing, and his spectral whip lashed out and wrapped around the crewman’s neck.

  The man released his hold on the ramrod and clutched at his throat as the whip squeezed off his air supply and froze his blood. The ramrod made a single revolution in its flight before striking a lantern secured to a post. The glass shattered and flaming oil rained down, striking the spilled powder.

  Dorian turned his back the instant the powder flared, wrapped his body in tangible shadow, and ran. He managed to take two long strides before the powder store behind the retracted cannon ignited. The explosion lifted him from his feet and sent him hurtling headlong across the deck. He struck a wall, the impact and concussion dampened by his shadow ward. Dorian struggled to his feet and beheld the gaping hole in the side of the airship.

  The damage must have created a serious failure as the vessel began to list. Dorian threw out an arm to steady himself and made for the stairs back to the top deck. This ship was sinking, and he was not about to go down with it.

  ***

  Captain Janis Forney stood at the top of the stairs leading up to her position on the sterncastle, aiding her crew’s slow retreat to higher ground. With a pistol in each hand, she took aim at the nearest grey-skinned brute and split its head asunder. She handed the spent weapon to a crewman for reloading as she leveled the second gun and buried the heavy shot into another Ulec’s broad, bare chest.

  As she reached back for another pair of loaded pistols, a massive explosion rocked the Aigle. The airship listed hard and forced Janis to grab the rail or risk being sent tumbling across the deck as the pistols she had been reaching for were doing now.

  “Mr. Boyce?” she called out to the pilot.

  “It’s bad, Captain!” Winoc replied, answering the question Janis needn’t ask. “The heart stone is intact but we’ve got a major breach that’s destroyed too many techno-scribings. We’re going down hard.”

  Janis searched for the enemy airship and saw a black form leap over the side and make an impossible jump to his vessel. She climbed her way along the rail and clambered across the listing deck to her pilot.

  “Do you have any control whatsoever?”

  Winoc pressed his lips into a thin line. “Not much. With any luck, I can get us to the ground alive, but it ain’t good odds for any betting man.”

  Janis gauged the battle still raging on the decks below. “There’s no landing for us, Mr. Boyce. I don’t know what these monsters are, but I’ll not allow them to live to terrorize our people. Ram that shrieking monstrosity and send these demons back to the Tormented Plane from whence they came.”

  Winoc nodded once. “Aye, Captain. Been good serving with you.”

  “And you, Mr. Boyce.”

  ***

  Dorian gathered power from his soul stone, wrapping himself in darkness until he was little more than a shadow, and flew across the gulf between airships. Not completely incorporeal, he struck the Tormentor’s deck hard and let his inertia roll him across the hard planking to absorb much of the impact.

  He got to his feet and made his way to where Jasso wrestled with the controls. “What is our status?”

  “Marginally better than theirs. Whatever you did to their ship, you broke her back and she’s going down, but we won’t be far behind her.”

  Dorian looked to the stricken airship and frowned. The bulk of his warriors were aboard that sinking ship and he hated to lose them. His invasion force would be down to him, Jasso, and less than a score of Ulec. No matter, it would be enough. His plans to cripple if not conquer at least one of their cities before contacting his mother never required simple force of arms.

  “Move us away. I do not want to get caught in any death throes they might have the energy to— ”

  “Brace!” Jasso shouted.

  The Aigle had turned her bow to point directly at them and, in a final burst of speed, hurtled toward the Anguish. Jasso tried to steer clear, but the airship fought his commands, too damaged from the cannon barrage to comply. In a desperate attempt to avoid a collision, he released his control over the gravity inversion that allowed the vessel to fly.

  However, the Aigle had already commanded the higher elevation and matched his near freefall. The bow struck the wailing ship’s upper deck just forward of the mainmast. What had been the wailers’ keening became a death knell as both airships plummeted from the sky. The two Necrophages added their own stores of power to what remained of the airships and managed to force the two apart—but not in time.

  The Aigle dropped away as Jasso and Dorian fought to reverse gravity’s hold on their vessel. Just a few hundred feet below them, the Aigle shattered against the red stone poking out of the sand in a preview of their own fate. Dorian’s stomach lurched and felt as though it was trying to crawl its way out of his body as their fall rapidly slowed. For a brief moment, he thought they had managed to stave off disaster. Then the world exploded around him and a heavy curtain of darkness dropped over them all.

  CHAPTER 14

  The door to Commandant Reto Vanos’ office opened with unusual abruptness.

  Sherman, a low-ranking gendarme tasked to be his personal attendant, stood in the doorway. “Commandant Vanos, Sah Bertram—”

  Bertram pushed past the agitated man, bumping him soundly with his shoulder as he barged into the room and took a seat in front of Reto’s enormous desk. “You requested my presence, Commandant?”

  Reto waved his secretary away and scowled at Bertram. “I ordered it two days ago.”

  Bertram dropped into a chair and propped his feet up on the desk. “How did that work out for you?”

  Reto dug his fingernails into the desk’s surface, struggling not to be provoked by the inquisitor’s blatant disrespect. “I have jail cells full of some of our most prestigious citizens.”

  “No, you have jail cells full of criminals, criminals I will bring to court, see that they are convicted of their crimes, and punished accordingly.”

  “They are highborn!”

  Bertram dropped his feet to the floor with an audible thump and leaned forward in his chair. “Who broke the law!”

  Reto let out a long breath. “The only reason I have not set them free is to give you the chance to do it—with an apology.”

  The inquisitor snorted. “That’s not going to happen, and if you free them I will arrest you for interfering with justice.”

  “I am your superior!”

  “Not in any way that matters.”

  Reto’s hand slammed over the mask sitting on his desk. “I too wear the mask.”

  “Please, you are so low on the highborn social ladder that you can identify every mask wearer by the smell of their farts.”

  Reto’s face turned scarlet and sweat beaded his forehead. “I run this gendarme!”

  “Only because I did not push to take it from you. You might think me as just the duke’s spoiled nephew, but do not forget that I am, without a doubt, his chosen successor. I am next in line to command the navy and I will rule this city as well one day.” Bertram stood. “Remember your place—and mine. Now, I must attend to my duties, as you should.” He looked back over his shoulder from the doorway. “Oh, I have outlawed this so-called protection tax. Be sure that you inform the rest of your gendarme or they will be joining the others in those cells.”

  ***

  Tal’at took his rovers through the twisting maze of fissures on an upward trek to the summit of a large plateau. He and the four men he led had heard the man-made thunder and watched the two airships fall like a pair of daggerwings locked in mortal combat. It was unlikely they would find any survivors, which would be preferable as he did not want to argue over his people’s salvage rights.

  They started seeing wreckage long before they reached the downed vessels. Mostly chunk
s of wood, assorted personal items, and various pieces of ship’s equipment littered the ground. Occasionally, someone would find something valuable, like a musket, often with a broken stock or other damage that could be repaired. The closer they climbed to the mesa’s peak the more the flotsam increased, as well as the corpses.

  Asim stood over a body and called out, “Tal’at, this is a navy uniform. Might be we’ll find us some cannons!”

  “That would be wonderful—just as soon as you start shitting powder,” the rover leader responded as he knelt over the body of a grey-skinned man. At least he thought it was a man. It may well have been a demon.

  “What is it?” Majid asked, looking over Tal’at’s shoulder.

  “I don’t know. Man, beast, demon. Whatever it is, it took down a naval airship. Tell the others to be wary. If any of these things survived, we will be in for a fight.”

  Majid grinned. “Fight or flight, wind caller?”

  “We’ll see how the battle goes. There’s good salvage to be had, and demon or man, I’ll not let it go easily.”

  Cresting the steep slope, the band of Thuumian nomads found the crash site. The nearest airship was little more than piles of kindling, and Tal’at was certain none of her crew survived the crash.

  The other vessel, a strange black beast, lay not far away. It had broken into three large pieces upon impact. Bodies, both human and other, littered the plateau, creating a grisly scene. The Thuum took little notice of the carnage as they picked through the battle’s remains. Eidolan was a harsh land. Death was but another facet of their daily lives.

  “Asim, you and Majid see what you can find here. I will take Burhan and Hakim to search the other vessel,” Tal’at said.

  Asim grinned behind the cloth covering his lower face, but the smile was evident in his eyes. “Sure, you go to the ship that isn’t matchwood and find all of the good salvage.”

  “You know me too well.”

  Everyone knew the jests for what they were. Anything of value beyond a few trinkets they might find would be taken back to the tribe and distributed. Given the size and nature of the wreckage, they would likely have to return with carts to haul away everything of value. The most precious items would be muskets, powder, and the airships’ heart stones, but it was likely few of those things survived the destruction. Particularly the precious casks of powder and the huge, magical gems that allowed the airships to fly. With luck, they would find remnants of the stones large enough to cut into arcanstones like the ones set in the hilts of Tal’at’s matching talwars. For wind callers like him, the stones were priceless.

  The black airship lay in three nearly equal-sized pieces. Tal’at directed Burhan to the aft section and Hakim to the bow while he searched amidships for anything of value, including information on what these creatures were and where they came from.

  The first thing Tal’at noted was that there was no sign of cannons, powder casks, or muskets anywhere near the strange vessel. That in itself raised many questions, principal amongst them being why a naval airship would have to defend itself against the foreign ship, and how had it come out on the losing end of what appeared to be a nearly unarmed craft?

  The rover leader did not like mysteries. Such enigmas did not normally exist in his world. One worked hard, fought hard, or they died hard. Life was rarely more complicated than that.

  Climbing through the breach at the bow side of the central section, Tal’at walked into what he could only compare to a charnel house. More of the grey-skinned creatures’ bodies lay in heaps, some still seated on benches, their gaunt, almost desiccated forms attached to the interior hull by fleshy cords like spider egg sacs. He drew his talwars, not only for the light he could conjure through the arcanstones, but to find comfort in their feel as his nerves urged him to leave this place of evil.

  Tal’at spotted a form near one wall. He stepped over several grey bodies and knelt beside a figure dressed in black, his hand clutching a short lance made of what could only be void steel. Such a weapon by itself made this a very profitable expedition. The Thuumian sheathed one of his swords and reached down to take the spear.

  “Tal’at!” Burhan called out.

  Tal’at straightened up so fast he nearly hit his head on a sagging beam. He made his way through the corpses and wreckage toward the stern section and spotted Buran standing near the fractured aperture.

  Burhan raised a hand and opened his mouth to speak. A form, blacker than the surrounding gloom, rose up behind him. Before Tal’at could cry out a warning, a slender spear tip burst from the rover’s chest. Burhan’s mouth gaped open and uttered a silent cry, but he did not fall. His body appeared locked into place, his skin turning ashen and growing sallow as if he were being drained.

  “Attack!” Tal’at shouted to his men.

  He could see Asim and Majid racing toward him from the naval airship’s wreckage. Tal’at made to run forward and attack the man who had just killed his friend, but a subtle shift in the air currents at his back was enough to inform him that someone was approaching, and that it was not Hakim.

  Tal’at spun about raising his talwar, blocking Jasso’s thrust while drawing his other sword in one fluid motion. The wind caller went on the offensive, his twin blades flashing in a dizzying array of lightning-swift slashes and thrusts. Impossibly, the pale, black-garbed man deflected or avoided them all.

  Hakim ran up behind Jasso, and Tal’at thought his arrival would surely mean the man’s, if a man he was, doom. Jasso ducked beneath the Thuumian’s slash as his blade sought to relieve him of his head. He summoned a spectral whip to his left hand and thrust at Tal’at.

  The shadowy lash struck the rover in the chest. Tal’at stumbled back at the unexpected blow, reeling not just from the impact, but the searing cold that spread across his flesh. The desert night could be horribly frigid in the winter months, but he had never felt cold like that.

  Jasso spun and snapped his arm forward. The whip lengthened and wrapped Hakim in an icy embrace. The Necrophage heaved on the lash with all of his strength and sent the Thuumian stumbling into Tal’at as he sought to charge back into the fray. Jasso’s void lance took Hakim in the back, nearly impaling both men with a single thrust.

  Tal’at retreated toward the outside. “Bring them into the light!”

  He backpedaled to the opening, unwilling to take his eyes off this creature, praying that Asim and Majid would put down their foe and come to his aid. Unless the one that had killed Burhan was injured or otherwise an inferior fighter to the man he faced, he knew it was unlikely. Tal’at was one of the best swordsmen in his tribe, and that did not take into account his wind-calling ability. It was more likely that he would soon find himself fighting alone against two highly lethal warriors.

  Tal’at was a prideful man, but he was not a fool. He would flee with his surviving men before needlessly wasting their lives. Whatever these creatures were, he needed to tell of their existence. If more were to come, they clearly posed a threat to the Thuum, perhaps even to the great cities.

  Jasso chased after the retreating man. With the human’s short stature, dark skin, and dressed in odd white robes, these people were like polar opposites of his own. However, they were respectable fighters, perhaps the only thing they shared in common.

  He lashed out with his spectral whip when Tal’at made to step over a timber in his path. The shadowy cord wrapped around his ankle, and Jasso pulled him off his feet. Tal’at fell onto his back but severed the ethereal binding with his void-steel blade, the matching pair having been handed down through his family line for centuries. Jasso hurled himself at the prone man, his void lance held high, ready to bring it plunging into the Thuumian’s body.

  The arcanstone set on one of Tal’at’s talwars flared, and a gust of wind, like a tiny but powerful cyclone, struck the Necrophage in the chest strong enough to lift him from the ground and hurl him back several yards. The stone in his other blade flashed, and a second gust lifted Tal’at from the ground.
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br />   Jasso marveled at the man literally flying at him as he struggled to his feet. What he thought were robes was actually a full-body suit with folds of cloth attaching each wrist with the ankles, creating a sort of sail designed to catch the wind.

  The Necrophage’s curiosity died with him when the Thuumian’s right talwar took his head from his shoulders. Tal’at had no time to celebrate his victory. Conjuring another wind, he lifted himself into the air once more, narrowly avoiding Dorian’s thrust. His feet settled back to the ground ten yards from the second Necrophage. Looking around, he saw that he was the last of his rover band still alive.

  “I see you too are able to wield the power of soul stones, if in a primitive way,” Dorian said as he stalked toward Tal’at. “You killed my friend. I hope you do not die too easily so that I get the chance to make you properly suffer.”

  The dark figure spoke Eidolanian, but with an odd accent. Tal’at assumed his mention of a soul stone referred to his arcanstones.

  “You killed my friends first. Both your deaths are well deserved,” Tal’at replied.

  “All death is deserved.”

  “Why have you come here?”

  “To conquer you, of course.”

  “There is nothing here for you but death. Go back home while you can.”

  Dorian’s lips curled in a predatory grin. “This was our home, long before it belonged to you or those wretched sorcerers. Are you one?”

  Tal’at drew his brows together. “One what?”

  “A sorcerer. You wield magic, so I assume that is what you are. Are there more of you, ones more powerful?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, demon. I am Tal’at Nejeem, son of Chief Bulus, wind caller of the wind-walker tribe, and I will kill you.”